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Show 3^ THE BULL-355 trained, spirited and affectionate, and he rode her easily, gracefully, die two as attuned to one another as a team of dancers. The boy, lower on the hill, rode a roan gelding. At fifteen he was slighdy taller dian his father but much thinner, with long feet and floundering hands; apparently incapable of standing fully erect, he slouched at the table, he slouched in the corral, he slouched in die saddle. There, slumped down, his spine an unsightly curve from his neck to his seat, he rode like an unwilling slave. Every time his fadier noticed him the man's face hardened, and the more he scowled die more the boy sagged into his grey slavish resistance. So diough he was taller than his father, his slouch kept him shorter, as if he had no right to stand or sit higher than the man. The boss kept his cattle bunched in the meadow with a minimum of riding, his eyes feasting on dieir sleek fat sides. Yet even as pleased as he was, and even at a walk, he seemed to ride his mount hard: he sat erect in the saddle as stiffly as a cavalry officer and grasped die reins in an iron fist. He rode a stallion, his inevitable preference, not because a stallion makes a better cowhorse but because he rode die very life out of a horse, would grind it down until it had little left but spirit, and he claimed that nothing but a stallion had enough spirit. And yet he never fought a gelding or a mare quite the same way, never rode either quite as hard. But a stallion he had to grind down, as if otherwise he could not share the world with him. So the men brought the strays into the herd and then trailed the herd down the mountain to the corral. It was a three hour drive. * * * The boy got up cold that morning and stood shivering over the fire until his father sent him to water the horses. By then the sun had nearly dried the meadow, warm upon him, and he forgot himself in his chore, loosening each animal in turn and leading him to water. He worked cautiously with the stallion since the tall grey horse was unpredictable, had lately developed a mean streak, and the boy had no intention of being maimed or killed by him. Then, finished, he stood erect in the green meadow in the sun and looked down toward the corral, excited by the day to come. He liked the fall roundup and he liked this one particularly because instead of trailing the cattle down from the high country to the valley ranch, a long and tedious ride, his father was going to truck them down and save their summer fat for the market. So during the past month the boy |