THE BIG BLACK stallion allowed himself to be captured without the least protest by the man who had forced him into a potentially dangerous fall no more than a half hour ago. Then stood patiently and with not the least show of rancor while the man ran his expert eye and a gloved hand over every part of him that could have been damaged by the fall.
Which attitude by his mount caused Adam Steele to feel humbled as he swung up astride the saddle and heeled the horse into an easy walk that headed him up out of the hollow at the rear of the farmstead. But at the same time as he experienced this not entirely unfamiliar sense of humility because of the disposition of a horse, he also felt a sharpening of his determination to get into the stud business. To work with, and so be in almost exclusive contact with, dumb animals; which although they could be ornery and mean, did not carry grudges. For the most part were of a forgiving and forgetting nature, from which a man of perception who was so inclined could easily learn.
From the rim of the hollow where the pastureland was featured with rock outcrops and through which a path of churned-up ground had been laid by the recent stampede, Steele reined in his mount and looked back down at the farmstead below. For a second or so expressed a grimace as he reflected on how he had felt the compulsion to take revenge upon the hapless Dale Begley for almost killing him. This after any notion of causing Kyle to pay for the beating and imprisonment was thwarted by the bullet he had taken in the chest.
He had felt additionally frustrated by the certainty that, much as he would have liked the opportunity to give horse ranching a try in this part of the country, it was not to be.
But at least, he concluded with an almost imperceptible sigh that bridged the gap between the grimace and his customary impassiveness, he had been able to confine the venting of his bad feeling to a cheap crack at the kid. But as he now acknowledged this fact and prepared to indulge himself in another period of contentment, the stallion nickered and tossed his head. And the Virginian felt it necessary to run a gloved hand down the side of the animal’s neck and admit aloud:
‘You’re right. Even that was wrong. You didn’t even give me the evil eye for upending you the way I did.’
Now the animal vented a terse snort and through smiling teeth Steele rasped in a good-natured tone: ‘Enough, feller. One of the reasons I like horses so much is that I don’t have to get into conversation with them.’
This time there was no response by sound or gesture from the stallion. He just stood among the scattering of rocks that jutted up at many angles out of the lush grass on the ridge, patiently waiting for the command to move. Which was something Steele found he was strangely reluctant to give. Because from the rim of the hollow he was able to get a panoramic view across the country in every direction. Vistas of rolling hills carpeted with verdant grass for as far as distant mountain ranges or extensive timber stands or the shimmering heat haze of noon allowed the eye to see. With, here and there, small patches of trees or clumps of brush and outcrops or unobtrusive escarpments of rock to add visual interest of varied shape and color. Close by there was the small lake that at present was fenced off because it had been poisoned. To the north and the east there were other small bodies of water glinting in the light of the midday sun. And a couple of creeks further supplied this fine piece of country with the pure water that nurtured its greenness between rains.
Perhaps two miles to the east, along the top of a rise, a length of fencing emerged from one stand of timber and was in view for something over a thousand feet before the strands of wire were carried out of sight on the downslope beyond the hill crest. Apart from the barrier that encircled the poisoned fishing pond closer by, the distant fence that obviously formed the boundary line between the Double-H spread and Begley land was the only sign of man’s encroachment on nature that was visible from this spot—unless the Virginian looked down into the hollow. Which he did now, his eye seemingly drawn to track the route of the stampede toward the gap forced through the rear section of the fence enclosing the cultivated patch of rich land.
His attention was attracted by a brief burst of vocal sound: the voices muted by distance but the tone distinctly ill-humored. The men from Rosarita were leaving to return to town. All but for three of them mounted on the horses they had ridden here. Orville Kyle was under some blankets in the back of the flatbed, Doc Bascomb crouched beside him, and Matt Hope driving the rig. The two spare saddle horses were hitched on at the rear. The heated exchange was quickly drowned out by the thud of many hooves against hard-packed dirt and then came to an end soon afterwards—nobody riding horseback or aboard the wagon gave more than a passing backward glance toward Fletcher Arness and the Begley mother and son who stood in the front yard beside the carelessly parked cut-under buggy. Next, before the departing townspeople had gone more than a couple of hundred feet toward the timber on the southern rim of the hollow, the trio swung around and strode out of Steele’s field of vision to go into the house.
It would not have been his choice to live here, he mused as he continued to sit his saddle on the horse among the outcrops. During his ride from the property marker where the trail cut across the boundary line he had seen a dozen places where a house would be better sited. And, he realized suddenly, he was lingering on one such spot now: disinclined to ride away from the Begley place as he envisaged building a house on this rim of the hollow. Maybe working the fields down there in back of the old Begley house, and keeping hogs and chickens and a milk cow to supply the table. But a man did not live by food alone. If he had discovered nothing else during the long and violent years since he rode away from the Steele plantation to go to war, he had learned the truth of that old saw. A man could exist, he could endure, he could make the best of what life allowed him: but he could not truly live a life in which the sole purpose was to stay alive. He had to strive toward and attain something more. In the case of Adam Steele, something similar to what he had left behind in Virginia—something like a home in this idyllic setting with a herd of free-running thoroughbred horses to put to good use the fine pasturelands that had been allowed to go to waste for so long by the eccentric Avery Begley.
Though who was he to call the tragic, newly-dead man an eccentric, the Virginian acknowledged with a wry smile that was self-denigrating. Begley had been a man who had lost everything he believed in and everyone he loved. Then he had head off into the unknown, to return with enough money and determination to buy a large enough piece of land to ensure his peace of mind. And to remain there, leading the kind of life he had chosen, until his weak constitution was finally allied with the tactics of attrition employed by a powerful neighbor, and he had to be carried off his place, soon to breathe his last. There were several parallels to be drawn with the past life and future aims of Adam Steele—although he did not envisage a similar ending. As far as he knew, his heart was sound. And he had a wealth of experience to draw on to guide his dealings with a man like Lucas Hart and the kind of hard-nosed help the rancher hired.
He pursed his lips, with the intention of venting a soft sigh and a command to his mount. Instead, he directed a globule of saliva to the side that he had been preparing to turn the stallion. And tugged the reins in the opposite direction as he gently heeled the animal back down into the hollow. The expression on his heavily-bristled, slightly sweat-beaded face had more in common with the spit at the ground than the composed manner in which he set the horse into motion.
Sheriff Orville Kyle was right. Charlotte Begley and her son were entirely unsuitable to run this place: albeit with the equally citified Fletcher Arness to help them deal with Lucas Hart and his men. Steele had not yet had a proper opportunity to put a proposition to the Begleys: and unless he made one last try to talk business with them in a calm and collected manner he was sure he would regret this forevermore as a lost opportunity.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he murmured softly to his well-schooled mount that had complied without protest to the command to head back down into the hollow. But now pricked his ears to the sound of the voice. ‘I need to have my brains tested. But I don’t reckon there’s a light bright enough to shine that far up my ass.’