Horse Tradin' (8 page)

All the time he was talking, I was sitting on my horse looking at the mule. I asked him how old she was and if she had any blemishes on her. He told me she was an eight-year-old, was sound, and was a good work mule. I told him that I bought a few mules, and that I might be interested in her if he would unload her and put her on the ground so I could tell something about her. He had already priced her at $75 and had promptly put in that he wouldn't take $200 for a pair like her. We untied the tail gate, took the wagon rods out of it, and pulled the sideboards apart so the tail gate would come out. We got the homemade trailer about half tore down, untied the mule, and backed her out on the ground. She was grass-bellied and fat, weighed about a thousand pounds, and, I thought, was sure worth about $100 to $110.

Every few minutes his wife would holler back from
the pickup: “Homer, you oughtn't to sell the last mule we got.”

And Homer would say: “Shut up, Maw.”

I decided that I would give $60 for the mule, and he thought she was worth a lot more. But I finally made him see the light—that it was costing him money just to haul the mule around in that trailer. So after he stuttered and stammered a while and rubbed the mule affectionately down the back, he consented to let me steal her for $60. Me being a big operator, I was carrying all the money I had in my hip pocket; so I paid him six ten-dollar bills, which left me an even $10. He threw in the halter and rope and drove off. I started leading the mule to town, thinking about how fast I was going to increase my cash money when I sold that mule.

The general run of horse traders in town shied away from my mule and didn't want to make me a bid on her. I took the attitude that they were just going to try to wear me down and buy the mule cheap. It was Saturday afternoon, so I took my mule home, got my clippers and roached her mane, sheared her tail, and told myself that she was worth a lot more money than what she cost. I turned her out in a grass patch, and late Sunday afternoon I loaded her in a truck with two more mules and sent her to Fort Worth to the auction. The trucker unloaded the mule in Fort Worth at the horse and mule barn, put a number on her, and turned her in the pen with thirty or forty others. There was a long cement trough along the side of the pen that was filled with oats and shelled corn, and there was plenty of prairie hay in the hay rack.

I walked into the horse and mule barn on Monday
morning about an hour before the sale would start. I saw a whole bunch of horse and mule traders and “sweaters” about halfway down the barn in the middle of the alley. Everybody was watching some sort of show, so I walked down to see what the attraction was. There my mule sat on her hindquarters like a dog, swelled up about three times the size of a normal mule, and slobbers and foam pouring from her mouth.

John Yount, who was a partner in the old Burnett and Yount horse and mule barn, explained to me that the mule had eaten some corn and oats and had taken a severe case of colic. He also told me that this mule had been in the barn before and was a chronic “colicker” and could not eat grain. He had called the barn horse doctor for me, and the horse doctor had given her a dose of medicine that had caused her to froth at the mouth in an effort to get rid of the gas. He said that the horse doctor's services would cost me $3, which had already been charged to my account in the office. He explained to me in a very firm and understandable manner that the mule would not be able to go into the auction ring to be sold—and that the last time he sold her, a snide horse trader had bought her.

Well, for a young horse trader with most of his capital tied up in one colicky mule, that was sad news. I said to Mr. Yount: “What can I do with her?”

Sitting on top of the fence was a man who spoke up: “I give ten dollars the last time I bought her, and I'll give ten for her back.”

Much to my heart-sickening surprise, it was Homer—the man that had told me he had lost his crop, and that “Maw” had begged not to sell their last mule.

One spring some
horse buyers were shipping several carloads of mares from far West Texas to the Fort Worth Horse and Mule Market. Their shipping permits ran too long since the horses had been unloaded, and they were forced to unload for feed and water at Weatherford, Texas, just thirty miles from their destination.

As I remember, there were three carloads of mares, neither the best nor the worst kind of range horses; however, there
were some breedy-looking riding-type mares in the shipment. The water troughs in the stock pens weren't more than half big enough for that many horses, and there was quite a scramble and a fight at the water troughs.

Soon after these mares were unloaded, one of them had a filly colt. I was a thirteen-year-old boy, riding around horseback, and of course I found this stockyard full of horses to gaze at and wish for. When the men came down to the stock pens and found they had a baby colt on their hands, they were unhappy because they didn't have any way to partition off a place for the colt—and they knew it would get trampled to death in the car with all the mares. I heard them talking about it, and I spoke up and asked them what they would take for the colt.

One of the horse traders saw that I had boots and spurs on and saw my horse standing outside. He asked: “What do you know about watering mares?”

I replied right quick that this watering arrangement wouldn't do nothing but get a bunch crippled. He told me that these mares were to be shipped out when the train ran early the next morning, and if I would stay down there and get a stick and keep some of the mares whipped back from the trough and just let a few of them drink at a time, he would give me the colt. I said I'd do better than that, I'd get a whip and ride my horse inside and hold them back and let them come up to water like they ought to.

But first I picked up a gate that had fallen off the hinges and stood it up in a corner of the fence, wired the ends to the fence, and put my baby colt behind it where nothing could happen to it. Their offer sure sounded like a good deal to me, 'cause I imagine at that
age I would have watered horses every night as long as I could stay awake for a colt a night.

