Junction City Cowboy

by Jet MacLeod

  I wondered why he liked literature so much. He said it was because it was the one thing besides horses that he and his father shared. I knew that it was important to him, but now it was becoming more important to me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Reece, later that same day

  I knew that she was upset. I said too much. I didn’t say enough. I didn’t know how much that I could actually tell her. She was special and I didn’t want to hurt her, but I knew that if she had all the truth about me that I would. I had to find a way to tell her something and hope that it would be enough. I knew that she would ask questions now. She would. It would be what I would do.

  I was checking on what Silas had been doing while I was gone. I had told him to comb the horses. I needed to clean their hooves. There was so much that needed to be done with the horses that I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get in both rides today.

  I was cleaning out one of the horse’s hooves while watched Silas comb another horse nearby. He was doing it just like I’d taught him. He turned towards me and smiled, before he moved around the horse to comb the other side. He was learning fast. He loved horses. I was wrong about him in the beginning.

  “Silas, are you almost done?” I asked him.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied.

  “Well, when you’re done, go get Honeycomb from the stall and bring her here. I am going to show you how to saddle her up proper,” I told him.

  His smile was his answer. He was delighted to spend time with me. I could only feel bad about it. I felt like I was going to betray him in the end, because I knew that I would be leaving for my own ranch. He would only have me for a season. I decided that I would ask Rayne that once I got my ranch up and running that Silas could come with me to help me run it. I knew he would love that, but I was not sure that she would go for it.

  I had just finished cleaning out the hooves on the horse that I had been working on, when I looked up to find Silas standing in front of me with Honeycomb on her lead. He didn’t say anything to disturb me. He was watching me clean out the hooves. He seemed really interested in the strokes that I used to get the mud and guck out.

  “You ready?” I asked him.

  “Yes, sir, I am,” he told me, with his infectious smile, “Where we going to go? I am going to ride Honeycomb and you are going to ride Scout. We must be going to the gulch to look at the horses.”

  I studied him for a minute before I answered. The boy was not stupid. He knew that I wasn’t going to take him out on Honeycomb unless we were actually going to ride. He was like a sponge just soaking up whatever I had to tell him about the horses.

  “Well, yeah, we are going to the gulch. I want you to watch the boys out there today. I want you to see what they do with the horses out in the pastures. See when you raise horses, you don’t keep them all in the barn,” I said.

  “I understand,” he replied.

  “Get those blankets over there,” I said pointing to a stack of blankets, “Now, gently, lay one of them on her back. Once it is there, center it.”

  I finished what I was going and got Scout. I put the blankets on his back, preparing him for the saddle. I watched Silas. He was watching me.

  “Now, you might not be able to do this on your own, yet, but you will one day. Now we are going to put the saddles on them. They can be heavy so if you can’t lift it by yourself, don’t try it,” I told him.

  He lifted the saddle slowly. He could pick it up. He carried it over to the horse. That is where he hit the snag, he couldn’t get it high enough to get it on her back. He tried about three times before he looked at me for help. It was like he didn’t want to ask. It looked like he wasn’t going to ask me for help.

  “Would you like some help with that?” I asked.

  “Well,” he debated it for a second before he answered, “Maybe just a little. You were right. They are heavy. But, I can carry it, I just can’t lift it high enough.”

  “Hold on, I’ll help you,” I said, going over to him, “You’ll soon be able to do it. With enough practice, you’ll have it up on her back by yourself soon enough.”

  I helped him put the saddle on Honeycomb’s back on top of the blankets. I put the stirrups around the horn and pulled the belly cinch tight. He watched me as I taught him how to put the saddle on correctly. I ran the rest of the cinches around the horse before I lowered the stirrups.

  “Why did you do that?” he asked me.

  “To make the horse let his breath go. If I don’t do that, when I pull this tight, it isn’t really tight. When I start riding, the saddle might shift or even come off. I don’t want that, so push him here,” I said showing him, “So, he’ll let out his breath and I can make it tight enough that it won’t fall off. You don’t have to do it hard, just enough and they’ll cooperate.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” he said.

  “Well, let’s see you do it to Scout. I’ll put the saddle on him. You dress it up right, so I won’t fall off while we ride,” I explained.

  He did exactly what I had just done with Honeycomb’s saddle. Silas kept looking at me to make sure that he was doing it right. I was a little tense when it came time for him to hit Scout just right to make him breathe out so he could cinch down the belly strap. I was afraid of his mean streak and that he would hit the horse too hard. He did it perfectly though. He wasn’t rough or mean with Scout. I think maybe his time with the horses caused him to calm down some.

  “Is that right?” Silas asked me when he was done.

  “Yes, Silas, that was perfect. So do you think that you can do that again, if I ask you to do it?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, I think so, sir,” he replied.

  “That’s good. I might be asking you to do that for me from time to time. I think you might make a good stable boy. Once you’ve proven yourself as a stable boy to me, I’ll teach you about how they do things out in the pastures. Today, we are just going to watch and see what they are doing. If you have any questions while we are out there, please, ask so I can answer them as best as I can,” I explained to Silas.

