Chapter 5 Smoky The Cowhorse by Will James
THE BRONC TWISTER STEPS UP
A cloud of dust was hanging on over the big corrals where Clint, the bronc twister of the Rocking U outfit, was busy starting raw broncs under the saddle and "twisted" 'em in shape for good saddle stock. It was long, hot, and hard days for that cowboy as he wrestled with the slick, fat, and snorty ponies and convinced 'em that they all could be led, rode, and handled according to the way he seen fit; but Clint was used to that; he'd been at it for years with nary a rest or relief from the work that was beginning to tell on him.
He'd take ten broncs at a time and soon as he'd took the rough off them ten he'd turn 'em over as broke and run in ten more raw, wild ponies. Each green colt was rode every day if even only for half an hour, and gradually learned to behave under the saddle. There was a few that wouldn't learn to behave, but the Rocking R outfit had good men and all them ponies was put in to their work whether they was good or bad.
Clint had been with the layout for near two years, and in that time had broke to ride somewheres around eighty head of horses. He'd broke many more for other outfits and never made an outlaw. If one did turn outlaw once in a while it was because of that pony's natural instinct to be that way, but Clint handled and rode 'em all just the same,--if a perticular horse couldn't be learned it sure wasn't his fault and none had better try to learn that same horse anything.
As has been said before, bronc fighting was beginning to tell on Clint,--none of them ponies he'd broke had spared him, and instead they'd called on for all that was in him. Many had tried to tear him apart and scatter him in the dust of the big corrals; hoofs had come like greased lightning and took hunks off his batwing chaps, teeth had took a iew shirts off his back, and as he'd climbed on one after another of these wild, kinky ponies they most all tried to see if they could move the heart of him from one side of his body to the other.
There was many times when he was layed up with dislocated shoulders, ribs broke and legs the same. From the root of his hair to the toes in his made to order boots there was signs, if not seen they was felt, where some horse had twisted, broke, or shook something loose. Each happening had come more or less separate, and healed some in time, but as some kept a repeating off and on there was some parts of him which never got strong again; and as time went on, and as Clint said, "he was beginning to feel loose like an old clock and figgered that some day some bucking hunk of horseflesh would take the tick out of him and scatter him out so that none of the parts would never be found again."
Clint had started riding rough ones long before he quit growing and that's the condition he was in at thirty, an old man, far as riding was concerned. The horses of the same big outfit he'd rode for was worked on the average of only four months in the year, and in them four months the broke horses was rode only four or five hours once every three days. That might show some of the difference in the work the cowboy and the cowhorse does with a real cow outfit.--The men go to pieces young and early and the ponies stay fat,--but there was no grudge for there's nobody in the world likes to see and ride a fat strong horse more than does the cowboy.
They'll keep the ponies fat and feeling good, and some of them horses find it hard to behave and will try to jar loose the eye teeth of their riders. The cowboy wants 'em that way tho,--it's a pride of his to have a kinky horse under him that's feeling good rather than some gentle old plug that's leg weary. That all gets him in time, but there's a grin on his face when that time comes, a grin from the pride of knowing that he never was seen on no horse that was against the principle of a cowboy to ride.
Like with Clint, horses was the life of him. He loved 'em for all he was worth and the greatest pleasure in the world for him was in just being with a corral full of 'em, handling 'em and feeling of their hides. The satisfaction he'd get out of seeing some four year old colt learn the things he'd teach meant a heap more to him than the wages he drawed for that work; and there was times as he'd be breaking some right brainy gelding and watch the horse pick up fast on the eddication he'd give him, when he'd feel real attached to the pony. He'd hate to give him up when the time came for all half broke horses to be turned over to the round up wagons and where more teaching in the handling of the critter begin.
"I feel sort of married to them kind of ponies" he'd say, "and I sure don't hanker to part with 'em just when we're beginning to get along good together, but" he'd go on "I guess as long as I'll be breaking horses this way I can't get too sensitive."
