Horse Tradin' (23 page)

Well, I bid Cookie adieu and started on south with my stock. I drove my wagon and let my saddle horse follow behind. These horses were all handling nice, and they weren't any trouble for one man to get along with on the road.

In a few days I made camp out of Aspermont, on the bank of the Brazos River, about ten or twelve miles down from the Double Mountain fork. It was getting on late in the afternoon, and there was a blizzard blowing up. Looked like it was going to be a rough night. The road ran north and south, and on the east side of the road there were some high, rough, cedar-brake hills. I made my camp on the south side of these hills—on a bluff overlooking the river, close enough to the road that I could see it and the bridge.

I got my horses back up in this cedar brake, tied and fed and fixed for the night, and I got my wagon sheet up on the bows. I was in behind a hill and out of the north wind, but this blizzard was coming down pretty bad. I had a few bales of hay left after I fed, and I stacked this hay on the north side of the wagon bed and made my roll down on the south side of the wagon bed—trying to get it as warm and tight as I could. I had a good bedroll with a cowboy's tarp on the outside of it, plenty of Navajo blankets to put around my feet, and plenty of other blankets to cover up with. I wasn't counting on being uncomfortable
during the night, but I just wanted to get fixed for it.

There was plenty of dead cedar and some live oak. I got off away from the wagon about twenty feet, and built me a big fire and rounded it up good. I let it burn a while and get down to coals; it was just about dark when I started cooking me some supper.

From my camp on the bluff, you could look up the river and see the bridge and see the road on both sides of the bridge. This was a new road they were building, and it was kinda muddy. There had been a rain a few days before, and on both ends of this nice bridge were big mudholes. However, I hadn't met or passed anybody much, and I just didn't figure there would be any traffic on a new road in bad weather like this. In fact, I hadn't given it a thought that I was likely to have any company, because of those bogholes. Just about dark, I saw a wagon down in the flat across the river. Four mules were hooked to the wagon, two abreast, and a man up on top of a big load of something in that wagon was popping a line over those mules. They were in pretty deep mud and they were pulling with all they had, but the farther they went, the deeper the wheels were getting into the ground. It was getting late, and I couldn't see what-all was going on, but I watched as long as I could make out the outline of things. The wind was against him, so I couldn't hear him or the team. Finally, I just moved back over by my fire and sat there to make out until bedtime.

Like I said, there was a big wind blowing, and it was getting cold fast. I was thinking I was pretty lucky to be in behind that big hill in a good cedar brake, with my stock all fed and a nice warm bed in a wagon with a sheet
over it. I was full of grub, my horses in good shape for the night, and I was just kinda sitting there feeling sorry for the poor folks.

Directly I heard a little noise off to the west side of my wagon a good piece—a little bit of a whistle going on. That would be the way for a man to come into your camp in the West at night—make some noise, hum or whistle or sing, or do a little something to let you know that it was a human being coming in and he didn't aim to cause any trouble. At the same time, by making a little noise 'way off first, he wouldn't booger whatever stock you had around your camp.

The norther was blowing hard but the sky was clear, and it was getting colder with every gust of wind. This stranger came up to where I could begin to see his outline from the light made by the fire. I said: “Come on up to the fire.”

He said: “I saw your fire from down on the river road, and I sure was glad to see that there was somebody around that had a camp.”

Well, it was several miles in any direction to a ranch headquarters or a farm where anybody lived. I felt sort of lucky to be camped out there by myself. (It just shows how people's thinking has changed and how times have changed.) Sure enough, this cowboy was the man that was driving that four-mule team to the wagon. He told me he was stuck down there in the bottom. He had left his team hitched to the wagon and come up to see what kind of camp this was—or what was afire. He said he didn't have much hopes of getting out down there that night.

