The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch (7 page)

“I’m gettin’ some tired of eatin’ dust,” Arm said
early that afternoon.

“Me, too,” I said, “but I figured we’d make our
move on the bay tomorrow.”

“Why? It don’ make no sense, Jake. They’ll be
fresh in the morning. Why not get a handle on
that bay horse now an’ tie him good for the night?”

I thought that over. Both Arm and I were fair-to-average
ropers—we’d worked cattle when we
couldn’t find anything we could steal. Our plan
was a simple one. We’d handle the horse the way
a rank bull is handled. We’d each get ropes
around his neck and allow him forty feet on either
side. When he charged one of us—and he
would charge—the other would haul him back.
Like most plans it sounded a whole lot easier
than it turned out to be.

We made our move, each of us riding up one
side of the group of mares, loops ready. The bay
stopped
to face us, ears laid back tight to his skull,
his lips curled back over his teeth.

The toughest part would be gettin’ our ropes
on him. Until we had him between he was free to
tear us and our horses into pieces. I was on the
right side of the herd and the stallion, Arm on
the left. We both began drifting toward the bay.
He was sharp enough to see what was coming
and decided to fight right there rather than to attempt
to run. He reared, front hooves flailing,
snorting angrily.

I caught Arm’s eye and nodded. We both
headed for our quarry at a gallop, swinging wide
loops.

The stallion didn’t seem to know which of us to
fight. After a moment he made his decision and
charged me, running toward my galloping horse.
I swung in a skidding turn and made my throw
when the bay was ten feet or so from me. My roped
bounced off his side and dropped to the ground.
Armando did better. He dropped a loop over the
stud’s head and cranked his horseback the way
he’d come to break the stallion’s charge. He was a
little late. My horse lost a good patch of coat and
flesh from his hindquarter.

The stud hit the end of Arm’s rope and was
flipped onto his back and side, but was on his feet
in the smallest part of a second. I’d been scrambling
to hold my horse steady and get my rope
back. I came up from behind the bay, who was
concentrating on Armando, and made my second
throw. This time I snared him and cut sharply
back, dragging him out of his charge at Arm.

Both Arm and I hustled to the ends of our
ropes.
It may have been a mistake but we’d both
tied down what’s called “hard an’ fast”—meaning
we’d secured the ends of our ropes to our saddle
horns. In ranch work a cowhand’ll take a couple
of wraps around his saddle horn, but wants
the rope to be free in case of some major blowup.

The stud was confused and madder than a
rogue bull being threatened. We’d put a choking
cloud of dust and grit in the air during our battle
and my eyes were watering and at times I could
barely see to the end of my rope.

We wanted to avoid the stud going down. If he
did he could roll against the ropes and tangle up
a leg or two, ending up with at least one broken
leg. We fought back and forth for what seemed
like forever but was actually maybe an hour or
so. All three horses were dripping sweat, and so
were Arm and I. All of us were coughing from
the cloud we’d raised.

When I was dragging the stud my way, Arm
got a loop around his rear feet and pulled back
against me and my horse, leaving us with a
crazed stallion stretched out between a pair of
fatigued men and horses. It was a real good throw
by Arm. He’d been a heeler on a couple of ranches
and always carried two ropes. A heeler is the guy
who gets a loop on the back legs of a calf in conjunction
with a header, who ropes the front end,
so that the calf can be branded right where he’s
stretched between the two ropers.

Trussing that bay horse up so he couldn’t go
anywhere was a job and a half. Our horses stood,
holding the ropes tight, but that stud’s head was
mostly free and he snapped at us so violently that
when
his teeth crashed together, they sounding
like a sprung bear trap. Arm got a short length of
rope over the animal’s snout and took a few wraps
before tying it, eliminating the biting problem.
Nevertheless the horse used his head and muzzle
as a battering ram. A direct hit would break bones
and shatter ribs.

I got rope around his front legs, secured it, and
tied it off against the rope holding his rear legs
together. We checked all the knots and ropes
carefully—we didn’t want to have to battle this
ol’ boy again. When we were positive he could
barely move, we went to our horses and freed the
ropes from the saddle horns.

