Page 68 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

While I was at Mrs. Broom’s, and had Blue with me, a pack of dogs chased him one night and ran him into the barbed wire fence. It cut the soft fat part of his chest - just laid it wide open. I had to keep him in the corral until it healed, and fed him on oats and hay.
The Brooms had a son, Charles, who lived several miles away with his wife Marie. After Blue was healed, I rode him over to visit with Marie. I stopped at a gate in the barbed wire fence, and some people came through in a car before I had closed the gate. We chatted for awhile, then they told me to go ahead as they would fasten the gate. I started to mount Blue, but while I was still standing with only my left foot in the stirrup, he began pitching. He bucked for three or four jumps and I found myself flat on the ground. That’s the only time in my life I was ever thrown from a horse - and incidentally the only time Blue ever bucked.
The other people came running to see if I was hurt. I kept trying to tell them I was all right, but the way I had landed had knocked the breath out of me. Ever time I tried to talk, it came out sounding like a groan.
When I tried to get on Blue again, he was as docile as a lamb. I’ve never been able to figure out what made him do it, so can’t think of any excuses to make for him. Maybe he was just feeling his oats - all those I’d been feeding him for weeks.
Anabel and Sampson’s horse
I returned home after dark and could never have made it without Blue’s cooperation and his unerring instinct of direction. It was as black as pitch and I couldn’t see a thing, but Blue led me straight to each gate and stopped for me to open it.
I made two trips to Peggy’s, who was back on the homestead, that year. The two older Ezell girls went with me once and Marie Broom went the second time. I just couldn’t get that old Beaverhead country out of my system.