Some More Horse Tradin' Read online

  While all of this was goin’ on, the bald-faced horse that went over the banister must have fallen in deep water because she had heard the nickerin’ and had come up the side. As the rest of the herd came off of the bridge, she came out from under it and joined the herd. She was covered with a thin, nasty kind of water and mud and her mane and tail was soppin’ wet.

  I noticed a big water fountain sprayin’ in the air but I didn’t think these old ponies needed to stay there to drink, so I rode into them and broke the mill and turned them to drive off the park. Choc had worked around and was in front and he took the lead.

  As we turned them off the park onto Houston Street, one of the motorcycle policemen was gonna hurry the drive and he rushed in close and raced his motor. When he did, the muddy-tailed horse swatted him across the face and knocked his cap off and plastered him with mud. His motorcycle threw him and ran wild into the horses before it fell over on its side. As I rode past it, I hollered back, “That’s all right, Mr. Officer. I don’t believe that thing hurt any of ’em.”

  When the leaders got to Pacific, I hollered and waved to Choc to point ’em east. People were tryin’ to cross the street and cars were comin’ and goin’ and we had a few human stock mixed up in the drive once in a while but they managed not to get hurt. I didn’t know exactly what was happening with the rest of the traffic at the stoplights because that bunch of ranch horses didn’t seem to know the signals and they just kept goin’ at a pretty high lope.

  Somebody or something kind of broke the herd into where all that bunch of streets cross at St. Paul Street and some of the horses were about to turn south. I saw a man that was a friend of my daddy’s that was in some kind of electric power business in Dallas named John W. Carpenter. I stood in my stirrups and squalled loud enough to shake the bricks on some of the tops of those buildings and hollered, “Mr. Carpenter, head them damn horses and don’t let them go down that street!”

  I glanced up and saw people’s heads stickin’ out of every window in them tall buildings awatchin’ the last trail drive through downtown Dallas.

  Old Man Carpenter grabbed his hat and squalled and hollered and turned them horses, and the way he was working at it, you would have thought they were his own. About the time I got even with him, three or four fellows was slappin’ him on the back and braggin’ on him, and I hollered, “Much obliged!” As I waved at him, I said, “You would’ve made a good hand if you’d stayed in the country.”

  I don’t know whether traffic was gettin’ normal behind us or not but it was gettin’ thin and wasn’t causin’ the horses too much trouble in front of us. I squalled at Choc and he began to holler and fight them back with his hat to slow up the drive. I dropped back enough to give them a little air without gettin’ to where I couldn’t move in if I needed to.

  As we drove up Gaston Avenue where there were big fine homes on both sides, these horses were wringin’ wet with sweat and latherin’ and blowin’ and they slowed down to a walk and none of ’em tried to cross the sidewalk and get up into anyone’s yard. By now ‘most everybody we met in cars were stoppin’ and lettin’ us drive past them. We were hazin’ the horses a little to one side of the street and there were a few cars working through them. Now and then you would hear a fender bump and there might have been a headlight or two got kicked out during the drive. However, I didn’t try to find out about little details like that.

  As Beauty hit a nice slow foxtrot following the herd, I took off my hat and wiped the sweat from my head. I began to think a little about what that man over at the cement plant meant when he said we might have some trouble. We had long since lost Friole, and I knew he had gone crazy with fright but I didn’t know whether he had turned back to go to Mexico or was still followin’ us.

  We came to a nice big open spot to the south side of the street and some of the horses drifted over on it a little bit, and here come a bunch of grown men wearin’ kids’ knickerbocker britches and caps and wavin’ clubs in the air. I guess that was the first time I realized that golf players were one of the more excitable breeds of people, so while Choc rode point, I winged them on the side and got them off without causin’ too many new holes in that pasture pool ground.

  Along about middle of the afternoon, we watered our horses at the spillway of White Rock Dam. Since we was kind of in the country, we held them up and let them shade and rest a little while. There was a hamburger joint across and back from the road a little piece, and it took a batch of ’em to fill up me and Choc after that morning’s drive. When all the horses looked like they had cooled out pretty good, we eased them out up the road in a walk and let them graze.

  A little before sundown, we drove onto the square at Garland. I knew there was a big red mule barn with some pens around it across the railroad track on the east side of the business part of town, and we headed them for that barn. In the summertime the work mule and horse business slacked up and Mr. Pace, who owned the barn, wasn’t anywhere around, so I opened the gates and stocked his mule barn with West Texas ranch horses and shut the gate and looked back and thought about how much trouble we might have had if we hadn’t been real good cowboys.

  This herd of horses had endured a pretty bad beatin’ from civilization and its ills, such as traffic, hard-paved streets, and gravel-surfaced roads, and they all showed the effects of the day’s drive. I had been on my best horse, Beauty, all day and Choc had been riding my other favorite mount at the time, Charlie. These horses had whirled and turned and jumped and stopped a few hundred times apiece that day and you could say they were badly spent, but Friole and the camp wagon were still lost. I told Choc to unsaddle and stay with the horses and I would ride Beauty back and look for Friole.

  Beauty was at this time an eight-year-old and had been my favorite mount for several years. She was fourteen hands three inches tall and had a huge rib cage and heart-lung capacity, and even though she was not a tall horse her body girthed down way below the bottom of my stirrups. Her legs were straight and sound, her back short, and it was unbelieveable how much endurance she had as compared to other horses. Going back to look for Friole could have run into an all night’s job, but on Beauty I would still not have been afoot.

  I rode onto Friole about two miles outside of Garland. His mules were wet with sweat and had been latherin’ under the harness most of the day. He was sure glad to see me and hoped it wasn’t too much farther to the herd. He said that them cars had all time been in the way and that his team had all time been scared but they couldn’t run away ’cause there was too many people in front of them. I asked him how he knew which way to come after we were out of sight. He said, “The sign from a hundred head of horses wasn’t so hard to follow.”

  When Friole and I got to Mr. Pace’s barn, we drove the wagon into the hall of the barn and unhitched the team. About that time, Mr. Pace heard about the horses and drove up in front. I walked out and shook hands and told him that I knew him from seein’ him at the Fort Worth Horse and Mule Market and thought that it would be all right to use his barn even though I hadn’t asked him about it. He said, “Why sure, you’re welcome, and I’ll be down here early in the morning to sell a bunch of these horses for you before you leave town.”

  I asked him about buying some hay and he told me that all last year’s crop of hay had been fed up but there was about half a crib of corn in the barn. The weevils would eat it up before he would need it this fall and he thought it would be just the right thing to throw out in the troughs for my horses, shuck and all. That sounded good to me and tasted good to them.

  By now it was night and the three of us went over to the best restaurant in town and ordered enough for us and several more people. Then the three of us ate all of it.

  I unfurled my bedroll in the hall of the barn under the wagon and Choc slept in front of the corral gate on the outside just in case something might happen in the night and Old Friole always slept in the wagon. About the nicest sound that can put a cowboy to sleep at night is to hear a good
horse that’s rode hard all day grinding oats or corn. All the horses were tired and there was no fightin’ going on and that ear corn made sweet music as I dozed off.

  The next morning our horses were still drawn and showed lots of signs in their feet and legs from the drive on hard city streets the day before. Mr. Pace came to the barn pretty early and said he thought it would be good for the horses if we would stay a few days and feed them the rest of that corn, and this would also give him a chance to sell a few horses for me.

  While we were talking, we walked around and he asked me questions about the different horses and how much money I would have to have for each individual that we looked at. I knew that he would expect to make some money on the deal for himself, so I added a little to the price to use for tradin’ purposes and a little more to pay him for his time and efforts. He seemed to think I had most of the horses priced a little cheap, and when we came to the four Shetland ponies he said, “I’ve got people that’ve been cryin’ for Shetlands to ride this summer. Hope you haven’t bought these so high that they will be hard to sell.”

