Dry Divide (18 page)

I let them rest a few minutes, went on a short ways, found a place where I could turn the wagons, and brought them back to the drop-off into the gulch. That time I did the driving, trying to do it just as I told Doc to at the start of our first try. When we reached the spot where we had stalled on the way up, I kicked the brakes loose, crowding the horses into a spanking trot before they reached the bottom of the gulch. The momentum was enough to give us a good start upward, but not enough to do the trick; the horses had to pull with all their strength to haul the loads to the top of the hill.

While we were resting the blowing team, I saw Bill's caravan coming, about half a mile away. I hadn't expected him quite so soon, and wanted Doc to make a run each way by himself, so turned the wagons and passed him the reins. That time, with a little coaching, he made his run just about as I had made mine—as fast as I dared let him learn to make it—and again his team had to strain to reach the top of the hill. He made his run back through the gulch in the same way, but by that time the caravan had arrived, and the drivers stood at the brink of the hilltop, watching the run.

With the afternoon fairly well spent, I wanted to get right on with the practice, but didn't want Doc to see a team put through that gulch at a dead run, so had him unhitch, change wagons with Gus, and go back to the Hudson place. I wasn't too much concerned about Old Bill and Paco, but I was a bit worried about Gus and Lars. They were slow, methodical workmen, and if they tried to put their light teams through that gulch too cautiously, they probably wouldn't do even as well as Doc had done on his first try. Besides, that gulch would probably be an awesome thing to men who were not used to hill or mountain country.

As Gus turned the wagons I climbed to the seat beside him, had him stop at the brink of the hill, and gave him exactly the same instructions I'd given Doc. I might as well have been whistling to the birds. He gathered the four lines between his bananalike fingers, planted a foot solidly on each brake pedal, and shouted, “Hud up!”

His little mustangs hudded. They hit their collars like four battering-rams, and we pitched down the hillside as if we'd been falling into a well. With the broncs almost flying, and with Gus shouting, “Yaa! Yaa! Yaa!” we tore through the bottom of the gulch and rocketed up the far side. The thrust was so great that I doubt the traces were even tightened till we were halfway up, then the teams dug their toes in and snaked us to the top as though the wagons had been practically empty.

I don't often lose my head completely, but I came awfully close to it that time. I hugged Gus around the neck, and told him he was the best driver I'd ever seen in my life.

“Aw, go 'vay,” he told me. “I do it yust like you do vit de load from town. Yimminy! Dat is fun!”

It might have been fun for him, but it was certainly a lifesaver for me and my hauling business. When he had made his run back in the same way, I wanted to dance and whoop. There was only one worry left in my mind; the run had been made with Doc's lightened loads. I hurried to my own team, unhobbled the leaders, and climbed to the seat. I knew well enough how risky it was to put my unmatched and untrained broncos down that hill on the fly, but I was so near flying myself that I didn't mind the risk.

If anything, I shouted encouragement louder than Gus, and my little leaders responded with every bit of the fire they'd inherited from old Kitten. They just about had to, or be run over by the wheelers, and by the time we reached the top of the hill every hoof was scrabbling like crazy, but we were still moving faster than a man could walk. When I stopped them for a breather and a pat on the shoulder, I wouldn't have traded any of them for Man o' War. With my lightest team swooping a four-ton load through that gulch as they had, my biggest worries were pretty well behind me.

Lars, Paco and Old Bill used the heavily loaded pair of wagons for their runs, and each of them did fully as well as Gus or I had. Bill made the last run, and when it was finished we shoveled off our loads of dirt, then turned homeward at a brisk trot. Maybe it was the jingling of the harness, or the rhythm of the trotting hoofs, but something made me feel as if I had to sing, even though I can't carry a tune very well, and the songs that came into my head were mostly war songs.

One by one, the others joined in, and it was a good thing that we were far out on the high divide, for Old Bill was the only one of us who could sing both the words and the tunes the way they were supposed to be sung. But we were loud enough to make up for whatever we lacked in pitch or pronunciation. As the wagons rolled briskly down the homestretch and into the yard, we were more shouting than singing, “
We'll KNOCK the heligo, INto heligo, OUT of Heligoland
.”

