Home Ranch

by Ralph Moody

  During the night Hank went out of his head again, thought we were still lost, and kept mumbling for me to go toward the sunrise. Mr. Batchlett came in and stayed with him most of the night, and soon after daylight Sid brought the doctor from Castle Rock. He was a gruff old man, but I liked him. After he’d put his ear horn on Hank for about two minutes, he said, “Shock and exposure! Heart’s as steady as an eight-day clock! He’ll be all right, but he’ll need care. Try to get some broth into him—a little whiskey wouldn’t hurt. Keep him warm and out of drafts. He’d be better off in a room by himself.”

  Then he came over and put his ear trumpet all over my chest and stomach. Mr. Batchlett was standing beside him, and said, “His mother’s a widow woman in Littleton. Ain’t it best I take him home to her?”

  There were lots of reasons I didn’t want Mr. Batchlett to take me home. In the first place, Mother would worry too much, and in the second place, I knew I couldn’t find another job that would pay me a dollar a day. Besides that, I liked Batchlett’s ranch and everybody on it, and I wanted to stay right there, so I said, “The only thing the matter with me is that I’m half starved to death.”

  The doctor shook his head at Mr. Batchlett. “No need to take him home,” he said. “The boy’s more than half right. These little skinny ones stand the gaff in pretty good shape, but he’d better be kept quiet a few days. Needs to gain his weight and strength back.”

  “Well, if I could just have something to eat, I’d be all right now,” I said.

  “Mmmm, hmmm, I wouldn’t doubt it,” he told me, “but we’re not going at it too fast.” Then he turned to Mrs. Bendt and said, “I’d move him out of here if I could. Wouldn’t hurt to let him have a little solid food now; maybe an egg and a piece of toast. A little something light every couple of hours till supper time, then he’ll be ready for meat and potatoes.”

  “Hadn’t I better take him back to town when he’s up and around?” Mr. Batchlett asked.

  “That’s up to you, Batch,” the doctor told him. “Might be good for him to be out here, but I wouldn’t let him overdo for a week or two. Isn’t this the boy who rode your bay in the matched race I saw last summer?”

  “That’s him. Little Britches, they call him around town.”

  “Mmmm, hmmm,” the doctor said slowly. “No . . . don’t believe I’d take him back . . . can’t get hurt any more around here than around a race track.” Then he put his things back in his bag and went out.

  I think Kenny liked me to be sick, because Mrs. Bendt moved me into his room and let him sleep in the bunkhouse—and I think Sid liked it even better. Hank was pretty sick the first few days, but he slept quite a bit, and when he was sleeping Jenny came in to stay with me. There wasn’t much for her to do, except to bring me an eggnog once in a while, but she’d sit on my bed and visit, sometimes for an hour or so.

  After Hank and I got lost the men didn’t cut any more posts, but were getting stock ready for trading trips. That kept them around the corrals most of the time, and Sid came in to see me five or six times a day. He always managed to come when Jenny was visiting me, and I think he came to see her a lot more than to see me. If he did, he might just as well have stayed at the corrals. The minute he’d stick his head in the doorway, he’d sing out, “Hello there, Jenny Wren! How’s this little old pardner o’ mine makin’ out?”

  The first couple of times, she said, “Oh, he’s getting along fine.” Then she shook up my pillows, straightened out the bed clothes, and said she’d better go see if Hank needed anything. I think Jenny had to count Hank’s pulse every little while and write it down for the doctor, but she only counted mine when Sid came in. He always told her how pretty she looked, and asked if she’d hold his hand like that if he’d get lost in the mountains. But she’d just say, “Can’t you keep quiet a minute? How can I count a pulse with you chattering like a magpie?” About the third time he asked her, she snapped, “Well, run right along and get lost if you want to. I’ll have Watt look for you when he goes up after the Christmas tree.” Then, when all the men came in after supper, she talked to everybody else, but acted as if she didn’t know Sid was there.

  Mrs. Bendt didn’t let Kenny come in to see me, but Hazel came the second afternoon. She didn’t tell me she was sorry we got lost, and she didn’t ask me how I was feeling. But she didn’t make fun of me for falling off Kenny’s donkey, either. When Jenny told me Hazel was coming in, I lay back on the pillow and tried to act a little bit sick, but she just looked at me and said, “Hmmmf! I was sicker’n that when I had chicken pox! You don’t look sick enough to me that Jenny has to stay in here with you half the time!”

