Home Ranch

by Ralph Moody

  When Mrs. Bendt had brought me the biscuits, and I’d thanked her, I took them out and hid all but one of them in the harness shop. That one I put in my pocket, and went back to the horse corral.

  Lady, Pinch, Clay, and several other horses crowded around, but my eyes were still partly blinded from the kitchen light, and I couldn’t see anything of Blueboy. I must have made ten trips around the corral before I finally found him—and then it wasn’t from seeing, but from hearing him snort as he raced out of a corner.

  From the pound of Blueboy’s hoofs I could tell what corner he’d run to, and once I knew where it was, it wasn’t hard to work my way slowly toward him. There was only one big danger: if I got him too frightened or excited he might stampede and run right over me. I was a little bit worried about it, but I’d learned from Father and Hi Beckman that steady, gentle talking would calm a horse better than anything else. So I inched slowly toward the corner, holding out the biscuit and saying anything that came into my head.

  When the moon rose I’d spent more than an hour trying to get near Blueboy, and he’d dashed out of a corner past me six or seven times. I don’t know whether it was his getting used to me, my talking, or that he could see me better, but when the top of the moon showed above the hill, he stood long enough to let me get within a few feet of him. I had to remind myself of what Mr. Bendt had said about my having plenty of time ahead of me, but I didn’t hurry, and I kept talking as I inched forward with the biscuit held out.

  Blueboy stood with his feet braced, his ears pricked forward, and white showing around his eyes in the moonlight. I couldn’t tell whether it was from hate or fear, and I knew that at any second he might lunge and strike with either his teeth or his hoofs. Hi used to tell me that a horse could smell fright on a person, and I think it’s true, because you can never do much with one when you’re afraid. That’s why I couldn’t even let myself think that Blueboy might strike—and one of the reasons I had to keep on talking.

  My head was within less than three feet of Blueboy’s—and my heart was pounding as if it would jump out of my chest—when he snatched the biscuit from my hand and bolted away. When I went back to the bunkhouse my nerves were still zinging, and it was a couple of hours before I could go to sleep.

  Tuesday night I waited for moonrise before I went to the horse corral, and when I whistled for Lady, Pinch came with her. Clay seemed glad enough to have a piece of biscuit and some petting, but he stood back and made me come to him. Blueboy stayed way at the back of the corral, snorting and stamping a hoof. But that night it only took me about ten minutes to work my way up to him, and he didn’t bolt after he’d snatched the piece of biscuit. Still, he wouldn’t let me get close enough to put a hand on him.

  It wasn’t until Thursday that Blueboy would let me touch him, and then it was only because I wouldn’t let him have any biscuit until he did. And he moved off to the other side of the corral just as soon as he got it. Friday he was a little better, and let me walk up to him slowly without his backing off. Even then, he didn’t want my hand on him, and only let me stroke his muzzle a second before he jerked it away.

  Saturday we made the last roundup sweep of the home ranch. It was the one nearest the buildings, and not a very large one, so we had all the cattle in the corral by noon. When I was going in to dinner Hazel met me outside the chuckhouse door, and seemed as excited as if it were already the Fourth of July. “We’re having roast pork and applesauce and peach pie,” she whispered, “and you eat every single bit you can hold.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I’m not very hungry this noon.”

  “That don’t make no never-minds!” she whispered again. “You eat every mouthful you can stuff down! I got a special reason; I’ll tell you after dinner. And don’t you go back to the corrals till I get the dishes done! You wait for me right here!” Then she ran away to the kitchen.

  The dairyhands had just butchered a young pig, and the roast pork was real good, but I couldn’t hold more than two helpings. And all the time I was eating I could hear dishes rattling and clicking in the kitchen. Hazel must have been washing them just as fast as Jenny could take them in from the chuckhouse, because I only had to wait three or four minutes for her. Then she stuck her head out of the kitchen doorway, and called, “Go get your chaps and spurs on! I’ll meet you up to the milk house at the dairy barn.” Before I could ask her what in the world it was all about she’d ducked back inside.

