Dry Divide (16 page)

Doc set so hot a pace that he kept the sweat pouring off the rest of us in order to keep up with him, but we rebuilt wheels a lot faster than I'd have believed we could. Though sweat streamed from them, Gus and Lars never seemed to hurry, but as fast as we had the new spokes and fellies cut and shaped for a wheel, they had the hub bands in place, and a smoking hot tire ready to be hammered on, then doused in the water tub and shrunk tight. When we quit for dinner, we had fourteen wheels, every one of them as strong and sturdy as stone, leaning against the barn. And by sunset there were fourteen more leaning against them.

Judy and the cultivating crew drove into the yard while Lars was banking his fire for the night, and they'd done fully as well as we had. The corn field was finished, and Judy had found enough fill-in jobs to plug nearly half the soft spots in our hauling schedule.

The whole crew, and even Mrs. Hudson and the children, were as happy as I about the way things were going for us. It was well after dark before we sat down to supper, and when we'd finished eating, no one seemed in any hurry to leave the table. We were all tired enough that it felt good just to sit there, resting our elbows on the table and listening to Jaikus tell stories of the old sod. He was right in the middle of one that had the children laughing when, through the open window, I noticed the headlights of a car coming along the roadway.

A few minutes later there was a knock, and Mrs. Hudson went to answer it. She stepped outside, and for several minutes I could hear the rumble of a man's voice. When she came back, she seemed a bit upset, and told me, “I'm sorry, Bud, after you workin' so hard to get ready and all, but Ted Harmon, he can't commence the thrashing till Wednesday mornin'. The injector on his engine boiler busted, and he had to send off to Denver for a new one.”

After pushing so hard to be ready by the first of the week, I was a bit disappointed, and more than a little worried about the note I'd signed. It was due on September 1st, and hauling jobs weren't paid for until they were finished. If the Hudson job took eighteen days, and wasn't started until August 13th, there wouldn't be much leeway for possible breakdowns. Then too, I couldn't be at all sure that Bones wouldn't try to squeeze me if he caught me in a tight corner. Even though I was worried, I didn't want to show it, so as soon as Mrs. Hudson had finished speaking, I said, “Good! That will give us plenty of time to get the teams lined out and put the wagons into tiptop shape.”

“You goin' to paint 'em and make 'em look pretty, Bud?” Martha called to me excitedly.

“I hadn't thought much about making them look pretty,” I told her, “but maybe we can do something about it now that we'll have some extra time. What color would you like to have them painted?”

Martha looked up the table at me as though she weren't quite sure she'd heard me right. “Color?” she said. “Guess you never seen a brand new wagon. They always have red wheels and green boxes, and bright yella lines on the sides—like little squares with the corner knocked off—and yella stripes on the wheels.”

“Well, we'll see what we can do about it,” I said. “That is, if you'll go to Oberlin with Judy in the morning, so you can pick us out the right shades of red, and green, and yellow.”

The thrashing machine owner's coming sort of broke up our visit at the table. Within half an hour we'd all turned in for the night, but we were up and on the job by sunrise. And by seven o'clock Judy and Marth were off for Oberlin, to buy paint, brushes, and a few other supplies we needed.

We didn't go back to work on the wheels that morning, but on other parts of the running gears and the bodies, so as to keep plenty of work ahead that Bill, Jaikus, and Paco could do. They bored holes and set bolts and rivets, while Gus made up the metal fittings for them, and Doc sawed stretchers, bolsters, axletrees, brake beams, and whatever new boards were needed for building the sides high enough to carry sixty-bushel loads. I laid flooring, and Lars started forging the coupling rigs and brake assemblies.

By ten o'clock Judy and Martha were back from town, and could hardly take time to change into overalls before they were out to ask where I wanted them to begin painting. Actually, I didn't want them to begin anywhere, because I didn't have much confidence in their artistry, and sticky paint around a job like that is worse than sand in axle grease. But they were so eager that I couldn't refuse them the fun, so opened the can of fire-red enamel, and told them they'd better start in on the wheels we'd finished.

There's an old saying that many hands make light work. I doubt that the number of hands lightened our work that day, but they certainly speeded it. When, at sundown, we knocked off for the day, three completed pairs of fire-red running gears stood in a row, and the finished bodies for them leaned against the side of the barn. The painting wasn't exactly professional looking, but a lot better than I would have expected of two girls, one of them barely an eight-year-old, and Michelangelo couldn't have been more proud of his masterpieces than they were of theirs.