  “Who said I was?” I asked her. “Do you think I’m staying in this bed because I want to?”

  “Then why are you tryin’ to look so puny? If I was a boy I wouldn’t stay in no old bed when I didn’t have to!”

  If I’d had on anything more than my underdrawers, I’d have jumped right out to show her I wasn’t staying there because I wanted to. But, of course, I couldn’t do that, so I said, “You bring me my clothes, and I’ll show you how long I’ll stay in this bed!”

  “Betcha my life you wouldn’t either!” she sniffed. “Maw washed ’em, and they’re hangin’ out on the line, drippin’ wet. By the looks of ’em you must’a been crawlin’ ’round in a hog wallow!”

  I think her mother heard her being snippy, because she called, “That’s enough, Hazel! You come and tend the baby while I get supper ready!”

  All the time Hazel had been talking to me, she’d been holding a little grape basket filled with milkweed silk. Just before she left, she set it down on the bed beside me, and said, “You can have these! I don’t want ’em no more!” After she’d gone, I took the silk out, real carefully, and there were seventeen birds’ eggs hidden in it—every one different.

  There was no reason why I couldn’t have been up after two days of just eating and resting and sleeping, but Jenny wouldn’t let me. And every time Sid came in she’d fuss around, counting my pulse and taking my temperature, as if I were really sick. After those first two days he didn’t ask if she’d count his pulse, but he kept on calling her Jenny Wren, and watched—sort of calf-eyed—every move she made. Then, when I was all well, he asked if she didn’t think I’d better stay in bed till the doctor came to see Hank again. She said she didn’t think anything of the kind, but that’s what she made me do.

  Either girls and women are a lot alike, or Hazel was trying to copy Jenny. She came in to see me every day, but she was just as snippy with me as Jenny was with Sid. When I tried to thank her for the birds’ eggs, she turned down the corners of her mouth, and said, “Hmfff, I didn’t want ’em any more. I’m getting too big to be playin’ with birds’ eggs. Throw ’em away if you don’t want ’em!”

  I didn’t really want the eggs, and didn’t know what I’d do with them around the bunkhouse. Besides, I was older than Hazel anyhow. But I couldn’t just throw them away after she’d given them to me. Sometimes I looked them over while Jenny wasn’t there—they were the prettiest ones I’d ever seen—but I always put the basket under the bed before she came back. And when the doctor finally came and let me up, Hazel said she’d keep them in the house, just as a favor.

  Mr. Batchlett was as fussy with me as Jenny had been. In a couple of days he and Sid were going for a trading trip into the mountains, and Zeb and Tom were going along the foothills south of Pueblo. More than a hundred cattle had to be gotten ready for the trips, and I wanted to help with the work, but Mr. Batchlett wouldn’t let me. He’d only let me exercise Lady and Pinch an hour a day, and I couldn’t go near Blueboy or get on Clay. But on the third morning he let me get up at sunrise, to help with starting the trading herds away.

  I’d almost have given an arm to go on the trip with Mr. Batchlett, but I don’t think Sid wanted to go at all. When Zeb was lashing his camp gear onto the pack saddle, he noticed that Tom had forgotten the coffee pot, and asked me to get it from the chuckhouse. Sid was co
ming out just as I got there, and looked as if his best friend had died.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Is Hank worse this morning?”

  “Worse!” he snapped. “Wisht I was that worse off! Wisht I knowed what I done to get that little Jenny Wren so daggoned down on me! Reckon she figures I’m the most no-account cowpoke this side the Divide.” Then he snatched up his grub sack and walked off fast toward the corrals.

  When I came into the chuckhouse, Jenny was standing at one of the little windows by the fireplace, looking out toward the corrals. She stepped away from it quickly when I opened the door, and said, “Well, how’s my patient this morning?”

  “Fine,” I said, “but Tom forgot to take a coffee pot, and Zeb sent me to get one.”

  “Didn’t you just come across one that was boiling over?”

