Some More Horse Tradin' (26 page)

I asked him about buying some hay and he told me that
all last year's crop of hay had been fed up but there was about half a crib of corn in the barn. The weevils would eat it up before he would need it this fall and he thought it would be just the right thing to throw out in the troughs for my horses, shuck and all. That sounded good to me and tasted good to them.

By now it was night and the three of us went over to the best restaurant in town and ordered enough for us and several more people. Then the three of us ate all of it.

I unfurled my bedroll in the hall of the barn under the wagon and Choc slept in front of the corral gate on the outside just in case something might happen in the night and Old Friole always slept in the wagon. About the nicest sound that can put a cowboy to sleep at night is to hear a good horse that's rode hard all day grinding oats or corn. All the horses were tired and there was no fightin' going on and that ear corn made sweet music as I dozed off.

The next morning our horses were still drawn and showed lots of signs in their feet and legs from the drive on hard city streets the day before. Mr. Pace came to the barn pretty early and said he thought it would be good for the horses if we would stay a few days and feed them the rest of that corn, and this would also give him a chance to sell a few horses for me.

While we were talking, we walked around and he asked me questions about the different horses and how much money I would have to have for each individual that we looked at. I knew that he would expect to make some money on the deal for himself, so I added a little to the price to use for tradin' purposes and a little more to pay him for his time and efforts. He seemed to think I had most of the horses priced a little cheap, and when we came to the four Shetland ponies he said, “I've got people that've been cryin' for Shetlands to ride this summer. Hope you haven't bought these so high that they will be hard to sell.”

I said, “How high would that be, Mr. Pace?”

He said, “I believe they will bring $75 to $100 a head if you can stand to take that for 'em.”

I was laughin' inside and tryin' to keep it from showin' when I told him that I would try to stand it and for him to go ahead and sell 'em.

He and I agreed that these horses were drawn pretty bad from the Dallas trail drive and that it would be better for them to rest and fill up before we started showing them to his prospective buyers the next day.

The next morning he circled around town a little while and me and Choc caught the horses he had asked about the day before that he thought would suit his customers. We brushed and curried their manes and tails and cleaned them up as best we could and put nice halters on them and tied them up and down the hallway of the barn.

Pretty soon after dinner, Mr. Pace had a lot of lookers come that were interested in some kind of a horse. Me and Choc were busy during the afternoon saddlin' horses while Mr. Pace rared back on his walkin' cane, and with the aid of some strong spirits, he made some vigorous sales talks. I don't really know whether it was his salesmanship or that the people just wanted the horses, but we did a big day's business. By night he had sold all the Shetlands and four other young horses for cash and we hadn't taken anything in for trade.

I asked Mr. Pace that night what I owed him. He said, “You never have said what the horses cost, so I don't know how much money you're makin' and I'll leave it up to you to pay me what you can stand.”

Well, he hadn't been very timid pricin' those horses that day and everything had sold for as much or more than I had told him to get for them. I had done him the favor of eatin' up that corn that the weevils might get and used his barn, so I asked if I could square off with him for his services and the use of his barn for a hundred-dollar bill.

Hundred-dollar bills were scarce and Mr. Pace had been paid a hundred-dollar bill for one of the Shetlands. He laughed and said that smaller money would spend better, but that he would be well pleased with the amount, so we had a laugh and I paid him in smaller money and stuffed that hundred-dollar bill in the bottom of my saddlebag.

The next morning we pushed the gates open and Mr. Pace said, “Go ahead. I'll shut the gates when you're gone.”

Our horses had been in the corral on dry corn for two days and they were all ready to graze some green grass along the road and were givin' us no trouble drivin' down the highway. Friole's team was comin' along by themselves because Friole was takin' a siesta. This city horse drivin' had been keepin' him from gettin' his rest.

We let the horses drift as slow as they would and graze as much as they would and we weren't tryin' to make any particular place before dark. In the late afternoon we were in a river bottom and ahead of us high up on the hill was the town of Rockwall, the county seat of Rockwall County, the smallest county in the state.