He ranched off close to Double Mountain, and he was
freighting his cottonseed cake for his cattle out from Hamlin Oil Mill. He was a little late getting out with some of it. The roads had gotten so bad they couldn't get a Model T Ford or a Chewy through there, so he was having to bring some cake in a wagon. He said he had on a big load of cottonseed cake, and he was working some light-boned, half-Mexican kind of mules that weren't heavy enough for the load. He said that he knew he was going to have a little trouble; this was the reason he was working four-up instead of a single team. He just didn't have enough mules to get through that mudhole on the other side of the bridge.

It was about a quarter of a mile down to where he was stuck, maybe a little farther. I said: “Well, let's get on a couple of my saddle horses and go back down to the wagon and unhook your team. You can bring them up here and camp with me for the night. And,” I added, “I've got some other horses here that can probably get you out in the morning.”

He said he sure would be much obliged for that kind of a proposition, and he was glad I had a camp made there. He didn't have anything to camp with because he was intending to get home that night. If the roads hadn't been so heavy, he would have made it.

We saddled up—I didn't see any use in walking a quarter of a mile in the mud and the cold and the wind a-blowing. So far as I was concerned, walking was all took up when I was born. Horses were made to carry people around in the weather, anyhow. We went down and unhooked his team and led them back up, unharnessed them, and threw the harness over by the wagon. I got some hay out of my wagon, and some oats. He tied his mules
up away from my horses, fed them good, and we sat down by the fire. I stirred him up some hashbrown potatoes, bacon, and scrambled eggs. He sure got around a batch of it. He was cold and hungry.

He was a sure-enough rancher and a sure-enough cowboy and a good fellow to visit with. We sat by the fire and listened to the wind howl and talked about handling stock. I told him I had been to Kansas and summered a bunch of steers. He said he went to Kansas once, but he hit a drouth and didn't do so good. He said he had been ranching over there at the Double Mountains a while, and he guessed if he could make the winter and get into spring he would have a good calf crop. We finally ran out of conversation and began to get sleepy. I told him I guessed the best we could do was both of us get in that bedroll of mine in the wagon and try to make the night.

He was agreeable to that, so I got the rest of the saddle blankets and stuff I had laid around. We piled it on top of us. Of course, men who have lived outdoors don't bother to take off too many clothes in a blizzard. We just slipped our boots and our jackets off—and our hats—and kinda undone our belts and got comfortable. Before you know it, we were both sound asleep.

The next morning when the sun came up, it was cold and clear. That sun didn't change the temperature of the surroundings much, but I had rustled plenty of wood the night before, so we got a good fire going and fixed a good breakfast. Needless to say, I'd already decided last night that he was in bad need of nice stout work horses that could pull a load of cake out of the mud. He couldn't see my horses in the cedar brake in the night—and he didn't
know what kind I had. I didn't bother to tell him, and I had gone out and fed the horses while he was getting breakfast ready.

After we ate a batch of hot grub, I said: “Well, let's pick out a team of horses that can hook up and get your wagon out of the mud.”

He walked out through the cedar brake with me and his eyes jumped out. He said: “Why I didn't have any idea there was this kind of horses in the world—much less camped up here by the side of the river last night when I got stuck!”

I just kinda laughed and told him that I fell in love with them up in the bluestem and had drifted down and brought them with me. I said I was started home where I thought I'd use them.

The oldest pair of mares I had were big gray mares, nearly white from age. They weren't but about ten years old, but gray horses get white by that time. They were sound and clean and well shod. I knew they would pull with all they had and until they give out. They were the kind of horses that helped take the West. I just knew when I hooked them to that load of cake, something was going to have to give. I was hoping the doubletree and singletrees were plenty stout, because I knew that pair of big mares would sure bring that rig out of the mud. While I was getting them harnessed, he harnessed up the mules and took them back down there with him. I jumped on my saddle horse and led my mares. I couldn't help but hurrah him a little bit, and I asked him what he was taking those mules along for—did he figure they would want to ride on the wagon after they got a team that could pull it?

