Free Conquering Horse by Frederick Manfred Page B

way, Redbird and No Name following. Speaks Once walked with a heavy rolling tread, quite pigeon-toed like a woman. Redbird and No Name walked lightly, toes straight ahead. They circled a village of prairie dogs. They stepped across a swale, using toggly hummocks as stepping stones. They skirted a rocky ledge covered with coils of pricklepear cactus.
    As they approached the herd of Speaks Once, the nearer horses shied off. A few snorted danger. The hobbled bell-mare, a bay with many scars over her back, began to crowhop away.
    “Whoa now, whoa now,” Speaks Once called in a coaxing voice.
    At this the bell-mare took fright and began to two-hop as fast as she could. The others moved off with her.
    “Friends, stop!” Speaks Once roared. “Respect your master!”
    The horses continued to hurry away, cropping quick here, catching a tuft of grass quick there, always away from Speaks Once.
    Redbird paused, hand to his chin, reflecting.
    This only angered Speaks Once the more. He began to bellow in a loud hoarse voice. His face blackened over. White flecks gathered at the corners of his heavy lips. “Hold up, you low-bellied dogs! Come here! Respect your master!”
    Redbird said, “Friend, perhaps we should call White Fingernail and let him catch them.” Redbird turned to No Name. “My son, return. Watch the racers.”
    “Friend, wait,” Speaks Once said, choking down his pride. “Hold up. We will let them get used to our smell. Perhaps we are strange to them today.”
    The three men stood.
    Then, as they waited, proof of Redbird’s claim appeared before their very eyes. A fine upstanding gray gelding, some fifteen hands high, came running through the herd, head down. Bluishgreen magpies chased after the gelding in slow graceful flight, long tails dipping, wings flashing white. They came crying raucously. The gelding saw the men and stopped. Before he could slide away to one side, the harrying magpies settled on his back and began pecking at his saddle sores. The young gelding lifted his head to the skies, sideways, and screamed. Then all of a sudden he leaped straight up, all four hooves leaving the ground, with the rear legs highest and lashing up at the flapping magpies. Long black tails fluttering, squawking, the magpies merely rose a circle higher, just out of reach. Then, the moment he hit earth, they resettled on his back, digging in with their stout claws. The gelding shuddered. His skin rippled long slides of hair. But the magpies were dug in deep and weathered the shaking. Once more the gelding screamed. Then he tried rolling over on his back, and finally and at last succeeded in brushing off even the most dogged of the magpies. Released from the harrying long-tailed furies, he wriggled back and forth on his spine, scraping himself hard on the ground, feet up like a playing puppy, crying with pleasure at the relief, eyes turned up so far into his head the orbs showed white. All the while, however, the bluish-green magpies waited above him, hovering, cawing in displeasure. At last he struggled to his feet. He had barely shaken off the dust, rippling his skin fore and aft, when with screams of delight the magpies dropped on him again, digging in with their claws, pecking at tatters of gray-purplish flesh, gorging.
    Redbird looked at No Name and No Name looked at Redbird. “This is what happens when saddle sores are left untended,” their eyes said.
    Speaks Once hated them for their look.
    Redbird said quietly, “It is said that if such sores are covered with the paunch of a buffalo and then sprinkled with ashes, the magpies will leave.”
    Before Speaks Once could react to the remark, there was a whistle from White Fingernail across the meadow, sudden, shrill, full of warning. It was a whistle in imitation of the jaybird and it meant, “I see the Pawnee!”
    Instantly all three whirled. Without question they headed on the dead run for White Fingernail.
    No Name, running with an easy lightness, was by far the