by Paul Bagdon
Arm rode into Hulberton to borrow a couple books on the process from Tiny and to discuss the whole procedure with him. Arm did better than that—he and Tiny rode in late that night, drunk, laughing, having a hell of a time, with a sack of thick books in Arm’s saddlebags. The ladies hustled about in the kitchen preparing a fine meal of venison stew and mashed potatoes, biscuits to sop with, canned tomatoes, and all sorts of treats, an’ then left us alone. We ate like three sows at a trough and our bottle took some hard use, too.
Dansworth, Tiny told us, had bought a string of eight horses from a couple of Mexican traders. There were a couple of nice mares and one stud that looked good—but not near as good as our stud. He—Dansworth—was still running his mouth about owning our mare. Tiny said it looked like he’d added a few more saddlebums and drifters to his army.
The next morning Tiny looked over the mare very carefully. He said it was time to start keeping her tail wrapped and to grease up her exterior womb a bit with udder balm daily. He felt of her gut an’ said the foal was a big ’un, but she looked like she could pass it okay when the time came. We studied the books at the kitchen table an’ Tiny told us what supplies to have on hand an’ how to cut the cord right and clean the afterbirth and all that. He told us how the mare would act when she was about due, and how her teats would wax up, a sure sign birth wasn’t far off. We kept a pair of large buckets of water simmering on the stove at all times, and a tall stack of freshly laundered towels outside the stall. One of the buckets was for us to wash our hands with if we had to reach inside her to help things along, and there was a big chunk of lye soap on a shelf above the bucket.
Tiny asked that one of us come to town and fetch him when the mare started contractions and we promised we would—very gratefully.
Teresa an’ Blanca were excited about the bambino and spent lots of time talking to and stroking the mamacita. The mare just ate up the extra attention, grunting and sighing and poking about for the treats the ladies brought in their aprons— like carrots and quartered apples.
It hadn’t rained much this spring and the ground was fairly well dried out. I was standing in the stud’s corral near the snubbing post, moving dirt around with the toe of my boot. The horse was antsy, looking for action, bored with his life, I suppose. I thought I’d given him some new sort of exercise. I hooked the rope to his halter and led him up tight to the post. Then, I went into the barn.
Arm was rewrapping the mare’s tail as I hefted my stock saddle an’ blanket an’ started back out to the corral.
“You are nots, no?” he said. “You canno ride that horse, Jake. Jesús.”
“I’m not ‘nots’—I just wanna give him a little exercise, is all. I know he’ll never be a ridin’ horse ’cause of that hoof—but, well—what the hell. Won’t hurt to set on him for a second.”
“An’ get your seely neck busted.”
I ignored that.
I’d been sacking out the stallion for several weeks, so the feel of the blanket on his back was no big deal. He eyed my saddle, however, like it were about to attack an’ eat him. Arm had followed me out and was untying the bandana from around his neck. He sidled up to the horse, stood there for a moment, and then, quickly and smoothly had the bandana over the stud’s eyes and tied under his jaw. I’d tied a short length of rope to the halter to use as a rein.
I eased the saddle onto the horse’s back as if I were settling it on a giant, fragile egg. The stud went stiff and began to tremble as I pulled the cinch. I put my hand in a stirrup and pressed down some. The stud’s trembling increased—it was as if his whole body was in motion.
“He gonna come apart,” Arm said quietly.
My partner was right. A few more seconds and his fear of the weight on him would overcome his fear of blindness and he’d explode. I put a boot into a stirrup and swung into the saddle, calling, “Pull!” to Arm. He unsnapped the rope from the halter and yanked the bandana free.
We stood statue-still for the barest part of a second and then the horse went up like one of those Chinese Fourth of July rockets. He came down hard, but I could feel that he kept weight off the twisted hoof. He went up again, higher yet, and came down with his weight on his rear hooves, as if he was rearing. I kicked out of the stirrups so’s I could push free if I had to. I’d rather hit the dirt like a sack of grain than do the same thing with 1,200 pounds of horse on top of me.
