Horse Tradin' (33 page)

There was an old camp house next to the corral where I had thrown my saddle and work clothes when I left my horse. I changed clothes in the moonlight and went over to the pressing parlor and stuffed my good suit in the back screen door. Of course the pressing parlor man would know what to do with it when he found it the next day.

My old horse was full and seemed to have enjoyed my being gone. I saddled him up and rode out of town. It normally was my habit after dark, riding home from town, to drop off to sleep and let my horse take me home. He would paw on the gate when we got there and wake me up. But tonight I wasn't sleepy. I had left home when I was thirteen years old and wrangled horses on a chuck wagon. I had batched and ranched most of the time ever since and had ridden back and forth from the ranch to the school during my high school years. I was twenty-odd years old now, a lone wolf, and sure a-scared of that double harness!

I spent the rest of the week up and down the Brazos River, riding over my ranch and my neighbor's, kinda dreading that school-closing Friday night. By Friday night I had lost my taste for such sweet stuff as ice cream, cake, and schoolmarms, and didn't feel like the play would be too interesting. I rode up the creek into the back of the pasture, which was about three miles, carried a little grub sack with me, built a fire, cooked some meat on the end of a forked stick, unsaddled my horse, lay down on my saddle blanket, and took a nap. I knew that there wouldn't anybody find me up there unless they came horseback, and I didn't think that schoolmarm would come up the creek horseback hunting for me. When I woke up the moon was hanging over toward the west, and I thought it was late enough to go back to the shack.

I had some steers to change pastures with and left the shack early the next morning. I rode back in just a little before dinner time, and that Model A was parked out in front of my batching shack. As I rode up, that cute little
schoolmarm came bouncing out of that shack, walking mad all over. She must have just had a visit with Emily Post. She told me all the un-nice things that I had done by not coming to the school-closing, and that she was fixin' to straighten up and change a lot of my ways. She said she would be by late the next afternoon to take me home with her, as Mamma and Daddy were planning a party for us Sunday night—and for me to be dressed up and ready. Then, with this set of orders and instructions, she turned and got into that Model A and went over the hill in a cloud of dust. I just stood there holding my horse, and never had a chance to answer back a word.

I went into my shack, and it had an uncomfortable look to it. She had done made up the beds and straightened stuff up to where I couldn't find my frying pan to fix dinner—and I
knew
that wasn't going to suit me.

I didn't leave the ranch the rest of the day, and that night I ate a big supper of bachelor's grub—beans, beef, and potatoes. About this stage in my life, I could eat just about anything I got to that didn't eat me first and sleep anywhere I got still.

The next morning I woke up a little before daylight. Ol' Nothin' had walked up out of the pasture and stuck his head over the back fence. I hadn't ridden Ol' Nothin' much all winter, and he was feeling fit and looked like he needed to go on a long trip.

Ol' Nothin' probably had the best legs, the deepest chest, and the most powerful hind-end that was ever put on a horse. He was fifteen-one hands high and covered all the ground he stood on. But there was one bad thing about Ol' Nothin', his neck was poorly shaped and was away too long. There was about a foot, right behind his
ears, that you wondered why it had been put there. This caused him to be limber-necked and high-headed, and he didn't have much mouth. I hesitated to ride him in the brush or rough country because he ran with his head up and seldom saw where he was going. He was sound, gentle, a real good pack horse, and a brush race horse that wouldn't quit.

I had just shod Beauty the day before. She was always my standby and favorite, and she hadn't been ridden too hard lately. And when I got to thinking about that party the old woman and the professor had planned for me and the schoolmarm, and I looked at Ol' Nothin' and Beauty, I thought about what a good time it was to take a long pack trip and maybe buy up a few good bronc horses to break and sell that fall.

I let Ol' Nothin' in the yard gate and fed him some feed out on the front porch. I always kept a sack of feed in the house, in case a horse came up and wanted a bite to eat. I whistled at Beauty and let her in, then fed her off the other end of the porch.

