John Fitzgerald GB 06 Return of (3 page)

I asked Tom how he felt about the Academy as we walked home from the swimming hole with-Frankie.

“I’m going to miss the good friends I made at the Jesuit Academy,” he said. “But when I think of how strict the Jesuit priests were, I thank my lucky stars I’m not going back.”

“Well,” I said, “you had better keep your nose clean around here or Papa will send you back.”

Tom seemed unconcerned. “With my great brain,” he said, “I’ll always be one step ahead of Papa and everybody else around here.”

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MONDAY MORNING Just a week before school was due to begin I went to Smith’s vacant lot with Tom and Frankie to play. We were surprised to see only one kid there. My friend Howard Kay came running to meet us with an excited look on his pumpkin face.

“I waited for you,” he shouted.

“Where are all the fellows?” Tom asked.

“At Parley’s place,” Howard said. “His father brought home three wild mares and a wild jackass last night Mr. Benson is going to break the mares this morning.”

Parley’s father was a wild animal bounty hunter. When-ever cattlemen and sheepmen began losing livestock to wild

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animals they sent for Mr. Benson. He hunted down wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and other wild animals that killed livestock. The ranchers paid him a bounty for each one he killed.

He had never bothered to capture wild horses before the 1890s. Thousands of wild horses roamed throughout the west during the 1800s, but it cost more to capture and break them than they were worth. But with the beginning of the Boer War the British government sent agents to the western states looking for horses to ship to South Africa. A sound animal broken to the saddle brought as much as forty dollars. This caused a shortage of work horses, roping horses, cutting horses, riding horses, and brood mares among the ranchers. Mr. Benson sold the wild stallions and mares he caught to the ranchers after breaking them. Us kids always hoped Mr. Benson would bring back mustangs because they were the hardest of all wild horses to break. They lived up to their Spanish name, which means “running wild.”

The Bensons lived just inside the town limits. They had a big barn and corral in back of their house with a pasture beyond. There were about twenty kids sitting on the log railing of the pasture fence when we arrived. The wild mares were running around in the pasture trying to find a way out. The wild jackass was standing in the middle of the pasture. He sure didn’t look wild to me. He looked as if he were asleep. He was a male which made him a Jackass. The female burro is called a jennet or a jenny. Mr. Benson’s big roan gelding, two pack mules, team of horses, and milk cow were grazing in the pasture not paying any attention to the wild mares or the jackass.

We climbed up on the fence and sat by Parley. He was wearing his coonskin cap that he would never take off

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outside unless he was about to go in swimming.

Tom stared at the burro. “Why did your father capture a wild jackass?” he asked.

“He didn’t capture him,” Parley said. “After Pa got the lead ropes on the three wild mares and started for home that jackass followed him. Pa reckons as how one of the mares could be his mate. The only way you get a mule is to breed a jackass to a horse mare.”

“I know that,” Tom said as if his great brain had been insulted. “How old is the jackass?”

“Pa figures about tour years old,” Parley answered.

“What is your father going to do with him?” Tom asked.

“He said I could have the jackass if I gentled him,” Parley said.

“I know how you break a horse,” Tom said. “But how do you gentle a jackass?”

“Same as a horse,” Parley said. “Pa says all I’ve got to do is ride him and break his spirit and prove I’m the boss. Then it will be easy to break him to pack saddle and harness.”

“You’ve got one of the best saddle ponies in town,” Tom said. “You sure aren’t going to be seen riding around on a dumb old jackass.”

“Shucks, no,” Parley said as he pushed his coonskin cap to the back of his head. “I’ll sell him to a prospector or a trapper after I gentle him.”

“When are you going to gentle him?” Tom asked.

“This afternoon,” Parley answered.

Mr. Benson came to the pasture. He was a clean-shaven man with skin as tanned as the leather chaps he was wearing. He was wearing California spurs with two-inch rowels,

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which he used when breaking horses. We watched him lasso one of the wild mares with a leather lariat-He led the mare to the corral with all us kids following him. Parley helped his father get a bridle and saddle on the mare. He ran for the fence as Mr. Benson mounted the mare. She stood still, trembling, for a few seconds and then began to buck. But no wild mare can buck like a wild stallion. She only bucked for about two or three minutes and then gave up. Mr. Ben-son rode the mare around the corral a few times and then rode her back to the pasture. The other two mares were just as easy to gentle, so easy that Mr. Benson apologized to us.