  I couldn’t imagine why Hazel wanted me at the milk house, and particularly with my spurs and chaps on, but I went back to the bunkhouse, put them on and went up to the dairy barn. When I got there she was standing by a pair of scales, and she had both hands on her hips. “Now, Mr. Man,” she said, “we’ll see if you gained your weight back yet! I a’ready got the scales set for seventy-two pounds.”

  I knew it would be cheating a little to weigh with my chaps and spurs on, because I’d weighed seventy-two pounds without them and barefooted when I left home. But I knew how much Hazel wanted me to show her the somersault trick before Mr. Batchlett came back, so I kept my mouth shut and stepped on the scales. The bar went up with a good hard bump, and Hazel squealed, “You done it! You done it! Now there ain’t no reason you can’t show me how to do the somerset trick.”

  With the amount of riding I’d done that week—and with staying up kind of late every evening—I hadn’t been a bit sure I’d gained all my weight back. But from the way that scale arm bumped I knew I had, and I wanted to tease Hazel a little, so I said, “Don’t you think it’s cheating to weigh with my stomach nearly popping and with my chaps and spurs on?”

  Hazel thought about it for a few seconds, then put a finger out to try the scale beam, and said, “Well . . . the chaps might be a little bit cheatish, but what you’ve et is a part of you now, so it’s fair.”

  “And how about the spurs?” I asked.

  “They don’t weigh next to nothin’! Just take your chaps off!”

  “All right,” I told her, “but you’ll have to set the scales up a pound.”

  Hazel looked at my spurs and seemed to be weighing them with her eyes. “Take ’em off, then!” she snapped. “They don’t weigh over half a pound, and I ain’t going to be cheated by no half a pound!”

  When the weighing was over, I was even happier than Hazel. Besides gaining back all the weight I’d lost in the mountains, I gained another couple of pounds. For two years I hadn’t been able to gain an ounce, but at last it looked as if I might be growing up a little. “All right,” I told Hazel, “as soon as we finish cutting the cattle this afternoon I’ll ask your father if I can show you how to do the trick. But you’ll have to watch me do it at least a dozen times before you can try it yourself.”

  “That’s just more excuses!” Hazel shouted. “That’s just more excuses so’s I won’t be able to do it by the time Batch gets home—and then you’ll go out on the next trip with him—and then I won’t never get to learn to do it!”

  “Maybe you can try it tomorrow if your father thinks you’re ready, but unless you’ll promise not to try it today I won’t show you how it’s done.”

  “You’re a cheater! You’re a cheater!” she flared at me. “You’re just tryin’ to save the trick all for your own self!”

  I knew Hazel didn’t mean what she was saying, and was only blowing off steam, so I grinned and said, “Promise?”

  “Well . . . I s’pose I got to, but it ain’t . . . isn’t fair,” she said slowly.

  “Cross your heart?”

  Hazel made a quick X with one finger across the front of her blouse, and said, “Now don’t go to fiddle-diddlin’ around all afternoon with cutting that little dab o’ cattle, so’s to let it get supper time on us! Get your saddle on Clay while I run for the herd book!”

  Clay worked the best he ever had for me that afternoon, and by half past three the last animal on the home ranch had been rounded up, cut out, and written down in the herd book. “That done it!” Mr. Bendt sang out, as Hank opened the g
ate for the last cow. “By the old Harry, I’d swore we couldn’t’a done it—short-handed as we was! You boys done fine—you too, Hank! Let’s knock off and call it a day.”

  Hazel was trying to write down the last cow with one hand and talk sign language to me with the other, so I rode over to Mr. Bendt, and said, “I’ve gained back more weight than I lost, and I promised Hazel that when that time came I’d show her how I do one of the trick-riding stunts. She’s promised not to try it herself today, but is it all right if I show her how it’s done?”

  Hazel had jumped down from her little platform and was running toward us. When her father saw her coming, he asked real quietly, “Think she’s ready? How risky is it?”

  I nodded, and said, “Well, you could watch me do it a few times and see for yourself. Of course, she could take kind of a bad spill if she got scared and tightened up at the last second.”

  By that time Hazel was hopping up and down at the side of her father’s horse. “I ain’t scairt the least tiny little bit!” she squealed, “And I ain’t tightened up once at practicin’ all week! And anyways, I ain’t going to do it myself today. Can’t he show me? Can’t he show me, Paw?”

