The Strawberry Roan

 In response to the December C&S challenge prompt:

There never was a horse that couldn’t be rode;

Never was a cowboy who couldn’t be throwed.

Summary: a cowboy who returns to the Ponderosa after a long absence discovers a new horse trainer…with an unwelcome training method.

Rating: T (mild language). 4316 words.

Note: This short story is set in the “Lilies” universe, but it can stand on its own.

The Lilies Series:

The Lilies of the Field
The Lilies of the Valley
One Scarlet Lily
The Strawberry Roan

The Strawberry Roan

There used to be a time when all the ranches in western Nevada and eastern California were clamoring for the attention of people like me. Bronc busters, we called ourselves. I wasn’t the best of ’em, but I was by no means the worst. In fact I was pretty darn good if I do say so myself. The problem is, there I was goin’ on thirty-three, an age when you want something a little less sprightly, like a cattle drive. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar, and I was in no shape to pick and choose my employment, especially since bustin’ horses and pokin’ cattle were the only things I knew. So when word came through the streets that the Cartwright ranch was hiring, I headed back that way.

You’ve heard of them, doubtless—biggest spread in that part of the state—they call it the Ponderosa. Foreman’s a fella named ‘Mutton Jim’ Coleman—‘Mutton’ on account of he used to punch sheep, or shear them, or whatever you do with ’em. They say he’s also a fair hand at training dogs, although what that had to do with the price of tea in China I could not guess.

I arrived hotter’n Satan’s butt and dunked my head in the horse trough. Right before my head went under I thought I was hallucinating, but when I looked up, the scene before me had not changed—there was a kid in the corral running away from a horse. As I watched, he stopped by a rail, and the horse stopped too. Then he commenced to chasing the horse, and it ran away from him. For a minute I thought of offering help, but then I saw Joe Cartwright sitting on the top rail and grinning like a monkey with a banana stuck in its mouth sidewise, and I reckon if Joe Cartwright thought things were progressing in grin-worthy fashion, then it must be all right.

I knew Joe some when I was younger. Didn’t like him much—he was even better with horses than I was. If I could stick like a burr, he could stick like a tick. You get the idea. But time plays hell with us all, and dang if he hadn’t aged some too. I’d heard a rumor in town that his hair went white overnight after his wife died. Now rumors, I generally take with a whole lotta grains of salt. But he’d sure enough gotten some gray among those fine chestnut locks.

For a minute I watched him, but he showed no interest in helpin’ the kid, and again, I reckoned if Joe Cartwright didn’t see fit to help, there wasn’t no need of me. I shrugged and looked around for a minute, and there was Mutton Jim under a tree with a big black hairy dog about a hundred feet off, so I headed that way. “Bring it, Duke,” said he, and the dog picked up a bucket by the handle and walked over to him. When he passed by me I saw the bucket was nearly full of eggs. The dog reached him and set the bucket down in front of him just as neat as you please, and Jim murmured a few sweet nothings at him before he noticed me eyeballin’ him. Then he told the dog to “unload,” and the dog commenced to grabbing each egg in his teeth and laying it on the ground. My eyebrows pushed my hat up an inch or two at that one, a trick I’d never seen before.

“Curley Fletcher,” Mutton Jim said, and now I was impressed that he remembered me.

“Howdy,” I said. “Heard you was hirin’ up here and thought I’d stake my claim.”

“We’re needin’ hands for a drive through some rough territory. About two months of work, forty bucks a month plus bunk and beans.”

“I c’n do it,” I said, “but I was kinda hopin’ y’all wanted a bronc rider. Looks like Little Joe’s delegatin’ it to kids, and that boy ain’t up to the task.”

Mutton Jim laughed long and hard before answering me, and I have to admit my eyebrows went down and my jaw stuck itself out. Never much cottoned to bein’ laughed at.

“That kid,” Jim finally said, “is the boss’s grandson, and while his methods are a little west of San Francisco, they appear to work.”

“Then why’s he on foot?” I replied, feelin’ real clever.

“That’s his method,” said Jim. “I seen him break at least fifty horses the last couple years, and he does the same thing with every single one. And when he’s done, you could put a baby on ’em and ride clear to Boston.”

