Free The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch by Paul Bagdon Page A

wide,
nicely reinforced gate we’d latched wide-open,
which was a good move on our part. It could have
been real tough getting close enough to unlatch
the gate with the stud acting up.
    Armando banged his heels against his horse’s
sides and the black leaped forward, putting lots
of pressure on the bay. I dropped my rope,
jumped down from my saddle, and ran to the
gate. I swung it closed just as Arm galloped out.
The stallion stood in the corral near the snubbing
post with a pair of forty-foot ropes still around
his neck. He looked more confused than anything
else. I’d expected a blowup when he figured
out that he was boxed in by fences too high to
jump, and would start raising general hell, trying
to kick his way out of the enclosure. Instead, he
merely stood there, looking around. I suppose he
was as tired as we and our horses were.
    The mares, too, were confused. They whinniedout
to the bay, and when he responded they approached
the corral. There were as skittish as
deer and didn’t dare come too close, but hearing
their boss seemed to comfort them some. They
ran out in a group about a hundred yards into a
pasture and began to graze.
    We took our horses into the barn and spent
some time rubbing them down, checking and
cleaning their hooves, and putting a ration of
molasses-rich crimped oats in front of them in
their stalls, along with buckets of fresh water.
They’d done fine work for us and they deserved a
little extra time. Anyway, it’s a code in the West
that a man takes care of his critters before he
takes care of himself.
    There was a large meat pie on our little kitchen
table, covered with a couple of layers of cheesecloth
to keep the flies away.
    “Them women—I love them,” Armando said,
tossing the cheesecloth aside, and picking up one
of the big wooden spoons placed next to the pie. I
did the same. We ate the entire thing in a matter
of minutes.
    “How about we hire those two to cook and
kinda clean up around here? Neither one of us
are much good at that stuff.”
    “ Bueno. We pay them well, no?”
    “Absolutely.”
    Armando pushed his chair back and headed
for the tequila cabinet. He took out a quart,
yanked the cork with his teeth, and said, “Les’ go
out an’ see what the bay horse is doing.” He took
a monumental swig of the booze, belched, and
handed the bottle to me.
    “We need some glasses. We’re like a pair of
stumblebums sucking whiskey out of bottles,” I
said, after taking a long hit.
    “Blanca y Teresa will get some, we ask them to.
Me—I don’ need no glass.”
    “I’ll set up an account at the mercantile an’ they
can get whatever they want,” I said. “Come to
think of it, we don’t have any plates or such—
spoons and knives an’ forks.”
    “If you gettin’ glasses, you might as well get
the whole wagonload a that horseshit, no?”
    Armando wasn’t big on the social niceties. His
sheath knife was two utensils rolled into one
piece—knife and fork. He didn’t need a spoon—
soup or stew he simply drank from the bowl.
    We stopped at the barn and picked up a flake
of hay. When we got to the corral I tossed the hay
over the top and then Arm and I climbed to the
top rail. The stallion was lathered and sweat
dripped from his chest and sides. He’d obviously
been running—and running hard. He ignored
the hay. I noticed he’d drunk about half of the
water in the trough at one corner of the corral. He
stood and glared at us, and it seemed that his
glare could melt steel.
    The mares had moved a bit farther away but
we could still see them dotting the pasture. When
the bay whinnied they no longer answered.
    The bay lurched into a run again, moving as
fast as his tanglefoot allowed him to, following
the fence line around and around again. The two
ropes flailed behind him, like snakes chasing
him in his headlong dash. When he came by uswe
could hear the deep bellows-like sound of a
horse that’s been run too long.
    He made another half circuit of the