  “Yes, sir, I will do that. This is going to be wonderful. Thank you, for teaching me these things. No one else on the ranch wanted to help me. They just expected me to pick it up. you explain it, you make me see why I have to do what you tell me to do,” he stated.

  “Well, not all of us were born to be cattlemen. Some of were born to be horsemen. You, Silas, are a horseman, like me. Jedidiah is a cattleman,” I said.

  “I understand,” he replied.

  “Come on, boy. Let’s go riding,” I stated.

  I helped him up on to Honeycomb. He sat in that saddle like a proud man, like a man who was overseeing his flock. He looked like a rancher. I’m sure that if I had known his father, he would have reminded me of him, the way he was sitting up there up in that saddle. He smiled. I knew he felt so proud up there.

  I mounted up onto Scout. I told Silas to follow me and stick close. We weren’t going to gallop just yet. I wasn’t sure that he was ready for that. We would trot out to the gulch. It would take a while but I knew Honeycomb could keep up with Scout if we did that.

  We rode out to the gulch. It was a nice trot, but I knew that his thighs would hate me in the morning. I was amazed that he never complained of any pain or soreness. He wanted to be with me, learning how to be a horseman.

  “Whoa!” I said, loudly, pulling back on the reins to stop Scout.

  “Whoa!” Silas shouted, doing the same with Honeycomb.

  “Here is the gulch. This is the pasture that the Double Bar uses for horses. The Double Bar is mainly a cattle ranch but it does enough on the horse trades to keep it profitable. You have to care for the horse and breed them right if you want to make money,” I told him.

  “How do you do that?” he asked.

  “Well, Silas, you get really good stable boys, like yourself. They take care of the stock horses. These are the horses that we use on the ranch. The rest are put out to pasture except the st
uds,” I explained.

  “The studs? Which ones are the studs? Where do they stay?” Silas asked me.

  “Those are the male horses. We tend to keep them out of the main herd unless we want to breed them. So, we keep them back at the barn or in a small paddock near the main part of the ranch,” I stated.

  “Oh, those are the horses that Curly and I feed every morning then,” he said.

  “Yep, it will be soon that we let some of them stay with the herd. Then we will wait and see. And this time next year or a little sooner, we will have some new horses. We will breed some for more work horses, but the majority of those that we will breed will go back into the herd or sold at the round up next year,” I told him.

  “Oh,” he asked,” Why do we keep them separate?”

  “Because, we don’t want the boys to fight. They will if we leave them in the main herd. You see the ranchers down there now?” I questioned him.

  “Yes, Reece, I see them. What are they doing?” he asked.

  “They are singling the males that are coming of age in the herd. We are going to have to separate them so we don’t get any unwanted foals or fillies. We also don’t want them fighting over the females in the herd. If they do that then we could lose some of the females, males, and even the babies. They watch the herd every day. If they see a younger male start to act up he gets pulled and put up in that paddock,” I explained.

  “I understand. You are maintaining the herd. You keep it growing, but make it better. We sell some of it, but do we buy any horses to add to it?” he asked.

  “Occasionally, a breeder will, most ranchers don’t have to do that. They keep one or two studs to keep the herd growing. If they lose their studs and have no foals to grow into studs, they may buy one or two at a rodeo or round up. There are some ranchers that sell or trade studs every couple of years. They are trying to make the herd more diverse,” I stated.

  “Is that better for the herd?” he asked.

  “In the long run, yes, it is. It keeps the herd from being totally related. It makes the herd stronger on the whole. You don’t want all the studs to be related to the mares. Sometimes the horses don’t come out right, so it is good to mix things up, every now and again,” I told him.

  “I get it. It makes the herd more like a town of horses. They know each other but they aren’t all family. Then we breed them to create children, the new horses,” he replied to me.

  “Yes, that is it,” I said, smiling, “You are a smart boy, Silas. You are learning all of this very fast. I am proud of you, Silas.”

  I watched him as he beamed in a smile that went from ear to ear. He was so happy to get that little bit of praise from me. I wondered how hard his life had been since his father’s death. I couldn’t imagine that the ranch hands had given him two seconds to show him anything. They just expected him to hold their reins while they did the work. He must have watched them for months trying to learn the littlest bit of information on how to care for the horses. It must have been hard for him.

  “Silas, I have a question for you,” I told him.

  “Yes, sir, I will do my best to answer,” he said.

  “Did any of the ranch hands ever show you anything? Did they ever stop to teach you anything? Or, did they just order you to feed the horses and keep the troughs full of water?” I questioned him.

  “No, sir, they never stopped to teach me anything. They would occasionally show me a knot or something simple while they were waiting for Jed, before they rode out in the mornings. I was mostly just supposed to keep the horses in the barn fed and watered. Yes, sir, I was to make sure that watering troughs in the yard where always full in the mornings and in the afternoons,” he said.

  “Well, be happy, Silas. You have graduated from water boy to the stable boy. It isn’t much, but it is more. Now, you not only have to make sure they stay fed and watered but you have to muck out their stalls every morning. You have to check the stalls, too, like I showed you, earlier. You also have to comb down two or three horses a day. When you get better, we’ll add some more horses to comb and I’ll show you how to pick their hooves good, too. You are becoming an outstanding stable boy. Soon, I am gonna have to call you a stable hand,” I said.