But Clint kept a being sensitive that way, and he never was happy when he'd see riders coming in on him and then ride away hazing a bunch of the broncs he'd "started."
"Some day," he was heard to say once "I'm going to meet a horse I'll really get married to, and then there'll be things a popping."
Clint would have such a liking for some of them ponies that he'd forget and didn't want to think that they belonged to the company and not to him. He was just hired to break 'em. He'd reason that out often but that reasoning never fazed the hankering he felt and that's how come when he run in the mouse colored gelding he begin to do some tall figgering.
He had a hunch when he first set eyes on that pony that he'd met the horse which would start "things a popping" when any rider showed up to claim all that's half broke. Clint had dreamed of such a horse as the mouse colored gelding but he'd never expected to see one really living, that pony had got holt of his heart strings from the start, and as he watched thru the bars of the corral out to where the horse was picketed he felt him to be the kind he'd steal if he couldn't buy, and if he could neither steal nor buy he'd work for.
It'd been two days since he'd run him in and put him on the picket rope outside the corral a ways, and in them two days Clint had been mighty fearful lest somebody rode up on him, seen the horse and took possession of him as private saddle stock for the superintendent or some other what owned shares in the outfit and liked pretty horses that way. Clint wanted that horse mighty bad and he was just leary something would happen so he'd be took away from him, but as he'd reason some he was less worried and he'd wind up by saying as he'd take another peek towards the gelding. "They'd have to let me break him first, and before anybody else gets him I'll sure make an outlaw out of that horse."
That was no way for Clint to feel maybe, but that's sure enough the way he figgered on doing rather than lose the horse to anybody else;--that feeling was past skin deep with him and that I think excuses him some.
In the two days that Clint'd had the horse up, there was no chance passed where he could show his feelings and win that pony's confidence,--if the picket rope tangled him up too much Clint was right there to untangle him and each time the gelding fought less when he came. That pony was gradually losing his fear of being et up or tore' apart by the human and pretty soon he felt as Clint came and went that each visit from that crethure brought some comfort in a way.
It was on the second evening and when the day's work was all done that Clint made his way from the bunk house to where the gelding was picketed. He went up to within a rope's length of the horse, rolled a smoke, and stood there watching him.
"Smoky," he says, "you're some horse"--Clint hadn't hardly realized he'd spoke a name, he was too busy watching and admiring that pony's every move, so as it was that name came unconscious like to the cowboy, and it was used and repeated from then on as natural as tho that name had been thought and decided on.
He'd named many horses and had always let the name come to him either by the color, size, or shape of each horse, and sometimes by the way they acted. He'd called one tall rangy horse "Shorty" and another low built small horse "Skyhigh." Often the name didn't at all fit the horse in that way but there was some reason there, the same as there was a mighty good reason to call the mouse colored gelding "Smoky."
He did look like a rounded shiny cloud of grey smoke, and as he held his ground and watched the cowboy, he acted as tho he might live up to his name and really go up in smoke,--his acquaintance with the human hadn't been very long and he wasn't as yet any too confident.
Clint could tell as he watched just what was going on in that pony's think tank; he could still see fear in his eyes, but mixed in with that fear was a lot of nerve that showed fight. He knowed that pony would fight and make himself hard to handle, and he'd of been mighty disappointed not to've seen them signs in the horse. It was only natural that any of his kind should act this way and he figgered the wilder the spirit the bigger and more worth while would the winning be.--He would take his time, do a good job and turn Smoky from a wild raw bronc into a well broke and eddicated cowhorse.
He took a few steps closer and Smoky backed away to the end of the rope,--he snorted when he found he couldn't back no further and pawed at the rope as the cowboy kept a coming still closer and closer. Clint took his time but came on steady and a talking the while till he finally got within a couple of feet of the horse and where he could touch him. Hanging on to the rope with the right hand he reached out with the left and touched him easy between the eyes. Smoky flinched and snorted but he stood it,--he stood it for quite a spell and felt the hand rubbing on his forehead and working up and up towards his ears.
