Horse Tradin' (7 page)

Colonel Bob excused himself and retired early that evening. I was sitting on a long sofa with Baby Belle curled up to my side in front of that fireplace. Mamma
Belle was sitting over in a great big chair next to the corner of the fireplace. “Ben,” she said, “I have a problem I would like to discuss with you.”

I couldn't imagine her having any problems, but I said: “I'd just be glad to help you if it is something that I would know about.”

“You would certainly know about it. I live in constant feah that the Rebel Commandah is going to hurt Daddy Bob. I was wondering, as a favor to me, would you try to buy the Rebel Commandah and load him with your hosses and take him back to Texas?”

I said: “Why, that would be doing me a favor—not you.”

“Daddy Bob is not going to want to sell the Rebel Commandah. It may take more money to buy him than he will ever bring you in Texas. I was wondering if you would go ahead and try to buy him, and let me give you the difference in money.”

I said: “Oh, I doubt if that will be necessary. Let me ask Colonel Bob tomorrow what he will take for the Rebel Commander.”

“Please don't let him know,” she said, “that I've asked you to buy him, because then he wouldn't sell him at all. And we do want to get rid of that hoss before he hurts Daddy Bob.”

I said: “He is beautifully mannered and well behaved. I don't see how he would hurt Colonel Bob—and he seems to get a great pleasure out of driving him.”

“I know, but at Daddy Bob's age there is danger in his driving such a spirited hoss.”

Baby Belle hadn't entered into this conversation, and she didn't say anything after Mamma Belle quit talking.
But Mamma Belle said: “Well, find out in the morning if you can buy the horse from Daddy Bob, then tell me what he says.”

She excused herself and went on off to bed. Baby Belle and I sat by the fire and talked and told each other about our plans. She was going to that girls' finishing school, and I was going back to Texas, but she would write me. And I told her I never did answer anybody's letters—but I might hers.

She said: “You mean you might?”

I said: “Well, you can try me and see.” And after while it was late, and I went back to the hotel.

Early next morning I went by to see Colonel Bob. He was out at the barn, and the Rebel Commander was in a dark stall in the corner. Of course I knew that you kept a black horse in a dark stall to keep his hair good. I knew that was all right, and I didn't ask him to get the horse out. I just stepped in the stall and walked around the horse a little bit. He was very nice and quiet and gentle—and I spoke to him and put my hand on his neck and rubbed him a little and walked out. Then I said: “Colonel Bob, I have traded for some saddle mares to take back to Texas, but I don't have that driving horse I wanted. I just wondered if you could be persuaded to part with the Rebel Commander?”

“Oh,” he said, “Ben, I'd hesitate to part with him. After all, he's just an eight-year-old hoss, a nice drivin' hoss, and probably the last great hoss I'll ever own. It grieves me to think that I should sell him. Howevah, I would rather sell him to you and let him go out West where I won't see him again than sell him heah in town.”

I said: “Colonel, I can appreciate that. I don't know
what he might cost, but if he is not beyond my means I'll try to buy the horse.”

“Well, Ben, with all the quality and breeding and speed of the Rebel Commandah, I wouldn't think of taking less than five hundred for him.”

I said: “Colonel, I am sure he is worth that, but I don't know whether or not I have a customer who would give that for him. Before I ship out tomorrow, I'd like to talk to you about it again.”

“Well, it doesn't mattah much whether I sell him or not.”

“I'm sure of that,” I said, “but I'll see you after while.”

I drove down to the drugstore and got out and went in—and here came Mamma Belle. “Have you talked to Colonel Bob?”

“Yes,” I said, “and he wants five hundred for the Rebel Commander. That's a tremendous amount of money this day and time for a horse—and I doubt that I can sell him and break even on him.”

She said: “Ben, I wish you would buy him, and let me give you a hundred on the five. Then he won't have to bring so much in Texas.”

I ran that through my mind. I knew that the horse was not going to bring more than $250 in Texas—but I'd had a big time and made lots of money on this trip and the Dixons had been such a delightful part of it all—I told her that I would go ahead and buy the Rebel Commander. She could do as she pleased about giving me the $100.

About that time Tom came in the drugstore and she said: “Tom, go in the bank and get a hundred to give Ben.” I'd got way past that Mistah Green stuff—hadn't anybody called me Mistah Green for a week.

Tom turned around and pushed the pencil tight up against his ear and went off to the bank. Directly he came back with two fifty-dollar bills and handed them to Mamma Belle. She turned and handed them to me and thanked me so much.

I went back to the house and told Colonel Bob that I would buy the horse. I gave him a check on his own bank where I had been keeping my money. He thanked me very much and said he would have William bring the horse to the stock car when I got ready to load out. I told him I would wall off a place in the stock car—where the Rebel Commander wouldn't be riding with the common horses and mules. He said he appreciated that.

I loaded my stock out in the middle of the next afternoon. Then that night I had Colonel Bob and Mamma Belle and Baby Belle and all the folks that had been so nice to me for dinner at the hotel. The good lady at the hotel fixed us a private table off over in a private dining room, and I put on a pretty nice farewell dinner for a fellow that had made his money in the horse and mule business. We told each other good-bye, and the next morning I left before daylight and started back to Texas.