The mares, who’d stood around in a cluster,
wide-eyed, watching the battle, seemed to lose
interest once their leader was down. They grazed
on what little grass there was, shagging flies with
their tails, just as they normally would. The
youngsters continued their games as if nothing
out of the ordinary had transpired. Every so often
the stallion would let go a loud and angry
whinny and the heads of the others would turn
to him. When nothing else happened, they turned
away once again.

Arm and I rode back to the water hole we’d
crossed earlier and let our horses drink. Neither
of us had used the branches we cut, which we’d
tucked into our rifle scabbards along with our
30.30s. We threw the branches away, drank, picked
up some dry limbs, refilled our canteens, and rode
back to the herd. We set up a quick camp and
started a fire. The mares wouldn’t like the smoke,
but they wouldn’t go anywhere without their
leader.
Me an’ Arm said we’d be damned if we
would go without coffee after a day like we’d had.
I emptied what was left in my flask into our cups.
There wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
We ate jerky, which was also better than
nothing, but not by much.

“We gonna have to wrestle with that sumbitch
all over again
mañana,
” Arm said. “He’s a tough
boy, okay. Couple times I was worried he would
pull my horse off his feet.”

“We don’t have real far to take him,” I said.

“An’ I suspect that he’s smart enough to settle
down when he sees he can’t win this round. Workin’
him in the corral ain’t goin’ to be a Sunday
school picnic, though.”

“Ees a good thing we planted the snubbing
pole damn near to hell.”

“Yep. He might bust me up, but he’s not about
to move that pole. An’ all I gotta do is get to
where I can handle and lead him—it’s not like I’m
breaking a saddle horse. I wouldn’t ride him even
if I could—not with that foot of his. The weight of
a rider would throw him off balance.”

Armando’s response was a long, wet snore.

We fought with that beast most of the next
morning. The weather had cooled that night and
there was a stiff and chilly breeze blowing, raising
yet more of a cloud of soil and sand around
us as we tried to move the stud forward.

About midafternoon, the bay discovered that if
he took steps in the direction we wanted him to
go, the tension of the ropes around his neck
would be lessened. He was still shaking his head,
snorting, and slamming those teeth together—
but
he was walking between our two horses. The
mares, somewhat confused, followed us, I guess
because most of them had followed the bay all
their lives and he was moving now, so it was natural
for them to plod along after him.

There were a few mares that didn’t look bad, but
there didn’t seem to be a good chest or straight leg
and sloped pastern among them. Many had scars
from fights and more than a few were missing
ears. The scars stood out against their coats like
thick red worms, mostly near their withers and
neck. I looked them over for a good long time before
I shouted over to Arm, “I can’t see feedin’ this
herd. There ain’t anything here we’d breed to.”

“Ees true,” Arm yelled back to me, “but if we
try to run them off now the stud, he go crazy—an’
the mares, too.”

“We can break them up and run them after we
get the bay in the corral.”

“Might be a couple worth keepin’.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

We covered ground in spite of the slow pace.
We picked up our packer and I tied him off on
my saddle horn. He’d apparently enjoyed his
vacation—all the grass was eaten right down to
the dirt and he looked good—might even have
put on a few pounds, given the fact that he had
no work to do.

Every now an’ again, the stallion would try to
make a break, but Arm and I had gotten awful
handy at hauling him in between us. For fifteen
minutes after he’d attempted escape, the bay
would whinny and rear and strike, even do some
bucking, much like a kid having a tantrum.

There was a full moon that night, and the stars
seemed close enough to the ground to be lanterns.

“Arm,” I called, “what say we keep on rollin’?
We’ll make the ranch by midmorning tomorrow.”

“
Bueno.
You see, each step brings me closer to
the tequila in the cabinet.”

I laughed. “I could use a snort or two my ownself.”

My estimate of midmorning was overly optimistic,
but we pulled in to our ranch well before
dark.

