“’Tain’t the girl that counts, and ’tain’t the dancin’. It’s more like keepin’ time with the fiddler. Lose track of it and you’re a goner; stay with it and you can’t go wrong—leastwise, not less’n you go to watchin’ your own feet. Now you go back and fetch out that little Jersey’s calf. He won’t give you much trouble.”
Mrs. Hazlett’s calf didn’t give me much trouble, and none of the other cows or calves gave me as much as I expected. Except for making up my mind and sticking to it, I wasn’t sure I was doing anything different from what I’d done before Mr. Bendt talked to me. But right from that time Clay began to understand which animal I wanted. And there was something to that “keeping time with the fiddler.” Of course, there wasn’t any music, and there wasn’t any measured time to Clay’s moves, but, once I’d found it, there was a rhythm my body would follow if I let it go loose enough. I still slipped around in the saddle a good deal, but only when I lost the rhythm and tried to guess what Clay was going to do next.
When I brought up the last cow, Mr. Bendt called out, “That’ll do it, boys! That’s enough for today! We’ll work the rest of ’em off piecemeal during the week.” Then he rode up beside me and said, real quietly, “Betcha my life you’ll ride him! Betcha my life! ‘Tain’t somethin’ you’ll learn in an hour or a day—nothin’ worth while gets learnt easy—but you’re commencin’ to get the hang of him, and that’s what you’re goin’ to have to do. He’s older’n what you are, and he knows more about cow critters. He ain’t goin’ to learn new ways from you; you got to learn ’em from him.”
“Yes, sir, I know it now,” I said, “but I’ve still got an awful lot of things to learn.”
“Betcha my life! But you got lots o’ years to learn ’em in. Don’t go rarin’ at ’em like as if tomorrow’d be the day o’ jedgment! Reckon we’d best to get unsaddled and washed up for dinner; the folks’ll be gettin’ home from church directly.”
14
Dirty—Squealin’—Pig!
JENNY had a fine dinner ready when Mrs. Bendt and the children came home from church, but Hazel would hardly give me a chance to eat it. She took my plates away before I’d had seconds, and kept making signs for me to hurry.
I was still hungry when I left the table, and a little grumpy when I went out to saddle Pinch and Pinto. Before I’d been at the corrals ten minutes, Hazel came running from the house. She’d changed into overalls and blue shirt, and yapped at me, “What’s the matter with you? You’re slower’n a blind mule! How can I learn stunt tricks if you’re goin’ to spend all day gettin’ saddled up?”
“If you don’t let me finish my dinners you’ll never learn!” I yapped back. “How do you think I’ll ever gain any weight if you grab my plates away before I’m half full?”
“Jiggers!” she said, “I didn’t think about that! Want I should run an’ fetch you a hunk o’ meat?”
“No,” I told her, “but I rode all morning, and could have eaten twice as much.”
“Hmfff! Practicin’ when I had to go to Sunday School!”
“Yes, on Clay, and I didn’t do very well.”
“Nobody never does, but Paw!”
“Then why did you tell me to pick him?” I snapped.
“Oh, just because . . .” Hazel smirked. Then she flared at me, “Don’t be fiddlin’ with them cinches all day! It’s close onto three o’clock a’ready.”
We’d cantered half a mile up the trail when Hazel looked back, and called, “What did you do to Pinto’s fore hoofs? He’s dog-hoppin’ like they was burnt.”
“Nothing,” I said, “but your father filed them down so we wouldn’t sprain his knees while we’re practicing.”
Hazel whirled Pinto around fast enough to nearly throw him. Her face was so white under the freckles that it looked like a turkey’s egg, and her eyes were squinnied half shut. Then she spit out—as if she wanted each word to hit me right in the face, “You—dirty—squealin’—pig!”
I’d expected Hazel to be mad, but not that mad, and hurried to say, “I guess you don’t know your father very well! If you did, you wouldn’t have tried to fool him about magpies this morning. He knew you were making that up, and he knew what we were doing out there yesterday just as well as we did. Do you think I’m crazy enough to lie to a man like that when he asks me questions?”
The color came back under Hazel’s freckles, and she looked more worried than mad. “What did he say?” she asked.
