Posted on February 12, 2010 - by Hubba

Big Dan; Here We Go Again

Me and Crackerjack followed the other horses at a lope as Gall, Cessna and Pepper exploded through the gate into the corral.

It was cold this morning; not just chilly like it had been, but cold.  I felt a little frisky, so me and Crackerjack joined Gall and Cessna to the far end of the pasture at a high lope.  Maybe those two idiots were rubbing off on me a little bit, but it felt good, and Joe, I was convinced, seemed to expect it.

When he had gotten us all rounded up, me and Crackerjack had kept up with the others, but stayed behind them.  Pepper didn’t fit through the gate and sat back on his haunches, and Crackerjack almost ran over him.  We all milled around the corral at a lope or a trot, whatever we felt like, and then came to a stop by the barn with steam rolling off our backs.  Joe was fumbling with the chain on the gate.  There were tears at the corners of his eyes and his face was a mix of white and red.  Probably cold and fury.

I could see the kids by the Quonset hut pouring dogfood into a bowl.  Today was the first of the two days Will did not go to school; Saturday they called it.  The other days he would have been done with chores by now.

Lee didn’t have any kids so I had never learned about any days except maybe Thursday.  During the winter, Lee would go to ropings in town on Thursdays, so I had kind of learned about that one.  I had never thought about this even at the time.

Anyway there were these two, Saturday and then Sunday I think, and in between there were five other ones.  I wasn’t sure which one was Thursday, what the other four were called, or why they had this weird day-naming system.  There were different kinds of days, short and long, hot and cold, but mostly they were just days.

The barn door opened noisily and Joe strode out holding a bridle.  It wasn’t mine.  He walked past me and up to Crackerjack, who wheeled and ran with a little crowhop for good measure.  “You dirty Bastard!” Joe yelled at him.  Damn, but we were all a little goosy this morning.

Crackerjack stayed in the far corner as Joe approached, and even though he spooked a little, he stood still.  Joe and Crackerjack went into the barn and the door shut behind them.

The door opened again, and Joe reappeared with my bridle.  I had done enough running and acting like an idiot, enough to embarass myself a little, so I stood still while Joe caught me.  We got inside the barn and Joe threw his saddle on me and cinched it up.  Crackerjack was tied in the corner without a saddle on.

Joe pulled the breast collar up and  opened the barn door.  After leading me into the corral, he swung on and rode me around the corral, first at a trot and then at a lope.  The other horses swerved around the corral recklessly and Pepper got in my “road” several times.

Joe finished riding me in circles, got Crackerjack from the barn still bareback and led us both to the horse trailer which was hooked onto the pickup.  We both hopped in the trailer and Joe shut the divider gate behind us and the trailer gate behind that.  We stood in the trailer blowing steam out through the slats while Joe went to the barn and got something which he threw in the back of the pickup.  The pickup door slammed, the engine came to life cackling in the cold, and after a while we were off.

We rode in silence in the trailer, both shifting occasionally to keep our footing.  I wasn’t sure why Joe had caught us both or why we had made circles in the corral before loading up.  Crackerjack didn’t look like he had the answers, and it was too loud to talk anyway.

We had driven quite a ways when the pickup pulled off the main road and stopped.  Joe opened a gate, drove through and closed it behind us.  Ahead in the pasture I could see several pickups and horse trailers, but no people or horses.  We must be late.  Lee had always been late to everything.

We pulled up behind another horse trailer and stopped.  The pickup door slammed shut and Joe appeared at the back of the trailer.  He led us both out, tied us up and took his saddle off of me.  He was throwing it on Crackerjack, when he hollered “hurry up, son, we’re late already!”

And there was Will, in a coat that was too big for him and red gloves flopping on the ends of his fingers.  He tripped as he came around the front of the pickup and fell almost into Crackerjack.  When he got up I saw the snot running out of his nose.

Son of a bitch.