I’d been listening, but not paying too much attention until Mr. Batchlett said Tom would be going with Sid. That left only Hank or me to go on the trip to Purgatory. I knew how much Hank always irritated Mr. Batchlett, so I was sure he’d pick me. Hank must have thought so, too; he seemed awfully sober and disappointed—but not for long. When Mr. Batchlett had finished talking to Sid, he looked down the table, and asked, “Reckon you and I could make it to the Purgatory and back in two weeks, oldtimer?”
Hank’s face lit up like a sunflower, and he shouted back, “Reckon so, Batch! By dogies, I recol . . .” Then his voice dropped low, and he went on, “Reckon we could. I rid that there country some when I was a young fella.”
28
A Lot of Horse
THE TRAIL herds got away from the home ranch at dawn Tuesday. At midnight Thursday I was wakened by a horse racing into the dooryard. I jumped to the bunkhouse doorway as the rider slid the horse to a stop at the house. A minute later a light came on, and the man shouted, “Telegram for Batch! His wife’s bad off! Where’s he at?”
Just as ribbon unwinds from a spool, the trail Mr. Batchlett and I followed across the prairies and down the Big Horse unwound in my head. With yearlings instead of two-year-olds, I knew he couldn’t travel quite as fast as we had, and, if he’d found water in Black Squirrel Creek, he wouldn’t have driven on through the night. That ought to put him not far beyond the spot where we’d spent the night in the dust storm. I forgot to pull on my overalls, and went running toward the house, barefooted, and shouting, “I know where to find him! I know exactly where to find him!”
Mr. Bendt hadn’t thought about dressing any more than I had, and came out on the kitchen porch in his long underwear. He didn’t ask me where I thought Mr. Batchlett would be, but called, “Get dressed and throw a saddle on! I’ll be with you in a minute.”
I pulled on my overalls, buckled the chaps over them, and kicked my feet into my boots. As I did it, I made up my mind that I’d have my saddle on Blueboy before Mr. Bendt got to the corral and told me I couldn’t take him. Seventy miles at one stretch would kill old Pinch, and Lady would have to take it in easy gaits.
I didn’t dare run to the horse corral for fear of exciting Blueboy, but I’d saddled him enough times in the dark that I knew he’d stand if I took it easy. He did, and I was in the saddle by the time Mr. Bendt reached the corral. He didn’t pay any attention to what horse I had, but shook out his catch rope, and called, “Stop by the house! Jenny’ll have grub and water ready.”
The excitement in Mr. Bendt’s voice set Blueboy off like a skyrocket. He pitched and crowhopped all the way to the house, and was still rearing when Jenny passed me the grub sack and canteens. In the lighted doorway behind her, I got a glimpse of Mrs. Bendt and the children, huddled in their nightgowns. They all looked frightened, and the freckles on Hazel’s white face stood out in a spatter.
Blueboy rounded the corrals and hit the wagon road with his head low and legs driving, as he always did on our night rides. Mr. Bendt was on his tall buckskin, the fastest and toughest horse in his string. He spurred in behind me, shouting, “Spare your horse! Spare your horse! Hold him in!”
I drew Blueboy in little by little, but I couldn’t take a chance on his fighting or possibly throwing me. Mr. Bendt caught up with us at the end of the straightaway, and called again, “Hold him in! That pace would kill him in ten minutes! We got a night’s ride ahead!”
“We’ve got more than that,” I called back, “but he’ll settle down in a mile or two; he always does.”
It was all of two miles before Blueboy’s head came up and he settled into the long, swinging stride that I’d become used to. Mr. Bendt still called for me to hold him in, but when I did he bobbed his head and side-danced. Mr. Bendt watched him a minute or two, and said, “Fool maverick! All he knows is run! Leave him have his head and he’d kill hisself! I should’a put you on Juno.” Then, after another quarter mile, he pulled alongside of me, and said, “Don’t you reckon we’d best to go back and trade off for Juno? That blue devil won’t last out twenty miles.”
I’d seen Blueboy at the end of twenty fast miles when he looked and sounded fresher than Mr. Bendt’s buckskin did right then, so I said, “He’ll settle down pretty soon, and he breathes good on a long run. You lead and I’ll follow, but I’d rather go on with him if you’ll let me.”
