Man of the Family (7 page)

Then she said, “Father must be proud,
proud
, of the way his children are taking care of their mother.” She took her hands down from her face, smiled, and drew us all in close to her. “This is what we'll do: we'll all go down to the village in the morning and put this right in the savings bank. Won't it be wonderful to have money in the bank that we don't owe to anyone?”

Strawberries followed right after cherries. And I didn't have to ask Ernie Ballad if Muriel and Philip could pick. He wanted them to. Mr. Gallup had more than ten acres of strawberries and, being up on the hill, they ripened earlier than any others around town. We were the first pickers that Ernie started, and we made the last picking of the season. We always liked to work at Gallup's better than anywhere else, because he paid us in cash instead of berries, and we got more berries than Mother could can from other places where we picked. Almost everybody gave a quarter of the pick for strawberries, the same as they did for cherries, but Mr. Gallup paid us two cents a quart. Grace was the best picker in any of the fields, and I could do pretty well. We couldn't make quite so much money a day on strawberries as we did on cherries, and it was a lot harder work, but the strawberries lasted longer. At first, we all thought our backs would break from bending over, and before Ernie showed us how to make pads out of gunny sacks, we wore all the skin off our knees.

Mr. Gallup paid us every week during the strawberry season and, whenever we got in a full week, the check would be for twenty-one or twenty-two dollars. Mother didn't go with us any more, but we children all went together every time we put a check in the bank.

9

The Fourth of July

U
SUALLY
I didn't mind taking the other children with me when I went places, but on the Fourth of July I wanted to go to the fairgrounds all by myself. I knew that the fellows from Cooper's would be there, and all the other men from out around our old ranch. That spring I'd been too busy to think much about them, but, with the Fourth coming on, I got a little bit homesick for the ranch—and for horses. I wondered if the men would remember me—especially Hi. He was Cooper's range foreman, the one who really taught me to handle a horse. The year before, we had won a trick-riding contest together.

I think Mother guessed how I felt the night before the Fourth, and she let me sit up later than any of the other children. I was sure she'd done it so as to tell me I couldn't ride any horses, and I talked about most anything else, just to keep her from it. But she only said she would worry if I planned to do any trick-riding, because I was out of practice and would be almost sure to have an accident. I told her she didn't need to worry; that I hadn't registered for the trick-riding, and that nobody could ride unless they were registered beforehand.

We were there by the kitchen table for a long time after that, neither of us saying anything. Mother had put her arm around me, and was stroking the hair back from my cowlick with her tender hand. I knew she was thinking about Father's having been hurt by a horse, but she didn't mention it. After she'd stroked and stroked, she said, “You've been such a fine little man. . . . I can't have anything happen to you. . . . You will be careful, won't you?”

Mother seemed terribly tired, and her voice was almost flat. It was two or three minutes after I'd told her I'd be careful, before she spoke again. She got up from the table, smiled, and said, “Ralph, I do want you to have a good time. Gracie will bring the other children down in the afternoon, in time for the races, but why don't you go early in the morning?”

While she was saying it, she went to the clock shelf, got down her Wedgwood sugar bowl, and took out a half dollar. “Here, Son,” she said; “a man should have some money in his pocket when he goes to a roundup. And don't try to skimp. I'll see that Gracie has some for herself and the children, too. My, my, how the time has flown this evening; it's nearly ten o'clock. We must hurry right to bed and get our rest. . . . Did I think to feed King tonight?” I reminded her that she'd fed King right after supper, picked up the lamp, and we went up the stairs together.

Always, on the Fourth of July and Labor Day, there'd been a roundup, with horse races, trick-riding, and side shows. There were chuck-wagon races, harness races, and Thoroughbred races; but it was the cow-horse races that everybody liked best. Those were the ones that the biggest bets were made on. Some of them were at a half mile—all the way around the track—but most of them were a quarter mile, from the middle of the backstretch to the finish line in front of the grandstand.

None of the fellows from Cooper's, nor any of the other men from out west of Fort Logan, were there when I got to the fairgrounds. It was early, about eight o'clock, and the races didn't start until one. But I thought, if some of them were going to race a green horse, they'd bring him there bright and early so he'd have plenty of time to get over being nervous.

There was plenty for me to do, though. The Littleton roundups were the best ones anywhere in Colorado, and they always brought good bucking and running horses from all over the state. They even shipped in outlaws from Wyoming and, sometimes, Thoroughbreds from Kansas or Nebraska. Of course, the Thoroughbreds were kept in the stables, but the bucking stock was in the corrals out in the infield. I went there the first thing. Hi Beckman and Jerry Alder were about the best bronc riders around our part of the state, and having been at both roundups with them the summer before, I knew a lot of the outlaws. There were nearly forty broncs in the big corral, and half a dozen of the meanest ones were closed up in the chutes.