Judy stood back, her head tilted to one side, looking at the gaudy running gears for a few minutes, then called me over to her. “Well, they're pretty all right,” she said, “but we might have picked out too bright of a red. It didn't look that light on the sample card, being inside the hardware store and all. I'm sure glad we didn't put none of it on the poles, or doubletrees, or neck yokes. Do you reckon it would look better if we was to put black on the hubs and fellies, and them iron couplers? Just so's to break up the red a little?”

It would have been all right with me if she'd wanted to paint them sky-blue, just so long as it would make her happy, so I told her, “That's exactly what they need, Judy. Then, if you paint the brake pedals and footrests black, our wagons will look as if they'd just rolled out of the factory.”

Of course, they wouldn't. No amount of paint could cover up the fact that every one of them was probably older than I, but they'd be solid and strong—and maybe there's no great sin in telling a harmless fib to make somebody you like happy.

When we'd first started rebuilding the wagons I'd planned that, as soon as the cultivating was finished, I'd put Old Bill and Paco to work matching up and training the teams. But with the thrashing put off for a couple of days, there was no rush about the horses, so we worked steadily on the wagons all day Saturday and until noon on Sunday. By that time they were ready for the road, the paint dry, and with enough yellow striping to keep Martha happy.

14

Yimminy! Dat Is Fun!

S
UNDAY
afternoon was our first playtime, and if a stranger had been watching he'd have thought a wild-west show was going on. Ever since I'd brought home the old saddle and the Manila rope, Paco had been as excited as a little kid waiting for Santa Claus. He'd waxed and polished the old saddle till it shone, picked out the bronc he wanted for his saddle horse, braided hondas into the ends of the Manila, and dragged it until he'd made perfect catch ropes for himself and me. He'd been practicing with a rope every spare minute he could find, but I hadn't dared let him use the saddle for fear it would sour him on helping with the wagons. And for the past week I hadn't had a chance to put a saddle on Kitten.

I didn't say anything about my plans until we'd finished dinner Sunday noon, then looked down the table and said, “Let's get our teams lined up and give them a little workout this afternoon. With that De May job starting in the morning, we'll need three rigs ready to roll, and both we and the horses ought to get in a little practice on cornering and the gulch runs. How about you fellows loading two rigs with about four tons of dirt while Paco and I bring the rest of the horses in from the pasture?”

When Paco heard his name and horses mentioned in the same sentence he jumped out of his chair as though there were a tack in it, and it took only a couple of words of Spanish to send him racing for our ropes and saddles. By the time I reached the corral gate he was there, pulling his rope from the saddle horn and building a loop in it. “Not so fast!” I told him. “Let me catch mine first. I don't want her excited.”

I went in quietly, with Kitten's bridle in my hand. As usual she started off for the back corner of the corral, keeping her head turned to watch me, but when I swung a bridle rein above my head she stopped and let me go to her. I slipped the bridle on, stroked her muzzle half a minute, led her out, and told Paco it was his turn.

Paco didn't go at it the way I had, and I think that half his anxiousness for the past few days had been to show me how handy he was with a catch rope. He went in fast, with his loop hanging from his right hand; the coil, bridle, and saddle hanging from his left. His coming into the corral so fast startled the horses and put them into a run, circling, one behind another like the horses on a merry-go-round. At the center of the ring Paco dropped his saddle, swung the loop backhanded, and only once around his head, whirled, and stood it like a rolling hoop in front of the bronc he'd had his eye on from the time he'd first seen it.

Before the mustang could set his feet he'd stepped through the hoop, and Paco had whirled back, closing the loop and hobbling the little bronco at the knees. With one quick jerk, he could have been busted flat on his side, but Paco didn't put him down. Keeping the rope just snug enough to hold the hobble tight, he let the bronc plunge to a stop, went quickly up the line hand-over-hand, flipped a loop around the hobble, and bent it into a half hitch. The whole operation had taken less than a minute, but the horse was as helpless as though he'd been anchored to the ground. In another minute Paco had slapped the saddle and bridle onto him, pulled the half hitch loose, and let the hobble fall to the ground.

