THE BRONC TWISTER STEPS UP
A cloud of dust was hanging on over the big corrals where Clint, the
bronc twister of the Rocking R outfit, was busy starting raw broncs
under the saddle and "twisted" 'em in shape for good saddle stock. It
was long, hot, and hard days for that cowboy as he wrestled with the
slick, fat, and snorty ponies and convinced 'em that they all could be
led, rode, and handled according to the way he seen fit; but Clint was
used to that, he'd been at it for years with nary a rest or relief from
the work that was beginning to tell on him.
He'd take ten broncs at a time and soon as he'd took the rough off them
ten he'd turn 'em over as broke and run in ten more raw, wild ponies.
Each green colt was rode every day if even only for half an hour, and
gradually learned to behave under the saddle. There was a few that
wouldn't learn to behave, but the Rocking R outfit had good men and all
them ponies was put in to their work whether they was good or bad.
Clint had been with the layout for near two years, and in that time
had broke to ride somewheres around eighty head of horses. He'd broke
many more for other outfits and never made an outlaw, if one did turn
outlaw once in a while it was because of that pony's natural instinct
to be that way, but Clint handled and rode 'em all just the same,--if a
perticular horse couldn't be learned it sure wasn't his fault and none
had better try to learn that same horse _anything_.
As has been said before, bronc fighting was beginning to tell on
Clint,--none of them ponies he'd broke had spared him, and instead
they'd called on for all that was in him. Many had tried to tear him
apart and scatter him in the dust of the big corrals; hoofs had come
like greased lightning and took hunks off his bat-wing chaps, teeth
had took a few shirts off his back, and as he'd climbed on one after
another of these wild, kinky ponies they most all tried to see if they
could move the heart of him from one side of his body to the other.
There was many times when he was layed up with dislocated shoulders,
ribs broke and legs the same. From the root of his hair to the toes in
his made to order boots there was signs, if not seen they was felt,
where some horse had twisted, broke, or shook something loose. Each
happening had come more or less separate, and healed some in time, but
as some kept a repeating off and on there was some parts of him which
never got strong again, and as time went on and as Clint said, "he was
beginning to feel loose like an old clock and figgered that some day
some bucking hunk of horseflesh would take the _tick_ out of him and
scatter him out so that none of the parts would never be found again."
Clint had started riding rough ones long before he quit growing and
that's the condition he was in at thirty, an old man, far as riding was
concerned. The horses of the same big outfit he'd rode for was worked
on the average of only four months in the year, and in them four months
the broke horses was rode only four or five hours once every three
days. That might show some of the difference in the work the cowboy and
the cowhorse does with a real cow outfit.--The men go to pieces young
and early and the ponies stay fat,--but there was no grudge for there's
nobody in the world likes to see and ride a fat strong horse more than
does the cowboy.
They'll keep the ponies fat and feeling good, and some of them horses
find it hard to behave and will try to jar loose the eye teeth of
their riders. The cowboy wants 'em that way tho',--it's a pride of
his to have a kinky horse under him that's feeling good rather than
some gentle old plug that's leg weary. That all gets him in time, but
there's a grin on his face when that time comes, a grin from the pride
of knowing that he never was seen on no horse that was against the
principle of a cowboy to ride.
Like with Clint, horses was the life of him. He loved 'em for all he
was worth and the greatest pleasure in the world for him was in just
being with a corral full of 'em, handling 'em and feeling of their
hides. The satisfaction he'd get out of seeing some four year old
colt learn the things he'd teach meant a heap more to him than the
wages he drawed for that work, and there was times as he'd be breaking
some right brainy gelding and watch the horse pick up fast on the
eddication he'd give him, when he'd feel real attached to the pony.
He'd hate to give him up when the time came for all half broke horses
to be turned over to the round up wagons and where more teaching in the
handling of the critter begin.
"I feel sort of married to them kind of ponies," he'd say, "and I sure
don't hanker to part with 'em just when we're beginning to get along
good together, but," he'd go on "I guess as long as I'll be breaking
horses this way I can't get too sensitive."