Clint had just about got to one of them ears when Smoky rubbed his nose along the cowboy's sleeve, took a sniff, and then of a sudden nipped him on the arm. That had happened to him before many a time and he'd been ready for it with the result that the pony got only a piece of shirt and no flesh.
"Now, don't be so daggoned ornery," says that cowboy as he kept a rubbing the same as tho nothing had happened, "I only want to reach between them ears and touch that knowledge bump of yours."
Finally he did reach the bump and rubbed around there a spell. Smoky struck once, Clint dodged the front hoof and kept a rubbing. He rubbed past the left ear and down his neck till the withers was reached, the mane was worked on and all the knots in it untangled. The little horse quivered and flinched every once in a while but the rubbing process went on till Smoky begin showing symptoms that he could stand it all easy enough. In the meantime Clint talked to him like he'd never took time to talk to another horse before, and if Smoky could of understood he'd knowed by that talk just what was ahead for him; but Smoky wasn't thinking on what was ahead,--the present had him worried enough as it was, and he was kept busy watching every move that human was making.
Smoky had lost considerable wildness during the two days on the picket rope. He'd learned there was no use in fighting the rope that held him, that it was best to turn when he came to the end of it, and gradually he was getting used to have that rope touch him here and there and he'd quit kicking at it. He was more familiar with that than with the human who put him there, but the rope done the trick of getting him used to having anything touch him,--it kinda broke him to stand the touch of the hand.
He was learning to stand that well enough too, but the movements of that hand had to be just right, not too quick and no jabbing done or there'd be a scattering of something mighty quick.
"I'm sure making a lot of fuss over you" says Clint as he rubs on past the withers and along his back a ways. "If you was just an ordinary bronc you'd be missing most of this attention and you'd be finding yourself in the corral with me on top of you by tomorrow, and turned in the 'Remuda' by another month, but I got a scheme up on account of me liking you the way I do: I'm going to take my time and make you my private top horse and when that's done I'll have every cowboy in the country jealous of me for having such a horse as you're going to turn out to be."
With Clint's scheming that way there was a good chance of him winning out, and gradually, steady, the eddication of Smoky started in. That cowboy called on for all he knowed in the profession of horse breaking and used it all with a lot of time to shape out Smoky the way he wanted him. No company time was used on the horse on account Clint felt it wouldn't been doing the square thing, "cause" as he says "it'll be bad enough if I have to steal him."--Of curse Clint wouldn't steal that horse or no other one, but he felt like he'd sure do something out of the ordinary rather than let Smoky go to any other rider.
Every evening after that last meal of the day was over, Clint would be down in the creek bottom with Smoky. What went on there showed some of what Clint really thought of the mouse colored gelding, and there was no disappointed look on his face when dark made him return to the bunk house.
Smoky had been on the picket rope about a week. In that time Clint had kept his eye on him thru the day while working in the corral and spent a couple of hours with him every evening. The little horse had got used to the rope and wouldn't pay no attention to it no more, but as for the cowboy he was just neutral; it was hard for him to shed off the fear of the human and which he'd inherited,--that human was still a mighty big mystery to him even after a week's acquaintance. It'd done him no harm but his wild instinct kept a warning him to expect most anything. The power that two legged crethure had over him kept him leary and watching for the next move, whatever that would be --and that's why Smoky was still neutral, his confidence for the human hadn't come to the top as yet and not a move did that cowboy make which he didn't see.
"You sure got your eye on me, aint you, little horse?" Clint would say, "but that's the way I want you to be," he'd go on, "for the more you watch the more you'll see and the quicker you'll learn."
