Some More Horse Tradin' (2 page)

I didn't stay too long with Howard and turned up the road north toward Hillsboro. I thought I would drive until about dark or till I found a good campin' place. These nice big horses moved along in a fair trot—not so fast but what my saddle horse could keep up without strikin' a lope—and we got along fine drivin' up the side of the road out of the traffic.

About dark, I pulled out by the side of the road at Elm Mott under some big trees and made camp for the night. I had picked up some feed as I left Waco, so I let my saddle horse eat off the back of the buckboard and tied my drivin' team to a big gentle tree and poured their feed on the ground where they could eat together.

Next morning I hooked up and threw my saddle on the
buckboard and thought I would I would tie my saddle horse. Then I got to thinkin' about that runaway team so I ran my lariat rope all the way up to my spring seat and tied it in a slipknot around one of the springs where I could reach down and jerk it loose in case I needed to. I had been driving this good team up the road at just a brisk trot and after about five miles of warming up had let them break into a good moving kind of road trot that would get you over lots of country in a day.

We crossed a concrete bridge with banisters and just as I cleared the north end, these horses suddenly found them a spook and broke to run away. When I took hold of the lines to try to check them, they had both cold-jawed and clamped their bits between their teeth. With their size, arched necks, and stout bodies, it would have been a joke for me to have thought I could hold them. I reached back and jerked the slipknot to untie my saddle horse to keep from draggin' him.

About half a mile in front of me I saw a country road curving off at an angle to the right. I dropped what pull I had on the left line and pulled on the right line just enough to throw their balance to where they would go up that country road. When I knew I had them on that country road and there wasn't anybody comin', I reached and got a bull whip that had been tied on my saddle and started knockin' hair off those big horses about every time they hit the ground and furnishin' them all the slack that I could on the line. It came as a sudden shock to them that there wasn't goin' to be any screamin' and pullin' and tryin' to keep them from runnin' and when it looked like they were goin' to show some sense and slow down, I laid the leather on them and hollered some more. I went through the little town of Leroy and I still had up speed. When I was almost in view of Mt. Calm and the road was even less populated, this ball of fast horses began to lose interest in tryin' to leave this earth.

I had been squattin' down behind the seat on my knees just in case somethin' might happen, because I didn't want to
get thrown over on the team, and I knew better than to stand up, because I might get thrown out on either side. I was a little tired of this, so I stepped over the spring seat and set down. By now this pair of big stout horses were wringin' wet with sweat, and lather was workin' out from under their harness. I didn't think that I wanted to windbreak them, but I didn't want them to think it was goin' to be a short day so I spoke to them without takin' the slack out of my lines and they slowed up to a lope.

There was a big wide place where the road forked and I dropped the slack on the right line and shook the left line before I pulled on it, and, sure enough, they had turned the bits loose, so I drew them down and turned them around. This had been a seven- or eight-mile run and as we turned around they dropped down into a slow trot. I didn't squall at them or pull on them and in another mile they had slowed down to just a good average walk and were tryin' hard to get enough breath to live on since they were pretty well winded. In about an hour and a half I got back to the road where I had turned my saddle horse loose and he was very comfortably grazin' along the right of way and draggin' his lead rope.

This time I thought that it might be smart to tie him up even with the team, so I tied him to the right hand horse's harness on a fairly short rope to where if we had another horse race, he could be in it and I wouln't have to come back after him.

By now these horses were cooled out good and had very little live sweat on them, so I clucked to 'em and popped the lines over their backs and struck a pretty good travelin' sort of trot and we got into Hillsboro in about middle of the afternoon. I went to the wagonyard to put up my horses and loaf around awhile before dark.

Next morning I took a lot of time to brush and curry the dried sweat off this drivin' team that thought they were racehorses and to wipe their nostrils and eyes out with a damp
sack and clean out and clean off their feet and give them the attention they had been used to. I took the harness to the water trough and dipped it in and then wiped the dirt and sweat off with my hands before I harnessed the team and hooked them to the buckboard.

