19

No Profit A-fightin’

WHEN I went to the chuckhouse the next morning everybody seemed as excited as they had been the Sunday we picked our horse strings. Sid kept calling Jenny, “Jenny Wren,” and trying to make jokes she’d laugh at—but she wouldn’t. And Hank was wound up like a new dollar watch. He’d heard that he and Sid were going out as a team, and was hardly down at the table before he shouted, “By dogies, Batch, you sure ain’t made no mistake! With this here little redhead to give me a hand, I’ll show you a job o’ tradin’ like you ain’t saw in many a year! No, sirree, by dogies, they don’t make tradin’ men no more! Why I recollect when we was a-fetchin’ trail herds up from Texas, I and old Tom . . .”

“Pass the flapjacks!” Mr. Batchlett cut in. Then he began talking to Mr. Bendt about cutting out seventy head of young stock for our trip down the Arkansas.

Hazel came into the chuckhouse three or four times, to bring coffee or help Jenny carry out dishes. Every time she tried to whisper something to me, but she did it so low and fast that I couldn’t understand what she was saying. When we were nearly through eating I noticed her just inside the kitchen doorway, ducking her head and making the motions of throwing a saddle onto a horse. Of course I knew then that she was telling me to get saddled up so she could show Mr. Batchlett the somersault trick. I nodded to let her know I understood, and within two minutes I heard dishes clicking and clattering in the kitchen faster than Hank’s false teeth did when we were lost in the mountains.

While the trading teams had been away I hadn’t noticed that Jenny paid the least bit of attention to Ned. But at breakfast that morning she kept asking him if he’d like more coffee, telling him she liked his Sunday shirt, and things like that. Then, when Sid was telling a joke, she looked out the window, and said to Ned, “I thought I heard a little redheaded woodpecker, but I must have been mistaken.”

Everybody but Sid laughed—and he tried to—but his face and neck got as red as his hair. I thought he might blow off, but Mr. Batchlett cut in again. “How about it, boys?” he asked; “Want to pitch in and get the trail herds made up this morning? I’m aimin’ to ride over to The Springs this afternoon; any that wants can ride along. We’ll have to work right through the Fourth, and this is the only chance you’ll get for a celebration.”

The men all nodded, and the last thing I saw when I was leaving the chuckhouse was Hazel in the doorway. She had a plate in one hand and a dishtowel in the other, and was making diving motions with her head.

I didn’t know just what Mr. Bendt might want me to do about helping to make up the trail herds, so I walked up beside him on the way to the horse corral, and asked, “Which horse should I put my saddle on this morning?”

He looked down at me, closed one eye, and said in a low voice, “If you don’t want to get et up alive, you’ll put it on Pinch while I’m puttin’ Hazel’s on Pinto. If she don’t get to show off that trick stunt to Batch ’fore Sunday School time, she’ll bust a hame string.”

Mr. Batchlett and all the men—even the dairyhands—must have known Hazel was going to do the somersault trick before we worked the cattle. When Mr. Bendt and I brought the saddles, they were standing around behind the horse corral, and Hank was telling in a loud voice about riding tricks he used to do when he was a boy.

We hardly had the saddles on when Hazel came running from the house. She was holding the herd book in one hand—sort of waving it around so it would show from behind—but with the other hand she was hugging a new ten-gallon hat against her chest. As she ran up to the corral gate, her father called, “Hazel, what you doin’ with that new Stetson I bought you for the roundup?”

“Well . . .” she panted. “Well . . . the Fourth o’ July is only two days off, and I’ll need . . . I’ll need . . .”

In less than a second I knew what she’d need, and Mr. Bendt did too. Before she could go on, he said quietly, “Betcha my life! Betcha my life, gal! Now don’t go to gettin’ all het up or you won’t do too good. The boys is waitin’.”

Until then, I’d thought, of course, that we’d be going to the little meadow for Hazel to do the trick, so I said, “If she’s going to do the trick here at the corrals, I won’t have any need for Pinch.”