Smoky did watch and see and learn, and then one evening Clint untied the long picket rope from the log and started leading him towards the corral; the little horse was broke to lead by then and he followed easy enough. His heart was a thumping in wonder of what was due to happen as the cowboy led him thru the big pole gate. He stepped high and careful and his eyes took in everything that looked suspicious,--a slicker hanging over one side of the corral made him snort and try to pull away. Clint talked to him, and kept on a leading him thru another gate into another smaller and round corral. A big snubbing post stuck up in the center of it and by that post was a big brown and shiny hunk of leather; it was Clint's saddle.
"Well now, little horse, the performance is about to begin, you're going to get your first smell of saddle leather." Clint had turned as he spoke and begin rubbing on Smoky's forehead. For once since Smoky had been caught his attention wasn't on the cowboy. That hunk of leather was drawing all his interest; and ears pointed straight at it, eyes a shining, he snorted his suspicions and dislike for the looks of the contraption that was laying there, waiting it seemed like to jump at him and eat him alive.
"Look, snort, and paw at it all you want," says the cowboy. "You'll get well acquainted with it before you get thru, and I won't rush the acquaintance either."
Clint didn't. He kept Smoky to within a few feet of the saddle and grinning some at the pony's actions, kept a rubbing him back of the ears while the investigation was going on. Smoky was for getting away from there but Clint was persuading him to stick around close, and there was nothing for him to do but just that.
A move from the direction of that saddle right then would of queered things and made Smoky scatter, and Clint couldn't of held him either for a ways, but the hunk of leather layed still, mighty still, and pretty soon it kinda lost its dangerous look to the little horse,--he begin looking around for other things in that corral which wouldn't be to his liking and not seeing anything that was worth getting spooky at, Smoky begin watching the cowboy again.
It was about then that Clint reached over and picked up the saddle slow and easy and drug it closer to Smoky. At the first move of the riggin' the little horse snorted and backed away but Clint and the saddle kept a coming straight towards him, slow but steady. One side of the high corral finally was reached. Smoky had backed against it and couldn't go no further. The cowboy, still hanging onto the rope that held his head, came on, saddle and all with him, and quivering with fear the little horse layed low. Feet straight out in front and head near to the ground he stayed there, and got another and different eddication with the saddle, this time it was dragging.
When Clint thought that had gone far enough and seen where Smoky had got over the worst of his fear he layed the saddle down again, and picking up an old saddle blanket he begin fanning the air with it, closer and closer to Smoky came the blanket as the fanning motion kept on, and stary eyed the little horse watched. He struck at it and snorted a couple of times and he even tried to turn and kick, but the blanket came on till finally one corner of it grazed his side. He flinched and kicked and tried to jerk away but there was no dodging that spooky looking thing.
Not a word was heard from the cowboy as the "sacking" went on, this was a part of the eddication that was necessary and which should be put thru mighty quiet. It was all a spooky enough performance to a raw bronc without adding on any talking, and even tho the goings on scared the pony near out of his hide, that blanket done the trick of showing him that no matter how bad it looked it wasn't going to hurt him, it was one mighty good thing to teach him general confidence in the cowboy and his riggin'.
Smoky fought like a cornered wolf and tried to get away, but he had no chance,--Clint had "sacked" many a bronc that'd fought as much and the cigarette between his lips noticed no change of spells between puffs. Smoky showed hate and fear of the human once again the same as when he was first caught, his instinct had warned him to expect most anything from that crethure, and he wasn't surprised at the way things had turned;--but that didn't help any, he just wanted to sail clear over the corral and disappear.
Thru all that fighting and goings on the sacking kept up in steady motion. Wherever the long blanket touched Smoky he flinched, and kicked at it and squealed. He was too scared to realize that there was no sting or any kind of a hurt felt. It was just the looks of the thing which had him going and his fighting instinct just had to answer every swish of that thing that circled around a leg one time and his neck the next.