Funny, I didn’t think Mutton Jim was one of the tall-tale tellers you find in these parts, but now he had me confused. He thought for a bit. “Look,” he said after a minute, “Joe is still runnin’ the horse operation. Talk to him. If he wants you, go for it, but I’ll lay odds he’ll say no.”

I gave Jim a nod and headed back to the corral. I was now kinda wonderin’ why I wanted this job, since once you hit thirty, landing on your tailbone five or six times a day ain’t nowhere near as funny as it was when you were eighteen. And bronc ridin’ usually isn’t as long a job as cattle drivin’. But somehow the idea of a little kid replacing the pros like me and Joe was a hateful one.

I scaled the corral rails to join Joe at the top. He gave me a glance and said, “Still alive, huh, Fletcher?”

“You know me,” said I. “Too ornery to kill.”

“Yeah, I know you,” was all he said. Well, he never had much use for me, neither. You can respect a rival, but bein’ friends with one just ain’t done.

Below us the boy had a rope, but instead of lassoin’ the pony, he was snakin’ it out at the horse’s legs to make him run some more. That kid reminded me of someone, though I couldn’t say who. Then I remembered he was old Ben’s grandson. Surely not Joe’s kid. He was tall for a youngster—maybe a little older than I first thought—brown as a nut, with black curly hair in dire need of a shearing, and so skinny he could hide behind a green bean. “Lemme ask you a question,” I said. “Don’t that kid’s diaper get caught on the saddle horn?”

Joe chuckled a little. “He’s fourteen,” he said. “About the same as me when I started breakin’ ’em.”

“Who is he?”

“Adam’s oldest boy. Name’s…” and then he said something I couldn’t understand, like “Owd’n.”

“How’d he come by a handle like that?” I asked. I’d never heard such a name.

“A-u-d-u-n. It’s Norwegian or something,” he said. “Look, Curley, we’re kinda busy here.”

“So I see. Wondered if you could use a…” and I choked a little, ’cause when you’re job-beggin’, you don’t want to step on yourself so hard you fall on your face. “If you could use another man to help with the horse-breakin’.”

“Thanks, but I think me and Audun pretty well have things in hand,” he said, and there went the interview, for I didn’t wanna break my back bad enough that I was gonna beg for it.

I was busy the next few days preparing for the drive, but whenever I chanced to walk by the corral, there’d be that skinny, dark kid with the weird name, doin’ some other strange thing with the horses. He seemed to like stickin’ his fingers in their sides, and if they moved, he’d pat ’em; if they shoved back he’d make ’em run around the corral again. I asked Joe once what it was all about, and got some charlatan-sounding business about “response to pressure.” He said the Injuns did it that way. Not that I’d ever watched any Injuns train their war ponies, but I’d lived with the Bannock Shoshone for a while and I never saw them pokin’ on their horses. I was startin’ to think poor ole Joe musta come off one of his own ponies an’ landed on his head.

Come the day, though, when I see the skinny kid and Joe puttin’ a bridle on a pony, and I think I’m finally gonna see some action, but instead they just led the horse around. Then they started makin’ it put its nose to the ground.

I shook my head in disgust, only to see Hoss Cartwright lookin’ back at me.

“What’s your take on all that business?” I asked, for old Hoss was always the Cartwright I respected most. He had a practical way of lookin’ on life, none of Joe’s wildness or Adam’s high-falutin’ ways.

“Best way of trainin’ horses I ever see,” says Hoss.

I couldn’t help scoffing a little, for I’ve trained a couple hundred horses with my own method. You’ve all heard of it—tie one of the front legs to the horse’s body so it can’t run off, then put a saddle on with a rider rakin’ hell outta the horse with his spurs. You trade off riders until somebody can stay on the horse and it’s too damn tired to try throwin’ ’em anymore. By dash, they know who’s boss after that.

“It ain’t as quick as just throwin’ a saddle on and wearin’ ’em out with a set of spurs,” he nodded, as if he knowed what I was thinking. “I’ll grant ya that. But it works, and it’s a durn sight easier on the horse, to say nothin’ of the men doin’ the ridin’.”

