Some More Horse Tradin' (12 page)

I went into the office and consigned seven registered thoroughbred studs and left their registration papers at the office. Next morning I was out early to see about my highbred stock and saw Old Man Garner at a distance across the barn lookin' at some other horses. I went by the office and told 'em to mail me my check when my horses were sold—I had somewhere else to go. By the middle of the week, I made it back home and went by the post office and picked up a check for $925 and noticed that the buyer on all seven head was marked
GARNER
.

I
t was late fall and the leaves had turned the many hues that nature provides to bring the close to a green season and to warn animal life that harder days are yet to come. I had had a rough summer and had ridden my best horses on longer and harder rides than they should have had to stand, so I pulled the shoes off Beauty and turned her in a pasture to get some rest before the cold weather set in. Of course, she knew that when it got cold I would bring her back to the barn for feed, and I know she was havin' a good time.

I didn't have a whole lot of ridin' to do and I had been usin' some plain and green kind of tradin' horses. Coming up the road late one afternoon near Springtown, I saw a pen full of horses near the road and a couple of fellows ropin' some out of the bunch. I reined by the corral fence and set on this not too good a horse I was ridin' and watched for a few minutes.

We had our howdie. One of these boys was named Tom Young and he asked, “Ben, which one of these horses do you want to trade for that one you're ridin'?”

I said, “What's the matter with that good-lookin' red roan?”

Well, Tom set in to tell me that he was a good saddle horse, gentle to ride, and had been restin' all summer, and I sure had topped his bunch at a glance. I said, “That's the speech you had ready for whoever asked about him, but you misunderstood me. I asked what all's the matter with him?”

He said, “I'm tellin' you the truth. He's been runnin' out all summer. We'll catch and saddle him and he'll never hump up, offer to buck, or do anything wrong.”

Tom dropped a rope on the roan's neck and I looked in his mouth and saw that he was an honest eight-year-old. His legs were clean and his body was well balanced and he lacked about two inches being as tall as the bay horse I was ridin', which would suit me since, being short-legged, it would make it easier for me to get on.

We put my saddle on him and, sure enough, he didn't seem to have any mean in him. There was nothin' much wrong with the horse I was ridin' except that his back was a little too long, his girth a little too shallow, and his legs a little too crooked, so I finally agreed to give him and $20 boot in trade for the red roan.

By the time I got to Veal Station, the red roan had settled down; he was a real good travelin' horse, had a fast runnin' walk and a nice way of carryin' himself, and I just thought to myself, a man can still make a good trade every now and then.

I rode in home about ten o'clock that night. This old pony was pretty soft and hadn't been used, and when I turned him loose in the corral, he had worked up a big sweat and was sure enough tired. He rolled and wallered in the dirt and lay there a good while before he got up to come eat. It was a moonlight night, and although the weather had gotten pretty nippy, I stood around and watched him until he started eatin', thinkin' I might have rode him too hard.

I saddled him early the next morning and started south to the Brazos River to look at five head of horses near the Dennis Schoolhouse that I had promised a man I would see. I never had had an occasion to tie this red roan horse and I hadn't been off of him but a few times since the day before. The five head of horses at Dennis were from the old Hubbard stock and were known to be of fox-trottin' blood. They were all pretty big horses—fifteen hands and over—four to six years old, and none of them broke. This wasn't too uncommon since we rarely broke a horse until he was big and stout enough to carry a man at least half a day. Breakin' two-year-olds was unheard of and we broke very few threes.
Of course, breakin' four- and five-year-old horses was harder work and harder ridin', but you had a heap more under you by the time you got 'em broke and shod and on hard feed.

A cotton farmer who was sort of a coward about horses owned these particular horses and they weren't much trouble to buy. In the trade he agreed to keep them in the lot for me for two or three days while I rode on down the country and I would pick them up on the way back. About noon that same day I had reached the Brazos and had turned down a little road that followed the river. About a mile from the Dennis Bridge I saw a little glade, and I thought it would be a good place to stop and feed my horse and fix myself some dinner.

The weather wasn't real cold and I was travelin' light—I had two blankets rolled up in my slicker behind my saddle and in the middle of that roll I had enough meat and bread for a couple of days' ride. I slipped the bridle off this good roan horse that I had really begun to like, put my lariat rope on him, and tied him to a tree. I poured about a gallon of oats on a pile of fresh fallen leaves at the base of the tree so that he could pretty well eat without gettin' any dirt in his feed.

I built a little fire and took out a big pocketknife and was slicing some meat when I heard a commotion—this good red roan horse was about to show off. He was one of those horses that didn't like to be tied. He was groanin' and settin' back with all he had, tryin' to break that good four-strand manilla lariat rope. I squalled at him and walked over to him, but that just made him worse. I had fixed the rope so that it wouldn't choke him and he was fast peelin' his head and neck with that hard rope. Now I knew from some of the other dark patches of hair around over his head that he had broke more bridles than he was worth. It just so happened that I had taken the bridle off of him and had taken the bits out of his mouth so he could eat.

There's nothin' more aggravatin' to a man ahorseback
than to have a horse he can't tie with a bridle rein. The roan would take a bite or two of feed and then all of a sudden fall back with all his weight on that rope. I went back to my fire and finished my dinner and by this time he had already pulled against the tree six or seven times and had his head and neck pretty well skinned up. I pitched my saddle over at about the right angle and fixed my blanket and thought I would take a little afternoon nap, but I couldn't get to sleep for listenin' to him groan, pull, and fight. To think that I saw those different colors of hair around on his head and neck and didn't get the message when I was tradin' for him! Sure enough, he had been restin' all summer—to heal up and peel off all the scabs from the last time he had been tied.

