Horse of a Different Color

by Ralph Moody

  Bones sat listening glumly while I talked, and when I’d finished he said, “If you want to risk it, I’ll go along for the time being, but I’ll foreclose on him the day I hear of his pulling one more of these shenanigans.” Then he cranked the phone and asked Effie to have Bob come to the bank right away.

  6

  Our First Buying Trip

  TO AVOID meeting Bob on his way to the bank, and because I thought it would be good business to have line calls made, I crossed the street to the telephone office. The moment I opened the door Effie demanded, “What’s all this mishmash I been hearin’ about you goin’ into partnerships with Bob Wilson?”

  “It’s sure-enough mishmash if you’ve heard anything like that,” I said. “We’re going to feed livestock together, but we won’t be partners.”

  “Hmmmff!” she sniffed. “Kind of like a woman movin’ in with a man she wouldn’t darst to marry, ain’t it? What in this wide world are you gettin’ tangled up with Bob Wilson for?”

  “Because he knows more about fattening livestock than any other man in this part of the country,” I told her.

  “Hmmmff!” she sniffed again. “And Jesse James knew more about robbin’ banks than any other man in this part of the country.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” I said. “Bob’s no robber.”

  “Didn’t say he was, did I?” she flung back. “But he’ll skin the hide off’n your eyeballs with you lookin’ right at him. Partnership or no partnership, you get mixed up with Bob Wilson and I’d bet every hair on my head you’ll come out owin’ all the bills.”

  “Don’t you worry about that, honeybunch,” I told her; “Bones has guaranteed that I’ll never be stuck for a dime of Bob’s debts.”

  “Don’t you honeybunch me!” she flared. “And don’t you take Bones Kennedy’s glib guarantees too literal neither. When he’s got a roastin’ ear in too hot of a fire he ain’t above gettin’ somebody else to haul it out for him, and you wouldn’t be the first one that’s got his fingers burnt.”

  “It was no glib guarantee he gave me,” I said; “he put it in writing on the face of my note and signed it.”

  Effie cooled down considerably. “Well,” she said, “that’s somethin’ else again. If Bones put it in writin’ and set his name to it, you can bank on it, but what in this wide world do you want to get mixed up in the feedin’ business for? Ain’t you makin’ all the money you’ve got any need for in the haulin’ and shippin’ businesses?”

  “I’ve been doing all right,” I said, “but there won’t be any more hauling till next August, and there isn’t shipping business enough in Beaver Township to keep me busy in the meantime. Besides, everybody in the Kansas City stockyards says there’ll be big profits in feeding cattle as long as the United States has to feed Europe, and the newspapers say that’ll be for another ten years.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” Effie exploded. “I don’t reckon they know a tinker more about it than what you and I do. Thought you told me you aimed to buy some of George Miner’s yearlin’ heifers, come spring, and start a beef herd of your own.”

  “I do,” I told her, “but that’s nearly five months away, and it’ll take only four months at most to fatten one batch of livestock. Unless all the stockmen in Kansas City are dead wrong, I ought to make enough out of feeding a hundred and fifty steers to pay for half that number of top-grade yearling heifers, and that would start an awfully nice herd.”

  “Did ever you hear about the dog that lost his meat ’cause he thought he seen a dog in the river with a bigger piece?” she asked.

  “I guess every school kid has heard that one,” I said, “but you don’t need to worry about me; I’m not giving up either my shipping nor wheat-hauling business to go into livestock feeding.”

  “Well, anyways, it does worry me,” she said in an almost sorrowful tone. “What does George Miner say about it?”

  “He’s just about as enthusiastic as you are,” I said, “but he thinks the hog market is going up, and he doesn’t believe there’s any danger of a sudden drop in fat cattle prices, so there can’t be much to worry about. Bones and I had him set the price that I paid for half of Bob’s feed and feeder pigs.”

  “Well,” she said, “if you’ve paid it the milk’s a’ready spilt, so there’s no sense in us arguin’ about it. You goin’ to move down to Bob’s place?”

