Horse Tradin' (27 page)

The mares came running into the corral, ran up to the trough, and went to eating. Some of the other horses went on into the back corral, so I went and got some more feed, crawled over the fence on the south side, and fed them on the ground along the rock fence like I had done the morning before. I looked up and there this sorrel mule was—up there eating between the two gray mares. That fresh taste of oats was something this mule hadn't had in a year or so, and you could tell it was making quite a hit with her. She was a nice sorrel mule that would weigh about eleven hundred pounds. She had a good big ear and a nice head, and she had a good-size bone and her legs were clean. Her mane and tail, of course, had grown out to where they were shaggledy, and her forelock was hanging down between her ears. A mule's mane is never pretty, but when it has grown out awhile it is uglier than common. But I just said to myself I knew that if I wanted to, I could catch one mule—so I was sort of winner at that.

I peeped over the rock fence, and there were two of these young mules grazing out on the side of the creek next to the corral—but they were still a couple of hundred yards away and they weren't coming any closer. I didn't see any use in boogering them. I just crawled over the rock fence back the other direction and went to the
wagon, where I peeped around and watched everything eat. My saddle horses and the gray mares ate good. My sorrel mule, she stayed at that trough until all the feed was gone. She threw her head up and blew a little wind through her nose and whistled a time or two, like a mule will do if she sees or smells something strange. The mares and my saddle horses didn't pay any attention to her.

As the horses kinda worked their way back out of the corral—they took their time and went toward the creek—I stepped from around the east corner of this rock fence and whistled to old Beauty right low. She turned around and followed me over to the wagon. I put a rope around her neck to keep her at the wagon because I was going to use her that day. And after the horses and the mules had all gotten down to the creek, had a drink, and gone out across the glade and disappeared into the mesquite on the other side, I saddled old Beauty up and rode around them and pretty close to them. I got a good look at them but never did offer to run them. These young mules would throw their heads up, throw their ears up, and snort right loud—which from a mule makes a noise more like a whistle. I just acted like they weren't there and rode away. You could tell that wasn't what they were used to, and I had begun to get them a little perplexed.

This kind of business went on for about four or five days. One of these young mules would sneak in to get a bite of feed, then break and run out of the corral. I wouldn't pay any attention to him, and the horses wouldn't either. The sorrel mule got to where she would be there every time the gray mares were up in the morning for feed. But I never ran at any of these mules one single time, nor made any motion like I wanted them.

By the sixth morning I had got to where I was putting out lots of feed. I wanted them to stay in there and eat—and let the ones outside come look inside that rock fence. On the sixth morning every mule from that pasture, and my saddle horses, and my gray mares were all in the corrals eating. It was a little bit of a temptation to try to get around that rock fence and get that gate shut on these wild mules—but the wind wasn't just right. If I had left the wagon and started around the pens, the mules could have winded me, and they would have broke and run out of that pen before I could have ever got to the gate. So I just tried to content myself that I was playing the game the right way, and that I'd better wait until I had a little more favorable weather to trap that bunch of wild young mules.

Mr. Cox had been by. He asked me if I was fishing or hunting or how did I plan on entertaining myself through the winter—if I wasn't going to try to pen those mules. I told him that I wasn't quite ready, that I hadn't gotten well enough acquainted with the pasture yet, and that I wanted my saddle horses to be rested and ready before they made the wild run. I told him I thought I still had plenty of time to catch the mules and get home before Christmas.

He said that was all right with him. He just wondered how a man could be so unconcerned about catching wild stock—seeing that I had five saddle horses and hadn't broke a sweat on them in the week's time I had been camped there.

I told him that I was sure he was a business executive and very capable of running a huge land company, but that he evidently wasn't in too close communion with a
mule—that I didn't believe his advice would be worth too much to me, nor his ideas about catching mules. He had known these mules longer than I had, and he hadn't caught them either. I didn't say this hateful; I just said it and smiled. He laughed and said he guessed that was right, but if I got around to the point where I thought I needed any help, he would try to find somebody that I could hire to help me catch the mules.

