Home Ranch (7 page)

I was sitting in the saddle sort of loose-jointed—thinking what I was going to say to Hazel—when Blueboy suddenly busted wide open. He caught me when I wasn't ready, and I didn't have a chance. From the instant of his first side-jump, I bounced around in my saddle like a pea in a gourd. I forgot what Sid had told me about keeping the hackamore tight, and couldn't even hold an arm out for balance. Both arms and both legs were flailing and I was flying in mid-air when Sid's arm looped around me and pulled me across his horse's neck. I don't think Blueboy even missed me; he kept right on pitching as if he were trying to throw the saddle over the moon.

The wind was knocked out of me so much I couldn't talk when Sid gathered me in—but he could. He spluttered at me like an old setting hen, wanting to know why in the world I'd picked Blueboy in the first place, why I hadn't been watching out for tricks, and why I didn't take a dive when he caught me napping. There weren't any good answers, and I didn't try to give any. It seemed as if I'd made a monkey of myself with everything I'd tried to do all afternoon, and I didn't feel very happy when Sid let me slide down at the gate. If I could have slipped away, climbed onto Lady, and headed for home, I think I'd have done it.

Blueboy was still kicking and bucking, and Mr. Batchlett looked pretty sore when he opened the gate and came in. “Well, young fellah,” he said, “you picked yourself a big handful, didn't you? What you goin' to do with him now you've got him?”

“I haven't got him,” I said. “He had me thrown clear when Sid grabbed me.”

“Rode out your ten count, didn't you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, “but then he wasn't bucking like . . .”

“Then he's yours! You going to ride him or ruin him?”

For a second it seemed as if the bottom had dropped out of my stomach, and my mouth went dry as powder. The first thought that crossed my mind was that Mr. Batchlett was sore at me for having picked Blueboy, and that he wanted me to get hurt.

I hadn't been so scared since the first time I was dumped off a horse—and I think that's what saved me.

That first tumble came back to me in a flash. It had been when I was eight years old. Father had picked me up, caught the horse, and told me to get back on. “Unless you show him who's boss right now, it will ruin you both,” he'd told me. “He'll lose respect for you, and you'll lose respect for yourself.” When I'd hung back and told him I was afraid, he'd said, “You don't have to be ashamed of that. Every man who ever did a brave thing was afraid. It doesn't take courage to do the things you're not afraid of.”

It almost seemed as if I could hear Father's voice again. I looked up at Mr. Batchlett, and said, “I'll ride him now . . . and thank you.”

He slapped me on the shoulder, and called, “Get a rope on that blue devil, Sid! We got a bronc-twister comin' up.”

There wasn't any real bronc-twisting to my second ride on Blueboy. He'd nearly bucked himself out in trying to unload the saddle. I kept the hackamore rope pulled tight, and he only made about ten straightforward pitches before he came to a stand.

Even Hazel came over to the gate to meet us when I rode Blueboy out of the breaking pen, but she was still snippy. The first chance she got, she turned up her nose at me and said, “Well, you got him, Smarty, but you'll be sorry.”

When Mr. Bendt was in the corral for his third pick, Mr. Batchlett came and stood beside me. “You've got more horse there than a boy of your age ought to have,” he told me, “and I reckon I'm out of my head to let you keep him. He's headstrong as a mule, tougher'n bull beef, and can't be trusted. Don't you go tryin' to ride him without there's one another of us close by.”

I just nodded my head—we stood there for a couple of minutes, watching Mr. Bendt catch Juno—the neat pinto mare I'd had my eye on, and the one Hazel had told me to pick. Then Mr. Batchlett squeezed my shoulder a quick little grab, and said, “I know how you feel about him, Little Britches. Felt the same way 'bout his old man when I was younger—greatest wild horse ever I laid eyes on!” He rubbed a hand along Blueboy's sweaty neck, smiled, and said, “Reckon maybe that's why I ain't give up on this worthless son-of-a-gun.”

It was so late when we finished the horse-picking that Mr. Batchlett decided not to send the rest of the remuda to the mountain ranch till morning, and I was glad of it. I hadn't really been hurt at all, but I'd been thumped and twisted around until I ached all over. As soon as we'd had supper, I made a beeline for my bunk.