  “Can’t see no hurt in him showin’ you, gal,” he told her, “but I ain’t about to let you break your neck in somethin’ you couldn’t prob’ly make out at. You kids go get your horses saddled! Where at do you reckon on doin’ this stunt?”

  “Well, you said we’d have to do it here at the corrals,” I told him, “but I think the horses would do better for the first time or two if we did it where we’ve been practicing. I’m not much worried about Pinch, but I’m going to use Pinto mostly—he’ll probably spook the first couple of times; most horses do.”

  Mr. Bendt rose in the saddle, so that his head was higher than the corral poles, and looked toward the house. “Hmmm,” he said, “where’s this practicin’ place at?”

  “A little valley about three miles up the north trail,” I told him; “the one where you swept out the big White Face bull and three heifers.”

  “Hmmm,” he said again. “Reckoned that was it by the way the turf was chawed up. Might not be a bad idee.”

  17

  I Done It! I Done It!

  WHEN Mr. Bendt said I could show Hazel how to do the somersault trick, I saddled Pinch and Pinto as fast as I could. Then he rode out to the little practice meadow with us, at a slow jogging pace.

  I’d never done the trick without being just a little bit scared, but when we got to the meadow I told Mr. Bendt, “There’s nothing about this trick to be scared of if the horses are trained right, and I think these are. Pinch hasn’t made a bobble all week, and Pinto’s only made a couple of little ones. If you and Hazel will stand your horses right over there, I’ll try to do the trick so you can see every part of it. And I’ll do it first off Pinch, because he didn’t spook the time I did it by accident.”

  I rode Pinch back to the starting line, took off my spurs, then put him into a hard run. At the moment he was passing Mr. Bendt and Hazel, I hissed and ducked my head and shoulders. The quick, hot taste I always got came into my mouth, I spun in the air, and the next instant Pinch and I were standing with our two heads side by side.

  “Good job!” Mr. Bendt called out.

  “You done it too fast!” Hazel shouted. “Why didn’t you do it slower so’s I could see how you done it?”

  “I have to do it fast,” I said, “or I’d only go part way over. Let’s change saddles now and I’ll try it off Pinto. The thing to watch is the way I duck my head as I leave the saddle—as if I were trying to poke it between my legs.”

  Pinto was fidgety with me on him, so I didn’t take him all the way back, but turned him into a quick start. As soon as he’d picked up enough speed, I hissed and ducked my head. Pinto set his feet in good shape, but when he felt me leaving the saddle, he spooked and whirled away to the right. He did it so fast that the saddle horn bumped my leg as my foot came up out of the stirrup. It wasn’t a hard bump, but enough to throw me a bit sideways and off balance.

  I’d practiced the trick so much that my muscles would remember what to do quicker than my head could. My arms didn’t go out to balance me, or my legs to reach for the ground, but I stayed curled up like a sleeping cat. I landed sort of cornerwise, on the back of my shoulder, somersaulted on the ground a couple of times, and came to a stop on my hands and knees—right in front of Mr. Bendt’s horse. I’d hardly come to a stop before he picked me up and asked, “Are you hurt, boy?”

  “No, sir,” I told him, “not a bit. I’m all right.”

  “Betcha my life!” he said, and I heard Hazel gasp. When I looked up, her face was so white that the freckles looked like mud spatters.

  “Jiminy!” she panted, as if she were all out of breath. “I thought you was going to get killed.”

  “That’s why I’ve been making you practice to stay loose,” I told her. “You don’t get hurt if you stay loose and doubled up; it’s only when you get scared and stick out your arms and legs.”

  “Wasn’t you scairt?” she asked. “I was! Green!”

  “No,” I said, “I didn’t have time to be. Where’s Pinto? I want to try it a few more times with him; he won’t spook after another time or two.”

  Pinto hadn’t run when he’d whirled away, but was standing stiff-legged, with his nostrils wide, watching me as if he thought I’d gone crazy.

  “Don’t you reckon you’ve had enough for one day?” Mr. Bendt asked. “Don’t you reckon you’d best to leave him a day to settle down ’fore you try him again?”

