The Horse Tamer (2 page)

“So you became a carriage-maker,” Alec commented.

“Not at all. Turned out that I didn’t learn a thing about carriage making. I remember that first day pretty well. We were deliverin’ a new buggy Bill had just finished to a Mr. Murray.… ”

And then Henry went on with the story.

The carriage was designed for speed as well as elegance and it matched the sleek bay trotter up front. The long shafts were made of ash, beautifully polished and varnished. The wheels were rubber-tired
and caught the sun’s rays with their shiny brass inner rings, red spokes and nickled hubs. The patent-leather dashboard was flanked on each side by a brass lamp studded with large red-glass rubies. The whip-socket was made of silver plate. The top of the carriage, of soft yellow leather, could be removed completely during fair weather. The seat was luxurious, with deep springs for easy riding, and had a wicker shoulder-rest.

“Mr. Murray might not like you deliverin’ his new buggy this way, Bill,” the boy warned, sitting nervously on the edge of his seat.

“You got no cause to worry, Hank,” his brother replied. “If he says anything, it’ll be to me. An’ as long as I get his new buggy to him in good order what difference does it make
how
I deliver it?”

“You could at least have put some kind of a bridle on this horse. The time to practice drivin’ without reins is when you have your own buggy.”

“I practice with
any
buggy,
any
time. You’d better get used to that if you plan to stick around, Hank.”

“I came to learn how to make carriages, not do tricks,” the boy said, “especially tricks that can get you into trouble.”

The man tried unsuccessfully to blow a lock of long black hair away from his eyes. “You’ll learn both,” he said, laughing, “an’ you won’t get into trouble either. You jus’ stick with your big brother Bill. He’ll take care of you, all right. Get up there, you lazy old mare! Pepper up!”

Bill Dailey turned the horse into a long driveway without benefit of bridle or reins. He carried only a
long whip with which he had tapped the mare lightly on the off shoulder just before the turn. Not content with this remarkable feat he tapped her again, this time turning her completely around.

“You’re goin’ to upset us,” the boy warned.

“You’re worse than an old maid,” the man said, straightening out the mare with another touch of his whip. As they went down the lane he sent her first to the left and then to the right with ease.

“You haven’t got paid for this buggy yet,” the boy reminded him. “An’ I got a feelin’ you won’t be.”

The man grinned. “I sure will, Hank. We’ve only got a half mile to go.” He sent the mare into a hard trot.

“Are you goin’ to be able to stop her?” The dust and dirt were flying behind them.

“Yep,” the man answered. “This trick’s nothin’, Hank. The mare makes it easy, just the kind for driving without reins. She’s smart but lazy and gentle. She’s not the kind to run away.” He tapped the back of the mare’s head and she slowed immediately to a walk. “See!” he said, pleased with himself and the mare. “How about that?”

The boy nodded and glanced at the lovely fenced fields on either side of them.

“Nothin’ hurried here, ever,” Bill Dailey told his brother.

“Is that why you slowed her down to a walk, to make less noise?”

“Yep.”

“Bill …”

“Yeah?”

“Will you teach me how to drive without reins?”

“You really want to learn?”

The boy nodded self-consciously, recalling his earlier criticism.

“Even more than makin’ carriages?” the man asked teasingly.

“
Anyone
can make carriages, Bill.”

“All right, Hank,” the man said seriously. “Now you’re talkin’ the way I like to hear. It’s an easy trick. The secret’s all in pickin’ the right horse. I’d like to teach you. I’d like to teach you a lot of things about horses.”

Bill Dailey slowed the bay mare still more. “The
only runnin’ Mr. Murray allows around here,” he said, “is what’s done by the foals. He never likes a horse to be startled. They just lap up peace and quiet. He’s got them thinkin’ the world is theirs. Not a sound, not ever a …”

The sharp crack of a whip shattered the quiet summer air. It came from around a bend in the drive. A man bellowed angrily. Again the whip cracked … again and again and again.

Frightened by the sounds, their bay mare jumped and swerved, almost upsetting the buggy. As she swept down the road Bill was already on his feet, trying to stop her with his long whip. He tapped her lightly on the back of the head and she was responding to his urgent command when one of the wheels caught in a deep rut. The buggy tipped, then slid abruptly to one side, crashing hard against a bordering tree. There was a shattering of red-spoked wheels, ruby glass and polished wood, and the smart yellow top came down heavily.

