Little Britches (23 page)

I didn't have to say "Whoa" to the team. There was something in Father's voice that they understood as well as I did. He jumped off his wagon, waded right into the creek, and stood beside my front wheel. "If I ever see you abuse a horse again," he said, "I'll put you at a hard job and give you the same treatment. Now pass me those lines!"

What Father said hurt me so bad my throat felt as if I were trying to swallow a baseball, but it didn't scare me. It was his wading into the icy cold water that scared me. Whenever he got cold and wet at the same time, he always took a bad cold and would cough, sometimes, till there was blood on his handkerchief. I passed him the lines, but I was sure we were stuck so hard it would take another team to get us out. Father drew the reins tight, so both horses were even; then he clucked once, and the team set their shoulders and leaned into the collars.

It was beautiful to watch. At first the wagon didn't budge, but it looked as though Father were pushing on those lines instead of pulling, and it almost seemed that I could see his will passing through them to the horses. The muscles bunched out on their thighs until they quivered, and the wagon inched forward. With their feet planted deep in the sand, they kept it moving, moving, until they were stretched out like show horses in a stance. Then their two nigh hoofs moved forward as if they had both been lifted by the same brain. Step by slow step, the wagon moved through the deep sand and up the bank. As soon as we were on level ground Father passed me the lines and waded back to his own team without a word. I always loved him more after he scolded me than I did at any other time.

While Billy and Nig rested and got their wind, I watched Father come through the ford with Lady and Fanny. He had as heavy a load as I did, and my team was once and a half as big and strong as his. I couldn't see how he would ever get through the deep sand. At the brink of the far bank, he stopped them for just a minute. Then he drew up the lines, and said, "Hup!" quick and sharp. The light mares went down the bank with a rush, over the bar, through the ford, and up the bank. I watched their feet and they were in perfect time every step of the way. I got tears in my eyes, and when Father stopped his team to rest I wanted to go back and tell him I was sorry and would never abuse a horse again, but he waved for me to drive on.

I didn't feel a bit good, and as I came up to the grader Fred Aultland asked me what was the matter. I told him I had got stuck in the creek and Father had to wade in to get me out. Fred knew about Father's cough as well as I did, and he was boss of the road gang, so when Father drove up, Fred sent him right home to get on some dry clothes. When he had started, Fred yelled after him, "And tell Mame to give you a big slug of brandy." I don't know whether she did or not, but Father didn't get a cold that time.

That was the best winter we ever had. New Year's Eve, Mother got out her little red book and figured up all the money we had taken in during 1908. It was only fifty-four dollars and eighty-five cents, but there was never a time when we were hungry, or when we didn't have railroad ties enough to keep our fire going. Our cellar was full of bins and jars of vegetables and barrels of salt pork. Father had built a little smokehouse where we cured the hams and bacon and pork shoulders with corn cobs. So the bunkhouse rafters were hung with all the smoked meat we could eat till summer. And the floor was piled high with sacks of oats and beans. We even had a half bushel of popcorn.

It was a cold winter with only a little snow, and we didn't have much work to do, except to take care of the stock and saw ties for the fire. But the evenings were the best of all. Grace and Muriel and I would do our lessons as soon as we got home from school, so as to have all evening to play. We learned two plays that winter, but Grace and I usually had an argument over which one we'd do. She liked
The Merchant of Venice
best, because she was Portia; but I liked
Julius Caesar
best, because I was Julius and got killed at the Capitol. Mother had to take most of the long parts like Cassius, but Father was Mark Antony, and even Hal learned the lines for Metellus Cimber. If we weren't doing a play, Mother had us make cross-stitch chair covers while she read to us and Father popped corn or mended a harness.

Some evenings Carl Henry would bring Miss Wheeler over to play whist with Father and Mother. Three or four times, his friend, Doctor Browne, came with them. Those nights Mother let Grace and me sit up till nine o'clock, and Doctor Browne would play casino with us. He liked it better than whist, and we liked him a lot.