“But it’s a kid,” I said, and he looked surprised.

“It ain’t Audun’s method,” he replied. “He learned it same as we’re learnin’ it. He just learned it from Indians is all. And it makes a heap a’ sense when you think on it.”

“I been watchin’ fer nearly two weeks,” said I, “and I ain’t seen nothin’ yet that made sense.”

“You oughtta ask Joe.” Hoss nodded, as if he’d impressed himself with his own advice. “He was the first one of us to latch onto this way of doin’ it. Him and Audun have been workin’ together with the horses since the boy come here, and they’ve made a lot of adjustments together.” He looked at me for a second with those bright blue eyes. “Well, you can believe it or not. But I done seen enough of it to know you get a better horse out of it. I’d put one of Audun’s ponies up against yours any day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

“Put up or shut up,” I said, grinning so he’d know I didn’t wanna lose my job over it, but if he was game, so was I.

“You’ll see tomorrow,” he told me. “He’s gonna start in the mornin’ and probably won’t quit until he’s got all fifteen of ’em goin’ under saddle.”

I thought about that, and the more I thought about it, the more irked I got. It had taken this kid two weeks to put fifteen horses under a saddle? In my prime, I coulda done it in less than two days. Boss’s grandkid or no—that was just bad business.

And where did this kid come off saying his way was the way to do it, and all the ranch agreed?

Now in my honest moments, I had to admit I didn’t know that was the way it happened. For all I know, old Ben had gone soft in the head and decided things himself. Although I can’t ever say I heard of the Ponderosa being famous for training dogs, of all things, before that kid came along, either. I knew they’d still been training horses the good old way last time I’d been here—ten years ago—again, before that kid came along.

The kid probably raised my hackles more than anything. The more you looked at him, the more you saw the Adam in him. He was in the black curly hair, the stance, that loose-limbed way of walking, the long, flat-muscled legs and arms, that overall air of knowing more than everyone else. But there was someone else in there too, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have liked her either. Someone with gray eyes like a wintry sky, eyes that could look you up and down and tell your life’s story, could assess your abilities and shortcomings, weigh them together and tell whether or not you were worth their time. And I had a pretty good feeling that this kid—for all he’d never said a word to me, nor I to him—had looked at me, found me wanting, and dismissed me just like that. And that, I couldn’t forgive.

Especially not when I heard around the bunkhouse that Audun Cartwright wasn’t born on the proper side of the blanket. Apparently Adam had had a dalliance with an Indian woman somewhere—that’s what some of the boys said, although I couldn’t figure out where those gray eyes came from. And when Mutton Jim come upon us talking about it, he damn near fired the ones that were ’splainin’ and said Audun was legit as a courthouse seal.

Damned high and mighty Cartwrights. And that kid had the nerve to judge me?

I guess that was when I decided that Audun Cartwright’s first big ride of the season would not be successful. It may have been a little mean, but there ain’t no cowboy worth his salt that won’t pull an occasional shine on one of his bunkhouse pals, and for all there was never a horse that couldn’t be rode, there’s also never a cowboy that couldn’t be throwed. And even bosses’ grandkids need to learn some of life’s hard lessons about humility, don’t they?

That night I got a little old burlap bag and went for a walk in the woods.

Next morning before dawn, I sauntered up from the woods from my morning leak and discreetly dropped my little burlap bag on the ground by the rails, with the opening facing the center of the corral. Shortly after this, young Audun came marching up to the corral, and the fellers workin’ with him went to get the first horse. Little Joe came out a few minutes later. I thought he would take his throne on the top rail of the corral, but instead he went into the corral and talked to Audun, real soft-voiced, for a minute. Audun nodded to him as Hoss came out to lean against a lower rail and mumble things at Joe. Finally old Ben Cartwright meandered along, looking pleased as punch with himself, his sons, and his grandson. Yup, life was good. His, anyway. I wondered where Adam was, but then remembered he was in San Francisco for something-or-other. He always got to do the “glamorous” ranch business.

