The Home Ranch by Ralph Moody
Each day we took our grub sack to the secret spring at noon, but we didn’t loaf around again the way we had the first day. And we didn’t talk any more about the kind of a ranch, or number of children we’d have when we grew up. Once we stopped in the aspens to watch a deer drinking at the basin, and another time we saw a raccoon dipping something in the water before he ate it. But we never saw the weasel again, and we didn’t find any rabbits that he’d killed.
Jenny always packed enough grub for three men, and Hazel kept pestering me till I’d eaten most of it. I knew she was doing it so I’d gain my weight back in a hurry and could show her the somersault trick I’d done at the Littleton roundup. It sort of worried me, because it was a real tricky stunt, and I hadn’t tried it for nearly a year.
To do the trick I had to have a horse going at a dead run, then dive out of the saddle, turn a somersault in the air, and come down on my feet. But doing it right depended as much on the horse as it did on me. He had to set his feet and be sliding to a stop the instant I made a move to leave the saddle. That would throw me forward, and if I ducked my head and shoulders just right, I couldn’t help turning all the way over in the air. Then, when I landed on my feet, I’d be standing right beside the horse’s head. But if the horse didn’t stop quick enough it was pretty hard to go all the way over, and sometimes I’d land on the seat of my pants.
I’d made a monkey of myself in front of Hazel times enough. The fourth day I worked with her I decided that, before I let her see me try that stunt, I’d practice it until I was nearly perfect. There was a bright moon that night, and it seemed a good time to begin practicing. I didn’t know Pinch well enough to trust my neck to him, and Lady wasn’t good at quick stops. But, after everybody was asleep, I took her to a little spongy meadow I’d picked out, about three miles from the buildings. I knew I’d land falling or sitting down a few times before we got the knack of the trick again, and wanted as soft a landing place as I could find.
Lady and I had done the trick together dozens of times, but she seemed to have forgotten all about it. I used to make a little hissing sound the moment before I left the saddle, and she’d stop pretty well when she heard it. But for a while that night it didn’t mean a thing to her. Over and over again, I had to hiss and jerk the reins at the same time before she learned again that the hiss meant for her to set her feet. Then I tried my first somersault, but I was awkward, Lady didn’t stop fast enough, and that spongy meadow felt as hard to my bottom as if it had been solid rock.
We didn’t go back to the buildings until we’d tried the stunt at least twenty times—and until I was so sore and lame I could hardly sit in the saddle. Sometimes it almost worked, but I never did come all the way over and up onto my feet, and sometimes Lady forgot to stop when I hissed.
All the next day Hazel kept telling me, “Sit back in the saddle; you act like you had a bur in your britches!” or, “By jiminy, you look punier today than you did when Batch fetched you back from the mountains! If you don’t start to eating more, you ain’t never goin’ to gain your weight back.” I couldn’t tell her that I felt punier than I looked, and that I thought I’d beaten at least five pounds of weight off my behind. And she never guessed that I’d been up half the night, or that I’d taken any falls.
I’d made up my mind that no matter how banged-up I felt, I was going to practice again that night, but I didn’t. When we brought in the cows at supper time, Lady was lame in both front legs. The sogginess of the meadow hadn’t softened my falls much, but had let her hoofs cut deep, and thrown a terrible strain on her legs. I knew they’d have to be doctored, or they’d swell and stiffen.
As soon as Ned was snoring that night I got up, built a fire in the forge, and put a bucket of water on to heat. Then I stripped a couple of gunny sacks into long bandages, the way I’d seen Father do it, got them boiling hot, and wrapped both of Lady’s fore legs from pastern to elbow. Even though it was a warm night, the bandages cooled off fast, and way before moonset my hands were so swollen and parboiled they looked like two bunches of red bananas. But just before sunrise, when I took off the last bandages, the swelling was pretty well gone from Lady’s knees.
