Odd ends
Page 14
Crazy Jane
Before school buses, small one-room schoolhouses dotted the countryside. In those days students walked to and from school. A few that lived more distant rode old gentle horses. A smaller number stayed weekdays with family friends or relatives that lived closer.
On the Ozark Mountains west side, Missouri drops down from steep hills to high rolling prairie and finally down to the Kansas Prairie. Ranches and farms dot Barton County along the Kansas line.
It had been an unusually warm winter followed by a hot and dry spring that stretched on into summer leaving expected smaller than usual oat and wheat harvests and fewer hay stacks. Water, grass, and money were in short supply.
Already in the middle of July farmers and ranchers were shipping livestock-culling herds. Lady Jane, a star-faced H bar B and Double-E-Connected branded sorrel mare was in trouble. Her name was on every Double-E-Connected cowboy's shipping list and the bottom had dropped out of the range riding-stock market. Friday, Lamar Radio reported that the sale barn price of riding stock in range-lots of five or more fell a full dollar to forty-two cents a head below the Kensworth Fox Farm price. Yesterday, riding horses were worth more as meat than ranch stock.
Out on the rolling plains the Bonick family farm was in trouble too and had already shipped two old cows, an old sow, and all their older feeder stock. It was a time to pinch pennies. To make matters worse during this terrible time, Brown Bess, their twenty-three-year-old gentle mare, died. Now, nine-year-old Geraldine Bonick, nicknamed "Gera," was in trouble too. Her father still thought of his Gera as a little girl and had worried for four years about Gera riding to school on their old gentle horse. But, Gera riding on a new strange younger horse deepened that concern. The fact that June, Gera's mother, had ridden Brown Bess to school had quieted her father's fears. In less than seven weeks the fifth grade starts and in a month Gera will be ten.
According to the speedometer on the old Bonick farm truck, it was three and eight-tenth miles down to School District Number 218 schoolhouse at the crossroads, called "The Corners." A store with a gas pump out front, three whitewashed houses, and a need of whitewashing schoolhouse stood at the crossroads. The Corners was miles of dirt and gravel roads from anywhere including the railroad. The closest place was three straight road miles north to the halfway twin curves and on three more straight miles to Liberal, a town of 516 souls. To District 218 Frank Bonick guessed it somewhere less than three miles wandering across country through scrub brush and timber, fording a creek, dodging planted fields and fenced pastures. His concern for Gera made him demand that she take the longer and safer road.
Seven miles away as the crow flies and a little more than eleven road miles from the Bonick problem, a gas lamp burned late in the Double-E-Connected ranch house office. Harris Eliot, the owner, studies five slips of paper. Each cowboy had listed the name or brands of horses they thought should be shipped to the sale barn with next week's loads of older cattle, reducing the size of both herds. Lady Jane, horse number 17 on the Eliot ranch books and branded H-B and E-E, was in trouble. Lady Jane was the only horse listed on all five slips of paper. All five cowboys believed the star-face sorrel with three white-stocking feet to be nervous, high-strung, hard to predict when she'd turn, and given to sudden fits of bucking mostly in the early mornings and late afternoons.
In the bunkhouse, the Double-E-Connected cowboys had long ago renamed the mare "Crazy Jane." From the stories Cowboys told about the antics of Crazy Jane most people within fifty miles would recognize her brands.
On the Bonick Farm, it looked like Gera would have to walk to 218 this year. Four evenings after Brown Bess' passing her father looked up from his books and papers spread all over the kitchen table. Frank Bonick was frowning. He stared at his wife and Gera a moment before he spoke.
"I've recheck our budget again tonight. Both nights I've gotten the same answer. We can only spare forty dollars for a horse for Gera. An animal of any account and gentle broke, one that I would trust, sells for at least a hundred."
"Can't we drive her down in the farm-truck in the mornings at least?" June, her mother, asked in a pleading tone.
Frank just shook his head. "It is too expensive. Gas is almost twenty cent a gallon. The old truck gets barely eight miles to the gallon. For eight months the cost would be near a hundred and that would take all of our tax money. Drive Gera and lose the farm."
"Isn't there anything we can do?"
"Our choices are Gera walks both ways, we find enough out of our egg money for room and board at a place close-by and see her on weekends, or buy a cheap horse. The only good thing is the price of riding horses has fallen. I've asked Mitchell Two-Eagles to look around."
"But he'll want money ... won't he?"
"Gave him our forty dollars ... told him I wanted a gentle horse for Gera ... and anything left was his. And would you believe Mitchell Two-Eagles thanks me for the job saying that any work was hard to find this year."
"Think he'll find one?"
"I don't know, Mother. Mitchell knows horses, taught Gera to ride, and he knows where to look. I'm just hoping we make it ... should if the tractor or windmill don't break down?"
Four sunrises later on the seventh ranch and so many farms that he had lost count, Mitchell Two-Eagles watched five Double-E-Connected cowboys saddle their mounts for another day of separating the oldest stock into the west pasture's holding area for shipment. As the riders mounted, they turned southwest toward a wide fenced lane to ride with a bright morning sun on their left shoulder. One mare, a three white-stocking sorrel, started prancing nervously about something. A cowboy pointed with his hat at a buzzard circling overhead and that started it.
One cowboy yelled, "Crazy Jane's at it again," as the sorrel arched her back and gave a dozen small stiff-legged hops.
When Crazy Jane violently yanked her head downward another screamed, "She's swallowed her head."
A third screamed out, "Ride em' Cowboy."
A tall thin cowboy nicknamed "Beanpole" slapped his thigh with his hat and gave freely of his advice. "Smoky, keep her head up ... put her head in the clouds."
