06 - Alcatraz - Freedom

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of Alcatraz by Max Brand. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain. Freedom towards the eagles, rolling
up like wind blown smoke, Alcatraz fled, cleared one by
one the fences about the small fields near Gloucesterville, and

(00:21):
came at last to the broader domains under the foothills. Here,
on a rise of ground, he halted for the first
time and looked back. The heat waves, glimmering up endlessly,
obscured Gloucesterville. But the wind from some hidden house among
the hills bore to him, would smoke scents with a

(00:42):
mingling of the abhorrent odors of man. It made many
an old scar of spergore and biting, whiplash, tingle. It
was a background of pain which was like seasoning for
the new delight of freedom, as though there was poundage
of joy, an additional muscle in self mastery. The frame

(01:05):
of the chestnut filled His neck arched, and there came
into his eyes that gleam which no man can describe,
and which, for lack of words, he calls the light
of the wild. Fear to be sure was still with him,
would ever be with him, For the thought of man
followed like galloping horses surrounding him. But what a small

(01:28):
shadow was that in the sunshine of his new existence.
His life had been the bitterness of captivity since Cordova took,
in part payment of a drunken gambling debt, a sickly
foal out of an old Thoroughbred Mayre. The sire was unknown,
and Cordova, disgusted at having to accept this wretched horseflesh

(01:49):
in place of money, had beaten the six month old
colt soundly and turned it loose in the pasture. There
followed a brief season of happiness in the open path gesture,
But when the new grass came short and thick and
sweet and crisp undertooth, Cordova came by the pasture and
saw his yearling flirting away from the fastest of the

(02:12):
older horses with a stretched gallop that amazed the Mexican.
He leaned a moment on the fence, watching with glittering eyes,
and then he passed into a dream. At the end
of the dream, he took Alcatraz out of the pasture
and into the stable that had been the Alcatraz, Like

(02:33):
the first calamity falling on job, the beginning of sorrow,
And for three years and more he had endured not
in patience, but with an abiding hatred. For a great
hatred is a great strength, and the hatred for Cordova
made the chestnut big of heart to wait. He had
learned to seize his days with the patience of the

(02:55):
lynx waiting for the porcupine to uncurl, or the patience
of the cat amazingly still for hours by the rat hole.
In such a manner, Alcatraz endured once a month or
once a year he found an opening to let drive
at the master with his heels, or to rear and strike,

(03:15):
or to snap with his teeth wolfishly. If he missed,
it meant a beating. If he landed, it meant a
beating postponed. And so the dream had grown to have
the man one day beneath his feet now on the hilltop,
every nerve in his fore legs quivered in memory of
the feel of live flesh beneath his stamping hoofs. It

(03:39):
is said that sometimes one victory in the driving finish
of a close race will give a horse a great
heart for running, and one defeat similarly may break him.
But Alcatraz, who had endured so many defeats, was at
last victorious, and the triumph was doubly sweet. It was
not the work of chance. More than once he had

(04:01):
tested the strength of that old halter rope covertly with
none to watch, and he had felt it stretch and
give a little under the strain of his weight. But
he had long since learned the futility of breaking ropes.
So long as there were stable walls or lofty corral
fences to contain him, a moment of local freedom meant nothing,

(04:23):
and he had waited until he should find open sky
and clear country. That was his reward of patience. The short,
frayed ends of the rope dangled beneath his chin. His
neck stung where the rope had galled him, But these
were minor ills, and freedom was a panacea. Later he
would work off the halter, as he alone knew how

(04:46):
the wind swinging sharply to the north and the west
brought the fragrance of the forest on the slopes of
the Eagles and Alcatraz started on towards them. He would
gladly have waited and rested where he was, But he
knew that men do not give up easily. What one
fails to do, a herd comes to perform. Moreover, men

(05:09):
struck by surprise, men stalked with infinite cunning. The moment
when he felt the most secure in his stall and
ate with his head down, blinded by the manger, was
the very moment which the Mexican had often chosen to
play some cruel prank. The lip of Alcatraz twitched back
from his teeth as he remembered this lesson was written

(05:32):
into his mind with the letters of pain. In the
moment of greatest peace, beware of man. That day he
journeyed towards the mountains. That night he chose the tallest
hill he could find, and rested there, trusting to the
wide prospect to give him warning. And no matter how
soundly he slept, the horrid order of man approaching would

(05:56):
bring him to his feet. No man came near, but
there were other smells in the night. Once the air
near the ground was ranked with fox. He knew that smell,
but he did not know the fainter scent of wild cat.
Neither could he tell that the dainty footed killer had
slipped up within half a dozen yards of his back

(06:17):
and crouched a long moment, yearning towards the mountain of
warm meat, but knowing that it was beyond its power
to make the kill. A thousand futile alarms disturbed Alcatraz,
for freedom gave the knights new meaning for him. Sometimes
he wakened with a start and felt that the stars

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were the light at lanterns of a million men searching
for him. Sometimes he lay with his head strained high,
listening to the strange silence of the mountains and the night,
which had a pulse in it, and something whispering, whispering
forever in the distance. Hunted men have heard it, and
to Alcatraz it was equally filled with charm and terror.