“Yes, you will too!” Hazel snapped at me. “If you don’t ride with me and do the hissin’ I’ll get scairt, and then I’ll tighten up, and then I’ll make a mess of it.”

I still thought it would be better if Hazel did the trick alone. If I lit on my feet and she bobbled it, she might be ashamed. So I said, “I’ll make a few practice runs with you here in the corral—the kind where we don’t leave the saddle—then, if you’re loose enough, you can do better alone.”

“Nope!” Mr. Bendt told me. “You go on and take your practice runs, but it’s your trick, you learnt it to her, and you’ll do it together—she’ll feel more to home.” Then he tossed Hazel up onto her saddle and left the corral.

The practice worked fine, and Hazel stayed as loose as a rag doll in the saddle. After Mr. Bendt opened the gate and we rode out, I didn’t say a word about the trick, but kept soft-talking about anything else—the way I’d have talked to a nervous horse. When we were fifty yards beyond the men I turned the horses. Then, before Hazel had time to get scared, I snapped, “Let’s GO!”

I kept Pinch well clear of Pinto, and the little crowd of men seemed to rush toward us as we raced. When we were almost on them I hissed and ducked my head. The next moment we were standing in a row, with Pinto’s head between Hazel and me, and Pinch’s at my right. As I looked along the line, Hazel swept off her new Stetson and bowed—the way I’d told her I did it at the Littleton roundup.

The men whistled and shouted for us to do the trick again, but I told Hazel I didn’t think we’d better. With the little bit of practice she’d had, there wasn’t one chance in fifty of our doing it that well again—and there wasn’t one chance in fifty million that any other girl could have done it that once.

I never saw another cutting horse work with the sureness and speed Clay showed that Sunday. Long before noon we had three trading herds cut out and ready to take the trail Monday morning. Mr. Batchlett bossed the making up of the herds and told me which animal to bring out each time, and when we’d finished, he nodded, and said, “Good job, Little Britches!”

Before I could tell him that it was Clay who had done the good job, he wheeled his horse away and called to the men, “I aim to ride in to The Springs in half an hour. Get your glad rags on if you want to come along—we’ll eat in town.” Then he rode away toward the house with Mr. Bendt.

I didn’t want to go to Colorado Springs, but I did want to talk to Mr. Batchlett before he went. With Clay having to stay on the home ranch, and with me going on a long trip, I’d need Blueboy in shape to use. From the day I’d picked him I hadn’t ridden him an hour, and he’d fought me every minute. I hoped that during the past week he’d settled down enough that I could handle him—but I thought I should ask Mr. Batchlett before I tried it.

As soon as I’d unsaddled Clay I went to the bunkhouse, but Mr. Batchlett wasn’t there. Tom and Ned were trying to shave in front of a little mirror a foot square, and Hank was hollering for his turn. Sid was nowhere in sight, but Zeb was sitting on the steps, patching a pair of overalls, so I sat down beside him.

I knew a half hour must be up before Mr. Batchlett and Mr. Bendt came from the house. They’d both shaved, and kept right on talking while Mr. Batchlett changed his shirt and boots. I got up and stood around, waiting for a hole in their talking. Then I asked, “Would it be all right for me to ride Blueboy this afternoon? I’ll need to get him . . .”

“Dasn’t risk it,” Mr. Batchlett told me. “He’s too dangerous for you to be messing around with by yourself.”

Zeb looked up from his patching, and said, “Me and Sid’ll be hereabouts. We could lend a hand if needs be.”

Mr. Batchlett stopped for half a minute and stood looking at the steps. “Bad streak in that outlaw,” he said, as if he were talking to himself; “can’t tell when it’ll bust loose.” Then he looked at me, and asked, “Why’d you pick him?”

“Because I . . . because . . .” I was going to say, “had to have him,” but I knew it would sound silly, so I stopped.

Mr. Batchlett must have read what was in my mind. He gave me a quick slap on the shoulder, and said, “All right, Little Britches, I ought to know without asking, and I do. Go ahead, but be danged careful!” He started on, then turned back, and said, “Don’t saddle him without two men around, and don’t get on him without a man mounted and alongside!”

I stood in the bunkhouse doorway and watched the riders out of sight. Then I went inside to write a letter to Mother, but I couldn’t think of much to say, so I just wrote:

“I am going on a trip to Pergatory with Mr. Batchlett. I have a blue horse in my string that is the most butiful horse I ever saw. I think he is begining to like me. I have gained 2 pounds. Your loving son Ralph.”

When I’d finished my letter, I thought I’d better rig a double cinch on my saddle before I tried Blueboy, so I went to the harness shop to do it. Sid was there, and working over something at the bench. When I went in, he sang, “Hi-ya, Little Britches! Come look what I done made for that little old Jenny Wren! Been workin’ on it odd minutes o’ night herdin’. Pounded out the dee-zign on the saddle horn with a boot heel. Batch, he let me ride on into Pu-ay-blo to get the buckle offn a harness store.”

Sid held up as pretty a horsehide belt as I’d ever seen. It was seal-brown, almost as soft as velvet, and polished till it glowed—with a vine pattern hammered into it. The buckle was dull silver, with a bright gold horsehead set in the middle. I never would have put all that work into anything for a girl who treated me the way Jenny treated Sid, but, of course I couldn’t say so. He was still polishing the little belt and talking about Jenny when she and the girls drove into the yard from church.

While I was waiting for the dinner bell to ring, I finished rigging my saddle, then went to the bunkhouse to put on a clean shirt. Zeb had finished his patching, and was washing the overalls in a bucket of water beside the steps. He didn’t say anything as I went in, and he didn’t look up when I came out, but said, “Better fetch me that shirt, son. Ain’t no sense in the both of us gettin’ into the suds, and might happen you’ll need a change whilst you’re on the trail.”

It wasn’t until I took the dirty shirt back to Zeb that I noticed my spare pair of overalls, all washed and hanging on the fence. When I tried to thank him, he only shook his head and went right on washing—and crooning, “Yella Ribbon.”

All the dairyhands had driven into town as soon as the milking was done, so there were only the three of us at the table that Sunday noon. Zeb didn’t look up from his plate till he was finished, then cut himself a big chew of tobacco and went outside. I couldn’t saddle Blueboy till Sid was with me, but he dawdled over his pie so long that I went out and left him at the table.

Zeb was waiting for me when I came out. He rifled a thin squirt of tobacco juice, got up from the steps, and walked along with me toward the horse corral. “Been studyin’ ’bout that blue hoss,” he said when we were halfway to the corral. “Awful full o’ fight, ain’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” I said, “but he’s been letting me feed him some pieces of biscuit this past week.”

“No profit a-fightin’ a man as ain’t lookin’ for a fight,” Zeb said, then he spit again and we went on.

I was pretty sure Zeb was telling me that when I’d tried to ride Blueboy before I’d let him know I was looking for a fight, and that he’d keep right on fighting me as long as I gave him anything to fight against.

We carried our saddles to the horse corral, and I took along a biscuit, but we had to wait fifteen or twenty minutes for Sid. While we were waiting Zeb stood outside the gate and mumbled, “Yella Ribbon,” and I went in and fed pieces of biscuit to all four of the horses in my string. Blueboy even stood while I reached back for the hackamore Zeb passed me through the gate, and he didn’t try very hard to pull away when I slipped it over his head.

Sid was whistling like a meadow lark when he brought his saddle, and as he came up to the gate he let out two or three coyote yelps. Even after Zeb had whispered, “Watch out afore you spook the hoss!” he kept whistling, and he wasn’t much help in saddling Blueboy.

I didn’t stop soft-talking to Blueboy until all three of us were in the saddle and Zeb had opened the gate. For the next few minutes I couldn’t have soft-talked to save my life. The second he saw the gate open, Blueboy went up like Old Faithful Geyser. And when his fore hoofs hit the ground he was running—running with his head and neck stretched out and his hoofs beating like sticks on a snare drum.

When Blueboy went up I had to double over, with the saddle horn in the pit of my stomach, and when he came down I bounced high. The natural thing to do was to haul hard on the hackamore rope, to hold me tight down in the saddle, but I wouldn’t let myself do it.

Blueboy streaked along the wagon road across the valley, just as he had done when he ran away with me before. Sid raced behind, and yelled for me to jerk the hackamore, but I left it loose, and tried to keep my heels from kicking Blueboy in the belly. The other time, he’d left the road at the end of the straightaway, and raced up the hill through the scrub oaks, trying to rake me off on each one. This time he followed the winding of the road, and hardly slowed his driving pace all the way up the long hill.

He raced across the top of the rise and onto a rock-strewn piece of road that corkscrewed through the deep gulch beyond. It seemed crazy to let a horse race down that road without at least holding his head up tight. With it down, a stumble would have somersaulted us, but I decided I’d rather risk my neck and his than to let him think I was fighting him, so I left the hackamore loose and rode it out.

Blueboy went through the gulch and up the rise beyond without a break in his pace, then I felt his stride lengthen, and the sound of his breathing came back above the clatter of his hoofs. There’d been times on some of those hairpin turns when I hadn’t been sure I’d be able to stay in the saddle, but that feeling was all gone now. I eased a hand up along Blueboy’s neck and began soft-talking again.

For at least three miles Blueboy held that racing, killing pace, and I was sure he was going to run himself to death. Then his head began to rise, his ears lifted, and I knew he was watching me from the corner of his eye.

I didn’t let myself change the tone or timing of my soft-talk, I didn’t try to drive or slow him, and I kept one hand rubbing along his neck. In another half mile Blueboy had dropped his gallop to a swinging canter, and wasn’t blowing any more. His breathing whispered through his nostrils with as little effort as his white-stockinged legs reached forward for the road. I looked back for Sid, but he and his piebald horse were nowhere in sight.

I think I could have turned Blueboy easily then, but I wanted him to be sure I wasn’t fighting him, so I let him go on for another mile. I’d never felt small on a horse before, but there was something about Blueboy that made me feel even smaller than I was. It couldn’t have been his size—he wasn’t much bigger than Pinch—but I think it was his drive and power. When I turned him back, it was only because I thought Zeb and Sid might be worried, and I brought him around in a wide circle—with only the slightest draw of the hackamore rope against his neck.

Blueboy didn’t break his canter when I turned him, and I didn’t want him to. He’d held the pace steadily for a couple of miles when we topped a rise and I saw Sid coming up from the gully below. His horse was making hard work of the hill, and was blowing badly. Sid let him down to a walk, and called up to me, “Way you took off, I reckoned you’d be in Kansas ’fore now. Why didn’t you jerk that hackamore and haul him in? Sure you ain’t broke his wind?”

I didn’t want to make Blueboy nervous by shouting back, so I waited till I’d ridden down to Sid, and told him, “I didn’t need to haul him in, because, after the first mile, he wasn’t running away. And it looks to me as if Pie is the one that might be wind-broken.”

Sid turned his horse, and we jogged side by side, with Blueboy breathing easily and the piebald fighting for each lungful of air. “By jiggers, it’s a wonder if I ain’t went and broke his wind!” Sid spluttered. “If that danged maverick wasn’t runnin’ away with you, why didn’t you turn him back ’fore you scairt the livin’ bejeebers out’a me? What you messing with him for? He won’t never be no more use to you than a wooden leg! Ain’t it best if we take him up to the mountain pasture and turn him loose? One day that dag-goned outlaw’s goin’ to kill you if you don’t get shut of him.”

I couldn’t be sure Sid wasn’t right, but from the way I felt right then, I was willing to take my chances of being killed. I knew without Sid’s telling me that Blueboy would probably never be any good for a cowhorse, but something made me feel as if I needed him and had to have him. I couldn’t say those things to Sid without sounding foolish, so I just said, “I couldn’t turn him back now, Sid—not unless Mr. Batchlett told me I had to.”

Sid had started all over again about Blueboy’s being a worthless outlaw when we heard the pound of a running horse’s hoofs. I guessed who it would be, and leaned a bit in the saddle. Blueboy leaped forward as if I’d spurred him, and raced up out of the gully. As we topped the hill I saw Pinto running toward us. Hazel was clinging to his bare back, and whipping him with the line ends at every stride. I forgot all about making Blueboy nervous, and shouted, “What’s the matter, Hazel? What’s happened?”

For a moment I thought she was going to fall. She jerked up straight for an instant, then slumped in a heap on Pinto’s back. When I got to her she was laughing and crying at the same time, and her words came in gasps. “I . . . I reckoned he’d . . . he’d killed you,” she sort of burbled. “I seen how he was runnin’ . . . crazy mad, with his head down . . . like a killer stallion.”

Blueboy didn’t like to be stopped. He sidestepped and bobbed his head, but didn’t act mean or try to break away, so I said, “Look at him now! He doesn’t look crazy or mad, does he? Zeb told me how to handle him, and it worked all right. Blueboy wasn’t mad, he was just trying to find out if I was looking for a fight.” Then I realized that Zeb should have been close behind Sid if he’d come with us, so I asked, “Where is Zeb?”

“That crazy old coot!” Hazel blurted. “When I run to get Pinto he was settin’ by the horse corral gate—just settin’ and spittin’ at a rock.”

Zeb never told me I did a good job in handling Blueboy, or that he thought I was a good rider, but, after that, he didn’t need to—and I loved him for it.

I was sorry Hazel got so scared when she didn’t need to be, but it made me a little bit happy that she worried about me. Maybe that’s what made me remember that I wouldn’t see her for a couple of weeks, and why I thought it might be nice to ride out to the secret spring and back. Hazel thought so, too, and her mother said it would be all right, so I saddled Lady and Pinto and we went.

It was still fairly early in the afternoon, so we spent about an hour watching some rabbits play by the basin below the spring. And I made a slingshot out of a latigo string and a willow crotch—to scare away the weasel if it came again. Then Hazel thought it would be fun to go around to the beaver dam in the valley west of the buildings. She said that if we crept up to it real quietly we might see a beaver swimming.

We left Lady and Pinto nearly a quarter of a mile below the beaver dam, and went up the little valley by the cattle path through the willows. We went as quietly as we could, but when we got to the dam we didn’t see any beaver. There was an outcropping of rock on the shady side of the pond, and Jenny and Sid were sitting on it. She was holding the belt he’d made for her, looking down at it and rubbing her fingers over the buckle. Sid was looking down too, picking petals off a flower and dropping each one into the water. Jenny was saying something, though her voice was too low to be heard across the pond, but it didn’t sound as if she were making fun of Sid the way she usually did.

The minute we saw them, Hazel put a finger to her hips and motioned for me to go back the way we’d come. I didn’t make a sound until we were halfway back to the horses, then I said, “That’s the funniest thing I ever saw! From the way Jenny’s been treating Sid I thought she hated him.”

“Hmmmff! That’s all you know about women!” Hazel told me, as if she thought I was just plain stupid.

I couldn’t help remembering her calling me a dirty squealing pig, and making fun of me when I slipped off Kenny’s donkey, then her crying when she thought Blueboy had hurt me, so I said, “I guess I don’t know much about women, but they’re an awful lot harder to figure out than horses.”

Hazel didn’t even bother to answer, but sniffed again, and walked on down the path through the willows.