Half broke horses: a true-life novel

by Jeannette Walls

  I gazed out at the lake, and one thing became crystal-clear. It was over between me and Chicago. The city, for all its beautiful blue water and soaring skyscrapers, had been nothing but heartache. It was time for me to get back to the range.

  That very day I went over to the Catholic church where I married that heel and told the priest what had happened. He said that if I could prove my husband had been previously married, I could apply to the bishop for an annulment. With the help of a clerk at city hall, I dug out a copy of Ted’s other marriage certificate, and the priest said he’d set the wheels in motion.

  I thought Ted’s wife needed to know what had happened, and I wrote her a letter explaining it all. I decided, however, not to file criminal charges against Ted. It had not been illegal for that weasel to take the money, since it was a joint account; it was just stupid of me to trust him. And if he was sent off to prison as a bigamist, his wife and kids, who had it tough enough already with that Ted Conover in charge of their family , would be worse off than their dad. I also figured the peckerhead had taken up enough of my time and energy, and if he had to wait to get his just deserts from the good Lord himself, that was all right by me.

  After mailing the letter, I took the ring Ted had given me in to a jeweler. I wasn’t going to keep it, but I certainly wasn’t going to do something melodramatic, like throw it in the lake. I figured it would fetch a couple hundred dollars, and I was thinking I’d use the money to take some college courses and maybe even splurge on a new dress at Marshall Field’s, but the jeweler looked at the diamond with his eyepiece and said, “It’s fake.”

  So I threw it in the lake after all.

  ONCE I STOPPED SMACKING myself in the head for being so gullible about that crumb bum, I focused on the future. I was twenty-seven years old, no spring chicken. Since I obviously couldn’t count on a man to take care of me, what I needed more than ever was a profession. I needed to get my college education and become a teacher. So I applied to the Arizona state teachers’ college in Flagstaff. As I waited to hear back—and waited for the annulment—I did nothing but work, scrimp, and save, taking two jobs during the week and another on weekends. The time flew by, and when both the dispensation and the acceptance letter arrived, I had enough money for a year of college.

  The day came for me to say good-bye to Chicago. I packed everything I had into the same suitcase I had brought with me. I was leaving the city with about as much stuff as I had arrived with. But I had learned a lot—about myself and other people. Most of those lessons had been hard ones. For example, if people want to steal from you, they get you to trust them first. And what they take from you is not only your money but also your trust.

  The train left from Union Station, a spanking-new building with marble floors and hundred-foot ceilings that framed wide skylights. The mayor thought the new station showcased Chicago as a city of the future, the very epitome of technological modernity. I had come to Chicago wanting a slice of that modernity, loving the city for it, but Chicago hadn’t loved me back.

  The train pulled out of the station, and in a short time we were heading into the countryside. I walked to the back, and from the caboose I watched those massive skyscrapers growing smaller in the distance. Not a single soul in Chicago would miss me. Aside from getting my degree, I’d spent these past eight years in thankless, pointless drudgery, polishing silver that got tarnished again, washing the same dishes day after day, and ironing piles of shirts. Ironing was a particularly galling waste of time. You’d spend twenty minutes pressing one shirt front and back, spraying starch and getting the creases sharp, but once the man of the house put it on, it would wrinkle as soon as he bent an elbow; plus, you couldn’t even see whether the danged shirt was ironed or not under his suit coat.

  Working in those little desert towns during the war years—teaching illiterate ragamuffins how to read—I had felt needed in a way that I never had in Chicago. That was how I wanted to feel again.

  IV

  THE RED SILK SHIRT

  Helen Casey, Red Lake

  YOU SAW PLENTY OF cars in Santa Fe now, and even out in the countryside, but when I got back to the KC, I was surprised by how little things had changed except that Buster and Dorothy had a couple of kids, the third generation of Caseys to be raised on the ranch. Dad had completely abdicated responsibility for the place but was still corresponding with old cowpokes about Billy the Kid’s exploits. Mom had grown more frail and complained that her teeth hurt. A couple of years earlier, Helen had moved to Los Angeles to chase her dream of making it in the movies. While she’d yet to get any roles, as she explained in letters home, she’d met a few producers and in the meantime was working as a sales clerk in a millinery.

  The first day back, I went out to see Patches, who was standing by herself in the pasture. She was a little whiskery, but she seemed to have aged better than anyone else. I saddled her up and we rode out into the valley. It was late afternoon, and the long purple shadow we cast dipped and swelled across the rolling grassland. Patches was a good seventeen years old, but she still had the juice, and at a rise I clucked her up to a gallop, her hooves clattering over the hard ground while the wind whipped my hair back and whistled in my ears. I hadn’t been on a horse since leaving for Chicago, and it just felt right.

  I was a mite concerned about Helen, seeing as how she was not the most self-reliant creature in the world, but Mom, to my surprise, had encouraged her to go to Los Angeles, insisting that with that pretty face and those delicate hands, she was sure to be discovered, and if not, she could find a rich Hollywood husband. Mom also hinted a couple of times that it was good I was going on to college, since with one failed marriage behind me, I’d have trouble landing a good husband and would need something to fall back on. “A package that’s been opened once doesn’t have the same appeal,” she said.