Finally, and whether it was from being tired or fighting or that he was dazed past caring of what was going on, Smoky begin to let up; his kicks begin to get less wicked and his eyes lost some of the fiery look till came a time when he stood near still and he'd only flinch as the blanket kept a touching, going away, and touching him here and there and all over.
Clint noticing the little horse calming down remarked, "You'll get so you'll like it pretty soon." But Smoky wasn't showing no such symptom as yet, he was just standing it best as he could and that was all.
Both sides and all around Smoky went Clint with his blanket till the little horse finally even quit flinching. The cowboy then dropped the rope that was holding the horse and worked his blanket wilder than ever, that blanket was layed everywhere on that pony's hide and around his legs, he layed it on the ground and drug it under him and all Smoky would do was to cock one ear and watch it, but he never moved. A half an hour before such a play would of sent him straight up.
Clint worked on for a while longer till he was sure there wasn't a spot on that pony that'd flinch at the feel of the blanket, then he begin to notice that Smoky was finally getting so he kinda liked the performance, no flies could touch him while that was going on, and that blanket being pulled all over him that way seemed to kind of soothe some.
It was about when Clint figgered he could do no more good in the way of sacking that he picked up his saddle again and came straight towards Smoky with it. The squeak of the riggin' brought some interest from the horse, but Clint was careful to bring the old blanket with him and keep a fanning the same as to let him know that one was no worse than the other.
In the first saddling of most broncs Clint generally tied up one of their hind legs so as to hinder 'em from kicking the saddle out of his hands and at the same time learn 'em to stand still while that went on;--a few of 'em he'd just hobble in front. And being that Smoky'd had more teaching than the average colt generally gets before first saddling, Clint figgered that just hobbling his front feet would do.
The sacking had helped a lot and Clint had no trouble fastening the rawhide hobbles around Smoky's ankles. The pony snorted at him a little but stood still, for Clint was waving that blanket around as he worked. Once the hobbles was on he picked up his saddle and eased it up and on that pony's back. Smoky had a hunch that something new was going on, something different than the sacking performance which he'd just went thru; but as nothing happened outside of the flapping of stirrup leathers and cinches he stood in one spot, only a quiver in the muscles along his shoulder showed how much alive he was, and how quick he could leave the earth if anything "goosed" him.
Plenty of practice had made Clint past master at putting a saddle on a green colt, nothing happened to make Smoky want to move out of his tracks, and even when the cinch was reached for and drawed up under his belly lie never batted an eye. The sacking had all been a mighty fine preliminary for all this that followed and cured the horse from scaring at everything that flapped on or around him.
As it was Smoky hardly realized that he was saddled till Clint took the hobbles off his front feet and pulled him to one side. At that pull he felt something fastened to him and hanging on; that was a new kind of feeling to Smoky and it kettled him, down went his head and he lit in to bucking.
Clint had expected that, for no bronc likes the feel of the cinch no matter how loose it might be, and when Smoky bogged his head that way he was ready;--he let the hackamore rope slide thru his hands for a ways and till he could get a good footing, then he give that rope a little flip and set down on it. That done the trick and it come daggone near upsetting the little horse, but Clint let out just enough slack and that saved him. He didn't want to throw the horse but then he didn't want to have that horse buck with an empty saddle either.
"Now Smoky," says that cowboy as the horse jerked to his senses, turned and faced him, "I don't want you to waste any of your energy that way, if you want to do any bucking you just wait till I get in the middle of you."
Smoky waited, but it wasn't thru the talk the cowboy had handed him that he did wait; it was that he remembered how that rope had upset him that first day he was picketed to the log outside the corral; and he wasn't hankering to be "busted" that way again.
There's folks that's read some on how horses are broke on the range, and from that reading they get the idea that the cowboy breaks the horses' spirit, that it's the only way a wild horse can be tamed. What I've got to say on the subject if that's what's believed, is that either them folks read something that's mighty wrong, or else they got the wrong impression and misunderstood what they read; and breaking a horse the way he's broke on the range is about the same on the animal as schooling is to the human youngster. The spirit of the wild horse is the same after years of riding as it was before he ever felt a rope, and there's no human in the world wants to perserve that spirit in the horse like the cowboy does;--he's the one what knows better than anybody else that a horse with a broken spirit is no horse at all.
