Sunday's Colt & Other Stories Read online

  A good rider, however, seldom threw his pony to a dead stop as is commonly seen in modern rodeo calf-roping events. It was much wiser to draw the pony to a slow stop, easing the stress on the saddle, horse, and calf’s neck. “Busting” cattle wasn’t tolerated. Grandpa said that cattle with broken or crooked necks didn’t turn much of a profit.

  We seldom roped full-sized cows unless we had one that wouldn’t stay home. Roping bulls was usually out of the question unless there were several riders to get a loop on him. We had one old Hereford bull named Jiggs that gave us a show. Jiggs was a swept-horned giant weighing close to a ton. This old boy was wise to cowboys and lariats and always seemed to be interested in cows and heifers in other pastures. That first year working Lightning, we lost track of the bull about mid-summer. That fall, a farmer from Seward stopped by to ask us if we were missing a bull with a broken bar T brand. He had been spotted along the Mystery River in a thick stand of willows and cottonwoods. The locals had tried to catch Jiggs but had little luck, no one feeling competent to lay a loop on him. The Mystery River was an underflow creek that came to the surface during wet years. A person could follow its course because of surrounding timber stands drawing moisture from the underground water. The course was too boggy for farming and was ideal for young trees to take root. Farmers on foot were not able to drive the bull or catch him in the soft ground surrounding the Mystery’s course.

  Knowing we would probably have a tussle with the bull, Grandpa asked Bill Sunday and a couple of local cowboys to help us. Dan Scott and Jack Pearson were older than I was by a few years and fancied themselves quite the bronc busters. Five riders pulled out of our place on a cold October Saturday morning. Dan had a seven-foot bullwhip to drive the bull into the open where we could get a loop on him if it was necessary. The farmers complained that old Jiggs would fight every time anyone got near him. If a bull wouldn’t submit to herding, a man on foot was at his mercy.

  We hadn’t ridden a mile before Dan and Jack were criticizing Lightning’s size. The cowboys said the colt was too little for me…that I ought to be riding a “real” horse, and they hoped he wouldn’t be played out before we got to Seward. Of course this good-natured teasing didn’t sit well with Bill Sunday. He listened sullenly before offering a dollar bet that Lightning would still be going when the other horses were played out. Being self-styled vaqueros, the pair jumped at the bet. Grandpa said that he hoped we didn’t kill a horse that day to settle a two-dollar bet.

  After talking to the farmer, we began a sweep of the river to locate the bull. Grandpa spotted Jiggs first as he broke from a wheat field. He was making tracks for a three-acre wilderness of willows and vines. Dan and Jack dug in their spurs and fired their horses into the trees after him. By the time Grandpa, Bill, and I arrived, the cowboys were riding the edges looking for tracks. They could find no sign of the bull and figured he had hot-footed it down the river course.

  Bill suggested a sweep through the trees to make sure the bull hadn’t been missed. Dan complained that it was just a bit difficult to miss a ton bull in a three-acre patch of trees. Grandpa, however, overruled them saying that it was best to cover the ground as well as possible. Old Jiggs was a lot craftier than most and Grandpa didn’t relish the idea of passing the bull if he could prevent it.

  We made the sweep through the trees, keeping each other in sight. There seemed to be no sign of the bull in the tangled undergrowth. As we passed through, the cowboys suggested that Jiggs must have made his way down the river.

  “Show me the tracks!” Bill said.

  Grandpa ordered a second unsuccessful sweep of the trees with no success. A cold rain began under low-rolling clouds. We spread out, making our way down the river course looking for tracks or some sign of the wayward bull. After four miles of searching, Grandpa decided that we must have missed that bull or the tracks where he had travelled across open cropland on either side. We wheeled about and started working our way back. I broke off from the group and rode to the crest of a nearby hill to see if I could spot the bull from a distance. The other riders left me behind. I was in no hurry to catch up. Somebody must have missed some sign of the bull. I was a half-mile behind when they entered the three-acre grove. By the time I reached the grove, they were through it and sweeping the upstream course of the river. I spotted old Jiggs in the grove following the riders. How he had managed to hide himself will always be a mystery.