“Fair enough!” Mr. Bendt told me. “You know him better’n I do, but I doubt me he’ll last out till daylight.”
There was no moon, but the stars were bright, and we could see fairly well. After we’d passed the thickest of the scrub oaks, I called, “This is where we left the road on the dust-storm trip! I think we headed almost due east!”
“Reckon you remember how you went?” Mr. Bendt called back.
“I can see it in my head,” I told him. “I think I can remember most of the landmarks as we come to them.”
“Lead off, then,” he called back, “but leave me set the pace! Where you reckon we’ll catch up to Batch?”
As I let Blueboy come up beside the buckskin I reined off the road, and said, “It’ll depend on whether or not he found water in Black Squirrel Creek. If he did, he’ll probably follow it down a ways, then cross to the Big Horse. If he didn’t, he’ll go straight east across the divide. Either way, I think it will be about seventy miles.”
As soon as I said seventy miles, Mr. Bendt pulled his buckskin down to a jog trot. After half a mile, we loped again. In the starlight, I couldn’t be real sure I was following the same route we’d taken before, and there were no trails. But when we reached the Colorado Springs-Denver highroad we heard dogs barking at our right. They were at the ranch with two windmills. We stopped just long enough to let the horses take a few swallows of water, then loped on.
East of the highroad, our old route wasn’t too hard to follow, and Blueboy swung along in an easy, reaching gait. I’d pulled my cinch tight when I saddled him, but I didn’t have to be afraid of his rearing or bucking any more, so I loosened the knot till my fingers would slide under the ring. Before moon-rise the buckskin was blowing a little on the rises, and Mr. Bendt let him down to a walk whenever the climb was a bit steep. I’d been keeping a sharp ear on Blueboy’s breathing, but he hadn’t blown once since he’d caught his second wind, and he was running with his head well up.
Mr. Bendt guessed it to be about three o’clock when the moon rose. It was just a saucer of yellow light, and seemed to be resting, tilted, on a dark row of hills to the east. Soon after, we came into the round valley with the little pond and the cottonwoods, and stopped to let the horses drink. There were yearling tracks all around the pond, showing that Mr. Batchlett had stopped to water and graze his herd.
From the pond east, the hills flattened out, and, even with a little moonlight, it was harder to pick out landmarks that I remembered. It had been afternoon when I’d gone that way with Mr. Batchlett, and the roll of the low hills looked different in the moonlight. Even Mr. Batchlett had missed the head of Black Squirrel Creek, and in daylight. But he would have reached the creek where it turned south if we’d kept on going. If I should get too far north, we’d miss it altogether, and then I’d be completely lost. After I’d worried about it for a few miles, I told Mr. Bendt, “I’m not too sure that we’re going just exactly the way we went before. If we are, and hold this pace, Black Squirrel Creek ought to be about an hour ahead and a little to the south.”
“I ain’t so worried about the Black Squirrel as I am about the pace,” he told me. “That danged blue mav’rick’s got a gait that throws a man off pace! Fools him into over-runnin’ his horse! Listen to the way Buck’s blowin’!”
“Do you want to trade off?” I asked him. “I’m a lot lighter than you are; my weight would make it easier for him.”
“Nope! Nope!” he said, almost sharply. “A man’s horse is his horse! I ain’t never took another man’s horse, and I ain’t goin’ to now!” Then we jogged on without talking until the bucksk
in stopped blowing.
With me, hills are a lot like people: when I’m waiting to meet someone I’ve only seen once or twice, it’s hard to remember just what he’ll look like. But when he comes along, I couldn’t mistake him. It was that way with the hill that Blueboy had run up when the jack rabbit spooked him. The moment I saw it, I knew that the cottonwoods along Black Squirrel Creek stood just beyond it.
There was water in the Black Squirrel, but yearling tracks showed that Mr. Batchlett had only followed it a little way before he turned east. It was gray dawn when we turned east with the yearling tracks and put our horses up the divide toward the Big Horse. It had been almost black night when I’d gone over the route before, and I’d been too sleepy to remember landmarks if I could have seen them. But that didn’t worry me; I knew the Big Horse ran toward the southeast, and that Mr. Batchlett would be at least twenty-five miles down it. There was no longer any reason for our following the old route; I reined to my right, to cut across the angle and save every mile we could.
