Home Ranch (12 page)

I was so glad Hazel hadn't won more than all the money I had, that I didn't mind having lost half a dollar. Then I began feeling cheap about saying I wouldn't pay her for the cow she found on the island, so I said, “I was thinking about Mrs. Spivak. That island where you found her was as much on my side of the creek as it was on yours, so that's fifty-five cents I owe you. I'll give it to you when we get back to the bunkhouse.”

“I don't want your old money!” she told me. “All I wanted was to show that a girl is just as good a cowpoke as a boy—even if your name is Little Britches and you rode in the roundup and got your pi'ture in the paper.”

“My name isn't Little Britches,” I said, “it's Ralph. And I didn't have anything to do with my picture getting in the paper. And besides, it doesn't take cowpokes to do trick-riding; it takes smart horses and a good teacher, and that's what I had.”

Hazel looked around at me as if she couldn't believe what she heard me say. For half a minute her eyes looked as if she might cry. Then she looked back at the cows, and after another minute, she repeated my name, “Ralph,” as though she'd never heard it before.

I couldn't think of anything more to say, so we just rode along behind the cows for a while. Then Hazel said, “This mornin' I was goin' to ask you how you done that somerset trick Jenny seen you do at the roundup, but now I ain't goin' to. You got to promise you won't show me till you gain back to what you was before Hank got you lost. Paw says you can't do no hard ridin' till you gain your weight back.”

I could tell by the sun that it was already past noon, and I was hungry enough to eat a horse; so I said, “Well, I'll promise, but I'll never gain my weight back without eating. Hadn't we better round up those first cows you found and start back toward the corrals?”

Hazel shook her head. “Wouldn't be no sense in that!” she said. “It would take a couple of hours, and Jenny put us up some picnic grub—if the milk ain't all shook to butter. I know a good place to eat, soon's we get these critters throwed in with the others.”

11

The Secret Spring

H
AZEL
had been right when she told me the cows wouldn't scatter. There wasn't one of her first bunch in sight when we took the named ones down to the creek, but they were all there—hidden away in the willows, chewing their cud or feeding their calves. The only one missing was the one I'd brought in, and Hazel didn't have to tell me why she was gone: I'd driven her too hard and frightened her. She'd probably taken her calf a mile away to hide it.

Anyone who didn't know Batchlett's home ranch might have thought it was nothing except a brush-covered wilderness. But Hazel knew every inch of it the way I knew the streets of Littleton, and she knew spots that were prettier than any in the Denver City Park. She took me to one of them to eat our picnic grub, and told me it was her own secret place, and that nobody else knew about it.

It was in a little pocket, back behind the row of red rocks that stand like a broken fence in front of the foothills—the same row that makes the Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs. Where the walls of the pocket rose like organ pipes around a pulpit, a cold spring bubbled from under the rocks and trickled away through a thick grove of aspens. The bottom of the canyon was covered with clover, and violets and columbine grew at the edge of the grove. To the west, the mountain rose in staggered cliffs, and high above them the green of firs looked like dark rumpled velvet against the blue sky. All around the spring the rocks were lined with moss, and peppery watercress grew at the rim of the little basin that caught the overflow.

Nearly a quarter of a mile from the spring we unsaddled the horses and hobbled them so they could graze. Then Hazel led the way through a gap in the fence of red rocks, along the edge of the little canyon, and into the grove of aspens. We were hardly among the trees when she put a finger to her lips, and whispered, “Betcha my life we see a deer, Ralph. Least ways, there'll be a rabbit, or maybe a skunk. This time o' day they'll be comin' in for water. Sundown's best in the spring; that's when swallows swoop in to get mud for their nests.”

Hazel made me stay behind her, and we crept up toward the head of the little canyon like Indians. When we were within fifty yards of the spring, she stopped and motioned me to come up beside her. “Ain't no deer,” she whispered, “but there's rabbits. See 'em?” and she pointed. “Doe and her litter.”

Through the trunks of the aspens I could see half a dozen jack rabbits feeding and playing on the little patch of clover. The half-grown ones seemed to be having a picnic of their own, scampering around and chasing one another, but the old doe was nervous. There didn't seem to be a breath of air moving, but I was sure she had scented us. She'd nibble a few mouthfuls of clover, then stand high on her haunches and look around in every direction.

Hazel and I stood for nearly ten minutes, watching the rabbits play. Then a sudden flash of brown shot out from the mountainside. I'd hardly seen the brown streak before a squeal, so sharp it made my ears ring, filled the canyon. It was all over in a second. There was a whirl of gray and brown. Then the other rabbits were gone, and the one that had squealed lay twitching, with what looked to be a slim-bodied, humpbacked cat standing over it.