  Unlike the last time I came home, no one begged me to stay. Even Dad acted as if he assumed I’d be moving on, and that was fine by me. I didn’t belong in Chicago, but it had changed me, so I didn’t belong on the KC, either. I even felt out of place sleeping in my old bed. Also, if I was going to stay put, I’d need to pitch in on the chores, and after all those years of maid work, cleaning the chicken coop and mucking stalls didn’t exactly call to me. I left early for Flagstaff.

  Although I was older than most of the other students, I loved college. Unlike many of the boys, who were interested in football and drinking, and the girls, who were interested in boys, I knew exactly why I was there and what I wanted to get out of it. I wished I could take every course in the curriculum and read every book in the library. Sometimes after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it.

  My only concern was how I was going to pay the next year’s tuition. But after I’d been at the university for exactly one semester, Grady Gammage, president of the college, asked to see me. He said he’d been contacted by the town of Red Lake, which was looking for a teacher. He’d been following my performance because he’d also worked hard to put himself through college and admired others who did the same. The folks in Red Lake remembered me from the time I’d taught there. They were willing to sign me up, even though I had just begun college, and Mr. Gammage thought I had what it took as well. “It’s a tough choice,” he said. “If you start teaching now, you’ll give up school, and a lot of people find it hard to come back.”

  It didn’t seem a tough choice at all. I could either pay money to go to classes or get paid for teaching classes.

  “When do I start?” I asked.

  I WENT BACK TO the ranch to get Patches, and for the third time that horse and I made the five-hundred-mile journey between Tinnie and Red Lake. Patches was out of shape, but I easied her along, and she toned up pretty quick. We both enjoyed being on the move in open country.

  I ran into more people than I had last time, and every now and again a car would barrel past, the driver white-kn
uckling the wheel as he bounced over the wagon ruts, trailing a cone of dust. But there were still long stretches of solitude, only me and Patches ambling along, and as I sat by my little fire at night, the coyotes howled just like they always had, and the huge moon turned the desert silver.

  The town of Red Lake still felt like it was located at one of the world’s high points, the range land sloping away on all sides, but it had changed since I first saw it almost fifteen years before. Arizona, with its wideopen spaces and no one peering over your shoulder, had always been a haven for folks who didn’t like the law or other busybodies to know what they were up to, and there were more scoundrels and eccentrics around—Mexican rumrunners, hallucinating prospectors, trenchcrazed veterans still wheezing from mustard gas, a guy with four wives who wasn’t even a Mormon. One of that guy’s kids was named Balmy Gil because when he was born, the guy opened the Bible at random and, eyes closed, planted his finger on the passage about the Balm of Gilead.

  More farmers had also put down stakes and more stores had opened, including a new automobile garage with a gasoline pump out front. The grass outside town, which used to be high enough to touch the cattle’s underbellies, had been grazed down to the nub, and I wondered if maybe there were more people here than the land could bear.

  The schoolhouse now had a teacherage built onto the back, so I had my own room to sleep in. I had thirty-six students of all ages, sizes, and breeds, and I made sure when I entered the classroom that each and every one of them stood up and said, “Good morning, Miss Casey.” Anyone who talked out of turn had to stand in the corner, and anyone who sassed me was sent out to pluck a willow branch so I could give them a hiding with it. Kids were like horses in that things went a lot easier if you got their respect from the outset rather than trying to demand it after they’d started seeing what they could get away with.

  When I’d been in Red Lake a month, I went over to the town hall to pick up my first paycheck. A corral was next to the building, and inside it stood a small sorrel mustang, all veined up and with saddle sweat still on his back. When he saw me, he gave me a baleful look, ears flat, and I could tell right off that was one ornery horse.

  Inside the hall, a couple of deputies were lounging by a desk, hats tilted back and pants tucked into their boots. When I introduced myself, one of them—a skinny guy with rooster legs and close-set eyes—said, “I hear you come all the way from Chicago to teach us hicks a thing or two.”

  “I’m just a hardworking gal here for her paycheck,” I said.

  “Before you get it, you needs to pass a simple test first.”

  “What test?”

  “Ride that there little fella out in the corral.”

  I could tell from the sidelong glances Rooster Legs and his buddy were giving each other that they thought they were going to play some prank on the greenhorn schoolteacher. I could tell they figured I was a know-it-all about reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic, so they were going to put this city girl in her place when it came to the fourth R—riding.

  I decided to play along with them and we’d see who got the last laugh. Fluttering my eyes and acting all coy, I said this test seemed highly unusual, but I supposed I could give the horse a try since I had ridden before, and I assumed he was a gentle creature.

  “Gentle as a baby’s fart,” Rooster said.

  I had on a loose dress and my sensible schoolteacher shoes. “I’m not wearing riding clothes,” I said, “but if he is as advertised, I guess I could trot him around a bit.”

  “You could ride this horse in your pajamas,” Rooster said with a smirk.

  I followed the two comedians out to the corral, and while they saddled up the mustang, I went over to a hedge of juniper, broke off a nice limber branch, and stripped the twigs from it.