  “Thank you, Reece, for teaching me all of this. This is all I ever wanted to do. I just want to be a horseman, like you,” he stated.

  I was pleased. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a mentor. But, every time that I looked into his eyes, I didn’t mind the position. I wanted to make him feel like he mattered. I knew too well what it felt like to be the one that no one wanted around. I knew what it was like to be that outcast on the farm. I didn’t want him to be like that. I wanted him to have a home that he appreciated. I wanted him to have what I never did. I wanted him to feel loved for wanting to be a horseman. I couldn’t be the boy’s father, but I could be his teacher.

  “You okay?” Silas asked me.

  “Yes, boy, I am good. I think it is time that we went back. Drink up some water. It is hot out and I don’t want you getting sick,” I told him.

  “You can get sick from the heat?” he asked.

  “Yes, boy, you can die from it. So, make sure that you drink a lot of water. I don’t need you getting sick on me. If you do, then who am I going to get to muck out the stalls every day?” I asked.

  I had to respect the boy’s innocence. He was bright but sometimes the naivety of children was so starkly funny that I didn’t know what to say to him. He was just being honest and I appreciated it. He wanted to please me. He worked hard and swiftly. Each day, he was getting faster, smarter, and more in depth with his care of the horses. Soon, he would want to ride with the herd hands in the gulch. I would have to teach him how to rope and ride.

  The more I thought about it, the more it hurt. I knew he was getting too close. I was getting too close to him, but I didn’t see any way around it. I was leaving at the round up. I wouldn’t be coming back. I would stay in Amarillo. I wouldn’t be coming back to teach him more. He would feel betrayed. He would end up hating me. I didn’t want that, but I couldn’t see any way around it. He would think that I had left him just like his father had.

  When we got back to the barn, I had him take both horses in. I helped him get the saddles off. I told him to rub them both down and comb them, before he put them back into their stalls in the stable. I would be in later to check on them. He smiled and lead them away, pulling on my heartstrings as he did.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reece, The Double Bar Ranch

  I had been teaching Silas everything I knew about horses for the last few weeks. It was breaking me inside, but I did it for him and for Rayne, as well. He was learning fast and was getting able to saddle a horse by himself. He was really proud of himself and kept bugging me to learn something new so that I would tell him that I was proud of him. Sometimes it was too much for me to deal with, but I did it anyway. I didn’t want to upset any of them.

  I was starting to dread my time with Rayne. I knew that she could tell, but I didn’t do anything about it. I was trying to distance myself so I wouldn’t feel so bad when I left at the end of the season. It was enough to make me just want to work all day. I came to dread the rides that I was having with Rayne in the afternoons and the early morning rides that I had with Silas.

  I put everything I had into her herds. I knew that she would make a fair profit at the round up in Amarillo. I could only hope that when we got there that Eli would be there and he would purchase some of the horses for my ranch. I knew they were good horses and they would help my stock out. It was wrong but we were helping each other. She didn’t know, she couldn’t know, and I prayed that she would never find out.

  She was persistent in her wants, however. She made it clear that she didn’t want me to leave the ranch. She didn’t understand and I couldn’t tell her the full truth so she would. I was trapped. She had feelings for me but she didn’t understand what that did to me. I had feelings for her, as well, but I doubted the ou
tcome that I dreamed for with her. I could only hold on to the reality that was before me and hope that was enough. It hurt, though.

  “Hey, there, Reece,” Jed said, walking by.

  “Hello, Jed,” I replied.

  “You’ve done good with the horses. Thanks. It has been awhile since we’ve had someone out here that knew as much as you do,” Jed stated.

  “I do what I can,” I told him.

  “Well, keep it up and we will do good at the round up in a month. You’re going to ride with us there, this time, right? We’d need you to help us on the trading with the horses and gear,” Jed told me.

  “It depends on what Miss Rayne wants. If she wants me to go, I will. If not, I’ll be here packing,” I said.

  “Packing? For what boy? You ain’t leaving are ye?” he asked and then continued, “Cause that would be a shame. You are a good hand.”

  “Yep, I’ll be leaving at the end of the season,” I stated, “I know she doesn’t want to believe it, but she has known that since I started. I was just staying for the season. She is trying to keep me here, though.”

  “Well, I hope she does better, then. I would hate to lose you here. But, if you got to move on, boy, I understand. You must be one of those that listens to the wind, a restless spirit. Knew a few of them in my day,” he told me, “They’d come in a work for a while and then leave. You remind me of one that I knew as a kid.”

  “Really?” I asked, “What was his name?”

  “Funny you should ask that. His name was Joseph Bradley. He was a true Texan. He fought against Santa Ana. He was from Corpus but settled somewhere near Amarillo, I think. He had a boy, but you can’t be him,” Jed said, dismissing the idea, “You don’t favor Joe in any way. What was his boy’s name? Oh, yeah, I know.”