17

I Done It! I Done It!

WHEN Mr. Bendt said I could show Hazel how to do the somersault trick, I saddled Pinch and Pinto as fast as I could. Then he rode out to the little practice meadow with us, at a slow jogging pace.

I’d never done the trick without being just a little bit scared, but when we got to the meadow I told Mr. Bendt, “There’s nothing about this trick to be scared of if the horses are trained right, and I think these are. Pinch hasn’t made a bobble all week, and Pinto’s only made a couple of little ones. If you and Hazel will stand your horses right over there, I’ll try to do the trick so you can see every part of it. And I’ll do it first off Pinch, because he didn’t spook the time I did it by accident.”

I rode Pinch back to the starting line, took off my spurs, then put him into a hard run. At the moment he was passing Mr. Bendt and Hazel, I hissed and ducked my head and shoulders. The quick, hot taste I always got came into my mouth, I spun in the air, and the next instant Pinch and I were standing with our two heads side by side.

“Good job!” Mr. Bendt called out.

“You done it too fast!” Hazel shouted. “Why didn’t you do it slower so’s I could see how you done it?”

“I have to do it fast,” I said, “or I’d only go part way over. Let’s change saddles now and I’ll try it off Pinto. The thing to watch is the way I duck my head as I leave the saddle—as if I were trying to poke it between my legs.”

Pinto was fidgety with me on him, so I didn’t take him all the way back, but turned him into a quick start. As soon as he’d picked up enough speed, I hissed and ducked my head. Pinto set his feet in good shape, but when he felt me leaving the saddle, he spooked and whirled away to the right. He did it so fast that the saddle horn bumped my leg as my foot came up out of the stirrup. It wasn’t a hard bump, but enough to throw me a bit sideways and off balance.

I’d practiced the trick so much that my muscles would remember what to do quicker than my head could. My arms didn’t go out to balance me, or my legs to reach for the ground, but I stayed curled up like a sleeping cat. I landed sort of cornerwise, on the back of my shoulder, somersaulted on the ground a couple of times, and came to a stop on my hands and knees—right in front of Mr. Bendt’s horse. I’d hardly come to a stop before he picked me up and asked, “Are you hurt, boy?”

“No, sir,” I told him, “not a bit. I’m all right.”

“Betcha my life!” he said, and I heard Hazel gasp. When I looked up, her face was so white that the freckles looked like mud spatters.

“Jiminy!” she panted, as if she were all out of breath. “I thought you was going to get killed.”

“That’s why I’ve been making you practice to stay loose,” I told her. “You don’t get hurt if you stay loose and doubled up; it’s only when you get scared and stick out your arms and legs.”

“Wasn’t you scairt?” she asked. “I was! Green!”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t have time to be. Where’s Pinto? I want to try it a few more times with him; he won’t spook after another time or two.”

Pinto hadn’t run when he’d whirled away, but was standing stiff-legged, with his nostrils wide, watching me as if he thought I’d gone crazy.

“Don’t you reckon you’ve had enough for one day?” Mr. Bendt asked. “Don’t you reckon you’d best to leave him a day to settle down ’fore you try him again?”

“I think it would be better if I tried it right now,” I told him. “Every horse I ever tried it from—except Pinch—spooked the first time, but after they get used to it they never spook again. If I’d leave him now, don’t you think he might be worse next time?”

“Like as not you’re right,” Mr. Bendt said after a minute. “Like as not! Go on ahead, but watch out there’s no loose gear to get tangled up in!”

I took a couple of practice runs on Pinto, but didn’t leave the saddle. Then, on the third run, I ducked my head and somersaulted. He spooked again, but not quick enough for the saddle to bump me, and he whirled only half way. So long as the saddle didn’t touch me, his spooking didn’t bother the trick, but my muscles were still afraid. They kept me curled up in a bunch right through the split second when I should have been throwing my arms out for balance and setting my feet to land.

I hit the ground on my feet, but I was scrooched way down—with my bottom right behind my heels—and my arms wrapped around my stomach. That didn’t leave me any way of putting on the brakes, so I bounced like a thrown ball. About that time my head caught up with my muscles in thinking, and I threw my arms out wide to slow me down, but it worked just wrong. For a tenth of a second I must have looked like a wild goose coming in for a landing, then my feet touched the ground again and I flopped forward on my face. The first landing didn’t hurt at all, but the flop forward knocked the wind out of me. When Mr. Bendt picked me up, I was yawping for breath like a fish on a hook.

Mr. Bendt saw what the trouble was, and gave me a slap on the back. He wasn’t a bit afraid or excited, but his mouth was set hard, and he said, “This ain’t no game for girls—boys, neither! How come Beckman learnt it to you in the first place? How come your paw let him do it?”