I'd been so fascinated by Paco's performance that I hadn't even reached for my saddle, and Kitten had become excited enough by the running of the other horses that she was bobbing her head and dancing. I called to Paco again, telling him to stay where he was until I'd saddled and mounted. Though Kitten was still dancing, she didn't rear when I stepped into the saddle, but sidled around to let me open the gate for Paco. And then the fun began.

Paco had barely hit the saddle before his bronc bogged its head and busted wide open. It was six feet off the ground when it left the corral, and Paco was fanning it with his sombrero as though he were trying to start a fire. He did. Right under me. Old Kitten forgot all about her age, and joined in the fun. She never once reared high with me, or showed any inclination to go over backwards, but she durned near shook every tooth in my head loose. I don't suppose the show lasted more than twenty seconds, but those two little mustangs sure made leather pop for those few seconds, then quit as suddenly as they had begun. I think they'd had as much fun as Paco and I, and once they'd worked off their steam they handled as if they'd been ridden every day. We let them race the length of the pasture lane, then pulled them to a jog.

Again the horses were in the big gulch, but during harvest they'd lost their fear of the corral, and had learned to expect grain there. The old mares started for the lane at a trot as soon as we'd moved the herd out of the gulch, and the others followed. They gave us no trouble when we held them in the lane to cut back the colts, or when we took them across the yard and turned them into the corral. Then the lid blew off. Putting those two bunches of ornery little mustangs together was like dropping a lighted match into gunpowder. Within less than two seconds heels were flying like corn in a popper, teeth were raking, and chunks of hide and hair sailed through the air like birds.

“All hands bring halters and bridles!” I shouted, at the same time slipping the horn thong, and shaking a loop into my catch rope. “Doc, tend the gate while we snake some of them out of there!”

Paco earned a whole summer's pay in the next few minutes. Without him, I could have had half my horses laid up until the hauling season was all over—and Bones would have had every reason to foreclose on my note. Old Bill earned at least a month's pay, too.

Without missing a single throw, Paco dropped his loop over the neck of one fighting-wild mustang after another, snubbed it tight to his saddle horn, and dragged it, pitching and kicking, to the nearest wagon wheel. There Old Bill would grab an ear, and hold the head down until Gus or Lars could buckle a halter onto it. I snaked out a few myself, but I'll bet Paco got two for every one I did. I've known a lot of men who were good with a catch rope, but never one who could come anywhere close to that Mexican boy. Only Jaikus seemed helpless. He was so afraid of the plunging broncos that he froze in his tracks, and I believe he'd have stood right there if we'd tied one of them to him.

The whole unscrambling couldn't have taken more than eight or ten minutes, and we got the meanest broncs out first, so no great damage had been done, but when the show was over I could have been wrung out for a dishrag. I hadn't been frightened when the fight was going on, but as soon as it was over my nerves let go, and I sat on old Kitten trembling like a wet dog in January. Even my voice was trembling when I called, “Let's let 'em cool down awhile, and catch ourselves a breather.”

That was when Judy proved herself to be a top hand. She hadn't lost her head, as most girls would have, but she must have dumped half a pound of coffee into the pot when she set it over the fire. We'd barely lined up, sitting on the ground with our knees up and our backs against the corral gate, when she came running with the pot and a couple of tin dippers. That coffee was strong enough to have held a spoon straight up, but I never drank any that tasted better.

So much had happened since dinner that it seemed to me it must be nearly time for supper, and as I drank my coffee I was surprised to notice that my shadow was only a foot long. We sat there for maybe fifteen minutes, both to let the horses quiet down, and because I had to make some changes in my plans. Right from the beginning, I'd planned that, with six rigs and six men in the crew, I wouldn't do any driving—not unless someone was laid up for a day, or something of that kind. I'd keep myself loose, so I could watch to see that we ran on schedule, lend a hand where it might be needed, and be free to make arrangements for our moves from one job to another.

Jaikus had knocked that idea into a pile of kindling wood. In that few minutes we'd been in the tangle, he'd proved that he could never handle a four-horse hitch of mustangs. I had to make up my mind whether to pay him off and replace him with a good driver, or to tie myself to a wagon seat. Maybe it was his old-sod stories, or remembering that he'd been just as quick as any one of the others in telling me I could use the money I owed him, but I found myself thinking that I'd as soon give up the whole business as let him go. Even little Billy could have driven the old mares, so I'd take a wagon and let Jaikus take the mares for his team. He could help us out of the fields with them, and move wagons away from the machine as they were filled.

