The Long Journey Home

by Don Coldsmith

  A warrior or hunter might picket a favorite horse or two next to his lodge for safety against theft, or for extra care and special feeding in winter. Among the Pawnees, a few horses were often kept inside the big earth-bermed lodges of the extended family.

  All of these customs led to a closeness of spirit between man and horse. With this background, when the time comes for the taming and training, it requires mostly communication. The necessary ingredient is to make it easier to do what is wanted than to do the opposite.

  In this case, however, it would be an uphill battle. For this horse, nearly every contact with man had been in an unpleasant situation. His probable capture as a wild horse fairly recently, the struggle against ropes, the castration, the confinement … Now the animal stood, suspicious, expectant, probably wondering what unpleasantness was about to happen next. He might even decide to try a preemptive strike at this new two-legged creature.

  John began to hum softly, soothingly, as he had seen his father do. It’s not the words, Yellow Bull had explained, it’s the song … . A soft, rhythmic cadence, half-spoken, half-sung, a reassuring song that joins the spirits of man and horse.

  I mean you no harm, my brother … . We can search together … . I will show you … Our spirits mix well, with no harm to each other.

  The horse paused, curious. He could not hear the song at this distance, and was frustrated. Something was happening, and he did not understand. The situation must call for some sort of action. The animal broke into an easy lope, circling the corral. It might have appeared, as the horse rounded the curve of the fence, that he was rushing or charging at the man almost in his path. It was a challenge, but one to which John must not respond. He must show no fear, but equally, no aggression.

  This is your camp … . I have entered it … . I mean no harm, but here I stand … .

  The horse barely turned aside as he brushed past. It was the critical moment to show no fear. The animal’s shoulder bumped against John’s, and he held his ground, not avoiding nor inviting. It was an expected contact, a test. He had often been blocked harder by an opposing defensive back. In that case, though, he could respond. Here he must remain neutral, nonresponsive. The horse rushed on, circling the arena. John waited.

  See … There is no harm to either of us. You are still here; so am I. Come again … .

  This time there was no contact, but a slight slowing of the canter as the horse passed. John was certain that he saw a questioning look in the big dark eye as it passed. He moved a step farther into the arena during this circuit. The horse must change its course slightly to avoid collision. It did so, without seeming to notice.

  See? You have done what I ask, and no harm comes to either of us. Is it not good?

  After a few such passes, the horse stopped and stood on the other side of the enclosure, waiting. John moved very slowly, taking a step toward the animal, pause a little, stop and wait. He was within a few feet when the horse could stand it no longer, and bolted away to begin the circling again. This time, only a few circuits and then the stop, in another place. Patiently, John approached again.

  We are going to do this, my brother, no matter how long it takes.

  This time, only a couple of circuits and a stop. And this time, John was within a pace or two before the animal broke and ran. After a few such tries, he was able to touch the sweaty neck. Of course, the startled horse flared away, but soon stopped.

  At the next touch, the hand was allowed to remain there a few moments. When the horse moved on, John removed his hat and wiped his own sweat from his brow.

  Then another touch to the neck, a gentle stroke. He took a step back and extended the hand toward the horse’s nose. The animal smelled, actually extended its head for a better sniff at the mixture of sweat from man and horse.

  Ah, you see? Our spirits blend well, no? And still, no harm comes. We can work together, you and I … .

  By the time shadows lengthened, John could pass his hands over most of the upper portion of the colt’s body. He had breathed into the nostrils, whispered his song into the ears, and could lead the colt with a short rope around its neck.

  Heinemann returned to the corral.

  “How’s it goin’, John?”

  “Pretty good.”

  The man glanced at the horse and back to John, a puzzled look on his face.

  “You ain’t bucked him out yet?”

  “Didn’t figure to. We’ve been gettin’ acquainted.”

  “Well, now, John …”

  There was plain doubt in Heinemann’s voice.

  “He’s come a long way,” John said cautiously.

