Some More Horse Tradin'

by Ben K. Green

  It was nearly dusk when this watermelon cropper came shufflin’ back down that sandy road with an apple box full of groceries. I smiled and raised my voice and said, “Neighbor, why don’t you have a horse trade with me. I’ve got something to match the little mule or to match the big horse, whichever one you’d like to trade off.”

  He kinda grinned, set his groceries over in the wagon, and said he shore wished he had a mate to that nice big horse. Before he said too much, he caught himself and began to explain to me what a good work mule the sorrel mare mule was and how proud he was of her, but he said he didn’t think she looked good hitched up by that great big horse. I agreed with him right off because I’d rather have the mule than the horse to resell, so we walked back toward the back side of the wagonyard to my tradin’ pen.

  I had two or three horses that any one of them would match his big horse. He looked at ’em and felt of ’em and walked around ’em and he finally picked out a big, fat, honest nine-year-old brown horse that was a real good match for the horse he had. We talked on about the horse and the mule and I took a rope and put it around the horse’s neck and led him back up toward the wagon, because I wanted him to see that he would look good next to his big horse.

  It was nearly dark and I looked into the mule’s mouth and could tell she was about an eight-year-old; there wasn’t much difference between her age and my horse’s age. Of course, I made him a pretty good speech about a big fat horse being worth more than a little bitty mule, most of which wasn’t necessarily so, but I didn’t think he’d know the difference. I asked him $20 boot, and he said watermelons hadn’t been sellin’ that good but he believed he’d give $10 boot just because that brown horse would look better than that little bitty sorrel mare mule did. It didn’t take me too long to decide that would be plenty boot and that we’d just have a horse trade.

  We unhitched his little mule and took her harness off, and ’course we had to let out the traces and the backband and the bellyband and all that kind of stuff to get his harness to fit this big horse. By this time it was just about dark. He picked up the lead rope that was on the mule and said, “I’ll lead the mule down and put her in the lot for you while you kinds adjest the bridle on that horse’s head.”

  I knew this horse was pretty cold-shouldered and just might not want to work off too good, even to an empty wagon. And somethin’ he hadn’t bothered to ask me was “if’n my horse would work.”

  There is a stay chain on a wagon on each side that hooks to the front axle and then there’s a hook on the doubletree, and by adjustin’ the length of the stay chain, you can be sure that each of your team is gettin’ the proper pull on his end of the doubletree. While this old, kinda dumb snuff-dipper was gone to put my mule in the lot, I reached down and shortened the stay chain on the horse he already had hooked to be sure that when they started off, he’d move the load without this tradin’ horse that I was lettin’ him have havin’ to pull any weight.

  He came back in a minute and I helped him hook up the horse. He paid me the $10 in cash and stepped up in the spring seat and thanked me. He shook the lines and clucked to his team, and, sure enough, his horse moved the wagon and they drove off pretty as you please in the dark.

  Next morning I went down to my trade lot about sunup and that sorrel mare mule had her head stickin’ over the fence facing the sunrise, and she sure didn’t look too good with my horses either ’cause she was plumb blind!

  GITTIN’

  EVEN

  The horse and mule market had opened up in the fall real good and had gotten better as the season went on. I had several orders for mares with weanling-age colts by their sides, and I also wanted some well-bred usin’-type mares to turn in my own pasture. It was a fact that you could get mares and colts cheaper if you bought them together than you could if you bought them separate and a trader always figured that if he sold the colts he would nearly clear the mares—or that if he sold the mares he would nearly clear the colts—so in horse tradin’ times, to a trader mares and colts were good property.

  I wanted to try to buy a pretty big bunch of these pairs, so I decided to go out West where horses ran in bunches and people talked in bigger figures. I drove into San Angelo and sat around the hotel lobby nearly all day visitin’ and askin’ about mares and colts, and finally an old boy heard what I was huntin’ for and came over and struck up a conversation. He told me that Old Man Garner on the Pecos River at Girvin Switch had lots of mares and colts. He said he thought it was the custom to let a man pick what he wanted to buy since pickin’ wouldn’t hurt Old Man Garner because he had so many horses; and a fellow might shape up a pretty nice set of young mares with breedy colts sired by thoroughbred studs.