After her calling me a squealing pig, I wanted to keep her worried for a while, so I said, “That I should have filed Lady’s hoofs down before I took a chance on ruining her.”
“No, I mean about us.”
“Well, he said to tell you to be careful about putting Pinto into quick stops or you’d get shaken up.”
“Don’t beat about the bush!” she snapped. “What did he say about learnin’ me trick stunts?”
“Well, he said I couldn’t show you the somersault . . .” then I waited a minute, and added, “. . . out in the brush, but I can teach it to you at the corrals when he or one of the other men is around.”
I’d expected Hazel to get excited when I finally told her, but she hung her head, and her voice was almost a whisper. “And I said you was a dirty, squealin’ pig.” Then she looked up, and said, “But I take it back . . . Ralph. And I’m glad I can, ’cause I hate a squealer worse than anything else in the whole world.”
“Worse than a weasel?” I asked her.
“Well, a weasel’s a sneak, and so is a squealer, and I hate sneaks.”
“Wouldn’t it have been a little bit sneaky to let your father think we were going after a magpie when we were coming out here to practice?” I asked.
“Well . . . yes,” she said slowly, “I s’pose it would.” She seemed to be thinking about it for half a minute. “. . . and sometimes I hate my own self,” she added. Then she spurred Pinto, and raced on down the trail.
Hazel led the way to the valley where we’d practiced the day before, but I wasn’t happy as I followed her. When we’d talked about my showing her the somersault trick, I’d only worried for fear I’d bobble it, but, after talking to her father, it scared me. If everything worked just right, the trick wasn’t too dangerous, but there were a lot of ways for it to go wrong. Hazel could land on her head and break her neck, she could get caught in the saddle gear and be thrown under the horse’s feet, or she could leave the saddle too soon and be trampled if he failed to stop.
I’d first learned to do the trick by myself—just from watching Hi Beckman do it once—but I’d taken some pretty bad spills in learning. Some of the worst ones were because I didn’t have the horse trained well enough, but most of them were because I got scared and let my muscles tighten up at the last moment before I left the saddle. If that happened, I didn’t duck my head and shoulders enough to spin all the way over, or my knees grabbed the saddle and kept me from being thrown clear.
I’d done the trick at least a hundred times when I’d landed on my feet, and probably a thousand times when I hadn’t, but I’d never practiced without doing the somersault. As I rode along behind Hazel, I began to think that maybe the trick could be learned without somersaulting. I couldn’t teach her anything while she was spinning in the air. There was no time for thinking while I was doing it myself; the thinking had to be done before I left the saddle.
That was why I’d somersaulted when the pheasant flew up in front of Pinch. I’d been thinking about the trick, and when I was thrown hard and loose enough, my muscles did the right things all by themselves. It seemed to me that I could teach Hazel most of the trick without her ever leaving the saddle. If I could, it wouldn’t be very dangerous, and would save her a lot of bad spills.
As soon as we reached the valley we began running the horses and stopping them short. Pinto reared and plunged on the first few stops, but Hazel knew how to handle him, and stuck to the saddle as tight as a bur. When he’d settled down, she snapped, “This ain’t learnin’ ’em nothin’ ne
w! I thought we come out here to learn ’em trick stunts!”
“We did,” I told her, “but before we start, there are some things you ought to know about it. It’s a real dangerous trick. I nearly broke my neck fifty times before I learned it, but I think I’ve figured out a way for you to learn without getting hurt. Everything depends on the moment before you leave the saddle. If you and Pinto can learn to get up to that very moment just right, the worst thing that could happen to you would be to land sitting down, but if . . .”
“I ain’t scairt about the worst thing that could happen to me!” Hazel cut in sharply. “I’ve tumbled off a horse a million times. All I want is to be showed the somerset trick.”
“Then you’ll have to get somebody else to show you,” I told her. “I never will until I’m pretty sure you can do it without getting hurt.”
Hazel’s voice wasn’t sharp any more, and she said, “I’m sorry, Ralph. Go on and tell me.”