  John walked slowly over to the colt, stroked his neck, and petted his nose. The horse rubbed its face against his shirt and stood, eyes half-closed, obviously content.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” Heinemann exclaimed.

  At the sound of the man’s voice, the horse came alert, cautious, defensive. John patted him comfortingly, and he relaxed again, still cautious.

  Before he left that evening, John had placed a halter on the horse and had removed it, and was able to wipe a saddle blanket across the animal’s back.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow evening,” he promised.

  Within a week, John was riding the colt under saddle, swinging a lariat, putting the animal into a walk, trot, and canter.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it!” marveled Heinemann.

  “Yah, like I said, dis John ist good mit der horses!” Hans Schneebarger chuckled.

  His reputation spread. Another farmer with a problem horse, and yet another. Schneebarger viewed all of this with mixed emotions. He could bask in the reflected glory of having “discovered” this talent, but it also had a tendency to interfere with the work on his own place. Finally, he laid down the ground rules.

  “Yust on Sundays,” he cautioned. “Mebbe sometimes after supper if I don’ need you here.”

  “Yes, sir. But … Could I bring a horse here to work with in the evenings? Dave Jones has one—”

  “Shure!” interrupted Hans. “Dat’s fine. I yust need you ven I need you.”

  By the summer’s end John had tamed or trained several animals. His reputation was growing. This led to talk with horsemen, horse traders, and cowboys who happened by, and in this way he learned of the contest.

  “Over by Topeka,” the trader told him. “You’d ought to go over. They’ll have a buckout, ropin’, mebbe some steer wrasslin’ …”

  “What’s that?”

  “Jest what it says, I guess. Somebody said there’s a nigger from some big ranch in Oklahoma that does it with his teeth.”

  “Aw, c’mon!”

  “No, really. He calls it bulldoggin’, on account of the way he bites the critter on the nose.”

  “You seen him do this?”

  “No, but I talked to fellas that did. Let’s see … What was that nigger’s name? Bill somethin’ … Packett? No that ain’t it. Pickett! Yeah. Bill Pickett. The 101 Ranch … Miller Brothers. They’ve started some kind of a Wild West Show.”

  “A show?”

  “Yeah. You know about Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Circus?”

  As a matter of fact, John did. Some of his father’s friends, in fact, had worked for Buffalo Bill Cody, riding with painted faces on horses painted as if for war, whooping and circling the arena for the pleasure of the crowds. His father had frowned on such nonsense, but some prominent leaders of the plains tribes had joined Cody’s circus as entertainers.

  “Heard of it, yes,” said John.

  “Well, you’d ought to go over there this Sunday,” insisted the trader. “Maybe they’ll give you a job playin’ Injun.”

  The man slapped his knee in amusement at his own joke, and then paused, a little embarrassed.

  “You are Injun, ain’t you? I heard your ways with a hoss was some of that Injun ‘medicine.’”

  “Maybe so.”

  “No offense, son. But I just thought … Well, hell, go over and watch if y
ou want to. It’s nothin’ to me either way.”

  John felt that the talkative horse trader had backed himself into a corner and was uncomfortable, then talked himself in deeper as he tried to talk his way out.

  “Maybe I will go over,” John said mildly.

  The other man relaxed a little.

  “Good,” he said. “I reckon you’d like it.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  John’s trip to Topeka was memorable, to say the least. He rode a borrowed horse.

  The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Circus was a magical extravaganza, a performance to quicken the heart and delight the senses. Sweating men and horses; exhibitions of roping, trick riding, and handling livestock; bucking horses and bulls; and the event that had precipitated John’s interest, the bulldogging of steers by Bill Pickett.

  The mixed-blood Pickett was becoming famous on the show circuit. He had demonstrated his specialty in Canada and Mexico, as well as at dozens of events throughout the American West. As a ten-year-old in Texas, Willie Pickett had watched a bulldog, trained to work cattle, catch and hold a young steer by the nose for several minutes. The dog fastened its teeth into the animal’s upper lip, which seemed to completely immobilize the steer.