To them that only sees a wild horse roped and rode and don't know the insides of the game, horse breaking might seem a little rough; but I'm here to say that it's not near as rough as it is necessary, and in the long run it's the rider that gets treated the roughest. You let a wild horse get away with something once and he'll try it again till there will come a time when even if there's no meanness in him he'll develop some. That's what makes outlaws.
Outlaws are made mostly when a horse proves too much for the man that handles him. A wild horse will turn outlaw often if handled by any other than them that knows his kind, and there'll be no way of breaking him only thru starvation and abuse. His spirit would be broken then too, and that proves that the cowboy, knowing his business, will see that the pony's heart is kept intact.
There's a variety in horse minds as big as there is amongst human minds. Some need more persuading than others, and a few of 'em, no matter how firm they're handled, will have to be showed again and again that they can't get away with this or with that,-- they'll keep on a trying and if ever once they do put a bluff thru there's most generally enough meanness in their system to make 'em plum worthless.
And like I was saying with Smoky, "he remembered how that rope had upset him that first day he was picketed to that log outside the corral, and he wasn't hankering to be 'busted' that way again."--That little horse had brains. If he was convinced a few times he had the sense to realize it, but at the same time, he had to be showed, and more because it was part of his necessary eddication than because of any meanness of his.
He was willing to learn but the teaching had to come from one who could teach him. There was no meaness in Smoky, not an ounce of it, he was honest clear thru; but meanness would develop if a slip was made. He fought and bit and kicked, but Smoky was a wild horse, and he was going only according to his instinct and more to protect himself from the strange human.
That's the caliber of most range horses. Clint had handled many of 'em and always won out with their confidence and turned 'em over as broke with their spirit intact. He'd savvied Smoky the minute he dabbed his rope on him that first time: that pony was wild, wild as a horse or any animal can get, and he had the strength to go with it; but Clint seen where that little horse also had a mighty fine set of brains between them little pointed ears of his.
He treated him like a grown up would treat a kid, a kid of the kind that'd learn a lot if the chance showed up; and he missed no chance to show that pony all he should know and how good he wanted to be to him.
"Daggone it, Smoky" he'd say, "it's too bad you can't know without I have to use a lot of ropes, as it is sometimes. I bet you don't think I'm a friend of yours, none at all."
Clint was right. At first Smoky had took him as an enemy and fought him according; then had come a time when he was willing to trust him some, specially when Clint had come and untangled him out of that long picket rope, talked to him, and rubbed his ears. His heart had got over thumping so much when he'd see the cowboy coming of evenings, and even tho the little horse didn't realize it as yet, he'd got to expecting him.
Then, and just about when his liking for the cowboy was coming to the top fast, something happened that'd make him wonder for a spell if that cowboy was a friend or still an enemy. The "sacking" he'd went thru in the corral had sort of jarred the confidence that'd begin to sprout for the bowlegged crethure, and then the way his head was jerked up out of his bucking spell with the empty saddle, all had left him puzzled as whether to start in and do some fighting or else be good and take his medecine.
Smoky had no way of knowing as yet what was expected of him, and it was a ticklish time for him. It was right then that he'd have to be handled just right and when the turning point for the good or the bad would be decided on. But Clint knowed how the turn to the good layed, and it was right there that he proceeded to bring it out.
There was only one way to it and that was for Clint to show Smoky he had to be good. The cowboy knowed Smoky had brains a plenty to realize once he was showed, that he had to do just what he wanted him to do, that of course would take a little time, the pony would fight some more and want to be showed, and to keep him from getting flustrated that horse would have to have his own way, some.