Posted on June 24, 2009 - by Hubba

Horses I’ve Rode; Buster

Buster was actually a hell of a good horse.  When he sold at Melvin Anderson’s horse auction, much to my chagrin he sold for way more than I could afford to pay for him.

Buster (that’s what Melvin had named him) was good-lookin’ too, is part of the reason he went so damn high at the auction.  He was a big sorrel paint with a glass eye.  He looked just like the horse Jackie Chan rode in Shanghai Noon, which of course is the only horse you’ve ever seen Jackie Chan ride.

Did I mention he was big?  He was a gigantic saddlehorse.  He must have stood 16 and a half hands and weighed somewhere over 1400 pounds.  He was a big horse.

I was without a horse a few years back and Melvin Anderson graciously offered to let me ride Buster over the summer or until I found a horse.  He made me this offer sometime in mid-May of that year.  A few days later, the Trasks were going to a branding near his place.  The plan was that we would pick him up on the way to the branding, so that I would have a horse to ride.

But in true Trask fashion, we were a little late to the branding, so I called Melvin and told him that we would pick Buster up afterwards.  We went on to the branding which I attended afoot (there are usually too many horses at these things anyway) and afterwards ate the obligatory branding dinner and drank the obligatory branding beer.

Now there are lots of obligations and traditions here in the West, one of them being a branding dinner.  And while a guest is not obliged to enjoy his branding dinner with beer, the host is obliged to provide beer, and most Americans don’t need any obligation to drink beer.

The point is by the time we got to Melvin’s, I had had a few beers.  OK I’ll quit being modest, I was drunk.  Maybe not disgracefully drunk, but visibly drunk.  Of course it wasn’t my obligation to get drunk at the branding dinner- you know what, let’s forget that I said anything about obligations, ok?

When we got to Melvin’s, Melvin and Buster were standing by the corral and Buster was haltered.  I managed to get my saddle and pad out of the back of the pickup.  After greeting Melvin, I began saddling the horse.  I remember my pickled brain telling me something like “Shee Whizh, thish bashtard is big” or something.

I put my saddle pad on Buster’s back, probably with way more fuss than I needed to, and grabbed the saddle.

Apparently Buster wasn’t as big as my drunken arm thought he was, because with a mighty heave I threw the saddle over his back without even touching the pad.  It landed upside down on the other side of him.

Melvin did an Oscar-winning job of pretending he hadn’t seen this bit of New York City dudery, but the look Buster gave me is still etched in my mind, and it was priceless.  After he had clearly conveyed how contemptible he thought I was, he looked back to Melvin and I bet practically begged not to be sent home with “this dumbass,” which is clearly what he thought of me.

We actually went through with the whole charade.  I went around and gathered up my saddle, got him saddled and hauled myself aboard.  Buster was nice enough to keep me in the saddle while we walked around the yard.  After that I probably told Melvin that Buster was a “nishe horshe” and I became his custodian for the summer.

He really was a nice horse, surprisingly agile for his size, and very smart.  And a few days later, he found out that when I was sober, I made a somewhat better cowboy.