Gib and the Gray Ghost (18 page)

“I didn’t take any chances,” Gib kept telling him. “I figured out how to take care of him without letting him get at me. I took it real slow and easy with him, and in just a few days he began to quiet down.”

But Hy went on looking at Gib squinty-eyed for quite a while longer before he began to nod and grin. “Well, guess I can believe that part of it. If anybody could talk some comfort into a poor fear-crazy piece of horseflesh it just might be a little feller I know name of Gibson Whittaker.” Then he touched his heels to Lightning’s flanks and took off at a sudden run. So sudden it took Gib’s speedy Silky a minute or two to catch up.

When they trotted down the driveway onto the Circle Bar, Morrison came out to meet them, his long, sharp-edged face split into a friendly grin. He kept saying how glad he was to see them and how much he appreciated their coming all that way to take a look at his good-for-nothing horse.

Hy didn’t say a whole lot as Morrison showed him around, but Gib thought he liked the looks of what he was seeing. At least he did until he caught sight of some of Morrison’s hired hands. Two of them were sitting on a corral railing. They hollered howdy as Hy walked past, but his answering howdy didn’t seem too enthusiastic. When Gib asked, quiet-like so Morrison wouldn’t hear him, Hy only shrugged. “Couple of good-for-nothing drifters,” was all he said. “Worked for me once a long time ago. But not for long.”

They were inside the stable by then and, as they approached his stall, Ghost came to the door nodding and nickering, friendly-like. Gib was relieved to see that he was looking fat and sassy, and that he’d been groomed until his dappled hide shone like silver-spotted moonlight. As he reached out to rub the gray’s nose and pat his neck Gib heard a long, low whistle. It was Hy who’d done it. He whistled and then just stood there for a long spell, shaking his head wonderingly, before he said, “Now that there is one of the best-put-together pieces of horseflesh I ever laid eyes on.”

Morrison laughed and said, “I thought the same thing when I first saw him, but if you go by the saying ‘pretty is as pretty does ... ” He didn’t finish but his meaning was clear as could be. Right at that moment, though, the gray didn’t show signs of being any kind of troublemaker. Instead he went on snorting softly and reaching out to nudge Gib with his satiny nose. But when Gib said he looked pretty settled down to him, Morrison laughed. “Oh, he’s friendly enough nowadays, except when he has you up there on his back. That’s when you have to look out.”

“Have trouble saddling him?” Hy asked.

“Not saddling. But he’s still hard to get a bridle on.” He turned to Gib. “Did you have that kind of trouble with him?”

Gib nodded. “Right at first he was real head-shy,” he said. “But after I started using a hackamore he quit fighting it altogether.”

“A hackamore?” Morrison looked shocked and even Hy seemed a bit surprised. “Can’t imagine riding a bolter like Ghost with only a hackamore,” Morrison said. “How’d you manage to stop him when he decided to run? Were you using a hackamore that day I saw you riding him?” He looked embarrassed when Gib said he was. “Must have been too upset to do much noticing,” Morrison said. “And I can’t imagine how you managed it. I’ve been using a curb bit with a long shank and even then he’s hard to convince.”

Gib was beginning to understand the problem. “I think that’s it, Mr. Morrison,” he said. “I think Ghost has a real tender mouth. Using a rough bit like that probably hurts him so much he kind of goes crazy. Like as not that’s why he starts running.”

Morrison didn’t seem convinced but Gib could tell that Hy was paying attention. “You rode him with a hackamore?” he asked. When Gib assured him that he had, Hy said, “Well, let’s see you do it again, then.” He turned to Morrison and asked, “That all right by you?”

“Well, all right, if you say so,” Morrison told Hy, but he was still shaking his head as he said it.

Morrison was right about Ghost and saddling. Once he’d finished frisking Gib’s pockets looking for carrots, he accepted the saddle and the cinching with no protest at all. The trouble began after that. Morrison had sent his fence-sitting cowhands to look for a hackamore, and after a bit they turned up with a top-notch store-bought one, made of horsehair rope and strips of braided leather. It was one of the fanciest hackamores Gib had ever seen, but Ghost didn’t like the look of it one little bit. He was throwing his head and threatening to bite, and outside the stall Morrison and Hy, and even the two cowhands, were telling Gib he’d better back off. But Gib kept on talking and showing Ghost how there wasn’t any bit there at all. It took a while before the gray was ready to listen but when his head lowered and his ears began to flick Gib knew he had his attention. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before he sniffed the hackamore, snorted, sniffed again, and then, real uncertain-like, let Gib put it on his head.