6

A Yella Ribbon

O
N BATCHLETT'S
home ranch part of the cowhands' job was to keep the fences up and, as a day could be spared, posts were cut and hauled from the mountains. When we'd finished breakfast Monday morning, Mr. Batchlett pushed his chair back and said, “Don't aim to start tradin' trips till next week, but once we're at it there won't be no time for side work. How about you boys wrastlin' in a few loads of fence posts? That'll give you an hour or two, morning and night, to get your horse strings worked in easy.”

Then, as we left the table, he took hold of my arm, and said, “Ain't much of an axe arm, is it? You little devils had best to split up for this go-round. You ain't got weight enough between you to wrastle a good-sized post. Supposin' you team up with Zeb, and Sid can go along with Ned. Tom, you and Hank can take the spare horses up to the mountain ranch.” Then he turned to Ned and said, “Take the posts out of that fir stand in the bend of Bootheel Canyon. It's only fifteen miles up there, and they're easy to get at.”

I didn't mind going to cut fence posts as much as the others seemed to, but I didn't like the idea of going with Zeb very well. In the two days I'd been with the outfit he hadn't said two words to me—and not many more to anyone else. He didn't go with us when we left the chuckhouse to work out our horses, but slouched off toward the forge.

Pinch and Clay didn't worry me very much, but I knew I'd have to do a lot of work with Blueboy before I had him steadied down enough for handling cattle. I was lucky in catching him with my first throw, and he didn't fight when I drew him in and tied him to a corral post. But when Sid was helping me saddle him he side-jumped, bobbed his head, and lashed his tail like a mad tomcat. Sid wouldn't let me get on until he had his horse saddled and was mounted alongside.

Blueboy didn't buck until we were outside the corral, then he geysered and came down running and pitching toward the wagon road. Half a dozen times I was nearly thrown, but grabbed the horn, clamped my legs tight, and managed to stay with him. He started down the roadway in hard crowhops, then stretched his head out like a wild goose in flight, lowered his back, and turned on the steam. From far behind I heard Sid shout, “Yank that hackamore! Bust his nose!” But with Blueboy's head stuck out the way it was, the nose band had slipped half way up to his eyes, and I had no more control of him than if he'd been a runaway railroad engine.

The roadway ran straight across the valley for a quarter mile, then twisted up a steep hill to the east. At the first turn Blueboy left it and drove straight up the hill, trying to rake me off against scrub-oak clumps. I could have dived into one of them and got out with nothing more than a few scratches, but I knew that if I did I'd never be able to ride him again. I had to find some way to control him, and my chances were growing less with every second I waited.

There was only one thing I could think of to do, and I did it. Suddenly letting the hackamore rope go slack, I snapped it, the way I'd have thrown a running noose. As the nose-band bounced forward across the tender cartilage, I made a quick turn of the rope-end around the saddle horn, kicked a foot high, and whanged my heel down on the slack rope.

The jolt nearly threw me out of the saddle, but Blueboy's nose came down as if a boulder had been dropped on it. Before he could raise it again, I'd hauled in the slack and taken another turn around the saddle horn. With his chin pulled tight against his chest, and with his breathing half cut off by the band across his nose, some of the fight went out of him. When Sid caught up to us, Blueboy and I were both trembling like aspens, but not for the same reason. He was madder than a wildcat in a trap, and I was as happy as if I'd just got him for a Christmas present.

Sid jawed and rowed at me all the way back to the corral, telling me I was a fool for trying to ride Blueboy, that he'd kill me, and that I'd better turn him in with the horses being taken to the mountain ranch. Blueboy fought the tight hackamore and me all the way, side-jumping, lashing his tail, and rearing. But I was so proud of being able to handle him at all that I wouldn't listen to Sid.

When we were riding up the straight piece of road toward the corral, I saw Mr. Batchlett standing by the gate watching us. He just nodded to me as we rode up, and said, “Cool him out a bit before you leave him!” then walked away.

By the time I'd led Blueboy around enough to cool him out, Zeb had a team of work horses hitched to a wagon and was waiting for me. Ned and Sid had already driven off to the mountains, but Zeb didn't seem to be in any hurry. He was sprawled out on the wagon seat like a rag doll, and when I climbed up he shifted one leg just enough to make room for me. He didn't make a sound, and I didn't see him move the reins, but the team started off at a slow walk.