I asked him if he thought he was running short of grass or short of time. He answered: “Oh no, take all the time you want. I was just concerned. I hate to cheat a boy, and the way you're doing your saddle horses are all going to the wild with the mules. Be sure, now, to keep a horse up, so you'll have a way to leave.”

On the eighth morning there was a little norther blowing. I got up pretty early, and some of the horses were standing around in the pen. Beauty was nickering, the gray mares were nickering, and the sorrel mule had her head over the fence. By this time these young mules had all had a taste of feed, and they had gotten used to the idea that they were all going to get some feed every morning. They were all up there, but there wasn't any feed in the pens. I came along with two great big buckets full of feed and just went in at the gate and poured the feed in the trough. Then I went down through the back corral and poured the feed out on the ground along the rock fence like I had been doing.

When the last mule walked up—and he was a great big nice horse mule, brown with a white nose and a white belly, big ears, and looking around at the world—he stood there at the gate watching me pour out feed. Everything else was eating. He could hear them eating, so I didn't pay
him any mind. I just crawled over the fence on the south side; but when I did, I stopped real still and stayed there, hunkered down low enough so that my head wouldn't show. Directly I heard the horses kinda scuffle—and I knew that another one was trying to get up to the trough.

I didn't want to make any noise. I started around the east side of that rock corral on my hands and knees. The wind was out of the northwest and blowing against me, and they couldn't smell me. They were all busy eating; I had been a little late with their feed and they were all a little greedy and anxious. So when I thought I knew that this last mule was over there at the trough, I came right easy around this corral and got near to where the gate was.

I knew when I hit that gate I'd better hit it fast if I was ever going to get it closed. I'd already found out that when the gate went to, you had to tie it with a chain. There was also a big pole lying there that you could prop the gate with and brace it and keep it from flying back. So when I raised up, I did it right easy and got ahold of that gate. About that time the hinges squeaked—all these wild mules threw their heads up—and this one big horse mule charged at that gate just as I slammed it to. I slammed the brace pole against it to hold it; I didn't have time to fasten the chain. I threw my hat over the fence right in that mule's face and squalled at him. He boogered and fell back through himself, and I got the gate chained hard and fast.

This was the eighth day, and I hadn't broke a sweat on a horse or throwed a shoe or rode myself down or got skinned up in the brush. I was running low on horse feed, but I had every mule and every mare and every saddle horse inside those big tall rock corrals with the gate shut.

I stood there and looked over the fence and bragged on myself awhile—and squalled at the stock and shook the gate and made them get back away from it. I made them understand it was fastened good and tight. I brought some feed sacks and tied around the planks on the gate. With those feed sacks flopping in the north wind, I knew they wouldn't try to come through that gate. The rock fence was high enough all the way around that they weren't going to try to jump it. I felt like if I left my saddle horses and the gray mares in there with these mules, they would quieten down better than if I got everything else out and just left them in there to get nervous and excite each other.

These mules had cost me nothing except twenty bushels of good red oats that I had bought from the man in Palo Pinto. It sure had been a nice, easy way to make money. Waiting hadn't been too hard on me, because I had been riding into these little towns and visiting around and drinking cokes, going to the picture shows and taking on a little rest. Just riding one saddle horse a little bit every day, they were all about to get soft. It was time I was doing something with them.

I was a little afraid to get in there and go to roping these mules and trying to put halters on them the first day. I knew that they were already nervous and mad about those sacks a-waving in the breeze; so I just walked around through the corrals a little bit and let them run away from me—run up in the corners and snort and blow their noses and throw their heads up and pop their ears. I would just walk away and climb over the fence. I never did open the gate or unchain it, for fear one would come by me. I just
climbed over that rock fence, one way or another.