When they brought in the first horse—a big, raw-boned strawberry roan, lanky and long-legged, a full seventeen hands high, way too tall for a cow pony—I almost had second thoughts. It was a big horse for that kid, I had to admit. Hell, it would be big for me. And for all Hoss had said, “starting them under saddles,” that apparently didn’t come until later. Audun wanted to ride them bareback first. The kid was nuttier than a pecan grove.

There was the roan, relaxed as a boy goin’ fishin’, just standing there with his ears spraddled out and his eyes half shut. There I was, standing by the corral next to Hoss, innocent as Sunday School, although if you looked twice—real hard—you might have seen a couple of toads makin’ their way from my pockets to the ground. And there was Audun Cartwright, presumably getting some last-minute advice from good old Uncle Joe. Then Audun took a big hank of mane, put his foot into Joe’s interlaced fingers, and laid himself across the roan’s back while the horse rolled its eyes and wondered what in tunket was going on. Joe backed slowly away and climbed up the rails to perch on the top one again. Audun, rubbing the horse all over with this free hand, gradually sat up and got his leg across the horse’s back.

For a minute, all was still. And then the horse squealed and exploded all over creation as the four little garter snakes I’d put in my bag showed up, following the scent of the toads I’d released a few minutes before.

I never saw anything like it. That roan was everywhere, screaming and thrashing his head and legs, buckling his body like a corkscrew, pounding a paved road into the dusty corral. His eyes were wilder than a sea serpent, and his body just that fluid as he flailed his legs and lashed his tail, screeching and hollering his present discontent with the world situation. He had his ears pinned back and nostrils flaring, his teeth bared as he rared up and smashed the corral railing with a flogging leg, knocking Joe off backwards and makin’ every rail shake. He came down on his forelegs with his hind legs reaching for the moon and then flew straight up again. He swung his head around and nearly tore a chunk out of old Ben’s arm.

“Jump, Audun!” Joe yelled from the ground as Hoss helped him up, but the kid wasn’t listening to nobody.

“Open it!” Audun shouted instead.

“Are you outta your mind?” Joe squawked back.

But Hoss nodded. “I gotcha,” he shouted, barrelin’ over to lift the rope that held the gate closed, and a second later the gate swung back. The strawberry colt and the boy tore through it like a skyrocket, dashed around the barn, and vanished. For a long moment we heard the hoof beats echoing in the distance; then even they were gone.

And that’s when I realized my mistake.

If I rode like a burr in my day, and Joe like a tick, well, we were masters at what we did, but we were still separate beings clinging to a horse. Audun Cartwright was simply an extension of the horse. That roan colt had emerged from its mother’s body with dark Audun already there like a permanently attached shadow.

“What the hell happened?” Joe demanded, running back into the corral to look at one smashed garter snake. The other three were rapidly disappearing into the scrub bushes at the other side of the railing. I had no notion where the frogs had vamoosed to, but somewhere else suddenly seemed like a real good place to be, at that.

Only before I could make my escape, Little Joe Cartwright had his hand on my collar. “This was your doing,” he said. There was no question to his voice; he knew.

“I’ve been standing here the whole time,” I protested, sounding as flabbergasted as I was. I’d never seen riding like that; in fact, I was no longer certain just what I had seen.

Hoss was scouting around the corral, and he turned up the burlap sack. Without a word he handed it to Joe, and Joe, looking as if it was just one chore in a long list, walloped me in the jaw and stalked off, shouting for someone to bring Cochise around. And Ben Cartwright walked over to me while I was checking to see if I had any teeth left. He knelt next to me, holding the scrap of burlap in his hand, and said softly, “Was this your doing?”

“Honest to God, Mr. Cartwright,” I swore, “I have no idea what happened.”

But I’m pretty sure he didn’t buy it, since he looked dead at me, and not for the first time I noticed how his puppy-dog brown eyes could turn just as cold as Lake Tahoe in winter as he said, “If anything happens to my grandson, I’ll see you buried under the jail.” Y’know, a few years back he’d threatened to can me a few times when I got too rowdy of a Saturday, but those days were nothin’ compared to this.