Several of the wranglers around the corrals knew me, so nobody stopped me from climbing up on top of the pole fence to see how many of the buckers I could remember. There were a lot of them: Old Steamboat, Dead Easy, Shasta, Old Faithful, The Piledriver, and a dozen or so others. I was just sitting there looking at them and thinking what Hi had said the last fall about The Piledriver being loco, and how he ought to be taken out of competition before he killed a couple of good men. All at once I was yanked off the fence as though I'd been caught by a swinging hay hook. It was Hi. He swung me clear around him by one leg, and then tossed me up on his shoulder. “By doggies, it's old Little Britches hisself,” he hollered. “How you been, pardner? Look a-here what I found, Len! It's Little Britches! We figgered we'd find you some place around here. How you been, kid? It's a long time, ain't it? Where's your chaps and boots?”

I hadn't worn the cowboy clothes the fellows got for me when I was working at Cooper's. It hadn't seemed right to get all dressed up when I knew I wasn't going to ride. And I couldn't answer Hi, anyway. He'd pretty near swung all the wind out of me, and besides, I just couldn't say a word.

By that time Mr. Cooper and a whole bunch of the ranch fellows had come up to the corral. There were Ted Ebberts and Tom Brogan, Fred Aultland, and Jerry Alder; and even Juan, the chuck wagon cook. Usually Hi didn't talk very much, but that day he was wound up tighter than an eight-day clock. He wouldn't even stand me down on the ground to shake hands with the other fellows, but kept me sitting on his shoulder, and he squeezed my legs till they hurt. “Betcha my life you can't guess what I got over to the barn corral,” he whispered to me. It wasn't really a whisper, either. It was that soft-talk voice he always used to a horse when he wanted to quiet him down. “Betcha my life you can't guess?”

I could guess. And I was as homesick for him as I was for Hi. I was so excited that my voice went all squeaky. “Is it Sky High?” I asked.

“You're dang right, it's Sky High,” he chuckled. “I been ridin' him every day to keep his foot in. Didn't put him out to range all winter, but kept him at the home place so's he wouldn't forget his schoolin'. Didn't I, Len?”

Mr. Cooper nodded his head and got his mouth open to say something, but Hi kept right on going. “Yes, sir, me and Tom's been puttin' him through his tricks for the past two weeks, so's he'd be all ready for ya. . . . Say, didn't you bring your ridin' cloze, Little Britches?”

“No,” I said, “I couldn't ride, anyway. I'm not registered.” I didn't want to tell him I'd promised Mother I wouldn't try to do any trick-riding.

Mr. Cooper got his mouth open again, but Hi yelled, “Ain't registered! Len! you didn't forget to put Little Britches on the book along with the rest of us? Where's Ed Bemis this time-a-day?” He started off toward the steward's shack as fast as he could hobble on his high heels. He was still squeezing my legs and hollering, “By doggies, this kid's goin' on the book 'fore ever I straddle a bronc.”

As we started off, Mr. Cooper grabbed Hi's arm, and laughed, “Get your tail out over the britchin', Hi, you'll pull a hamstring. The kid's marked down second on the book—right between you and Ted. I ain't saw you so het up since Juan put cayenne pepper in the apple pie.”

For about a minute I didn't know what to do. It was easy to see how much Hi wanted me to be in the trick-riding with him, and I knew they'd done everything the way they had so as to surprise me. And I knew how much I wanted to ride in the contest, too. I really hadn't promised Mother I wouldn't. She'd just said she'd worry if I planned to do any trick-riding, and all I'd said was that I couldn't do any because I wasn't even registered. Of course, I didn't have any idea, then, that I was. I guess I'd have gone right ahead and ridden, if it hadn't been for Father. I could almost hear him saying all over again, “I don't know a man I'd rather be in business with, if you can be open and aboveboard, but I won't have a sneaky partner.” My throat tightened up, and I pulled on Hi's collar. When he looked up, I said, “I can't ride the tricks, Hi. Mother's scared I might get hurt because I'm out of practice . . . and I'm kind of her man now.”

Hi's face went sort of dead looking, but it was for only half a second, then he grinned. I knew he meant it to look like a smile, so I wouldn't think he was disappointed. “By doggies, Little Britches,” he said, “your maw's right as rain. Now, ain't I the dang fool? Should ought to've been down here with Old Blue and Sky High a week ago, so's you could get your hand back in. Oh well, what the hell, Labor Day'll be along pretty soon, and then we'll show them lop-eared sons a thing or two, hey, pardner?”

