San Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion

by Marguerite Henry

  Peter stretched in sheer animal bliss before he sat down at the table. Brislawn smacked his lips over the super he’d prepared. “I hate eating by my lone,” he said as he took Peter’s plate and ladled gravy with a lavish hand over hen and corn bread both. “If it weren’t for Blacken and Penny, and little Potlicker here, I guess I’d just dry up and blow away like a tumbleweed. But now you’ve come,” he went on, “and forever long as ye’re here, we’re going to have prime vittles, with gravy and honey beslubbered over everything.”

  After supper the talk unleashed. Comforting talk, like balm on a wound. Brislawn reassuring, “No. ’Course ye’re not a quitter if you plan on leavin’ the Pony Express. Could be ye’re thinking way ahead.”

  “Then it’s true about the telegraph takin’ over?”

  “True as we’re setting here.”

  Peter nodded. “That’s what your brother Ferdie said.”

  “Ferdie knows.”

  “Brisley —?”

  The little man waited for the question. Not wanting to hurry the boy, he got out a board and cut himself a quid of Apple Tobacco while he waited.

  “It’s not account of the telegraph that I got to quit now.”

  “No?”

  “Y’see, well . . . uh . . . I just can’t go back to being a pony boy. At every relay station I’d be looking for Domingo.”

  The question in Brislawn’s eyes dissolved into insight and compassion. “I know, I know how ’twould be. Nobody can ever go back, Peter. The past ain’t ever where it used to be. Forward is the ticket. Today and tomorrow is what counts.”

  Peter let out his breath in a long sigh. “I’m thankful to you, Brisley, for making things seem right.”

  “No thanks atall, Peter. It’s me and the whole Union that are beholden to you and all the other pony boys. You young fellers hurried the building of the telegraph by showing that if you could cross plains, deserts, and mountains, so could a little bitty string o’ wire. Why, you shortened the distance ’tween the oceans till soon they’ll be only a dot and a dash apart.

  “What’s more,” he added, putting his plate down on the floor for Handy Andy, “California people, cliff-hangin’ way out there over the raggedy edge of the continent, don’t feel like outsiders anymore. Now they’re standing with us—for the Union, strong and steady.”

  Peter said, “I’m thinking—that is, I was thinking, about being a scout in the war. Only they expect you to bring your own mount.”

  “No stumbling block there. I got a young horse with a yellow eye . . .” A coyote gave a long, sad howl, shutting off the talk. All three dogs pattered to the door as if their names had been called out.

  “Time to bed down,” Brislawn said. “I’m taking my tarp outside with the dogs. We likes the coyotes to lullabye us to sleep.”

  • • •

  It was sweet comfort living with Brislawn, fitting into his life as if he had never been out of it. There were days of harvesting hay, enough to feed a million snowbound horses, it seemed, instead of just the half dozen in the corral.

  One early morning Brislawn announced with a light in his eye, “I got some new critters to school. Come along and see.”

  Alive with curiosity, Peter helped load a wagon with fragrant hay. Blacken and Penny leaped to their lookouts atop the load. Handy Andy scrambled up on the box, wedging himself between Brislawn and Peter. And off they drove through the grass, behind two round-barreled bays.

  From the matted, wheel-tracked look of the parallel lines ahead, Peter guessed the way had been traveled often. Between the tracks the grass grew high, so the trotting feet made pleasant whishing sounds. The morning mist had lifted; the hame bells on the horses’ collars chimed a mellow tune, and Brislawn, looking mysteriously happy, was singing in full tenor:

  “Oh, the Kings of Ireland

  They gave me birth,

  And I be royal too,

  Oh, I be royal too.”

  The horses began climbing a rise now and occasionally descending a little, so that Peter was surprised when they reached the crown of a hill overlooking the prairie and came to a sudden stop. Brislawn jumped down, spry as a cricket. Making a megaphone of his hands, he yodeled for all the world to hear :

  “Hi-leddy, hi lee,

  Hi-leddy, hi lo,

  Holeeay-ee-hee,

  Holeeay-ee-hoo.”

