Chapter 14 Smoky The Cowhorse by Will James
"DARK CLOUDS, THEN TALL GRASS"
The man collecting old wore out and crippled horses had come along and led him away. He had a little salt-grass pasture a short distance out of town, and there's where he took the old horse. He turned him loose amongst a few more old horses, and would keep him there till the time come when some "chicken man" around town would need the carcass of one of the horses to feed to his chickens; then the horse what looked like it had the shortest to live would be killed and hauled away.
It didn't look like the end was very far for the mouse colored horse. All the work he'd done and the interest he'd had while under the names of Smoky and The Cougar, had stopped being accounted for, and sort of pinched out under the name of Cloudy; and now he had no name. He was just "chicken feed," and soon, if he stayed in that pasture, all what he'd been and done would be blotted out with the crack of a rifle shot.
But the old pony had no hint of that, and as it was he wasn't for quitting as yet. His old stiff legs was still able to carry him around some, the doctoring he'd got at the stable had helped him more than what had been hoped, and then getting out in a pasture where he could keep moving around as he wanted to was helping him some more. Besides, his old heart was still strong, quite a bit solid meat was covering his ribs, and with the salt and wire grass to graze on he could still make out and mighty well.
A few weeks went by when once in a while and every few days, one of the old horses he was pasturing with was caught, led out, a rifle shot was heard, and he'd never be seen no more. Other old horses was brought in and they'd pasture on with him till one by one they'd also disappear only to be replaced by more of 'em.
The old mouse colored horse must of looked like he was good to live for a long time yet; anyway, the "chicken horse" man had kept him, maybe for emergency, and so he wouldn't be out of horses if an order for one came; and that kind was hard to get.
Then one day, a man came, looked all the old horses over. And finally, like he'd decided, pointed a finger towards the horse that'd last been known as Cloudy. That pony was caught and led out the same way other horses had disappeared, but no rifle shot was heard. Instead, a lot of parleying went on.
Cloudy was led alongside of an old bony something that'd once been a horse. The old rack of bones was hooked onto a light wagon and seeming like hardly able to stand as the eyes of the two men went from him to Cloudy, to sort of figger out which of the two was worth the most, and how much the most.
Finally the dickering came to an end and seemed like agreeable to both parties. Three dollars to boot was handed, and the trade was made. The rack of bones was unhooked, the harness pulled off of him, and turned loose in the chicken horse pasture. Then Cloudy's old heart missed a few beats as that same harness was picked up again and throwed over his own back.
As true a saddle horse, and once hard to set on, as the mouse colored horse had been, the feel of that harness on his back was as much the same as if a shovel or a hayfork had been handed to a cow-puncher with the idea of his using 'em. The old horse felt it a plain disgrace, and snorted as it was buckled around him to stay; but the black whiskered hombre that buckled it on never seemed to notice or care that the horse had no liking for the collar and all the straps.
He kept on a fastening the harness, and when that was done, he jerked the old pony around and backed him into the shafts of the same old wagon that the rack of bones had been unhooked out of. Cloudy kept on a snorting and looked on one side and then the other as the shafts of the wagon was raised. If only he could act the way his heart wanted him to; but he didn't have the strength, the action to put in it, nor the energy no more. The most he could do was to snort, quiver, and shake his head.
But, as he was all hooked up and the man jumping in the wagon grabbed his whip, Old Cloudy done his best to try and get back to some of the life and tearing ability that'd once been his. He kicked a couple of times at the rattling thing on wheels and which he was fastened to, then he tried to buck some and finally wound up by wanting to run away; but the harness held and the rattling thing behind came right along wherever he went, and worse yet, he felt the stinging lash of the man's whip as he fought on and tried to clear himself. Then the jerking of the bit thru his mouth, and with all that to show how useless his fighting and wanting to get away really was, the old pony soon lost heart. He finally settled down to a choppy lope, then a trot that was just as choppy, and at last to a walk.
