Horse Tradin' (12 page)

I went in my room and started to getting clothes. It wasn't cold enough yet to put them on, but I wanted a batch to take with me. As I headed toward the barn with a batch of extra britches and leather jackets, my daddy drove in the driveway and called: “Where you fixin' to spend the winter?”

I told him I was fixin' to have a little mule drive. He thought my mule trade was very foolish but had been too kind to say so. I knew he thought those heifers would be grown cows and have calves before I got the mules caught.

I had two good horses in the barn—well fed and shod and drawn down hard from constant use. Old Beauty was my standby; I felt she had more sense than most of my schoolteachers at that time and understood me better than
my family did. Charlie was a big bay horse with a scar on his forefoot that didn't hurt him. He was a head-nodding fox trotter the same as Beauty and a big, stout, hard, using horse but not too trustworthy. I saddled him and started out leading Beauty. She didn't need much leading, as she would travel right up even with your saddle horse and not even tighten the halter rope. As I rode out of the front yard, my dad stepped out on the porch. By this time it was nearly dark, and he hollered at me that if I got in trouble to turn that old mare loose. The reason he said this was because Beauty would come home—and in a way that would spread the alarm, and he would know to come and see about me.

I sat pretty straight and tight in the saddle and kept old Charlie headed north. I wanted to make it to the pasture before the norther hit. It must have been about eleven o'clock at night when I reached the fence-line on the south side. I took my horseshoe nippers off my saddle, tore the barbwire off the posts, and laid the fence back for about two hundred yards in the southeast corner of the pasture. I tied old Beauty across the road on a loose rope where she could graze a little and poured some oats I had brought in a sack on the grass for her. Then I rode Charlie to the far north side of the pasture.

I knew that the sound of burning wood and the smell of cedar smoke would strike terror to the heart of the old mare who had been in the barn fire. It was my plan to set fire to the dead cedar where the north wind would blow the smoke through the canyon, and the old mare would lead the mules to the south side of the pasture. A cold front always moves in with a lot of high wind which
I needed to fan the flames, and when I heard on the radio that the norther was coming, I knew it was time for my mule roundup.

I rode onto the spot where the dead cedar was, but I needed to pile it up some to where it would start a big fire. I slipped the bit out of Charlie's mouth and poured the rest of the oats on the ground for him. I loosened the cinch so he could eat and rest while I piled the dead cedar and started a fire. When the flames began to jump about twenty feet, I knew I had a real brush fire started; so I tightened my cinch, rebridled Charlie, and got ready to ride.

The wind was against the mules and the mare, and from where I sat I couldn't hear her bell. There was a little trail around the fence toward the pens, and I brought Charlie out in a dead run. As I rode into the west side of the pasture, I could hear the bell a-clanging, and I heard the old mare nickering in a loud tone that was almost a scream. The mules were braying and the stampede was on.

I found a clearing and rode to the southwest corner as fast as I could. There was a ditch at the road which I knew would slow the mules and the old mare up a little, and I wanted to beat them to the road to be sure I turned them toward town if I could. As I jumped my horse across the ditch, Beauty had her head up and began to nicker at all the excitement. I held her still until the old gray mare came into view—followed by the herd of mules with the flames behind them lighting up the northwest. I turned Beauty loose toward town and dropped back to make sure the mules didn't go up the road in the wrong direction.

After about three or four miles, the mules quit running.
The old mare had begun to give out, and Beauty was in the lead in a long, swinging trot heading for home. When you handled wild mules, the thing to do when you started to drive them was to run them until they winded themselves; then they were easy to drive. By daylight, these mules drove like they were gentle. I jogged along slow behind them, let them graze, and gave my horse time to rest a little and water where a creek crossed the road.

About the time that all the good people were out on the street in their Sunday best going to church, here came the renegade of the community down the main street of town, wrapped in dusty chaps and leather coats with two tired saddle horses, an exhausted gray mare, a roadful of not-such-wild mules, and obviously not on his way to church.

I missed a couple of days of school because it took that long to drive the judge's heifers to the pasture and put the fence back. I roached, sheared, halter-broke, and sold mules until spring. It may seem strange to modern-day livestock operators that a man could be shearing a mule's tail and feel like he had struck a gold mine, but these mules were selling for $100 apiece and more, and by spring—after selling the fifty-four head of mules—I was almost rich, compared to my low ebb during the winter when I was in the heifer business.

One brisk November
evening just about dusk—the weather wasn't cold but it was nippy—I had gone to the pasture and driven my pet mares that were bred for fall and winter colts into town. I was bringing them into the barn in town to give them some special attention through the winter.

As we started up the slope toward the barn, I noticed the outline of a man standing leaning against it and holding the reins of what was bound to be a broodmare, also outlined against the barn. As the horses neared the gate, I hollered at the man to open it for me.

After we got the mares inside the pen I wanted them in and got them some good hay, we began to visit a little. My horse was pretty well ridden down since I had left town that morning about daylight. This fellow was tall and looked like a horseman. You could tell that he, too, had ridden a long way, and his mare—a good bay, heavy in foal—should not have been ridden as much as the dried sweat on her indicated she had. The fellow told me he had crossed the Brazos River late in the afternoon, had stopped at a country store called Tin Top, and had had a talk with Matt Sisk about trading for another horse.

