The Hex Witch of Seldom Read Online Free PDF

see everything. She saw—things so real, in that white-hot light, it was as if she could reach out and touch them. She saw a dragon with gray hair on its nearly-human head. She saw a gypsy wagon drawn by a mule. She saw an old woman with a walking stick alive and moving in her hand. She saw a young beauty with her white breasts showing above the low bodice of her long, full-skirted dress. She saw a young man with broad, black-shirted shoulders and a black hat; his back was turned. Then she must have closed her eyes. The white blaze burned too hot and fierce. When she opened her eyes again, she stood in a dark, springtime night with the peepers chiming in it somewhere, and she was clinging to the cold pipes of the corral. The strange horse still stood nearby, a black shape in the darkness of the night.

Chapter Three
    Bobbi awoke the next morning to the thud of hooves. Outside her window she saw the black mustang circling his corral at a hard gallop, with his head held high and the yellow lead rope flying. Without waiting to wash she dressed and went out.
    The sorrel stood stiff-legged in the middle of the corral, snatching wisps of the hay that Grant had tossed there and spooking between bites, afraid. The black continued to run without glancing at either the sorrel or the girl who stood at the fence. He ran with speed and control and, Bobbi intuited, purpose. Like a tough-minded prisoner, the black was exercising himself to stay strong.
    Bobbi watched. Since the strange blue eyes were not looking at her, for the first time she saw the black as a horse, saw him the way her Grandpap did, and with a small shock of surprise she realized he was no bigger than most mustangs. She had perceived him from the start as tall, but he was smaller than the sorrel. It was partly the way he moved, she decided, that had made her think he was big. When he walked, she saw a swordfighter walking to a duel; when he ran, she saw a Green Beret charging. He had presence enough for any half-dozen horses or men.
    He was not put together like any horse she had ever seen. No wonder her grandfather disapproved. His shoulders were large enough for a larger horse, then tapered to a slim barrel and hindquarters. His hooves were small, beautiful to look at but really too small to carry the weight of those heavy shoulders, that neck—his neck was a true stallion’s neck, proudly arched. His head was lean, straight, chiseled, slightly Roman of profile under the red halter. Some Barb blood in him, the horsewoman in Bobbi thought, while in a hidden way she knew it was not Barb blood at all, or any sort of horse breeding, that made the black mustang look the way he did, move in the lithe, alert way he always did, and turn on her with coldly blazing blue eyes.
    He ran by her, just inside the fence, almost within her arm’s reach, without glancing at her. She waited until he was well past, then said, not loudly, “Shane.”
    The horse plunged his hocks to the dirt, slid to a stop on his hindquarters, whirled and faced her, all as fast as a striking snake. His head swung low, canted toward her, and the blaze of his blue eyes seemed to burn through her. Dangerous, very dangerous, he was, and Bobbi sensed it surely. Wright Yandro had written the truth. But oddly, Bobbi did not feel afraid. Shane was dangerous, but not to her.
    She said quietly, “It’s your name, isn’t it?”
    Nothing in the eyes answered her. She had to trust her own sureness. The black forelock fell as a strong man’s unruly hair falls over his forehead, ready to be pushed back by the hand of the woman who dared.… She had read her father’s notebooks again before going to bed, and dreamed of the black horse in her sleep, and awakened to the drumming of his hooves with the name in her mind.
    â€œI know it is, and I will call you by it,” she said.
    Now that the black had stopped running, the sorrel bolted to the far side of the corral from