“That blue horse has sure got a mind of his own,” I said, just trying to make talk, but Zeb only nodded. He seemed to be looking off toward Pikes Peak, where the morning sun gleamed on the snowy summit as if it had been a diamond set in the necklace of white clouds that surrounded it.

The wheel tracks twisted in and out of gulches, and the team plodded on, but the only move Zeb made was to keep his face turned toward Pikes Peak. I didn't like sitting there like a frog on a log, so I asked Zeb if he liked the horses he'd picked, and if he didn't think the grub at Batchlett's was good. All the answer I got was a nod, so I began thinking of things I could do to make Blueboy into a good cow horse—and wondering why Hazel had tricked me into picking her father's prize cutting horse. I was still thinking about it when the wheel ruts turned in between high canyon walls. Then I almost jumped off the seat. There hadn't been a sound except the chuckle of the wheel hubs on the axles and the clump of horses' feet, when Zeb suddenly sang out, “
She wore a yella ribbon around her neck.
”

It was more hollered than sung. Zeb's voice was high and through his nose, and it went up and down like the braying of a mule, but the canyon walls caught it, and echoed, “
Neck
 . . .
neck
 . . .
neck
 . . .
neck
 . . .” until it died away to a whisper. Zeb sat with an ear cocked, listening until the echo died away, then slumped back with his eyes half-closed.

An hour later we'd left the canyon floor and climbed rough wheel tracks that led over the spur of a low mountain. Neither of us had made a sound since Zeb sang, and I'd gone back to thinking. At the top of the rise, Zeb stopped the team, and sat up with his back toward me, looking off to the south. “I cal'clate this here is jist about the die-rection he was a-lookin' in when first he seen her,” he said slowly.

“When who first saw who?” I asked.

“Zebulon Montgomery Pike,” Zeb said, almost reverently. “Who else but Injuns ever seen her afore him?”

“I don't know,” I said, “because I don't know who she is.”

“The peak! The peak!” he half whispered. “The silver-haired queen o' the Rockies.”

The clouds had moved away, and the mantle of snow on the summit of Pikes Peak did look like a head of silvery, wavy hair. “It's a beautiful mountain, isn't it?” I said.

“The queen! The queen!” he said in a sort of hushed voice. “And she's a-settin' there holdin' her pot o' gold in her lap. Ain't no man never goin' to dig deep enough to rob it afore the day o' jedgment.”

I'd heard people say there was probably more gold left inside Pikes Peak than had ever been mined from it, but I'd never heard anyone call the mountain a queen. I was sitting there thinking of it when Zeb clucked to the horses and we moved on. He didn't speak again until we'd pulled up below a stand of tall firs in Bootheel Canyon.

Ned and Sid were hacking away to beat the band when we reached the canyon, and already had eight or ten posts their wagon. I wanted to hurry and catch up with them, but there was no hurrying Zeb. He sat looking over the firs for nearly ten minutes before he pulled the wagon in below them. I had one horse unharnessed, hobbled, and turned out to graze before he had the buckles undone on the other. But when I took the axes out of the wagon, I could see he hadn't been loafing while I was having my fight with Blueboy. They were ground and stoned almost to razor edges, and each head was carefully wrapped in a gunny sack.

I'd only felled a few small trees in my life, but had chopped plenty of railroad ties for firewood. Father had been brought up in the woods of Maine, and could really make chips fly. He'd made me a small axe a couple of years before he died, had taught me to swing it, and always made me keep the edge honed sharp. I thought that felling a really big tree would be a lot of fun, so I grabbed the lightest axe, and started for the tallest fir at the lower edge of the stand. It was nearly twenty inches through the butt, and I went at the uphill side of it as fast as I could swing the axe. When I had to stop for breath, I looked up to see Zeb leaning on his axe handle and watching me. “Cabin or bridge log?” he asked.

