BULL HUNTER’S ROMANCE
Max Brand
A LEISURE BOOK®
August 1996
Published by special arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency.
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
Printed in the United States of America.
Chapter I
To Satisfy Speculation
There were three points of strategic interest, each ignorant of the one behind, because the rolling of the hills shortened every viewpoint, and the sense of smell was made useless by a strong, steady wind out of the east.
First there was a big, red bull who in the pride of his strength had wandered far from his herd; and second was a gray figure skulking from bush to rock; and third was a medley of mounted men trailing a pack of huge wolfhounds up the wind. But all were in a due line from east to west, and while the hounds knew vaguely of that distant gray figure, that ghostly thing itself could not use the trigger-balanced sense of smell, and was aware only of the lordly bull.
The latter wandered idly. He had already taken his fill of the grass of the late spring, grass that had sleeked his ribs and layered him with fat; now he strolled from titbit to titbit of the longest, darkest grass, and, having licked up a tuft of it, he went on again.
The gray stalker had observed him, now from a bush, now from a rock, as he glided, shadowlike, his body close to the ground. He was that fleetest of all the things that run on four feet in the Western mountains fleetest and most enduring. The deer which might dart away from him in the opening spurt he would run to death in a few scant minutes; a greyhound might possibly though it is doubtful out-sprint him, or a wolfhound, in fine trim, might outdistance him in the short run; but in ten minutes of ardent going he would break the heart of the fleetest dog that ever stepped. He had more than speed under foot. Of all the wild creatures that kill beneath the sky he was the wisest; the solemn old grizzly, lord of cattle-killers, compared to him, was blunt of wit, and the cleverest fox that ever ran was simply an impish child compared to the almost human brain of this mountain-runner.
In a word, he was that king of the wolves, the great, gray lobo. The State would pay fifty dollars for his scalp; and the ranchmen would double, treble, quadruple the price. Indeed, there was no price they would not pay for his head, for the lobo prefers hot meat; he kills before he dines, and after he dines he leaves his kill. For this particular animal, the despairing ranchers had littered the country with traps and scoured the mountains and the plains with wolfhound packs and fast horses. But they never had come within shooting distance. He seemed to know the exact range and capabilities of a rifle in expert hands, and when the sun sank and the treacherous light of the evening began, more than one hunter had seen the skulker running impudently close across the hills, a great, pale-gray, smoothly gliding form, and for that reason they called him “The Ghost.”
A very palpable ghost, one would say, following the footprints, well nigh as large as a man’s hand, to the rock behind which he had sunk to take another and a deliberate view of the bull. The lobo is the hugest of wolves, perhaps, and The Ghost was a giant of his kind. Indeed, he differed from the ordinary wolf in many ways. He had, to be sure, the lobo’s gray pelt; he had the bushy tail and the long-snouted head, a broad head more bearish than doglike in full face, but sinisterly pointed in profile.
It was by looking at The Ghost in full face that one was aware of his distinctive features most accurately. He had the black lines like brows above his light-brown eyes, lines that gave him a whimsical, inquisitive look typical of his dreaded kind; but an expert would have noted that the head was excessively broad, and the forehead most unusually high, and the eyes large beyond precedent. His pelt, too, was less than wolfishly rough; it promised to be pleasant to the touch, and where the wind parted the outer coat one saw a silken inner lining. This in connection with the peculiarities of the head.
But what was it that was so different? Why was it that a man could look close at The Ghost without the chill that strikes into one’s blood when one sees a true wolf, even behind the bars of a menagerie cage? All the differences, all the peculiarities, could be covered with a single phrase: there was something of the dog about The Ghost.
He sat down behind the rock, and opening his great mouth, grinned at the bull; that grin was all wolf. But now, as some distant sound came down the wind, and he pricked one ear and canted his head to listenthat was certainly the bay of a dog.
Now, as the bull sauntered away with a swishing of his tail, The Ghost slid from behind the rock, all wolf now. No dog since the beginning of time could have glided so shadowlike, his body trailing the grass, his shoulders low, his forepaws slipping out, one by one, with incredible softness. And the twitching lips that exposed the murderous long fangs, yes, he was all wolf now, and a strong man, a hunter, gun in hand, would have felt his skin prickle at the sight of him.
The bull had raised his head to look into the teeth of the wind. The moment his head went up, The Ghost was at him, a gray blur shooting noiselessly along the ground. He swept in a semicircle, edging toward the side from which the red bull had turned his head, and cutting in at the angle, he snapped as he shot by. It was like the slash of two heavy, keen sabers. The bull, with a bellow, started to turn; before the bellow was half uttered, before he had hobbled halfway around, the silent savage had checked himself and leaped back in the other direction, slashing the other hind leg. Completely hamstrung, the bull’s quarters slumped heavily to the ground. He raised his forequarters, roaring with pain, pawing, tossing his head and those terrible horns. But there was no hope for him now. The lobo could sink his teeth with impunity into the flank of his victim and wait for him to bleed to death.
But that, oddly enough, was not the plan of The Ghost.
He slipped around until he stood face to face with the bull. It brought a fresh paroxysm of pain and terror and rage from the red giant. Even the lofty form of The Ghost, compared to the high-humped bulk of the red bull, was a slight thing. It seemed impossible that the one could have felled the other.
But The Ghost, having done his terrible work with such neatness, now seemed to relapse once more into the innocent, close student of nature. He licked the blood from his lips, and with the most meticulous care he cleansed a few random drops from the apron of white fur across his breast.
The bull, with much heaving and writhing, had worked himself around until he directly faced his antagonist. He had a mighty heart, had that red bull. His scarred front bore witness to many a battle with his peers from which he had emerged victorious, lord of his ranges. Now he shook his wide-spreading horns and bellowed defiance. Woe to the strongest lobo that ever lived, if it dared a face-to-face encounter with those horns. He knew the exact side-flourish which would drive the stout points through hide and bones and flesh and pin the murderer to the earth.
But further violence seemed infinitely far from the mind of The Ghost. He lay stretched out at ease, watching, waiting, with his big, gentle, brown eyes dwelling steadily on his victim.
That immobility on his side lasted for several minutes. Perhaps the bull began actually to doubt that this quiet creature could have been his assailant. At any rate, he raised his big head high and turned it to look down the wind. Far off, topping a hill, he saw a rout of mounted hunters and the hounds coming.
The Ghost saw it as well. He noted what he saw with a ferocious flagging of his ears and a quick lift of his upper lip. But he noted also that the bull’s head was turned and held high. The time for which he had waited so patiently had come. There was no gathering of feet beneath him, no collecting of the muscles, however deftly done. From the same position which he had occupied so long and so quietly, he simply shot out through the air, a very low leap, driving all his body so close to the ground that the toes of his hind feet tickled the grass all the way. Fair and true, with the speed of a rock shot from the hand, he whipped under the lifted head of the red bull, and, in passing, he snapped again. The force of his leap and the tear of his teeth jerked him around so that he spun through the air on the other side of his mark and turned a somersault before he hit the ground.