Home Ranch (11 page)

Mr. Batchlett had been riding along, watching the cattle as he talked, but he whirled toward me and said, real sharp, “I don't want you tryin' to ride Blueboy till I get back here! You hear me? You ain't got the strength to handle that much horse no time; he'd kill you, weak as you are now.”

“You won't have to worry,” I told him. “I think I learned quite a lot while Hank and I were up in the mountains. One time when I thought we'd never get out alive, I started to hate him, and then I remembered that sometimes I rare into things just the same way he does.”

Mr. Batchlett stopped his horse and looked at me as if he were puzzled, then he said, “Well, dang me! Maybe you ain't been hurt as much as I figured on. If that old maverick has learned you that much he might still be worth keepin' around.”

I knew from the way he said it that he'd planned to let Hank go as soon as he was well, so I said, “It was more my fault than his that we got lost. If I hadn't bragged about being able to cut more posts than he could, we'd have gone with the other teams.”

Mr. Batchlett reached over and slapped me real hard on the leg. “By dang, Little Britches,” he said, “I been thinkin' I was a fool to bring a headstrong kid like you along, but you're goin' to make out after all. Now you get back to the home ranch; you've rode far enough. And listen, Watt's your boss while I'm away. Watch him and you'll learn a lot. If he says you done good and didn't risk your neck too often, and if you've gained your weight back, I'll take you with me on my next trip.”

10

Betcha My Life

W
HEN
I got back from seeing Mr. Batchlett off, Mr. Bendt was at the horse corral, saddling Hazel's pinto, and she was with him. She didn't act as if she knew I'd ridden up, and her father didn't look around until he'd tightened the cinch. When he'd finished, I said, “Mr. Batchlett says you'll be my boss while he's away; do you have a job for me?”

“You betcha my life!” he sang out. “Goin' to be awful short-handed with Tom away! Reckon you could scout around the brush and root out the cows that's had calves?”

“Sure!” I said. “Where'll I put 'em?”

Hazel was still standing with her back to me. She didn't look around, but said, “Hmmfff! He wouldn't even know where to start lookin', and he'd prob'ly get lost agin!”

I knew she was really talking to me instead of her father, and I didn't like what she'd said, so I snapped, “I suppose you'd . . .” but Mr. Bendt cut me off.

“That's enough!” he said. “If you kids want to fight we'll get some gloves! And now, my gal, you've talked yourself into a job o' work! We'll leave you show him where to root 'em out, and where to bring 'em in to! Go tell your maw you're goin'!”

I didn't like having a girl sent to help me, but there wasn't much I could say, and I did need help. The home ranch stretched eight or nine miles along the foot of the mountains, there were a million places for cattle to hide, and I didn't know a single one of them. Any kind of cattle are hard to find in scrub oak country, like the home ranch, but milk cows are the worst of all—especially when they've just had calves.

When Hazel went to the house I could see that Mrs. Bendt didn't like having her go to find the cows with me. She called Mr. Bendt to the chuckhouse steps, and though I couldn't hear what she was saying, her voice sounded sharp. I didn't want to seem to be listening, so I rode Lady out beyond the corrals, and had to wait quite a while before Hazel came back.

“Well, come on if you're comin'!” was all Hazel said, as she spurred the pinto past me and headed him onto the trail. She followed it north for about three miles, then turned off along a creek bottom, pulled up, and said, “Let's clean out this here creek bottom first. You take that side and I'll take this one. Bring 'em out where we turned off the main trail. Betcha my life I find more'n you do.”

“Your life wouldn't do me any good,” I told her, “but I'll bet you a nickel.”

“Cash?”

“Yes, cash,” I said, and pulled Lady toward the creek.

The fall I'd worked at the Y-B roundup, we'd ridden into the mountain canyons to hunt out strays. They were beef cattle, and pretty wild, so I was sure I wouldn't have any trouble finding tame old milk cows. I took Lady through the creek at a splashing run, and cantered toward the head of the valley. Before I got there I was sure Hazel had tricked me out of a nickel. If she hadn't known there'd be cows in that bottom she wouldn't have made the bet, and I didn't see a single one on my side of the creek. It seemed to me that it was kind of a dirty trick for her to pick the only good side—and then fool me into making a money bet.

