Some More Horse Tradin' (10 page)

I picked out a blood-bay mare with black feet and legs,
black mane and tail—about an eight-year-old that had cinch marks on her. I had run her around in the corral a little bit and kinda gotten her uncorked, and I knew she was going to be all right. Nobody came by my camp to see who I was or visit or anything. It was a lonesome spot, but that didn't bother me much.

I turned my horses in the road early next morning and started the day's drive. There were a few cars in the road that day, not many, and I hadn't passed but one ranch headquarters. It was set way off from the side of the road, so I didn't go by there. But about the middle of the afternoon, a car overtook me. Driving this car was a lady dressed in white—not exactly a nurse's uniform, but later I saw she had a nurse's pin on. Sitting in front with her was a cowboy of average make and age, clean-shaven and nice looking, but strictly a man of the range. And in the back seat was an old white-headed lady. She was very frail and very old, but at a glance you could tell that she was a very refined person.

They drove through very slowly, as if they were counting these mares, and the elderly lady raised up and sat on the edge of the back seat and looked out the door. This was a fine, old automobile and beautifully kept. It seemed as if the old lady was having it driven slowly while she looked at every mare. They drove on past about a mile and turned the car around. They were facing the horses as I drove them down the little slope in a walk—and the man got out of the car and walked around and went to stopping my horses as I got up close to the car. He motioned for me to ride around the mares and up to the car, and I could see that the old lady was wanting to talk to me.

She didn't waste any time in telling me she was the grandmother of the young Collin from whom I had bought my mares. She told me, “I live in San Antonio because I am too old to look after the ranch, but I know that the Shield Ranch must have mares to raise saddle horses from, and I just hope some of the other members of the family will learn this
before it is too late. This may be my last chance to impress this fact upon them. Would you consider selling me these Shield mares?” She went on to say, “I have counted the mares. I am not sure how many there should be, but I do know there still should be some mares with the Tree branded on them. I do not see any mares of the Tree. What has happened to them?”

I didn't really know how plain to talk to this fine old lady. I hesitated telling her what happened to the mares with the Tree. I told her that I wanted to keep most of the mares, that I was young and had a small ranch, and I wanted to always have good horses. Now that I had some Shield mares, I didn't take well to the thought of disposing of them—even before I got home.

She said that she knew I bought the mares to keep and that I, as a horseman, was entitled to keep some mares—or make a profit—or both—but that she was old, profit didn't matter a great deal to her, but she hated to lose the last of the mares. Again she asked, “Did you see the mares with the Tree? The Shield is branded over the Tree.”

I told her that I was sympathetic with her situation, but that if I hoped to have good horses all my life I needed most of these mares, and that there were only twenty-four left in the band.

She quickly caught the word
left.
She said, “You must have had the Tree mares. Señor Gonzales at the mercantile store called me in San Antonio and said twenty-eight mares stayed overnight in the corrals at his store. He also told me of a white-haired horseman who was riding with you. He is gone—and the four mares of the Tree.”

I could tell that this old lady was pretty sharp, knew what she was talking about, and was a great old ranchwoman that time had overtaken. I finally told her that Don Ricardo Olivorez had helped me get the Shield mares out of the pasture and into the road, and for his services he had taken the four mares of the Tree. He was riding a horse branded with
the Tree, and he had crossed over into Mexico the day before about ten or eleven o'clock in the morning.

She leaned back against the back seat of the car and sighed deeply. She closed her eyes, her lips moved silently, and I saw her make the sign of the cross. I was standing in the doorway of the car, and I just stood there as respectfully as I could until she finally opened her eyes and looked back at me. She looked for some time, and then she said, “Young man, sell me the mares.”

I said, “I'll sell you half of them—which would be twelve—and that would leave me twelve.”

She said, “I am prepared to pay for them.” She hadn't yet asked the price, but she told the cowboy to open the trunk and get his saddle and riggin' out—which he immediately began to do.

I insisted that I keep the three mares with the saddle marks on them, and from the rest they could take their half. The mares were scattered up and down the fenceline, grazing in the bar ditch of the road on what little grass they could find. She made no comment, except, “There could be but little difference in the mares of the Shield.” So I told her we would just walk down the road and cut off the twelve that were nearest on the way back to the Shield Ranch.

She said, “And how much money shall I pay you?”

I said, “Seven hundred and fifty dollars. That is the amount I gave for all of them. I'll have my twelve clear, other than the trip and expenses.”

The nurse in the front seat opened a large handbag and took out my money in large bills. The old lady scooted comfortably in the back seat and thanked me very much. She neither mentioned that the mares were high nor cheap, nor that she cared one way or another. The only thing she seemed to be interested in was that she had recovered twelve mares of the Shield to send back to the ranch. Whether she paid me a profit or not was of no concern to her.

I consented to let the cowboy have one of the mares that
had saddle marks on her. He saddled one up and walked her around a few minutes and stepped on her. Her manners were nice, just like the one I was riding. The old lady thanked me another time or two and drove on off toward the Ranch of the Shield.

I started on up the road into the foothills of the live oak country with my twelve Andalusian mares, my saddle horse, all my money back, and the possibility and probability that I would be mounted on good horses as long as I lived.