But Clint kept a being sensitive that way, and he never was happy when
he'd see riders coming in on him and then ride away hazing a bunch of
the broncs he'd "started." "Some day," he was heard to say once "I'm
going to meet a horse I'll really get married to, and then there'll be
things a popping."
Clint would have such a liking for some of them ponies that he'd forget
and didn't want to think that they belonged to the company and not to
him. He was just hired to break 'em. He'd reason that out often but
that reasoning never fazed the hankering he felt and that's how come
when he run in the mouse colored gelding he begin to do some tall
figgering.
He had a hunch when he first set eyes on that pony that he'd met the
horse which would start "things a popping" when any rider showed up to
claim all that's half broke. Clint had dreamed of such a horse as the
mouse colored gelding but he'd never expected to see one really living,
that pony had got holt of his heart strings from the start, and as he
watched thru the bars of the corral out to where the horse was picketed
he felt him to be the kind he'd steal if he couldn't buy, and if he
could neither steal nor buy he'd work for.
It'd been two days since he'd run him in and put him on the picket
rope outside the corral a ways, and in them two days Clint had been
mighty fearful lest somebody rode up on him, seen the horse and took
possession of him as private saddle stock for the superintendent or
some other what owned shares in the outfit and liked pretty horses that
way. Clint wanted that horse mighty bad and he was just leary something
would happen so he'd be took away from him, but as he'd reason some he
was less worried and he'd wind up by saying as he'd take another peek
towards the gelding. "They'd have to let me break him first, and before
anybody else gets him I'll sure make an outlaw out of that horse."
That was no way for Clint to feel maybe, but that's sure enough the way
he figgered on doing rather than lose the horse to anybody else;--that
feeling was past skin deep with him and that I think excuses him some.
In the two days that Clint'd had the horse up, there was no chance
passed where he could show his feelings and win that pony's
confidence,--if the picket rope tangled him up too much Clint was right
there to untangle him and each time the gelding fought less when he
came. That pony was gradually losing his fear of being et up or tore
apart by the human and pretty soon he felt as Clint came and went that
each visit from that crethure brought some comfort in a way.
It was on the second evening and when the day's work was all done
that Clint made his way from the bunk house to where the gelding was
picketed. He went up to within a rope's length of the horse, rolled a
smoke, and stood there watching him.
"Smoky," he says, "you're some horse"--Clint hadn't hardly realized
he'd spoke a name, he was too busy watching and admiring that pony's
every move, so as it was that name came unconscious like to the cowboy
and it was used and repeated from then on as natural as tho that name
had been thought and decided on.
He'd named many horses and had always let the name come to him either
by the color, size, or shape of each horse, and sometimes by the way
they acted. He'd called one tall rangy horse "Shorty" and another low
built small horse "Skyhigh." Often the name didn't at all fit the horse
in that way but there was some reason there, the same as there was a
mighty good reason to call the mouse colored gelding "Smoky."
He did look like a rounded shiny cloud of grey smoke, and as he held
his ground and watched the cowboy, he acted as tho he might live up to
his name and really go up in smoke,--his acquaintance with the human
hadn't been very long and he wasn't as yet any too confident.
Clint could tell as he watched just what was going on in that pony's
think tank, he could still see fear in his eyes, but mixed in with
that fear was a lot of nerve that showed fight. He knowed that pony
would fight and make himself hard to handle, and he'd of been mighty
disappointed not to've seen them signs in the horse. It was only
natural that any of his kind should act this way and he figgered the
wilder the spirit the bigger and more worth while would the winning
be.--He would take his time, do a good job and turn Smoky from a wild
raw bronc into a well broke and eddicated cowhorse.
He took a few steps closer and Smoky backed away to the end of the
rope,--he snorted when he found he couldn't back no further and pawed
at the rope as the cowboy kept a coming still closer and closer. Clint
took his time but came on steady and a talking the while till he
finally got within a couple of feet of the horse and where he could
touch him. Hanging on to the rope with the right hand he reached out
with the left and touched him easy between the eyes. Smoky flinched and
snorted but he stood it,--he stood it for quite a spell and felt the
hand rubbing on his forehead and working up and up towards his ears.
