This article is in the Fall 2002 issue of COWBOY MAGAZINE on page 6. I suppose I've got some kind of a record. I quit the ZX Ranch at Paisley, Oregon 13 times in 15 years; but that is not what this yarn is about. The reason I brung this up is to show why I had a lot of different horses while working there.
One fall, when I came back, Grover Williams cut me out this little bay pony. He probably didn't weigh 975 pounds, but he was "all hoss." Grover had started him as a 7-year-old, when he'd been the bronc stomper before he got to be wagon boss.
Grover mentioned I'd probably get along okay with him, but to watch out. Sometimes, he bucked backwards, and it wasn't too long before he got the first payback from cuttin' me this prize little guy. The first morning out, we'd left the Red House corrals, heading out across the desert towards the Chalk Hills, to bring in cattle that were drifting in towards the Chewaucan and winter pastures.
We'd just about reached the top of a slope in 3- to 4-foot-high sagebrush when ol' Jimmykane swallowed his rear end in a sunfishing jump and started back towards the meadow. Grover knew there was a real large bunch of badger holes ahead of us in the direction Jimmykane was firing.
Of course, I was pretty well occupied trying to keep astraddle of Jimmykane, but I did notice Grover bailing in on my right at an angle, full bore, yelling and waving his coiled lass rope. At the same instant, I spotted a whale of a pock-marked area 50 feet or more wide and deep, right there dead ahead.
Some of those soft badger dens will bog a hoss to his knees. At the speed and pounding force we were traveling, all I could think was to get ready to bail out. I was riding so loose when we came out the other side, without a falter, I came damn near getting bucked off before I got screwed down tight again.
Jimmykane finally threw up his head about another quarter mile when we came to a fence. I got him under control again and circled back up the slope, wondering where did Grover disappear to.
We were most near back up to the badger den when Grover came limping out of a cloud of dust, leading Friday, his horse.
"What in the Sam Hill happened to you?" was my remark.
"That's the last time I'm ever gonna try to come to somebody's rescue. I knew that badger den was there and was trying to haze you clear. Ol' Jimmykane never missed a lick, and I took one whale of a f__t-knocker.
We caught up with the rest of the crew and had no more real excitement the remainder of the day. Jimmykane didn't buck backwards that day, but the yarn don't end here.
I used Jimmykane in my string all that winter. It seems we had a lot of sick calves that year; so most of us carried penicillin and a syringe and a marker. When we saw a sick calf, we'd rope, vaccinate, color mark it, and turn it loose. Several of us rode in pairs through different herds when we were doctoring.
Chuckawalla Sam was an older Mexican cowboy and a good one. He and I rode together a lot. I can still hear Sam saying, when he threw a loop and happened to miss (which wasn't often) "I throwed that loop just like a dod dam dude."
I rode Jimmykane his turn when I was doctoring. It didn't take me long to learn one of his traits. The first time he pulled it, he almost got me. He was a real cowhorse. He'd put you right there when you took your rope down and started after something. The instant you throwed your loop out ahead, he'd hit the ground stiff-legged, stop, and buck backwards. He'd usually only buck three or four jumps backwards, then quit, even if you were still on him. Like I said, he didn't quite get me unloaded that first time, but I think if he'd made another buck, he probably would have.
Well, I built me another loop and screwed my rear another notch or two down in the riggin', and caught my second calf. He never fired again the rest of the day; but he'd try me the first loop every new day that came along. Several times, he tried me on bad mornings when I first eased on him. Somehow or other, he never got out from under me.
Jimmykane, I believe, was the most sure-footed horse I've ever ridden. I've had him hit slick spots and slide all directions to solid ground and keep his feet under him. One time, when chasing somethin' full out, he stepped in a hole you couldn't see. It had some old grass or hay over it. I felt him almost drop out from under me; then it felt like he changed strides and his other front foot was out in front on solid ground and he picked up.
I stayed on the ZX three years that hitch and just used Jimmykane for a winter horse.
I was married and had two little girls. The second winter when I came in off the desert, I talked them into letting me and my family move into the empty cook house known as the "buckshack." Most of the rest of the crew was riding out of the Coglon Camp, a couple miles off. Of course, I kept my string there at the buckshack corrals, and would ride either to the Coglon or, at times, I'd meet the crew where we were moving or working cattle.
Along the middle of the winter that second year, we'd spent the morning working or moving cattle down beyond China Town, which was a water pump station in the middle of the swamp, tended by Shorty Bowlegs. We finished around noon or a little thereafter. From China Town, it was a direct line to the Coglon. I could cut off from there by myself at about a 45-degree angle and ride fairly straight to my camp, saving a mile or more. There was one drawback. I had to cross a canal full of water, with a low levee on each side. It could be a little boggy, but I'd crossed it a good many times; so thought nothing of it.
Although the weather was real mild, the canal was frozen over. The ice was maybe 3/4ths of an inch thick, but rotten. It was probably 50 feet across, with water under the ice. The water was a little over stirrup deep, with what Jimmykane was sinking in the mud. He didn't mind, because he knew he was heading toward camp. He was taking it easy, breaking ice with his front feet as we proceeded.
Now, I've always rode with a light rein, loose but not slack, especially on Jimmykane. We were about to the middle of the canal when Jimmykane started to bog down, pretty near putting his nose down into the ice. I shot out my arm ahead to give him the extra slack. Wham! Bam! He made two buck jumps backward like coming out of a sling shot. I lit sitting down on my rump three or four feet off to his left; water right up to my armpits and looking the same direction we'd been traveling together. Jimmykane blasted on across the canal.
He went about 25 feet out, over the levee, stopped, and turned parallel with the canal. He turned his head, raised it, and cocked his ears directly at me. Then he nickered, a soft, laughing nicker!
Sitting there in the water watching him, I was thinking it's still a mile or two to camp. I got up, plowed on across the canal, and came out dripping and gushing water; and walked toward Jimmykane.
Now Jimmykane was a horse you could never walk up to. You had to ketch him with a lass rope; or if he was tied or hobbled, be damn careful coming up to him.
As I approached, he just stood there with a soft glow in his eyes, his ears sorta cocked my way, and never moved a muscle - kinda like he was saying, "I finally gotcha, didn't I?"
I gathered up my reins, wallered on him, and loped on to camp.
I used him the rest of that winter and the next one, before I quit the ZX the last time in '61. But he never really tried me serious after that canal. He was satisfied he'd finally won his round.
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