“Sorry, boys,” he said. “It wasn’t much of a show. But maybe next time I’ll get some wild stallions instead of mares.”

Parley told us his father was leaving right after lunch to take the three mares to Pete Gunderson’s ranch to sell and would stay at the ranch to do some bounty hunting.

“Don’t try to gentle that wild jackass until we get here,” Tom told Parley.

None of the kids went swimming that afternoon. We all went to watch Parley gentle the wild jackass. He had a halter on the burro in the corral when Tom, Frankie, and

I arrived.

“Help me get a bridle on Chalky,” Parley said to Tom.

“Chalky?” Tom asked. “I named him Chalky because he is the color of chalk

cliffs,” Parley said.

They tried to get a bridle on the jackass, but Chalky refused to open his mouth and take the bit. Then they tried Parley’s Morgan saddle on Chalky, but it was too big.

“I’ll ride him bareback with just the halter,” Parley said.

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Tom shook his head. “At least put a girth around him to hold on to,” he said—

They joined the girth from Parley’s saddle to an extra strong girth Mr. Benson used for breaking horses. Tom held Chalky by the halter and one ear while Parley put the girth around the burro and tightened it. Then Tom handed Parley the rein rope of the braided rope halter and ran to climb on the top railing of the corral fence.

Parley jumped on Chalky’s back holding the rein rope in his left hand and grabbing hold of the girth with his right hand. That wild Jackass began to buck as if he were a wild mustang. He pitched Parley off his back in about ten seconds. He continued to buck for a couple of minutes. Then he stopped and looked at Parley who had run for the pro-tection of the fence. And I’ll be a six-legged jackass myself if Chalky didn’t let go with a loud, “Hee haw,” as if he were giving Parley the raspberry.

Danny Forester cupped his hands to his mouth. “Some broncobuster,” he shouted. “Can’t even ride a little burro!”

Parley went back inside the corral. He picked up his coonskin cap that he’d lost when he was bucked off. He walked up to Chalky with a-determined look on his face, took the rein rope in his left hand, and grabbing the girth with his right hand, jumped on the jackass’s back.

“Ride ‘em, cowboy!” all of us kids watching began to yell.

We only got to yell, “Ride ‘em, cowboy!” for about fifteen seconds before that wild jackass pitched Parley off his back. Parley got up limping. Some of the kids began giving him the raspberry as he walked to the fence. Then all the kids began laughing as Chalky let go with another loud,

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“Hee haw.” Parley’s face turned red with embarrassment and anger.

“If you fellows think it’s so funny,” he said, “let me see you ride Chalky.”

There were no volunteers.

“Are you all scared of a little burro?” Parley asked.

That was enough to make Tom. Basil Kokovinis, Danny Forester, and Seth Smith try to ride the wild jackass. He bucked them all off his back quicker than he had Parley. And he gave each one of them a loud, “Hee haw,” after doing it, as if to let them know a dumb old jackass was smarter than a bunch of kids. We all sat on the corral fence staring at Chalky, who looked as if he were going to sleep. Finally Parley spoke.

“Pa says you have to ride them to break their spirit be-fore you can break them to pack saddle and harness,” he said. “Nobody can gentle that wild jackass. When Pa gets back I’m going to tell him to take Chalky back to Wild Horse Canyon and turn him loose.”

“Don’t give up so easy,” Tom said.

“Who wouldn’t give up?” Parley answered.

“I wouldn’t,” Tom said.

“Is that so?” Parley said. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give that jackass to anybody who can ride him before Pa gets back.”

Tom stared at Parley. “Do you really mean that?” he asked.

“Pa sure as heck ain’t going to let me keep a jackass that I can’t gentle and sell.” Parley answered. “And I know if I can’t ride him no kid in this town can ride him.”

Parley wasn’t boasting. Maybe he wasn’t a broncobuster, but he could ride a horse better than any of the fellows. And

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with his pony. Blaze, he had won the trick-riding contest for kids his age at the county fair three years in a row.

