
A Collection
of
Plain
Horse Tales
By Robert Collins Wolfe
Karina Library, 2012
Ojai, California
Dedicated to
John McPhee, a "writer's writer"
--- and this author's inspiration
The author wishes to acknowledge
Pieces of the Frame by John McPhee
as a source for inspiration for this work.
I was born after the Civil War, in one of the Plains States. Ma thinks it was Nebraska. We traveled all the time. Pa was a horsetrader.
Pa had been in the Cavalry. Ma says he taught me to ride before I could walk. He bought me my first horse for my twelfth birthday. It was an old Apaloosa, and he said I could trade it or sell it if I could make a good deal somewhere.
He had come back to camp from a pueblo, and had a young horse with him too. This horse was bigger than most---had a long stride. She had grey hair, like an old man's, and quiet movements. I wasn't surprised when Pa called her "Grandma."
We were doing well. Pa bought a black four-wheel wagon---had his name painted in red letters on the side, "Col. Hooper." I thought he'd have my old mare pull it, but he put Grandma in the traces. He'd drape his old blue army blanket over her---I guess to show he really was a Colonel. Ma got mad when he cut two holes in her old straw hat and pulled it low over Grandma's ears. It may of kept flies out of her eyes, but the mare could hardly see and would keep her head down like she was trying to look out under the brim. And while Pa would wash all the sale stock in every deep stream, he rarely washed Grandma. "She's just a drey horse. Not for sale anyway," Pa told me.
I remember the first time we came into a town after that. What happened that day repeated itself almost every week till I was big enough to go into the army, at sixteen.
We hitched all the sale stock along the main street between the saloon and the mercantile store. Pa liked for people to see me feeding them and Ma grooming them, but she'd quit when the heat and flies came and she'd go look around in the stores. Pa and I would stay in the shade of the wagon. Pa kept a pot of coffee hot on a brazier on the tailgate. You could hear the lid rattle when Grandma stamped in the dust to chase the flies.
The tradesmen and farmers would come along and look over the stock. Pa kept the best horses nearest the wagon. If a farmer strolled all the way down the line, Pa would step out and say, "Howdy. Colonel Hooper. Cup of coffee?"
By midday, Pa would let somebody get the best of him in a deal---some important townsman, like an undertaker or deputy. They always spread the word fast that the horsetrader was in town.
Soon we'd see a farmer in a felt hat and clean overalls start on the line and look every horse over very carefully. He'd come up and pat Grandma's nose or maybe ruffle my hair, and say, "Healthy stock, Colonel!" Pa would smile and nod. "Cup of coffee?"
"Naw, I gotta go fetch my wife." As if out of curiosity, the farmer would look at me or Pa and say, "Any of them nags run very fast?"
Pa would just shake his head.
The farmer would turn like he was about to leave, "Oh, I was hopin'."
Pa wouldn't say nothing.
"I got a nag runs pretty fast," the farmer would say.
Pa would nod and say, "Oh. What's pretty fast?"
"Beat anything in these parts."
Pa would chuckle like he did when Ma told a joke.
"Well, if she can beat anything in these parts"---he'd slap Grandma's rump and she'd barely move---"I'd run this old drey horse against her." And he'd chuckle again.
The farmer would look at Grandma again and his eyes would get bigger. He'd cock his head and say, "You got any money to speak of?"
They'd make their bet and pick a time and place. The farmer would go off to ready his horse and invite his friends to the race.
Soon men would walk up, take a good look at Grandma, and ask Pa if he wanted to wager any more money on "that racehorse," Pa would cover as many bets as he could before it started to worry Ma.
Before sundown, we'd take the stock and wagon out to a pasture on the edge of town that had a track worn in the grass. The farmer would be waiting, holding the bridle of a sleek, restless mustang---even a Palomino---and his teenage son would be sitting in the saddle. The son would always look at me as if he wasn't ready to lose a race and get a whipping. There would be a crowd of folks around the farmer and they'd grin and start talking louder when I led the wagon up.
Pa would unhitch Grandma while people gathered 'round. He'd take off the blanket, tighten her bridle and make an announcement: "You are all honorable gentlemen and I will stand here at the wagon after the race to collect my bets." After the hoots died down, he'd add, "All the stock is for sale---except for this drey horse here---after the race, but I'll be leaving at sundown."
There were murmurs when I led Grandma to the line up. She had never been saddled, and I was trained to ride bareback. While I was tying my hair back, a man or a woman would always call out, "Ain't ya afraid her straw hat'll blow off in this race?!"
I always took her hat off at the last second. As I dug my heels into her ribs, I'd pull the hat off her ears with both hands and fling it to Ma before I grabbed a tight fist full of Grandma's mane.
For the other horse, the sound of the starter's pistol or rifle shot was the signal to run. For this Indian pony, that was raised to go into battle with head adornment, the signal to make the final run was to remove everything but her bridle.
She ran every time as if her rider's life depended on it. She was so fast I knew I didn't dare to fall off, and I was gulping air and bugs as we moved away from the shouts of the crowd.
The hardest part was holding her back. Pa didn't like her to win by more than a head---better a nose. "We may be back through these parts next year, and that farmer's son is gonna have some excuse for his dad as to why they didn't win this time."
As we turned and raced back toward the line, Pa would be standing off to the side near the wagon and Ma would be heating up the coffee.
The roar of the crowd would drop to a moan as I looked over my shoulder to make sure the farmer's son crossed the line close enough behind me to please Pa.
