We Were There at the Oklahoma Land Run
Copyright© 2024 by Jim Kjelgaard
Chapter 7: Wild Ride
Nimble-footed as a deer, the roan pony Cindy rode responded instantly to the lightest touch of the reins. Cindy leaned forward in the saddle, giving all her attention to the task at hand and driven by just one thought. Her father must have his gun. Without it, he might run afoul of very grave danger.
She peered through the haze of dust that had been churned up by thousands of pounding feet ahead, and tried to see the pair she sought. They were nowhere in sight, and she hadn’t the faintest idea in which direction they were going. But she must find them.
In the first few minutes, the Run was taking more definitely the only pattern it could have. The horsemen were surging ahead with, naturally, the best riders on the fastest mounts in the lead. Next came the wagons and carts, and last a horde of running people.
Cindy was among the people. She could not let the pony have his full speed because, if she did, she would knock somebody down. She wondered fleetingly where all the men had come from. There hadn’t seemed to be nearly that many, but they were here now. Seeing an opening, she touched Sparkle with her heels, and he shot through the crowd.
For twenty yards she had clear riding, but ahead were more people. One, a burly man in a red shirt, heard hoofbeats behind him and looked over his shoulder. He turned, stopped, and when Sparkle came near he leaped at the pony’s head.
“Give me that horse, boy!” he roared.
Cindy’s heart caught in her throat, but Sparkle was true to his training. Frightened by the man’s leap, he still obeyed the rein and swerved around him so closely that Cindy’s leg brushed the man’s shirt. As she rode on, she had time for a chuckle.
The burly man had thought she was a boy. Nobody expected to find a girl riding in this, the greatest and most exciting race in history. However, now that she had prevented one attempt to take her pony, she had confidence that she could foil others.
Riding expertly, she watched for open spaces through which she could guide Sparkle. Soon she drew ahead of most of the running men. Only the swiftest were in front of her now, and they were scattered. A lean man with a pack on his back was running desperately. Even as Cindy watched, he let his pack fall to the ground. Relieved of its weight, he ran a little faster, and when Cindy flashed past he yelled:
“Oklahoma! Yip-pee!”
Twenty yards farther on, a big man who was one of the leaders cast an anxious glance back over his shoulder. The man’s face was sweat-streaked, and sweat-damp hair clung tightly to his head. He continued to run, peeling off his shirt as he did so, and when the shirt was in his hands he stopped running and threw it on the ground. Cindy knew he did so to mark this claim as his own.
“My claim!” he bellowed in a voice like a bull’s. “My claim! Ever’body stay off my claim!”
When Cindy rode past he was still shouting. She risked a single backward glance to see the man who had staked his claim in a furious fist fight with the man who had thrown his pack away. Nobody stopped to watch the battle.
Cindy slackened the reins, touched Sparkle with her heels, and said softly to the pony, “Come on, Sparkle!”
He shot ahead like a coursing greyhound, and Cindy’s heart began to sing. This was how she had felt when she had dreamed of riding into Oklahoma. Sparkle was not a horse but a bird, and at long last Cindy knew what it was to fly. She flew past the foremost of the running men and caught up with the slowest wagons. She drew abreast of the first, a heavy wagon pulled by four little horses.
His hair flying in the wind, a man stood on the seat with the reins in one hand and plying a whip with the other. He seemed in danger of falling off at any second. Nevertheless he leaned far forward, as though by simply pointing himself at Oklahoma he could make the horses run faster. But they were already doing their best and had no more speed to offer. Cindy passed a man whose horse had fallen.
The horse, a nice-looking sorrel, was down in the hindquarters and up in the front. The man—and judging by his brightly checked suit and derby hat, he was a city man—was trying to make the horse get to his feet by pulling on the reins. But either the horse had been hurt by inexpert riding and couldn’t get up, or he was stubborn and wouldn’t. Cindy rode on, at last understanding why Pete had refused to rent his ponies and her father his mules, even for the fabulous sum of fifty dollars. Far too many of the people riding in this great Run knew nothing about handling horses. Cindy drew up on the next wagon.
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