“Well,” I said, “the only thing that makes the trick work is being thrown out of the saddle so hard you’ll stay in the air long enough to somersault all the way over. Everybody thinks the hardest part is spinning over and landing on your feet, but it isn’t. The hardest part is learning to stay loose in the saddle right through the stop.”
“Hmfff! If that’s all there is to it, I betcha my life I can do it after two tries!” Hazel told me. “But it’ll prob’ly take me a whole week to learn Pinto his part. Reckon I can be doin’ the somerset by the time Batch gets back from the trip he’s on?”
“No, not for at least two months,” I told her. “I practiced a whole summer before I ever landed square on my feet.”
Hazel pinched her mouth up tight, then she said, “Betcha my life it don’t take me no two months, nor one, neither! But if we don’t quit fiddlin’ around and get to practicin’, I’ll never get Pinto learnt.”
“Well,” I said, “we’ll have to start off real easy till we find out how hard we’ll bump against the pommels when we stop. I’ll do the hissing, and the only thing you’ll have to remember is to stay loose in the saddle.”
Hazel didn’t answer, but pulled Pinto around to face the little valley. Her lips were pinched together, and she had a tight hold of the reins.
“You’ll never do it tightened up like that!” I told her. “You’ll have to slump loose in the saddle!”
“I ain’t tightened up! Quit killin’ time!” she snapped.
I started the horses away at a slow rocking canter. Then, before they’d gone a dozen lengths, I hissed. Pinch stopped as if he’d run into a wall, and, even at that slow gait, I slammed hard against the pommel of my saddle.
Pinto didn’t do quite so well, but Hazel braced her feet in the stirrups and threw her shoulders back. She knew what she’d done, and as she turned him back, she spluttered, “How’s anybody goin’ to stay loose and haul in an ornery critter like this one?”
“Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t stop too quick,” I told her, “because I’m not a bit sure my idea is going to work. I bumped pretty hard against the pommel.”
“Hmfff!” she sniffed. “You don’t look bad hurt to me!”
“I’m not,” I said, “but we weren’t going half fast enough to do the trick. If we had been, I’d have hit the pommel hard enough to break a girl in two.”
“What do you think girls are made of; glass?” she yapped. “Betcha my life I don’t get busted up no quicker’n you do!”
“All right,” I told her. “I guess you’ll have to find out for yourself.”
I didn’t have a chance to get the horses away easily on the next run. The moment we turned, Hazel yiped and started them off at a gallop. I didn’t dare let them pick up any more speed, so I hissed before they’d gone four lengths. Hazel shot forward in her saddle, doubled over the horn, and clutched Pinto’s neck. I didn’t go quite that far, but banged hard against my saddle pommel.
When Hazel straightened up, she was yawping for breath, but as soon as she caught it, she lit into me like a wildcat. “You cheater! You cheater!” she shrieked. “You hissed when I wasn’t ready! And you done it a-purpose! You done it tryin’ to make me scairt to learn the trick!”
“No, I didn’t either!” I told her. “I did it so you wouldn’t hit that pommel any harder.”
Hazel pinched her lips up again, and sat looking at me as if she couldn’t make up her mind. Then, she said, “Well, anyways, it ain’t fair for you to hiss when I don’t know you’re goin’ to.”
I knew that Hazel would brace herself a little bit, and hit the pommel easier if she knew when the stops were coming, so I said, “All right, you do the hissing. But, at first, you’d better try it at a slow canter.”
We made three or four more runs, with Hazel doing the hissing, but each time she braced herself in the stirrups before she hissed. I knew that if I told her what she was doing she’d get mad, so I watched her near stirrup, and, the instant it tightened, I lifted my reins an inch.
Pinch was trained to stop short on that lifted rein. Before I heard Hazel’s hiss, I felt his rump settle down as he set his legs for the quick stop. We were three lengths back of Hazel when she finally hissed and stopped Pinto.
“You dir—you’re cheatin’ again!” she hollered. “You pulled Pinch up before I hissed.”
“Sure, I did,” I said. “I knew when you were going to do it as well as you did.”
“You did not, neither! You ain’t no mind reader! You’re just a cheater; that’s all!” she jabbered at me.
“All right,” I told her; “let’s try it again.”