Another sting of the whip was felt on his flank, and at the same time, the line was jerked at the bit, and Cloudy, still pulling the wagon, was made to turn up a lane. At the end of the lane was a shack made of old pieces of boards and covered over with the tin of old oil-cans. To the right of that and a little ways further was another shack that looked like a mate to the first, only worse, and that one was going to be Cloudy's place of rest and shelter whenever work was over.
There he was pulled to a stop, unhooked, led to the manger, and tied. The stable door was closed with a bang, and after a while the old horse, still wanting to cling to life regardless of what came, stuck his nose in the manger to nibble on some of what was in it. He reached for a mouthful of what he'd naturally took for hay, and chewed for a spell, but he didn't chew on it long. There was a musty taste about the long dirty brown stems that didn't at all fit in with any hay he'd ever et. The kind that'd been put in the manger for him to eat was the same that the livery stableman had used to put in the stalls and bed the horses down with. It was straw, only this was musty straw and wouldn't even make good bedding for horses.
Cloudy felt hungry long before the next morning came, and often thru the night he'd nosed into the musty straw with the hopes of finding a few stems that'd do to fill an empty space, but there wasn't any to be found. The old rack of bones that'd been there before him had looked for some too, and with no better luck. Cloudy's new owner figgered it cheaper to swap horses with the "chicken man" and give him a few dollars to boot whenever any horse of his give out; he wasn't going to buy no high-priced hay for no horse. The straw was given to him for the getting and would keep any horse alive and working for at least six months, and then, or whenever the horse would be too weak to go any more, he'd trade him for another. Any kind of a horse, fat or thin, could always be used by the chicken man, and in trade, he'd always take one of the fattest to take the place of the one he'd just starved near to death. That way, year in year out, he'd keep a draining the last of the life of every horse he'd get his claws onto.
His property, and where he starved the horses into making a living for him, took in a couple of acres. Half of that land was rocks, mostly, and where he kept a few chickens. He bought, or stole a little grain for them; but they well repaid him. Every time he went to town there was a basket of eggs in his wagon and which he sold well. The other half of his land was cultivated, and where vegetables of all kinds had been made to grow. There's where the help of a horse was needed, to pull the cultivator or the plow, then the hauling of the vegetables to town, and once there, any odd job that could be got and which would bring a few dollars for the use of the horse and wagon.
It was bright and early the next morning when the work begin for Cloudy. The man showed his teeth in a grin as he looked in the manger while putting the harness on the horse, and noticing the straw in there hadn't hardly been touched, remarked:
"You'll be eating some of that before you get thru."
Cloudy was made acquainted with many different kinds of implements and work that day. All was mighty strange and plum against the ways of working which he'd been broke to do. It was pull, and pull, one contraption and then another, back and forth thru furrows, turn at the end and then back again. If he slowed down, or hesitated, wondering what to do, there was the whip always on hand to make him decide and mighty quick.
His muscles, having developed under the saddle, used to pack weight, and set that way, wasn't for getting next to the change very easy. Looking thru a collar and pulling steady was so different to heading off and turning a wild-eyed critter. It wasn't at all like coming out of the chute in front of a grandstand and seeing how many jumps could be put into one; nor didn't compare even with packing equestrians around. He'd felt some free under the saddle, and even tho all of it had been real work, there'd always been something that fitted in and which made him feel natural.
But now, with all these straps a hanging onto him, there was a feeling that he was tied down,--them straps even seemed to wrap around his heart at times and keep it from beating. And taking all, the strange hard work, the sting of the whip-lash on his ribs, nothing fit to eat after he was tired out and the day was over, it was no wonder that the old pony's heart begin to shrivel up on him.
As the long days run into weeks and the work in the field and in the town got to bearing down on him, the old pony even got so he couldn't hate no more; abuse or kindness had both got to be the same, and one brought out no more results or show of interest than the other. He went to the jerk of the lines like without realizing; and when he was finally led into the stable when night come the feeling was the same. There he et the musty straw because it was under his nose. He didn't mind the taste of it, he didn't mind anything, any more.