That evening after supper as the family sat in the parlor Tom was quiet. Finally he spoke.

“Papa,” he said, “how much is a male burro worth?” “Not much,” I said before Papa could answer. “Who

would want a dumb old jackass?”

Papa dropped the magazine he was reading. “The question was addressed to me.” he reprimanded me. “However, for your information, J.D., a burro is a lot smarter than a horse, as any prospector or trapper will tell you. If his load is too heavy, a burro will refuse to move until you lighten it. But a pack horse or mule will carry a load that he knows is too heavy for him. When a burro feels he has put in a day’s work he will stop working and there isn’t anything you can do to make him continue. But a horse will go on working until he drops from exhaustion if you make him. When the weather is hot a burro will slow down his pace and nothing can make him move any faster. But a horse will keep going at any pace you want him to go regardless of how hot it is.”

Papa then looked at Tom. “To get back to your question,” he said, “years ago during the gold and silver mining boom a burro was worth more than a horse because so many prospectors used them. But prospectors are few and far between today. I have noticed, however, that some trappers at the campgrounds prefer a burro to a pack mule or pack horse. But I doubt if you could get more than five dollars

for one. Why do you ask?”

“Parley Benson has a wild jackass his father brought home,” Tom said. “Parley said he would give the jackass to anybody who can ride him.”

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“I’m sure,” Papa said, “that if Parley Benson can’t ride that jackass you can’t.”

“Maybe my great brain can figure out a way to gentle that wild jackass,” Tom said.

“Well just make certain you do it honestly,” Papa said. “I don’t want any backsliding out of you.”

The next morning after chores Tom said he was going to talk to Mr. Blake who worked in Jerry Stout’s saddle and harness shop. Mr. Blake had been a wild horse wrangler until a horse he was breaking fell on him leaving him too crippled to ride horses again. Mamma wanted me to run an errand to the store so I didn’t go with Tom.

I was sitting on the back porch steps watching Frankie and Eddie Huddle play marbles when Tom returned.

“Why did you want to see Mr. Blake?” I asked as Tom sat down beside me.

“To find out if there was any other way to gentle a wild horse than trying to ride him,” Tom answered. “Mr. Blake said the quickest and easiest way was to ride the horse and let him know you were his master by breaking his spirit. But there are two other ways. He said there are some wild mustangs and stallions who are such good bucking broncos that nobody can ride them. The only way to break their spirit is to put the horse in a stall and tie him so he can’t buck. Then put heavy bags of dirt on the horse’s back and beat him until you break his spirit.”

“Boy, oh, boy,” I said, “you wouldn’t do that to a poor old jackass would you?”

“Of course not,” Tom said as if I’d insulted him. “I’ll use the third way and that is to make friends with the horse. Mr. Blake said if you let a wild horse know you are his friend

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and get him to like you, he will let you ride him without

bucking.”

“For my money,” I said, “that wild jackass is too dumb to know he has any spirit to be broken and too stupid to know what a friend is.”

“If my great brain can’t figure out. a way to make Chalky like me,” Tom said, “I’ll trade places with that jackass.”

“Mamma and Papa wouldn’t like it.” I said.

“Like what?” Tom asked.

“Having Chalky living in our house,” I said, “and you living in the Benson pasture.” I thought that was very funny

but Tom didn’t even smile.

“I’m going up to my loft in the barn,” he said. “and put my great brain to work on how to gentle Chalky.”

Tom’s great brain must have been working like sixty. He told me when he came down from the loft for lunch that he had a plan to gentle Chalky. He wouldn’t tell me what the plan was until after lunch. Then he got some cubes of sugar from the kitchen and put them in his pocket. Frankie and I followed him into the backyard. He pulled up a bunch of carrots from the vegetable garden and washed them oft under the hydrant. He laid them on the back porch to dry. Then he went into the house and got a brown paper bag.

“What’s the idea?” I asked when he came to the porch. “I want you and Frankie to go to Smith’s vacant lot and go swimming with the fellows as usual,” Tom said. “If they ask you where I am, tell them I’ll be a little late getting to the swimming hole this week. Tell them .Sweyn is leaving tomorrow to go back east to school and I have to start helping