I spent the whole day going back and forth and around through them, but I didn't offer to take any horses out of there. I didn't offer to rope one; I didn't even carry a rope with me. I separated my horses from my mules that night, into two different pens. I fed my saddle horses good, fed the gray mares good, and just gave the mules a bite of feed—which didn't hurt them. They had been full all their lives, and they were so nervous they wouldn't eat much feed, anyhow.

Next morning when I got up it was awfully cold. Sure enough, that norther had finally gotten there. Mr. Cox drove up about the time I had my fire built up. He asked me if I was going to stay out there and freeze to death. I told him no, that I thought I'd leave that afternoon sometime.

“Without your mules?”

I said: “No, I don't think I will. I got 'em in the lot.”

Well, you could have knocked him down with a feather duster. He wouldn't believe me; I said: “Well, Mr. Cox, just step out of your car and walk right light and speak right soft and behave yourself—don't scare my stock out of the corral, and I'll be glad for you to ease up there and look over the fence.”

He was a well-dressed man, and he had an overcoat on, and it was flopping and a-popping and the wind was a-blowing. I said: “Now pull your hat down tight and take that overcoat off and lay it here on your car, because I don't want my mules to see any fresh, man-made boogers.”

Sure enough he did what I told him, and he went there
and looked over the fence. We came back to the fire and stood and visited a while. He told me it had been a pleasure to do business with me. He only hoped I would be able to catch these mules and put something on them to get them out of the pasture—that he would be glad to get rid of them and he wanted them to make me a profit.

I told him I appreciated his attitude, and in view of the fact that it would be advantageous to him and me both, would he send a couple of men over to help me rope and tie these mules down and put halters on them?

He said he felt like he owed me that much—that he just hadn't realized what a good mule man I was. He would send two men over right after dinner, and they could help me all afternoon and the next day if I needed them. I told him I wouldn't need them more than two or three hours, and that next day I would drive out of there and leave all his belongings and his gray mares.

About two o'clock that afternoon a couple of big old boys came over. They weren't too bright, but they were stout. I roped the mules, then they would get on the rope with me. The mules would choke and bawl and carry on and try to get away—and then they would try to paw us, and then they would try to kick us. But there was a big snubbing post, that is, the gatepost between the two pens was a big heavy post. One by one we tied these mules to that post, and then I would get a rope around one hind foot. Riding a saddle horse, I would pull this foot out from under the mule. When he fell, one of these big old boys would jump on the mule's head and get a halter on him while he was down. By the time he came up, we'd have the lariat rope off of his neck and he would quit
choking—and he'd have that halter on with a drag rope tied to it. He would run all around the corral two or three times and step on that drag rope and throw himself and jerk his head and jerk his nose.

We got them all haltered and went back to camp, and the boys ate a bite with me and drank some coffee. They said they had better get home to their families before dark. We all shook hands and I thanked them, and they asked me about coming over the next morning and helping me to get out of the pasture with my mules. It was about three miles from where I was camped to the gate, but I told them they needn't bother, I would make it all right. And they said: “We believe you will.”

So they went on home and left me with my mules all haltered—and me well satisfied with the day's work.

These mules walked and tromped and stepped on those drag ropes all night. By morning the tops of their heads were kinda sore and their noses were sore—and when they would step on one of those ropes, they would give to it instead of running or pulling away from it.

That morning I saddled old Beauty—got the rigging on good and tight and tightened the breast harness. I would catch one of these mules and tie him to a post. Soon he would quit pulling on the post too much. Then I would catch another mule and pitch my rope over the mule that was tied to the post—draw them up pretty tight and tie them together at the necks with their own halter ropes. These halter ropes, or drag ropes, were plenty long, and I tied them up real close to where they couldn't go around a tree with each other or get loose anyhow. That left two rope-ends long enough to drag on the
ground, so the mules were still stepping on each other's ropes and pulling on each other's heads. But I had three pairs of wild mules tied in pairs.