He called a couple of other men to take me to the bunkhouse and guard me—which I found pretty damn insulting—and last I seen, him and Hoss were riding fast after Joe.

It was nearly dark again when the three of them came back. Without Audun or the strawberry roan.

There are places on the Ponderosa where you’d think humans had never stepped a foot, and all anyone could think was that that musta been where the kid and horse went. Either that or maybe they’d both fallen into Ophir Gorge or Willet Crick, which were probably good likelihoods, too. Anyway, they talked to the fellers in the bunkhouse, and with the exception of the two who would be left to guard me, the whole ranch was going to join in the search the next morning, getting underway at sunup.

Except that next morning, as they were all saddling up, Audun and the roan came trotting in, still attached, both as relaxed as Sunday afternoon lemonade. They were both sweat-stained, dust-caked and lookin’ a little ragged around the edges, but no harm had been done, and the horse moved like the veteran of a hundred roundups, in total harmony with his rider. And all I could think was, “damn.”

Well, you know the Cartwrights. They had to grab the kid and tousle his hair and shake him by the shoulders and all that other mama’s-boy stuff they do with each other, and of course they had to praise him and tell him how wonderful he was and all that other blather, too. But finally it was all over, and I stiffened up inside, because I knew the jig was up for me. At the least, I’d lost my job. At the most, old Ben might just chuck me in jail anyway.

I could see them out there as my guards brought me out of the bunkhouse. They were showing him the burlap sack and the squished garter, telling him I’d put a sack full of snakes out there as some kinda mean prank, and damn if they didn’t ask that boy what he’d have them do with me. And at that, I’ll confess, my huevos pretty near shriveled up, but I looked straight at him and he looked straight at me. I’d swear I saw a glimmer of humor in those smoky eyes as he turned to Joe Cartwright and shook his head.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “The snakes didn’t come from this bag. I saw it lying on the ground the night before, and it was empty.” He was lying like a rug, and everyone must’ve knowed it, but not one of them called him on it.

“But Audun,” Hoss finally said, “You cain’t just think all them snakes came into the corral on their own.”

And then the boy said something that made no sense to me, but it sure made all three Cartwrights go “aha”…

“Of course not.” Audun sounded like he’d just invented whisky. “My wáyakin sent them to help me train the horses.”

The three older men seemed to know there was no fighting that argument, whatever it meant.

Hoss chuckled. “Okay, Snake Eyes, you got me.”

Joe gave me a look like I’d just kicked his favorite puppy. “Are you sure?” he asked the kid, and Audun nodded.

Ben Cartwright gave me a long, level glance. “I apologize, Mr. Fletcher,” he finally said, and each word sounded like it had been pulled out of his belly with hot tongs. He walked off, with Joe and Hoss in tow. And the kid and I just stood there, alone together.

Audun Cartwright looked at me. “I don’t mind you hating me, although I don’t know what your reason is,” he said at length. “And I don’t mind that you wanted to hurt me. But you could have hurt my horse. It’s harder to forgive that, but the Soyapo preachers say I must.”

He turned to walk away. I felt stupid, and had enough questions to fill a couple hours…but I only had the nerve to ask the least important one. “Am I still workin’ here?”

“Talk to my grandfather,” he said without much interest. “I’ve already told him you were not at fault, so I would think you are. But keep away from me and my horses.”

I guess his answer gave me the nerve to ask another. “What did you mean, your wáyakin…”

“You picked the wrong guardian spirit to cross,” said the boy, turning back to look me full in the eyes. “Mine is the rattlesnake. Did you really think a handful of garter snakes could hurt me?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” I said. “Or the horse. I just wanted to teach you a lesson.”

“And what was that?”

“Everyone knows,” I told him. “There never was a horse that couldn’t be rode; never was a cowboy who couldn’t be throwed.”

“Ah,” he replied, walking off slowly, the strawberry roan following like a huge pink dog. Then the boy turned back and flashed a big grin at me. “Then you must not have listened to the men in the bunkhouse. I’m not a cowboy. I’m an Indian, remember?”

Tags:  Audun Cartwright, Ben Cartwright, Hoss Cartwright, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright