A Collection of Plain Horse Tales Read online

  A Collection

  of

  Plain

  Horse Tales

  By Robert Collins Wolfe

  Karina Library, 2012

  Ojai, California

  Table of Contents

  What Made Grandma Run

  A Close One

  Grandma’s L’il Helper

  The Bet Pa Lost

  The Horsetrader’s Start

  Horse of a Different Color

  The Last Race

  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.

  What Made Grandma Run

  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.

  A Close One

  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 curr
y-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.

  Grandma’s L’il Helper

  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 hone
st 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!”