  Well, I took in all this conversation and told him that I had about half changed my mind and thought I might go back without any mares. He said, “That’s your privilege, but if you want some good ones, don’t pass up seein’ Old Man Garner’s horses.”

  I didn’t much more than let him get out of sight before I mounted my six-cylinder Buick and started out to see Old Man Garner. It was late afternoon and about a hundred-mile trip, so I drove to Rankin and spent the night. Next morning I wasn’t more than twenty-five or thirty miles from Garner’s headquarters on the Pecos River. I got there by daylight and stepped up on the porch, cleared my throat, and hollered hello. This was strictly an old horse ranch and several riders were in the kitchen eatin’ a ranch breakfast. The cook came to the door hollerin’, “Come in,” and said, “Go on back to the kitchen. Breakfast is ready.”

  Old Man Garner was settin’ at the head of the table and I introduced myself. He didn’t bother to get up—he just wiped the egg out of his beard and said, “Sit down and have some breakfast.”

  During grub, coffee, and conversation, I got it over to the old man what my mission was. He said he was always glad to see a horse buyer and it didn’t make any difference what age, size, or color horses I wanted, he had plenty for me to cut ’em from. He explained to me that I couldn’t see horses on this ranch in an automobile and that these horses had moved into the breaks along the river since cold weather and he could get up a bunch of mares and colts that day and I could come back tomorrow to see ’em. There was a little comment around the table among the horse wranglers that it wouldn’t be no trouble to get a bunch close into headquarters by dark.

  I thought this was a good arrangement. I was gonna get to see all the mares and colts in one place that I had money to buy and it would save a lot of drivin’ and huntin’ for just a few at a time. I circled around the country a little the rest of the day and spent the night at Ozona.

  I was back at Garner’s about ten o’clock the next morning. He had about two hundred and fifty head of mares with colts and a dozen or so studs in a great big corral. His mares showed to have a lot of thoroughbred even though they were range mares that had never been broke and showed no signs of good care or attention. You could tell that they hadn’t been run or worked too much to get them in to that small pasture, and even though it was dead of winter, their hair wasn’t very long and didn’t show any signs of sweat from runnin’.

  Old Man Garner said these horses weren’t too used to people afoot or ahorseback, but if I would get on one of their saddle horses we could ease around through ’em and I could pick out what I wanted to buy and he would see if he could stand to sell ’em. When you are buying this kind of mare you are not going to have a chance to mouth them and look at their teeth for age, so you try to pick ones with good, bright, young-lookin’ heads and the kind of body and legs that it takes to raise good colts.

  I told the old man that I could buy about ninety head of these mares with the colts throwed in, which was a common way of tradin’ in those days. He thought they ought to be worth about $50 for mare and colt, but I had a big difference of opinion about that and we finally traded for me to give $35 a head for the mare with the colt throwed in.

  In a pasture over the fence from these horses I noticed some dry ma
res that were fat and some of ’em were stiff from being run. Garner told me that they had been cut away from the mares with colts. I also noticed a few mares in another pasture with colts on ’em and their colts were either lyin’ down or standin’ propped up against their mammies; these were the smallest colts, and the old man told me he thought I wouldn’t be interested in those. This made good sense and I didn’t question it further.

  After agreein’ on the price, we were down to the matter of me pickin’ ninety mares with colts out of the two hundred and fifty pairs. These were light-boned breedy mares that had big colts on them. After dinner we worked ninety pairs out of that big corral into a smaller one and everybody kept cautionin’ me not to get ’em hot, to work ’em easy and not to run ’em. All kinds of cautionin’ was goin’ on, which wasn’t customary on an old Pecos River ranch where colts were raised from unbroke mares.