  From the undulating valleys, from every direction, from as far as the eye could reach, horses came galloping toward them, tails and manes wisping along on the wind.

  Brislawn meanwhile was busily forking hay everywhere, a pile here, a pile there, and nodding for Peter to do the same. The hoofbeats came closer and closer, shaking the very earth; and closer still until the knoll was suddenly alive with wildness: mares neighing, colts squealing, foals nickering, stallions nipping their mares, keeping them in a bunch. It was like a picnic with each family hungry, wanting its own place to eat in peace. But a few of the younger stallions went sneaking from hay pile to hay pile, looking for a fight and a mare to steal, and Brislawn taking off his neckerchief, using it as a direction flag to restore order. All the while he was laughing and calling this one by name and that one. “Molly dear, you’ve a new foal—a beaut! Hey there, Chinook, keep to your own girls.” And a wave of the flag sent Chinook back where he belonged.

  Peter stood spellbound. Never before had he been surrounded by horses half wild. He was right in amongst them, so close he could feel their warm breath. “Why, they’re not afraid of me!” he thought. “Brisley and me—we must smell alike, of sweet dried grass. They trust us!”

  The munching and grinding went on, Peter thinking it the most beautiful sound a morning could bring. Any one of the horses, he knew, could be roped and tied to the tailgate and brought home. As they flowed past and around him, he saw there was not a Medicine Hat among them. He wondered, unsure if he was sorry or relieved.

  By noontime, even the wisps of hay left on the wagon bed were lipped clean.

  On the way back Brislawn was strangely quiet. He seemed to be chewing on a big cud of thought.

  When Peter could bear it no longer, he said, “I don’t understand about the schooling. You didn’t halter or lead ’em, or teach ’em anything, except how good grass is.”

  The little man chortled. “That’s the point!” He shifted his tobacco from one cheek to the other. “Y’see, I’m schooling ’em to get used to stable eating, and how gentle man’s hands and voice is. Then when Colonel Northrup comes to get them for the cavalry, they’ll be half gentled for training already.”

  “Oh?”

  “You know how quick the military is.”

  Peter didn’t know, but listened carefully.

  “Why, they break a horse quick. And then they wonder why he rolls his eyes and plasters his ears back and bucks and bites and acts ornery as a mule.”

  “Can I help, Brisley?”

  “ ’Course you can. But between our trips to the top o’ the world, I’d be mighty obliged if you’d work with that young Tiger Eye in the corral. He’s green as a gourd, but that rascal’s got what I calls po-ten-tial!”

  “You mean the dun-colored stallion with the yellow eye?”

  “That’s the one.”

  • • •

  It was almost like old times, the slow day-by-day training. The sack of sand, light at first, on Tiger Eye’s back. Then bit and bridle replacing halter. And finally Peter straddling the young whirlwind until he quieted down to a breeze.

  Brislawn, watching from the fence rail, beamed at Peter. “Nothing to pleasure a man more,” he said, “than to see a green horse come into bloom by your own hand. Eh, son?”

  Peter blushed at the compliment. “Brisley . . .” he began. He kept walking the horse in a circle. Finally he stopped in front of the little man. “Brisley,” he tried again, “sometimes I feel . . .” The words came tight, wrenched from hurt. “I feel a guilt when I work with Tiger Eye.”

  “A guilt? What in the world for?”

  “S
eems like I’m a traitor to Domingo.”

  There was quietness for a time. Blacken and Penny loped into the corral and out, Andy following like a caboose.

  Into the silence Brislawn said, “Yer feelings be natural as rain, right now. But horse people, as they grow older,” he went on, “get to be more ’n more like parents of big families. Y’see, one amongst the younguns is bound to be the favorite. But does that stop the ma’s and pa’s from loving the others? No, siree! They build up love enough for all. Ain’t yer feelings something like that?”

  Peter was saved an answer by a horseman who turned out to be Jim Baxter, waving a letter.