After I had walked Grandma down, Ma would bring out her hat and we'd slip it over Grandma's sweaty ears. We'd get the mare back in the traces and put the blanket over her. She always smelled strong then 'cause of the sweat on her dirty hide.
The farmer and his son would lead their wheezing horse over and tie up, and as soon as the farmer paid up, the others did too.
Some of the men, even the farmer, were more interested in talking horse trades now. But I don't remember a one who seriously asked Pa afterward if he'd be willing to part with that "old" racehorse.
There was a time when Pa thought he'd lost his bet on Grandma.
By noon that day, in this particular town, both the farmer and Pa had pledged their wagers. And it was always understood that if one of the horses didn't run, for any reason, it was no different than if she had run the race and lost.
So Pa was frowning and cussing later that afternoon; I had jumped off the tailgate of the wagon after I put the curry-comb away, and had sprained my ankle. Before Ma could even fetch the linament out of the steamer trunk, my right foot was red and swollen and I could barely walk. But Pa wasn't worried about my walking, he was worried about my riding.
Grandma was in the traces of the wagon, where Pa kept her, but my Apaloosa hadn't been saddled, so after a while I got up on her and tried to see if I could ride. Ma saw me grit my teeth and tears come to my eyes as I tried to hide the pain when I pressed my ankles against the horse's belly; she made me lay down in the back of the wagon and put the feather comforter under my foot. She told Pa that I was going to have to stay there until at least the next day.
I knew Pa wasn't going to ride Grandma, because in those days there were a couple of unwritten rules in free racing: any person who made a bet on a horse didn't ride the horse in the race; the rider had to be some other man or boy. We were always strangers in the towns we were in, so Pa wouldn't trust one of the townsmen to ride the horsetrader's nag to a win.
Pa called Ma out to the shade of the wagon, and through the canopy I could hear them arguing about an idea that had come to him.
"No, Will, I'm not going to do it," was the last thing Ma said. She was part Cherokee and when she said "no," she was hard to budge.
When she came in to put more linament on my ankle, there were tears on my cheek. Since shortly after they'd bought the wagon, she and Pa had been putting greenbacks away so I'd be able to go to the military academy on my fourteenth birthday; all I could think of was the money Pa would lose if Grandma didn't run in the match.
I told Ma what I was thinking; "You're such a good rider---nobody'll know you're a woman! Anyway, it won't really be you riding Grandma...you'll just be riding for me."
Ma looked down at the buffalo rug for a long time, then she said, "I know what Will wants me to do. You want me to ride, too?"
She told me later she'd been thinking about the couple of times we had suspected that a farmer had dressed a daughter up like a boy, so his horse could run with a lighter weight than I would carry on Grandma.
To my recollection, Ma looked about thirty years old at that time. She'd never been taller than five foot two, or weighed more than about a hundred pounds. I weighed seventy five pounds and was nearly as tall as her. So she put on a pair of my britches, and one of Pa's shirts with the shirttail out to hide her bottom. She pinned her long black hair up, and pulled the bill of my brown cotton cap low over her dark eyes.
When she got out of the wagon to help Pa get the stock ready to move, he lit up with a big grin, because he thought at first that I'd gotten well already.
She asked him to unhitch Grandma and let her practice riding the mare, but he wouldn't do it. He'd seen her outride two cowhands, a month before, at the Fourth of July jamboree in Great Bend; and, anyway, if anyone saw Grandma run before the race, all of the last-minute betting would surely dry up.
By the time we got out to the racing down, in the late afternoon, Ma was trembling nervous. Pa told her to wait by the side of the wagon until the last moment when he had Grandma ready at the line-up. He also faced the wagon sideways to the track so nobody would see me peeking out of the canopy.
Grandma's sides usually started heaving faster when she could see she was about to get loose in a race. But Ma told me later, the mare must have sensed there was something different happening, because her breathing was slow and steady when Ma climbed up on her...as if she was telling Ma that she was going to run her smoothest race yet.
And by the time Grandma thundered across the finish line, it looked to me like she'd done just that!
But I nearly fell out of the wagon when Ma looked back to see how far she'd beaten the stallion; the brown cotton cap blew off and went rolling in the dust, Ma's hair spilled out on two sides, and the pins were all swept away.
Pa was watching from the tailgate where he was heating the coffee, and I heard him suck in a sharp breath like the time when the mule stepped on his foot.
As soon as Ma brought Grandma to a halt, some of the townsfolk started gathering around to see if she really was a woman. Pa hurried toward her, but Ma stayed mounted and seemed to be looking over everyone's head. She didn't even act like she heard, when a man yelled out: "She can't be the winner---she's a woman!"
The farmer's stallion had now crossed the finish line, and the rider was dismounting to start walking him down. Suddenly Ma nudged Grandma through the knot of people, turned toward the stallion and galloped past in front of the losing rider. As soon as Grandma passed the other horse, Ma circled back around to the crowd---where she let out a whoop like I've never heard her make before or since. In her free hand, she held up the plaid cap of the stallion's rider, as if it were a fresh scalp.
Ma's war whoop nearly drownded out the surprised yelp of that other rider, but all eyes followed as this girl's hands went up to her haystack of brown hair and almost kept it from falling to her shoulders.
I felt the wagon bed bounce as Pa jumped up on the wagon seat and made an announcement: "You are all honorable gentlemen, and what you have seen here today was a fair race between two matched horses and their female riders." He paused to look directly in the eye of several men in the crowd. "I will be standing here by the wagon to collect my bets."
