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Show ,231 He squatted with his weight on one heel. "John Mathews used to sleep on his though. He was gonna be a cowboy." "That Rosalie Mathews' dad?" asked Henry. "Believe so. That girl that's so big in front?" Henry grinned. "Yeah. Her dad runs that dairy." "Yeah, that's the Mathews I mean. If that girl was a cow, he'd be rich." Henry laughed. I smiled but didn't quite catch the joke, and of course Davy was out of it completely. I squatted down like my father with my butt on one heel and resolved never in my life to use a saddle for a pillow. "John was a good friend of mine back when we was your age. He was a good fullback till the boys on the Delta team got to ganging up on him and broke his collarbone. I guess it was the summer after highschool when your granddad hired him to go riding the hills with me. Us and a little old cow-puncher we called Blacky. He had white hair by then, Blacky did, and he was all shriveled up and dried out but just as tough as his saddle. Them broncs we was riding, we'd saddle up and climb on and ever' morning they'd go to bucking like xxx it was rodeo time. Old Blacky didn't like it one bit, said he was getting too old to ride a damn-fool bronco, and he'd clamp his jaw down and swing up and cuss that hoss ever' jump. He sure could cuss. And John liked it even less." "Wasn't he just a farmer?" asked Henry. "Yep, he'd been riding plow horses and his bronc really fanned his rear end. I'd picked him one that would. But you know, them horses was just feeling tfood, getting the kinks out. We worked 'em all light. Sometimes we was so far away from the line camp at night that we just stayed out, found some grass for the horses and slept on the ground and John'd use his saddle for a pillow. I got pretty tickled at him; I think he'd been reading them dime* westerns. He thought it was^gonna be chasing rustlers and he sure got fed up after a while. He didn't like me being his boss, either. He'd been a big fullback ana captain of the team, a real hot-shot like you, Henry, too darn cocky, and now here I |