Of the odd jobs that Cloudy's owner would get to do around town and whenever he could get away from his truck and chicken farm, there was one which he looked forward to the most, and which the thought of made him rub his hands together with pleasure. It was that of scattering the posters advertising The Annual Rodeo, and Celebration, that was pulled off in town and every early fall. But that wasn't all. There was many other things for him to do at that time for which he could charge without anybody ever finding out whether all he'd been paid to do really had been done.
That year as usual he was ready, and right on the dot, to take on some more of that kind of work. He'd hooked up the old mouse colored horse and taking a load of vegetables on the way in, stuck around town doing the different kinds of work the rodeo association had furnished him with. He'd be on the go all day and prodding the old horse into a trot, sometimes even if the wagon was loaded.
It'd be away into the night before he'd turn the tired horse towards home. Every day was a great day, for the man, there was so many people around to make the town lively; and being most of 'em was strangers, he could get to within talking distance of 'em easy enough, and a few would even stand to have him around for a few minutes at the time.
Them strangers had come to see the rodeo. Most of 'em was from other towns around, and mixed in the crowd once in a while could be seen the high-crowned hat of a cowboy who'd come to ride, rope, and bulldog. Then at the Casa Grande Hotel, and registered there, was many cattle buyers from the northern States.
They'd come to bid on the big herds of cattle that was being crowded acrost the border from Mexico; for Pancho Villa and the Yaquis was making it hard for the cattleman of that country. Villa took the cattle to feed his army, while the Yaquis run off whatever Villa overlooked; and the cowman that could, and had any stock left, soon seen where if he wanted to save anything of what he'd worked to accumulate, he'd have to rush whatever that was to the border and get it on American soil mighty quick.
That's how come that the stockyards of the border towns was filled with cattle and that the hotels along them same towns was filled with cattle buyers. The Casa Grande Hotel was the most filled on account that along with the business of buying cattle, a little pleasure could be got there afterwards. A rodeo was in that town, and night celebrations; and being that them cattle buyers was still as much cowboys as ever, a good bucking contest and the fun afterwards couldn't be overlooked, not if it could be helped. "Yep, the town was sure lively."
Two of the buyers was setting in the lobby of the hotel one morning and a talking on the first day's event of the rodeo. A telegraph pole stuck up right before their vision and on the edge of the sidewalk, and nailed to that pole was a poster advertising the rodeo, and with a photograph of a bucking horse in action on it, told all about "the great bucking horse and outlaw The Grey Cougar, the only one that could compare, in wickedness and bucking ability, to The Cougar, that once famous man killing horse."
The two went on to talking about the rodeo, and naturally the talk drifted on about The Grey Cougar, and "how he could buck."
"The boys tell me," says one of the men, "that this Grey Cougar horse couldn't hold a candle to the real Cougar when it come to bucking and fighting. According to that, the other horse must of been some wicked."
The man was still talking on the subject, when an old mouse colored horse, pulling an old wagon loaded down with vegetables, came to a stiff legged stop, and right by the telegraph pole on which the poster telling all about The Grey Cougar was nailed. The man in the lobby grinned a little at the sight of the old horse a standing there like in comparison with the famous grey outlaw, and pointing a finger in his direction, he remarked:
"There must be the Old Cougar right there, Clint. Anyway he's got the same color."
The man called Clint grinned some at the joke, but the grin soon faded away as he kept a looking at the old horse, and noticed the condition he was in. Then he seen the saddle-marks that was all over the pony's back, and he says:
"You can never tell, that old pony might of been mighty hard to set at one time too--but the way he looks like now, them times are sure done past and gone."
"Yep," agreed the other man, "it's a miracle that pony can navigate at all--I wonder how it is that this Humane Society hombre that's sticking around the rodeo grounds don't happen to notice such as this. I'd like to help hang a feller for driving a horse like that around."
The conversation was held up for a spell as time two men watched the bewhiskered man come out of the hotel with an empty basket and climbed the wagon on which the old mouse colored horse was hooked. He grabbed the lines and the whip both at the same time and went to work a putting the horse into a trot.
Clint was for getting up as he seen the whip land on the old pony's hide, but the other man grabbed a hold of his arm and says:
"Never mind, old boy, most likely that Humane Society outfit'll fall on the bolshevik's neck before he gets very far."