THE WEATHER was what Fred Aultland called "spotty" during the winter and spring of 1908-9. Where we lived, and through the mountains right west of us—up toward Evergreen in the Bear Creek watershed—there was only a little snow all winter, but just south of there, along the headwaters of the Platte River, the snowfall was heavy. That was why Bear Creek ran low all summer, while the Platte and Turkey Creek ran full.

In March we had a tornado. It came on a warm Sunday afternoon when Father and I were down by the creek. It looked like a big black balloon with its tail tied to the top of Mount Morrison. Father saw it first, and called, "Tornado!" Then he started running back toward the house. I ran after him as fast as I could go, but his legs were so much longer than mine that he beat me by five rods. That was the first time I noticed how much better he had got during the winter—he didn't even cough with all that running.

As he went past the house, he called, "Tornado!" to Mother, and kept right on to the barn. We turned all the stock loose and drove it out through the gate—past our barbed-wire fence. Then We propped poles against the house, tipped over the hayrack and wagons, and ran for the cellar. The first hard blast of wind hit us just as we got to the door, but in five minutes it was all over. When we came out, Father showed me where the twister had veered off to the north and cut a regular road up over Larson's hill—two miles straight across Bear Creek Valley from our place.

The second Saturday after that, Mother sent me to take a dress pattern over to Mrs. Larson. I rode Fanny, and went around by the West Denver road and through the ford. I should have come right home, but we didn't have much work to do that day, so I went to look along the tornado path. Father had told me some of the curious things twisters could do, like driving a wheat straw through a fence post without breaking it.

While I was poking around I heard a sound like thunder from way off toward the mountains. I looked up, and there was another big black cloud half hidden behind Mount Morrison. As I watched it, it lifted a little, seemed to draw itself into a tighter ball, and grew a lot blacker. I was sure it must have a tail on it, and that I could have seen it if the mountain hadn't been in the way.

At first I thought about going back to Larson's storm cellar, but I was afraid nobody at home had seen the storm coming, and that it might strike them before they could turn the stock loose and get to the cellar. I flung myself flat on Fanny's neck, slapped her with the line ends, and raced straight for the hillside going down to the creek. There was no time for going around by the ford, and I knew right where to hit the old cattle bridge in Cooly Lundy's pasture below our house.

The hillside was rough pasture land, covered with sagebrush, Spanish dagger, and cactus; and the rain had washed little gullies all through it. I knew better than to race Fanny down over it, but when I came in sight of the creek I noticed that it had risen nearly to the top of its banks. Then I realized there was a cloudburst coming instead of a tornado, and that the water might be over the bridge before we could get there. Fanny never did like to run downhill, but that day she seemed to know we were racing against the storm, and streaked down across the pasture, dodging sagebrush, leaping gullies, and sliding through shale rock. I had to clamp my knees tight and lie close to her neck to keep from being thrown.

When we hit the edge of the valley floor, Fanny took Lundy's irrigation ditch in a clean low jump, and tore out across the alfalfa field toward the cattle bridge. I don't think I reined her at all; she knew what I wanted to do as well as I did. Thunder seemed to be crashing all around us. I glanced up toward the mountains, but I couldn't see them. The black cloud was lying right against the ground, and between claps of thunder I could hear a roaring up the valley.

The creek was about half a mile from our house, and at that point it clung tight against the foot of a steep, brush-covered hill. A narrow trail led down to the old cattle bridge. As we raced toward it, I could see that the water was clear up to the bridge girders and that part of the bank had washed away, so there was a gap of two or three feet between us and the planking. I was afraid Fanny might not see it, and brought the line end down sharp against her rump to lift her over. While my arm was still in the air, the wind and rain hit us like the cracker of a bull whip.

Fanny jumped and sailed across the open strip of mad, swirling water. It was a long, high leap that carried us nearly to the middle of the span. Her nigh fore hoof thudded down against a half-rotten plank—and crashed through.