All the land along the road was in farms and I had begun to watch for a fenced pasture where we might camp our horses overnight. The land along the highway and the rich black land delta wasn't even fenced on the road and farmers drove out to the end of the row and turned on the bank of the bar ditch so I knew that we were going to have trouble finding a camp ground to hold herd on that night. I told Choc to graze 'em on into town and I would ride on ahead and see if I could find a place for us that night.

Beauty hit a good, swinging foxtrot and I got away from the herd fast and rode in on the square and hitched her to a telephone pole. I walked over to a drugstore and went to inquirin' around for a place for my horses. The druggist and some other natives first thought that I was tryin' to find a place for me and my horse and suggested I could put my horse in the gin lot or somebody's backyard. It was a little
hard for a kid to convince these natives in a farm country that there was ninety-seven head of horses just over the ridge and comin' into this farming town. None of them knew anybody that had a town lot big enough to keep them overnight.

The more I inquired the less I found out, and a bowl of chili and two Cokes later, the horses began to top the ridge and the leads started trottin' on to the square. I got on Beauty and whistled and called to the herd and they started followin' me off the other side of the square. I hollered back at Choc when he came in sight that we might spend the night on the road. He knew what I said. He also knew what I meant—that we would find a camp somewhere. The highway wound out of town through the residences and made a curve to turn back east at a little creek just out of sight of the houses. Where the road turned, there was a big gate with high posts and an arch overhead that said
ROCKWALL CITY PARK
. Now this country town park didn't amount to much more than a see-saw, a swing, and a sandbox on the bank side of the creek near the gate.

It was nearly sundown and I could tell that there was a lot of tall grass on the back side of the park that looked to me like it had about twenty or twenty-five acres in it. I suddenly knew that this band of horses was bound to enjoy the good park facilities of Rockwall, so I dropped back down the highway below the gate and pointed them into the fresh creek water and tall grass. Friole was bringing up the tail of the herd with the camp wagon and he gave off a big smile. As he waved his sombrero at the trees and runnin' water he said,
“Muy buena, enoche.”

Friole drove the wagon to the back side of the park and made camp under some big trees by the creek. Me and Choc pushed the horses up on a high place in the back side of the park where the grass was good. By this time the herd drove good and would graze good from the standpoint that they would always be tired enough to graze and rest and wouldn't hunt ways to get away.

There wasn't any buyers or horse traders followed us into camp that night and we were back away from the road. After several days of people and highways and short night quarters, this was a real nice camp.

Friole had breakfast ready way before daylight. It had become our custom to carry a sack of oats in the back of the camp wagon that we always fed our saddle horses, so Choc and I fed the horses and let them eat while we ate.

We caught the mule team and harnessed and hooked them up while Friole broke camp and got ready to travel. By sunup we were a few miles away from Rockwall headin' on east toward Greenville when the high sheriff of Rockwall County drove past the herd, stopped, and got out of his car. I was ridin' wing on that side when he stopped me and asked, “Kid, where's the man that owns these horses?”

I said, “I own 'em.”

He looked at me pretty hard and said, “Kid, I'm talkin' business. I'm Earl Hall, the sheriff of Rockwall County, and I want to see the man that owns these horses.”

Well, I kind of would liked to have changed the story by that time, but I said, “Can't help whether you believe me or not. I own the horses.”

As the herd passed by us, you could see him sizin' up the horses and lookin' at Choc. As the wagon came up, he held his hand up for Friole to stop. He asked Friole if he owned the horses and Friole could see that big star on his chest, which scared off his United States vocabulary and in his fright he couldn't speak a word of English. The sheriff gave up on him and turned to me and said, “You owe a $25 fine for keepin' the horses in the Rockwall City Park last night.”

