by Ben K. Green
I told him I needed them—that I had been up in Kansas handling a bunch of steers through the summer, and I would probably handle mules through the winter, and that I’d need my riding horses. None of them were for sale.
But when I said I would handle mules, you could see his eyes light up considerably. He asked: “What kind of mules?”
I said: “Just mules—any kind of mules.”
“How would you like to trade these horses for some mules?”
I said: “Well, I wouldn’t want to trade all my horses for mules. I need to get some money out of ’em if I’m going to let them go.”
“We’ve got some mules. There’s just a little small matter about catching them. They’re in a big pasture on Pinto Creek, and if you’d trade for them range-delivery, we’d sure try to have some business.”
“How many mules you got in this wild bunch?”
He said there were five three-year-olds that never had been broke, and one six-year-old mule that had got out and got so wild they couldn’t catch her—which made six head in all. I asked him about the colors of the mules, and the sizes, and so on.
He was a pretty fair kind of a fellow, and this high sheriff was a-vouching that he was telling me the truth all the time. He said there were brown and bay mules, the six-year-old was a sorrel mule, and they were all fat. Some cowboys had run them a few times, but nobody had been able to catch them.
I asked him if there were any corrals anywhere that they could be put in, and he said: “Oh yeah, there’s a good set of pens out there in the pasture on Pinto Creek—made out of rock—if I ever could get them in there. But those mules—seems like they got a little something against goin’ in a corral.”
Well, by now he sure had tapped my number. I was getting interested fast. I asked him if I could keep the wagon to camp in and maybe a span of the mares at the wagon until I caught the mules—if we had some kind of a mule trade. He said the wagon wasn’t going to be much good to him, that he was going to need scrapes and plows and slips and fresnos. I could camp in the wagon to catch the mules, provided I caught them before they got too smooth-mouthed; that he didn’t want the wagon sitting out there seven or eight years. Of course he and Sheriff Abernathy, they had a great big laugh about that.
I laughed, too. I said: “Yeah, well, you got something there. It might take a long time to catch those mules. Tell you what I’ll do—I’ll take $250 a pair for these four pairs of mares—and your mules—and I’ll put in a set of harness for every mare. You get the wagon, but I’ll want my pack out of the wagon.” I meant by that my cooking gear, bedroll and stuff like that of my personal belongings.
This would amount to selling the mares for $250 a pair and trading the wagon and harness for six mules, the way I figured it right fast in my head. So I told him if he would show me the pasture and the pens and a place to water, when I got through I’d leave the pair of mares and the wagon right there. He could take the other teams and their harness and go on getting his dirt work done.
By now we had all got well acquainted, and we were liking the deal. He was anxious to get rid of those wild mules he couldn’t get caught, and the sheriff was feeling like he had done everybody a big favor; so the sheriff said: “Let’s go over here and all have something to drink.”
We went back in this good old mercantile to the meat market part, where the proprietor poured up coffee for everybody but me—and I was a coke-head. He got me a coke and we sat there and visited. Mr. Cox was quite a business man along with being a nice fellow, and he brought up the matter of were the horses and wagon mortgaged to anybody.
I told him: “No sir.”
And the high sheriff had to put in a little humor, so he asked: “And they ain’t stole?”
And I said: “No sir, they ain’t stole.”
Mr. Cox said to Mr. High Sheriff: “I believe I’ll just have a trade with this boy.”
I said: “Well, that will be fine. I’ll try to catch the mules. If I don’t catch ’em, they ain’t mine—but when I catch ’em, they are mine.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s the trade. We’ll show you how to get out to the camp, and I’ll bring some men in the morning to get my horses and my harness. I’ll go by the office and write you a check and bring it with me.”
So since they had contested me about my mortgages and whether I stole the horses or not, I couldn’t help asking the sheriff did he think it would be all right to take Mr. Cox’s check. That created a little more good humor, and by now we were all big friends.
