Jim Kane - J P S Brown (5 page)

Kane spent ten days sacking, hand feeding, and
leading the colts. At the end of that time he was able to get
familiar enough with them so that he could saddle and hackamore them
without blindfolding them and trim their feet without throwing them.
The only one of the lot who wanted Kane's hide was Mortgage Maker,
the buckskin.

Kane mounted his colts for the first time in a small
crowding pen. The colts couldn't get away from him in there. They
couldn't run and they couldn't buck. He rode them in the pen for a
week. He knew this was cheating them, not giving them a chance to
buck. But he was breaking the colts for business and not for fun.
Anyway, Kane figured, anyone would say nowadays cheating for business
wasn't cheating.

He rode the colts in the crowding pen until he
figured if he didn't take them outside he and the colts would be
permanently claustrophobic. The colts were responding well to the
hackamore rein and he could get off and on them from both sides
without trouble. He was feeding them out of a
morral
,
a feed bag made of a grain sack, and he could catch them with the
morral
anytime he
wanted to. They had graduated from being tied after the first ten
days and he let them run loose in the corral now.

One morning Kane caught Mortgage Lifter. He took him
to the crowding pen and saddled him. Mortgage Lifter yawned a few
times. Kane led him in circles and looked him over. Mortgage Lifter
was bored. The colt dragged his gangly, big-boned legs around
clumsily. Kane got on him and trotted him around the pen. Mortgage
Lifter's ears flopped uninterestedly. Kane unhooked the gate, swung
it open, and rode him out the gate.

New scenery began to appear to Mortgage Lifter. No
pole fence appeared before his eyes after a few steps. His ears began
to work. He raised his head and looked at a cloud. He turned his head
and looked at a bird. He caught sight of Kane in the panorama out of
the corner of his eye. He swung his head around and caught sight of
Kane out of the other eye. He hit a fast, scared trot. Every time he
got another look at Kane the trot got faster. He had never carried
Kane at a fast trot before so that scared him more and he threw his
head up, took a fix on a cloud, and had a runaway. Kane took hold of
one rein and the dun looked at his cloud and not at where he was
going. He ran through a
cholla
cactus field and Kane gave him slack so he would look down and see
where he was going. He ran into a deep sandy wash and almost fell
when Kane's weight bore down on him at the bottom of the wash. He
looked at the ground finally when he stumbled in the wash and Kane
turned him up the wash and ran him in the sand. The end of the wash
was a solid wall and into it Mortgage Lifter plowed. He bounced off
and Kane circled him in the sand. Mortgage Lifter had his head down
now. The head got lower as Kane circled him. The first convulsive
symptoms of a bucking horse began to appear and Kane hauled back on
one rein. The head came all the way around but the body kept
convulsing straight ahead into the wall of the wash. Kane had to give
him his head so he wouldn't fall and down the head went between the
front legs and Mortgage Lifter started bucking. The big tall colt
knew how to buck. Kane could see out of the wash every time the colt
fired. He could never tell where the colt was going to land because
the colt was so limber he came down in unrelated pieces. Finally Kane
saw a whole lot of landscape above the bank of the wash and he lost
hold of the death grip he had on the saddlehorn and when he reached
for it again he grabbed a handful of sand, then a mouthful, and then
it seemed like the whole sandy bed of the wash was making a starry
story inside his head. Mortgage Lifter had lifted Kane's butt.

Kane got up and ran to the mouth of the wash so the
colt couldn't get away and stood there and watched him buck in the
end of the wash. The colt's jumps got boggy in the sand and finally
he stopped and Kane caught him. Kane sat and smoked a cigarette while
he and Mortgage Lifter cooled and thought the deal over. Then Kane
got on him and rode him in the wash until he was tired. Mortgage
Lifter carried Kane back to camp like a good saddle horse and didn't
buck anymore on the way. The black-and-white paint responded well to
the hackamore rein in the crowding pen. He had a lot of action. He
was graceful and nimble on long slender legs. He was shortnecked,
clean-hided, lean, and hard. The only part of the colt Kane didn't
like was the small eye encircled by white. The look out of the dark
blue pupils was one way and that way didn't seem to include Kane.
They showed Escape Intended. Kane opened the gate and rode him
outside.