“They didn’t,” I told him. “I saw Hi do it once, and then I practiced it by myself—when I was out alone herding cattle—in a good soft sandy place. It isn’t nearly as dangerous as it looks. I’ve taken a thousand spills with nothing worse than getting the wind knocked out of me.”

“Well, this ain’t no soft sandy place!” Mr. Bendt told me. “Reckon you’d best to call it a day!”

Hazel hadn’t made a sound, but when I looked up, two big tears were rolling down her cheeks. I didn’t know if it was because she was afraid I’d been hurt, or because she was sure her father wouldn’t let her learn the trick. But I did know that he’d never let her learn it unless he saw me do it over and over without a bobble, so I said, “Can I have just one more try? If I don’t do it right this time, I won’t try it again while I’m here.”

Mr. Bendt rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand, as if he were thinking hard, then said, “Reckon every man’s due the right to draw one card, but I’m tellin’ you—you’ll have to come up with a full house or better!”

I’d never played poker, but I’d watched the men at the Y-B ranch enough to know that a full house was a hard hand to beat. And I knew that Mr. Bendt was telling me that, unless everything went exactly right, my trick-riding was over for the summer.

I decided that, with only one card to draw, I’d better not take any chances, so I told Hazel, “We’ll have to trade saddles again; I’m going to use Pinch this time.”

Mr. Bendt helped me change saddles, and his face stayed hard and set, but Hazel’s was nervous. As I kneed the air out of Pinch, she crowded up close beside me, and whispered, “Don’t take no chances, Ralph . . . but . . . but . . . make it work.”

I didn’t say anything back, but nodded, pulled the cinch tight, and hopped to get a foot in the stirrup.

Among all of us, I think Pinch was the only one who wasn’t nervous. Hazel was so jumpy that she excited Pinto into dancing, and Mr. Bendt’s face was set as hard as rock. As I turned Pinch toward the starting line, my knees played a tattoo against the saddle, and pins-and-needles ran up and down my backbone. I walked him real slowly, and waited a full minute at the line, telling myself to stay loose and to make the trick work. Then, when my knees stopped trembling, I kicked my heels against Pinch’s belly. I don’t remember anything about that try, right from the take-off to the moment I found myself standing on my feet with Pinch’s head at my shoulder.

I think it was Hazel and Mr. Bendt who sort of woke me up. She was squealing and clapping her hands as if she’d been into the loco weed, and her father called out, “Pick up the chips, boy! It’s your next deal!”

“Can I draw more than one card this time?” I called back. “I’d like to try it off Pinto, so he’ll get used to it, but I can’t be sure it’ll work just right the first try.”

“Dealer’s choice! You’ve got the deck!” he said, so I shifted my saddle back onto Pinto.

All the time I was changing saddles, Hazel fussed around with Pinto like an old hen with one chicken. She kept patting him, and scratching his muzzle, and telling him not to get fidgety, and to behave himself. Then, when I climbed into the saddle, she looked up and whispered, “Don’t kick him hard in the belly. He’s as scairt as I am of what might happen, and you’ll only make him worse.”

“You’re the one that’s making him nervous,” I told her. “If you don’t stop fiddling around you’ll make me tighten up too, and spoil everything.”

Hazel let her arms drop loose, but her face was still excited when I turned Pinto away. His take-off was good, and when I hissed and flipped he threw his head up, but he didn’t spook. And when he saw me standing beside him at the finish, he looked at me as much as to ask how I got there.

Hazel didn’t pay any more attention to me than if I’d been a post standing there. She ran to Pinto, patted him on the shoulder, rubbed his neck, and told him she’d known he could do it all the time.

I took half a dozen more somersaults off Pinto. They weren’t all perfect, but there were no really bad ones, and he behaved in good shape. My worst trouble was with Hazel. She kept yapping at me for doing the trick too fast for her to see, and saying she’d never be able to learn it. At last Mr. Bendt said, “Why don’t you ride alongside of him, gal, so’s to watch it from close in? But stay off far enough to give him room! Your horse could tromp him if you get in too close.”

With Hazel on Pinch, I knew there was no danger of my being trampled. He always stopped quicker than Pinto, and I’d land well in front of him. But I didn’t think Hazel could learn much from riding along beside me. At the very moment she ought to be watching what I did, she’d be flung against the saddle pommel, and wouldn’t be able to see a thing. At the take-off line, I stopped and told her, “If you’re going to learn anything this way, you’ve got to almost think you’re doing the stunt yourself. Try ducking your head a little when you hear me hiss, but look out you don’t get it low enough to bump the saddle horn.”