  “I’m not going to move my furniture down there—not yet, anyway—but I’m going to live with the Wilsons.”

  “Stayed there nights while you was workin’ with George on the cullin’, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Having the children around in the evenings was almost like being back home again.”

  “Kind of lonesome up there on top of the divide now the haulin’ season’s over, ain’t it?”

  “I hadn’t noticed it much till this last week,” I said.

  “Reckon a man batchin’ all alone gets mighty fed up on his own cookin’ too, specially if it’s stuff that ain’t scarcely fit to eat anyways, like that bread you was tellin’ me about.”

  “Bob’s wife can bake it so it tastes almost good,” I said. “She’s an awfully good cook.”

  “Far as I can find out she’s an awful good girl, poor child, and hard-workin’ too. It’s a shame she couldn’t of married somebody else besides a sharper like Bob Wilson. Oh well, she’ll make you a good home down there.”

  “I know it,” I said.

  “Had a lot to do with you goin’ into the deal with Bob, didn’t it?”

  “A little, maybe.”

  “Thought so, and I don’t know as I blame you for it, but don’t you leave him skin you out of the start you got in the haulin’ business, and don’t leave him skin them poor tenant farmers on top of the high divide, Bud. Even if we have had four or five pretty good crop years in a row, some of them folks are still mighty hard up.”

  “I’ve told him already that I’ll pull my stock out of the feed lot and quit him the first time I learn of his trying to cheat anybody,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t want anybody to get cheated, but . . . ”

  Effie broke the sentence off short, then said in a businesslike tone, “Well, if you’re aimin’ to buy feeder stock I reckon you’ll want me to put out line calls. What’ll I tell the folks?”

  “Tell them I’ve moved my trading headquarters down to the Wilson place,” I said, “and that Bob and I are going to feed cattle and hogs together, but that I’ll carry on my trading and shipping business alone. We already have enough pigs, but starting Monday morning we’re going to buy three hundred top grade white-faced feeder steers. Right now we’re fencing the place hog-tight, so I’ll be able to buy any kind of shipping stock at any time and hold it till I can make up uniform carloads. You could say that we’d be glad to hear from anybody with cattle or hogs to sell, regardless of grade, type, and whether or not they’re mortgaged to the bank.”

  “Want me to say you’ll stand personal behind any deal Bob makes or anything he says in dickerin’ for a deal? If you do you’re a fool, and if you don’t the folks in this township are goin’ to be mighty skittish about offerin’ stock.”

  “Then I’m a fool,” I said.

  Effie squeezed her lips together so hard that a white ring showed around them, then blew out a gusty breath and told me, “Well, there’s no cure for foolishness. I’ll put out line calls for you, but I’ve got a feelin’ that I might as leave be givin’ you a ticket to the poorhouse. Wouldn’t do it if the folks in this township didn’t need a dependable stock feeder so cussed bad. Now get out of here so’s’t I can simmer down before I make them line calls.”

  There was nothing more I could say, so I kissed a forefinger, touched it to the tip of her nose, and got out of there.

  Bob was at the bank for more than an hour. When he came home he tried his best to act as if he’d had a nice sociable visit with Bones, but he did none of his usual bragging. Next morning he set to work in good shape when we began fencing along the
McCook-Oberlin road. But Effie had stirred up considerable interest with her line calls, farmers by the dozen came by to say they had stock for sale, and Bob stopped to visit with every one of them. Some were top-of-the-divide tenants, so poor that only their wives and children were unmortgaged, but even with them Bob acted as if he were ashamed to be caught working, and he could no more help bragging than breathing. Before the day was over he was pushing most of the fence building off onto me by lengthening his visits with the callers. Still, I had to admire his acting ability, for he gave no appearance of trying to kill time, and his bragging always had a fresh, convincing quality.