While my horses were eating, I gathered up my personal belongings and riggin' and fixed up a pack to put on Ol' Nothin'. I saddled Beauty, put my bedroll and clothes, my frying pan, and a few other belongings in my pack, cinched and tied it down on Ol' Nothin', and put a halter on him. He led the best of any horse I ever took with me. He would lead right up beside the horse you were riding and never tighten the halter rope.

By late in the evening, I rode up to an old friend's place and told him I was going on a little horse-buying trip, and I wished he would see that my steers had salt and would look about my batching outfit until I came back.
He was an old bachelor and a sure-nuff cowboy. He busted out laughing and said: “Ben, is that schoolmarm crowding you?”

I didn't admit it, but I told him I thought I would do better in some other country for a while.

In five or six days I rode into Abilene, Texas. I hadn't hurried much; I had visited along the way, and my horses didn't show much sign of the trip. Jenks McGee was an old-time horse and mule dealer in Abilene and had a barn not far from the main part of town. I rode into the barn in the late afternoon. There was nobody around. I found an empty corral and put my horses in it. I threw my pack saddle and my saddle in the harness room and fed my horses out of his grainery (graineries and barns and saddle rooms didn't come equipped in those days with locks. Locks were something brought on later by the machine age).

After I had my horses well looked after, I thought I would mosey off up into the main part of Abilene, eat supper, and go to the picture show. I walked into the lobby of the hotel, next to the post office, and there was one of the gals that had taught school with my schoolmarm. She had already made it home after the school-closing. She was real glad to see me and was full of conversation. She didn't try to pry into why I was in town or where I was going. While we were drinking a coke, some more gals came in. There were three or four of them gathering there to go to the picture show. She asked me to go along, but I flinched and got out of it. It had just begun to dawn on me that this country was overstocked with young female wimmin. I had supper and made my way back down to the mule barn. I undid my bedroll,
spread it out on the saddle room floor, and went to sleep.

The next morning, about daylight, Jenks McGee kicked me to see who he had for a night guest. I got up, and we had a little visit while we were feeding my horses. He asked me what my business was, and I told him that I was going to buy some young horses to take home and break. He said I might not have any more sense than to give what a good horse was worth, and that might mess up his business; so he would rather I would move on farther west than to be buying horses in his territory. He had a truck going to Carlsbad, New Mexico, to pick up some polo horses, and he would send me to Carlsbad for nothing. He thought I could probably buy some broncs a little cheaper out there than I could around Abilene. It sounded like a good proposition, so I took him up.

I didn't tarry around Carlsbad long. I saddled up and rode off into northwestern New Mexico, high up in the mountains, where I knew there were lots of good horses and mighty few buyers.

I drifted into Cloudcroft, then back into the Apache Reservation, and was camped one night near an Indian trading post about fifty miles up in the mountains, south of where the Ruidoso race track is now. There were lots of good horses in this country, and I had begun to put out the word among the natives and the Indians that I wanted to buy a few young horses. I stayed camped high up in the mountains, between Almogordo and Ruidoso, close to this Indian trading post.

About the third afternoon I was there, some Indian bucks rode over to the trading post—four or five of them, I don't remember which. After they ate some cheese and crackers and drank red soda pop a while, they began to
get rather friendly. They said they didn't have any horses to sell, but they had a race horse they would like to match a race with. The man running the trading post was named Watson, and the Indians called him “Wat.” They said they would sure like to match a race against one of my horses for $10, and that Wat could hold the stakes.

These Indians had some store-bought duckin', paleface britches on them, but their shirts were Apache colored and Apache made. They all wore hats but one. The oldest Indian among them had his head tied up with a headband, and instead of having on store-bought boots, he was wearing moccasins. He was much smaller than the rest, and real bowlegged.

After a little talk and discussion, we put up $10 apiece with Wat and went down to a mountain meadow, just below the trading post, where we marked off what the Indians said was about three hundred yards. I thought it was closer to a quarter of a mile, but it didn't make any difference because Ol' Nothin' could outrun them anyway; and the farther he went, the better he got.