  I shook my head, and must have looked dumb, because she laughed, and said, “A little pot with a red top?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said, “all I saw was Sid and his grub sack, but he didn’t drop any coffee pot.”

  She laughed again, and said, “I thought I heard steam blowing off just before you came in. I must have been mistaken.”

  “I guess so,” I told her, “because I didn’t hear any. But I’ve got to hurry; Zeb’s waiting for the coffee pot.”

  Zeb and Tom got away from the home ranch first, and when Mr. Batchlett and Sid went I rode a few miles with them. They both seemed glum, and Sid didn’t want to talk, but Mr. Batchlett had me ride beside him. “Reckon I let old Doc Gann talk me into a tangle,” he said. “I ought to took you home when you got up and about. Promised your maw I’d keep an eye on you, and I ain’t done a very good job of it.”

  “Well, you’d have had to be an eagle to keep an eye on me when Hank and I got lost,” I told him.

  “Not if I’d went along on the post-hackin’, and not if I’d kept Hank with Zeb and the others. And I ain’t proud about goin’ off and leaving you run loose for the next couple of weeks. You’re too like to go raring into things you hadn’t ought to and get your neck broke.”

  Mr. Batchlett had been riding along, watching the cattle as he talked, but he whirled toward me and said, real sharp, “I don’t want you tryin’ to ride Blueboy till I get back here! You hear me? You ain’t got the strength to handle that much horse no time; he’d kill you, weak as you are now.”

  “You won’t have to worry,” I told him. “I think I learned quite a lot while Hank and I were up in the mountains. One time when I thought we’d never get out alive, I started to hate him, and then I remembered that sometimes I rare into things just the same way he does.”

  Mr. Batchlett stopped his horse and looked at me as if he were puzzled, then he said, “Well, dang me! Maybe you ain’t been hurt as much as I figured on. If that old maverick has learned you that much he might still be worth keepin’ around.”

  I knew from the way he said it that he’d planned to let Hank go as soon as he was well, so I said, “It was more my fault than his that we got lost. If I hadn’t bragged about being able to cut more posts than he could, we’d have gone with the other teams.”

  Mr. Batchlett reached over and slapped me real hard on the leg. “By dang, Little Britches,” he said, “I been thinkin’ I was a fool to bring a headstrong kid like you along, but you’re goin’ to make out after all. Now you get back to the home ranch; you’ve rode far enough. And listen, Watt’s your boss while I’m away. Watch him and you’ll learn a lot. If he says you done good and didn’t risk your neck too often, and if you’ve gained your weight back, I’ll take you with me on my next trip.”

  10

  Betcha My Life

  WHEN I got back from seeing Mr. Batchlett off, Mr. Bendt was at the horse corral, saddling Hazel’s pinto, and she was with him. She didn’t act as if she knew I’d ridden up, and her father didn’t look around until he’d tightened the cinch. When he’d finished, I said, “Mr. Batchlett says you’ll be my boss while he’s away; do you have a job for me?”

  “You betcha my life!” he sang out. “Goin’ to be awful short-handed with Tom away! Reckon you could scout around the brush and root out the cows that’s had calves?”

  “Sure!” I said. “Where’ll I put ’em?”

  Hazel was still standing with her back to me. She didn’t look around, but said, “Hmmfff! He wouldn’t even know where to start lookin’, and he’d prob’ly get lost agin!”

  I knew she was really talking to me instead of her father, and I didn’t like what she’d said, so I snapped, “I suppose you’d . . .” but Mr. Bendt cut me off.

  “That’s enough!” he said. “If you kids want to fight we’ll get some gloves! And now, my gal, you’ve talked yourself into a job o’ work! We’ll leave you show him where to root ’em out, and where to bring ’em in to! Go tell your maw you’re goin’!”

  I didn’t like having a girl sent to help me, but there wasn’t much I could say, and I did need help. The home ranch stretched eight or nine miles along the foot of the mountains, there were a million places for cattle to hide, and I didn’t know a single one of them. Any kind of cattle are hard to find in scrub oak country, like the home ranch, but milk cows are the worst of all—especially when they’ve just had calves.