They drew me a map about how to go out of town and twist around south to the pasture gate. They said it was a good ways, and I would have to get up and drive pretty hard to get down on Pinto Creek, where those rock pens were, by dark. So we all shook hands, and I went back to get a package of barbecue to eat that night.
I said to the store man: “I believe I’ll pull around here to this back door and get a few sacks of feed.”
He had some good red oats, some shelled corn, and a few bales of hay. We stacked the stuff in my wagon—got all in that my wagon would hold—and I pulled out of town. I held a tight line on these old mares, clucked to them pretty good, and drove them on down the road. It had begun to get a little dusky when I came to this gate they told me about. Mr. Cox was there waiting. He had been back to his office at Gordon or Mingus or Thurber or maybe Strawn, wherever this big land company had its office. He showed me the way to go down there on the creek and said he would be back early in the morning.
I got to the creek in time to gather me some firewood. I put my horses in this big rock corral. This corral fence was built out of native Palo Pinto red stone—placed by hand to a height of about five feet, which is about shoulder high to an average man. The fence was full two feet thick. (A horse or a mule will not jump anything that high that is solid, where it can’t see what the ground is like on the other side.) On the inside of this corral was a partition fence, cutting the corral into two pens. There was one big gate in the north side of the rock fence—a gate made of heavy, rough-sawed timber and swung on large bolt hinges. And I thought to myself that this mule-gathering deal wasn’t going to be too serious.
I built a fire and sat around a while, warmed up my barbecue and ate another batch of it. I shook out my bedroll and made my bed down in the wagon. When the fire died down low, I went to bed.
Early next morning I crawled out of the wagon and stretched myself and looked around. The stock was all in good shape, I’d fed them the night before. It was late in the year, and the grass had been frosted on. It was dead and dry. There wasn’t any green in the pasture, but there was a lot of good cured grass. You’d know that anything that you caught in that pasture was going to be fat.
Mr. Cox showed up pretty soon after I had fixed my breakfast and fed my stock. He had a couple of men with him. One of them was going to ride one of these mares and lead a team and the other fellow the same thing. Mr. Cox asked me what team I wanted to keep at the wagon. I had a pair of eight-year-old, dapple-gray mares that were real gentle, well mannered, and easy to catch; so I told him I wanted to keep them. He said he couldn’t imagine what I wanted with them, but that was the trade, so for me to just keep them until I got through with them. When I got ready to leave—after I’d given up and hadn’t been able to catch the mules (he laughed right big)—I could just take my saddle horses and pack up.
Mr. Cox and the men laughed some more about my catching the mules. I tried to laugh a little, too, but I had some pretty positive ideas about how I was going to catch these mules.
After they got their harness and horses—they took the six head—I had my five saddle horses plus the two mares, which left me seven. My saddle horses were all gentle and easy caught. I had old Beauty with me, and you never had to tie Beauty. You could turn her out in the pasture with whatever else was there and never have to worry about her. She would come when I called her. Beauty would come if I turned her out when I had just fed her or just curried her or just rode her hard;
whatever I had just done to Beauty, when I called her she would come, regardless of the hour of the day or night. A man is mighty lucky if he has one horse in a lifetime like Beauty.
So I fed Beauty and left her in the lot. I left the dun horse in the lot with her for company. I turned the gray mares and the other three horses out. They knew where the pens were by now, and the water was in the creek just below the pens. I knew that they would be back for feed that night or next morning.
Then I got on my dun horse and rode around the pasture. It was a great big pasture. It had about five thousand acres in it and no cross fences. Pinto Creek was running through it—real cow country with lots of curly mesquite grass and lots of mesquite beans that had cured lying on the ground. Stock would eat that through the winter.
It must have been about two o’clock in the evening when I got back to the corral where I had made my camp, let loose the dun, and turned out Beauty. I had a pretty good lay of the country about now and knew kinda how things were. I had got a glimpse of the mules, but they were running off into thick brush. I guess they thought I was after them and they would lead me off into a wild chase, but I didn’t bother about them. I just rode away and left them and came on back to camp, where I got to thinking that I had camped in the way of the gate on the north side of the pens. I ought to be camped on the south side of the pens with my wagon if I ever aimed to get the mules to come in this rock corral.