It seemed like we stood there forever, my hands and arms stiff against the saddle horn to push off if I needed to, my legs free. Then we were in motion again, leaping forward. I was shifting all over the saddle until I was able to get my boots back into the stirrups.
I’d expected a spin, and I got it. The stallion spun away from his lame foot, and the sumbitch went around as fast as one of them tops kids play with. He stopped faster than a horse in a spin can stop, and my momentum carried my upper body forward—particularly my head. My nose slammed into the horse’s poll—the space between his ears—and I was immediately choking on blood. The only thing louder than the stud’s bellows-like wheezing and gasping for air was Arm’s laughter.
I’d like to say I rode that hellhound to a stand-still. I didn’t. He spun again and went up again and that was pretty much it for me. I was seeing little black spots in front of my eyes from the blow to my face and I was dizzy and off balance. I hit the ground like a cow flop and Arm hustled over to me in case the horse wanted to play some more. He didn’t—he rolled on the ground until he busted my cinch and ran to the far wall of the corral, head hanging, sweat dripping, sides heaving.
“You give him a good ride, amigo,” Arm said.
I couldn’t think of an answer.
I ended up with a nose that was at least twice its normal size that hurt like a sonofabitch, and a pair of black eyes that made me look like a raccoon. Other than that, I came through my ride pretty well. Tequila and a long night’s sleep didn’t hurt, either. A taste of tequila the following morning helped out. Teresa made a poultice for my nose that tied around my face like a mask. I have no idea what she put in it, but it sure cut the pain way down.
Right about this time the mare began to bag up, which makes her udder begin to swell. We weren’t sure if all was right, so Arm rode into town and brought Tiny back with him. He looked her over, checked her tail wrapping, and nodded with satisfaction when he saw how clean the stray in the birthing stall was, and that we’d nailed lamps at each corner of the stall, high enough to be well out of the way, but in good position to cast all the light we should need.
Tiny washed his hands real good in the hot water, lathering up with the lye soap. He gently touched her teats and grinned when she didn’t react. “Some of ’em get right tetchy about now, but this gal don’t pay no mind. That’s good. You boys wash her teats a couple times a day with warm water from now on, hear?”
Tiny felt of her rear stomach and between her legs. “She ain’t gonna have no trouble or I miss my bet,” he said. “Everything is where it’s supposed to be. Sometimes you get a breech birth—the ass end of the foal comes out first—but that ain’t gonna happen here.”
“She is okay, no?” Arm asked.
“She’s good. Real good. Next thing’ll happen is her udder’ll start to fill out. You already seen a little wax on her nipples; that’ll get a lot thicker as her time comes. Lotsa thick wax usually means you’ll have a foal in a day or so, give or take. She’ll probably get a little nervous, maybe kinda pace in her stall. That’s okay. If she stops chowing down like regular, that’s a good sign, too.”
Tiny came out of the stall and faced Arm and me. “Lookit here. Mares have foaled for lots of years without you two screwin’ around tryin’ to help. She’s gonna do fine. Let her be.” We nodded.
Tiny had several horses to shoe and a couple of oxen needed resets so he went on back to town. Arm an’ me stood around the birthing stall not saying much. We were a whole lot more nervous than that good mare.
The whole thing went perfectly, naturally, just as Tiny s
aid it would. The mare went down on her side after her water busted and she moaned some and squealed a couple of times as the pains hit her. We could see her muscles flex as she pushed.
A front foot came out of her canal and then a half minute later the other one followed, maybe four or five inches behind the first. When the forelegs were out to the knees, we saw the nose— and then the snout—and then the entire head.
It was the most beautiful thing me or Arm had ever seen.
When she’d passed the shoulders out she rested, sucking air, moaning every now and again. I wanted to jump into the stall and hold her head in my lap and tell her what a great and brave girl she was, but I stayed where I belonged, outside the stall.
Their was a gauzy, wet, slick white sack all around the foal that the mother kinda nipped to break open. She rested again, breathing hard, and then passed the hindquarters and rear legs. The cord was still attached and we left it alone, just as Tiny told us to. He said at that point, it was passing blood and stuff between mother and foal. After a bit of licking and cleaning of her baby, the mare struggled to her feet and the cord broke like a piece of light, wet rope snapping. Later, I said it made a little noise but Arm said it didn’t, and his hearing was better than mine.
