SHORT STORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2254, 13 May 1897, Page 44

SHORT STORY.

THE GREY PONY. I. Texas isn't given to shying. Therefore when he suddenly jumped sideways right out of the narrow trail, almost bowling over Devereux's pony, I pulled up to discover what the trouble was. The great tropical moon was brilliant above us ; but the shadow under the gloomy boughs of the immense live oak waa^oo thick and sombre that at firsb I could only distinguish a mere formless bundle amongst the dead leaves ab its foot. Dismounting and moviDg nearer I struck a match, whose feeble glimmer flickered on the body Of a man limply outstretched on the carpet of dead and rotting leaves. A second glance, and the match dropped from my nerveless fingers, whilst Davereax, at my elbow, horrified, sprang back. For under the upturned jaw a purple bullet hole in the brown throat- showed that a life had been suddenly cut short, whilst in the same brief moment both of ub bad recognised the victim. "Ed Hart 1 " muttered Divereux. " Yes," I answered, stepping back into the moonlight; "and I know" I recollected myself,' and stopped suddenly. " Say what you were going to," went on my companion griml j. " * Pedro Martinez's work,' you were going to add. However fond j I may be of Isabella, be sure I fully realise her father's little eccentricities. But look here, Fenton, I beg you will do me a favour. Don't say anything about this discovery. Let someone else take the news to the sheriff." A moment's hesitation, and I assented, and, romounticg our ponies, we passed out of the belt of heavy hammock or swamp forest that borders Muddy Creek, and, cantering up through fcha opec, moonlit pine woods, Eoon gained our shanty on the bank of clear Lake Stella. For hours that night I lay awake. I was younger then, and my thoughts dwelt on the wide-open eyes of the murdered man under the oak — eyes which even, when I dozsd off, se9med angrily to reproach me for leaviag their hapless owner to the tender mercies of the range-wolves and buzzards. Lat me here explain why I had consented to this strange request of. my dear friend and partner, Philip Davereux. Pedro Martinez, a Cuban settler in our remote Florida township, was the father of a very lovely daughter, and at the same time the possessor of a very handsome grey saddle- i pony. ' The former Devereux was deeply in j love with ; tha latter was widely coveted by Ed. Hart, a young cattleman from the j adjoining county, who frequently paesad our way with beasts for the Tampa market. Six months before the date of my story Hart had appeared at the Martinez place with a fast and very pretty little bay mare, and had actually,' by many and desperate lies and false swearing, induced Martinez to do a trade— an exchange of which the older man got all the worst, for the little bay speedily proved utterly unsound and untrustworthy, with never a thirjg to recommend her bat her looks. The hot-blooded Oaban, naturally resenting thii arrant swindle, sent a .message to Hart, requesting him to set the matter right. To this he got a eneering, even initilting, reply, which bo infariated him that both Devereux and I felt sure, from threats uttered in our hearing, there would be trouble when swindler and swindled should meet. Martinez waa a, dahj gerous man when roused, and quite reckless of consequences. So it may be easily imagined to whom our suspicions jumped when we discovered Hart's corpse, and equally ths anxiety of Davereux that his prospective father-in-law might not bs branded as the slayer. Understand, we knew nothing of the facts of the killing — whether it had been a fair fight, or, as we feared more likely, an assassin's shot from the depths of the brush. In the first case public opinion, aB it then was, would have so far acquitted the survivor that ha would not even have been asked to undergo the formality of a trial. In tho sacond, what i 3 in the south and -west somewhat grimly designated as " a necktie party " would be the likely result. Next morning Devereux — who wae, poor 'fellow ! naturally restless and uneasy — rode over to the Martinez place, where the very first thing that met his eye was the bone of contention, the grey pony, contentedly cropping the Bermuda grass behind the rails of the cow pasture. Cicero, Marbinez's negro hand, informed the vuitor that, on goiog down dearly to water the stock, he had found the little beast evidently waiting to be let into his old quarters. Old Martinez was about as usual, in his blua jeans and steeplecrown straw. Ha was queer and surly in his manner, though his face wore its usual look of impassive repose. After a few rather pointless remarks Divereux made some excuse, and turned homewards, without so much as a single word with Isabella. Ib was tha busy season on ouv orangegrove, and day after day we worked oa at the steady rouad of ploughing, hoeing, and ' fertilising, each rnoiniug nervously expectant ' of. hearing from out coloured bands of the