When I turned back, I'd made up my mind that I'd run Lady spraddle-legged again if I had to, but I'd find every single cow and calf on my side of the creek. The valley was only about a mile long and half a mile wide, but I must have run Lady ten miles before we found our first cow with a calf. Willows and alders grew thick along the sides of the creek, and the whole valley was dotted with chokecherry and wild plum thickets. They were all too high to see over, so I had to keep riding back and forth between them as if I'd been in an obstacle race.

When I did find the one lone cow and calf I was in worse trouble than I had been before. The minute I'd leave them to look for some more, they'd disappear, and I had to waste a lot of time finding them again. Before I was anywhere near the end of the valley, Hazel ya-hooed from the main trail. And when I answered, she called back, “Are you lost agin?”

I knew I was going to lose my nickel, but I wasn't going to let her think I cared, so I snaked that old cow out of the valley as fast as the calf could trot.

I'd expected Hazel to have two or three cows with calves, but when I reached the trail she was grinning like a coyote, and had seven of them rounded up in a little herd. “Is that the best you could do?” she sniffed. “I thought you was supposed to be a cowhand.”

“I am a cowhand,” I told her, “but I'm not a magician. I can't find cows in places where there aren't any.”

“Want to bet there ain't?” she taunted.

I wasn't going to let Hazel wangle me into another foolish bet, and I hadn't hunted over the lower end of the valley, so I said, “Well, there might be one or two in this end, but I'll bet you there aren't any farther up.”

“Give me a penny apiece for every one I find between the middle of the valley and the hogback?”

“A penny!” I said. “I'll give you a nickel apiece, and I'll eat my shirt if you find more than two.”

“Good thing Maw washed it! Give me a hand at putting these critters down to the creek so's they won't scatter.”

“Why?” I asked. “They can scatter from down there just as easy as from up here, can't they?”

“Hmfff! That's all you know about cattle, is it? Why would they scatter when there's grass and water handy, and plenty of places to hide their calves?”

Hazel didn't hurry her pinto a bit as we rode up the valley. She just let him mope along, and seemed to be killing all the time she could. When I'd gone up there I'd found a good cattle trail along the creek, but she didn't follow it. Instead she let her horse wander around among the chokecherry thickets like a lost dogie calf. Most of the time she acted as if she didn't know I was along, but once she showed me a meadow lark's nest. Another time she said she'd bet me her life there were baby magpies in a nest in a high cottonwood tree. Then, when we were riding through a little open place, she said, “How do you do that . . .”

“That what?” I asked.

“Oh, never mind; you're too puny now. I was just wonderin' something.” Then I couldn't get another word out of her.

We were skirting a plum thicket near the head of the valley when Hazel slid out of her saddle and dropped the reins. Then she looked up at me and said, “It's nickels instead of pennies, ain't it?”

When I nodded, she bent and went into the plum thicket. When she came out she was driving a skinny red cow with a spotted calf that couldn't have been more than a few hours old. The minute the cow saw Lady and me she turned toward us, hooked her head and bawled.

I knew the cow and calf had been in that thicket all morning, and that I'd ridden within a dozen yards of them. To have Hazel find her so easy made me feel sort of silly. I had to say something, and I couldn't tell her she was smarter than I, so I said, “Don't worry, Mrs. Meine, I'm not going to hurt your Villiam.”

Hazel looked up, puzzled, and asked, “What did you say?”

“Oh, nothing! The old cow just reminded me of a woman in Littleton, that's all.”

“Who?”

“Oh, just a woman that lives across from the schoolhouse and has a spoiled little kid. She's always shaking her fist at us, and hollering, ‘Go 'vay, bad kids! Don't you hurt my Villiam!'”

That was the first time that Hazel acted as if she thought I had a lick of sense. She snickered, and said, “Well, I guess it fits her—him, too; it's a bull calf. You keep 'em movin' while I take a look at the alder island.”

Mrs. Meine kept trying to dodge back into thickets where I couldn't ride Lady, and I had to get down two or three times to drive her out on foot. I was so busy I didn't think any more about Hazel till she came driving in another cow and calf. That one was a big fat Durham with thick shoulders and a heavy brisket. She didn't pay any attention to me, but kept turning toward her calf, sort of murmuring to it. “This is Mrs. Spivak,” Hazel called out. “She looks just like Pete's wife over at the cream station. I found her in them—in those alders where the creek goes around the island.”