Now, I don't know for sure how Ma knew that she was riding against a girl, but a bunch of the townsfolk were grumbling at the farmer for having let his daughter ride instead of his son; and some grumbled at both the farmer and Pa for having broken a common rule of free racing. By Pa's count, though, most of the men honored their bets--- including the farmer.
I don't know if Grandma ever laughed about that race, but from where I sat inside the wagon, I did hear Ma and the farmer's girl laugh together.
In those days when Pa raced Grandma, not everyone paid off on their bet.
In some towns, it was the custom for a third party to hold the stakes, but in other places the wager was simply honored with a handshake. Most men didn't want their good reputation tarnished in public by not paying up, but in some cases Pa learned too late that the bettor didn't have a good reputation to worry about.
Some men---when flatly refusing to pay Pa after their horse lost the race---didn't even bother to make an excuse. They were usually younger and stronger than Pa and were sure to have a bunch of their friends with them: so Pa began to give some thought as to how he could use the toughness of these gamblers to get at their weakness.
On a day when we were in an Arkansas town, at the same time as the Old West One-Ring Circus, Pa made a swap of two matched wagon horses for an aging, trained pinto named Benny. After we added Benny to our pack train, Pa used to enjoy putting Benny through his tricks each morning before we broke camp.
I'm not sure what plans Pa had for the pinto, but about a week after we got Benny, Pa was once again talked into racing Grandma---by a man of about thirty who was a tradesman, not a farmer. We'd heard that this young man ran a saloon, and weren't surprised when he brought several of his pals with him to the match.
After Grandma crossed the finish line, the man's horse was still two lengths behind; the tavernkeeper turned on his heels, from where he was watching, and slowly walked over to our wagon. He had a way of standing with his head back and his mouth open that made his chest stick out. Without smiling, and with two friends standing on each side of him, he said: "Colonel Hooper, my friends here will tell you I'm a sporting man, but you're not going to collect that bet from me.
"I had heard that there was a traveling horsetrader who kept a professional racehorse in disguise---but I didn't realize that the horsetrader was you, until your jockey boy pulled the hat off your nag's ears and she took off nearly before the starting shot.
"Now if you want to make a bet sometime that a man can go into with his eyes open, I told you already I'm a sporting man---but I'm also an honest man!"
Pa nodded slowly and looked the man in both eyes. "I see. Well, brother, I did believe from the start that you were an honest man. And perhaps you're a sporting man..."
"No 'perhaps' about it!," one of the man's friends said.
The tavernkeeper managed to smile with his mouth open. "My filly's a little winded already, but I'd be willing to run her double-or-nothing against any of the horses in your train that you ain't got disguised. And you can let your jockey boy ride him or anybody else you want!"
Pa hesitated like he was giving the offer serious thought, then said with a twinkle in his eye, "Can I trust you to ride him?"
The men all laughed. "You could do worse," one of the pals said. "Morgan, here, is a good rider!"
Pa's eyebrows went up like he was surprised. "That so?!," he said. "I just bought a horse that neither I nor my son has been able to stay on---even once around the course!"
"Too fast or too rough?," Morgan asked.
"Neither. As a matter of fact, he's too slow. And very stubborn!"
"Morgan was raised on a ranch," one of the men said. "Betcha he could ride him!"
"I don't think so," Pa shook his head thoughtfully. "But I'll tell you what we can do---double-or-nothing---if you're really sporting men..." He didn't continue until he got a nod from each of them. "Now listen closely, because I don't want you to say you've been cheated. I'll bring the horse over here and give Morgan the reins. If Morgan rides him once around the course, he wins. If he doesn't ride him all the way around the course, he loses. Fair enough?"
The four men all looked at Morgan, and each of them nodded when Morgan looked at them. With his head still cocked back, Morgan held out his hand and said to Pa, "Double-or-nothing!"
Pa didn't return the handshake. Instead, he carefully looked Morgan over from head to foot. "My friend, you're a good bit bigger than me. While I'm sure you and your pals all understand our bet"---Pa nodded his head and they nodded theirs---"just in case you were to lose, I want to see you put up your wager in front this time. Your bet against my racehorse was seventy-five dollars. If you can ride my new horse once around the course, you don't owe me nothing. But if you don't ride him around the course, you owe me one hundred and fifty dollars. Before I hand you the reins, do you need to go home to get some money?" Pa smiled.
Morgan looked past the wagon at each of the dozen horses in our train, then slowly reached in his back pocket and pulled out a bunch of folded greenbacks. He counted out, from one hand to the other, one hundred and fifty dollars and returned the few remaining bills to his back pocket. "Who's going to hold the money?," he asked suspiciously.
"Well, I think it's only fair that the money stay with the horse," Pa said. "Why don't we stick it under the saddle or the cinch?"
As Morgan nodded, Pa said to me, "Billy, go make sure there's a saddle on Benny and bring him over here."
I unhitched Benny from the train and led him over. When I handed the reins to Pa, he stood a little in front of Benny and toward one side. "Sometimes this horse can be a bit mean," Pa said, pointing a finger right near Benny's eye.
Benny dropped his head, snorted and kicked up his rear heels. Morgan's friends laughed but Morgan just smiled calmly.
"I'll hold his bridle," Pa said, "while you put the stake under his cinch." Morgan approached the mounting stirrup and stuffed the folded greenbacks between Benny's cinch and bellyband.