The prairies stretched out in front of us like a great table with a brown velvet cover dropped over it in careless wrinkles. Beyond, the sky arched up in a deep, cloudless blue. And between, the sun rose naked—as if a giant hand were pushing a giant orange slowly above the edge of the table. Not a breath of air moved, and the sun threw out its heat before it was hardly above the horizon.
By an hour after sunup, Buck was dripping sweat, and blowing hard at every rise of ground. Mr. Bendt eased him, leaned low in the saddle to put a hand on his chest, and came up with his face set and worried. We jogged a half-mile, then, after we’d reached a flat tableland and were loping again, the buckskin began to weave in his stride, but Blueboy was running as steadily and quietly as ever.
Mr. Bendt drew the staggering buckskin to a stand, and as I brought Blueboy around, he called out, “Go on! Go on, boy! Don’t scare Batch no more’n you need to, but tell him he’s got to make the one o’clock train out of The Springs.” Then he waved, and I turned Blueboy back toward the southeast. I didn’t try to hold him in, but let him take his long, reaching, half-wild-horse, half-thoroughbred gait.
Among those low rolling hills, and with the sun moving steadily to the south, it would have been easy to ride in a curve, but I couldn’t afford to waste a minute of Mr. Batchlett’s time, or Blueboy’s strength. Setting a course that I was sure was due southeast, I kept three check points picked out ahead, and never let my sight wander from them. I knew that would keep me in the same direction as the upper Big Horse, but that I should reach it soon after it turned south, not far below our dust-storm camp.
Of course, I couldn’t tell Blueboy that we still had twenty or twenty-five miles to go—so he might gage his own strength. I could only keep a sharp ear to his breathing, feel for any tremble in his shoulder muscles, and let him know that I wasn’t pushing him.
I kept low on Blueboy’s neck, holding my weight forward on his withers, and talking the soft-talk I’d learned from Hi. It didn’t make any difference what it was—poems, psalms, Mother Goose; anything to let him know I was trying to help him. I don’t remember much about it, except that I said the Twenty-third Psalm over at least a dozen times. I wasn’t a bit afraid, but for some reason I couldn’t get the Psalm out of my head. And it seemed to have just the right rhythm to keep Blueboy’s hoof beats steady and even.
Blueboy’s stride began to shorten on the rises, now and then a nerve twitched in his shoulder, and his breathing whistled a bit in his nostrils. I was worried for fear I’d let him run himself out, or that I’d broken his wind, when, above the brown of the prairie, a dark line of green showed ahead and to my left. Columbus couldn’t have felt happier when he sighted the shores of America than I did when I sighted that row of cottonwoods along Big Horse Creek. Before I knew I was even thinking it, I was chanting, “We made it! We made it! We made it!” in time with the beat of Blueboy’s hoofs. Ten minutes later we topped a rise, and Big Horse Valley lay below us—with a herd of yearlings strung out along the creek.
I ya-hooed as loud as I could yell, and watched Mr. Batchlett whirl his chestnut away from the herd and come racing toward us. When he slid it to a stop beside us, his face was set, and there was a gray tinge under his tan that I had never seen before, but his voice was low and steady when he asked, “What’s the news?”
“You had a telegram; it came at midnight,” I told him. “You’ve got to catch the one o’clock train from The Springs.”
“Good boy! Good horse! I can make it! Sixty miles; six hours!” was all Mr. Batchlett said before he spurred away.
As I jogged Blueboy down the slope, I watched Mr. Batchlett race his chestnut toward the horse string that was grazing along the front of the herd. His catch rope was swinging before he reached it, and in less than a minute, he’d switched his saddle onto Starlight. The rest of the horses spooked away, but he had his iron-gray snubbed to the saddle horn.
We met where Hank was sitting as motionless in the saddle as if he’d been stunned. If Mr. Batchlett was frightened or nervous, he didn’t let it show in his voice or actions. As he tied his catch rope into a lead halter and slipped it over the gray’s head, he said, “Little Britches, you know the trail we followed before—hittin’ the Arkansas Valley below Nero Hill, and workin’ up towards Rocky Ford. Take what’s left of my horse string, and show Hank the same trail!”
Then he looked over at Hank, and said, “Trade where and how you can. I trust your judgment. If I ain’t in Rocky Ford by the time you get there, trade on up to the Black Squirrel. Little Britches, here, knows the trail back to the home ranch.” Then he swung into the saddle, but before he set spurs, he turned to me, and said, “Cool Blueboy out good! He’s too much horse to let founder!”