 

I
t was late summer and in the cool of the afternoon the air was almost fallish. I was standin' in front of the wagonyard, watchin' the empty watermelon wagons and a few cotton wagons that had come in loaded that morning go down the road leavin' town. A watermelon farmer drove up by the side of the fence and stopped his team, then started up toward the John Hart Grocery Store. I suppose he wanted to get some grub to take home with him. He was dressed in overalls and country straw hat, a blue faded shirt and tennis shoes, and had a dip of snuff that had seeped out a little on his whiskers. He didn't look like one of nature's brightest individuals as he shuffled off up the sandy street into the store.

I didn't walk out to his wagon, but stood there lookin' at his team. They were badly mismatched for size, color, breed, and sex. One was a big, stout, roughly finished brown horse, workin' on the left; the other was a little bitty, fat, smooth sorrel mare mule, working on the right, which is just the backwards way of hitchin' up two work animals of different size. The biggest and heaviest one ought to be on the right because there is a little more pull on the horse workin' nearest the ditch and on the slope of a country road. I liked the looks of this little sorrel mule. I noticed that her feet and legs were good and sound, and she was fat, which always helps the looks of any horse or mule.

It was nearly dusk when this watermelon cropper came shufflin' back down that sandy road with an apple box full of groceries. I smiled and raised my voice and said, “Neighbor, why don't you have a horse trade with me. I've got something to match the little mule or to match the big horse, whichever one you'd like to trade off.”

He kinda grinned, set his groceries over in the wagon, and said he shore wished he had a mate to that nice big horse. Before he said too much, he caught himself and began to explain to me what a good work mule the sorrel mare mule was and how proud he was of her, but he said
he didn't think she looked good hitched up by that great big horse. I agreed with him right off because I'd rather have the mule than the horse to resell, so we walked back toward the back side of the wagonyard to my tradin' pen.

I had two or three horses that any one of them would match his big horse. He looked at 'em and felt of 'em and walked around 'em and he finally picked out a big, fat, honest nine-year-old brown horse that was a real good match for the horse he had. We talked on about the horse and the mule and I took a rope and put it around the horse's neck and led him back up toward the wagon, because I wanted him to see that he would look good next to his big horse.

It was nearly dark and I looked into the mule's mouth and could tell she was about an eight-year-old; there wasn't much difference between her age and my horse's age. Of course, I made him a pretty good speech about a big fat horse being worth more than a little bitty mule, most of which wasn't necessarily so, but I didn't think he'd know the difference. I asked him $20 boot, and he said watermelons hadn't been sellin' that good but he believed he'd give $10 boot just because that brown horse would look better than that little bitty sorrel mare mule did. It didn't take me too long to decide that would be plenty boot and that we'd just have a horse trade.

We unhitched his little mule and took her harness off, and 'course we had to let out the traces and the backband and the bellyband and all that kind of stuff to get his harness to fit this big horse. By this time it was just about dark. He picked up the lead rope that was on the mule and said, “I'll lead the mule down and put her in the lot for you while you kinds adjest the bridle on that horse's head.”

I knew this horse was pretty cold-shouldered and just might not want to work off too good, even to an empty wagon. And somethin' he hadn't bothered to ask me was “if'n my horse would work.”

There is a stay chain on a wagon on each side that hooks
to the front axle and then there's a hook on the doubletree, and by adjustin' the length of the stay chain, you can be sure that each of your team is gettin' the proper pull on his end of the doubletree. While this old, kinda dumb snuff-dipper was gone to put my mule in the lot, I reached down and shortened the stay chain on the horse he already had hooked to be sure that when they started off, he'd move the load without this tradin' horse that I was lettin' him have havin' to pull any weight.

He came back in a minute and I helped him hook up the horse. He paid me the $10 in cash and stepped up in the spring seat and thanked me. He shook the lines and clucked to his team, and, sure enough, his horse moved the wagon and they drove off pretty as you please in the dark.

Next morning I went down to my trade lot about sunup and that sorrel mare mule had her head stickin' over the fence facing the sunrise, and she sure didn't look too good with my horses either 'cause she was plumb blind!

 

T
he horse and mule market had opened up in the fall real good and had gotten better as the season went on. I had several orders for mares with weanling-age colts by their sides, and I also wanted some well-bred usin'-type mares to turn in my own pasture. It was a fact that you could get mares and colts cheaper if you bought them together than you could if you bought them separate and a trader always figured that if he sold the colts he would nearly clear the mares—or that if he sold the mares he would nearly clear the colts—so in horse tradin' times, to a trader mares and colts were good property.

I wanted to try to buy a pretty big bunch of these pairs, so I decided to go out West where horses ran in bunches and people talked in bigger figures. I drove into San Angelo and sat around the hotel lobby nearly all day visitin' and askin' about mares and colts, and finally an old boy heard what I was huntin' for and came over and struck up a conversation. He told me that Old Man Garner on the Pecos River at Girvin Switch had lots of mares and colts. He said he thought it was the custom to let a man pick what he wanted to buy since pickin' wouldn't hurt Old Man
Garner because he had so many horses; and a fellow might shape up a pretty nice set of young mares with breedy colts sired by thoroughbred studs.