(07:02):
What made it he could not tell, neither can men understand.
Perhaps it is the calling of the wild animals just
beyond earshot. The overtone of the mountains troubled and frightened
Alcatraz on his first night. Eventually he was to come
to love it. He was up in the first gray

(07:23):
of the dawn hunting for food, and he found it
in the form of bunch grass. He had been so
entirely a stable raised horse that this fodder was new
to him. His nose assured him over and over again
that this was nourishment, but his eyes scorned the dusty
patches eight or ten inches across and half of that

(07:44):
in height. With a few taller spears, headed out for seed.
When he tried it, he found it delicious, and as
a matter of fact, it is probably the finest grass
in the world. He ate slowly, for he punuctuated his
cropping of the grass with glances towards the mountains. The

(08:05):
eagles were growing out of the night, turning from purple
gray to purple blue, to daintiest lavender mist in the hollows,
and rosy lights on the peaks. And last the full
morning came over the sky at a step, and the
day wind rose and fluffed his mate. He regarded these

(08:26):
changes with a kindly eye, much as one who has
never seen a sunrise before. And just as he had
always made the corral into which he was put his
private possession and dangerous grounds for any other creature, so
now he took in the down sweep of the upper range,
and the big knees of the mountains pushing out above

(08:48):
the foothills, and the hills themselves modeled softly down towards
the plain, and It seemed to Alcatraz that this was
one great corral, his private property. The horizon was his fence,
advancing and receding to attend him. All between was his
proper range. He took his station on a taller hilltop

(09:11):
and gave voice to his lordliness in a neigh that
rang and re rang down a hollow. Then he canted
his head and listened. A bull bellowed an answer fainter
than the whistle of a bird. From the distance, and
just on the verge of earshot trembled another's sound. Alcatraz
did not know it, but it made him shudder. Before

(09:34):
long he was to recognize the call of the loafer wolf,
that gray ghost which runs murdering through the mountains. Small,
though the sounds were, that convinced Alcatraz that his claim
to dominion would be mightily disputed. But what is worth
having at all if it is not worth fighting for?

(09:56):
He journeyed down the hillside, stepping from grass nott to
ground snot all the time, he kept his sensitive nostrils
alert for the ground smell of water, and raised his
head from moment to moment to catch the upper air
sense in case there might be danger At length before prime.
He came down wind from a water hole and galloped

(10:19):
gladly to it. It was a muddy place, with a
slope of greenish sun baked earth on all sides. Alcatraz
stood on the verge, snuffed the stale odor in disgust,
and then flirted the surface water with his upper lip
before he could make himself drink. Yet the taste was
far from evil, and there was nothing of man about

(10:41):
it yonder a deer had stepped his tiny footprint sunburned
into the mud, and there was the sprawling sliding track
of a steer. Alcatraz stepped further in. The feel of
the cool slush was pleasant, working above his hoofs and
over the sensitive skin of the fetlock joint. He drank again,

(11:04):
bravely and deep, burying his nose as a good horse should,
and gulping the water. And when he came out and
stamped the mud from his feet, he was transformed. He
had slept and eaten and drunk in his own home.
After that he idled through the hills, eating much, drinking often,

(11:25):
and making up as busily as he could in a
few weeks. For the long years of semi starvation under
the regime of the Mexican. His body responded amazingly. His
coat grew sleek, his barrel round it, his neck arched
with new muscles, and the very quality of mane and
tail changed. He became the horse of which he had

(11:48):
previously been the caricature. It was a lonely life in
many ways, but the very loneliness was sweet to the stallion. Moreover,
there was much to learn, and his brain, man trained
by his long battle against the Man, drank in the
lessons of the wild country with astonishing rapidity. Had it

(12:08):
not been for intervention from the great enemy, he might
have continued for an indefinite period in the pleasant foothills.
But man found him. It was after some weeks. While
he was intently watching a chipmunk colony. One day, each
little animal chattered at the door of his home, And

(12:29):
so intent was Alcatraz's attention that he had no warning
of the approach of a rider up the wind, until
the gravel close behind spurted under the rushing hoofs of
another horse, and the deadly shadow of the rope swept
over him. Terror froze him for what seemed a long
moment under the swing of the rope. In reality, his

(12:53):
side leap was swift as the bound of the wild cat,
and the curse of the unlucky cowpuncher roared in his ear.
Alcatraz shot away like a thrown stone. The pursuit lasted
only five minutes, but to the stallion it seemed five ages.
With the shouting of the man behind him, for while

(13:15):
he fled, every scar pricked him, and once again his
bones ached from every blow which the Mexican had struck.
At the end of the five minutes, Alcatraz was hopelessly
beyond reach, and the cowpuncher merely galloped to the highest
hilltop to watch the runner as far as he could
follow the course. That blinding speed was not abated, and

(13:38):
the cowpuncher watched with a lump growing in his throat.
He had fallen into a dream of being mounted on
a stallion which no horse in the mountains could overtake,
and which no horse in the mountains could escape. To
be safe in flight, to be inescapable in pursuit. That was,
in a small way, to be like a god. But

(14:02):
when Alcatraz disappeared into the horizon haze, the cowpuncher lowered
his head with a sigh. He realized that such a
creature was not for him, and he turned his horse's
head and plodded back towards the ranch house. When he arrived,
he told the first story of the wild red chestnut,

(14:22):
beautiful swift as an eagle. He talked with the hunger
and the fire which comes on the faces of those
who love horses. It was not his voice, but his
manner which convinced his hearers, and before he ended, every
eye in the bunk house was lighted. That moment was
the beginning of the end for Alcatraz. From the moment

(14:45):
men saw him and desired him, the days of his
freedom were limited, but great should be the battle before
he was subdued. End of Chapter six