Hi put me down then, and we all went over to the big corral near the stables. That's where the riding stock was kept. The Y-B fellows—that was the name of Cooper's ranch—had brought down a dozen head; Jerry Alder, three; and Fred Aultland, five. Some of them were cutting horses, some ropers, and a few runners. All the way over from the infield, the fellows were talking about a cat-hammed bay gelding that Fred had brought in from Kansas. He was mostly Morgan, and they said he could run a quarter mile like a lightning ball across a hot stove. Tom Brogan was going to ride him in the hundred-dollar stake race, and they had been training him on a half-circle, quarter-mile track, down by Bear Creek where nobody could see them. All the fellows were going to bet on him, and they'd come early so as to give him a workout on the fairgrounds track before the crowd got there.

Lots of people say a horse doesn't remember very long, but I don't believe it. Sky High was way over across the corral when we came up to the bars, and he was tail toward us. I don't know whether he remembered how I looked or how my voice sounded. Anyway, he lifted his head right up when I called to him, swung it toward me, and nickered. Not loud, but just a little whispering nicker way up in his muzzle, then he trotted over to the bars.

Sky had hardly stopped nickering when Mr. Cooper said, “Well, I'll be doggoned! Look at that Sky horse; he knows the kid.” And Hi's voice sounded as if he was kind of choked up. “By doggies,” he said, “ain't that purty? Actin' jest like a old range mare that's found her lost colt.” I think he said more. I was astraddle of the top bar, and Sky High put his muzzle right up in my lap. I wanted to laugh and cry, all at the same time, and I didn't even have a piece of sugar in my pocket to give him.

Before I'd finished talking to Sky High, the men had all crawled through the bars and were saddling Fred's bay. Everybody seemed to be trying to tell Tom Brogan how he ought to ride him to win the hundred-dollar race, and they were all trying to do it at the same time. I yelled over to them, “I'll bet Sky can beat him any old time; he could beat the tar out of Hi's Blue.”

They all laughed as if they thought Sky was an old plug; then Fred Aultland said, “Let Little Britches ride along with you while you're warming him up, Tom. Might keep the bay from getting nervous till he gets used to the layout here.”

I wanted to ride bareback for two reasons. I didn't think I could get the best out of Sky with a big saddle, and then, too, I didn't want Hi to ask me about my own saddle. When I'd started to work at Cooper's, he'd made me one by hand that was just my size, but it was stolen from our barn the first week we were in Littleton. So I just put a bridle on Sky and slid onto his back from the top rail of the corral. Tom had a stripped-down saddle on the bay that couldn't have weighed more than ten pounds. Everybody used light saddles for racing.

The first couple of times around the track we didn't hurry. We just let the horses canter along easy, to loosen them up and get the sweat running. The bay didn't like it. He kept bobbing his head and jerking at the lines so that Tom would let him out, but Sky loped along beside him as easy as a greyhound behind a carriage. But I knew he didn't feel that way inside, because every time the bay would start to make a break, Sky's ears would prick forward, and I could feel his muscles bunch under my knees.

While we were going around the track the second time, Jerry Alder rode over to the middle of the back stretch. By the time we got there he had marked off a starting line, and was standing back against the outside railing with his six gun in his hand. Sky didn't have any idea what it was all about, but the bay went into a regular jig, so that his hoofs sounded like sticks on a snare drum. Tom brought him up to the line—right next to the inside rail—and held his head around to keep him quiet till Jerry pulled the trigger. I was afraid Sky might get left behind, so I held the end of the lines up over my head—all ready to smack him when the gun went off.

I needn't have done it, though. You'd have thought both horses had been shot out of a cannon. The bay was away first, but only by half a length. And Sky took in after him with his ears pinned back tight to his neck. At first I thought we could catch right up, but we couldn't. Sky was taking a long, pounding gait, with his head stretched out like a wild goose in flight. The bay was running with a short chop, and his legs were going like the pitman rod on a runaway mowing machine. By the time we had gone fifty yards he was out in front, and I brought Sky over against the rail behind him.

I wanted us to win so much that I guess I went a little loco, and I could only think that I had to do something to make Sky take shorter strides and more of them. Inch by inch, the space between his nose and the bay's tail was getting wider and wider. I stretched out along his neck and withers, with my head right up close to his ears, and started to talk to him. I didn't really talk to him, either. I just kept saying, over and over, “Come on, come on, come on.” I said it right in time with the beat of his hoofs, at first. Then I started saying it just a little bit faster. I didn't yell, but just said it easy—the way Hi always talked to a horse.