I didn’t have any time to watch Hazel at the last moment, but, just as I landed, I heard her father call, “Careful, gal! You’ll bust your head on that horn!”

On our second run together, he called to her again, “Watch out for that horn, gal!”

Before we left the starting line for our third run, I told her, “Lean a bit to one side, then you’ll miss the horn when the pommel stops you and your head jerks down.”

That could have been a bad thing for me to tell Hazel. It could have thrown her off balance and made her take a nasty spill, but it didn’t work that way. Both horses were going like sixty when I hissed and ducked my head, and as I went spinning through the air I caught a glimpse of something flying right along with me. I didn’t realize what it was until I’d landed on my feet and saw Hazel take two or three running steps, then fall forward on her face. For a split fraction of a second my heart stopped beating, and I had that taste like hot blood in my mouth. Then Mr. Bendt shouted, “Hazel!” and leaped out of his saddle.

Hazel fell less than three yards in front of me, but before I could collect my wits and get to her, she’d scrambled to her feet. She was hardly on them before she started bouncing and jumping around like a cat on a hot stove. “I done it! I done it!” she shouted, and her braids flapped like latigo strings on the saddle of a bucking horse. “I ain’t hurt one tiny little bit, and I done it!”

I knew she’d done the trick by mistake, just the way I had when the pheasant flew up in front of Pinch. She’d watched me enough that her muscles knew what to do without her head telling them, and she’d been just enough off center in the saddle to be thrown clear when Pinch stopped. I think her father knew it too. His face looked as proud as my father’s did when he first saw me do the stunt at the Littleton roundup, but all he said was, “Is that all the worth there is to your word, gal? Thought you promised you wasn’t goin’ to try that stunt today!”

Hazel stopped hopping, and her face went sober. Then she peeked up at him under her eyebrows and said, “I didn’t do it a-purpose, Paw. Honest, I didn’t! It just kind of happened all by itself.”

That time he smiled, and said, “I reckoned right from the start-off that’s the way it had to work. Maybe you’d best to let Little Bri . . . to let Ralph here show you how to keep from fallin’ over after you land.”

“Well, I think I can tell it to her better than I can show her,” I said. “I learned it from watching a pigeon light on our barn. Did you ever notice how they use their wings for brakes, and how they reach out to feel for a landing with their feet? That’s the way I do it, but it’s too fast to watch in the middle of a somersault, and that’s when I begin to push my arms and legs out.”

“Betcha my life! Betcha my life!” Mr. Bendt said. “Reckon you can get the hang of it, gal?”

Hazel began hopping again, and squealing, “Sure I can! Sure I can! Let’s do it again!”

I knew Hazel would make plenty of bobbles until she’d practiced the trick over and over, and I didn’t want her father to stop her if she took a few spills, so I said, “You know, she can only learn it by practicing, and she’ll be sure to take some more spills. But if she doesn’t get scared and tighten up, she can’t break anything.”

“Hmmm! Nothin’ but her neck!” he said. Then he laughed and told Hazel, “Reckon I’m loco as a range maverick to let you try it, gal. Your maw would peel the hide off me if she knowed of it. But now you done it once you’d best to go on and learn it the safest way there is.” His face set hard, and he went on, “Look here, gal! The boy’ll be away with Batch most of the time. I want your word that you won’t try this stunt alone! Is it a go?”

Hazel swiped a quick X on the front of her blouse, and said, “Cross my heart! But it’s all right if we practice when Ralph’s on the home ranch, ain’t it, Paw?”

Mr. Bendt nodded slowly, and I did the trick a few more times to show Hazel how I kept from falling forward. When it came time for her to try the trick alone, I could see she was nervous, so I rode to the starting line with her. We’d turned the horses, and while I was telling her to stay loose and not to be afraid, her lip began to quiver. “Ride with me, Ralph,” she almost begged; “I’m scairt.”

I knew that the longer we waited the more afraid she’d get, so I yipped, “Let’s GO!” and kicked my heels against Pinch.

Both horses jumped at the word, and we were racing neck and neck by the time we’d gone fifty yards—then I hissed. I had to—so Hazel would somersault again without thinking about it or having time to tighten up. It worked fine. She went all the way over, lit on her feet, staggered a couple of steps, then stopped without falling down. She didn’t remember to put her arms out till she was already on her feet, but I knew she had the trick learned—and so did her father.

He didn’t even bother to come over to us, but called, “Two more times and we’re goin’ in! Your maw’ll be wonderin’ where we’re at.”