Horse Country (eBook)

Monty Splain (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
398 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-9484-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Bill was a young man growing up in very civilized, law abiding, western Dakota homestead country. His love of horses and adventure soon took him west, in pursuit of both.

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Young Bill's newfound love of horses was about to shape the rest of his life. Homestead life in western Dakota territory, left a lot to be desired for a young man filled with the thrill of adventure, wonder lust of the mysterious land to the west. The western horizon, and what lay beyond, few people, beautiful horses, and great danger. Was all Bill had ever heard about the place, Indian's, outlaws, and a few brave souls, or foolish depending on who you talk to, lived there. He couldn't get it out of his mind. One fateful day Bill's love of horses led him to a very fortunate and profitable opportunity. The newly settling country of Canada was in great need of hi quality horse stock. And after selling the horses he had the race was on to replenish his stock, but so was every other owl hoot out there. This began Bill's great forays to the west, good or bad, the temptation, and money was over-whelming. He didn't travel far west before learning about Quarter Horses, and the mythical Mountain Mustangs. Bill was about to find out the west was wilder than he could ever have imagined, he was about to turn into a man, seemingly over night!

Textauszug

CHAPTER 11

Carl was mowing hay when I got back. I suddenly realized I needed to do more because my horses would need hay and feed for the winter.

We worked long days breaking more ground and cutting hay. Dad had us take a few days off alternately to rest up. I wanted to do some exploring to the west anyway. So on my rest days, I took my best saddle horse and headed to Montana to see what the outlaw trail looked like.

The rolling hill country leveled off in places of flat staked plains. Soon I came to funny looking, large horned cattle with a Circle C brand grazing in the field. I eventually ran into a cowboy. Gus informed me that they would soon be rounding up the cattle to be driven to the rail head to be sold and that I could get a job helping with the roundup. I told him I really didn’t need a job, but he insisted.

“Go see Harlen. We need all the help we can get.”

Out of curiosity, I followed his directions to the cook wagon to find the foreman.

A herd of thirty some horses were being held around the cook wagon, nice looking horses. I rode over near them on my way to the cook wagon.

A man and a woman were working there. I asked them where Harlen was. They pointed in the direction of the three mounted men. I took that to mean one of them must have been Harlen the foreman.

As I rode towards them, one was using hand gestures, big circles and pointing in several directions. Soon two of the riders rode off. The other headed in my direction.

He introduced himself as Harlen, boss around here. He had a funny way of talking, not like the Canadians, completely different.

I introduced myself and told him where I was from.

He said, “Let’s get coffee at the wagon.”

As we proceeded to the wagon, he said, “a farm boy, huh.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You wouldn’t be looking for a job, would you?”

“Well, actually I’m looking to buy some good horse stock.”

He looked at me funny, “A boy like you got money?”

“Not on me,” I said, “but at home. Do you ever sell any of your horses?”

“Well, yes we do, after the roundup and delivery to the rail head. We cull the herd and try to sell what we can up here and take the rest back to Texas for next spring’s drive. Good grass up here but the winters are a man killer. How do you farmers keep your animals alive in the winter?”

“Lots of feed,” I said. “Hay and grain, that’s why we have to be farmers.”

He laughed, “Yeah, I guess so. Cattlemen usually don’t like settlers coming over and taking the free range. I don’t know what’s going to happen up here. We, the Circle C, had a station, more down towards Milestown. But a few years back the Montana winter took them all.”

“Before that, there were hundreds of outfits running free range cattle up here. We lost ninety percent that one year, what a loss. So now we’re back to spring drive up, fall roundup, and spend the winters in Texas.”

“How far is it to Texas?” I asked.

“Near on one thousand miles,” he said.

“Wow, how long to drive a herd up here?”

“More than a month, sometimes two. But you got to know we don’t have much winter down south. We can start the drive early and get up here just as the snow melts. Best grass anywhere, so the drive’s worth it.”

“How many have you got here?” I asked.

“About three thousand, but the Circle C has five other herds in Montana. One thing about the winter, it drove a lot of the outfits out of here. But there’s a few ranches trying to start up here again. I guess they had to figure some winter feed some way.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but I don’t know if the land’ll be settled. Don’t look like the country for it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Harlen said. “There’s settlers all through Colorado, Wyoming on land not as good this, but not so much winter. You all must be a special breed to survive here,” he said.