Man and boy scrambled to the ground and went to the bay mare’s head. She was frightened and shaken but not hurt.

“You all right?” Bill asked his brother anxiously.

“Yeah, but take a good look at Mr. Murray’s new buggy.”

The man’s eyes didn’t leave the mare. “She’d have stopped if I’d gotten to her before this tree did. It wasn’t her fault. She—” He stopped as if suddenly recalling the cause of their accident and swept his gaze down the lane.

In the middle of the road was a peddler’s wagon, its flat-bed laden and bulging with glistening pails, tinware, clocks, muslins, taffetas, lightning rods, bells, books and bull rings. There were also patent medicines, jewelry, bright scarves, handkerchiefs, needles and thread; boots, shoes, chewing gum and tobacco; linoleum, Bibles and buggy whips.

The shafts of the wagon were empty and the horse was tied to a tree. He was a young colt, gray and of medium size. The peddler, flushed and exhausted, stood a few feet away with a buggy whip in his hand, his fine coat and stovepipe hat lying neatly on the ground.

“You’ll kill yourself and your colt too,” Bill Dailey called to him.

The peddler was large, almost a colossus of a man; his hair was fair and unruly, and his face handsome and unlined. He could have made two of Bill Dailey. He laughed wildly as he took in the thin, almost slight figure of the stranger who seemed so concerned about him and his colt when he had just had an accident himself.

“Thank you, sir,” he said finally, “but this is a bad one, he is. As bad, I’m sure, as your runaway.” There was an Irish lilt to the peddler’s voice. “He either balks or lunges. One minute he won’t go. The next I can’t stop him. He’s the worst I’ve ever had.”

“Whipping won’t cure him,” Bill said, walking over. “He’s got nerve and courage. He’ll take your whipping until he drops … or until you do.”

The peddler grinned. “You got a real sense of
duty to warn me, stranger.” He had suddenly changed his mind about this man. The fellow might be thin but he seemed made of steel. “Now what do you suggest I do?” he asked.

“Let me take him over,” Bill answered, thoroughly at ease despite the towering hulk beside him.

“You?” the peddler asked suspiciously. “You seem to have your own troubles.” He eyed the bay mare beyond without realizing that she wore neither bridle nor reins.

“I’ll loan you a horse until I’m done with yours,” Bill said, ignoring the big man’s remark. “It’ll take me a couple of days. Your colt must have had bad treatment long before you got him.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m lookin’ at him, that’s how I know.” Bill’s tone was self-reliant, confident. It made up for his want of size. “It’s my business to know,” he added.

The peddler frowned in perplexity. “What business are you in, anyway? Horse dealing?”

“No, carriage making,” Bill answered. He turned to look back at his brother and the shattered buggy. “That is, I
was
in it,” he added. “I’m not so sure now. Anyway, you come to my shop in Birdsboro and I’ll loan you a horse that you won’t need to use a whip on.”

“How do you know I won’t run out on you?” the peddler asked, grinning.

“You’re leavin’ too good a colt behind and you know I’m goin’ to straighten him out for you, that’s why.”

The peddler noted the look of cold command in
the other’s eyes. “Yes, I know that, all right. But don’t ask me how I know it.” He threw down the buggy whip and offered his hand good-naturedly. “My name’s Caspersen, Finn Caspersen.”

“Mine’s Bill Dailey. An’ over there is my kid brother Hank.”

“Want me to come along to your shop now?” the peddler asked a little nervously. He didn’t like being made to feel uneasy. He decided, too, that he wouldn’t want to come to blows with Bill Dailey despite his small size.

“Yes, we’ll hitch up my mare to your wagon and lead the colt,” Bill answered.

“What about your buggy?”

“I’ll come back for it later.”

“Maybe you can fix it up,” the big man suggested hesitantly.

“Maybe I can. But first I want to fix up your colt. He’s young an’ he’s had some bad times.” Bill Dailey’s eyes were half-closed as he squinted in the bright sun.

The peddler put on his fine coat slowly. “You sure got a heap of feelin’ for bad horses, Bill,” he said almost in awe. “You sure have.”