For some reason, that part of that song seemed to fit right in with what we were trying to do in the wheat hauling business and it sort of became our war song.

15

On Our Way to Heligoland

A
LTHOUGH
we hadn't yet hauled a single bushel of wheat, we had a celebration the evening we first ran the gulch. After supper Judy boiled a big saucepan of taffy, and as soon as it had cooled enough to handle, Mrs. Hudson, the children, and all the rest of us, buttered our hands and took turns pulling it. And as we pulled and snipped it into pieces with a pair of scissors, we sang all the old songs we could think of. Maybe the music wasn't very good, but the fun was.

Before we turned in Doc, Jaikus, and Paco filled feed sacks for the next day, while Gus, Lars, Old Bill, and I talked about the horses, and the runs we were going to make through the gulches. We all knew it would be dangerous business, but we all thought our little mustangs were sure-footed enough to make the risk reasonable. There would always be two big dangers: one that a horse would slip or stumble on the downhill run; the other that a wagon would stall on a steep uphill pull, that the brakes might not hold, and that it would run backwards, dragging the horses off their feet.

Although horses were seldom shod in that stoneless country, and though there was little possibility that any one of ours had even had its hoofs trimmed, we decided that it would be safest to shoe the whole string. Well-fitted shoes would make them lift their feet higher, cutting down the chance of a stumble. If made with calks, the shoes would eliminate any chance of slipping, and would give a team a much better chance of holding a stalled load until the wheels could be trigged. Then too, we were going to give our horses a tremendous amount of road work, and shoes would be the best insurance against lameness.

Monday morning Judy drove Gus to Oberlin for shoes, nails, and farrier's tools. Lars fired up the forge, and the rest of us harnessed for our first hauling job. It was from the De May place, only five miles from town, and the thrashing rig being used was rated at a thousand bushels a day. With the distance being so short, Bill and Paco could probably have handled the whole job, but I'd promised Doc that he should haul the first load, and I wanted Jaikus to get more experience in driving a team. I had him sweep the dirt out of the rigs we'd used for practicing, disconnect the trailer from one of them, and hitch the old mares to the front wagon. By the time he'd finished, Doc, Bill, and Paco were ready to go, so I saddled Kitten and led my little caravan off to the wars. I don't know how proud Napoleon might have been when he led his army forth to battle, but I'll bet I could have matched him. Old Kitten seemed to catch the spirit of the occasion, she bobbed her head, pranced, and side-stepped as we pulled out of the yard and onto the roadway.

Ever since the Fourth of July we'd been at work by sunup, and I was a little overanxious about getting started that morning. It couldn't have been later than six o'clock when we reached the De May place. The thrashing rig was in place, with the long conveyor wedged between two wheat stacks, and the longer drive belt stretched between the separator and the flywheel of the engine, but the fire under the boiler was still banked, and there was no one in sight. I had Doc set his lead wagon under the grain spout, then took Jaikus on to the long hill that we'd have to pull three miles before reaching town. With three rigs on the job, there was no need for the old mares in helping loaded rigs out of the field; that could be done by one of the other snap teams.

Even with the old mares and a single empty wagon, Jaikus nearly panicked when we reached the brink of the big gulch. He wanted to climb down, lead Kitten, and have me drive the wagon through. That would have completely ruined him for any use with horses. What he needed was to gain a little confidence, and that gulch was the best place for him to gain it. “No, you're going to do your own driving,” I told him. “Put your foot on the brake, and push it down just enough to keep the wagon from running down on the mares too hard. They've probably been through here a hundred times, so you won't have to worry much about driving them. Just hold them back enough to keep them out of a trot. I'll ride right beside you, to give you any help you need.”

Without a doubt, it took more courage for Jaikus to make his drive through the gulch than for any of the rest of us. All the way to the bottom he had his teeth clamped tighter than a clamshell, the reins hauled taut as a fiddle string, and his foot braced against the brake pedal so hard the team had to keep the traces tight. He didn't release the brake until they'd started up the far side, then leaned forward as though he were a jockey making his bid in the homestretch, fished at the reins as if he were trying to push with them, and kept shouting, “Git up! Git up!” at the top of his voice.