The colt immediately hit a fast trot. Kane headed him
up a road that ended at the highway. He wanted to keep the colt out
of the cholla fields. The colt wanted to cover the country. He was
easy to handle, so Kane let him go. Three seconds later the paint was
at a dead run down the road. Kane circled him and stopped him several
times but the colt's circles got wider each time. He was not
responding so well to the hackamore now and Kane was putting all his
weight on the rein to circle him. The paint was warming up and his
jaw was getting numb from the pulling. He was no longer coming here
to Kane but was more and more getting gone. The road passed through a
long narrow lane solid on both sides with mesquite, ironwood, and
palo verde
trees, all
hardwood, and all spiny. Kane let the colt run. There was not enough
country free of brush to turn him in now.

Suddenly Kane saw a big truck on the highway not
twenty-five yards away. The next thing he saw was the closed gate
through the highway right-of-way fence, and it looked as though the
paint was going to go through the gate and butt heads with the truck.
Kane tried to let out a warwhoop but only, involuntarily, squeezed
out a terrified squeak as the colt sailed over the gate. At the peak
of the jump Kane looked squarely into the eyes of the truck driver.
The driver seemed more afraid of the collision than Kane, but he was
so surprised he didn't brake the truck. When the colt landed on the
other side of the gate, Kane was still with him and he took one rein
when the colt got his head up and steered him behind the truck and
across the highway where their path crossed that of a touring car.
Kane gave the colt his head to keep him from slipping on the
pavement. The colt had seen enough country. When he got off the other
side of the highway, Kane stopped him and dismounted. He sat in the
shade of the horse and let his breath catch up. The paint was heaving
through wide nostrils and sweat was making puddles under him.

"Young man!" a voice demanded.

Kane looked up. The tourists had alighted from their
car. The big truck had not stopped. The driver probably had not
believed what he had seen. He would probably stop someplace down the
road and have a cup of coffee to rest and get the hallucinations out
of his head that he sometimes got from long hours on the road.

"
Yes?" Kane answered the male tourist.

"
What the hell do you think you are doing riding
your horse across the highway like that? You almost caused a bad
accident?

"
What the hell does it look like I'm doing?"

"
What are you doing?"

"
Going horseback riding, that's what."

"
I'm going to report you. This isn't a bridle
path."

Kane got to his feet. The tourist pitty-patted around
to the other side of his car. Just then a highway patrol car came
slowly by and the tourist waved to it. The patrol car stopped and a
young officer stepped out. The tourist trotted up to him and gave him
his story. Kane stood his ground and the officer walked down off the
highway with the tourist following him.

"What's the trouble here?" the officer
asked Kane.

"
My colt got the green eye and jumped that gate
with me," Kane said.

"What's the green eye?" the tourist asked.

"
He ran away with this man. What is he, a
bronc?" the patrolman asked Kane.

"
This is his first day outside," Kane said.

"
Couldn't you stop him before you crossed the
highway?"

"
Hell, no, I was too busy staying on when I
landed on this side of the gate. I almost ran into a truck going the
other way. The colt would have fallen if I'd tried to turn him on the
pavement so I let him run in front of this gentleman?

"
You scared hell out of my wife, fellow. You
endangered our lives!"

"
You can go now, mister," the patrolman
said to the tourist.

"
Don't you want my name or anything for the
complaint? I want to till, outa complaint. This man scared hell out
of us."

"
You go on or wait for a ticket for obstructing
traffic."

The tourist left. The patrolman took out a package of
cigarettes and gave one to Kane.

‘"
Who are you working for, Bob Keys?"

"
Yes," Kane said.

''How many colts are you breaking for him?"

"
Four head but this is only the second colt I've
ridden outside today. If they are all like the first two I'm not long
for this world."

"Well, be careful crossing the street," the
patrolman said, smiling.

"
I'm trying to be careful," Kane said.

