For an instant Calumet watched it, and then, seeing
that the wound he had inflicted was not mortal, he urged the pony
forward and, leaning over a little, sent two more bullets into the body
of the snake, severing its head from its body.
"Man's size," declared Calumet, his snarl relaxing. He sat erect and
spoke to the pony:
"Get along, you damned fool! Scared of a side-winder!"
Relieved, deflating its lungs with a tremulous heave, and unmindful of
Calumet's scorn, the pony gingerly returned to the trail. In thirty
seconds it had resumed its drooping shuffle, in thirty seconds Calumet
had returned to his unpleasant ruminations.
A mile up in the shimmering white of the desert sky an eagle swam on
slow wing, shaping his winding course toward the timber clump that
fringed a river. Besides the eagle, the pony, and Calumet, no living
thing stirred in the desert or above it. In the shade of a rock,
perhaps, lurked a lizard, in the filmy mesquite that drooped and curled
in the stifling heat slid a rattler, in the shelter of the sagebrush
the sage hen might have nestled her eggs in the hot sand. But these
were fixtures. Calumet, his pony, and the eagle, were not. The eagle
was Mexican; it had swung its mile-wide circles many times to reach the
point above the timber clump; it was migratory and alert with the
hunger lust.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25