Pa handed the reins to Morgan and said, "The worst thing about Benny is that he's damned stubborn." Pa shook his head from side to side. Benny suddenly moved backward and sat down on his hind legs with his rump on the ground, like your dog sits when he's next to the dinner table. Morgan closed his mouth in surprise, but his friends broke into laughter.
"The trait that drove his last owner to sell him, though, is that Benny's so lazy." Pa hitched a thumb under his suspender. Benny's left leg slid forward on the ground, he threw his head up to the right and rolled over onto his left side with all four feet sticking out in front of him. He plopped his head down onto the sod as if he was dead. Morgan stepped back and groaned, "Whoa!" His friends let out a howl of laughter.
The folded greenbacks were between the ground and several hundred pounds of solid horseflesh. "Looks like Benny covered your bet, Morgan!," one of the townsmen chortled.
Luckily, there weren't any women close by, because Morgan called Benny a couple of names that aren't very polite. Then he got stuck on the notion that if he could get Benny up, maybe he still could ride him. He tried pulling Benny's halter, lifting Benny's head, rolling Benny over, lifting Benny's legs---and his face was red and sweaty by the time he got down on his knees and tried to push Benny up at the rump. His pals were doubled over in laughter and even Pa got to chuckling.
Finally, Morgan just stood there breathing heavily and staring at Benny. Slowly, the man's head went back and his mouth fell open and he started laughing along with the rest of the men.
Pa put a hand up to his head like he was smoothing his hair, and Benny folded his feet beneath him and rolled upright again. While kneeling down on his front two legs, he got up by raising his rump in the air first. Pa went around to the mounting stirrup, pulled the greenbacks from under the cinch and dropped them in his pocket.
Before the men left, Pa showed them a few more tricks Benny could do from hand signals and a couple that he could do from voice commands. By the time it got dark, Benny had showed all the tricks he knew, and the townsmen felt they'd got their money's worth.
Benny didn't live too much longer, but while he was sound, he helped Pa collect some wagering money that otherwise would never have been paid. When Benny died, Pa never again made a bet on Grandma unless the wagering money was put up in cash first.
Someone once asked me if Grandma ever lost a race. Well, the answer to that question is "yes and no."
In one of the villages we were in, after Pa and the owner of the local livery stable---Mr. Jenkins---had finished some horsetrading early in the day, Jenkins proposed that they meet again toward evening and each run their best filly. Naturally, this man was willing to bet that his mount would be first across the line, and he wagered an amount that was a bit more than Pa was used to hearing from the average bettor.
Pa didn't think nothing more about the race, until word of the match started to go around the village, and tradesmen wandered up to make side bets. When the owner of the feed store came over to the wagon to make a bet on the liveryman's roan, he chuckled: "Jenkins' filly's got to win---'cause Doyle can't afford to lose."
"What do you mean by that?" Pa asked,
"Doyle Jenkins' farm burned down a few weeks ago and all he's got left is his livery," the miller said. "The fire took his wife, but spared his son and daughter. His daughter was badly burned, though, and needs a heap of doctoring. Doyle's going to need every double eagle that Lady Luck rolls his way!"
Well, Pa used to say to me over and over: "One of the most important things I learned in the Cavalry was this---don't never risk nothing you can't afford to lose." After the miller left, Pa paced up and down in front of the wagon. I was surprised a short while later to hear him turn away a couple of men who came by to bet on the roan.
After Pa had stopped pacing, he told Ma he was going to go over to have a word with Mr. Jenkins; he wanted me to come along to bear witness to what was said.
Jenkins was in the back of his stable, smithing shoes, when we came up to him. He laid down his tongs and wiped some sweat from his neck, but didn't look up from the foundry, when Pa said: "Mr. Jenkins, I'd like to call off our race for this afternoon. I'm prepared to go ahead with it if you insist, but I heard that you've suffered a great loss lately---and I wouldn't want to see you lose anything more...which you may not be able to afford to lose. It's only fair that I tell you: my horse has never been beaten!"
Jenkins was silent while he worked the bellows, then he said: "Every steed stumbles sometime, Colonel Hooper. At the end of the day, I'm either going to be able to pay my child's doctor---or I'm not. After my boy exercised the roan this morning, he told me she's never run faster. I think I know a little about horse flesh; I've bet everything I could with you already or I'd bet more!" He lifted a red-hot horseshoe off the anvil with his tongs, dropped it in a bucket of water and the discussion was ended with a hiss of steam.
Jenkins started hammering on the anvil again, and by the time we were back on the street, I figured I knew what Pa was thinking: he wouldn't be able to face himself if he took money that should have gone to the girl that was burned.
Yet her pa wouldn't let him out of the bet!
"Golly, there's no way I can hold Grandma back," I told him. "You know it's all I can do just to hang on when she's running with another horse."
Pa stopped walking, turned suddenly, and headed back into the livery stable; I followed.
Pa told Jenkins he would be willing to add twenty-five dollars of his own money to the purse if Jenkins agreed to one small change in the conditions: instead of running the usual single course around the track, the winning horse would be the one that finished first after running twice around.
Jenkins gazed at the lanky roan in the rear stall for a moment, nodded his head, and smiled this time as he shook hands with Pa.
When we arrived at the down, Ma shivered to see Jenkins' daughter sitting in his carriage. She was about my age---thirteen, maybe fourteen. Even with all the white gauze that was wrapped around her arms and legs, and the loose cotton blanket that was draped around her, parts of her face and hands weren't wrapped and you could see she'd been badly burned.