I felt pretty silly as I watched Zeb climb slowly up the hill beyond me, but I'd already ruined the tree, and there was nothing to do but go on and fell it. But when I went to do that, I found that I hadn't run out of breath soon enough; I'd cut so far into the uphill side of the tree that it was going to fall that way. It did, but not all the way. It tangled with some other trees, and hung swaying—as if it were just waiting for someone foolish enough to walk under it.

While I was standing there, a tall, slim tree came whistling down a little way beyond me. The slender trunk curved as it cut through between a couple of larger trees, and the top fell within a few feet of the wagon. I climbed a little way up the leaning trunk of the big tree I'd cut, and jounced up and down, but wasn't heavy enough to shake it loose.

After I'd jounced a few more times, I went down and began chopping the limbs off the tree Zeb had felled. By the time I'd finished, he had a couple of others, just like it, stretched out with their tops lying close to the wagon. He hadn't said a word, but when I stopped for breath, I could hear him making some kind of a noise as he chopped. It sounded like a string of slow grunts, connected by high-pitched whispers. When I listened real sharply I could hear that he was singing, “
She WORE a yella RIBbon aROUND her NECK. She WORE a yella RIBbon aROUND her NECK.
” He was grunting every other sound as the axe came down, and with every slow stroke a chip, nearly as big as my head, flew.

I didn't stop for breath any oftener than I had to, and Zeb didn't hurry a bit, but he had a couple of dozen trees felled before I had six limbed out. Every one of them was just the right size for fence posts, and every top was within fifteen feet of the wagon. I guess he thought he was far enough ahead of me by that time. When I stopped to look up again, he was fitting his shoulder under the trunk of the tree I'd left hanging. He heaved up and against it, then jumped back, as quick as a cat, and the tree came crashing down.

I kept my axe swinging, but watched Zeb. Working in his lazy, loose-jointed way, he lopped off the branches of the big tree, and topped it where it was about four inches through. Measuring with his eye, he notched the trunk every seven feet as he came back down the steep hill. Then he cut half way through at each notch, rolled the log over, and finished the cuts.

Zeb was beginning his last cut when I stopped for a breather. When I looked up again he was nowhere in sight. I'd limbed out two more trees before he came back, carrying half a dozen chips of granite, each a little larger than his hands. Using them for wedges, he went to work, splitting the logs he'd cut from the big tree. Sparks flew from the granite each time the back of his axe head hit it.

I wanted to stand and watch him, but was ashamed to, and half afraid he'd say something rough to me for being fool enough to cut so big a tree. I was chopping limbs as fast as I could go when he came walking down the hill past me. He carried two of the quartered sections of the biggest log, and each of them must have weighed nearly double what I did. He shouldered them squarely across the wagon, spit a thin streak of tobacco juice, and said, “Make right nice corner posts, them will. Ain't it time we et?”

Through the early afternoon, Zeb kept going in that lazy, loose-jointed way of his, but it made the sweat run down my back to limb trees as fast as he felled, cut them into post lengths, and carried them to the wagon. The sun was still high when we had our wagon loaded, but I hadn't done a quarter of the work. Sid and Ned had been chopping steadily, but they still had a couple of hours' work to do when we pulled away for the home ranch.

I'd thought we were pretty slow in coming out that morning, but we were twice as slow going back. Once in a while Zeb would sing a few words of “
Yella Ribbon
,” half under his breath, but most of the time he just sat sprawled there on top of the posts with his eyes partly shut. And every half mile or so, he let the horses stop for a long rest.

By the time we left the canyon floor and climbed the spur, the sun was dipping down toward the top of the high range of mountains to the west. We had just reached the top when Pikes Peak came into sight beyond a low mountain to the south, and the sinking sun reflected from its summit in a soft orange glow. Zeb lifted the reins just a trifle and stopped the team. “Cal'clated to git here 'bout this hour,” he said, looking off at the peak. “This here's the time o' day she takes the lid off'n her pot o' gold an' lets it shine on her hair.”

“She's beautiful, isn't she,” I said.

“Yep. A queen . . . every inch of her . . . and there ain't no man can harm her.”

We must have sat there twenty minutes, as the sunlight played on the snow fields of the summit. Zeb didn't speak again, and I didn't either. When you're looking at something beautiful and grand and sort of peaceful, it always seems nicer to be with someone who doesn't talk.