The old mares paid no more attention to Jaikus than if he hadn't been there, and walked through the gulch as if they'd been on their way to pasture, but Jaikus was elated when he reached the hilltop. “Fine job!” I told him. “A man that can drive through that gulch can drive anywhere. Next time, don't pull on the reins quite so hard. It doesn't help, and would make your horses' mouths sore.”

At the foot of the long grade I had Jaikus unhitch, slip the bits from the mares' mouths, and empty his sack of feed at the back of the wagon, so they could munch as they waited for loads to come along. There was no more need of Jaikus being there than there'd have been for a piano player, but he felt that he had a very important job. He assured me that I hadn't a worry in the whole blessed world, that he wouldn't let a single load get stuck on that hill.

By the time I got back to the De May place, the engineer had the fire under the boiler roaring, and was building up a head of steam. Right at seven o'clock the crew drove into the field in a couple of old flivvers. The pitchers shinned to the top of the stacks, and Grampa George Wilson climbed atop the thrashing separator. At a wave of his arm, the engineer opened the throttle, bit by bit, the flywheel began to turn slowly, the wide power belt moved like a long, thin stream of flowing syrup, a dozen or so pulleys, belts, and gears on the separator were set in motion, and the thrashing season had begun.

As the engineer opened the throttle wider, the pulleys, belts, and gears turned faster, the beaters in the maw fed by the conveyor set up a clattering din, the whole machine shimmied and shook—and our little mustangs went crazy. Doc and I were able to hold and quiet his team, but Bill's and Paco's stampeded. With any less skillful men at the reins, they would certainly have run away, but both drivers kept them in a wide circle until they had become used to the uproar and were willing to stand quietly.

When Doc's wagons were loaded, Paco hitched on his snap team to help pull the loads out of the field, and Old Bill drove his lead wagon under the grain spout. I rode beside Doc's wagons all the way to the elevator, not that I was afraid to trust him alone, but to be on hand if he had any trouble. He didn't have a particle, though I doubt that he could have pulled another five bushels out of the deep gulch. At the foot of the long grade, Jaikus hitched his mares on, pushed proudly on the reins as he walked beside them, and made the pull to the hilltop an easy one. At the steep pitch down to the valley, I had Doc set his brakes hard, and keep his horses at a walk. At the elevator they danced a bit when the trap was tilted and the loads dumped, but not enough that he couldn't have handled them alone.

With plenty of wagons, I held the loads down to fifty bushels each, then rode along with Old Bill and Paco on their first trips, but it wasn't necessary. Both went through the big gulch on the fly, took their loads down the pitch to the valley at a slow trot, and had no more trouble than was to be expected when the loads were dumped at the elevator. All there was for me to do was to introduce my men to the scaleman, and show them how to weigh their loads in and their empty wagons out.

As soon as Paco's wagons had been weighed out, I gave Kitten a free rein, and she took me back to the Hudson place at a steady lope. When I got there I found Gus and Lars with both hands full. Our little mustangs weren't in favor of being shod, and they weren't backward about making their feelings known. Lars' wheelers had already been shod when I rode into the yard, but his snap team showed no inclination to suffer any such indignity. Gus was trying to hold one of them by a twitch on its upper lip, while Lars had a hind leg cradled over his thigh, and was trying to trim the hoof. But even the pain of the twitch wasn't enough to keep that little bronc from fighting. Both men weighed well over two hundred pounds apiece, and the mustang no more than seven, but he was more than holding his own.

I'd just unsaddled Kitten and turned her into the corral when I heard a thump, and looked around to see the bronc struggling to get up from the ground. “Sit on his head, so he can't get up!” I called to Gus. “I'll be right there with a soft rope.”

When I was a kid on the ranches I'd learned to hog-tie calves for branding, and it seemed to me that might be the best way to shoe our mustangs. When a horse finds that a man has put him into a helpless position, particularly if his head is held down, he has too much intelligence to fight. Then too, if he isn't hurt while he's down, his fear drains away, though he may become panicked with fear while he has his legs under him.

With the bronc already down, it took only a minute to toss a loop around his forelegs, flip the slack around his hind pasterns, pull them together, and lash them tight. From there on the bronc was as easy to shoe as an old plow horse, but Gus and Lars had to hurry right along. It isn't good business to keep any horse, let alone a bronco, tied down too long.

