Wiggum
S.M.R.T.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2006
- Messages
- 883
(Thanks again to all that have read, and commented 
)
The fight that ensued may still be talked about in some quarters. I’m not sure how long it lasted but there wasn’t one of us that didn’t leave without some bones broken and pain that lingered for weeks to come. I came away with a crooked nose, raccoon eyes, two busted knuckles and a dislocated shoulder that I still feel when rain comes.
Bear took the worst of it.
Dennett allowed for his bones to be set, had a litter made, and gave the girls a sorrel mare on which to ride and to pull Bear behind. They took the horse out, splinted father in tow, without a word.
We healed, winter passed, and the cloud that was Bear lifted from Dennett’s.
It always amazes me when I think on it, the change his departure made. As if someone had smothered a light without you noticing then all of a sudden you can see its brightness again.
Our first drive of that season was to Abilene instead of our normal route to Wichita. The steers we were going to run were a runt group of smalls and some of the sick that had lived through the winter. Dennett had a yearly buyer for the herd’s castoffs, but it was a drive that neither John nor I looked forward to. There was little money in it, and the trail hadn’t been bred to our familiarity.
At least I remember feeling that way.
Time can cloud the memory with emotion, and finding John’s body on our return was the worst moment of my life. We were nearly back to Dennett’s, a day out at most, on familiar ground. Most of us didn’t have family of our own to return to, so we weren’t in any particular hurry.
We camped out in the early afternoon, planning a night fire and a passed bottle of whisky before returning.
John decided to ride ahead, hoping to see Janney and Sonny that evening, before our morning homecoming.
We found his horse the next day, wide eyed and skittish, but otherwise unharmed. It had backtracked from up the trail. Following the hoof prints towards the ranch we found where John had dismounted and entered the scrub brush.
Thirty feet in we found John.
He left his horse at the trail, and then gone on foot with his Springfield. His track topped that of a large cat. I have seen a lot of paw prints in my day, and had hunted a few mountain lions, but these were of a size that I hadn’t seen before.
When we found John, he was face down in the dirt, all limbs broken and at odd angles with bone jutting up through the flesh. I’ve seen cowboys break their spines, and horse their legs, both of which generally mean death, but I’d never seen anything like this.
John’s back had been rent by claws, his left rib cage punctured, and his heart removed. There were claw marks up and down his whole body; his calves looked like they had been through the workings of a poor man’s butcher. His throat had been ripped out by a cat’s maw; all the paw prints were soaked in his blood.
That night we all buried a friend. Janney buried her husband, and Sonny put his father to ground.
)The fight that ensued may still be talked about in some quarters. I’m not sure how long it lasted but there wasn’t one of us that didn’t leave without some bones broken and pain that lingered for weeks to come. I came away with a crooked nose, raccoon eyes, two busted knuckles and a dislocated shoulder that I still feel when rain comes.
Bear took the worst of it.
Dennett allowed for his bones to be set, had a litter made, and gave the girls a sorrel mare on which to ride and to pull Bear behind. They took the horse out, splinted father in tow, without a word.
We healed, winter passed, and the cloud that was Bear lifted from Dennett’s.
It always amazes me when I think on it, the change his departure made. As if someone had smothered a light without you noticing then all of a sudden you can see its brightness again.
Our first drive of that season was to Abilene instead of our normal route to Wichita. The steers we were going to run were a runt group of smalls and some of the sick that had lived through the winter. Dennett had a yearly buyer for the herd’s castoffs, but it was a drive that neither John nor I looked forward to. There was little money in it, and the trail hadn’t been bred to our familiarity.
At least I remember feeling that way.
Time can cloud the memory with emotion, and finding John’s body on our return was the worst moment of my life. We were nearly back to Dennett’s, a day out at most, on familiar ground. Most of us didn’t have family of our own to return to, so we weren’t in any particular hurry.
We camped out in the early afternoon, planning a night fire and a passed bottle of whisky before returning.
John decided to ride ahead, hoping to see Janney and Sonny that evening, before our morning homecoming.
We found his horse the next day, wide eyed and skittish, but otherwise unharmed. It had backtracked from up the trail. Following the hoof prints towards the ranch we found where John had dismounted and entered the scrub brush.
Thirty feet in we found John.
He left his horse at the trail, and then gone on foot with his Springfield. His track topped that of a large cat. I have seen a lot of paw prints in my day, and had hunted a few mountain lions, but these were of a size that I hadn’t seen before.
When we found John, he was face down in the dirt, all limbs broken and at odd angles with bone jutting up through the flesh. I’ve seen cowboys break their spines, and horse their legs, both of which generally mean death, but I’d never seen anything like this.
John’s back had been rent by claws, his left rib cage punctured, and his heart removed. There were claw marks up and down his whole body; his calves looked like they had been through the workings of a poor man’s butcher. His throat had been ripped out by a cat’s maw; all the paw prints were soaked in his blood.
That night we all buried a friend. Janney buried her husband, and Sonny put his father to ground.