discovery of the remains of the wretched Hart. But the news never came ; and when one night, a couple of weeks later, we nervously ventured along the creek track, no signs of the body were visible beneath tho live oak. Tbe wolvos and buzzards had well done their loathsome work. Gradually matters worked back to the old routine. Davereux ag&in took to spending his leisure evenings in ths society of Isabella Martinez ; I, too, using them for the fishing and shooting that had always been my favourite pastimes. ' Martinez had substantiated a claim to the grey pony by a judicious payment to tha county authorities, as represented by the sheriff. Hart's disappearance, owing to his having no relatives in the State, had passed almost unnoticed amongst our scant and busy population. *~iir Some four months had slipped by, when one evening my old hound, Rip, treed a 'coon in a hollow cypress on the edge of Muddy Creek, not 50 yards from the spot where we had found Hart'B body. In the excitement: of the chase I gave not a second thought to the locality, but eagerly set to work to smoke out my quarry, stuffing into the hollow trunk bundles of smouldering grass and Spanish moss. ■ ' Whilst thus engaged, the stillness of the dusky forest was broken by the rapid thud on the noffc ground of the feet of a loping pony. Glancing up, the last clear rays of twilight showed me, fast approaching down the creek track, the grey pony with Martinez in the saddle. Convinced as I was of the old man's guilt, a vague wonder seized ma at his hardihood in passing the very scene of his orime on the, self-same animal which had borne the murdered man. On they came till opposite the great live oak, when suddenly tbe grey stopped short, checked on to its haunches, and that seemingly not by his rider'a hand. With a curse ' Martinez raised his heavy raw-bide whip and cut the animal heavily across tho flank. The game little brute reared and plunged, apparently unable to force his way past some, to me, invisible obstacle. Martinez, a splendid horseman, sat for a moment' or two firm as a rook. Then as I, impelled by some unexplainable emotion, hurried towards him, I could plainly see a ghastly change overspread hia face ; the reins slipped from his limp fingers, and he dropped to the ground as though atricken by a. thunderbolt. Before I could quite reach the spot the pony had wheeled, and, galloping fnrionsly homewards, in an instant disappeared up the winding trail. The fallen fean lay huddled at the foot of tha great oak. In the trunk above him wa« .visible, yet unhealod, the white score of a lieavy bullet. The curious resemblance between hia attitude and that of the former victim struck me most forcibly as I raised the body and unsuccessfully did my best to reatore animation. The frozen horror in the glaring, wide-open eyes absolutely terrified me, and I kept glancing into the deepening shadows with a positive dread of what might emerge from the surrounding leafy depths. A very few minutes convinced me that Martinez was quite dead. Yet what could be the cause 1 The fall on the soft ground was a mere nothing ; neither waa there any sign of kick or blow. I left the ill-omened spot and harried home afoot, where by good luck I found Devereux, and told him what had occurred. He was all anxiety for hia sweetheart, and suggested that whilst he went over and prepared her for the shock I should bring the body in. This, with the aid of a negro hand and our light spring waggon, I did, and by 10 o'clock the unpleasant task was finished. Next day was an inqusst, and tee verdict given, "Daath from natural causes "; but as there was no doctor within reach we were as far as ever from understanding the actual facts of the case. Privately, I felt sure that, could any of the jury have seen those dreadful, staring, horror-fillod eyes before they were finally closed, their opinion would more likely have Been "Death from sheer fright." 111. And now comes the sequel, which is to me more of a mystery than what has gone before. Shortly after her father's death Isabella Martinez and Philip Devereux were quietly married, and settled down on the Martinez homestead. My old friend and I still, however, saw a good deal of one another, and ribout once a month would rida together into Fort Harney, the county town, where we transacted our business, and generally had a pleasant chat and game of billiards with some of our countrymen. It was an August evening that we two started on a return ride from Fort Harney —I on old Texas, Dsvereux on the grey, which was now his favourite mount. All the afternoon a series of brief but fierce thunderstorms had rolled up from the Gulf and passed rumbling away towards the Atlantic. The creeks and slews brimmed with tha recent torrents, and drove us from our usual road to the old and long-avoided Muddy Creek trail. Again, as on that memorable night nearly a year ago, a glorionß moon, bursting through the vanishing crack o£ sallen cumulus, Ugh#jd us on our way. We forded the creek, and both instinctively pressed our animals to a sharper pace, the grey rapidly outdistancing my less well-bred mustang. About the great live-oak he was leading by perhaps some 70yds. And then, as he passed the ill-omened spot, once more Dsvereux's mount began plunging and kicking furiously, and a moment later frantically bolted, his rider still in the saddle. Spurring on, I followed, but only to lose sight almost immediately of the pair. The track, easily visible on the wet, yellow soil, led me along the road to the Martinez homestead, and I pressed on as fast as my weary beast could carry -me. Juat at the top of the slope, where the hammock gava way to open pine forest, a great patch of silver moonlight glistaaed on the moist coil, and there I found my poor friend, and, ia less time than is taken to tell it, sprang down and raised his head. Thank God, though stunned, he was at least alive, and soon came round. But he seemed to i have sustained a severe nervous shock, and . kept raising his hand to his neck as if it : | pained him. Not a word could I geb out of i ! him, bo lifting him into Tesas's gaddle I eoott

had him home at Lake Stella, when I dosed him with brandy and made him bathe bis bead in cold water. Suddenly he turned to me abruptly and j s&id : " Fenton, do you believe a dead man can have power to harm a living one 1 " j Not knowing what to say I kept silence, and he went on : " As sure as I live, just as I passed the oak someone or something sprang from the shadows into the saddle behind me, clutched me with icy fingers round the neck, and began slowly strangling me. The pony, as you j taw, bolted, bat it was not till I lost consciousness and fell from his back that the horrible grasp was slackened. I don't know what it was, nor do 'I want to ; but this Ido know — that never again will I ride the grey-" He wan quite right, for the poor little beast never appeared that night at the pasture-gate, and when next day we followed his trail we found him many miles away ?ying dead ou the edge of a great gloomy >-wamp, ridden to death by the ghost or fiend that had ended the life of one rider, and even 5 n death seemed still to covet the cause of the cutting short of his own earthly life.