The patrolman walked back to his car and heard a call
on the radio. He went back to his business of husbanding tourists.

Kane led the paint across the highway and through the
right-of-way gate. The colt was through running for the day. He was
easy to handle on the way back to camp. He'd had enough escape for
the time being.

"
Warwhoop, you are going to be a good horse,"
Kane told him at the corrals.

He unsaddled Warwhoop and went to his shack and had
lunch. After lunch he saddled Whiskey Talk.

The little horse was a blood bay with a white streak
the length of his face and two white-stockinged legs. He stepped out
looking for new scenery when Kane let him out of the pen. He was
interested in everything around him and a little scared but he never
offered to buck. Kane rode him as near as possible to a bunch of
cattle. The Keys were running three hundred head of big, Mexican
Brahmas on the desert ranch. They were wild as deer. Kane took
Whiskey Talk as near to the bunch as he could without running them
off. The colt watched the cattle and paid no attention to Kane. Kane
rode him back to camp and unsaddled him, thinking there must be some
truth to the Mexican saying about horses:

The horse with one white foot, good,
Two white feet, better,
Three
white feet, bad,
Four white feet, worse.

Kane caught Mortgage Maker, the tight, hard-twisted
buckskin. He saddled him, boarded him, circled him in the crowding
pen, and swung open the gate. Mortgage Maker braked, sidled, and
shied at one side of the gate, banging Kane's good knee on the other
side as he went through. Mortgage Maker was insolent. His large ears
hung indolently. He stepped out with a balky, swinging step that had
no rhythm to it. He was interested in nothing but Kane and Kane only
slightly interested him. He would not walk in a straight line. He
tended to wander in the direction he was watching Kane. He stopped
and seemed to taunt Kane that he had the legs and if Kane wanted to
go on he would have to force Mortgage Maker and Mortgage Maker knew
who was the bigger. Kane used his quirt to keep the colt moving to
the sandy wash. He loped the colt up and down the wash. After the
third trip the length of the wash the colt balked. He had decided
Kane was too heavy to carry in sand at the pace Kane was demanding.
Kane warped the heavy quirt down the colt's flank and the wreck was
on.

The colt could buck and he grunt-bawled with every
jump. He was kicking high behind and when he hit the bank at the end
of the wash he sucked back away from the bank and cowkicked both
Kane's spurs. Kane pulled his head around to turn him and he bit at
Kane's foot. Kane kicked at the colt's muzzle to keep from getting
bitten and the colt struck at Kane's foot with his front feet. The
first few jumps weren't bad but then the colt started teaching
himself how to buck. He had plenty of bottom and plenty of cunning.
He started spinning and Kane could feel a bad case of the round-ass
coming on. He gave the colt his head so he would line out and buck
straight and the colt swapped ends again and spun out the other way.
He bucked straight and hard into the bank. Kane was sure he was going
to knock himself down on the bank so he loosened all holds and got
ready to fall clear. The colt kept his feet and ironed Kane up
against the bank. Kane had been unhorsed again. He staggered to the
mouth of the wash and let the colt buck with the saddle in the end of
the wash. When the colt finally stopped bucking Kane regretfully
noted that he still hadn't drawn a long breath.

He caught Mortgage Maker again. He loosened his
cinches and reset his saddle. He was tightening his cinch when the
colt jumped and cowkicked at Kane's hand. He missed but when Kane
recoiled from the kick the colt got hold of one of Kane's buttocks
with his teeth. The teeth sounded like a crocodile's when they
snapped off Kane's hide. Kane rubbed and cussed for five minutes. He
stood at the colt's shoulder and pulled him around. He put his elbow
on the colt's cheek. so he couldn't bite, got his toe in the stirrup,
his knee in the shoulder, and swung on. The colt balked. Kane gave
him the quirt down his flank. Mortgage Maker humped up and wet
through his sheath in random, angry drops that ran down both legs.
Kane gave him the quirt under the tail and the colt squealed and
started trotting stiff-leggedly down the wash. Kane headed him toward
camp.