Her older brother was already mounted as if he was anxious to get the ride over. As we lined up our nags, I could see redness in the boy's eyes; it looked like he either hadn't slept much or maybe his pa had said something mean to him. Although he was bigger than me, he acted like he was scared of me.
When the starter fired the rifle shot in the air, Jenkins' roan jumped back---and before the boy could spur her forward again, Grandma was already two lengths ahead. I worried right away that Pa's idea for fooling Grandma just wasn't going to work!
This boy was a weak rider, anyway, so the roan wasn't going to run any harder than she was forced to. Half way around and heading back toward the line on our first course, I could see out of the corner of my eye that the roan was only at the quarter mark.
By the time Grandma and I crossed the finish line on that first turn around, the roan barely had even reached the three-quarter mark.
Ever since Pa bought her, Grandma had been raced for only one course around the track; so---just as I always did---when we crossed the finish line, I leaned down and patted her on the neck.
Sure enough, Pa's idea did work: Grandma started slowing down, just like she was going into her cool-down run.
Now, usually, by the time she started coming around the course for the second time, I'd pull her to a stop and begin to walk her down. So she seemed a little surprised when the roan came galloping past us as we again neared the halfway mark. But I patted Grandma once more to assure her that the race was over, and then kept her running fast enough so that it wasn't over for the Jenkins boy, or his sister and Pa.
When my Pa paid off on the bet, he didn't look as happy as he did when he was collecting on his bets; but I heard him tell Ma later, that he felt like he'd done the right thing.
She must have felt so too, because as I was reharnessing Grandma, she gave Jenkins' girl a Cherokee medicine doll she'd made when I was just a child.
Still, if you ask me if Grandma ever lost a race, I'd have to answer "yes and no."
Like many of his fellow soldiers in the Cavalry, Pa grew to respect the Indians.
After some of the tribes stopped resisting the white man's presence, Colonel Hooper was one of the first troop leaders to start taking Indian braves along as scouts on patrols.
But at first both the Indians and soldiers were uncertain of their new partners, and this sometimes led to tragic misunderstandings...such as the one that troubled the Colonel---my Pa---throughout his lifetime.
Shortly before Pa mustered out of the Cavalry at age 35, he was told to take a squad from Fort Sage and set up an outpost on the prairie to protect the surveyors who were working for the railroad. Just two months before, he had charted some hills to the north and had taken along an older scout who was known as Shining Bear. The redskin and the soldier had gotten along all right on that trip, and the Cherokee's rifle had brought down plenty of rabbits and grouse for the frying pan. So when the patrol escorted Shining Bear back to his campsite, Pa paid him well in silver, and told him in sign language that he might come and fetch him sometime if he needed his help again.
Shining Bear camped by himself in the rugged crags near the Cimarron River. As a youngster, he had grown fond of a white girl who had been taken captive by his tribe, and one day he chose her for his wife---even though this meant they could no longer continue to camp with his tribesmen. Soon he sired a daughter and, not long after, his woman died of typhus---which was spread by fleas from animal hides. The child was raised at a mission, according to the story Pa heard, but this had all happened many years before.
That summer morning when Pa decided to take Shining Bear with his squad up into the Panhandle, all the recruits were in drill so Pa had to make the ride to the scout's campsite himself. He was nervous about riding the open trail to the Indian's teepee unannounced, so he approached the clearing among the rocks at a slow pace; and although it was a warm day, he kept his blue cap and jacket on so the scout would recognize him more quickly.
When the lone teepee came into sight, there was a wisp of grey smoke coming out at the lodgepoles and the redskin's pony was tethered nearby. Pa reined his horse to a stop just inside the clearing, with the bluff to his back, and called out in greeting: "Yo! It's Will Hooper!"
Shining Bear ducked out of his teepee with his rifle, looking surprised like he hadn't heard Pa ride in. He held up his free hand and started walking toward Pa. Pa wasn't sure if Shining Bear recognized him so he decided to sit still, and maybe take off his cap.
Suddenly Shining Bear stopped, said a couple of words in Indian, cocked his rifle, dropped to one knee and fired toward Pa. When Pa heard the bullet whiz over his head, he knew the Indian had missed. Before the gunsmoke cleared and he could aim again, Pa pulled his pistol and shot. His bullet went through the throat, and the Indian crumpled forward and died without a word.
But before the scout's rifle clattered on the gravel, Pa heard a whining scream behind him and the sound of something sliding down the bluff. His horse jumped, bucked and turned to face the bluff, and Pa's pistol went flying as he grabbed the saddlehorn. The horse reared, but Pa caught the reins in one hand and kept the horse from bolting. Rolling right down in front of their feet, in a rain of dust and gravel, was a huge yellow mountain lion.
Pa and the horse stared at the twisted, motionless carcass---its tongue between its teeth and a tidy bullethole under one eye.
Pa slumped for awhile as he collected his nerves, looking up at the edge of the bluff---about a bullwhip's length above him---from where the cat would have lept and landed with four sets of claws in his back. Once both of them were on the ground, the Colonel would have been a blur of blue cotton, bloody skin and yellow fur. So the old scout just may have saved the nervous soldier's life.
Pa buried Shining Bear's body under some stones, turned the scout's pony loose to forage for itself, and left the teepee as it stood. He felt too foolish to tell anyone about what had happened, and a short while later he decided to quit the army.