The usual kind of horse and mule dealers were standin around that morning as I was gettin' ready to leave and they, of course, tried me on price with no intentions of buyin'. I knew they were just wonderin' what a team like that was worth, so I priced the team and rig for $750. I didn't get much back talk because, for the most part, none of them knew whether the deal was high or cheap.

This pair of nice big horses hadn't been used very much lately, probably because of their bad habits, and they were sore and stiff from the runaway that they had pulled and the day's work that I put on 'em along with it, but I had my doubts about them stayin' stiff too long, so I tied my saddle horse to the hame of the right-hand horse. We hit a slow jog trot in the edge of Hillsboro headed north. These big horses warmed up and seemed like they were goin' to drive real nice.

I stopped up about middle of the morning at Itasca and drove around behind the stores and tied my team to a hitchrack. I don't know exactly what caused me to think to do it, but I untied my saddle horse from the hame and tied him to the hitchrack by himself. I hadn't tied this team before and I just used the nice light leather straps that snapped on to the bits and tied each horse to the hitchrack.

I was just goin' to walk around town and loaf a little bit and went into the grocery store to buy some grub to eat later on in the day. I had paid for my groceries and had the sack in my arm when I heard two or three people holler, “There goes a runaway team!”

The grocery store was on the corner of the street and I stepped to the door and watched them pass. I was real glad I had a saddle horse tied separate. I put the rope around his
nose and jumped on him bareback and broke off in a lope acarryin' that sack of groceries in one arm and the coiled up end of the rope in the other, and between nursin' that sack of groceries and ridin' that horse with a rope on his nose, I wasn't in too good a shape to catch a runaway team. However, I thought that if I couldn't keep up, I would catch up when something happened to 'em.

They were about a mile out of town on a country road runnin' about full tilt and apoppin' that buckboard back and forth behind them when a farmer drivin' a team of mules to a wagon with a cultivator hooked on behind the wagon drove across the road in front of them before he saw them comin' and could get out of the way. This pair of runaways wasn't too badly scared. They were just runnin' for fun because they swerved over by the side of the road and stopped by themselves to keep from runnin' into the barbwire fence and went to grazin'. I was just a little piece behind and I was mad enough to kill 'em, but, at the same time, I was awful glad that they hadn't tore up my rig.

I pulled my saddle horse up to a walk and reined him to the far side of the road and went past them like I didn't know they were there. Then I slipped off my horse and walked back facing them and got a hold of their lines. They had their mouths full of grass and were actin' as innocent as horses can act with broken tie straps hangin' from each pair of bits. I had found out something else about 'em. They would break tie straps to get to run away.

I kept a pretty tight line on 'em the rest of the day and drove into Alvarado and found an old man with a good barn and plenty of feed that would let me put my team up overnight. I had my saddle blanket and a blanket tied on the back of my saddle so I made a pallet in the back of the buckboard and spent the night.

Next morning I got to thinkin' that if I sat up straight and popped a whip over that team I could drive to Weatherford by dark. It would be hard on my saddle horse to have
to travel alongside of them, but I didn't think it would hurt that big team of Heidelberg coach horses. So far as I was concerned, the hard-headed German was stickin' out in 'em worse every day.

I stopped on market square at Cleburne to water my horses. There was a country café right by the trade ground. I hollered at the cook to make me some hamburgers to take with me and bring them out to me and I didn't leave my team.

The road from Cleburne to Weatherford was a gravel surfaced road with not too much traffic, and I felt like if I just kept 'em at a steady trot that I might take some of that run out of 'em. I drove into Godley in a couple of hours and had these old ponies wet with sweat and breathin' a little hard and I felt like I was doin' 'em a whole lot of good. About the time I got even with the schoolhouse, the band was out on the grounds and decided to practice, and on the first big blow these kids gave on their horns, the runaway was on. The trip up to now hadn't hurt 'em, and I just thought they was breathin' hard!