All four of them, Hy, Morrison, and the two cowhands, followed along as Gib led the gray to the corral. Hy wanted to give him a leg up but Gib grabbed the horn and climbed into the saddle even though Ghost was tossing his head and stepping sideways. Gib let him dance for a minute before he began to sit back, using the reins and his voice to tell Ghost that he was being asked to settle down. After two or three turns around the corral Ghost’s ears began to flick back like he was listening, and Gib went on talking. “That’s it, boy,” Gib kept telling him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just asking you to pay attention.”

By the time Gib had taken the big gray around the corral a dozen or so times he was beginning to show the training he’d once had, probably way back when he was a colt in the bluegrass country. When Gib let him out a little he did push some to turn a lope into a run, but he never completely quit listening to what the reins were telling him. Before long he began to slow down extra quick when Gib asked him to, as if he were trying to say how grateful he was to be asked polite-like, instead of being tormented by a cruel bit.

Now and then, as they made the turn in front of the corral gate, Gib caught sight of the four faces peering over the top railing. Right at first, Morrison and his two cowhands looked as nervous as treed wildcats, but after a while they were mostly big-eyed with surprise. But Hy’s grin started out as proud as punch and went right on having the same slant to it.

When the workout was over Hy went into the ranch house with Mr. Morrison. Gib stayed in the stable, cooling Ghost down and grooming him, and after that taking a look at a couple of dozen spooky mustangs that he just happened to notice in the corral behind the barn.

Hy stayed in the ranch house talking to Morrison for almost an hour. Later, when he and Gib were on their way back to the Rocking M, he began to tell Gib what they’d been discussing. For one thing, Hy said, Mr. Morrison had been asking his advice about some of the problems he’d had during the winter.

“I told him that when that big snow hit he shoulda sent all his hands out to bring the stock in to where they could be reached by hay wagons, or sleds if the wagons couldn’t make it,” Hy said. He shook his head ruefully. “Seems like those lazy drifters he’s been supporting all winter convinced him it warn’t no use. Told him the stock were like as not blown halfway across the state by then, to where they’d never be able to find them. So then that worthless bunch holed up in front of the bunkhouse stove, and let half of Morrison’s stock starve to death.”

Hy muttered some things under his breath for a while. Then he went on, “I told him what I’d’ve done. I told him if I’d been his foreman I’d have had that bunch of yellow-livered good-for-nothin’s out there bringin’ in cattle before they could count to three. Had ’em bringin’ in cattle, or else out on the trail lookin’ for a new place to spend the winter.”

Gib was so wrapped up in hearing about Morrison’s problems that it took him a minute to realize when Hy changed the subject. The new one was about Clark Morrison’s wanting to hire Gib Whittaker as a part-time wrangler. “Not full time, of course,” Hy was saying. “He knows you have to go on with your schoolin’. Seems like what he’s askin’ is just for you to sign on to do some horse handling now and then on weekends. Says he’d be willing to pay you regular wrangler wages.”

Gib couldn’t have been more surprised if somebody had asked him to run for mayor, but he knew right away that he liked the idea a whole lot.

T
HAT NIGHT AFTER GIB
and Hy came back from the Circle Bar, there was a powwow in the library. At least that was what Hy called it when he asked Miss Hooper to arrange for everyone to be there. Miss Hooper referred to it as a family conference, but Gib liked
powwow
better. He could picture the six of them, Missus Julia and Livy, Miss Hooper, Hy, Mrs. Perry, and Gib himself, sitting around a campfire smoking a peace pipe and making plans for the next big buffalo hunt. When he whispered to Livy about it she thought it was funny too.

Livy was in a specially good mood that night because it was her birthday and she’d gotten all the presents she wanted, including the black-and-silver saddle for Dandy. And she’d liked the present Gib had made for her too, a new saddle rack and bridle hook in the tack room, hung low so she didn’t have to climb up on a stool to get her tack down.

After they all sat down around the big library table Livy kept catching Gib’s eye and pretending she was puffing on a peace pipe and passing it on to Miss Hooper. Nobody else noticed what Livy was up to, but every time she put the imaginary peace pipe up to her lips, Gib had a hard time keeping his face straight.