I didn't see her fall. I only saw her head go down, and then I was thrown toward the bank like a kitten flung by a dog. I missed the bridge and my arm ripped against the end of the planking as I fell head first into the muddy, rushing water. I couldn't swim, but I don't think it would have made a bit of difference. When my head came up I was five or six feet from the bank. I just caught a glimpse of it as I tried to suck in a mouthful of air, but I got mostly water, and the current rolled me over and took me under again. That time I scraped against a bush, grabbed hold, and hung on. I was lucky, because its roots were in the side of the bank and it swung me around like a picket rope. When my head came up again, I was under a big sage bush that leaned out over the water. I was choking so bad it made my arms weak, and I could hardly pull myself up out of the creek.

I should have thought about Fanny the first thing, but the choking made me sick at my stomach, and for a minute or two I couldn't think at all. Then she squealed. I never knew a sound could hurt like Fanny's squeal. I felt something had hold of me and was tearing me in two. When I hauled myself up through the sagebrush, I could see her muzzle and part of one twisted foreleg sticking above the water that was flowing over the bridge.

I guess I lost my head when I saw it. The current had washed me about sixty feet down the creek, so I scrambled along the bank to the bridge trail and ran toward Fanny. I didn't even stop to think that the water might have carried the planks away, but splashed out onto the bridge. Her leg was broken over sideways just below the knee, and her hoof was caught in the hole it had made. She was straining to hold her head above the water, and her eyes looked up at me as if she were begging me to help her. I don't think I ever planned what I did. I guess I just did it because I loved her. I jumped onto her head and clamped my legs around it. Her muzzle slipped off the end of the planks when I landed, and she struggled once or twice—then my head went under, too.

I only knew the water was turning me over and over. A couple of times my mouth came to the top and I tried to gasp in some air… Then Father's face was right above mine, and his hands were pumping up and down on my back. I was lying with my head downhill, and my face was turned to the side so I could see Father's. It was as gray as ashes.

I couldn't seem to make my body wake up when my head did, and Father's voice sounded a long way off. He kept asking me if I was all right I was, except that my lungs hurt, but 1 couldn't say so till after he'd taken me up. He was soaking wet and muddy from the creek, but he opened his shirt and held my chest close against him. As he climbed the trail, I looked back toward where the bridge had been. The water had risen another foot or two, and Fanny's neck and withers showed above it. The rawhide thong Two Dog had braided into her mane floated up and down on the current as though it were waving good-by to me. I think that was what made me cry. I tried to tell Father what had happened, but he had seen the last of it himself. From our house, he had seen me start down across Larson's hill as the storm was gathering, and had run for the creek to warn me back before it rose.

Mother made me stay in bed two or three days till she was sure my lungs were all right, and that my cuts weren't going to get infected. I had a couple of cracked ribs and a little fever, and Father brought Doctor Stone out, but he just gave me some pills and strapped me up. Then he told Mother again that I'd never get killed in an accident. By the time I got up, Father had buried Fanny. I rode Lady down there so I could see her grave, but I was glad I didn't see Fanny.

THE FLOOD washed out the dam at the head of our irrigation ditch and tore away most of the gates and locks. Father and all the other ranchers along the ditch had to work for a couple of weeks to fix up the damage. And then there came pretty near being another battle, and everybody had to go to court to find out how much of the cost they had to pay.

We drove Prince to school for a couple of weeks at the beginning of April. That was after my ribs got well enough so I could go back to school, and Father was using Lady for plowing. After that we had to walk, because Cousin Phil came out and got Prince. The gold panic ended about that time. Fred Aultland started hauling hay again, and Mother sold five pounds of butter for cash.

Mr. Welborn sent a man out from Denver to take care of his trees, and I hadn't been able to make a penny all spring. And I didn't know what I was going to do after school let out May first—I almost wished I were going to herd Mrs. Corcoran's cows again. It would be June before Fred's hay was ready to cut, and there wouldn't be much to do at home, except to weed Mother's garden. And, besides, I was lost without Fanny.

I was talking about it one noon at school, and somebody must have told Mr. Cooper. Anyway, he came over to our house that evening and said he'd heard I was hunting work for the summer. Father told him I was always hunting work anywhere except in Mother's garden, but he thought I'd find enough mischief to get into right at home.