We laughed a little bit, and he admitted they were
awful small mules for the thing he was trying to do with them. But they were mules, and that was all the mules he had, so he was working what he had and doing the best he could. “But,” he said, “I shore would like to own a pair of those great big nice horses, iff'n you didn't need all of them at home.”

I said: “Well, we'll wait and see if they can pull your wagon out. You might not want them at all.”

By this time we were down close to his wagon. We had crossed the bridge and saw that nobody had come along in the night. Hadn't anybody pushed him out of the road, and there wasn't anybody behind him waiting. If anybody had come up, they had turned around and gone back before they got into the worst of it—or else they would have stopped and come to our camp for the night.

Well, I got this good pair of gray mares hooked in to his wagon, and I told him I would use them for the wheelers. He hooked the heaviest team of his mules on in front of them for the lead. I told him if he didn't want to get those mules' feet muddy, he could wait until I got the wagon out. He knew that was kinda funny, but he said they might help that pair of horses some; he believed he would hook on—just in case.

We got all rigged up, and I had the horses move up and just tighten their traces a little bit. Mud and ice had frozen around the wheels during the night, and I knew it would be a hard pull. He was driving his mules, so he stepped off to one side. I had stepped off to one side and held the line on the horses. I asked him if he was ready. He said: “Yeah.”

I spoke to this good pair of gray mares and slapped them a little with the lines, and then I just pulled enough
on the lines to steady them. A pair of good pulling horses, they go down in front with their heads and necks and lay their weight against the collars. If you just pull enough to steady them, they can do a lot better job of pulling and are not as likely to go to their knees.

Those big mares laid in there and you could hear them grunt a little bit. They just kept laying and getting closer to the ground and closer to the ground, and directly that wagon began to move. I squalled and hollered and told him to get his mules out of the way—that I might have to run over them. Of course that was just a joke. The mules were pulling all they could, and they were live, active kind of mules, and they were 'way on out in front.

We pulled the wagon across the bridge and out on dry ground. I started unhooking my mares, and he said: “Now wait a minute before you go unhookin' that team of mares. I've got a proposition I want to take up with you. I don't know how many horses you've got up there in that cedar brake, but you've got enough you could spare me this pair of mares.”

I said: “Well, I had plans for these horses and I kinda hate to split 'em up. This is one of the best pullin' pairs I got.”

“That's why I want 'em,” he said. “I need 'em all this winter. I can freight this cake all up and down this road with 'em, and I can use my mules out in the pasture to pull my feed wagons—when I'm just putting out enough for a day's feeding.”

I didn't want to seem too anxious about getting rid of this pair of good pulling mares, so I said: “Well, I don't know whether a man ought to sell a pair of mares like this or not. With a mudhole like that, and the winter just
startin'—I might just stay here and make the winter.”

We both laughed pretty big. He knew I didn't mean it, so he asked: “What would you have to have for this team of mares, and let me buy 'em from you?”

I just thought I'd try him for size. I didn't know whether he knew anything about the horse market or not, so I told him that the mares ought to be worth $300.

He said he thought so, too, but he wasn't able to give that much for them—but he sure would like to buy them. He said he had more mules at home of a smaller size and brand, but this pair of bay mare mules that he had and was using for leaders were nice little mules. They weren't as heavy as his wheelers, but they were about seven or eight years old and clear of blemishes—a little snorty, like Western mules were—but clean-typey kind of little mules. He told me if I would take $150 difference, he would swap me that pair of lead mules and pay me the $150 boot, and that I ought to be able to get $150 out of the mules. That would make my $300, and he would have a team to do heavy work for the winter.

I told him it looked to me like he was looking after his interests better than he was mine, but that I guessed it was a pretty good trade, and I believed I would swap with him. The harness on his mules was just as good as the harness on my mares, but of course the collars fit the mules and the collars fit the mares; so I suggested he let the collars go with the mules and I'd let the collars go with the mares.