The next day I really felt puny from lack of sleep, but I felt worse about having abused Lady, and because we wouldn’t be able to practice for a long time. I was thinking about it when Hazel and I were riding over to the secret spring to eat our noon grub, and wasn’t paying much attention to Pinch or the way we were going. Then too, my bottom was still so bruised and lame that I wasn’t sitting square in the saddle, but kind of scrooched over to one side.
We were cantering along at a pretty fair clip, side by side, when a pheasant flushed out of a little bush, right in front of Pinch. I was sitting loose in the saddle, and he set his feet so fast I didn’t have a chance to catch myself. It must have been my thinking about the stunt that made me duck my head and shoulders when the quick stop threw me forward. I flipped all the way over in the air, and when I landed, I was standing on my feet at Pinch’s head.
Hazel’s pinto had stopped nearly as fast as Pinch, so she came pretty near getting spilled too, but as soon as she caught her balance, she yapped at me, “You dirty promise-breaker! You said you wouldn’t try that till you gained your weight back, and you’re punier this mornin’ than you been any day yet! And besides, you done it so quick I couldn’t see how it worked!”
“I didn’t promise I wouldn’t try it,” I told her. “I only promised not to show you till I got my weight back, and if you didn’t see how I did it, then I didn’t show you.”
“Hmmfff! Show-off!”
“No,” I said again, “it wasn’t that either! It just happened all by itself when Pinch stopped so quick. When I try to show off I always make a monkey of myself.”
Hazel put both hands on her hips and squinted at me as if I’d been a weasel. “You ain’t tryin’ to tell me you done it without meanin’ to? Do I look like a darn dodo?”
“Well, if you did, I wouldn’t tell you so,” I snapped, “but sometimes you talk like one. If you knew anything about that trick you’d know there’s nothing to it except timing and letting yourself go loose enough, and the timing worked all by itself.”
For a minute Hazel sat there with her eyes squinnied up, but she didn’t look as if she hated me. And I knew she was trying to figure out for herself just what made the trick work. Suddenly she said, “Show me how . . . no! No! This time you got to promise you won’t even . . .”
I could tell from the look on Hazel’s face that she’d made up her mind to try the trick by herself, and I was afraid she’d break her neck, so I cut in, “If there’s going to be any promising, you’re going to do your share. Before I’ll promise you anything, you’ll have to promise me you won’t try that trick till your father says you can.”
“Did your father say you could the first time you done it?”
“No,” I said, “because he didn’t know anything about it till he saw me do it at the roundup.”
“Then I ain’t goin’ to promise! If it was fair for you to do it without your paw knowin’, it’s fair for me.”
“It was different with me,” I told her. “I learned to do it from Hi Beckman, and he’s a champion trick-rider.”
“Then it ain’t no different with me,” she snapped. “You won the prize at the roundup, didn’t you?”
“Only because I was riding with Hi,” I said. “I couldn’t have done it by myself.”
“That don’t make no never-minds! If you won the prize you’re a champion, and Paw don’t need to know.”
I could see I wasn’t going to get anywhere by arguing, and I was afraid of her being hurt if I didn’t get some kind of a promise, so I said, “I’ll promise not to try it again till I’m back to seventy-two pounds, if you’ll promise not to try it till I say you can.”
“Ain’t no sense in that, you’d never say it.”
“Yes, I will too!” I said. “I’ll say it just as soon as I think you and a horse
Hazel sat studying me for a minute with her mouth pinched up tight, then she swiped an X across her shirt with one finger, and said, “Cross my heart!”
I wasn’t too much worried about Pinch, after the way we’d done the trick almost by accident. But he needed to learn to make those quick stops without having to wait for a pheasant to fly up in his face. And long before I’d ever let Hazel try it, her pinto would have to be dead positive on his stops. “All right,” I told her, “it’s a promise, but I won’t teach you to do it till you can get Pinto to stop on a postage stamp without a touch of a line.”