They stripped the saddle off a little brown Indian horse that they were riding, and this old Indian turned out to be the jockey. Ol' Nothin' was staked out to graze a little piece from my camp. I walked out and got him, took the halter off, slipped a limber-bit bridle on his head, and thought I would just ride him bareback. I probably weighed 160 pounds and was as hard as white men get, I guess.

The Indians got Wat to quit the trading post, and he walked off and left it open. He came down into the flat and was going to be the starter. We had marked off the place where the race was going to be over, and we broke
down a bush to one side so there could be no argument about the end of the race.

The Indian and I got on our horses. We had scraped a line on the ground, and Wat was standing on the end of the line holding his hat in his hand. The Indian's horse was a little fidgety, and Ol' Nothin' had savvied what was going to happen and had pertened-up some, too. We were standing on the line, and Wat dropped his hat and hollered: “Go!”

Ol' Nothin' jumped past that Indian horse the first lick and outran him so far to the other end of the race that I had him turned around and looking at the Indian when he got to the end of the race. There was no argument about who won.

We went back to the store and got real well acquainted. The Indians told me they had another race horse that they wanted to bring the next day and run against Ol' Nothin'. Wat asked them how much money they wanted to put up. They grunted and had a little meeting among themselves, then decided they would have to bet $20 to get even—if they won. I told them that would be fine and that I would be at the store waiting for them the next morning.

They rode off, and Wat and I got a little better acquainted. He had paid me my $20 and said tomorrow there would be a good many Indians come down to see the race; that if I wanted to bet a little money on the side, he would be glad to help me with it. I didn't want to brag too much. I told him money might be a little short with me, but I would talk to him about it tomorrow.

It is plenty cold up in the mountains early in the
morning, and it was about ten o'clock before the Indians showed up with their other race horse. This time there were about forty Indian bucks, all ages and all sizes. They were all mounted on good Indian ponies. These ponies were a little better than average Western horse size, even though some of them were paints. For the most part, they showed quite a lot more breeding than was commonly found in those days among Indian horses. The horse they had brought with them to race was a bigger than average Indian horse, a dark chesnut color, and was shod with light cowhorse shoes. I'd say this horse had been picked out of the bunch and was the best horse this particular band of Indians owned, more than likely.

We visited around the porch of the trading post and put up our $20 apiece with Wat. Then I slipped him $25 more to bet on the side. He didn't seem to have any trouble getting it covered by the Indians. I began to think maybe Wat was on their side—that I was the only paleface there, and that I might be fixin' to lose my money.

We went back down into this flat below the trading post, and this time they wanted to run the race for a little bit more than a quarter of a mile; so we marked off a little longer track, which was sure a long quarter of a mile. But, like I said, the farther Ol' Nothin' went, the better he got.

Wat did the starting, the Indians did the hollering, Ol' Nothin' did the running—and me and Ol' Nothin' won the money.

This upset the Indians a right smart, and they said I ought to stay around a day or two until they could get another race horse that was farther back up in the Reservation.
I told them I wasn't in much hurry as long as I was winning horse races, and I would camp at the trading post 'til they showed up with a better race horse.

What I didn't know then was that they had already sent up the smoke signal for this other horse—in case they lost the race.

In about three days they came in to match the big race. They brought a palomino mare that belonged to Chief Treeheart and was called something which meant the Daughter of the Sun. She was truly a beautiful mare, well kept, with every hair in place. She had a beautiful light mane and tail that had been plaited and unplaited by the squaws, giving the hair a wavy appearance.

The Chief wanted to bet a great big turquoise bracelet against $50. This turquoise stone was as big around as a tin drinking cup and about as thick as your thumb—mounted in a huge silver band. I didn't know whether it was worth $3 or $300, but we almost had to match the race to get any side bets; so I put up the $50 with Wat at the trading post, and the old Chief gave him the bracelet. Then Wat went to taking side bets, and he had about $150 to bet when he asked me if I wanted to take part of it. I told him I would take it all, and he looked pleased. I know now that he was working for the Indians and hadn't bet anything himself.