I managed to hold 'em in the road and I sawed on the bits and in about three miles discouraged them down to a trot. When I finally got them to where they would turn loose the bits and would stop, I unwired a piece of balin' wire that was hangin' to the buckboard and held on to the lines and walked to the front of 'em. I took the bits out of each horse's mouth and wrapped them good with that balin' wire, which is a pretty brutal thing on a horse's mouth, but these horses weren't causin' me to develop too much affection for them, and I felt like if I made it more brutal on their mouths, it might be easier on my arms to hold them.

In just a little while they became real sensitive to that wire on their bits and I thought maybe this would be the little trick that would keep their minds on their business. It was gettin' late in the afternoon when I drove through Cresson and I really thought that I might stop somewhere and spend
the night. The railroad track ran parallel to the road, and about the time I was havin' some of these kind-hearted thoughts, a train whistle blew and I thought, here's where I tear their mouths open with that wire, but they had had time to learn about that wire and they took those bits beween their jaw teeth and cold-jawed and I couldn't move that wire to make them a little remorseful by tearin' some hide off their mouths.

I didn't see nobody comin' and nobody behind me and no way for anybody to help and this was the second time they had run away that day. The one thing that was botherin' me was that I was feelin' sorry for my saddle horse havin' to keep up with 'em. After all, he hadn't done anything wrong. And it so happened that he was thinkin' the same thing I was and decided he had had enough of that foolishness, so he reared back on that good stout rope tied to that right-hand horse's hame. He caught that big horse in the air and jerked him and the other horse sideways and drug 'em.just a step or two, and in the scuffle the right-hand horse that the saddle horse was tied to fell to the ground sideways and the left-hand horse stopped just a second after they had broke the tongue out of the buckboard. I eased out of the buckboard, thinkin' how lucky I was that it didn't turn over As this one horse got up, I spanked my saddle horse with my line just enough to make him straighten up and I drove them over to the fence still hooked to the tongue.

I cut the long end of the rope that my saddle horse was tied with and tied one end around one horse's neck and down through his bits and over to the other horse's bits and then around his neck and then to a big heavy cedar fencepost. I stood and looked at 'em and kind of got over the shock of the runaway and then I very carefully unhooked them from the tongue they were draggin' and carried it back to the buckboard so I could try to figure out how to patch it enough to get home.

It was broken where the doubletree hooks onto the tongue.
About all the tongue does is to furnish a way to guide the buckboard, so I wired the doubletree to the part of the tongue that was still hooked to the buckboard behind the break in the tongue. Then I took some barbwire off the fence by the road and wired the tongue back together and ran the barbwire back to the axle and wrapped it around the tongue and up to the front of the tongue and then I wrapped it around the breast yoke and tied it back against the front end of the tongue. This made a pretty crude kind of a front end, but I thought it would guide well enough that I could drive it home.

By now it was nearly dark and I rehooked my runaway team with my saddle horse tied to 'em and started up the road. I guess they had intended this last little spree to pay off better—they figured they'd get turned loose—and they seemed to wilt a little bit when I hooked them back up. I don't know whether or not they savvied what a weak tongue they were hooked to, but the doubletree was wired hard and fast and they had a firm pull on the rig. It was about midnight when I drove in home. It had been about a forty-five-mile day and these old ponies seemed give out and appeared to be so gentle that I thought they never would run again.

The next morning I got Guy Oliver at the blacksmith shop to repair the tongue with some iron straps, makin' it hell for stout. Since I had been gone a couple of weeks or more, I had some ridin' to do to tend to my livestock, some errands to run, and things to see about, so it was several days before I hooked up my fancy pair of drivin' horses. It was a bright Saturday afternoon and there were lots of people in town and I thought it would be a good time to show off my drivin' team and rig. I don't suppose I thought anybody would be interested in buyin' them. I just wanted to show off.