Amidst the yelling one topped the rest with, "Watch it! She's sunfishin'."
From the chorus of cowpunchers came strange words to describe Crazy Jane's bucks as "Crow-hops" or "Swapping ends" and even "pile-drivers." The chorus of yells and descriptive words continued until Smoky Taron, the hapless rider, lay in the dust. Quickly, the bucking sorrel mare was roped and tied to a corral rail. Smoky Taron slapped the dust from his clothing with his hat, grumbled about being tossed, and waved his dusty hat in a come-here-arc. Meaning bring out another horse and soon a rope captured a tall bald-faced bay gelding for him. Saddle and gear were quickly transferred. Smoky mounted again and Crazy Jane returned to the corral.
After the cowboys rode away, Mitchell Two-Eagles remained on his "Opera Seat," as the cowboys called sitting on the top rail of the corral. Mitchell thought about what he had witnessed. In his mind with his eyes closed, he remembered the shadows stretch outward from the riders as they turned into and away from the morning sun. Their turning created shadows stretching out, narrowing, disappearing, and reappearing. Those shadows made the sorrel mare prance nervously. When one of the riders lifted his hat to point at a buzzard overhead, a shadow suddenly darted outward, and the bucking started.
"She's afraid of shadows," Mitchell Two-Eagles reasoned aloud. Smiling for he already knew Crazy Jane's reputation for turning at every fork in the trail and knew how to fix both problems.
Later in the cook shack part of the bunkhouse while Mitchell was working on his fourth buttered sourdough biscuit and second cup of free coffee Mister Eliot entered. The owner pointed at the coffee pot. "Coffee, Nyson," he requested.
Nyson the cook poured one for him shaking his head and telling his boss, "Sorry I missed the rodeo this morning."
"Smoky hopes everyone missed it," Mister Eliot replies trying his best to keep a straight face and not have word spread that he laugh
ed at a cowboy.
Believing Mister Eliot would like to be rid of that particular animal before his riders came back, Mitchell asked, "How much for the bucker?"
"What do you want with Lady Jane?"
"Work is scarce; I thought I might make a few dollars on resale."
"Fifty dollars ... and you'll get some poor cowboy hurt."
"Agreed if ... a job goes with that?" Mitchell replied willing to pay the other ten dollars out of his own pocket for a steady job. He also believed from the half-price offered that Mister Eliot had already added Crazy Jane to the ranch's shipping list.
"Can't afford to pay what I've got. Without rain soon all but two of mine will be looking for work."
"Twenty dollars ... she's high strung," Mitchell Two-Eagles offers.
"Forty ... and now, I know why you're pulling an empty horse trailer behind your old truck this morning."
"Twenty-two ... for that sorrel bucker you're shipping anyway."
"Thirty ... heard late yesterday Robby Grace, two miles south of Liberal, is looking for three drivers that know stock due to the unusually heavy early shipping."
"Thanks. I didn't know that," and Mitchell Two-Eagles nods, hesitated a moment, and made another offer, "Twenty-four."
"Sold for twenty-four ... One more than the Kensworth Fox Farm pays and two more than horses in range-lots went for last Friday morning in the sale ring. Last year at this time with good water range mounts topped out at eighty-seven dollars a head," Harris Eliot told Mitchell with a grin and his hand slid across the table. The two men shook hands, sealed the deal, and Mister Eliot told Mitchell with a grin, "Go get your horse out of my corral. She's eating my hay. I'll go make out a bill of sale."
The next morning a half hour after sunrise Mitchell drove into Bonick farm hoping for an invite to breakfast before a fast run up to Robby Grace's place to start work. Mitchell unloaded a fine-looking sorrel mare with three white-stocking feet and a white star on her forehead just as Mister Bonick stepped out of the barn.
A shocked look spread across Frank Bonick's face as he stared at the sorrel mare wearing well-known H-B and Double-E-Connected brands. "Mitchell, have you gone loco? That's ... That's Crazy Jane! You've wasted good money."
"Mister Bonick, Jane's afraid of shadows and turns at every fork in the trail. Gera rides southeast into the sun in the mornings and comes home riding northwest into the sun again. That will solve most of the shadows part, but I've made a bridle for Jane to wear out of an old plow horse blinder bridle. These blinders on the side will stop her from being surprised by shadows or taking a wrong fork," Mitchell told Mister Bonick as he pulled on the new bridle and buckled it.
"But that's Crazy Jane ... no ten-year-old fifth grader can handle her."
"Gera can," Mitch replies calmly.
"You think ... Gera can?" her father asks taking off his hat and scratching his head.
Mitchell only nods and handed the reins to Gera.
A half hour later Crazy Jane had been renamed "Star" by Gera and been given a chance to get use to squeals of joy, giggles, and hugs. For her trial ride Star had been saddled looking into the morning sun wearing her new bridle with blinders. Mitchell helped put Gera's toe into the stirrup, hand on the horn, let her mount herself, and carefully Mitchell adjusted both stirrups to her length. With Gera on her back, Star never moved. When Gera shook the reins, nudged Star's ribs, her newly renamed mount walked calmly forward toward the sun. Gera's proud father proclaimed aloud to his wife on the porch, "Just like old Brown Bess."
"Breakfast is ready. Mitchell, I put on a plate for you," June Bonick gave her invitation loudly from the porch. Three times June had to go outside and yell to get Gera off her new mount.
For four years Star carried Gera safely to school at the Corners in all kinds of weather. After Gera's graduation, Star retired to the Bonick farm pasture.
Twelve
Youth fiction: A boy has trouble with his long last name in kindergarten and first grade. It leads to unexpected consequence.