  I could do that, thought the boy.

  When opportunity offered, Willie tried it. No one around … A calf, more his size … He found that it worked as well for him as it had for the dog. As he grew a little older, he demonstrated to a bunch of local cowboys that he could immobilize calves in this way while they were “worked” and branded.

  At the Taylor, Texas, Fair in 1888, Will Pickett had been asked to demonstrate his peculiar skill. He was seventeen at the time. In this demonstration, a steer was roped and tied, and Pickett would mount its back. Then it was released, Pickett holding to the horns. Somersaulting over the head, he would grab the steer’s upper lip in his teeth and, with a twist, he would throw the animal to the ground and hold it.

  He worked for a while on a ranch near Rockdale, Texas, and Lee Moore, the owner, began to book appearances for him at county fairs in the area, finally branching out into Colorado and other states about 1900, charging admission fees as a specialty act. After the 1902 season, Pickett signed on with Dave McClure, the cowboy promoter, who was famous among rodeo and show people as “Mr. Cowboy.” This brought him better bookings and more notoriety. In 1904, at Cheyenne Frontier Days, his exhibition resulted in this testimonial from the Wyoming Tribune:

  The event par excellence of the celebration is the great feat of Will Pickett, a Negro who hails from Taylor, Texas. He gives his exhibition this afternoon and twenty thousand people will watch with wonder and admiration a mere man, unarmed and without a device or appliance of any kind, attack a fiery, wild-eyed and powerful steer, dash under the broad breast of the great brute, turn and sink his strong ivory teeth into the upper lip of the animal and, throwing his shoulder against the neck of the steer, strain and twist until the animal, with its head drawn one way and under the controlling influence of those merciless teeth its body forced another, until the brute, under strain of the slowly bending neck, quivered, trembled, and sank to the ground, conquered by a trick. A trick, perhaps, but one of the most startling and sensational exhibitions ever seen at a place when daring and thrilling feats are common.

  Initially, McClure had been cautious. He described Pickett as a “half-breed,” which implied Indian and Caucasian. In most of the United States, an individual with as little as one-sixteenth Negro blood was legally a “colored” person. Athletic contests between whites and colored were not only frowned on, but illegal in many places. Very quickly, his fame was so widespread that it didn’t matter, though the stigma of his Negro ancestry still hung over him.

  At the time the demonstration took place, John had learned much of this background. Pickett, now called “Bill” instead of Will or Willie, was booked as “the Dusky Demon, the most daring cowboy alive.” By this time, he was working from horseback, stepping from his horse’s back to that of the steer while a “hazer” on the left kept the half-ton animal running straight. (In modern steer wrestling events, much smaller animals are used, and the approach is from the left. Pickett approached from the right “’cause mah hoss is taught I’m gettin’ on an’ off his left side.”)

  John was quick to note that Bill Pickett’s skin wasn’t much darker than his own. Part of this could be accounted for by the burning and tanning of constant work in the sun. Still, there was something … . The man’s features seemed more Indian than negroid.

  “Hey, there,” a voice called.

  John looked around. It was the horse trader who had urged him to go to the show originally.

  “Ain’t this somethin’? I told you about that Pickett. Want to meet him?”

  “You know him?”

  “Shore! Come on!”

  John followed the trader, a little embarrassed. He doubted that this somewhat shady character really had such connections. His suspicions were confirmed when they approached the place where Pickett had tied his horse. The Dusky Demon was loosening the cinch on the sweating animal, and looked around as they approached. The mildly annoyed expression on his face verified John’s suspicion that the braggart horse trader was no more than a casual acquaintance.

  “Bill, this here’s a boy that wants to meet you. Name of John Buffalo. He tames horses.”

  Then the trader’s gaze shifted. “Hey, there’s a feller I need to see!”

  He left quickly, but in the opposite direction. John and Pickett stood, both a bit confused and embarrassed, looking after the retreating figure.

  “You know him?” Pickett asked.