Next morning I got out and squalled and hollered right loud, and my saddle horses came in. Beauty was in the lead, with the other saddle horses following. It was cool weather, and they didn’t stop for water. They came on in the rock pens, and I put out some feed in an old trough in the first pen and some feed in the other pen on the ground around the edges inside of the rock fence. I hollered a few more times and, sure enough, here came the big gray mares. They just came trotting on into the pen, gentle and nice.
Something that most people don’t know about wild mules—or any kind of mules—they will take up with a gray mare or a spotted mare. These horses had been out there all night, and I knew the mules had winded them and come to them; so I fed the gray mares in plain view, in the feed trough in the front pen. I looked around and, sure enough, it wasn’t but just a little bit until those mules were sticking their heads out through the brush, looking to see where the gray mares went. I just whistled and sang and payed them no mind. I walked around my horses and rubbed them while they ate—and talked to them some more. The gate was open, but I crawled over the fence on the south side.
Later I caught the gray mares. And I moved my camp to the south side of the pens that day, so I wouldn’t be in the way of the mules getting through the gate. When we got a north wind, I didn’t want them to be able to wind me before I ever got a chance to shut that gate.
I spent the morning brushing and currying these gray mares—and kept the other horses up. You could see the mules grazing over there in a little glade across the creek. Ever now and then one of the mules would look up, and the oldest mule—that was the sorrel—brayed a time or two. I sure would have loved to see my mules up close and know what kind of stock I had, but I didn’t want to take the chance of running them off. I got my camp moved and let my horses all out, except one saddle horse that I thought I might need in the night.
I didn’t go to town or do anything that next day. I stayed out of view, but along late that afternoon Mr. Cox drove up to my camp. He got out and shook hands and said that he saw I was set up all right. Was I getting along all right, and had I had any luck catching my mules? I told him I had been resting, that I hadn’t tried to catch them.
He asked: “Where are all your horses?”
I said: “Oh, I turned them out and just kept up a saddle horse.”
“You’d better always keep up one,” he said, “or you’re not even gonna be able to get out of here. They’ll all go wild with that bunch of wild mules, and then I’ll have all your horses. You just better always keep one up so you can leave.”
I thought this was kinda funny. I laughed about it, and he did too. I asked him how far it was over to the closest town. He explained to me that I was camped a little closer to Santo than I was to Gordon. He asked me if I needed anything from town, and I told him no. He asked me if I was going to town and try to hire some help to catch my mules—and I told him I didn’t think I would need any help, I wasn’t too much worried about my mules.
He kinda began to get his curiosity aroused, and he began to tell me the different men he had hired to catch these mules. He had caught the mares that raised the three-year-olds, but he never did catch the mule colts. He had moved everything out of that pasture one time, but they still never did have a chance to catch these mules. He said they had worked at it several times since the mules were two. He thought that I was going to get some experience in this mule-catching business that maybe I hadn’t contracted for in the trade.
In the meantime he had given me my check, but I hadn’t been in to town to cash it. He asked me where his gray mares were, and I told him that I had used them to move camp that morning and turned them back out—but they would be in his pasture. He said: “Well, there’s just one more little thing. If they get loose with those mules and we can’t catch them, I’m not going to want to pay you for those two mares.”
I thought this was a little amusing, but I didn’t bother too much to explain my business to him. I told him it could be I was going to winter here and stay longer than I thought; from the way he was talking, I might just as well saddle up my horse and go into town this evening late and kinda get acquainted with the people—if I was going to be a native there. He thought that was funny, but he told me I might be more settled there than I thought I was, if I was going to stay there until I caught those mules.
Finally he guessed he had something else to do besides talk to a man who didn’t know when he couldn’t catch mules, and he believed he would go on his way. We shook hands, and I told him to come back to see me—that I might be there for some time yet.