“Then I'm not going to give you a nickel for her,” I called back. “If she was on an island, she was just as much on your side of the creek as on mine.”

“What do I care about your old nickel; I got to name her, didn't I?”

“Sure,” I told her, “but I don't know if it fits or not.”

“Well, you will when you see Pete's wife.”

Of course, I couldn't argue about it any more, and I didn't care anyway. What worried me was Hazel's finding cows I'd missed. And I didn't think it was very fair of her to leave me watching that Mrs. Meine and Mrs. Spivak didn't sneak away while she went to hunt more cows.

It wasn't ten minutes before Hazel called from off to my right, “Here comes another one; it's your turn to name her!”

A tall slab-sided Holstein came out between two clumps of bushes. When she saw me she stopped, raised her head high, and stood staring, as if she was daring me to make a move.

“That's Mrs. Tompkins,” I called back to Hazel. “She acts just like the substitute teacher we had last spring.”

“Well, you can't squeal out of paying me a nickel for her; she was way over on your side. You keep movin' 'em along; I'm going to look in this plum thicket.”

“Oh, no you don't!” I said. “I had to spend half of my time keeping track of the cow I found. I'm not going to watch yours and let you gyp me out of any more nickels.”

“All right then, don't!” she said, and drove the Holstein in with the others, “but you'd better get some nickels ready. I'll betcha my life there's a cow and calf in that plum thicket over there.”

“Oh, bet your small change first!” I told her. “I'll bet another nickel there isn't.”

I lost my nickel, but Hazel didn't lose a single cow while she went poking into the thicket. As soon as she took over the driving, the cows plodded along like oxen. She didn't seem to pay a bit of attention to them, or to her horse either. She let him poke along as if he were half asleep, but whenever a cow tried to turn aside he was always in the right place to keep her from it. “Just stay back out of the way and don't spook 'em!” Hazel told me; “I got plenty to do without you gettin' 'em scairt!”

I stayed back, but watched Hazel like a fox. She didn't seem to be doing a bit of hunting, but turned the pinto aside, slid off, and brought another cow and calf out of a little thicket. It didn't look any different to me than forty other thickets we'd passed, but Hazel went to it as straight as if it had a sign on it. “How did you know there'd be a cow in there?” I asked her. “Why did you look in that one when you didn't look in the others we've passed?”

“Because it had a hole in the middle. Couldn't you see the light through the top branches?”

The sky did show a little through the top branches of that thicket, and it didn't through the others, but I would never have thought of its meaning there was a hole in the middle. “Well, even if there was a hole in it, how did you know there'd be a cow in there?” I asked.

Hazel stopped her horse, put both hands on her hips, and looked at me as if I were hopeless. “Well,” she said, “if you was a cow and was goin' to have a calf, could you find any better place than that to hide in?”

I didn't like having Hazel act as if she thought I was just plain stupid, and snapped at her, “Well, I'm not a cow, and I'm not going to have a calf, and I'm not so much like a cow that I can think like one.”

“Hmfff! You'd better get to be if you don't want to go on losin' nickels!” she snapped back.

That nickel business was worrying me a lot. I only had sixty cents, Hazel had already won half of it, and it was still a long way to the middle of the valley. It seemed to me that I'd better not fight with her, because she might win more money than I had, and I'd have to be in debt to her. I'd been going to say I didn't care how many nickels she won, but instead, I said, “I'll drive the cows for you. With this many, you'd have a terrible time if they got scattered.”

“You stay back and leave 'em alone if you want to help me!” she said. “Why would they scatter if they ain't hurried or scairt half out of their wits?”

It wouldn't have been so bad if I could have kept busy, but just to trail along behind gave me too much time to worry about the nickels. And Hazel brought in four more cows and calves before we reached the middle of the valley. After that, she drove the little herd and let me do the hunting. I poked into a lot of thickets that didn't have a cow in them, but I looked in four that did, and Hazel told me I'd done pretty well for a greenhorn.

By that time Hazel had stopped acting as if she thought I was stupid, and we picked names for every one of the cows as we drove them slowly toward the main trail. I wanted to name a pretty little Jersey with her first calf, Jenny Wren, but Hazel wouldn't let me. She said that cows with calves were all married, and that they had to be named Mrs. Somebody. I had to give in and name the little Jersey for Mrs. Hazlett, my Sunday School teacher in Littleton.