I sat up straight and drove hard and got back home before my load of horses and mules got in on the train. I had drawn my money out of the Mississippi bank, and I got home thinking about how well I had done on this trip.

The next morning the train came in with my stock. The first thing I did was unload the Rebel Commander. I got him on the ground and brushed and curried him a little bit and led him out by the bridle. When we had started to load the horse in Dixon, old William told me
that Colonel Bob had included the patent leather bridle with the patent leather blinds. He left it on the Rebel Commander because, he said, it belonged to him. Old William said I would understand later on.

There was a doctor in my home town that I thought might buy the Rebel Commander. The way it was in our country in the wintertime, a doctor sometimes needed a buggy, and he was still keeping a buggy horse, even though he had some automobiles. I knew the Rebel Commander would appeal to him.

I let the horse rest that day, but the next day I had him cleaned up and brushed off and groomed nicely. I hooked him to an open-top runabout buggy—a nice kind of buggy, well trimmed with red leatherette on the seats and with good long shafts. I noticed that when I led him up and put him under the shafts, he stood very still. Everything I did around him, he seemed to notice. And he would listen and watch for me to put my hands on him—but he never offered to do anything wrong.

I got him hitched to this nice little light buggy and came driving up Main Street in my little home town, driving to the post office. I reined the Rebel Commander in just one building down from the post office where there was a store building with a plank walk in front of it. I reined the Rebel Commander to bring him in at the front of that store, and I dropped the lines—expecting him to stop, like any horse would. Instead of stopping, he drove right on up on the porch of the store where he jabbed both forefeet through the plank flooring of the porch. Then he just stood there and snorted and shook.

I picked his feet up out of the floor—one at a time, very carefully—and talked to him and backed him to the
street. His legs were skinned a little.

Now, that morning I had loosened the blinds on his bridle. I had thought they were too close together and too tight. So when I got his feet out of the porch of that store and looked up at him, these blinds were drawn back and there was no reflection of light from that patent leather—and his eyes suddenly looked very dull to me.

I rubbed him on the neck and patted him and talked to him and left him standing while I went in the post office. There was a letter from Baby Belle. She had written me just before she left for finishing school. I could hardly wait to get her letter open, and I tore the envelope up pretty bad and went to unfolding it. It smelled good, and the writing was pretty, and she started off by saying:

It all came back—why people were so afraid that the Rebel Commander was going to hurt the Colonel. And why the horse was so perfectly mannered! He was stone
blind, and he depended on his driver for every move. At the race, he didn't know whether he was in front or behind, and he was listening to the command of his driver. And the reason Colonel Bob didn't stop when he came through town: he had no place to stand a blind horse without running the risk of people discovering he was blind.

The patent leather blinds—William said I would understand later. It was doubtful that many of the townfolks—or anybody but William—knew the horse was blind. It was a matter kept strictly secret between Daddy Bob and Mamma Belle, and it was a delight to his old black heart that he could cheat just one more horse man.

I had walked very slowly out of the post office reading Baby Belle's letter. When I looked up from reading, several people were standing around Rebel Commander admiring him. I hadn't noticed them around before, and I didn't think anybody had seen my horse go up on the plank sidewalk of the building. But just to take care of things, I walked up to the Rebel Commander and began to unbuckle and take up his bridle.

“He's a little hard-mouthed,” I said, “and this bridle is too loose on him for me to keep good control.” Of course I didn't mention how pulling those blinds in close put the sparkle back in his eyes.

I got in the buggy—still clutching Baby Belle's letter—and drove the Rebel Commander at a smooth, nice rate of speed right on through town to show that he was a real harness horse with a lot of breeding and a lot of style. I was the only man in Texas who knew that the Rebel Commander was worth exactly what Colonel Bob had paid for him at the track—nothing!

When I was
about fifteen years old, I was a very promising young horse trader, I thought, and was sure that I had already learned the worst and the best tricks about trading horses and mules.

I was riding down the road one afternoon, and an old Ford pickup passed me with a lot of household goods stacked on it—such as cane-bottom chairs, feather mattress, iron bedstead, and a potbellied stove. I looked behind this old pickup, and there was a homemade trailer—in fact, almost all trailers were homemade at that time. The man was hauling a gray mare mule with a long mane and tail, well matted with cockleburrs. He drove up past me a little piece to a shade tree and stopped.

It was late in the summer and pretty hot. As I rode up, the man got out of the pickup and walked back even with the trailer and patted the mule. We passed the time of day for a few minutes, and he asked me where he could sell his mule. His wife stuck her head out of the pickup, stopped the kids from bawling a few minutes, and said: “Homer, you oughtn't to sell that mule. We'll get a mate for her and make another crop. Yore just disheartened, that's all.”

“Shut up, Maw,” he said. “I ain't goin' to make no more crops. I'm goin' to town and get me a job of public work.”

Then he explained to me that the mate to his mule had died, the Johnson grass had taken over his crop, and he was quitting farming and wanted to sell the mule.