The man called Clint set down again, but he was boiling up inside, and he didn't at all look pleasant as the conversation was resumed and noticed how his friend turned it to other things and away from the subject of old horses and such. He wasn't for answering very quick when that same friend went on to talking about that country to the north;--how he'd heard rumors that the Rocking II might be selling out in another year or so. "I wonder why?" he asks.
Clint, turned to his friend and grinning at his idea of changing time subject that way, finally answered: "I guess it's because Old Tom feels the end a coming, besides he's getting crowded all around by small outfits, and his range ain't holding up like it used to."
"But what are you going to do when the Rocking R sells out? You left that country quite a few times the last few years, and I notice you always go back like there was no other that suited you."
"I've got that fixed," says Clint gradually taking more heart in the new subject, and there he tried to describe some; "You know about where that camp is where I used to break horses when I first started working for the Rocking R? It's where the outfit used to run their stock horses. Well, I bought that camp from Old Tom Jarvis,--that is, I talked him into selling it to me, and four thousand acres of the fine range around to go with it.
"I'm thinking that this shipment I'm getting together now will be the last Old Tom'll ever buy, and by the time I get this train-load of Sonora Reds north and delivered to him, I'll have enough money to make the final payment on my place and still have enough left to buy a few head of cattle and start stocking it."
Clint often thought of his little place up in the heart of the cow country to the north. He could picture his own cattle ranging there and packing a brand of his on their slick hides. He'd a long time hoped for the likes, and at last he was getting it. A couple more days now, and he'd be heading north again, and there to stay, this time.
The last day of the rodeo had come, and Clint was to start with his train load of stock that night. Him and his friend was setting in the lobby of the hotel that evening a talking and wondering when they'd be seeing one another again, when outside and by the telegraph pole, came the same old mouse colored horse and stopped not an inch from where the two men had seen him a couple of days before.
Both was quick to spot him again this time, and right then, for some reason or other, the conversation died down. The first sight of that old pony hadn't been forgot, and when he showed up this second time, right before their eyes, he was like reminding 'em, and natural like, set the two men to thinking. That old shadow of a horse told some of the hard knocks of life, of things that was past and gone and which could of been bettered while the bettering could be done.
It was while the thinking was going on that way, that Clint sort of felt a faint, far away something a knocking and from down the bottom of his think tank. That something was trying hard to come back to life as that man's eyes kept a going over the pony's blazed face and bony frame, but it was buried so far underneath so many things that'd been stacked there that the knocking was pretty well muffled up. It'd have to be helped by some sort of a sudden jolt before it could come out on top.
The jolt came as the vegetable man got his seat on the wagon and as usual reached for the whip. Clint's friend a trying to keep him from running out and starting a rompus had tried to draw his interest by asking:
"What's become of that cowhorse Smoky, that used to--?"
But the question was left for him to wonder about, for Clint wasn't there to answer. Instead the hotel door slammed and only a glimpse of that same cowboy could be seen as he passed by the lobby window. In less than it takes to tell it, he was up on the wagon, took a bulldogging holt of the surprised vegetable man, and by his whiskers, drug him off his seat and down to earth.
The telephone on the desk of the sheriff's office rang till it near danced a jig, and when that feller lifted the receiver, a female voice was heard to holler:
"Somebody is killing somebody else with a whip, by the Casa Grande Hotel. Hurry! Quick!"
The sheriff appeared on the scene and took in the goings on at a glance. Like a man who knowed his business, his eyes went to looking for what might of caused the argument as he came. He looked at the old horse whose frame showed thru the hide, then the whip marks on that hide. He knowed horses as well as he did men; and when he noticed more marks of the same whip on the bewhiskered man's face, he stood his ground, watched, and then grinned.
"Say, cowboy," he finally says, "don't scatter that hombre's remains too much; you know we got to keep record of that kind the same as if it was a white man, and I don't want to be looking all over the streets to find out who he was."