  I said, “How high would that be, Mr. Pace?”

  He said, “I believe they will bring $75 to $100 a head if you can stand to take that for ’em.”

  I was laughin’ inside and tryin’ to keep it from showin’ when I told him that I would try to stand it and for him to go ahead and sell ’em.

  He and I agreed that these horses were drawn pretty bad from the Dallas trail drive and that it would be better for them to rest and fill up before we started showing them to his prospective buyers the next day.

  The next morning he circled around town a little while and me and Choc caught the horses he had asked about the day before that he thought would suit his customers. We brushed and curried their manes and tails and cleaned them up as best we could and put nice halters on them and tied them up and down the hallway of the barn.

  Pretty soon after dinner, Mr. Pace had a lot of lookers come that were interested in some kind of a horse. Me and Choc were busy during the afternoon saddlin’ horses while Mr. Pace rared back on his walkin’ cane, and with the aid of some strong spirits, he made some vigorous sales talks. I don’t really know whether it was his salesmanship or that the people just wanted the horses, but we did a big day’s business. By night he had sold all the Shetlands and four other young horses for cash and we hadn’t taken anything in for trade.

  I asked Mr. Pace that night what I owed him. He said, “You never have said what the horses cost, so I don’t know how much money you’re makin’ and I’ll leave it up to you to pay me what you can stand.”

  Well, he hadn’t been very timid pricin’ those horses that day and everything had sold for as much or more than I had told him to get for them. I had done him the favor of eatin’ up that corn that the weevils might get and used his barn, so I asked if I could square off with him for his services and the use of his barn for a hundred-dollar bill.

  Hundred-dollar bills were scarce and Mr. Pace had been paid a hundred-dollar bill for one of the Shetlands. He laughed and said that smaller money would spend better, but that he would be well pleased with the amount, so we had a laugh and I paid him in smaller money and stuffed that hundred-dollar bill in the bottom of my saddlebag.

  The next morning we pushed the gates open and Mr. Pace said, “Go ahead. I’ll shut the gates when you’re gone.”

  Our horses had been in the corral on dry corn for two days and they were all ready to graze some green grass along the road and were givin’ us no trouble drivin’ down the highway. Friole’s team was comin’ along by themselves because Friole was takin’ a siesta. This city horse drivin’ had been keepin’ him from gettin’ his rest.

  We let the horses drift as slow as they would and graze as much as they would and we weren’t tryin’ to make any particular place before dark. In the late afternoon we were in a river bottom and ahead of us high up on the hill was the town of Rockwall, the county seat of Rockwall County, the smallest county in the state.

  All the land along the road was in farms and I had begun to watch for a fenced pasture where we might camp our horses overnight. The land along the highway and the rich black land delta wasn’t even fenced on the road and farmers drove out to the end of the row and turned on the bank of the bar ditch so I knew that we were going to have trouble finding a camp ground to hold herd on that night. I told Choc to graze ’em on into town and I would ride on ahead and see if I could find a place for us that night.

  Beauty hit a good, swinging foxtrot and I got away from the herd fast and rode in on the square and hitched her to a telephone pole. I walked over to a drugstore and went to inquirin’ around for a place for my horses. The druggist and some other natives first thought that I was tryin’ to find a place for me and my horse and suggested I could put my horse in the gin lot or somebody’s backyard. It was a little hard for a kid to convince these natives in a farm country that there was ninety-seven head of horses just over the ridge and comin’ into this farming town. None of them knew anybody that had a town lot big enough to keep them overnight.

  The more I inquired the less I found out, and a bowl of chili and two Cokes later, the horses began to top the ridge and the leads started trottin’ on to the square. I got on Beauty and whistled and called to the herd and they started followin’ me off the other side of the square. I hollered back at Choc when he came in sight that we might spend the night on the road. He knew what I said. He also knew what I meant—that we would find a camp somewhere. The highway wound out of town through the residences and made a curve to turn back east at a little creek just out of sight of the houses. Where the road turned, there was a big gate with high posts and an arch overhead that said ROCKWALL CITY PARK. Now this country town park didn’t amount to much more than a see-saw, a swing, and a sandbox on the bank side of the creek near the gate.