Early the next morning Bill took his brother into the apple orchard behind his carriage shop.

“Some horsemen say,” he told Hank, “that the best remedy for a balker like this colt is to take osselets, or small bones, from his legs, dry and grate them fine, then blow a thimbleful into his nostrils. He’ll then go off without trouble.” Bill picked several apples and put them into his pockets. “But I’ve had better luck with these,” he added, laughing.

“But will the dried osselets work?” Hank asked curiously.

“About like ammonia or red pepper. They’re only
temporary
aids. They disconcert a balker long enough to get him to start, but they don’t
keep
him goin’.”

A few minutes later Bill led the gray colt, wearing harness, down a back road. He stopped and started him repeatedly, each time rewarding the colt with a bit of apple and stroking his neck and head.

“There’s nothin’ wrong with this colt that some
kindness won’t help,” he told Hank. “Winning a young horse’s confidence is always the first step. This fellow’s had too much abuse.”

Bill untied the long reins from the harness and for the first time stood a little to the side and rear of the colt. “Now, boy,” he said, tapping him lightly over the hips, “get along, an’ do the same thing you been doin’ with me up front.”

The colt moved off smartly and continued down the road until commanded to stop. He looked around and Bill gave him a bit of apple and a pat on the head. Then he was sent off once more until a touch of the reins brought him to another halt.

After repeating this many times with no trouble, Bill said, “Now for my wagon, Hank.”

They hitched up the colt and he immediately began to fret.

“He’s afraid of it,” Bill said, “an’ now we’ll try to find out why. If we do, curin’ him of balkin’ won’t be any trick at all.”

“The peddler had a big load,” Hank reminded his brother. “Maybe he was overloaded and the colt refused to pull.”

“Overloading wouldn’t cause fear,” Bill said.

“Maybe the crosspiece struck his legs once,” Hank suggested, trying his best to be helpful.

Bill Dailey slid a pole over the gray haunches but the colt neither kicked nor made any effort to break away. Finally Bill touched him with the reins. For a second the colt hesitated and Bill urged soothingly, “Easy, boy, get along with you now.”

The colt took a single stride and the wheels of the
empty wagon turned noiselessly behind him. As he took another stride, and still another, Bill walked alongside but a little to the rear, talking to the colt all the while. Hank followed.

They could see the colt’s confidence return as he moved in the stillness of the early morning. His fine body stopped trembling and only the backward flicking of his ears indicated his concern for what was going on behind him. Bill stopped him repeatedly, rewarding him each time with a bit of apple, and then going on again. Finally Bill started for home.

“It’s got to be Caspersen’s wagon he’s afraid of,” Bill told his brother. “There’s nothin’ wrong with him while he’s pullin’ mine.”

“Maybe it’s not so much Caspersen’s wagon as what’s in it,” Hank suggested. He wanted very much to be helpful, for in a way that’s why he was here. Before long he’d have to make his own way in life just as Bill was doing. He’d have to face the realities of an adult world alone. Bill would help prepare him to meet this new and sometimes terrifying challenge.

“Think of all the merchandise Caspersen sells,” the boy went on eagerly. “Think of the buffalo robes an’—”

“I am thinkin’ of them,” Bill interrupted, his eyes half-closed. “This wouldn’t be the first horse to be frightened by a buffalo robe or an umbrella. You might be right at that, Hank.”

“Or maybe bright scarves scare him,” the boy put in quickly. “Or it could be the lightning rods, bells, books, bull rings, tinware …”

Bill Dailey nodded in agreement as his brother
went on breathlessly. He was pleased with Hank. He was pleased with all he saw in the bright, deep-set eyes. Hank was growing up fast, and already was as tall as he. His weight was distributed like their father’s—solid through the shoulders, back and chest. Hank probably wouldn’t get much bigger, none of them did—and they were seven, all boys. He’d be a natural leader, too. Hank was the youngest of them all, but his smaller size hadn’t stopped him from holding his own during their childish games and roughhousing, his body straining and weaving in competition against theirs. They were a closely knit family even though, there being so many of them, it was economically necessary for them to leave home early in search of work. But no number of miles would ever destroy the firm and joyful allegiance they had for each other.