  When Hazel went to the house I could see that Mrs. Bendt didn’t like having her go to find the cows with me. She called Mr. Bendt to the chuckhouse steps, and though I couldn’t hear what she was saying, her voice sounded sharp. I didn’t want to seem to be listening, so I rode Lady out beyond the corrals, and had to wait quite a while before Hazel came back.

  “Well, come on if you’re comin’!” was all Hazel said, as she spurred the pinto past me and headed him onto the trail. She followed it north for about three miles, then turned off along a creek bottom, pulled up, and said, “Let’s clean out this here creek bottom first. You take that side and I’ll take this one. Bring ’em out where we turned off the main trail. Betcha my life I find more’n you do.”

  “Your life wouldn’t do me any good,” I told her, “but I’ll bet you a nickel.”

  “Cash?”

  “Yes, cash,” I said, and pulled Lady toward the creek.

  The fall I’d worked at the Y-B roundup, we’d ridden into the mountain canyons to hunt out strays. They were beef cattle, and pretty wild, so I was sure I wouldn’t have any trouble finding tame old milk cows. I took Lady through the creek at a splashing run, and cantered toward the head of the valley. Before I got there I was sure Hazel had tricked me out of a nickel. If she hadn’t known there’d be cows in that bottom she wouldn’t have made the bet, and I didn’t see a single one on my side of the creek. It seemed to me that it was kind of a dirty trick for her to pick the only good side—and then fool me into making a money bet.

  When I turned back, I’d made up my mind that I’d run Lady spraddle-legged again if I had to, but I’d find every single cow and calf on my side of the creek. The valley was only about a mile long and half a mile wide, but I must have run Lady ten miles before we found our first cow with a calf. Willows and alders grew thick along the sides of the creek, and the whole valley was dotted with chokecherry and wild plum thickets. They were all too high to see over, so I had to keep riding back and forth between them as if I’d been in an obstacle race.

  When I did find the one lone cow and calf I was in worse trouble than I had been before. The minute I’d leave them to look for some more, they’d disappear, and I had to waste a lot of time finding them again. Before I was anywhere near the end of the valley, Hazel ya-hooed from the main trail. And when I answered, she called back, “Are you lost agin?”

  I knew I was going to lose my nickel, but I wasn’t going to let her think I cared, so I snaked that old cow out of the valley as fast as the calf could trot.

  I’d expected Hazel to have two or three cows with calves, but when I reached the trail she was grinning like a coyote, and had seven of them rounded up in a little herd. “Is that the best you could do?” she sniffed. “I thought you wa
s supposed to be a cowhand.”

  “I am a cowhand,” I told her, “but I’m not a magician. I can’t find cows in places where there aren’t any.”

  “Want to bet there ain’t?” she taunted.

  I wasn’t going to let Hazel wangle me into another foolish bet, and I hadn’t hunted over the lower end of the valley, so I said, “Well, there might be one or two in this end, but I’ll bet you there aren’t any farther up.”

  “Give me a penny apiece for every one I find between the middle of the valley and the hogback?”

  “A penny!” I said. “I’ll give you a nickel apiece, and I’ll eat my shirt if you find more than two.”

  “Good thing Maw washed it! Give me a hand at putting these critters down to the creek so’s they won’t scatter.”

  “Why?” I asked. “They can scatter from down there just as easy as from up here, can’t they?”

  “Hmfff! That’s all you know about cattle, is it? Why would they scatter when there’s grass and water handy, and plenty of places to hide their calves?”

  Hazel didn’t hurry her pinto a bit as we rode up the valley. She just let him mope along, and seemed to be killing all the time she could. When I’d gone up there I’d found a good cattle trail along the creek, but she didn’t follow it. Instead she let her horse wander around among the chokecherry thickets like a lost dogie calf. Most of the time she acted as if she didn’t know I was along, but once she showed me a meadow lark’s nest. Another time she said she’d bet me her life there were baby magpies in a nest in a high cottonwood tree. Then, when we were riding through a little open place, she said, “How do you do that . . .”

  “That what?” I asked.

  “Oh, never mind; you’re too puny now. I was just wonderin’ something.” Then I couldn’t get another word out of her.

  We were skirting a plum thicket near the head of the valley when Hazel slid out of her saddle and dropped the reins. Then she looked up at me and said, “It’s nickels instead of pennies, ain’t it?”