Wildfire | Page 6

by the gods his Sage King was the swiftest horse in all
that wild upland country of wonderful horses. He swore the great gray
could look back over his shoulder and run away from any broken horse
known to the riders.
Bostil himself was half horse, and the half of him that was human he
divided between love of his fleet racers and his daughter Lucy. He had
seen years of hard riding on that wild Utah border where, in those days,
a horse meant all the world to a man. A lucky strike of grassy upland
and good water south of the Rio Colorado made him rich in all that he
cared to own. The Indians, yet unspoiled by white men, were friendly.
Bostil built a boat at the Indian crossing of the Colorado and the place
became known as Bostil's Ford. From time to time his personality and
his reputation and his need brought horse-hunters, riders, sheep-herders,
and men of pioneer spirit, as well as wandering desert travelers, to the
Ford, and the lonely, isolated hamlet slowly grew. North of the river it
was more than two hundred miles to the nearest little settlement, with
only a few lonely ranches on the road; to the west were several villages,
equally distant, but cut off for two months at a time by the raging
Colorado, flooded by melting snow up in the mountains. Eastward from
the Ford stretched a ghastly, broken, unknown desert of canyons.
Southward rolled the beautiful uplands, with valleys of sage and grass,
and plateaus of pine and cedar, until this rich rolling gray and green
range broke sharply on a purple horizon line of upflung rocky ramparts
and walls and monuments, wild, dim, and mysterious.

Bostil's cattle and horses were numberless, and many as were his riders,
he always could use more. But most riders did not abide long with
Bostil, first because some of them were of a wandering breed,
wild-horse hunters themselves; and secondly, Bostil had two great
faults: he seldom paid a rider in money, and he never permitted one to
own a fleet horse. He wanted to own all the fast horses himself. And in
those days every rider, especially a wild-horse hunter, loved his steed
as part of himself. If there was a difference between Bostil and any
rider of the sage, it was that, as he had more horses, so he had more
love.
Whenever Bostil could not get possession of a horse he coveted, either
by purchase or trade, he invariably acquired a grievance toward the
owner. This happened often, for riders were loath to part with their
favorites. And he had made more than one enemy by his persistent
nagging. It could not be said, however, that he sought to drive hard
bargains. Bostil would pay any price asked for a horse.
Across the Colorado, in a high, red-walled canyon opening upon the
river, lived a poor sheep-herder and horse-trader named Creech. This
man owned a number of thoroughbreds, two of which he would not
part with for all the gold in the uplands. These racers, Blue Roan and
Peg, had been captured wild on the ranges by Ute Indians and broken to
racing. They were still young and getting faster every year. Bostil
wanted them because he coveted them and because he feared them. It
would have been a terrible blow to him if any horse ever beat the gray.
But Creech laughed at all offers and taunted Bostil with a boast that in
another summer he would see a horse out in front of the King.
To complicate matters and lead rivalry into hatred young Joel Creech, a
great horseman, but worthless in the eyes of all save his father, had
been heard to say that some day he would force a race between the
King and Blue Roan. And that threat had been taken in various ways. It
alienated Bostil beyond all hope of reconciliation. It made Lucy Bostil
laugh and look sweetly mysterious. She had no enemies and she liked
everybody. It was even gossiped by the women of Bostil's Ford that she
had more than liking for the idle Joel. But the husbands of these gossips

said Lucy was only tender-hearted. Among the riders, when they sat
around their lonely camp-fires, or lounged at the corrals of the Ford,
there was speculation in regard to this race hinted by Joel Creech.
There never had been a race between the King and Blue Roan, and
there never would be, unless Joel were to ride off with Lucy. In that
case there would be the grandest race ever run on the uplands, with the
odds against Blue Roan only if he carried double. If Joel put Lucy up
on the Roan and he rode Peg there