  “Ready to pass your test, ma’am?” Rooster asked. He thought the impending disaster was going to be so hilarious that he could barely contain himself.

  The mustang was standing stock-still but watching me out of the corner of his eye. He was just another half-broke horse, and I’d seen plenty of them in my lifetime. I hiked up my skirt and shortened the reins, twisting the horse’s head to the right so he couldn’t swing his hindquarters away.

  As soon as I got my foot into the stirrup, he moved off, but I had him by the mane and I swung into the saddle. He immediately started bucking. By now the two guys were splitting their sides with laughter, but I paid them no mind. The way to stop a horse from bucking was to get his head up—he had to drop it to kick out with his hindquarters—and then send him forward. I popped the horse hard in the mouth with the reins, which jerked his head right up, and whaled his rump with the juniper branch.

  That got that little varmint’s attention—and the comedians’ as well. We set off at a good gallop, but he was still throwing his shoulders around and fishtailing. I was following the motion, riding with my upper body loose, my heels jammed down, and my legs clamped like a vise around his sides. Rooster and his buddy were not going to be seeing any daylight between me and the saddle.

  Each time I sensed the small hesitation that meant a buck was coming, I popped the horse’s mouth and whaled his rear again, and he soon learned that the only way out for him was to do what I wanted him to do. In no time he settled, and I patted his neck.

  I walked the mustang back to the comedians, who were no longer laughing. Both of them had lost their patter. They were even a little slack-jawed. I could tell it was killing them that I could get the best of a horse that must have given them plenty of trouble, but I didn’t rub it in.

  “Nice little pony,” I said. “Can I have my paycheck now?”

  WORD ABOUT ME BREAKING that mustang spread around Red Lake, and people began regarding me as a woman to be reckoned with. Both men and women asked for my opinion on problem horses and problem children. Rooster—whose real name was Orville Stubbs but whom I always called Rooster—started acting like my faithful sidekick, as if, since I’d bested him at a game of his own devising, he owed me his utter devotion.

  Rooster worked only part-time as a deputy. He lived above the Red Lake stable and also made a little money on the side mucking stalls, shoeing horses, and helping out on roundups. Like most folks out in the country, he didn’t have a particular job, much less a career, but got by doing whatever came his way. Rooster turned out to be a likable little guy, even though he had his less than charming habits. He chewed tobacco and was a swallower, not a spitter. “Spitters just waste good juice,” he declared.

  Rooster introduced me to the other horsemen in Red Lake, telling folks I was the former Chicago flapper who’d given up drinking champagne and doing the Charleston to come teach the kids of Coconino County. He encouraged me to enter that mustang, which was his and which he’d named Red Devil, in local races. They were pickup affairs on the weekends, with five to ten horses in quarter-mile heats and a purse of five or ten dollars. I started winning some of those races, and that put around the word about me as well.

  I also started playing poker on Saturday night with Rooster and his pals. Our games were in the café, and they involved a fair amount of inebriation. Most folks in that part of Arizona didn’t pay much attention to Prohibition, considering it a perverse eastern aberration. All it really meant was that saloon keepers started calling their establishments cafés and stashed their liquor bottles under the counter instead of on the shelf behind the bar. Wasn’t no one going to come between a cowboy and his whiskey.

  Rooster and the others would put away a good quantity of what they called “panther piss,” but I’d sit there nursing a single glass all night long. I avoided the elaborate bluffing favored by the cowboys, and always just played the hand I was dealt, folding as soon as the bidding got too rich for my cards, and going for small victories rather than high-stakes table sweepers. Still, on most nights I’d end up ahead of the game, a nice little stack of coins sitting on the table in front of me.

  I became known as Lily Casey, the mustang-breaking, poker-playin
g, horse-race-winning schoolmarm of Coconino County, and it wasn’t half bad to be in a place where no one had a problem with a woman having a moniker like that.

  After a while I could tell Rooster was sweet on me, but before he made his intentions clear, I let him know I’d been married once, it hadn’t worked out, and I had no desire to marry again. He seemed to accept this, and we stayed good friends, but one day he came by the teacherage with a shy, sober expression.

  “I got something I needs to ask you,” he said.

  It sounded like he was going to propose. “Rooster, I thought you understood we were just friends.”

  “It ain’t like that,” he said. “So don’t make this any harder.” He hesitated for a moment. “What I was going to ask was could you show me how to write out ’Orville Stubbs’?”

  And that was how Rooster became my secret student.

  ROOSTER STARTED DROPPING BY on Saturday afternoons. We’d work on his reading and writing, then head out for a night of fivecard stud. I was still racing Red Devil and winning more often than not. I had spent some of my winnings to buy a crimson-colored shirt of genuine silk, and I wore it whenever I raced. That way even shortsighted spectators could recognize me. I just loved that brilliant, shiny red shirt. Anyone could tell at a moment’s glance that it was mail-order, not homemade or home-dyed, and that shirt became my trademark.

  One day in early spring, Rooster and I rode down to a race on a ranch south of Red Lake. It was a bigger meet than usual, with five heats, a final, and a fifteen-dollar purse, and it was held on an actual track, with an inside rail where the spectators had gathered.