I was sure the others already knew how useless Jaikus would be to us, and there was no doubt about his knowing it. He didn't take any coffee, and he didn't tell any stories, but sat looking down at the ground between his feet. I waited until the coffee pot was empty, then looked down the line, and said, “Jaikus, will you harness up the bay mares? I'm counting on you to get us out of tight spots with them whenever we get stuck, and I want to find out if they're stout enough to pull one of these double rigs when it's loaded.”

Those old mares could have pulled twice as heavy a load there on the rock-hard yard, but I thought it would save Jaikus' pride a bit if he were the first to drive one of the new rigs—and no man can be blamed for being afraid of something he knows nothing about. Jaikus scrambled to his feet before I was through speaking, and hurried away toward the barn, giving the mustangs a wide berth, and calling back, “That I'll do, Bud. It's the both of 'em I'll have harnessed up in a jiffy.”

We hadn't taken the old mares out of the corral, or the half dozen other horses that had stayed clear of the battle. Among them was the team Doc had driven the first day of harvest. Next to Jaikus, Doc was the one in whom I had the least confidence as a driver. There were two reasons for it. The first, of course, was that any man who gets into the tanglefoot twice is pretty apt to do it again, no matter how many promises he makes. Secondly, though Doc had been brought up around horses, and though his hands were skillful with tools, they lacked the delicate touch on the reins that was in Old Bill's and Paco's hands.

With high-strung mustangs such as most of mine were, and with the way I planned to run them through gulches, that touch on the reins meant everything. For, in driving a four-horse hitch on the run, the reins are the driver's only means of communicating his will to his horses. The reins, alone, must take the combined place of steering wheel, brakes, and accelerator in a racing car. If the driver's touch is light but positive, a high-strung and intelligent team will respond as accurately as a well-built automobile, but if his hands are heavy, lax, or unsure, his team quickly loses confidence in him, and he's apt to run off the road—always at the most dangerous place. If one of my drivers should have such an accident, with the roads we'd have to travel, he'd probably kill himself and his horses, as well as wrecking the wagons and losing a $250 load of wheat. Then too, a drunk at the end of a pair of reins is fully as dangerous as a drunk behind a steering wheel.

The only reasonably safe thing I could do was to give Doc horses that were steady enough, and level-headed enough, to keep clear of trouble without too much help from him—and the battle in the corral had shown me which ones they were. As soon as Jaikus started off to the barn I got up, called Doc to me, and asked, “Why don't you take that team you drove the first day of harvest for your wheelers? They're heavy enough to hold back a fair sized load on a hill, and it seemed to me they liked the way you handled them. That pair of bays, standing together way over there in the corner, might make you a good snap team. The man I bought them from said he'd used them as leaders on a four-horse hitch, and that they were right good in cornering. I'm going to depend on you for hauling the first load, so I want you to have first choice of teams. Now, if those don't suit you, you pick any teams you'd like.”

Doc had always been wary of flying heels, so I knew I was pretty safe in my last offer. He never looked toward the wagons, where the high-strung bunch were tied up, but tried to act as though he were giving each horse in the corral careful study. He walked from one end of the gate to the other a couple of times, turning his head as if he were weighing the good and bad points of each horse, then said, “I reckon those four will do all right, Bud. How about it; you want me to harness 'em now?”

I didn't have too much worry about Gus and Lars. As blacksmiths, they must have shod hundreds of horses, and probably some pretty ornery ones. Then too, I'd seen enough in the past month to know they both had the knack of transmitting their own calmness to a horse. Besides, I was sure that, if given their choice, they'd choose the more sensible among the mustangs, that Paco would pick the wildest, and that Old Bill would want those with the most get-up-and-go.

As soon as Doc had gone for his harness, I told the others, “Let's get the rest of these wild cayuses lined up in pairs. Each of you pick the team he wants for his wheelers, and tie them up to the back wheel of a wagon. Then pick your snap team, and tie it to the front wheel. I want you all to have as much choice as I can give you, but I may have to do some switching around to balance the pulling power.”