After he was gone, I saddled up a nice brown horse that was quite a road horse. He wasn’t a very big horse, but he carried himself nice and had a fox trot that slipped over the ground. I just thought I’d ride him up to this Santo and look around. Santo was kind of a pretty little town, had a few stores and a bank. I visited around and found a place to eat supper. Some of the natives were sitting around talking, and I got into conversation.
They finally found out what I was doing there—I wasn’t too secretive about it. Didn’t any of them want a job helping me, and they talked about how many and who-all had run at those mules. They said Mr. Cox was a fine man, but he was a good business man and a good trader and it could be I was cheated. I told them that wouldn’t be a new experience, but that I was going to wait a while before I decided it was a fact.
I rode back to camp that night kinda late, fed my saddle horse, turned him loose, and went to bed. This was getting to be a pretty permanent camp. I had a nice way to build a fire, on a big flat rock just south of my wagon a little piece. It wasn’t far to the creek where I was getting good fresh spring water. I was sure getting along all right, and I got to thinking it might not be too painful to spend the winter there in case I didn’t catch these mules—like people thought might happen.
Next morning I got up, got out of the wagon, walked around and shook a feed bucket, stepped on the wagon tongue and shook the doubletree and the singletrees—made a few noises. Old Beauty nickered at me from across the creek and came trotting over. She ran up and stuck her nose in my face. I rubbed her and visited her and we talked. She was sure enjoying that good mesquite grass and mesquite beans. She shook her head and looked around in the wagon and acted like I was a little slow serving breakfast. Instead of feeding her at the wagon like I’ve done lots of times, I walked on out to the rock corral and went around to the north side where the gate was. I shook the bucket and went in and poured out some feed and hollered and squalled and talked around. She nickered a couple
of times and threw her head up, and I knew the rest of them were coming in. This time the big work mares were in front, my saddle horses were behind, and the mules were all just kind of mixed up among them. I left the corral real fast—got out of the way.
The mares came running into the corral, ran up to the trough, and went to eating. Some of the other horses went on into the back corral, so I went and got some more feed, crawled over the fence on the south side, and fed them on the ground along the rock fence like I had done the morning before. I looked up and there this sorrel mule was—up there eating between the two gray mares. That fresh taste of oats was something this mule hadn’t had in a year or so, and you could tell it was making quite a hit with her. She was a nice sorrel mule that would weigh about eleven hundred pounds. She had a good big ear and a nice head, and she had a good-size bone and her legs were clean. Her mane and tail, of course, had grown out to where they were shaggledy, and her forelock was hanging down between her ears. A mule’s mane is never pretty, but when it has grown out awhile it is uglier than common. But I just said to myself I knew that if I wanted to, I could catch one mule—so I was sort of winner at that.
I peeped over the rock fence, and there were two of these young mules grazing out on the side of the creek next to the corral—but they were still a couple of hundred yards away and they weren’t coming any closer. I didn’t see any use in boogering them. I just crawled over the rock fence back the other direction and went to the wagon, where I peeped around and watched everything eat. My saddle horses and the gray mares ate good. My sorrel mule, she stayed at that trough until all the feed was gone. She threw her head up and blew a little wind through her nose and whistled a time or two, like a mule will do if she sees or smells something strange. The mares and my saddle horses didn’t pay any attention to her.
As the horses kinda worked their way back out of the corral—they took their time and went toward the creek—I stepped from around the east corner of this rock fence and whistled to old Beauty right low. She turned around and followed me over to the wagon. I put a rope around her neck to keep her at the wagon because I was going to use her that day. And after the horses and the mules had all gotten down to the creek, had a drink, and gone out across the glade and disappeared into the mesquite on the other side, I saddled old Beauty up and rode around them and pretty close to them. I got a good look at them but never did offer to run them. These young mules would throw their heads up, throw their ears up, and snort right loud—which from a mule makes a noise more like a whistle. I just acted like they weren’t there and rode away. You could tell that wasn’t what they were used to, and I had begun to get them a little perplexed.