That afternoon we started training Pinto and Pinch. By time to take the cows in, they had learned that a hiss meant for them to stop, but Pinto was too slow and came down too hard on his front feet. Pinch was a lot better at it, because he’d been trained as a rope horse, and had learned to save his knees by throwing all his weight on his hind legs.
12
A Man Owes It to His Horse
WITH most of the men away, I thought I might have trouble finding anything to do on Sunday, but I didn’t. Hazel helped Jenny bring the breakfast into the chuckhouse, and when we were nearly through eating, she said to her father, “You didn’t ride fence this week, did you, Paw?”
“Nope,” he said. “Didn’t have no time. Prob’ly won’t get none this next week neither. Got to round up the whole shebang and cut out the tradin’ stock for next trip.”
He’d barely finished when Hazel said, “Ralph and me could ride fence for you this mornin’. Maw said I didn’t have to go to Sunday School.”
Mr. Bendt looked up, scowled, and asked, “You and who?”
I didn’t think Hazel could ever get flustered, but her face went as red as a sunrise, and she sort of stammered, “Me and . . . me and Little Britches.”
The dairyhands began laughing, and Mr. Bendt chuckled, “Put a new handle on him, did you? Well, I don’t see no . . .”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Jenny sang out. “Helen said you could stay home from Sunday School if you’d mind the baby and help with the dishes.”
“Well, I’ll do the dishes first—all by myself,” Hazel told her, “and Martha said she’d mind the baby.”
“What did you bribe her with, your birds’ eggs?”
“Ain’t got no birds’ eggs!”
“Haven’t any!” Jenny corrected her.
“Well, haven’t any, then! But Martha said she’d mind the baby.”
Mr. Bendt looked up at Hazel as if he were puzzled, and asked, “What you rarin’ to ride fence for, gal? Didn’t you kids get enough ridin’ this past week?”
“Well, we . . . we know where there’s a magpie’s nest, and we think there’s some young ones in it that’s about ready to fly, and we want to get one and teach it to talk.”
If we wanted anything like that, it was new to me, but when Mr. Bendt looked over, I nodded.
“You ain’t goin’ to have much time for learnin’ magpies to talk,” he told me. “You got the cuttin’ horse in your string, and we got plenty cuttin’ to do ’fore Batch gets back here.”
I was in sort of a mess. I didn’t want to teach a magpie to talk, and I did want to try cutting cattle with Clay. Besides, I’d have to get a good report from Mr. Bendt if I was to go on the next trip with Mr. Batchlett. But, after Hazel’s having taught me to find and handle cows, I couldn’t go back on her, either, so I said, “Well, I don’t know how to teach magpies to talk. I’m just going to help Hazel get one so she can teach it—if it’s all right with you.”
“Hmmm,” he said, “wouldn’t hurt none to get the fences rode, but I reckon there’s a possum in the woodpile.” Then he looked back at Hazel, and asked, “What you want a magpie for?”
“Martha wants it. I told her we’d try to get one for her. Can we, Paw?”
“Sounds to me like one of your two-way deals, gal; gettin’ out of Sunday School to mind the baby, and gettin’ out of minding the baby by puttin’ it up to Martha that she wants a magpie. Reckon you’d best go along to Sunday School; there’ll be plenty time for magpies after you get home.”
It was easy to see that Hazel knew better than to argue. She didn’t act sulky or peeved, but just shrugged her shoulders the least bit, as much as to say, “Well, I tried,” then picked up some dishes and went out.
When we were leaving the chuckhouse, Mr. Bendt asked me, “Want to give me a hand hookin’ up the buckboard?” Then, as we walked toward the carriage shed, he said, “If you’re rarin’ to ride, it might not be a bad notion to give Clay a workout. You ain’t quite got the hang of him yet.”
I’d felt guilty about picking Clay ever since Sid told me he was Mr. Bendt’s prize cutting horse. And I’d felt worse since the day I’d made a monkey of myself when I tried to use him. It seemed to me it would be better all around if I could give him back. So I said, “I know I haven’t got the hang of him, and maybe I never will. But if I’m going on trips with Mr. Batchlett I won’t have much use for him, and you’ll need him here on the home ranch. Wouldn’t it be better if I traded him for a trail horse out of your string?”