Clint turned at the sound of the voice, and sizing up the grinning sheriff, went back to his victim and broke the butt end of the whip over his head; after which he wiped his hands, and proceeded to unhook the old horse off the wagon.
That evening was spent in "investigating." Clint and the sheriff went to the chicken-horse man and found out enough from him about the vegetable man and his way of treating horses to put that hombre in a cool place and keep him there for a spell.
"I'm glad to've caught on to that feller's doings," remarks the sheriff as him and Clint went to the livery stable, their next place of investigation.
There Clint listened mighty close as he learned a heap about the mouse colored horse when he was known as Cloudy. The stable man went on to tell as far as he knowed about the horse and the whole history of him, and when that pony was known thru the Southwest and many other places, as The Cougar, the wickedest bucking horse and fighting outlaw the country had ever layed eyes on.
Clint was kinda proud in hearing that. He'd heard of The Cougar and that pony's bucking ability even up to the Canadian line and acrost it, and to himself he says: "That Smoky horse never did do things halfways." But he got to wondering, and then asked how come the pony had turned out to be the kind of a horse. That, the stable man didn't know. It was news to him that the horse had ever been anything else, and as he says:
"The first that was seen of that horse is when some cowboys found him on the desert, amongst a bunch of wild horses, and packing a saddle. Nobody had ever showed up to claim him, and as that pony had been more than inclined to buck and fight is how come he was sold as a bucking horse--and believe me, old timer," went on the stable man, a shaking his head, "he was some bucking horse."
"Well," says the sheriff, "that's another clue run to the ground with nothing left of, but the remains."
That night, the big engine was hooked on to the trainload of cattle as to per schedule and started puffing its way on to the north. In the last car, the one next to the caboose, and the least crowded, a space had been partitioned off. In that space was a bale of good hay, a barrel of water, and an old mouse colored horse.
The winter that came was very different to any the old mouse colored horse had ever put in. The first part of it went by with him like in a trance, not realizing and hardly seeing. His old heart had dwindled down till only a sputtering flame was left, and that threatened to go out with the first hint of any kind of breeze.
Clint had got the old horse in a warm box stall, filled the manger full of the best blue joint hay there was, and even bedded him down with more of the same; water was in that same stall and where it could be easy reached, and then that cowboy had bought many a dollar's worth of condition powders, and other preparations which would near coax life back even in a dead body.
Two months went by when all seemed kinda hopeless, but Clint worked on and kept a hoping. He'd brought the old horse in the house, and made him a bed by the stove if that would of helped; and far as that goes, he'd of done anything else, just so a spark of life showed in the old pony's eyes; but he'd done all he could do, and as he'd lay a hand on the old skinny neck and felt of the old hide, he'd cuss and wish for the chance of twisting out of shape who all had been responsible. Then his expression would change, and he'd near bust out crying as he'd think back and compare the old wreck with what that horse had been.
As much as Clint had liked Smoky, the old wreck of a shadow of that horse wasn't wanting for any of the same liking. It was still in the cowboy's heart a plenty, and if anything, more so on account that the old pony was now needing help, and a friend like he'd never needed before; and Clint was more on hand with the horse, now that he was worthless, than he'd been when Smoky was the four hundred dollar cowhorse and worth more.
Finally, and after many a day of care and worrying, Clint begin to notice with a glad smile that the pony's hide was loosening up. Then after a week or so more of shoving hay and grain, condition powders, and other things down the old pony's throat, a layer of meat begin to spread over them bones and under that hide. Then one day a spark showed in the pony's eye, soon after that he started taking interest in the things around.
As layer after layer of meat and then tallow accumulated and rounded the sharp corners of Smoky's frame, that pony was for noticing more and more till after a while his interest spread enough, and with a clearer vision, went as far as to take in the man, who kept a going and coming, once in a while touched him, and then talked.
Clint liked to had a fit one day, when talking to the horse and happened to say Smoky, he noticed that pony cock an ear.