  It was nearly sundown and I could tell that there was a lot of tall grass on the back side of the park that looked to me like it had about twenty or twenty-five acres in it. I suddenly knew that this band of horses was bound to enjoy the good park facilities of Rockwall, so I dropped back down the highway below the gate and pointed them into the fresh creek water and tall grass. Friole was bringing up the tail of the herd with the camp wagon and he gave off a big smile. As he waved his sombrero at the trees and runnin’ water he said, “Muy buena, enoche.”

  Friole drove the wagon to the back side of the park and made camp under some big trees by the creek. Me and Choc pushed the horses up on a high place in the back side of the park where the grass was good. By this time the herd drove good and would graze good from the standpoint that they would always be tired enough to graze and rest and wouldn’t hunt ways to get away.

  There wasn’t any buyers or horse traders followed us into camp that night and we were back away from the road. After several days of people and highways and short night quarters, this was a real nice camp.

  Friole had breakfast ready way before daylight. It had become our custom to carry a sack of oats in the back of the camp wagon that we always fed our saddle horses, so Choc and I fed the horses and let them eat while we ate.

  We caught the mule team and harnessed and hooked them up while Friole broke camp and got ready to travel. By sunup we were a few miles away from Rockwall headin’ on east toward Greenville when the high sheriff of Rockwall County drove past the herd, stopped, and got out of his car. I was ridin’ wing on that side when he stopped me and asked, “Kid, where’s the man that owns these horses?”

  I said, “I own ’em.”

  He looked at me pretty hard and said, “Kid, I’m talkin’ business. I’m Earl Hall, the sheriff of Rockwall County, and I want to see the man that owns these horses.”

  Well, I kind of would liked to have changed the story by that time, but I said, “Can’t help whether you believe me or not. I own the horses.”

  As the herd passed by us, you could see him sizin’ up the horses and lookin’ at Choc. As the wagon came
up, he held his hand up for Friole to stop. He asked Friole if he owned the horses and Friole could see that big star on his chest, which scared off his United States vocabulary and in his fright he couldn’t speak a word of English. The sheriff gave up on him and turned to me and said, “You owe a $25 fine for keepin’ the horses in the Rockwall City Park last night.”

  He could have said, “You owe a $25 pasture fee,” and I might not have thought anything about it, but that word fine had a bad sound to me. He was talkin’ on and told me that if I couldn’t pay it, he would put us all in jail. I said, “Well, I don’t doubt but what the high sheriff of the smallest county in the state could put me and my cowboy and camp cook in jail, and if you’ve already decided about doin’ that, I guess we can just turn these horses back in the park and go to jail.”

  He scratched his head and thought about that a few minutes and said, “Looks like you’d rather pay a fine.”

  I said, “Looks like you would have a better place to put my horses if I’m goin’ to jail.”

  He kind of stomped the ground and said, “There aren’t many people know about you stayin’ in the park. Just don’t come back.” He turned around and went to his car and drove off.

  From Rockwall on, the farther east we moved these horses, the more commotion they caused and the bigger the herd got in the minds of the people that saw them. A hundred horses wouldn’t amount to much in the West but a hundred in this farming country was a sight to see and people would run out to the road from their houses to count and watch them pass. During the day, several farmers would stop and ask if we had a certain kind of horse.

  We were grazin’ the horses along the railroad track and highway as we drifted through Caddo Mills and a schoolteacher came up to the camp wagon and said he wanted to trade a fine-spirited horse that was too much for him to ride for something gentler. Choc and I had ridden all the ranch horses that we had kept and there were three of them that could stand a lot of ridin’ and weren’t too old. The rest of these horses could stand about half a day’s ride before they gave out, even though they were in good flesh and looked like good stout horses.