第55章

I resolved to have a horse to ride.I had never seen such wild, free, magnificent horsemanship outside of a circus as these picturesquely-clad Mexicans, Californians and Mexicanized Americans displayed in Carson streets every day.How they rode! Leaning just gently forward out of the perpendicular, easy and nonchalant, with broad slouch-hat brim blown square up in front, and long riata swinging above the head, they swept through the town like the wind! The next minute they were only a sailing puff of dust on the far desert.If they trotted, they sat up gallantly and gracefully, and seemed part of the horse; did not go jiggering up and down after the silly Miss-Nancy fashion of the riding-schools.I had quickly learned to tell a horse from a cow, and was full of anxiety to learn more.I was resolved to buy a horse.

While the thought was rankling in my mind, the auctioneer came skurrying through the plaza on a black beast that had as many humps and corners on him as a dromedary, and was necessarily uncomely; but he was "going, going, at twenty-two!--horse, saddle and bridle at twenty-two dollars, gentlemen!" and I could hardly resist.

A man whom I did not know (he turned out to be the auctioneer's brother)noticed the wistful look in my eye, and observed that that was a very remarkable horse to be going at such a price; and added that the saddle alone was worth the money.It was a Spanish saddle, with ponderous 'tapidaros', and furnished with the ungainly sole-leather covering with the unspellable name.I said I had half a notion to bid.Then this keen-eyed person appeared to me to be "taking my measure"; but Idismissed the suspicion when he spoke, for his manner was full of guileless candor and truthfulness.Said he:

"I know that horse--know him well.You are a stranger, I take it, and so you might think he was an American horse, maybe, but I assure you he is not.He is nothing of the kind; but--excuse my speaking in a low voice, other people being near--he is, without the shadow of a doubt, a Genuine Mexican Plug!"I did not know what a Genuine Mexican Plug was, but there was something about this man's way of saying it, that made me swear inwardly that Iwould own a Genuine Mexican Plug, or die.

"Has he any other--er--advantages?" I inquired, suppressing what eagerness I could.

He hooked his forefinger in the pocket of my army-shirt, led me to one side, and breathed in my ear impressively these words:

"He can out-buck anything in America!"

"Going, going, going--at twent--ty--four dollars and a half, gen--""Twenty-seven!" I shouted, in a frenzy.

"And sold!" said the auctioneer, and passed over the Genuine Mexican Plug to me.

I could scarcely contain my exultation.I paid the money, and put the animal in a neighboring livery-stable to dine and rest himself.

In the afternoon I brought the creature into the plaza, and certain citizens held him by the head, and others by the tail, while I mounted him.As soon as they let go, he placed all his feet in a bunch together, lowered his back, and then suddenly arched it upward, and shot me straight into the air a matter of three or four feet! I came as straight down again, lit in the saddle, went instantly up again, came down almost on the high pommel, shot up again, and came down on the horse's neck--all in the space of three or four seconds.Then he rose and stood almost straight up on his hind feet, and I, clasping his lean neck desperately, slid back into the saddle and held on.He came down, and immediately hoisted his heels into the air, delivering a vicious kick at the sky, and stood on his forefeet.And then down he came once more, and began the original exercise of shooting me straight up again.The third time Iwent up I heard a stranger say:

"Oh, don't he buck, though!"

While I was up, somebody struck the horse a sounding thwack with a leathern strap, and when I arrived again the Genuine Mexican Plug was not there.A California youth chased him up and caught him, and asked if he might have a ride.I granted him that luxury.He mounted the Genuine, got lifted into the air once, but sent his spurs home as he descended, and the horse darted away like a telegram.He soared over three fences like a bird, and disappeared down the road toward the Washoe Valley.

I sat down on a stone, with a sigh, and by a natural impulse one of my hands sought my forehead, and the other the base of my stomach.Ibelieve I never appreciated, till then, the poverty of the human machinery--for I still needed a hand or two to place elsewhere.Pen cannot describe how I was jolted up.Imagination cannot conceive how disjointed I was--how internally, externally and universally I was unsettled, mixed up and ruptured.There was a sympathetic crowd around me, though.

One elderly-looking comforter said:

"Stranger, you've been taken in.Everybody in this camp knows that horse.Any child, any Injun, could have told you that he'd buck; he is the very worst devil to buck on the continent of America.You hear me.