Matt Sisk was a member of an old pioneer family and had been quite a cowboy in his day. He had settled down to keeping store many years before this and was looked upon more as an institution than a man. He gave out good information and advice and seldom, if ever, repeated anything that would be damaging; consequently he had the confidence of all the natives along the river.

Matt Sisk had told the fellow that if, when he got to Weatherford, Texas, I would let him have one of my own riding horses, he would get a horse that would be sound, hard as iron, and a good traveler. Matt went on to describe a black horse that I had ridden past Tin Top a few days before, while driving a roadful of mules. He said there was no danger of this horse's not being able to stand the ride he had in mind, because I had probably already given him plenty of chance to road-founder from distance.

When this fellow got through telling me the story about what Matt had told him, I got the black horse out of the stall. He'd had two or three days rest and was in shape for a long hard ride.

Being more curious than Matt Sisk, I had to ask him a few questions about where he was going and what was his hurry. He explained to me that he'd had a little misunderstanding, and that he felt like if he could put a few hills and valleys—and especially the Red River, which would put him into Oklahoma—between where he had been and where he was going, he would probably winter with a greater peace of mind.

His mare was a good six-year-old bay and was bred to Joe Bailey, so he said. I could readily decide that she was worth as much money as the black horse, but she was not in fit condition to carry a man seventy miles, cutting across country, and beyond the Red River by morning.

There was a little something about the black horse that neither Matt Sisk nor very many people outside my family knew about. After a day's rest, I always would have to have my daddy come out and ear this horse down and hold him in order for me to be able to get on him. He wasn't bad to buck, but he was hard to get on. And he was a big stout horse, and I was a short-legged teen-age boy. A few mornings before this I had gotten my dad out of bed before daylight in the cold to ear down this horse, and he had told me either to grow up to the horse's size or ride him down to my size, that he was tired of having to get up to see me off on these early morning rides.

Of course, feeling sorry for my friend who was in trouble—or was trying to avoid trouble—I felt like I should make him a fair proposition; so I told him I would
take $100 boot between my grain-fed, fresh-shod, good-traveling black horse and his weak, grass-fed broodmare. The old boy walked around a little, then stomped and said he had a $100 and needed the horse—but he just couldn't give me all of it. He'd give me $85 and ride on. Not wanting him to be clean out of grub money, I consented to take the $85 and the mare; so he saddled the black horse and rode away.

He was a big stout fellow about thirty years old and didn't have any trouble getting on this horse—and I sure was glad he didn't have any trouble before he had gotten out of sight.

Even though I was a seasoned horse trader, I was just a boy in high school. About a week later Mr. Grandstaff, who was principal of the school, came to the room where I was attending class, stuck his head in the door, just crooked his finger at me, and said: “Ben, come in my office.”

It wasn't exactly a pleasant tone of voice nor a welcome invitation, but Mr. Grandstaff was a fine fellow and a great friend of mine, and I didn't have much fear of whatever he wanted to see me about. When I walked into Mr. Grandstaff's office there was a short, fat, big-bellied, past middle-age man sitting in an armchair holding a great big hat in one hand. There was a great big star on his big fat chest. We shook hands and he told me he had been by my barn, where there was a good six-year-old, heavy-with-foal bay mare in my lot. She belonged to a good voting citizen of his county who said the mare was ridden away without his knowledge or consent by his son-in-law who was in a hurry. The sheriff had come to get the mare.

I choked and felt a little sick about my horse trade
and asked him if he could identify the mare. He said that she had a small wire scar on the inside quarter of her right back foot, and this was the only blemish on her—which I knew. He said that the father-in-law of my passing friend was waiting at my barn and was ready to haul the mare home.

Mr. Grandstaff said that I could take off from school to go help load the mare. I was glad to go, but I told Mr. Grandstaff that it wasn't to help load the mare—it was to be sure that only one mare was loaded!

The summer had
been very enjoyable. I had been to lots of ropin's, horse races, and all day picnics. And during the time I was having all this “growin'-up” cowboy fun, I had made several good horse trades.

It was beginning to get late in the summer, and trading on saddle horses had dropped off some. I had about twenty nice, smooth, medium-sized, gentle riding horses of good ages, all sound and most of them shod. I knew I didn't need that many saddle horses to make the winter on, and I knew it was time that I should try to turn some of them into money. The crops were good all over the land, and it would not be hard to sell riding horses if you knew where to take them.

One morning I packed a bedroll and some supplies on a couple of packhorses, turned them into the road with the rest of the horses, and started driving them away from town. I hadn't fully made up my mind where I was going, but I felt like the farm country might be the best place to sell these good, sound kind of usin' horses that were gentle for farm boys. I drifted over into the blackland part of Texas. It was a while before cotton-picking time; I didn't get many takers on these good ponies, and nobody wanted to give enough for them.