We didn't try to shoe any of the other horses while standing. Either Gus or Lars could make up a set of shoes that would come close to fitting, simply from sizing up a standing horse's hoofs. I'd lead a horse out of the corral, they'd look him over and make up the shoes, then we'd throw and tie him. While I held his head down, they'd trim the hoofs, burn the hot shoes into place, douse them in cold water, and nail them on. Once in a while they had to reshape a shoe, but not very often.

As each horse was let up with his new shoes on, he'd take a few cautious steps, lifting each foot high—like a hen walking in mud. But he'd quickly become used to the added weight, and his gait would be only a little higher than when barefooted. I didn't put them back in the corral after they were shod, but tied each one to a wagon wheel, and brought him a forkful feed. Shoes on a mustang are like brass knuckles on a professional boxer, and if there are calks on the shoes they'll cut like cleavers. Until my broncs had been worked down for a few days, I couldn't risk another battle royal.

By trading horses around, we finished our shoeing at noon on Tuesday, just as Ted Harmon pulled his big thrashing rig onto the Hudson place. Right after dinner I sent Gus and Lars to haul from the De May place, and had Old Bill ride with each of them to be sure they would have no trouble on the steep pitch down to the valley, or in unloading and weighing at the elevator. Then, while Harmon and his crew readied their rig for an early start Wednesday morning, Judy drove me to make my final arrangements for going into full swing at the hauling business.

It was after dark before we sat down to supper that night, but we were as near ready as possible, and I'd hired one more wagon and driver than we should need, so as to give us a margin of safety. A load of horse feed had been piled by the roadside at the foot of both long upgrades, a double load hauled to the De May place, and Lars had an extra coupler ready for making a spare tandem rig from two of the hired wagons. I'd hired five teams of heavy horses, five wagons, and three drivers. One of the men was to bring his rig directly to the Hudson place at seven o'clock. The other two would stop to leave a tote team at the foot of the upgrades, then bring the spare wagons along to be used as part of a tandem rig.

When we'd finished eating, I said, “Let's go over the whole setup again, so we won't get crossed up any more than we can help. Doc, I'm going to put you in charge of the De May job. Don't try to haul more than fifty bushels to each wagon, and I don't believe you'll have a bit of trouble in making four trips a day. The rest of us will haul two double loads a day from here, and one from the De May place. I'll take one load in for you at 9:20, Paco will take his at 11:30, and Lars at 1:45. Then Bill will pick one up at four o'clock, and Gus will be along a few minutes after five. Tomorrow morning I'll start off with you, and bring along one of the hired rigs. From then on I'll haul the last two loads from here each day, letting the last one sit in the field over night, and hauling it before the thrashers start next morning. That will give me time in the middle of the day for whatever running around I have to do.

“We'll let the hired rigs take the first two loads thrashed here each morning, because they'll be the slowest on the roads. You'll take the next one, Bill, then Paco, and Gus, and Lars. By that time the hired teams will be back here to take a load apiece, and with the thrashing crew taking an hour for dinner, they won't have another double load ready to go before one-thirty. That will give Bill plenty of time to get back here, eat his dinner, and start the second go-round. To save mileage on the horses, we won't bring any of them to the corral at night, but feed and groom them at the rigs, haltering them to the front and back wheels, where they'll be far enough apart that they can't kick each other. On my last trip, I'll bring in the tote horses, leaving one team at the De May place and bringing the other here. In that way we'll have the hired teams free during the latter part of the afternoons, to take care of any tight spots we may run into.

“Judy, you'll be the busiest one in the crew. With thrashers here you'll have to give your sis a lot of help with the cooking, and you'll have to drive the wheels off the old Maxwell. No two of us will go to work, get done, or eat our dinners at the same time. You'll have to take us out to the rigs every morning, fetch each one his grub whenever he has time to eat in the middle of the day, and bring each one back here when he's finished with his last load. Besides that, it will be your job to keep us in fresh meat and groceries, and to be trouble shooter on the roads, so as to watch that we all stay on schedule. If this thing works, as tight as I've got it set up, we'll just about have to run on a timetable to keep pace with the two thrashing rigs. Let's turn in early, and be ready to knock the heligo out of the hauling business when morning comes.”