Free the Outlaws Of Mesquite (Ss) (1990) by Louis L'amour Page B

Maker jerked and the throw missed.
    Like an avenging demon he hurled himself at Marty's black, ripping a gash in the black horse's neck. The black wheeled, and the crowd screamed in horror as they saw him stumble and go down.
    Out of the welter of dust and confusion somebody yelled, "Marty's up! Marty's on him!"
    In the nightmare of confusion as the black fell, Marty, cold with fear of the maddened horse, grabbed out wildly and got one hand on the saddle horn of Ghost Maker. With every ounce of strength he had, he scrambled for the saddle and made it!
    Out of the dust the screaming, raging horse lunged, bucking like mad, a new rider in the saddle. In some wild break of fortune, Mahan had landed with his feet in the stirrups, and now as Yannell crawled away, blood streaming from his nose, and the black threshed on the ground, Marty was up in the middle of the one horse on earth that he feared and hated.
    Ghost Maker, with a bag full of tricks born in his own hate-filled brain, began to circle-buck in the same vicious tight circle that had taken Stoper from the saddle. At the height of his gyrations he suddenly began to swap ends in a blur of speed. Mahan, frightened and angry, suddenly exploded into his own private fury and began to pour steel to the horse. Across the arena they went while riders stood riveted in amazement, with Marty Mahan writing hieroglyphics all over the killer's flanks with both spurs.
    Pitching like a fiend, Ghost Maker switched to straightaway bucking mingled with snakelike contortions of his spine, tightening and uncoiling like a steel spring.
    Riders started cutting in from both sides, but Marty was furious now.
    "Stay away!" he roared. "I'll ride him to a finish or kill him!"
    And then began such a duel between horse and man as the rodeo arena at Wind River had never seen. The horse was a bundle of hate-filled energy, but the rider atop him was remembering all those long years down from his lost riding horse on the desert, and he was determined to stay with the job he had shunned.
    Riders circled warily out of reach, but now long after any ten-second whistle would have blown, Marty was up on the hurricane deck of the killer and whipping him to a frazzle. The horse dropped from his bucking and began to trot placidly across the arena, and then suddenly he lunged like a shot from a cannon, straight for the wall of the stands.
    People screamed and sprang away as if afraid the horse might actually bound into the stands, but he wheeled and hurled his side against the board wall with force that would have crushed Marty's leg instantly. Mahan, cool and alert now, kicked his foot free and jerked the leg out of the way the instant before the horse hit.
    As the animal bounded away, injured by its own mad dive, Mahan kicked his toe back into the stirrup and again began to feed steel to the tiring killer. But now the horse had had enough. Broken in spirit, he humped his back and refused to budge. For an instant Marty sat there, and then he dropped from the beaten horse to the ground and his legs almost gave way under him.
    He straightened, and the killer, in one last burst of spirit, lunged at him, jaws agape. Standing his ground, Marty smashed the horse three times across the nose with his hat," and the animal backed up, thoroughly cowed.
    Taking the bridle, Marty started back toward the chute, leading the beaten horse and trembling in every limb. Behind him, docile at last, walked Ghost Maker.
    The emotion-wracked crowd stared at this new spectacle, and then suddenly someone started to cheer, and they were still cheering and cheering when Marty Mahan stopped by the corral and passed the bridle of the horse to a rider. He turned and leaned against the corral, still trembling. For the first time he realized that his nose was bleeding and that the front of his white rodeo costume was red with spattered blood.
    Yannell Stoper, his own clothing bloody, walked up to him, hand out.
    "Marty," he said sincerely, "I want