Clint had just about got to one of them ears when Smoky rubbed his nose
along the cowboy's sleeve, took a sniff, and then of a sudden nipped
him on the arm. That had happened to him before many a time and he'd
been ready for it with the result that the pony got only a piece of
shirt and no flesh.
"Now, don't be so daggoned ornery," says that cowboy as he kept a
rubbing the same as tho nothing had happened, "I only want to reach
between them ears and touch that knowledge bump of yours."
Finally he did reach the bump and rubbed around there a spell. Smoky
struck once, Clint dodged the front hoof and kept a rubbing. He rubbed
past the left ear and down his neck till the withers was reached, the
mane was worked on and all the knots in it untangled. The little horse
quivered and flinched every once in a while but the rubbing process
went on till Smoky begin showing symptoms that he could stand it all
easy enough.
In the meantime Clint talked to him like he'd never took time to talk
to another horse before, and if Smoky could of understood he'd knowed
by that talk just what was ahead for him; but Smoky wasn't thinking on
what was ahead,--the present had him worried enough as it was, and he
was kept busy watching every move that human was making.
Smoky had lost considerable wildness during the two days on the picket
rope. He'd learned there was no use in fighting the rope that held him,
that it was best to turn when he came to the end of it, and gradually
he was getting used to have that rope touch him here and there and he'd
quit kicking at it. He was more familiar with that than with the human
who put him there, but the rope done the trick of getting him used to
having anything touch him,--it kinda broke him to stand the touch of
the hand.
He was learning to stand that well enough too, but the movements of
that hand had to be just right, not too quick and no jabbing done or
there'd be a scattering of something mighty quick.
"I'm sure making a lot of fuss over you," says Clint as he rubs on past
the withers and along his back a ways. "If you was just an ordinary
bronc you'd be missing most of this attention and you'd be finding
yourself in the corral with me on top of you by tomorrow, and turned
in the 'Remuda' by another month, but I got a scheme up on account of
me liking you the way I do: I'm going to take my time and make you my
private top horse and when that's done I'll have every cowboy in the
country jealous of me for having such a horse as you're going to turn
out to be."
With Clint's scheming that way there was a good chance of him winning
out, and gradually, steady, the eddication of Smoky started in. That
cowboy called on for all he knowed in the profession of horse breaking
and used it all with a lot of time to shape out Smoky the way he wanted
him. No company time was used on the horse on account Clint felt it
wouldn't been doing the square thing "cause," as he says "it'll be bad
enough if I have to steal him."--Of course Clint wouldn't steal that
horse or no other one, but he felt like he'd sure do something out of
the ordinary rather than let Smoky go to any other rider.
Every evening after that last meal of the day was over, Clint would be
down in the creek bottom with Smoky. What went on there showed some of
what Clint really thought of the mouse colored gelding, and there was
no disappointed look on his face when dark made him return to the bunk
house.
Smoky had been on the picket rope about a week. In that time Clint had
kept his eye on him thru the day while working in the corral and spent
a couple of hours with him every evening. The little horse had got used
to the rope and wouldn't pay no attention to it no more, but as for the
cowboy he was just neutral, it was hard for him to shed off the fear of
the human and which he'd inherited,--that human was still a mighty big
mystery to him even after a week's acquaintance. It'd done him no harm
but his wild instinct kept a warning him to expect most anything. The
power that two legged crethure had over him kept him leary and watching
for the next move, whatever that would be--and that's why Smoky was
still neutral, his confidence for the human hadn't come to the top as
yet and not a move did that cowboy make which he didn't see.
"You sure got your eye on me, aint you, little horse?" Clint would say,
"but that's the way I want you to be," he'd go on, "for the more you
watch the more you'll see and the quicker you'll learn."