It wasn’t but fifteen or so minutes later that the foal lurched to his feet and nuzzled about for a teat to suck. He was shaky on his feet and his legs were just plain silly-looking things—like thin tan sticks that could never hold the weight of his body, but did. While the baby sucked, his ma pushed out a mass of placenta.
And that was it. The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch had its first foal—a colt with a light bay color to him. Armando and I shook hands. We both had tears in our eyes and on our faces and neither of us were the least embarrassed.
You’d think neither of us had seen a mare or a foal before, we spent so much time gawking into the birthing stall. We cleaned out the straw with the stuff on it—blood, yellowish liquid, and particularly the afterbirth, which smelled like very sour milk. The mare was protective but not aggressive. I knew a fella in Burnt Rock who’d had his sweetest mare shatter his knee when he was toweling down a foal, and me an’ Arm realized that the maternal instinct was strong. We were real careful around the foal and his ma—but we never had a minute of trouble.
Spring came on nicely an’ our mare was getting hungry for that that fresh grass she could smell coming up outside. Also, the lady was bored, and I couldn’t blame her. Standing in a stall with a kid doin’ his best to suck you dry couldn’t have been a real good time. The foal was bored, too; he started nipping at his ma, waiting ’til she was asleep an’ then pestering her, and so forth.
Arm and I built an acre or so of fence while the digging was easy, while the ground was still pretty wet. We set 4’ × 4’ posts two feet deep and ran good, stout, parallel boards—three of them, one close to the ground so the foal couldn’t slide out an’ go exploring.
We turned the pair of them out on a spring day that was like a day in heaven—lotsa sun, a perfectly blue sky, an’ not a breeze even whispering. The mare hauled ass around that little corral, kicking, squealing, running hard, havin’ a grand time. The foal tried to keep up with her but he didn’t have a chance.
Finally, when his ma was finished celebrating and was tearing up that fresh grass, the foal caught her and began to suck. He looked at that sweet green grass a few times, nuzzled it once, and then went back to the teat.
I’ll tell you, it was a pure pleasure to watch.
The ladies needed supplies and I hooked up their rig for them. We argued a tad about the amount of liquor I ordered, but they finally gave in. It’d been a while since they’d been to Hulberton ’cause the big wheels on their rig were bound to find places to sink into up to their hubs or more. Arm gave them a bunch of money—I don’t know how much—an’ sent them on their way.
They seemed awful happy to get away from their daily chores, me, Arm, and the whole ranch.
Arm had gone out on his horse to ride the land a bit. When he came back, he told me he’d found a lot of tracks indicating we’d been watched for a good time. That was no surprise. Both of us had seen a pair or so of Dansworth’s flunkies riding our borders throughout the hard weather.
As spring came, the riders came closer. They seemed to spend a good amount of time on a rocky rise that’d give them a good view of both the mare and the foal, and the stud in his corral.
Arm and I were in the barn an’ he was unsaddling his horse. “We need some help,” he said. “They weel come, no? You’ve insulted Dansworth, we’ve keeled his men, he wants our horse.”
“We’ve got rifles at every goddamn window in the house an’ in the barn. We’ve got more ammo than—”
“Dos men fight a army? Ees stupid, my brother. You know that.”
“We never needed no help before, Arm. We can—”
“Estupido. We both die, our horses are gone, our ranch is burned. No?”
“No.”
The argument was ended abruptly by the sound of Blanca and Teresa screaming and the clatter and bang of a rig being pushed too hard over bad ground. They dragged to a stop in front of the barn, the horses sweating and heaving, both women yelling at once.
“Tiny—he is shoot! They shoot Tiny!”
“I’ll go into town, Arm—you gotta stay here to keep watch. My horse is fresh.”
“We ride together,” he growled.
“No, dammit, not this time we don’t. I’m going to check on Tiny an’ then find out where the nearest telegraph office is. I guess maybe you’re right. We need help. I’m gonna call in some debts.”
“Who you wire?”
“I’m not sure—I gotta think on that.”