  I drew up Lightning, shook out a loop, and gave a war cry, “Here he is!”

  The old bull spun around, gave me a mean-eyed glare, and broke for the open. Being seventeen years old—cocky and immortal—I set Lightning in lone pursuit of a bull that outweighed the pair of us by eight hundred pounds.

  I was on the bull within a quarter of a mile. Lightning drew in on his tail and I gave my lariat a side-handed pitch. The loop curled around Jiggs’s shoulder and circled over his horns. It was a nearly perfect throw—the kind a fellow always manages when no one is around to see it. I slowly drew back and allowed the slack to work out of the rope so Lightning wasn’t jerked off his feet. Jiggs felt the lariat about his horns and turned to face me. Jiggs trembled in anger at the end of the lariat. I called to the others for help. I wasn’t sure how long we would maintain the standoff and there was no nearby tree to tie the bull off.

  Several minutes passed as I kept the lariat tight against the bull’s horns. I glanced about to try to see the others. When the bull took a step forward, I’d back Lightning to regain the slack. Suddenly, Jiggs came at us in a full-blown charge. I flipped up the rope to clear the pony’s feet and set off at a run to angle away from the bull and bring my rope tight again. Once we came tight, I wheeled Lightning about and drew him to a stop. Again, old Jiggs bucked and fought against the lariat.

  We repeated the ritual several more times as the bull worked us into a small stand of willows. I kept calling to try to get some kind of help. No one seemed to be hearing. We were pinned against a clump of sandhill plumb thickets and the bank of a small creek. Old Jiggs came in too quickly for us to work out of the spot and got his head under Lightning’s belly. With a mighty heave, the bull lifted us off the ground and dumped us head-over-heels into the thicket.

  I struggled to get free of the saddle. Luckily, the bushes were thick enough that they held Lightning’s weight off my leg. I slipped the rope from the saddle horn. Jiggs went for the tree cover, leaving us to get free of the thickets. I managed Lightning to his feet and looked him over. He was trembling and sweaty but I could find no other damage. I was thankful he wasn’t hurt.

  The others came charging by. Grandpa drew up his horse and asked if I was all right.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t as bad as I thought,” I answered without looking up.

  “Is that so?” Grandpa asked as he pointed to the thickets behind me. “Then why is your spur hanging in that plumb bush?”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see my right spur dangling in the fork of the bush we had just crawled from. I turned back toward Grandpa as he gave me a look of mild disapproval.

  “You better be more careful. You’ll get yourself killed pulling stunts like that.”

  Before I could answer he set out in pursuit of the others. I examined Lightning’s condition again to make sure I had not missed anything and replaced the spur.

  Things hadn’t gone well during my absence. Dan tried a loop and missed. A second later, Jack managed a similar miss. Bill Sunday then swung in to throw his loop just as the bull drove into the water of the little creek. His rope caught, but he had a bull to fight in the middle of the water with no sure footing for his horse. It was a steep bank and none of the others could close in enough to throw a second loop. Bill let the bull have his head and followed him up the other side of the bank.

  As Bill came up the opposite bank, his horse lost footing and fell backward into the creek. The slack on the rope tightened and jerked Bill’s saddle around to his horse’s belly. Both slid along a mud bank, unable to get to their feet or free from t
he bull. Bill drew his pocketknife and cut the rope.

  When I came up to the bank, only Bill was left refitting his saddle and examining his horse. Both were covered with the mud of the bank.

  “Heck of a rodeo, ain’t it?” he said quietly.

  “No kidding. Where did they go?”

  “Off toward the trees. You better hurry. Your grandpa is going to need some help. Them five-and-dime cowboys can’t lasso worth a damn.”

  “You all right?”

  Bill cut his eyes to mine and smiled. “Just getting old, Andy. I should have known better than to have tried that stunt.”

  “I should have known better myself, Bill,” I said as I passed.

