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Show 22 heads and wait. Clouds gone, the grass was fresh with water and they were as wet and sleek and shiny in the sun as a herd of fish. Go out to catch them in the pasture, maybe a town boy with me, and they would look at us with untroubled eyes, go back to nibbling clover blooms. A mare named Babe would look again when we got close, practically stick her tongue out at us and trot away, snotty little bitch. She'd circle around and take a run at the town boy, whose face would go pale and whose legs would start whirring for the fence. I would run across the pasture to head her off, yelling and whirling my lead rope over my head, and she would veer off and kick up and fart in our faces. But she liked oats, the greedy little bitch, and once I had a rope on her and she had her nose in the bucket she pretended to be old sober-sides, never played a game in her life. I remember once when Ricky Carver was visiting and for some reason three of us were riding Babe bareback, Davy up in front because he was smallest, me in the back, and Ricky in the middle so I could hold him on. We were galloping down a trail in the river bottom and the motion was jolting us all forward, we were laughing like crazy except for Davy up front, who had plenty of mane to hold on to but who was getting pushed far enough up on Babe's neck so that he had nothing to keep his feet apart. He was handling the reins, by then could not control them either, the horse galloped on, and slowly Davy turned until he was upside down, trying for a second to lock his feet over her neck and hang on, and then dropping, Babe going over the top of him and stepping on his face. Babe couldn't help it, really, yet her hoof only slid off his cheek, not breaking a bone or leaving a scar. For a little while Davy cried like calamity but we all knew Babe had done pretty well to gallop so gracefully over him. We rode everything except the jackass and the work horses, and I rode |