The next stop worked just like the one before. I think Hazel was more peeved at herself than at me, but she blazed, “You cheater! You cheater! You ain’t tryin’ to learn me! You’re just tryin’ to make me look silly!”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “As soon as you think about hissing you brace yourself for the stop. All I have to do is watch for you to kick your foot into the stirrup.”
“I didn’t do no such thing!” she snapped. Then she sat, tight-lipped, for a minute, and asked, “How many more tries do you reckon we can get done today?”
“As many as you want,” I said, “but it’s going to be pretty tough on your legs and stomach.”
Hazel wouldn’t stop practicing until long after I thought we should have quit, but she couldn’t help tightening up a little bit every time. After more than a dozen tries, she was so mad at herself that she was nearly crying.
“That’s enough!” I told her. “You’re so tired and beat-up now that you couldn’t stay loose to save your life.”
“I am not! I am not!” she shrieked. “If you can do it, I can do it! Even if it kills me, I ain’t goin’ to stop till I can do it!”
“You don’t think I learned it in one day, do you?” I asked. “I’ve been practicing this trick for more than three years, and I still can’t stay loose every time.”
“Well, I ain’t even stayed loose one time—leastways, not if I done the hissin’—and I ain’t goin’ to stop till I do!”
I remembered what Mr. Bendt had said to me that morning, and told Hazel, “Don’t go raring at it as if tomorrow’d be the day of judgment! Your father knows what we’re doing, and he might be worried about us.”
“Guess you don’t know much about Paw!” she said. “If he said you could learn me, he ain’t goin’ to worry about it afterwards. But I s’pose we’d best get on back, or Maw’ll go to frettin’.”
We were about half way to the buildings when Hazel pulled Pinto back beside Pinch, and asked, “Is it sneakin’ not to tell somebody somethin’ so they won’t worry?”
“Well,” I said, “I guess it would depend on whether you just didn’t tell, or told a lie about it. Why?”
“Well . . . if Maw finds out about this trick-ridin’ business, that’ll be the end of it. I don’t want to be sneakin’, but I don’t want her to find out about it, neither.”
I was pretty sure Hazel was right, and I did want to teach her the tric
k, so I said, “As long as your father knows, I think it would be all right if you just didn’t mention it to your mother—or to Kenny.” Hazel grinned, nodded, and spurred Pinto on toward the corrals.
I’d banged against the saddle pommel so much that my legs ached, and I knew that Hazel’s must, too. But I didn’t realize how bad it was until we climbed out of our saddles. Both of us were as stiff as tin soldiers, and when we tried to walk we waddled like ducks.
I was putting the saddles in the harness shop when Hazel went to the house, but I heard Mrs. Bendt call to her, in a real sharp voice, “What in the world have you children been doin’ to get yourselves so crippled up?” I listened as hard as I could, but Hazel spoke too low for me to hear.
Mr. Bendt was waiting by the chuckhouse steps when I went to supper, and his face was set hard. “Didn’t reckon tomorrow’d be the day o’ jedgment, did you?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I said, “but I guess we rode a little more than we should have.”
“Reckon that’s a good guess,” he told me. “Better put some liniment on them legs and turn in early tonight. If you’re that rarin’ to ride, I’ll see you get a bellyful of it ’fore the week’s out.”
15
A Bellyful of Riding
MONDAY morning I felt as if I’d slept with my legs tied around a barrel, and I could almost hear myself squeak in the joints. I rubbed on plenty of liniment, and made up my mind that I’d walk with my knees close together, so nobody could guess how rough I really felt.
That was the first morning Hank was well enough to eat in the chuckhouse. He still looked sort of puny, but being sick hadn’t slowed his talking a mite. Over and over again, he kept telling us how sick he’d been and what the doctor had said to him, and all the different dreams he’d had when he was out of his head. “Yes, sir, by dogies!” he shouted. “I seen them pearly gates a-swingin’ open and old Peter . . .”
“Speakin’ about gates,” Mr. Bendt cut in on him, “you reckon you’re stout enough to open and close a gate today? There’s a heap o’ roundin’ up and cuttin’ to be done ’fore Batch gets back here at the weekend, and short-handed as I am, I could sure use you to man a gate.”