  “Yeah, but you got an excuse. You’re just a kid. An old man like me should have picked a better spot than this mud bath.”

  I didn’t answer. Bill had hurt his pride and didn’t need unappreciated comfort from me.

  As I approached the trees I could hear the breaking of limbs and bushes as the riders and old Jiggs battled. Jiggs charged out of the trees in my direction—Grandpa hot on his tail—swinging his loop. The old bull had two lariats draped off his horns, dragging behind him. Forty feet out from the trees Grandpa let fly, and the loop settled over the bull’s neck. As he drew the rope tight, Jiggs spun about and balked. I jumped to the ground, grabbed the closest rope, and climbed back into the saddle. I finished retying just as Jiggs decided to charge Grandpa. Caught between two tight lines from opposite ends, the bull could do little. Dan and Jack threw their loops over the bull’s horns. Our four horses were able to drag the unruly Hereford toward the ranch. Jiggs was unhappy but shortly gave up the struggle. By the time we reached the barn Jiggs was too exhausted to put up any more fight.

  Bill wasn’t. He said it seemed odd that neither Jack nor Dan could seem to place a rope on that bull until someone else had managed it. He wondered aloud if either of them had been to the eye doctor lately since they had ridden right over the top of a ton bull without seeing him. He observed that Indians had always liked horses like they were riding because they could always catch them when afoot. He spent at least fifteen minutes pointing out the qualities of Lightning and how he always figured he’d pick a short horse any day over the three-legged crowbaits that others seemed to be riding lately.

  It was merciless. I could almost see the cowboys ducking Bill’s verbal blows. Bill sent them packing after we freed the bull in the breaking corral. He started in on how good that beer was going to taste when he collected those dollar bets. They left sullenly without a word.

  I never learned whether Bill collected those bets. Even if he didn’t, I know he got way more than two dollars worth of revenge before we managed the bull back to the pens.

  Early April of 1914, Grandpa made the decision to replace Simplex. The old jack was getting old and good mules were a large part of our income. Grandpa spent most of the winter trying to locate a jack with just the right qualities. He wanted a black at least fourteen hand high that could sire mules of similar color. Tall black mules were extremely popular with the army and farmers. A possible war in Europe meant higher prices for good stock.

  Grandpa had a second cousin living on a ranch north of Grand Island, Nebraska, who had just such a young jack for sale. From Jed Groves’s description and a Kodak photograph, Grandpa figured he would gamble on purchasing the jack. It was spring planting and auction season, however, and Grandpa didn’t feel he had the time to make the long journey to Grand Island. He asked Bill Sunday to accompany me for final inspection and purchase. I jumped at the opportunity. It was my chance to see some of the world. In return for a modest fee and Grandpa’s promise to monitor his place while he was absent, Sunday agreed to go.

  Grandpa gave me with a bank draft and expense money. Bill and I would be gone at least three weeks—the longest period of time I would ever be absent up to that time. So, packing supplies in our saddlebags and bedrolls on our horses, Bill and I set out for the ride to Nebraska.

  I learned a lot about Bill Sunday during that trip. Bill was a wiry old cowboy well into his seventies and had an exciting life during the development of the West. Bill looked every inch the Texas cowboy of the old days. He sported a huge walrus mustache that draped over his upper lip and hung down the sides of his mouth. Although a bachelor all his life, Bill took pride in his appearance. His white collarless shirts were always bleached clean. He preferred high, stovetop, fancy-stitched boots with his pant legs worn inside and Texas style spurs with rowels as big around as a teacup. He wore a high-crowned, wide-brimmed Stetson hat and never felt completely dressed without a large colorful bandana tied loosely around his neck. Although packing a sidearm was out of fashion by the turn of the century, Bill habitually carried an old ivory-handled Colt. He usually left it in his saddlebags in town to avoid uncomfortable stares from townsfolk.