We’d built the corral we were going to use to
get a handle on stallions extra stout, and five feet
taller than the other corrals. There was a wide,
nicely reinforced gate we’d latched wide-open,
which was a good move on our part. It could have
been real tough getting close enough to unlatch
the gate with the stud acting up.

Armando banged his heels against his horse’s
sides and the black leaped forward, putting lots
of pressure on the bay. I dropped my rope,
jumped down from my saddle, and ran to the
gate. I swung it closed just as Arm galloped out.
The stallion stood in the corral near the snubbing
post with a pair of forty-foot ropes still around
his neck. He looked more confused than anything
else. I’d expected a blowup when he figured
out that he was boxed in by fences too high to
jump, and would start raising general hell, trying
to kick his way out of the enclosure. Instead, he
merely stood there, looking around. I suppose he
was as tired as we and our horses were.

The mares, too, were confused. They whinnied
out
to the bay, and when he responded they approached
the corral. There were as skittish as
deer and didn’t dare come too close, but hearing
their boss seemed to comfort them some. They
ran out in a group about a hundred yards into a
pasture and began to graze.

We took our horses into the barn and spent
some time rubbing them down, checking and
cleaning their hooves, and putting a ration of
molasses-rich crimped oats in front of them in
their stalls, along with buckets of fresh water.
They’d done fine work for us and they deserved a
little extra time. Anyway, it’s a code in the West
that a man takes care of his critters before he
takes care of himself.

There was a large meat pie on our little kitchen
table, covered with a couple of layers of cheesecloth
to keep the flies away.

“Them women—I love them,” Armando said,
tossing the cheesecloth aside, and picking up one
of the big wooden spoons placed next to the pie. I
did the same. We ate the entire thing in a matter
of minutes.

“How about we hire those two to cook and
kinda clean up around here? Neither one of us
are much good at that stuff.”

“
Bueno.
We pay them well, no?”

“Absolutely.”

Armando pushed his chair back and headed
for the tequila cabinet. He took out a quart,
yanked the cork with his teeth, and said, “Les’ go
out an’ see what the bay horse is doing.” He took
a monumental swig of the booze, belched, and
handed the bottle to me.

“We need some glasses. We’re like a pair of
stumblebums sucking whiskey out of bottles,” I
said, after taking a long hit.

“Blanca
y
Teresa will get some, we ask them to.
Me—I don’ need no glass.”

“I’ll set up an account at the mercantile an’ they
can get whatever they want,” I said. “Come to
think of it, we don’t have any plates or such—
spoons and knives an’ forks.”

“If you gettin’ glasses, you might as well get
the whole wagonload a that horseshit, no?”

Armando wasn’t big on the social niceties. His
sheath knife was two utensils rolled into one
piece—knife and fork. He didn’t need a spoon—
soup or stew he simply drank from the bowl.

We stopped at the barn and picked up a flake
of hay. When we got to the corral I tossed the hay
over the top and then Arm and I climbed to the
top rail. The stallion was lathered and sweat
dripped from his chest and sides. He’d obviously
been running—and running hard. He ignored
the hay. I noticed he’d drunk about half of the
water in the trough at one corner of the corral. He
stood and glared at us, and it seemed that his
glare could melt steel.

The mares had moved a bit farther away but
we could still see them dotting the pasture. When
the bay whinnied they no longer answered.

The bay lurched into a run again, moving as
fast as his tanglefoot allowed him to, following
the fence line around and around again. The two
ropes flailed behind him, like snakes chasing
him in his headlong dash. When he came by us
we
could hear the deep bellows-like sound of a
horse that’s been run too long.

He made another half circuit of the corral,
stopped, and then ran directly at us. “I hope the
fence is as stout as we think,” Arm said, “ ’cause
he ain’t gonna stop.”

We pulled our legs to the outside. The horse
bashed into the fence with his chest, his head
turned aside, teeth clattering together. He was
squealing madly, crazily, forelegs now attacking
the air next to him. He’d lost control of his urine
in his wrath and a heavy, pungent reek of ammonia
rose up around him. The fence held. I reached
out and got my hand under one of the loops
around his neck and when he backed off, I brought
the rope in.