We were walking along side by side, and I watched Mr. Bendt’s face when I asked him. For a second or two it lighted up, then it sobered again, and he said, “No! No! You picked him fair and square—with a little help from Hazel—and he’s yours for the season. Fact is, if you’d give him half a chance, he’d do better with your weight on him than mine. Trouble is, you rare in too hard, try to rush things too much.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, “I know it now. I learned it on cows and calves. Hazel showed me how to do it the slow, easy way.”
“Want I should show you on Clay?”
“I’d like it if you would,” I said. “I guess I never paid enough attention when a good cutting horse was being ridden.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to it if you take your time, watch you don’t throw your horse off balance, and leave him have his head. When we get the folks off to church we’ll take a try at some of them cows and calves you and Hazel fetched in. What’s all this magpie business?”
“Well, I guess Hazel just wants to get one for Martha,” I said. “She showed me where there was a nest last Monday.”
Mr. Bendt didn’t say any more till we were hitching the horses to the buckboard. Then he asked, “You kids ain’t got a maverick out there you been tryin’ to ride, have you? You looked pretty shook-up a couple of days back.”
“No, sir,” I said. “We haven’t seen a horse except the ones we’ve been riding ourselves.”
“Betcha my life Hazel’s got somethin’ up her sleeve besides magpies and fence ridin’. You ain’t been learnin’ her none of them trick stunts you done at the roundup?”
It caught me so much by surprise that I was slow in saying, “No, sir.” And when it came out it was so low that it sounded like a lie, even if it wasn’t, so I had to add, “but we were teaching the horses how to do one of them.”
“That how your mare got her fore legs stove up?”
A lump came into my throat, and I felt as if I were talking to my own father again. He had always been able to read every sign, just as Mr. Bendt did, and to know what I’d been doing when I was out of his sight. As soon as I could swallow, I said, “Yes, sir. I stopped her too fast on soggy ground.”
“So I took note, but you ought to of put liniment on ’fore you bandaged ’em; there’s a bottle in the bunkhouse.”
“I used good hot bandages,” I told him, “and I don’t think her knees are sprung; she was only lame one day.”
“No, they ain’t,” he said, “but you might’a ruined her. Ought to filed her fore hoofs down tender ’fore you started out. That’ll learn ’em to dig in with the hind ones on them quick stops; saves their knees.”
“I know it,” I said. “Hi Beckman taught me that, but I didn’t think about it.”
“A man owes it to his horse to think about them thing
When I drove the buckboard up to the side door, all the children had on their best clothes, and were waiting with Mrs. Bendt and Jenny. They all looked fine, except Hazel. She had on a thin, light pink dress, high buttoned shoes, white stockings, and a straw sailor hat to match her dress—with a little bouquet of artificial flowers on it. Some girls change altogether when they wear their best clothes, but Hazel didn’t change a bit. With her freckled face and arms scratched from getting cows out of thickets, and with the end of her snubby nose peeling from sunburn, she looked about as funny in those fancy pink clothes as I would have. But Hazel didn’t seem to care.
When I was holding the horses, she called, “You got Barney’s check strap too loose; leave it that way and he’ll keep his head bobbin’ like a woodpecker.” As she said it, she came around to me, and whispered, “We’ll be back by two. Have Pinto and Pinch saddled up, ’cause if we don’t practice ’em good and plenty they’ll forget what we learnt ’em yesterday.”
Before I could answer, Jenny called, “Hazel, come here and let me get you straightened out! My goodness, you look like a scarecrow! Your hat’s on crooked, your dress is hiked up on one side, and your stockings are twisted.”
“Well, I’m all covered up, ain’t I?” Hazel called back, “and that’s what clothes are for.” But she went over and let Jenny fix her. Then, as they drove out of the dooryard, she called to me, “Now don’t forget what I told you!”