Smoky did watch and see and learn, and then one evening Clint untied
the long picket rope from the log and started leading him towards the
corral; the little horse was broke to lead by then and he followed easy
enough. His heart was a thumping in wonder of what was due to happen as
the cowboy led him thru the big pole gate, he stepped high and careful
and his eyes took in everything that looked suspicious,--a slicker
hanging over one side of the corral made him snort and try to pull
away. Clint talked to him, and kept on a leading him thru another gate
into another smaller and round corral. A big snubbing post stuck up in
the center of it and by that post was a big brown and shiny hunk of
leather. It was Clint's saddle.
* * * * *
"Well now, little horse, the performance is about to begin, you're
going to get your first smell of saddle leather." Clint had turned
as he spoke and begin rubbing on Smoky's forehead. For once since
Smoky had been caught his attention wasn't on the cowboy, that hunk of
leather was drawing all his interest and ears pointed straight at it,
eyes a shining, he snorted his suspicions and dislike for the looks of
the contraption that was laying there, waiting it seemed like to jump
at him and eat him alive.
"Look, snort, and paw at it all you want," says the cowboy. "You'll
get well acquainted with it before you get thru, and I wont rush the
acquaintance either."
Clint didn't. He kept Smoky to within a few feet of the saddle and
grinning some at the pony's actions kept a rubbing him back of the ears
while the investigation was going on. Smoky was for getting away from
there but Clint was persuading him to stick around close, and there was
nothing for him to do but just that.
A move from the direction of that saddle right then would of queered
things and made Smoky scatter, and Clint couldn't of held him either
for a ways, but the hunk of leather layed still, mighty still, and
pretty soon it kinda lost its dangerous look to the little horse,--he
begin looking around for other things in that corral which wouldn't be
to his liking and not seeing anything that was worth getting spooky at
Smoky begin watching the cowboy again.
It was about then that Clint reached over and picked up the saddle slow
and easy and drug it closer to Smoky. At the first move of the riggin'
the little horse snorted and backed away but Clint and the saddle kept
a coming straight towards him, slow but steady. One side of the high
corral finally was reached. Smoky had backed against it and couldn't go
no further. The cowboy, still hanging onto the rope that held his head,
came on, saddle and all with him, and quivering with fear the little
horse layed low. Feet straight out in front and head near to the ground
he stayed there, and got another and different eddication with the
saddle, this time it was dragging.
[Illustration: The cowboy still hanging onto the rope that held his
head, came on, saddle and all with him, and quivering with fear the
little horse layed low, feet straight out in front and head near to the
ground he stayed there.]
When Clint thought that had gone far enough and seen where Smoky had
got over the worst of his fear he layed the saddle down again, and
picking up an old saddle blanket he begin fanning the air with it,
closer and closer to Smoky came the blanket as the fanning motion
kept on, and stary eyed the little horse watched. He struck at it and
snorted a couple of times and he even tried to turn and kick, but the
blanket came on till finally one corner of it grazed his side. He
flinched and kicked and tried to jerk away but there was no dodging
that spooky looking thing.
Not a word was heard from the cowboy as the "sacking" went on, this
was a part of the eddication that was necessary and which should be
put thru mighty quiet. It was all a spooky enough performance to a raw
bronc without adding on any talking, and even tho the goings on scared
the pony near out of his hide, that blanket done the trick of showing
him that no matter how bad it looked it wasn't going to hurt him. It
was one mighty good thing to teach him general confidence in the cowboy
and his riggin'.
Smoky fought like a cornered wolf and tried to get away, but he had
no chance,--Clint had "sacked" many a bronc that'd fought as much and
the cigarette between his lips noticed no change of spells between
puffs. Smoky showed hate and fear of the human once again the same as
when he was first caught, his instinct had warned him to expect most
anything from that crethure, and he wasn't surprised at the way things
had turned;--but that didn't help any, he just wanted to sail clear
over the corral and disappear.
Thru all that fighting and goings on the sacking kept up in steady
motion. Wherever the long blanket touched Smoky he flinched, and kicked
at it and squealed. He was too scared to realize that there was no
sting or any kind of a hurt felt. It was just the looks of the thing
which had him going and his fighting instinct just had to answer every
swish of that thing that circled around a leg one time and his neck the
next.