  “Not hardly,” answered John. “He’s a horse trader.”

  “Reckoned that,” smiled the Dusky Demon. “He been hangin’ aroun’.”

  He studied the young man for a few moments.

  There was, somehow, an understanding between them, as if they had known each other always.

  “You Cherokee?” asked Pickett.

  “No, Lakota. You?”

  Pickett nodded. “Cherokee, white, some colored … Less’n half, we figger.”

  “I … Mr. Pickett, I was amazed at your performance.”

  The dark man smiled, showing even white teeth under his mustached upper lip.

  “No trick to it. An’ call me Bill.”

  “Thanks. I’m John Buffalo.”

  “Howdy, John. About this bulldoggin’ … You could do it. Jest grab him and bite him on the nose … . Hope it ain’t a snot-nosed steer.”

  Both chuckled.

  “You don’t use a rope at all?” John asked.

  “Naw. A rope’s okay for hangin’ folks, I guess, but when ah’m chasin’ a steer it jest gits in the way.”

  “I see …” He didn’t, exactly. “You travel a lot?”

  “Quite a bit, with the Millers’ 101. They be good folk. Ah was doin’ on mah own before. Been to Canada an’ Mexico.”

  “Mexico?”

  “Yeh … They got them fightin’ bulls down there.”

  “You rassled them?”

  “Naw. Jest the steers. But they be purty ringy. Rassled a bull elk in El Paso, though. Don’ try that. He got too many horns!”

  “Okay, I won’t,” said John, quite truthfully. He had no such intention.

  “Say,” said Pickett, “you hear about dat earthquake an’ fire at San Francisco las’ spring? Ah was there!”

  “You were?”

  “Yas, I was! Say, that was somethin’! Look like the whole world be goin’ up in flames. All them folks outa their homes, no place to go … .” He shook his head. “I don’ want no more o’ that.”

  “I reckon not,” agreed John. “But, I was lookin’ at your horse, here. How’d he get the scar on his chest?”

  “Ol’ Spradley? He’s a 101 colt. Had a bad injury when he’s a baby. Big chunk o’ fence rail stuck in his chest. Splinter-like. Nobody noticed, an’ he got so puny they was goin’ to kill ‘im, put ’im outen his misery. I axe
could I have him, an’ Mr. Joe he say yes, he no good anyhow. Ah cut that chunk o’ board out, an’ he heal’ up purty good. Runs spraddle-legged, though. Thass why I call ‘im Spradley.” He patted the gelding affectionately. “He a good boy.” He paused and spoke cautiously. “That ol’ hoss trader, he say you got a way with ’em?”

  Now John was cautious.

  “Sort of, I reckon. I just try to get inside their heads, talk to ‘em … . Easier’n tryin’ to do it by force.”

  “Sometime you needs force.” said Pickett.

  “Sure. You couldn’t talk a steer down. But, startin’ a horse out calm-like is goin’ to make it lot easier ef you have to bust him later.”

  “Thass true.”

  A man approached and spoke to Pickett.

  “Bill, they’d like to have you in the arena again. Are you up to it?”

  “Reckon so. Lemme give ol’ Spradley a bit mo’ rest. It’s purty hot.”

  “Sure. When you’re ready.” He turned to look at John. “Do I know you?”

  “Prob’ly not. I just came over for the show.”

  “You know Bill, here?”

  “I do now. We just met.”

  “Mistah Miller, he’s the hoss trainer that no-’count trader was talkin’ of,” said Pickett.

  “Not really,” protested John.

  “Wait a moment. You tame wild horses, right?”

  “Well, not exactly …”

  “Yes, I expect you’re the one. Look, let’s talk about this. I need a few more Indians for the wagon-train scene. You’d fit in that. But I was wonderin’ if you could do that horse-tamin’ act in the arena. Run in a wild horse … . You want a job? By the way, I’m Zack Miller. I run the show, my brother Joe is the rancher, and George is the bookkeeper.”