His hindquarters weren't more than twenty feet from the bank of the river and it was about half full. I was rollin' my grub back into my blanket and slicker and tying them on my saddle when he groaned and fell back again. I made a dash at him and cut the rope. He fell end over end off the bank of the river on his back and made about a twenty-foot splash. I watched the water rush in and cover up his nose; he nearly sank before he came up blowin' water out of his nose and tryin' to swim. I walked along the bank and watched him when he came out of the river on a sand bar about a mile from where he had fallen in. It was no trouble to walk up to and catch the end of the rope because he was tryin' hard to get a few gallons of water blown out of his lungs. I let him stand there spraddle-legged and cough and wheeze until he finally caught his breath. Then I led him back to where my saddle and riggin' was and I thought to myself, I might have given him the cure on that rarin' back.

For the next two or three days everybody that saw him who knew anything about a horse had to hurrah me a little about gettin' a spoiled horse traded to me. By the time I got back to where I had bought the five head of horses, the water treatment caused the roan to develop an awful case of distemper.
He was blowin' his nose and heavin' for breath and wasn't gettin' me over very much country. The unbroke horses that I turned in the road to drive to town were gentle to pen and handle and be around but just never had been rode.

About middle of the afternoon, my consumptive red roan horse had about given out. I eased up alongside of a four-year-old light chestnut horse in my bunch and dropped a rope on him. He had been caught before and didn't put up too much of a struggle and I managed to get his back foot tied up to a shoulder and get my saddle and riggin' on him in the middle of the road. He was a big horse and I knew that if he bucked I might not be able to ride him and if he tried to run, I would probably lose the rest of them, so I had the bright idea that my settin'-back horse might be real useful.

I put a rope halter on all those skinned, sore places on his head and led him up close to the bronc horse. I doubled the loose hair on the bronc horse's tail back up and tied a knot in it and then I double half-hitched this roan horse's halter rope into the bronc's tail. It was a public road but there wasn't none of the public comin' along to help me about this time, so I pushed the bronc around until I got him down in the ditch to where I could step on him real quick. Then I untied his back foot from the saddle horn and let it down. By now he was pretty disturbed and the other horses were just grazin' along up the road. When he felt he had all four feet on the ground, he fully intended to come undone. He bawled and jumped into the air, and when he did I squalled and waved my hat back at my red roan horse and he set back and held the bronc on the ground.

I wasn't makin' much time because the roan didn't come up and give my bronc any slack often enough and we were travelin' pretty bad. The bronc couldn't very well turn around because when he did I would squall at the roan and he would set back and pull him to the ground. After an hour
or so of this cowboy'n', the roan began to lead pretty good so that I could set the bronc along and make him go forward and slap him on the jaw with my hand to make him go the direction I wanted. Along about mid-evening we caught up with the other horses on the road in front of us. All of this activity had kept a pretty constant rub on those skinned places on the red roan's head.

There was a set of open corrals on a ranch close to the road and I made it there about dark and unrigged my horses and made out my pallet. After a pretty good supper of meat and bread, I didn't have any trouble dozin' off in that crisp fall air. I had let the roan horse wear the halter all night; in case he wanted to feel some pain, he could step on the rope. By now those sore places on his head had dried and chaffed up pretty bad, so he was gettin' the full benefit of the damage done by his own bad disposition.

Next morning I rigged up halters with drag ropes and caught the broncs while I had them in a good pen. When I turned them out about sunup with my sore-headed horse tied to my sore-tailed bronc, I knew that they weren't goin' to be too much trouble to drive. I loose-herded these horses into the wagonward a little after dinnertime. I was ridin' a green bronc and I was hopin' I had broke the roan from some bad habits. I knew that the roan was gentle and that he wouldn't go “broncy” if I let him rest, so I turned him in the pasture with Beauty for the skinned places on his head and neck to heal up and peel off.

In about a month I rode him up by the drugstore and stepped off but didn't tie him. I left his rein on the ground, which cowboys refer to as “ground tied.” Monty Thomas came along and recognized the horse. He had owned him sometime back and liked him so well that he would never have traded him off except for his bad habit. He very sneakingly reached down, picked up the reins and tied them to the post, and then walked up to the corner of the building
facing the square, where he could watch the roan break loose.

I was gone twenty or thirty minutes and I came back around the corner, spoke to Monty, and walked on and saw that my horse was tied to the post and he hadn't tried to break loose. Monty hollered, “Wait a minute. I used to own that horse and would still own him if it hadn't been for a bad habit or two that he had. I want to know how you broke him from settin' back on the rein and tearin' up the bridle.”

I said, “Monty, I don't know what you're talkin' about. As far as I know, this horse hasn't got a bad habit in the world.”

He walked around him and looked at the roan carefully and said, “He's the same horse.”

Before night, Tom Young came to the wagonyard and said that Monty had told him that he had tied the horse and he didn't offer to set back. I said, “Well, I guess you boys just never held your mouth right or had poor judgment or bad riggin' because I don't have a nicer horse to ride than this one.”

Tom asked, “How did you break him?”

“He was broke when I got him. You told me that and how gentle he was,” I said, just like I didn't know what he was talkin' about.