“Tiny is how bad?” Arm asked the women.
“He has bullets in him an’ is no talking but was breath—breathing. We don’ know no more.”
I was saddling my horse. “You ladies stay inside no matter what. Arm—I don’t know what’s going to happen but it ain’t gonna be good. Keep a close watch but stick to the barn, okay?”
“Sí. Any Dansworth men come here, they die.”
I urged my horse harder than I should have, taking crazy shortcuts over snow that could have hidden rocks and holes that would have broken both our necks if we hit on wrong.
I had to slow a few times to let my horse blow and suck fresh air, but like I’ve said before, he was a hell of a ride an’ he gave me the best he had that day. We pulled up in front of Tiny’s shop and I turned my horse into the corral an’ dashed inside. The fire in Tiny’s forge was completely out, which wasn’t a good sign. A few men I didn’t recognize stood around Tiny’s cot. I pushed through them and jolted to a stop. Tiny’s body was covered completely with a sheet.
“When? Who?” I asked, my voice cracking with both wrath and sorrow.
One of the men, his face tear-stained, answered. “Late last night. I heard the shots an’ come runnin’ over. Tiny, I think he was already gone. He was fulla lead—they musta emptied their guns into him—the dirty sonsabitches.”
I stepped ahead and gently lifted the cloth from my friend’s face and brought it down to his waist. He was still dressed. He’d taken several shots to the head and his shirt had a good dozen bloody holes in it. I put the sheet back.
“You boys get the undertaker here an’ get Tiny in a box. I’ll pay for everything—make sure he’s cleaned up so he can be buried decent. If he doesn’t have a casket big enough, have him make one—a damn good one.” I handed over whatever money I had in my pocket. “This’ll get things started. Now—where’s the nearest telegraph office?”
An ol’ fella—one I’d seen around the shop an’ the saloon—said, “Couple hours east in Big Bell. There’s a railroad depot there, too.”
I picked a tall gray from a stall who was muscled up good an’ looked like he could cover ground. Rasp marks on his hooves showed he’d just been shod. I grabbed a stock saddle off a rack and fit it on him. I put a low-level port in his mouth an’ led
him outta his stall.
“One of you fellas untack my horse an’ rub him down good. Feed an’ grain him, but not too much water at first. I’ll pay…”
“You won’t pay nothin’,” the ol’ man said. “Tiny was a good man—the best. Hell, it’s a honor to see to your horse, Mr. Jake. You go on to Big Bell an’ do what you gotta do.”
I guess it was pretty clear what I needed a telegraph office for. One of the men said, “ ’Member— Dansworth’s boys are hard cases an’ killers. You get the best men you can, boys who ain’t afraid of tradin’ lead.”
I nodded. “You can bet on that.” I mounted up and set off east, getting the feel of the gray. He had even, strong gaits and the rocking-chair lope of a good quarter horse. His gallop was damned near as fast as that of my own horse. He broke a sweat right away, but his breathing stayed even an’ he took whatever gait I asked for without a touch of trouble.
I’d picked a hell of a good ride. This boy would get me to Big Bell as fast as any horse I ever rode, ’cept my own. I held him to a lope, figurin’ who might be where, and whether I’d be able to reach as many men as I wanted to. Lots of our friends had paper on them, a few must have been killed or jailed since we last saw them, and others were drifters who kept moving, not headed anywhere in particular. Still, I was sure my offer of real good money an’ the fact that many—or most—of these fellas had some kind of debt—not money, but the important kind of debt, like jail bustin’ an’ gunfightin’—to me an’ Arm.
There were somewhere between a dozen an’ twenty of these boys I figured I could reach out to. All of them were gunmen, killers—an’ all of them paid their debts. Some were a touch crazy, either from the war or ’cause they were born that way, but that made no nevermind. I could trust these fellas an’ I knew not a one of them would hesitate to pull a trigger on an enemy of Armando or me.
I ran into a light, misty rain that made footing a bit more precarious, but didn’t slow our pace. We made it to Big Bell. I dropped the gray at the stable to be walked and rubbed down, found out where the telegraph office was, and ran to it, my boots squishing an’ sliding in the mud.