His mother lived just over the Panhandle, near Dodge City. He hadn't heard from her for awhile so he decided to give her a visit. When he arrived at the ranch, he learned that his mother had died several months before. His sister and brother claimed they hadn't known where to reach him, and had already split up the ranch property. But when he showed up, they did agree that some of the ranch property should have been his and so they gave him all of the livestock.
A cattle drive happened to be on its way through to Kansas City, so he sold all the steers in Dodge. That left him with fifteen mature roping horses. Pa took them in tow down to Mocane in the Panhandle, the location of the only mission he'd heard of between Amarillo and Wichita.
At the mission, Pa asked the grey-haired priest if he knew of a half-breed woman whose father was known as Shining Bear. Yes, this priest had been her first confessor---and still was. Though twenty-five years old now, she still lived at the mission, where she cared for the livestock and taught riding to the children.
The priest sent a Kiowa boy out to the paddock to fetch her, then led the traveler to a dusty corral and showed him where he could water his mount and fifteen charges. While Pa was priming the pump to fill the trough, the Kiowa boy strolled up with a small, black-haired woman who wore a red flannel shirt and buckskin breeches. More like she was telling him than asking him, she said, "You have news of my father."
Pa thanked the Kiowa boy, then asked her if she would sit with him in the chapel. She led him to a cool, dark room in the wooden main building, which had hewn benches and an altar toward the front and was backed by an Indian blanket with a cross woven on it. She pointed to a place for him to sit, went to one side of the altar, lit a candle and came back and sat quietly beside him.
With many sighs and pauses, Pa told her the story he'd never told anyone else---about how he had shot and killed the man who was her father. She listened without interruption; and she did not cry. When he had finished the account, he watched her dark eyes for reaction. She lowered her head and softly sang something in Cherokee, which sounded to Pa like prayer.
Then she took his hand in both of hers. "I understand. You are forgiven. You are a kind man. Thank you for telling me; I barely knew him."
Pa told her he would feel better if he could do something to make things right. He owned little, he said, but he had brought fifteen good horses which he would like her to sell and do whatever she wanted to with the money---give it to the church, if she wanted.
She smiled and patted his hand. She said she had given most of her life to the church, and that she was soon to leave the mission to take a job with a stable in Enid. "But there are Cheyenne on the Black Mesa near Colorado who would trade silver for those horses. I would not be afraid to travel there with you, if you would not be afraid to travel with me."
Pa leaned back and sat silent for awhile. Then he went up to the altar and lit a candle next to the one she had lit. And that's how my Ma and Pa started out together.
When you make your living buying, selling or swapping horses, you can't afford to have a horse die or wander away.
One evening after we left Big Bend, we camped in a clearing that was about midway to the Silver Lode trading post. As usual, I had picked out two stout trees, as close to the clearing as I could find, and I tied a hemp rope between them. Then I took each horse out of the train and tethered its bridle to the rope, leaving enough room for each one to browse some grass---when there was some, as there was here---or to lay down if it wanted to. Then after supper I went to sleep in my bedroll near the fire; Ma and Pa slept nearby in the wagon.
The next morning, about daylight, Ma would start a fire for the coffee, and then shake me till I woke up so I could help Pa ready the horses. But on this morning, I could hear Pa cussing while I was pulling on my boots.
He always saddled Rose first, because she was his horse, and he was standing with his hand on the hemp rope where I had tethered her the night before. All of the blood dropped down to my toes when I saw the way he was looking at me.
"Uh, she must have broke loose and wandered away, Pa! I'll go look for her," I mumbled.
Pa crouched down and squinted at the ground, but the grass was too thick to see tracks. He quickly stood up and strode past the stock to the end of the rope where the saddles were piled. He pushed two saddles aside with his foot, then cussed again. His turquoise-inlaid saddle wasn't there!
Rose had not just wandered away.
"What do you think, Billy? Indian or whiteman?," my Pa quizzed me.
"White," I said.
"What tells you that, Blue Eyes?" He called me by the name Ma's people had given me.
"An Indian would take a horse if he needed one," I answered. "But he wouldn't take something he didn't need."
Pa nodded. "So he probably didn't go into the hills. Which settlement do you think he headed toward?"
"Well, he could tell by our wagon tracks that we were going toward the post. I think he'd head toward Big Bend---figuring we wouldn't bother to go all the way back, or even that somebody at the post might remember seeing him if he rode through on Rose."
"Or they might remember that saddle!" Pa added.
Pa never slapped me after I turned fourteen, but he still said angry things sometimes: "Damn good thing for you this thief doesn't steal boys!"
He turned and walked back toward the wagon to tell Ma what had happened, so I followed. A quick movement in the brush, to the side, caught my eye. About as far away as you could throw a bucket, there was a saddled horse grazing among some shrubs behind the trees. I touched Pa's arm and pointed. We both walked slowly through the thicket, approaching the horse from different sides. The horse put its ears back and started backing away, but I grabbed a stirrup and was able to calm him. We looked the gelding over carefully: he was an old dapple---maybe too old for somebody to still be riding. His ribs showed through and his hooves were cracked. The saddlehorn had worn through its leather; the bridle was tied together in several places with rawhide. The gelding looked tired, and the faded saddle-blanket was still damp with sweat.
Pa pointed to mud caked above the hooves. "Looks like a miner's horse. The bastard must have made this trade just before daybreak. And not a fair trade!"