  “Dogberry thought you’d still be here,” Jim said. He tossed the letter to Peter and was off again before any thank-you could be said.

  While Brislawn looked on, Peter studied the handwriting. It was familiar, but only vaguely. He unfolded the letter and a river of fright rushed through his body when he saw it was signed “Jethro Lundy.”

  Ma must be sick or dying to make Pa write.

  He read, and right at the start his fear turned to anger. He thrust the paper into Brislawn’s hand. He too read the signature first and frowned, thinking a letter from Jethro Lundy could mean only trouble and sorrow. To postpone knowing, he took his spectacles out of his vest pocket. Carefully he fogged each lens with his breath. Deliberately he polished both to a fine shine. He adjusted the earpieces, just so. At last, rocking on his heels, he began to read. Then he stopped stock still. “Why, just listen, feller!” In the deep tones of Jethro Lundy he read aloud:

  Peter,

  Belatedly, I have your letter concerning your meeting up with Slade. What I say is, you come damned near being a man.

  Brislawn handed the letter back to Peter. “Why, that’s great praise! The finest! ’Tis a sight more emphatic than ‘You are a man.’ ”

  “Is it?” Peter asked, half doubtful, half wanting to believe.

  “ ’Tis indeed! Once an old mountain man said to my son Emmett, ‘You come damn near being a mountain man.’ Emmett was prouder of this than if he’d been elected to be president!

  “The rest of the letter,” Brislawn added, “you’d best read to yourself. I might snivel, and at my age ’tain’t becoming.”

  With hands trembling Peter took the letter and began again:

  Belatedly, I have your letter concerning your meeting up with Slade. What I say is, you come damned near being a man. All these years I wanted you to grow up strong enough to shake off the Slades of the world. I reckon you have done it, son.

  Your Pa,

  Jethro Lundy

  Two days later, Peter rode out of Brislawn’s corral on Tiger Eye. He would stop at home and meet his pa, as if for the first time. Then he would go on and enlist as a scout for the United States Army.

  But scarcely out of the gate, he wanted to turn back and say all over again what he had said last night:

  “I want to go home, Brisley.”

  “A prime idea, Peter.”

  “But I can’t leave you here all alone. Supposin’ you was to sicken and . . .”

  “And no one to bury me and carve my name? Pshaw,” Brislawn had laughed, “my name’s printed big in little weeping clouds and thumping thunder and grand lightning. And down in my root cellar”—here his eye twinkled in enjoyment—“they’ll find rib cages of my Spanish Barb horses, proving to the whole dang world that the pure Barb ponies have just five lumbar vertebrae like their Spanish forebears. What better nameplate than provin’ something in your lifetime?

  “You best go on, Peter,” he urged. “You are all I have of the future. And don’t you go feeling sorry for me. Autumn’s a good time of life, too. Quakenasp and goldenrod turning yellow, and purple sage smelling nice. So fall is here, and my old bed tarp is here. And someday I’ll take the long trail with my critters to their blue bunchgrass heaven . . . and in time you’ll come along, too.”

  After long moments of reliving all that had been said, Peter had to turn around to look. Even with the remembrance of words from another time of parting: “ ’Tis an old Irish taboo, Peter. Don’t watch me out of sight, or we’ll never set eyes on each other again—in this world.”

  The compulsion was too strong. Peter turned. He had to. And he saw the little man, his big hat lifted high in Peter’s direction. They were each watching the other out of sight.