The subject of the conference started out to be Hy’s visit to the Circle Bar and what he thought of what he’d seen there. First of all, Hy had quite a lot to say about the troubles Morrison had been having and what had caused them. “The trouble with that young feller is jist that ...

Gib guessed what was coming and he was right. He mouthed the words to Livy and she giggled. And then Hy went ahead and said it, just the way Gib knew he would. “He’s got more money than sense,” Hy said, and then he went on to tell about how Clark—Hy was calling Morrison Clark now—didn’t know beans about running a cattle ranch. And how he’d added to his problems by hiring a couple of losers for foremen. “First he took on that miserable skunk Dettner, and right now there’s this Rafe, who’s a right nice feller but who don’t know much more about cattle ranching than Clark does. And neither one of them’s got the gumption to handle a bunch of ornery saddle bums like the ones they got workin’ for them,” Hy said. “Looks to me like every no-good drifter who ever got hisself blacklisted by the big outfits got word that there’s a rich greenhorn in these parts who’d take them on no questions asked. And that’s pretty much what poor old Clark has got hisself stuck with.”

But then Hy got to the serious part of the powwow. When he asked Missus Julia if it would be all right if he went to the Circle Bar on weekends to help Clark weed out the deadwood and sign up some real cowpunchers, she only smiled and shrugged and said he might as well. Gib wasn’t sure how she really felt about it, though. Missus Julia was coughing again that evening, and Gib wondered if she really didn’t care if Hy worked for Morrison on weekends, or if she was just feeling too tired to argue. This time it was only Mrs. Perry who objected out loud.

Shaking her head, she said, “Land sakes, Hy Carter, how do you suppose we’re going to get the spring plowing and planting done if you’re off gallivanting around the county helping other people?” She looked at Gib. “This boy’s a right hard worker but there’s no way he can do it all. Specially now that he’s going to school.”

Hy chuckled. “Now, hold your horses there, Delia. Before you start jumping down my throat wait till you hear the rest of what I have to tell you. What Mr. Morrison is offerin’ is that if I help out on his spread, he’ll have Rafe come over here to give us a hand with the plowing and suchlike. Rafe’s a sodbuster born and bred so you ought to git a lot better farm crop out of him that you’d ever get from a couple of saddle bums like me and Gib here.” He grinned at Mrs. Perry and reached over to pat her hand before she could snatch it away. “And Rafe’s wife, Liza, says she’d be glad to ride over and help with the canning and jam making when harvesttime comes.”

Mrs. Perry was shaking her head sadly when Hy began to explain, but once she’d had time to think over what she was hearing, she cheered up considerably.

Gib and Livy kept fooling around with the powwow idea until Hy started talking about Morrison’s offer to hire Gib as a kind of part-time wrangler. “Wants him just on weekends till school is out,” Hy told them. “To work with the gray some, and maybe see what he can do with a couple of green-broke mustangs Morrison bought from Appleton a while back.” He was grinning as he went on, “Wants to pay real good wages too.”

All the ladies, Missus Julia and Miss Hooper and Mrs. Perry too, seemed to think that would be just fine. Miss Hooper said she was very impressed that Mr. Morrison had such faith in Gib’s horse-handling ability, but that she wanted to remind Gib that he mustn’t let broncobusting interfere with schoolwork. And Missus Julia said she was so proud of Gib’s wonderful skill with horses. “And your mother would have been proud too,” she added. Gib ducked his head but his warm face cooled off some when he glanced up and saw the way Livy was looking at him.

Sure enough, Livy wasn’t speaking to him again. Not for the rest of the evening, or the next day either. Not at breakfast or supper or on the ride into Longford. The not-speaking horseback rides weren’t too uncomfortable, Gib discovered. Not nearly as bad as not-speaking buggy rides had been, where you had to sit side by side trying to remember not to say anything or even look in the wrong direction. On horseback all Gib had to do was hold Silky back out of speaking distance, but close enough so that he could catch up if Livy and Dandy ran into any sort of trouble. Then when they got to school he’d catch up long enough for a silent, frowning Livy to get her books out of the saddlebag and hand him Dandy’s reins before he headed toward Appleton’s Livery Stable.

It wasn’t until Thursday evening at the supper table that things with Livy began to change. Hy had been carrying on about Clark’s new ranch buildings. About the big ranch house especially, with its “half-acre parlor,” and how grand the stable was. “Them horses of his has better living quarters than a whole lot of people do, let me tell you,” he was saying, when Livy mumbled, “I’d surely like to have a chance to see a stable like that.”