  We finished fencing on Saturday, and by that time nearly every farmer in Beaver Township had either phoned or come by to say he had livestock of some kind for sale. By investing in the feeding business I’d drawn my trading funds down to less than fifteen hundred dollars, so before the bank closed I went up for a talk with Bones. After he’d given me an up-to-date list of the cash percentages we could pay on mortgaged stock, I told him, “A good many on this list have some shipping stock to sell. I believe I could pick up two or three carloads while we’re out buying feeder steers, but to do it I’d need a temporary loan until the stock is sold.”

  “There’s no need of making the loan now,” he told me. “Go ahead and buy as much stuff as you want to, then I’ll make the loan for whatever amount you’ve overdrawn your trading account. I’d like to see a good bit of that mortgaged stock shipped out of here before winter sets in.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that it was the last Saturday before Christmas until I got home from the bank and found Marguerite and the girls dressed in their going-to-town clothes. We all went to McCook that evening, I made my weekly visit to Dr. DeMay, and the sugar content of my specimen was down enough that he let me go back on my regular diet. After we had supper I took care of the girls while Bob and Marguerite did their Christmas shopping. I don’t believe we missed a toy, notions, or candy counter in the department store, and I had fully as much fun as they. I mailed trinkets to my brothers and sisters at home, and sent my mother a check. Then before we left town I bought Effie the biggest box of candy I could find.

  I spent all day Sunday cleaning the trampled hay and corn from around the stacks and piles in the stackyard. Then at daylight Monday morning Bob and I saddled up and set out for the south end of the township on our first buying trip. On the way we laid our plans for making deals. Top grade feeder steers were bringing eleven dollars and a half a hundredweight at Kansas City, and shipping costs from Beaver Township were a dollar fifty, so we decided to buy only the best and to pay about a dime a pound. But livestock was almost never bought from farmers by weight, because no farmer was happy with a sale unless he’d dickered the buyer up a few dollars above his original offer. To provide for it we made our original offers three to five dollars below the actual value of each animal, then let the seller dicker us upward.

  By noon word had spread that we were in the neighborhood, and we seldom rode into a yard that we didn’t find the farmer waiting for us with the stock he wanted to sell corralled for inspection. If a man had steers for sale that were of the size and quality we wanted we always bargained for them first. Then Bob stood aside while I dealt alone for the shipping stock. I’d expected to do a fairly good business, but was unprepared for the deluge of stock offered me on our first day out. Some of it was because farmers wanted to get rid of surplus stock before severe weather set in. But, particularly among the tenants, I think it was mainly because the wives wanted some Christmas spending money. Whatever the reason, I was offered well over a hundred cattle and hogs that day, and bought every one on which I thought I could make a reasonable shipping profit.

  As the animals were bought, whether for feeding or shipping, we marked their faces with a line of identification dye, and told the farmer to deliver them on the Saturday after Christmas. Since Bob would never bother to fill out stubs, I wrote all the checks: against my trading account if for shipping stock, and against my feeding account if for steers bought jointly. I made the checks for whatever percentage of the purchase was allowed by Bones’s list. On the back of each one I wrote out, as I’d done on Mr. Macey’s check, a bill of sale describing the stock, and a statement of the balance to be paid to the bank for the seller’s account. Then, for our own records, I entered the same information on the check stub.

  The divide farmers were wheat growers, so their cattle were mostly milch stock, and they raised few more hogs than were needed for the family meat supply. Bob and I found only sixty feeder steers of the size and quality we wanted, though I bought more than three carloads of shipping stock, largely dry cows and veal calves. But in Beaver Valley, where corn and alfalfa were the chief crops, many of the hog herds were large and most of the cattle were beef stock.

  Our first call in the valley was on Alfred Ashton, one of the most prosperous farmers in the township. He led the way to the corrals and showed us sixteen white-faced steers of exactly the type we wanted. As we climbed the fence he looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “According to what Grandpaw Macey’s been telling around the valley, there’s no need of you and me wasting time at haggling, so name your best bid right off the bat.”

  “If you put it that way,” I said, “I’ll have to say seventy dollars a head, all the way around.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said. “That’s right where I had ’em pegged. Want to make me an offer on about forty shipping hogs?”