With a glance at the sun, Mr. Batchlett set Starlight’s head a little to the north of west, and took off at a brisk canter, quartering up the slope beyond the creek valley. I knew that every ten miles he’d be changing horses, that somewhere in front of him there’d be three check points picked out, and that Colorado Springs would be sixty miles straight down that line of check points.
29
Lucky on Every Pick
AFTER Mr. Batchlett had ridden out of sight, Hank still sat motionless on his horse, and asked in a dull voice, “Is she dead?”
“I don’t know about now,” I told him, “but when the rider brought the telegram he said she was bad off.”
Hank sat looking at his saddle horn a minute or two without saying a word, then he mumbled, “Poor child . . . poor child . . . she wa’n’t never stout enough to a-born him them four little young’uns.”
I’d never guess that Hank knew anything about Mr. Batchlett’s wife, or his family—or that he was anything more than a worn-out, windy old cowhand who couldn’t get any better job than working with milk cows.
I had been afraid, just as I could see Hank was, that Mr. Batchlett would be too late, but I didn’t want Hank to worry any more than I could help, so I said, “Dr. Crysler is an awful good doctor, and my mother is the best nurse in Littleton, and we live right close to the Batchletts, so I know she’s going to be all right.”
Hank still sat, staring at his saddle horn and mumbling as if he were talking to himself. “Don’t seem no ways right . . . The Lord a-takin’ away them as is needed . . . and a-leavin’ them of us as ain’t no need to nobody.”
The only thing I could think of to say was what Mother had said when Father died, “Maybe He needs them in Heaven.” Then I added, “And we needed you last Sunday about as much as anybody was ever needed.”
“Wa’n’t nothin’ nobody else couldn’t a-done,” Hank said quietly, then turned his horse back toward the herd.
I found myself sitting and staring at my own saddle horn. I couldn’t make out what had come over Hank since the cloudburst. Ever since I’d known him, he’d bragged his head off about things that everybody knew he’d never done. And now, when he’d really done something worth bragging about, he didn’t even want to
take credit for it.
Whatever had happened to Hank seemed to have happened for keeps. All the way down the Big Horse, and along the Arkansas Valley to Rocky Ford, he was as good a partner as I could have asked for. He didn’t boss me, he didn’t yell at me when I made mistakes, and he didn’t once “recollect” about when he was my age.
I didn’t think that some of Hank’s trades were as good as Mr. Batchlett would have made, but I kept my mouth shut about those. I did tell him, though, when I thought he’d made a real good trade.
Hank had traded out about half of our yearlings, and we had some pretty good cows when we came into sight of Rocky Ford. We were still a good ways out from the edge of town when I saw a rider coming toward us. At a quarter mile, I knew it was Mr. Batchlett, from the way he sat his horse. We pushed the herd off to the side of the road, and when Mr. Batchlett rode up there was a broad grin on his face. “It’s a boy!” he called out. “Had us all scared stiff for a while there, but they’re both doin’ right fine now.”
Mr. Batchlett fished in his shirt pocket, gave Hank a cigar, and started to pass me one, but he put it back, and said, “Made the one o’clock train with five minutes to spare. Watt’s back to the home ranch. Ruined the buckskin; had to put him under grass. You done all right when you risked your pick on Blueboy! Know how many miles you two covered in seven hours? Seventy-eight, as near as I can reckon it.”
Then he looked around the herd, and told Hank, “You done fine, Mister! Couldn’t have done better myself!”
Mr. Batchlett had hired the horse he was riding from a livery in Rocky Ford. When he’d shifted the saddle to his chestnut, he flipped me a five-dollar-gold-piece, and said, “Want to run this cayuse back to town and pay the man? Big stable near the depot; ought to be about two dollars—I had him since yesterday.”
I didn’t like to draw anything ahead on my pay, but I didn’t like to go past Rocky Ford without buying another present for Hazel, either. It must be that my face is awfully easy to read. While I was sitting there, trying to make up my mind whether or not to ask Mr. Batchlett for an advance of a dollar, he said, “Ain’t no rush now; why don’t you look around for some trinkets to take on back to the Bendt kids? There’ll be change enough left over from the horse hire; that’s your cigar.”