The recuperating of the horse went pretty fast from then on; and as the winter days howled past and early spring drawed near, there was no more fear of Smoky's last stand being anywheres near. As the days growed longer and the sun got warmer, there was times when Clint would lead the horse out and turn him loose to walk around in the sunshine, and that way get the blood to circulating. Smoky would sometimes mosey along for hours around the place and then start out on some trail, but always when the sun went down, he was by the stable door again and then Clint would let him in.
Clint would watch him by the hour whenever the horse was out that way, and he'd wonder, as he kept his eye on him, if that pony remembered, if the knocks he'd got from different people in different countries, didn't forever make him forget his home range and all that went with it. Not many miles away was where he was born; the big mountains now covered with snow was the same he was raised on, and which he tore up with his hoofs as he played while a little colt, and by his mammy. The corrals by the stable and sheds was the ones he was first run into when branded, and in them, a few years later, broke to saddle; but what Clint would wonder the most, as he watched, is whether Smoky remembered him.
The cowboy had kept a hoping that sometime he'd be greeted with a nicker as he'd open the stable door in the morning. Clint felt if the horse remembered, he would nicker that way at the sight of him and like he used to; but morning after morning went by, and even tho Smoky seemed full of life and rounded out to near natural again, no nicker was ever heard.
"Somebody must of stretched that pony's heartstrings to the breaking point," he remarked one day, as he'd stopped, wondering as usual, and looked at the horse.
Finally spring came sure enough, and broke up the winter. Green grass-covered ridges took the place of snow banks, and the cottonwoods along the creeks was beginning to bud. It was during one of them fine spring days, when riding along and looking the country over, Clint run acrost a bunch of horses. In the bunch was a couple of colts just a few days old, and knowing that old ponies have such a strong interest and liking for the little fellers, the cowboy figgered the sight of 'em would help considerable in bringing Smoky's heart up a few notches, and maybe to remembering. He fell in behind the bunch and hazed 'em all towards the corrals, and as Smoky, turned loose that day, spotted the bunch, his head went up. Then he noticed the little fellers, and that old pony, gathering all the speed there was in him, headed straight for the bunch and amongst 'em.
Clint corralled him and all the rest together and setting on his horse at the gate, watched Smoky while that horse was having the time of his life getting acquainted. The pony dodged kicks and bites and went back and forth thru the bunch, and a spark showed in his eye which hadn't been there for many a day.
The cowboy could near see the horse smile at time little colts; and he was surprised at the show of action and interest the old pony had reserved, or gained. He was acting near like a two-year-old, and Clint grinned as he watched.
"Daggone his old hide," says the cowboy, "it looks to me like he's good to live and enjoy life for many summers yet"; then thinking strong, he went on, "and maybe in that time he might get to remembering me again--I wonder."
He watched Smoky a while longer and till he got acquainted some, and at last deciding it'd be for the best to let him go, he reined his horse out of the gate and let the bunch run by. The old pony seemed to hesitate some as the bunch filed out. He liked their company mighty well but something held him back; then a horse nickered, and even tho that nicker might not of been meant for him, it was enough to make him decide. He struck out on a high lope and towards the bunch. One of the little colts and full of play waited for him, and nipping the old horse in the flanks, run by his side till the bunch was caught up with--Smoky was living again.
Clint sat on his horse and watched the bunch lope out over a ridge and out of sight; and with a last glimpse at the mouse colored rump he grinned a little, but it was a sorry grin, and as he kept a looking the way Smoky had gone, he says:
"I wonder if he ever will."
With the green grass growing near an inch a day, Clint wasn't worried much on how old Smoky was making it. He figgered a horse couldn't die if he wanted to, not on that range at that time of the year; but some day soon he was going to try and locate the old horse and find out for sure how he really was. Then a lot of work came on which kept the cowboy from going out soon as he wanted to, and then one morning, bright and early, as he stepped out to get a bucket of water, the morning sun throwed a shadow on the door; and as he stuck his head out a nicker was heard.
Clint dropped his bucket in surprise at what he heard and then seen. For, standing out a ways, slick and shiny, was the old mouse colored horse. The good care the cowboy had handed him, and afterwards, the ramblings over the old home range, had done its work. The heart of Smoky had come to life again, and full size.
THE END