Finally, and whether it was from being tired of fighting or that he
was dazed past caring of what was going on Smoky begin to let up; his
kicks begin to get less wicked and his eyes lost some of the fiery look
till came a time when he stood near still and he'd only flinch as the
blanket kept a touching, going away, and touching him here and there
and all over.
Clint noticing the little horse calming down remarked, "You'll get so
you'll like it pretty soon." But Smoky wasn't showing no such symptom
as yet, he was just standing it best as he could and that was all.
Both sides and all around Smoky went Clint with his blanket till the
little horse finally even quit flinching. The cowboy then dropped the
rope that was holding the horse and worked his blanket wilder than
ever, that blanket was layed everywhere on that pony's hide and around
his legs, he layed it on the ground and drug it under him and all Smoky
would do was to cock one ear and watch it, but he never moved. A half
an hour before such a play would of sent him straight up.
Clint worked on for a while longer till he was sure there wasn't a
spot on that pony that'd flinch at the feel of the blanket, then he
begin to notice that Smoky was finally getting so he kinda liked the
performance, no flies could touch him while that was going on, and that
blanket being pulled all over him that way seemed to kind of soothe
some.
It was about when Clint figgered he could do no more good in the way of
sacking that he picked up his saddle again and came straight towards
Smoky with it. The squeak of the riggin' brought some interest from the
horse, but Clint was careful to bring the old blanket with him and keep
a fanning the same as to let him know that one was no worse than the
other.
In the first saddling of most broncs Clint generally tied up one of
their hind legs so as to hinder 'em from kicking the saddle out of his
hands and at the same time learn 'em to stand still while that went
on;--a few of 'em he'd just hobble in front. And being that Smoky'd
had more teaching than the average colt generally gets before first
saddling, Clint figgered that just hobbling his front feet would do.
The sacking had helped a lot and Clint had no trouble fastening the
rawhide hobbles around Smoky's ankles, the pony snorted at him a
little but stood still, for Clint was waving that blanket around as
he worked. Once the hobbles was on he picked up his saddle and _eased_
it up and on that pony's back. Smoky had a hunch that something new
was going on, something different than the sacking performance which
he'd just went thru; but as nothing happened outside of the flapping of
stirrup leathers and cinches he stood in one spot, only a quiver in the
muscles along his shoulder showed how much alive he was, and how quick
he could leave the earth if anything "goosed" him.
Plenty of practice had made Clint past master at putting a saddle on
a green colt, nothing happened to make Smoky want to move out of his
tracks, and even when the cinch was reached for and drawed up under his
belly he never batted an eye. The sacking had all been a mighty fine
preliminary for all this that followed and cured the horse from scaring
at everything that flapped on or around him.
As it was Smoky hardly realized that he was saddled till Clint took the
hobbles off his front feet and pulled him to one side. At that pull he
felt something fastened to him and hanging on, that was a new kind of
feeling to Smoky and it kettled him, down went his head and he lit in
to bucking.
Clint had expected that, for no bronc likes the feel of the cinch no
matter how loose it might be, and when Smoky bogged his head that way
he was ready,--he let the hackamore rope slide thru his hands for a
ways and till he could get a good footing, then he give that rope a
little flip and set down on it. That done the trick and it come daggone
near upsetting the little horse, but Clint let out just enough slack
and that saved him. He didn't want to throw the horse but then he
didn't want to have that horse buck with an empty saddle either.
"Now Smoky," says that cowboy as the horse jerked to his senses, turned
and faced him, "I don't want you to waste any of your energy that way,
if you want to do any bucking you just wait till I get in the middle of
you."
Smoky waited, but it wasn't thru the talk the cowboy had handed him
that he did wait; it was that he remembered how that rope had upset him
that first day he was picketed to the log outside the corral, and he
wasn't hankering to be "busted" that way again.
* * * * *
There's folks that's read some on how horses are broke on the range,
and from that reading they get the idea that the cowboy breaks the
horses' spirit, that it's the only way a wild horse can be tamed. What
I've got to say on the subject if that's what's believed, is that
either them folks read something that's mighty wrong, or else they got
the wrong impression and misunderstood what they read, and breaking a
horse the way he's broke on the range is about the same on the animal
as schooling is to the human youngster. The spirit of the wild horse is
the same after years of riding as it was before he ever felt a rope,
and there's no human in the world wants to preserve that spirit in
the horse like the cowboy does;--he's the one what knows better than
anybody else that a horse with a broken spirit is no horse at all.