I kept this dogie colt around my trading pen at the wagonyard and fed it from a bottle, taught it to drink out of a pan, and the milk cow traders would let it suck out a fresh cow ever now and then. This bay filly called Nubbin' soon became the pet of the whole trading yard, but she was also a lot of trouble to everybody.

Holt Brothers had leased out their ranches in Palo Pinto County and moved a big bunch of mares and horses to the wagonyard at Weatherford to sell them and trade them off. These mares were all well bred but unbroke. I broke several mares, and wound up with a good young Holt mare that was heavy in foal as payment for breaking the other horses. The Holt mare brought a colt and lost it, so I was tying her up in a corner every morning and letting the dogie colt Nubbin' nurse.

Early one morning I was in the lot tending to my “trading stock” and had the Holt mare tied up and Nubbin' was nursing when a big old lady who ran a dairy near town stopped her Model T Ford, got out, and walked over to my pen. This old lady would weigh 210, wore men's brogan shoes, ran her dairy, and told her husband what to think and when to shut up. She looked over the fence and saw the colt nursing the mare and said: “What do you want for that mare and colt?”

I told her I wanted $45 for the mare and $20 for the colt; and she immediately told me, “You ain't goin' to split 'em and sell 'em separate. I'll just give you sixty dollars for both of 'em.”

I started to try to tell her that the colt didn't belong
to the mare, and as I said: “Mam, you don't want this colt with this mare,” she snapped back at me right quick: “Little feller, don't tell me what I want.”

That “little feller” made me mad. There I was all of thirteen years old, had been a horse wrangler one whole season on a chuck wagon, wore shop-made boots and had on a Stetson hat that would have shaded a man three times my size, and I sure didn't like to be called “little feller.”

Silas Kemp, who ran the wagonyard, mumbled through a crack in the fence: “Sell 'em to her, Benny. Don't try to tell her any different. You won't be lying to her, and she'll be cheating herself.”

About that time she snapped at me again: “Are you goin' to just stand there, or are you goin' to take my money?”

I said: “But Mam—”

And she cut in: “Don't ‘mam' me. Will you or won't you?”

By this time I was pretty mad, so I answered: “Pay me.”

She said: “You'll have to deliver them out to the dairy.”

Silas spoke up and offered: “I'll haul them out for you, Benny, while you're gone to school.”

The next morning about the same time, here came that Model T Ford; and that big, fat, mean woman stepped out on the ground and hollered at the top of her voice: “Where's that kid?”

In the meantime, my horse-trading friends had schooled me on what to say, because we all knew she would be back, and she was well known as an unpleasant
customer to all the traders. I was over the fence in my pen feeding, and I said: “Here I am,” in a pretty meek tone of voice.

She yelled: “That colt don't belong to that mare. This morning she kicked it clean over the fence.”

I stated: “Yes, that colt does belong to that mare—because I gave it to her.”

All the traders were standing around listening, and they couldn't help but laugh. I was a little shaky, but I was determined to stand my ground and get even for her calling me “little feller.” She looked around—and would have liked to have killed us all—but had decided to get in her car and leave when I called out and asked her if she wanted to sell the colt. She snapped: “'Course I want to sell it. I milk cows to sell milk, not to raise colts with it.”

I told her I would give her $15 for Nubbin' back. All the horse traders went to shaking their heads and making faces at me as I ran my finger down in my watch pocket to dig out the $15. I paid her and told her I would be after the colt after school.

As she drove away, all my wagon yard “educators” got after me for buying Nubbin' back, and none of them offered to go out and get her in a trailer.

So I rode out horseback that afternoon, and when Nubbin' heard my voice she nickered and begged to come home with me. I knew, then, that I had made a good buy, and I felt much better that I had got Nubbin' back.

One summer I
was traveling the far Southwest. It had been a long, hot day, and I had crossed the desert of lower Arizona and New Mexico and driven into Albuquerque. I hadn't stopped to eat lunch, and it was middle afternoon, so I walked into a hotel coffee shop and sat down at the counter. There were people at a few tables and a few stragglers like me at the counter, but it was far from a busy place. I looked at the menu, and it looked like the last few thousand I had read, so I ordered something and ate it from force of habit. Really, I guess I was enjoying the air conditioning and the rest from the road more than the food. I got up from the counter and walked toward
the cash register in the lobby. I had driven a long way, and I know I moved off from the counter as though I was about road-foundered. Just before I reached the cash register, a young man tapped me on the shoulder and said: “Sir, there is a gentleman back at our table who knows you and would like to speak to you.”

I turned and walked back, and as I approached the table where several men were sitting, a young man—slightly gray at the temples with a handsome face and shoulders—got out of his chair and walked a few steps on crippled legs that you would know at a glance were the results of infantile paralysis. He shook hands with me and said: “You're Ben Green.”

I answered: “That's right, but I don't remember you.”

“I'm Ted … Since I see you're still alive, I know you're still in the horse business, and I wanted to tell you about Angel—you called her Nubbin', but after I got her I changed her name.”