  For their help the author is grateful to

  DR. GENE M. GRESSLEY, Director, The University of Wyoming Western History Research Center

  JEFF EDWARDS, authority on the Spanish Barb horse, Porterville, California

  DAVID MILLER, authority on the Sioux language, Rancho Santa Fe, California

  ABEDNEGO MEARS, collector of old firearms

  HENRY E. HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, San Marino, California

  RANCHO SANTA FE PUBLIC LIBRARY, Rancho Santa Fe, California

  SAN DIEGO COUNTY LIBRARY, San Diego, California

  ST. CHARLES PUBLIC LIBRARY, St. Charles, Illinois

  Books Consulted

  Anderson, William Marshall, The Rocky Mountain Journals of William Marshall Anderson

  Back, Joe, Horses, Hitches and Rocky Trails

  Booker, William Saul, letter dated April 23, 1860, in The Illustrated London News, October 12, 1861; articles by British Consul in San Francisco in 1860

  Bowman, John Gabbert, The World That Was

  Burton, Sir Richard F., The City of the Saints

  Carpenter, Helen M., hand-written diary, Trip across the plains, 1857

  Colum, Padraic, editor, Treasury of Irish Folklore

  Crane, A. M., Journal of a trip across the plains, 1852

  Dick, Everett, The Sod-House Frontier, 1854–1890

  Eckert, Allan W., The Frontiersman

  Ellison, Robert S., Fort Bridger, Wyoming, A Brief History

  Ellison, Robert S., Independence Rock—The Great Record of the Desert

  Erwin, M. H., Wyoming Historical Blue Book

  Federal Writers Project, Oregon Trail: The Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean

  Federal Writers Project, Wyoming; Guide to Its History, Highways and People

  Gorsline, Douglas Warner, What People Wore; a visual history of dress from ancient times to twentieth century America

  Hendricks, Carl Brehains, Compilation of Outlaws

  Josephy, Alvin M., Jr., editor, The Great West

  Larson, T. A., History of Wyoming

  Lavender, David, Westward Vision: The Story of the Oregon Trail

  McClinton, Katharine Morrison, Antiques of American Childhood

  Majors, Alexander, Seventy Years on the Frontier

  Parke, Charles R., Journal of a trip across the plains

  Parkman, Francis, The Oregon Trail

  Peterson, Harold L., Forts in America

  Point, Father Nicholas, S.J., Wilderness Kingdom, The Journals of Father Nicholas Point, S.J., Indian Life in the Rocky Mountains, trans. by Joseph P. Donnelly

  Rollinson, John K., Hoof prints of a cowboy and U.S. ranger; pony trails in Wyoming

  Root, Frank A., and Connelley, William Elsey, The Overland Stage to California

  Sandburg, Carl, Abraham Lincoln, The War Year

  Spring, Agnes Wright, The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Express Routes

  Stegner, Wallace E., The Gathering of Zion, The Story of the Mormon Trail

  Vodges, Ada A., Journal describing life of an army officer’s wife at Ft. Laramie and Ft. Fetterman

  Walker, Henry Pickering, The Wagonmasters: High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe Trail to 1880

  Warp, Harold, A History of Man’s Progress from 1830 to the Present

  Watson, A. A., The Village Blacksmith

  Welsh, John P., diary, Overland journey from Wisconsin to Oregon, 1851–1863

  Wenstrom, William Holmes, Weather and the Ocean of Air

  Wilkins, James F., An Artist on the Overland Trail

  Wood, Joseph N., hand-written diary

  OTHER BOOKS BY MARGUERI
TE HENRY

  Justin Morgan Had a Horse

  Misty of Chincoteague

  King of the Wind

  Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague

  Born to Trot

  Black Gold

  Stormy, Misty’s Foal

  Mustang, Spirit of the West

  Brighty of the Grand Canyon

  Aladdin Paperbacks

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1972 by Marguerite Henry

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition 1992

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Henry, Marguerite, 1902–

  San Domingo : the medicine hat stallion / by Marguerite Henry;

  illustrated by Robert Lougheed — 1st Aladdin ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In Pre-Civil War Wyoming, a teenager’s life is complicated when his strangely hostile father trades the boy’s beloved horse to the Pony Express.

  ISBN 978-0-689-71631-7

  ISBN 978-1-44248-810-6 (eBook)

  [1. Horses—Fiction. 2. West (U.S.)—Fiction.] I. Lougheed, Robert, ill. II. Title.

  [PZ7.H394San 1992]

  [Fic]—dc20 91-46020