He could have said, “You owe a $25 pasture fee,” and I might not have thought anything about it, but that word fine had a bad sound to me. He was talkin' on and told me that if I couldn't pay it, he would put us all in jail. I said, “Well, I don't doubt but what the high sheriff of the smallest county in the state could put me and my cowboy and camp
cook in jail, and if you've already decided about doin' that, I guess we can just turn these horses back in the park and go to jail.”

He scratched his head and thought about that a few minutes and said, “Looks like you'd rather pay a fine.”

I said, “Looks like you would have a better place to put my horses if I'm goin' to jail.”

He kind of stomped the ground and said, “There aren't many people know about you stayin' in the park. Just don't come back.” He turned around and went to his car and drove off.

From Rockwall on, the farther east we moved these horses, the more commotion they caused and the bigger the herd got in the minds of the people that saw them. A hundred horses wouldn't amount to much in the West but a hundred in this farming country was a sight to see and people would run out to the road from their houses to count and watch them pass. During the day, several farmers would stop and ask if we had a certain kind of horse.

We were grazin' the horses along the railroad track and highway as we drifted through Caddo Mills and a schoolteacher came up to the camp wagon and said he wanted to trade a fine-spirited horse that was too much for him to ride for something gentler. Choc and I had ridden all the ranch horses that we had kept and there were three of them that could stand a lot of ridin' and weren't too old. The rest of these horses could stand about half a day's ride before they gave out, even though they were in good flesh and looked like good stout horses.

Well, the schoolteacher picked out a brown horse and asked if we would saddle him up and ride him to show he was gentle. Choc caught and saddled him, and, of course, he rode gentle and stood still for you to get on and had a lot of good qualities to recommend him as a schoolteacher's horse, including a few mossy grey hairs under his foretop and around his ears.

I rode over to his horse as he walked along by my horse to look at what he had to trade. His horse was a light dun in color and would be big and tall for a cowboy to mount and a heap taller than that for a schoolteacher to get on. He said that he was mean to rare up and that he had rather not try to ride him to show him to me.

This horse had a good six-year-old mouth and it looked like everything else was good about him but his disposition, so after a good deal of conversation I squeezed that schoolteacher from $15 boot and led the dun horse back to the wagon. The schoolteacher got the old brown horse and jumped on him bareback and rode home happy.

I turned the big horse loose with the rest of the herd and we began to push them toward Greenville. This herd of horses comin' down Lee Street, which is the main street of town, caused a lot of farmers and town people to stop and look and run out the front doors of their businesses to see the sight. Of course, I knew lots of people since I had ridden away from here just four years before, and I had a lot of wavin' and hollerin' and braggin' to do as we drove 'em on down and put 'em in the trade pens at the old Ingram Wagonyard.

The black-land natives gathered around these horses the next morning and we had some tradin' business. We traded the odd mule that we had besides our team for a good-lookin' high-headed saddle horse. I had a weakness for these high-headed saddle horses and I gave $25 boot. Old Friole said he was afraid the heat was affectin' me because all this time he had never seen me pay anybody else boot in a horse trade. Choc thought this was funny and Friole got a big kick out of hurrahin' me about “givin' away” money.

I traded a pair of matched five-year-old stocking-legged, bald-faced chestnut horses to Al Eiland, who was an old-time friend of mine and a very fine horseman. He traded me a nice fox-trottin' saddle mare even for the pair. She was “open in the corners,” which meant she was an eight-year-old, and
I felt like I had graduated to a top horse trader anytime I could cheat Mr. Eiland, and I knew for sure that I had cheated him.

The next day we turned out of the wagonyard and drove out on Johnson Street and out by the fairgrounds to where we hit the Lone Oak Road. Then I left Choc and Friole to drive the herd of horses on to Emory, which was about twenty-live miles and told them to trade for whatever they saw that they thought they would like.

I took Beauty and Charlie and led a good grey horse and went to Cumby, fifteen miles, where I left Beauty and Charlie in the old home pasture where Beauty was born. I spent the night at the old home place and next morning I left early and rode south through Miller Grove.