To them that _only_ sees a wild horse roped and rode and don't know the
insides of the game, horse breaking might seem a little rough; but I'm
here to say that it's not near as rough as it is necessary, and in the
long run it's the rider that gets treated the roughest. You let a wild
horse get away with something once and he'll try it again till there
will come a time when even if there's no meaness in him he'll develop
some. That's what makes outlaws.
Outlaws are made mostly when a horse proves too much for the man that
handles him. A wild horse will turn outlaw often if handled by any
other than them that knows his kind, and there'll be no way of breaking
him only thru starvation and abuse. His spirit would be broken then
too, and that proves that the cowboy, knowing his business, will see
that the pony's heart is kept intact.
There's a variety in horse minds as big as there is amongst human
minds. Some need more persuading than others, and a few of 'em, no
matter how firm they're handled will have to be showed again and again
that they can't get away with this or with that,--they'll keep on a
trying and if ever once they do put a bluff thru there's most generally
enough meaness in their system to make 'em plum worthless.
And like I was saying with Smoky, "he remembered how that rope had
upset him that first day he was picketed to that log outside the
corral, and he wasn't hankering to be 'busted' that way again."--That
little horse had brains. If he was convinced a few times he had the
sense to realize it, but at the same time, _he had_ to be showed, and
more because it was part of his necessary eddication than because of
any meaness of his.
He was willing to learn but the teaching had to come from one who
_could_ teach him. There was no meaness in Smoky, not an ounce of it,
he was honest clear thru, but meaness would develop if a slip was made.
He fought and bit and kicked but Smoky was a wild horse and he was
going only according to his instinct and more to protect himself from
the strange human.
That's the caliber of most range horses. Clint had handled many of 'em
and always won out with their confidence and turned 'em over as broke
with their spirit intact. He'd savvied Smoky the minute he dabbed his
rope on him that first time: that pony was wild, wild as a horse or any
animal can get, and he had the strength to go with it; but Clint seen
where that little horse also had a mighty fine set of brains between
them little pointed ears of his.
He treated him like a grown up would treat a kid, a kid of the kind
that'd learn a lot if the chance showed up, and he missed no chance to
show that pony all he should know and how good he wanted to be to him.
"Daggone it Smoky," he'd say, "it's too bad you can't know without I
have to use a lot of ropes, as it is sometimes. I bet you don't think
I'm a friend of yours, none at all."
Clint was right. At first Smoky had took him as an enemy and fought
him according; then had come a time when he was willing to trust him
some, specially when Clint had come and untangled him out of that long
picket rope, talked to him, and rubbed his ears. His heart had got over
thumping so much when he'd see the cowboy coming of evenings, and even
tho the little horse didn't realize it as yet, he'd got to expecting
him.
Then, and just about when his liking for the cowboy was coming to the
top fast, something happened that'd make him wonder for a spell if that
cowboy was a friend or still an enemy. The "sacking" he'd went thru in
the corral had sort of jarred the confidence that'd begin to sprout for
the bow-legged crethure, and then the way his head was jerked up out of
his bucking spell with the empty saddle, all had left him puzzled as
whether to start in and do some fighting or else be good and take his
medicine.
Smoky had no way of knowing as yet what was expected of him, and it was
a ticklish time for him. It was right then that he'd have to be handled
just right and when the turning point for the good or the bad would be
decided on. But Clint knowed how the turn to the good layed and it was
right there that he proceeded to bring it out.
There was only one way to it and that was for Clint to _show_ Smoky he
had to be good. The cowboy knowed Smoky had brains a plenty to realize
once he was showed, that he had to do just what he wanted him to do,
that of course would take a little time, the pony would fight some more
and _want_ to be showed, and to keep him from getting flustrated that
horse would have to have his own way, some.