Leading the dapple through the brush toward the wagon, Pa said over his shoulder, "I may be able to ride this thief down. You want to come along?"
"Pa, I owe it to you!"
I saddled two of our mounts, then fed and watered the dapple, while Pa explained to Ma what had happened. He got his Colt pistol out of the trunk and left it with her. Both of us gulped down some coffee and grabbed some antelope jerky.
I rode my Apaloosa. Pa told me to pull the dapple in tow behind me. He rode Spirit, Ma's horse. Spirit and Rose were both sired by the same stallion; they both were beautiful chestnut bays. Rose was the strongest of the two; Pa spent more time training her than any other horse he had ever owned.
While the sun was still rising, we turned onto the trail and headed back toward Big Bend. I was thinking about the thief: whether he knew it or not, he took the best of the nine saddle horses a horsetrader could ever own.
This trail followed the river bed, thickly wooded on both sides with beech, cottonwood, pine trees and juniper. The land rose and fell through ravines and bluffs. Sunlight had just peeked over Piute Ridge when we came to the top of a rise; Spirit stopped, flared her nostrils and whinnied. Pa spurred her, thinking she was just complaining about the climb---but we heard an answering whinney off to the left, toward the river.
We dismounted, tied three sets of reins to one branch, and Pa slipped his Winchester rifle out of the saddle holster. We threaded our way through dense brush and trees down the hillside. There on a knoll atop the sloping river bank, stood Rose---with Pa's saddle on her! I never knew a horse that looked as beautiful as she looked then!
I started to run toward her: Pa gripped my shirt. He squinted down toward the sandy shore of the river, a good tree's length down the slope beyond where Rose stood. There a man was standing; he was older than Pa, beard matted, clothes filthy and his skin was pale.
He held a canteen in one hand. With his other hand, he slowly pointed in the direction he was looking---down the river. He was too far away for me to see his eyes, but he seemed to be looking up toward us without turning his head.
"You've got a gun, brother," he stammered. "Shoot him."
Looking toward the shadows down the river, we saw a huge black bear, standing in a riffle among the rocks in the water, where he was probably fishing. Though the air was still, the beast tilted his head back and kept sniffing, each time looking further up the river shore. The sloshing of the water past the rocks hampered the bear's hearing; but if the thief were to make any movement, the bear would quickly be able to focus his eyes on him.
I wondered how long the man and the bear had stood there motionless like that, when I heard Pa say, loud enough for the man to hear, "Can you whistle?"
"Goddamn you!," the thief grumbled.
Pa realized his question was misunderstood. "Listen, whistle once and the bay will run to you," Pa said. "But ride back up here fast, because the movement will excite the bear. I'll cover you if the bear gets too close to the horse."
The thief dropped the canteen onto the sand, put two fingers in his mouth and sounded a shrill whistle.
If the thief held one hand full of apples and the other arm loaded with corn, Rose couldn't have bounded forward quicker. She skittered down the sandy embankment and, with just a few leaps, was prancing in front of her rider. He scrambled onto the saddle, then slapped her with the reins. But instead of riding back up the embankment toward Pa and I, he turned her on the shore and started heading breakneck up river!
When Pa saw that, his head went back, he put a thumb and forefinger in his mouth, and he split the air with a whistle. Rose skidded to a stop, twisted around and headed back along the shore, then romped up the embankment to us---her rider pulling the reins and cussing all the way.
I nervously watched that black bear. When Rose had run down the slope, the bear dropped onto all fours and waded out of the river. When Rose headed away upriver, the bear sat on his haunches and watched. But when Rose turned around and started galloping back toward him, the beast turned tail and loped off into the woods.
When Rose stopped in front of Pa, the Winchester was raised toward the thief's ribs. "You want to climb off, or fall off?," Pa said through clenched teeth.
The scoundrel slid down from the saddle, held his blistered palms up in front of him and started backing away. "Brother..." He seemed to be thinking of something to say.
Pa cut it short. "I'll watch for the bear. You go fetch your canteen. Your dapple will be waiting for you up on the trail." Pa glared at him. "If anybody recognizes your description at the post, you're going to be known as a midnight horsetrader!"
When Pa was in the Cavalry, his horse was shot out from under him in a tussle against some bandits from Chihuahua. His hip was broken, and although it healed well enough for him to serve out his hitch in the army, it began to trouble him more as he grew older. Ma finally got Pa to homestead a ranch on the plain of Oklahoma, near her birthplace. So each time a horse was sold out of the train, the money was put toward the ranch instead of going back into sale stock.
I finally got to spend my three months at Fort Horn Military Academy during the year I was fifteen, and by that time I was getting too big anyway to ride Grandma against youngsters who were lighter than me. With Pa's help, I took a commission in the Army Quartermaster's Corps when I turned 16.
Because of my background, one of my duties as a quartermaster was to buy horses for the Cavalry. Pa didn't want to see Grandma end up as a plow horse, so he offered to let me buy her for the army. But the purser wasn't willing to pay a fair price, since saddle horses were often taken in capture and there was plenty of young soldiers on hand, anyway, who could break wild horses.
So Pa kept Grandma on the ranch with him, and in a while she gave him twin foals that were sired by a wild mustang. These foals grew up to play an important part in the history of the west, but that's a story my son could best tell you.