  “I think it would be better if I tried it right now,” I told him. “Every horse I ever tried it from—except Pinch—spooked the first time, but after they get used to it they never spook again. If I’d leave him now, don’t you think he might be worse next time?”

  “Like as not you’re right,” Mr. Bendt said after a minute. “Like as not! Go on ahead, but watch out there’s no loose gear to get tangled up in!”

  I took a couple of practice runs on Pinto, but didn’t leave the saddle. Then, on the third run, I ducked my head and somersaulted. He spooked again, but not quick enough for the saddle to bump me, and he whirled only half way. So long as the saddle didn’t touch me, his spooking didn’t bother the trick, but my muscles were still afraid. They kept me curled up in a bunch right through the split second when I should have been throwing my arms out for balance and setting my feet to land.

  I hit the ground on my feet, but I was scrooched way down—with my bottom right behind my heels—and my arms wrapped around my stomach. That didn’t leave me any way of putting on the brakes, so I bounced like a thrown ball. About that time my head caught up with my muscles in thinking, and I threw my arms out wide to slow me down, but it worked just wrong. For a tenth of a second I must have looked like a wild goose coming in for a landing, then my feet touched the ground again and I flopped forward on my face. The first landing didn’t hurt at all, but the flop forward knocked the wind out of me. When Mr. Bendt picked me up, I was yawping for breath like a fish on a hook.

  Mr. Bendt saw what the trouble was, and gave me a slap on the back. He wasn’t a bit afraid or excited, but his mouth was set hard, and he said, “This ain’t no game for girls—boys, neither! How come Beckman learnt it to you in the first place? How come your paw let him do it?”

  “They didn’t,” I told him. “I saw Hi do it once, and then I practiced it by myself—when I was out alone herding cattle—in a good soft sandy place. It isn’t nearly as dangerous as it looks. I’ve taken a thousand spills with nothing worse than getting the wind knocked out of me.”

  “Well, this ain’t no soft sandy place!” Mr. Bendt told me. “Reckon you’d best to call it a day!”

  Hazel hadn’t made a sound, but when I looked up, two big tears were rolling down her cheeks. I didn’t know if it was because she was afraid I’d been hurt, or because she was sure her father wouldn’t let her learn the trick. But I did know that he’d never let
her learn it unless he saw me do it over and over without a bobble, so I said, “Can I have just one more try? If I don’t do it right this time, I won’t try it again while I’m here.”

  Mr. Bendt rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand, as if he were thinking hard, then said, “Reckon every man’s due the right to draw one card, but I’m tellin’ you—you’ll have to come up with a full house or better!”

  I’d never played poker, but I’d watched the men at the Y-B ranch enough to know that a full house was a hard hand to beat. And I knew that Mr. Bendt was telling me that, unless everything went exactly right, my trick-riding was over for the summer.

  I decided that, with only one card to draw, I’d better not take any chances, so I told Hazel, “We’ll have to trade saddles again; I’m going to use Pinch this time.”

  Mr. Bendt helped me change saddles, and his face stayed hard and set, but Hazel’s was nervous. As I kneed the air out of Pinch, she crowded up close beside me, and whispered, “Don’t take no chances, Ralph . . . but . . . but . . . make it work.”

  I didn’t say anything back, but nodded, pulled the cinch tight, and hopped to get a foot in the stirrup.

  Among all of us, I think Pinch was the only one who wasn’t nervous. Hazel was so jumpy that she excited Pinto into dancing, and Mr. Bendt’s face was set as hard as rock. As I turned Pinch toward the starting line, my knees played a tattoo against the saddle, and pins-and-needles ran up and down my backbone. I walked him real slowly, and waited a full minute at the line, telling myself to stay loose and to make the trick work. Then, when my knees stopped trembling, I kicked my heels against Pinch’s belly. I don’t remember anything about that try, right from the take-off to the moment I found myself standing on my feet with Pinch’s head at my shoulder.

  I think it was Hazel and Mr. Bendt who sort of woke me up. She was squealing and clapping her hands as if she’d been into the loco weed, and her father called out, “Pick up the chips, boy! It’s your next deal!”