  Bill came from Texas in the 1870s working the trail drives to Dodge City. His father had been a Confederate soldier who never returned from the war. His mother remarried a man with several children of his own and Bill set off to be a cowboy when he was only twelve years old. Cattle prices crashed at the end of the 1870s, ending the era of the long drives, and Bill took on work for local cattlemen. After a few years, he drifted to Stafford County and homesteaded a small place south of Seward. For years he had been Grandpa’s closest neighbor and best friend.

  Bill was a quiet man of simple pleasures. Other than an occasional glass of beer and a few games of dominos during infrequent trips to town, Bill preferred to stay home and work his small spread in solitude. He was short-spoken and opinionated concerning livestock and politics but seemed rather quiet when around anyone other than Grandpa. He was much more social with my grandparents. He would often spend long hours in the evenings joking and playing table games. I always liked Bill and listened intently when he offered advice. Other than my grandfather, he seemed to know more about horses and mules than any man I knew. He had a strict sense of honor. He had no use for a man whose word could not be trusted.

  Bill couldn’t read. When his business dealings demanded a written contract, he never signed it until he had Grandma read and explain it to him. He would often question her about meanings or phrases. He often said that Grandma was the best legal counsel in the country as far as he was concerned.

  We reached Jed Groves’s place nine days after leaving home. The ranch was similar to Grandpa’s except it was nestled in the sandhills of Nebraska. When we rode into the place we were greeted by Jed’s daughters. June was my age and outweighed me by fifty pounds. The second daughter, Jane, was odd and something of a crybaby. Jenny was seven years younger than Jane. She was dark-haired, tall, and thin like Grandma when she was young. I liked Jenny for her quiet ways and simple manner. I watched her often trying not to be obvious.

  The jack that we had come for was everything Jed Groves claimed. He was named Black Jack. He was taller and heavier than Simplex and possessed excellent conformation and temperament for a jackass. Although I was impressed I didn’t want to make a commitment until I had Bill’s impressions. Bill stated bluntly that he had never seen a mammoth jack as good.

  After a hectic two-day visit we started back to the ranch leading Black Jack. After a few miles I realized I was going to miss those girls. It was the first time that I had been around a family with so many children the same age as myself.

  We stopped at Grand Island to see a vaudeville show. A fellow named Eddie Foy was performing. Bill said he had quite a reputation as a comedian. There were singers, dancers, and some quite attractive women on the stage. Foy was entertaining but he had unusually odd mannerisms. I thought it was strange that any man would act so foolish in front of a crowd. Bill said Foy reminded him of a Negro comedian he had seen on a riverboat show in Missouri when he was about my age.

  I saw my first automobiles while in Grand Island. There were several Stanley Steamers and a Winton Flyer. I was especially impressed with a small white Buick parked in front of a hardware store. It was lac
ed with brass ornamentation and had black leather pleated seats as fine as the fanciest buggy. It even had a mirror mounted on the dashboard so a driver could see what was behind him. Bill’s only comment was that he couldn’t see why any man would purchase such an expensive extravagance. He figured he would have to sell everything he owned just to buy one of the silly contraptions.

  We also stopped at an implement dealership to look at a new Baldwin Brothers combine harvester.

  “Just think of it, Andy,” Bill said. “A fellow can do all of the jobs of a binder and steam thrashing machine with only one or two men. From standing crop to grain all in one operation.”

  I wasn’t nearly as impressed. All that meant was an end to thrashing crews and all the fun of being with all those guys. It would be just like Grandpa to buy one of those things so we could be isolated during harvest as well.

  That night, as we camped along the Platte River, Bill asked me if something was bothering me. I thought of all I had seen while I rubbed down Lightning and could only shake my head.

  Finally, Bill spoke. “It’s a big old world, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “A young fellow like you would probably like to see more of it, wouldn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got a good life with Grandpa and Grandma. I don’t know where I’d go if I had the chance.”

  “But?”

  I went to the campfire for a cup of his coffee. “It’s just that when you were younger than me, you had seen so much more of the world. You know…Texas, Indians, Missouri riverboat shows, girls and such. Grandpa and Grandma have seen things. About all I know about is the ranch, Seward, and St. John. That isn’t much.”