  Occasionally I would see a mare stumble and nearly go to her knees and I just thought that was because her feet were long or she might be a little weak from suckin’ a colt. When we had ’em cut off and shaped up like I wanted ’em, it seemed to me that some of these colts were a bit listless. I noticed one standin’ kind of spraddle-legged and backed up against the fence, but when I walked by and jiggered at him, he jumped out; apparently there was nothin’ wrong with him.

  I had to go to Fort Stockton to order cars to be spotted by the railroad at the shippin’ pens next day and Old Man Garner said that they would turn the mares out and drive ’em down to the stock pens late that afternoon and that they would haul ’em enough alfalfa hay to last during the night. I bought one saddle horse from him for $50 to be left at the stock pens with the mares, which made me pay him an even $3,200. He was real anxious to drive the mares down that afternoon, furnish ’em hay for the night, and load ’em the next morning on the train. He told me that if I wanted to I could go on back to Fort Worth and he would take care of the whole deal.

  I thought he seemed a little anxious to get rid of me, but, on the other hand, a trader way off from home would like to have a head start on beatin’ the train back so he can be there to see his horses unloaded. So I decided to take him up on his proposition. Him and his horse wranglers kept assurin’ me that I wouldn’t have anything to worry about—they would take care of them just as good as I would and for me to head on back, I might even find some more horses to buy.

  At Fort Stockton I ordered three forty-foot cars for my ninety mares with colts. The railroad rarely had forty-foot cars and if you ordered them and they didn’t have them, they had to furnish you two thirty-sixes at the price of one forty-foot. A thirty-six-foot car would hold from twenty-four to as many as thirty light-boned range-type horses or about twenty to twenty-four mares with colts would be all that you could possibly load in a thirty-six-foot car. By ordering forty-foot cars I was gamblin’ that they wouldn’t have ’em and I was figurin’ that I would put fifteen mares and fifteen colts in each of the six thirty-six-foot cars, which would give the horses plenty of room for a long shipment.

  Sure enough, they didn’t have any forty-foot cars and the railroad agent told me they would give me six thirty-six-foot cars instead. I headed on back to Fort Worth and left the rest of the horse deal for Old Man Garner to complete according to our agreement.

  I got into Fort Worth the next morning but didn’t go around to the stockyard or horse and mule barns until about middle of the next day when I began to look for my horses to come in. The train backed the car into Ross Bros. Horse and Mule Market just a little after dark and started unloadin’ ’em. Of course, these horses had had plenty of room—some had lain down in the cars. There were none crippled or injured from the haul, but there were sixteen dead mares and twenty-one dead colts in the six cars! The ones still alive were all shakin’ and jerkin’ and staggerin’ when they walked, but they went to the troughs and drank water and began to nibble on the prairie hay in the hayrack. There was plenty of grain, oats, and corn mixed in the feed trough, but none of these range mares or colts knew how to eat grain. They were badly drawn, with listless eyes and poor appetites, and all of ’em staggered from a little to a whole lot when they tried to move.

  I called the barn veterinarian. He came down and looked and felt and took temperatures. None of ’em showed any sign of known disease and he confessed that he had no idea what was the matter with ’em or what would help ’em, and for the little good that he had done, he guessed he’d let me off for $25. The loss of so many horses and the cost of the vet bill and the fact that I had my tradin’ money tied up in a bunch of sick horses I couldn’t sell was makin’ me wobble and stagger a little too.

  The railroad agent sent a man down the next morning and we made out a claim for the twenty-one colts and sixteen mares. Wad Ross had me leave these mares and colts in the back of the barn next to the railroad where as few people as possible would see ’em, and he was scared that they had some kind of disease that would spread through the barn. I sat around in the feed troughs and watched these horses all day without the slightest idea of what was the matter with ’em or what to do for ’em. We had the stockyards dead wagon pick up from one to five head every morning for a week. And, then, the rest of them began to fill up and be snorty like range horses are supposed to be.

