The fire crackled and snapped in the big fireplace, reflecting in the eyes of the youngsters clustered about the feet of Cowboy Bill as he dipped into the colorful past of bygone years and drew out true adventures from his life.
One of the boys asked, "Did you ever catch the leader of a herd of wild horses?”
“Well, yes, there was one... "His eyes twinkled in remembrance and he mused a bit.” This might not end up like you think, but I'll tell you about a beautiful black stallion I spotted at the head of a herd of wild horses that roamed on the other side of the river from where our homestead was.”
“I'd catch a glimpse of him once in awhile, on the crest of the desert ledge or down in the lower reaches of the canyon where there was lots of bunch grass for forage for his mares.”
“If we ever came very near, he'd run his herd off to a place of shelter and hiding, and then come back toward us, with his neck bowed, and teeth bared. But we never could get near enough to throw a rope at him. He was too smart and too fast. Oh, how I wished I had him!”
“I just dreamed of what a wonderful saddle horse I'd have. I'd call him "Lightening." I'd train him so carefully, so he would become as attached to me as I was of him already.”
“Did you ever want something so bad you just dreamed about it at night? Well, that's the way I was about him. But I didn't even get to see him, but just once in a great while. When his colts would get about a year old, he'd run them off to another place where they could start a herd of their own.”
“When he'd see me afar off, he'd whistle a warning and arch his tail and thunder off in a different direction. He knew that country better than I did, cause he'd growed up there and was familiar with it. Every slope and boulder in that desert was like a road map to him. He knew where he was a goin'.”
“Late one fall my brother and I corralled about a hundred head of horses and were going to take them across this desert to ship them out at the nearest railroad stop.”
“The night before we started out, it snowed. But we decided to go ahead with it anyway, as it wasn't very cold, and even began to thaw a bit, and then rained. We made camp up on that ridge, and that night it froze hard and formed a thick crust of ice on top of the snow. We tied gunny sacks around each leg of our saddle horses, so they wouldn't get cut and sore from breaking trail across the desert before starting out.”
“As we looked down into the canyon that morning, there we saw a herd of wild horses grazing, and this black stallion I was telling you about that I wanted so bad. He was kind of trapped down in there by the deep snow with only one trail out. We hollered and whistled and fanned our hats a couple times to scare them up, and sure enough, right up that trail he came, with eyes ablaze and teeth showing.”
“He tried to break out of the trail a couple times to go off another direction, but the ice crust was too hard. It would almost hold the weight of a horse, but not quite. He would flounder down and then get back up into the trail. It led them right into the big corral! I had him... not because of my smartness or work, but just because of the weather conditions. I was so elated, I could hardly believe it was true.”
“I halter broke him that fall, and kept him right there in that corral till the next spring. Then I took him home to train him. But you know something... When he realized his freedom was gone, he just "give up!" There was just nothing to him. All the spirit and fight was gone. He was just an old dead head. Two or three of my brothers and sisters would ride him to school every day.”
“But that's life, I guess. We think we want something so bad, we won't listen to anything or anyone. We work to one end... and when we finally get it we wonder... why? Nothing in this world really satisfies our hearts for long.”