“Say where’d you get those guns?”

“An outlaw auction,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“They caught the Missouri Kid rustling some horses. In the shootout, he got wounded. Then he died from infection, so they auctioned off his stuff to pay for the funeral. I wanted the stallion for my herd, but he went too high. So the sheriff talked me into buying his guns and tack.”

“You must have some money hid to buy that stuff. Let me see one of those six shooters.”

“Six shooters, yeah.”

“Your Colts, they hold six rounds, right?

“Oh, I see.”

“Wow, what is this?”

“They tell me its nickel plated because nickel doesn’t rust so bad, and it’s good for rough handling.”

I took the revolver out so Harlen could shoot it. The 4” barrel made it light and balanced. I could tell Harlen was impressed. His Colt in his holster was a little worse for wear.

He asked if I had ever considered selling the revolvers. I didn’t need them but liked having them.

“And that saddle. That looks like a Texas brand on there and real silver inlay. If you’d ever a mind, I’d give you good money for it all.”

“Actually, I am more interested in horses,” I said.

“Well boy, I got horses, real Texas blue blood quarter horses. If you got cash money like you say you have, we could make a deal.”

My heart was pounding. These horses looked good, whatever real blue blood Texas quarter horses meant.

“Tell you what boy, come back in about two weeks with your money. Help us round up the herd and we’ll make us a deal. Now these will be culled horses, the older ones, but still good stock mind you.”

“Good enough for breeding?” I asked.

“The mares should be,” he said.

“Some geldings and a stallion?” I asked.

“No,” Harlen said. “These are working horses. With over three thousand head of wild steers, we don’t have time to fight with stallions.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be back. I don’t know how much rounding up I can do, but I’ll have my money.”

“And the saddle and guns,” he added.

“Okay.”

As I rode away, I couldn’t help but notice how nimble and quick those quarter horses were. They were clearly a better horse than what I was riding. I couldn’t wait to get on one.

Just to the northwest two figures sat low watching us. I didn’t see any horses around, so I headed their way. One was an old man, rough looking, and the other was a younger boy with dark reddish copper skin and wearing leather. Were these Indians?

I heard so much about Indians but had never seen one. This used to be Indian country. I heard that all this land was Indian reservation at one time, but the white man kept moving in. Then when the Custer thing happened, they were restricted to even less land. My heart felt for them, a proud people that had all of this at one time. But now they were wandering the plains, homeless, looking bedraggled.

I couldn’t imagine how they felt about the white man. I didn’t know whether to try to talk to them or ride for my life. But neither seemed to have a weapon of any kind. They sat on their knees and seemed harmless. I waved at them and they smiled at me.

“Hi,” I said. “Do you speak English?”

“Yes,” the younger one said. He pointed “Do you like the horses?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll try to buy some. What are you doing?”

“We need a horse.”

The older one spoke in a language I didn’t understand. He pointed and laughed a little.

“You have no horse?” I asked.

“They all died in the winter a few years back, so we walk now. We need a horse.” They spoke with a lot of hand gestures and pointing, but the younger one could communicate in English.

I asked his name.

“Bob,” he said.

“Bob, that’s an American name,” I said.

“Bob is what they called me at the mission school.”

“Okay,” I said. “My name is Bill.”

“Hi.” They both waved.

I was fascinated talking to them, never having met an Indian before. They didn’t seem to be living up to their reputation of cut throat savages.

“His name is Noa.”

“Noa,” I repeated and Noa waved and started to talk and gesture.

I didn’t understand so I asked Bob what language that was.

He looked at me surprised and said “English” like I was supposed to know that.

Noa laughed.

“He drinks a lot of whiskey, so his English isn’t so good. We live over by the big river and we need a horse to hunt and pull the fish,” Bob said.

Feeling for them, I asked if they had any money for a horse. They both looked at me puzzled.

“What is money?” Bob asked.

I was as surprised as they were.

I pulled out a dollar and said, “Money to buy a horse.”

This seemed like a strange concept to them. I for the life of me couldn’t figure out how these Indians expected to acquire a horse without money. So, I asked Bob if he had a job.

There was additional confusion and a big laugh from Noa. I was beginning to realize how different these Indians were. I could see them looking at the quarter horses with great admiration. For some reason I wanted to help them but...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.2.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-9484-6 / 1667894846
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-9484-3 / 9781667894843