Tales of Grandma's speed had spread through parts of the middle west and Pa was soon approached by a man who wanted to buy Grandma. The buyer was from a company that was starting an overland mail service that was faster than pack train or stagecoach, and they paid a good price for the best horses and gave them good care. This express service didn't last for a long time because of the coming of the cross-country railroad and then the telegraph. But during the years of that company, Grandma was the only one of its horses to be marked down for a special place in its history.
I learned of the story years later from a recruit who had ridden with that service.
Though Grandma was no spring filly and was being ridden daily on the company's route, once she got used to a saddle she began to set new records for speed or distance. Before long, she was given the most dangerous stretch on the route, taking the pouch and rider through renegade Indian country. This trip was made at night to lessen the chance of being spotted by Indian scouts.
At daybreak one morning after the spring thaw, Grandma and her rider, Mitchell James, were completing the leg from Richland to White River. The longest stretch on the route, it went from open prairie to low hills; but again the horse and rider were finishing the trip with no trouble.
There was little to look forward to at White River. It was simply a stagecoach stop, as well as a pouch relay point for the Overland Express; the road just widened a little there in front of the farmhouse of Errol and Becky Hansen. But Becky always kept buttermilk biscuits and honey waiting for the riders; Errol kept the feedbag filled with oats for the horses; and the rider from Salt Rock would be waiting to share a cigarette and a bit of news before they traded pouches. Though tired and cold, James and his mount likely picked up speed as they leaned into the last quarter mile over the rise to the White River way station.
But James must have gulped when the farmhouse came into view. The stagecoach, which should have been on the plain to Salt Rock, was braked in front of the farmhouse, it's team tossing their heads and bumping around in their harness. There were bodies of five men on the ground next to the stagecoach---likely three passengers and the two teamsters. On the farmhouse porch, four more bodies lay where they fell: they could only have been the Hansens, their new hand and the Salt Rock rider. The bodies of both teamsters were without clothing, except for their underwear.
As James came galloping up to the house, he could see that some of the dead had been hit by arrows and others killed by gunshot; both of the drivers had been shot in the head. The bodies of the woman and men on the porch suggested to James that they'd all come out of the farmhouse door firing. But he noticed no rifles or pistols. Quickly a picture came to his mind: the Indians had come from around back of the house, on both sides, shot the drivers as soon as the coach pulled to a stop, shot the farmhouse crew as they rushed out the door, then pulled the passengers out and killed them next to the coach. The Indians would have collected the guns, the passengers' luggage and stolen the Hansen's horses.
James froze in his saddle as he was about to dismount. His eyes had gone past the back of the house, to the stable. A cluster of seven Indian ponies stood under the oak tree that shaded the water trough. Almost at the same moment, he saw four Apaches come out of the stable, each leading one of Hansen's horses. James was close enough to get a good look at the four redskins---in fact, too close because they saw him. Two of the Indians were wearing the clothing of the dead stage drivers. One of them shouted something in Apache over his shoulder, and the other three young bucks that were in the raiding party came running out of the stable. The last time James looked back, before he spurred Grandma, the three Indians had jumped on their horses and were starting after him and Grandma.
James gave Grandma a loose rein, stayed high in the stirrups and leaned as far forward as he could; man and horse moved like one body as they put distance between them and the sound of the hoofbeats behind them. The rider, tired and hungry, likely had two thoughts on his mind: though he and Grandma had never before been past White River, they were headed toward Salt Rock---fortunately the shortest and flattest leg on the route. But the redskin raiding party would probably make Salt Rock their next stop---possibly using the stagecoach to surprise the crew of the inn right at the front door. At least if he could get to Salt Rock in time, the crew there could be ready with a surprise of their own!
The three redskins behind him had plenty of reason to ride fast: if they didn't kill him, James could probably pick out all seven of them if the army ever rounded them up. But Grandma edged so far ahead of them, that the Indians could only fire a volley of rifle shots and arrows, and they gave up the chase when they were sure they'd hit their targets.
James took a bullet through his ribs, that pierced a lung. While he was a strong young man, it was all he could do to keep from blacking out. He slumped forward onto Grandma's wet, bobbing mane, held onto her neck and gasped for cold air.
He had felt Grandma stumble twice, but he did not know she had been shot through the belly and had taken an arrow deep in the left flank. Blood pumping from her wounds, and his, streaked her grey hide like red banners. The Indians had good reason to believe that this white man and his horse would fall in the brush before reaching the plain outside Salt Rock.
The young man fought to keep his eyes open, and finally the morning sun glinted on the windmill behind the inn. Grandma didn't have to be told where to stop: there was nothing at Salt Rock but the inn and stable. She was wheezing like a bellows when her rider was lifted out of the saddle to be carried into bed. When James' saddlebag and rifle were lifted off her and the innkeeper's wife started to lead Grandma to the stable to treat her wounds, the mare staggered, fell to one knee, rolled on her side and whinnied for the last time.
Shortly, the Indians showed up at Salt Rock, just as James thought they would. With hats pulled low, two of them drove the stage---a rifle on each lap---while the other five Apaches crouched inside the coach. But before the stage could pull to a stop, the inn's crew opened fire on them from the windows. The tragedy of White River was not repeated.
James was given credit for saving the lives of the half dozen settlers at Salt Rock, but he said it was Grandma that saved his life.
A bronze monument to this mare and her rider stood outside the Express home office in Topeka for years, but was finally moved to a park. When I took my son to see it, I had to tell him: "That's not the way I'll remember Grandma; I'll always see her standing in the traces of Pa's wagon, looking like she didn't know nothing about running!"
The End