  The hogs were of excellent quality and weighed about 275 pounds apiece. Top grade bacon hogs were bringing only thirteen fifty at Kansas City, down ten dollars since September, and I expected them to go lower. None too anxious to buy, I told Ashton, “I’m sorry, but the best I could offer is thirty dollars a head.”

  “I’ll take it,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.

  When we moved on, one farmer after another asked for our best offer on his steers, and accepted it without a quibble. Then, at prices fully two and a half dollars a hundredweight below the Kansas City market, he sold me all his hogs except his brood stock. By mid-forenoon I became frightened. With the most successful farmers in the township selling off their hogs I was afraid to buy any more, but refusing might cause hard feeling that would hurt my future business. There was only one man whose advice I dared take, so I told Bob to wait for me at the next four-corners, then set out for George Miner’s as fast as old Kitten could cover the ground.

  I found George sitting in a sunny corner of the wagon shed, picking the Christmas turkey. He kept right on picking while I told him what was worrying me, then without looking up he asked, “Ever herd sheep?”

  “No, sir,” I told him, “I was never around sheep.”

  “Well,” he said, “let an old ewe start to blattin’ and head off some place—no matter if it’s off the top of a bluff or out into a blizzard—and the whole flock will follow after her unless there’s somebody close by to head ’em back. I was minded of sheep last night when Irene and I went to a little Christmas shindig over to Dave Goodenberger’s. Folks got to talkin’ about you and Bob buyin’ feeder steers, and about old Grandpaw Macey, and you buyin’ up stuff to ship, and the likes. Al Ashton said he’d a’ready waited too long for the hog market to turn back up again, and reckoned he’d wasted every bushel of corn he’d fed in the last month. Said he aimed to sell every hog on his place, exceptin’ only his brood stock, if you made him a reasonable offer. Well sir, before you could say scat-my-cat every hog farmer in this valley was singin’ the same tune.”

  George went back to picking feathers as if there were nothing more to be said, so I asked, “Are you going to sell?”

  “Why, someday, I reckon,” he said, “but I ain’t in any hurry about it. It appears to me like it’s fat cattle and feeder steers that’s too high, not hogs.”

  “Then you’d advise me to keep right on buying?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t advise you one way or the other,” he answered. “A man ought to make up his own
mind . . . specially in the livestock tradin’ business.” Then he peeked up at me through his bushy eyebrows and asked, “Hadn’t you best to be goin’ along if you and Bob aim to get them steers bought before Christmas?”

  After our talk I stopped worrying, and the deluge continued. With no haggling to be done, Bob and I moved rapidly from farm to farm. At almost every one we bought a number of excellent feeder steers, and I seldom failed to pick up a dozen or two hogs, along with a few shipping cattle. By dusk on Christmas Eve, we had bought what we believed to be the three hundred best feeder steers in Beaver Township, and I was fairly swamped with shipping stock. Altogether, I’d bought more than five carloads of hogs, and four of mixed cattle and calves, together with five hundred bushels of corn and twenty tons of hay.

  Christmas was the best I’d ever spent away from home. As soon as the girls had opened their presents and we’d had breakfast I saddled Kitten, took the box of candy up to Effie, and rode on to my place to spend the forenoon with my horses. Marguerite’s dinner was glorious, and I ate as though I’d never heard of a diet. In the afternoon we popped corn and played games with the children, then gathered around the player piano in the evening, singing carols and hymns till bedtime.

  7

  Blizzards and Backaches

  THE morning after Christmas I got out the books I’d used for my wheat-hauling business and headed up pages for two new sets of accounts—one for the livestock-feeding business, and the other for my trading and shipping records. It was well past noon before I finished, and it took Bones more than two hours to handle the paper work at the bank. He would almost gloat over my having bought an old cow from some poor top-of-the-divide tenant farmer. As he wrote a voucher for transferring the thirty-dollar mortgage balance to my account he’d tell me, “If that cow is less than twenty years old, I’ll bet I’ve held a mortgage on her from the day she was born. Never did think I’d live to collect it.”