  I had lost a total of forty colts and thirty-two mares, leaving me fifty-eight mares and fifty colts to try to get my money out of, and I still didn’t know nor had I found anybody that knew what was the matter with this bunch of horses. After they had begun to do good, I started showin’ them to people and gettin’ ready to sell them at auction because I didn’t want to sell ’em to any of my customers and sure didn’t want to take ’em to my pasture.

  I was sittin’ in the dining room of the old Stockyards Hotel and Port Daggett came in, shook hands, and sat down by me. We went to talkin’ about our business. I knew he had done lots of business west of the Pecos River and I opened up to him a little and said, “Port, do you know Old Man Garner at Girvin?”

  He said, “Yeah, he’s got that old horse ranch down there where all that alkali weed is. Half of his horses die every winter.”

  “What kind of weed?” I asked.

  “Alkali weed. They don’t eat it until after frost, and the mares that suck colts pass it through the milk and kill the colts, but it don’t hurt the mares lots of times.

  “If you don’t move ’em or run ’em and leave ’em alone when the grass comes green in the spring, they git it out of their system. But it will sure kill ’em if you handle ’em.”

  I didn’t let on. I just said, “Well, if a man’s gonna buy any horses, he’d better wait until spring.”

  He said, “That’s for sure, but the old man’s got well-bred horses and he always sells ’em cheap enough, and if you was aimin’ to get any of ’em, just wait until the alkali weed’s out of ’em and buy ’em in the spring.”

  Someone hollered at Port and he slapped me on the back as he left with a bunch of fellows, never realizing he had just dropped the boom on me.

  After another week’s feed bill, these mares and colts showed no signs of anything being wrong with ’em and I ran ’em through the auction. In spite of all the dead ones, I had bought ’em so cheap that they really didn’t hurt me as bad as it had looked like they would at times. However, I was about $700 the loser and a very little bit wiser, but when you get your hook hung on something like that the only way you can get back to makin’ money is to get loose from it so you can go back to the brush and hunt for more stock. So after these five or six weeks of experience and losin’ money, I thought I would change directions and head into South Texas.

  I was at the old Gunter Hotel in San Antonio one night visitin’ around the lobby with stockmen I knew when Major Atkins from the government remount service walked up and began to talk about seven stallions that they had taken back from ranchers because all seven of these stallions had proved to be sterile and the ranchers had a bunch of barren mares for that year that the government had assigned th
em these studs.

  Next morning I went out to Charlie Krinskey’s Mule Barn and heard him tell some other fellows that Old Man Garner had called him the night before and said he was comin’ to San Antonio to buy some studs, preferably thoroughbreds, and if any of the boys listenin’ had any thoroughbred studs, tomorrow would be the day to have them at the sale. I went back to the hotel and was sittin’ in the lobby wonderin’ what to do next when I saw Major Atkins come in the front door. He walked up to my chair and I got up and shook hands with him and visited for a few minutes. He started to leave and had stepped off a step or two, then turned back and asked as though it was an afterthought, “Ben, what would you do with some thoroughbred sterile studs?”

  I said, “I’ve never found a very ready market for that kind of a stud. What would the salvage price be on ’em.”

  “Twenty-five dollars a head if you would move ’em in the next few days.”

  I said, “I can’t see that there would be any point in takin’ up much of mine and your time to go see a bunch of sterile studs. I’ll either castrate ’em for usin’ horses or cut their throats if I want to, so I’ll just give you a check for ’em.”

  Well, we had to go up to his room and draw up one of them damn long government forms of some kind for me to sign before he could take my check, and he told me he would drive out with me to show me where the horses were when I got ready to move ’em.

  I said, “That’ll be in about thirty minutes.”

  I called Pat Bridges that we would be by in a few minutes and told him to pick up a saddle and riggin’ because I wanted him to bring some horses to town. Pat was an old brokedown cowboy that made a livin’ movin’ horses around the stockyards for people. The Major and I picked him up in the Major’s car and drove about four miles south of town, where these stallions were in a government barn.