Free The Pastures of Beyond by Dayton O. Hyde

feet four. I could hear his old frame snap as he moved. “When I’m good and ready, you’re goin’ to turn ’im loose. You just be damn sure you keep ’im herded out in the mud away from shore!”
    I was full of can’ts at that point, scared to death of riding in that quaking morass of a stinking black swamp. But before I knew it, Roy had jerked the snaffle bit off his own horse and had it between the stallion’s yellow teeth. He knelt on the horse’s neck while he got the reins in place and the throat latch buckled.
    â€œGit ready,” he ordered. “Give ’im slack when I tell you and let ’im have his hind feet. We’ll pick up my reata tomorrow when we come back this way.”
    He loosened his reata and tossed it free of the animal’s head, then crouched over the saddle. With a lunge, the horse came to its feet. Roy found the off stirrup with his toe. “Wish me luck, kid!” he shouted.
    With a scream of anger, the stud leaped toward the marsh. Out in the deep the horse lost its footing, and for a moment there was only the boil of brown swamp water. Then, suddenly, both horse and rider were up and sputtering. Roy pulled the animal’s head around until it was pointed parallel to the shore.
    â€œHaaaah!” I shouted, kicking my horse into the water. One more jump and the pair went down again, but this
    time the angry animal kept its head up. Finding its footing, it lurched forward through the mud. Every time the horse would lower its head to buck, its nostrils would go under, and it would lift its head and charge on. Once it reared and fell sideways, pinning Roy under, but the man pulled the horse’s nose beneath the surface and it struggled up again to its feet. I kept busy splashing back and forth, keeping the animal herded away from shore.
    We had gone only a quarter of a mile or so when Roy sensed that the animal was ready. “Ride right in front of him,” the old man said. “Lead him ashore. I think he’ll follow your horse.”
    Before I knew it, Roy and the horse were on firm ground, and the stud, which had wanted to kill a cowboy only moments before, now trotted along behind mine, with only an occasional look back at the forest where his mares had disappeared. We moved west along the shoreline, holding as close as possible to the swamp, with Roy’s old saddle horse bringing up the rear. I shook my head in disbelief. I had seen a real cowboy at work and seen a touch of the past when old men were still men.
    That fall, Roy and I were staying in the old white Houston ranch house on the west side of Klamath Marsh, riding for strays. The land was white with the first snows off the Cascades, towering above us to the west. I had come in early to start the cook fire, and Roy was taking one last sashay out on the flats to check stock water in the troughs. Outside the house I heard hoofbeats and looked out to see Roy’s horse coming in alone. The old Hamley saddle was empty, and the reins were dragging. Roy had been one of the lucky ones, avoiding old age. I got the neighbors, and we brought his body in by moonlight with a team and wagon.

Chapter Seven
    U NTIL WORLD WAR II CAME ALONG , changes to the West came slowly, almost imperceptibly. Then, almost over-night, the young men were gone, and even older ranch hands with able bodies had gone off to make money in factories. The ranches were left to survive as best they could with the dregs of the labor pool.
    At Yamsi, we used old saddle horses that should have been retired, since there was no one around to ride Whingding or break colts. The young horses were there, of course. You can’t turn off a pregnant mare. But the horses that were ready for training got older every year and harder to handle when someone did pass by willing to start one.
    At seventeen, I wasn’t quite old enough for the service, but I had to grow up in a hurry with all the responsibilities