“Darned weasel!” Hazel shouted, and ran, dodging through the trees, toward the clearing. By the time we got there the weasel had gone and the rabbit lay perfectly still. Hazel dropped to her knees, picked up the limp body, and turned it so the red trickle of blood at its throat showed. “Darned weasel!” she said again. “Bit his windpipe clean through—poor little critter!” For a minute I thought she was going to cry, but she didn't. She pinched her mouth up tight, and said, “Oh, well, it's only a rabbit, and I s'pose rabbits was made for other critters to eat . . . but I hate a sneaky weasel!”

If I'd been alone I wouldn't have thought of burying the little rabbit, but thinking it might make Hazel feel better, I said, “Shall I dig a grave so we can bury him?”

“Uh-huh, I guess we'd better. If we don't the darned old weasel will come back and get him . . . or he'd stink and spoil the nice smell of the spring. I'll show you where the graveyard's at; I a'ready got a lark and two sparrows buried in it, one sparrow last year and the other two the year before.”

Hazel led me to where three separate little piles of rock stood in a row among the aspens. “I'll fetch rocks while you dig the hole,” she told me. “Dig it deep, and we'll have to pile on some heavy rocks or a pesky coyote might dig him up. I never seen one around here, but there's plenty of tracks where they come to the basin to drink.”

“I'll bring the rocks,” I told her. “Why don't you pick some leaves to line the grave with?”

Hazel stood thinking for a minute, then she said, “There wouldn't be no sense in that. He's dead now, and it wouldn't help none to wrap him up in leaves . . . but it wouldn't be right to let him get dug up. I'll fetch light rocks; you can help with the heavy ones.”

After we'd buried the rabbit, we washed at the brook below the spring, and Hazel laid out our grub on the cloth it was wrapped in. There were sandwiches and cake, a pint jar of chicken stew, and a quart of milk. We didn't say a word while we ate the first sandwich and drank a dipper of milk. Then Hazel looked up and said, “There ain't no sense bein' so glum 'cause we seen a bunny-rabbit get killed. We wouldn't be havin' no stew if a hen hadn't got her head chopped off. I guess it got planned that way right from the beginning: some things just has to get killed so other things can live . . . even darned old weasels. Why don't you ever tell me anything about your brothers and sisters?”

I spent nearly a whole hour telling Hazel about the other children at home, and some of the things we'd done. And she told me she was going to Castle Rock in the fall, to live with Jenny and go to school in town. But she said she wasn't going to be a school teacher when she grew up, because they turned out to be old maids too often. What she was going to do was to marry a rancher who had a big ranch like Batchlett's home place, with mountains right behind it and lots of cattle and shelter for them.

“Then you'll have to marry an old man,” I told her. “Men don't get big ranches like this, and lots of cattle, till they've been in business a long time and saved their money.”

“Oh, well,” she said, “he wouldn't have to have it when I married him, but I'd have to know he was a good cow man . . . and didn't waste his money bettin' on things he couldn't win. Then I'd help him, and we'd keep all our heifer calves every year, and I'd have lots of children—all boys—and then we wouldn't have to hire no—any cowpokes.”

I don't remember just what I told Hazel, but it was some of the things I'd been thinking the night I rode to catch up with Mr. Batchlett—and I do remember telling her that I'd want some of my children to be girls.

I forgot all about the time until the shadow of the mountain cut off the sunshine. Even then, I had to remind myself that I was being paid a dollar a day, and that I hadn't done much in the past week to earn it. I don't know just what it was, but there was something about the little pocket in the canyon that made me feel lazy and restful. Maybe it was the spring and the sound of the trickling water, or maybe it was just the feel and smell of the little green clearing. It's funny, but the nicest smell about it wasn't from the flowers or the clover, but the odor of skunk. Not the kind that makes your eyes smart and your nose wrinkle, but just the faint, musky kind that smells almost like perfume—and makes you remember places you thought you'd forgotten.

“You don't need to come,” I told Hazel, “but I'd better get back to work. I've only found five cows and calves all day, and that isn't worth a day's pay.”

“That's why we come here, 'stead of eating where we left the cows,” Hazel said with a grin. “You don't think I'd wasted all this time, exceptin' Paw said you couldn't do much till you got your strength back. You ought to eat more sandwiches; you do look kind of puny.”

“There's nothing puny about me,” I said, as I picked up the saddle bag, “and I'll bet I didn't lose two pounds.”

“Nickel?”

“No,” I said, “I'm all over betting on things I couldn't win; maybe I might have lost three pounds.”

“Nickel?”

“No! Not a penny!”

“Then eat another sandwich, and we'll get back after them—those cows. Like as not we'll have to hunt some of 'em, and it'll be supper time 'fore we get 'em fetched in to the corrals.”

Instead of trying to make me look silly after we went back to work, Hazel showed me as much as she could about finding, handling, and driving cows in the brush. If her pinto could have taught Lady the way Hazel taught me, we'd have got along fine, but of course he couldn't. I had to rein her for every move she made, and she couldn't stop and turn quick enough to head off a dodging cow. It was supper time before we got the cattle to the corrals, and I knew I hadn't done a very good job, but all Hazel said was, “You'd have better luck if you took Pinch tomorrow. Cows don't dodge past old Pinch more'n about once.”

After that first day I don't think Mrs. Bendt minded Hazel's working with me—and I didn't either. Pinch was one of the best horses with milk cows that I ever saw, and his name fitted him exactly. If a cow hung back or tried to dodge away, he'd be behind her in a rush, and nip her on the butt of her tail. He never bit harder than a pinch, but two lessons were enough for any cow. Even though we had different cows every day, it almost seemed that they were getting used to us and learning to behave. Hazel said it was I who was learning, but most of the credit really belonged to Pinch.

Each day we took our grub sack to the secret spring at noon, but we didn't loaf around again the way we had the first day. And we didn't talk any more about the kind of a ranch, or number of children we'd have when we grew up. Once we stopped in the aspens to watch a deer drinking at the basin, and another time we saw a raccoon dipping something in the water before he ate it. But we never saw the weasel again, and we didn't find any rabbits that he'd killed.

Jenny always packed enough grub for three men, and Hazel kept pestering me till I'd eaten most of it. I knew she was doing it so I'd gain my weight back in a hurry and could show her the somersault trick I'd done at the Littleton roundup. It sort of worried me, because it was a real tricky stunt, and I hadn't tried it for nearly a year.

To do the trick I had to have a horse going at a dead run, then dive out of the saddle, turn a somersault in the air, and come down on my feet. But doing it right depended as much on the horse as it did on me. He had to set his feet and be sliding to a stop the instant I made a move to leave the saddle. That would throw me forward, and if I ducked my head and shoulders just right, I couldn't help turning all the way over in the air. Then, when I landed on my feet, I'd be standing right beside the horse's head. But if the horse didn't stop quick enough it was pretty hard to go all the way over, and sometimes I'd land on the seat of my pants.

I'd made a monkey of myself in front of Hazel times enough. The fourth day I worked with her I decided that, before I let her see me try that stunt, I'd practice it until I was nearly perfect. There was a bright moon that night, and it seemed a good time to begin practicing. I didn't know Pinch well enough to trust my neck to him, and Lady wasn't good at quick stops. But, after everybody was asleep, I took her to a little spongy meadow I'd picked out, about three miles from the buildings. I knew I'd land falling or sitting down a few times before we got the knack of the trick again, and wanted as soft a landing place as I could find.

Lady and I had done the trick together dozens of times, but she seemed to have forgotten all about it. I used to make a little hissing sound the moment before I left the saddle, and she'd stop pretty well when she heard it. But for a while that night it didn't mean a thing to her. Over and over again, I had to hiss and jerk the reins at the same time before she learned again that the hiss meant for her to set her feet. Then I tried my first somersault, but I was awkward, Lady didn't stop fast enough, and that spongy meadow felt as hard to my bottom as if it had been solid rock.

We didn't go back to the buildings until we'd tried the stunt at least twenty times—and until I was so sore and lame I could hardly sit in the saddle. Sometimes it almost worked, but I never did come all the way over and up onto my feet, and sometimes Lady forgot to stop when I hissed.

All the next day Hazel kept telling me, “Sit back in the saddle; you act like you had a bur in your britches!” or, “By jiminy, you look punier today than you did when Batch fetched you back from the mountains! If you don't start to eating more, you ain't never goin' to gain your weight back.” I couldn't tell her that I felt punier than I looked, and that I thought I'd beaten at least five pounds of weight off my behind. And she never guessed that I'd been up half the night, or that I'd taken any falls.

I'd made up my mind that no matter how banged-up I felt, I was going to practice again that night, but I didn't. When we brought in the cows at supper time, Lady was lame in both front legs. The sogginess of the meadow hadn't softened my falls much, but had let her hoofs cut deep, and thrown a terrible strain on her legs. I knew they'd have to be doctored, or they'd swell and stiffen.

As soon as Ned was snoring that night I got up, built a fire in the forge, and put a bucket of water on to heat. Then I stripped a couple of gunny sacks into long bandages, the way I'd seen Father do it, got them boiling hot, and wrapped both of Lady's fore legs from pastern to elbow. Even though it was a warm night, the bandages cooled off fast, and way before moonset my hands were so swollen and parboiled they looked like two bunches of red bananas. But just before sunrise, when I took off the last bandages, the swelling was pretty well gone from Lady's knees.