The Horseman

By John Wease

Life events brought J. D. Holloway, a self-taught horse trainer, back to the big city for a high-paid job with a real future. There he meets a just-retired old wrangler that had worked some sixty years for a historic, high-country Wyoming cattle ranch. After a long conversation about life on the ranch, he quits his job and heads for the high country. When he arrives at the ranch and offers to train horses for a bunk and meals, the ranch owner tells him he can stay and "play cowboy" for the season. After the fall roundup, the ranch would be sold. The hundred-year-old buildings, rustic setting, and the "playing cowboy" comment give him an idea to not only save the antiquated ranch but also possibly capture the heart of the ranch owner's beautiful daughter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639859313

Book preview

Chapter 1

Did you ever get tired of your life as usual and want to run away from home? Head for greener pastures? Like old Chief Burton in the navy used to say, get sick and tired of being sick and tired? Ever wanted to be like the old pioneers and load up your possessions and head for the unknown? Wanted to leave your stable, established (boring?) life behind? Was it impossible due to responsibilities or obligations? Well, I did. The morning of April 7, 1980. I was having this exact thought and even discussed it with Maggie, although, as usual, she didn’t offer much in the way of meaningful conversation. My name is J. D. Holloway, and I am a horseman. I was not raised on a ranch or born into the horse world, and pretty much stumbled into it. On this Monday morning in April, on my thirtieth birthday, I was at the city-run equestrian center on what was supposed to be the first day of a two-week vacation. By the end of that day, I had done it. I had traded my old life and headed out for greener pastures.

I grew up in a nothing little community, just east of the equestrian center. Pops and I lived in a small older home that suited us fine. Pops was in the navy when I was born and had planned on reenlisting and making it a career, but he found out just before that my mother had terminal cancer, so he got out to be home full-time to raise me. I was only four years old, so I don’t remember anything about her, except a memory of being outside a hospital, looking at the ducks in a little pond, and Pops saying J. D., wave at Mom. I remember seeing a woman with a bandana on her head, waving from a third-floor window. In those days, children were not allowed inside hospitals to visit.

Pops worked for a while in a bank as some kind of loan officer but hated desk work. As a veteran, he got into an apprenticeship program to become a millwright. I was about nine years old when he became a journeyman and went to work for a pump manufacturer. He worked rotating shift work, meaning he worked ten days on day shift, was off four days, ten days on afternoons, four days off, and ten days on late shift. At first, a neighbor lady watched me, but by the time I was eleven, I was independent enough to fend for myself. We kept a house key under a paint can in the garage so I could get inside the house after school. When I was young, if Pop’s days off fell on a weekend, we would go fishing at the city pier or out to the desert, camping and target shooting. As I got older, we saw less and less of each other. Pops did his best, but he was what the cowboys would call a good ole boy. There was always a barstool waiting for him, and at least two bottles of Jack Daniels in the cupboard at home. We didn’t always have food but never ran out of his sour mash whiskey. My name J. D. is for John Daniel. Pops said I was named after a navy friend, but I always suspected it was a tribute to the JD sour mash whiskey he liked so much.

By the time I was thirteen, I was doing yard work and odd jobs around the neighborhood. The extra money was a big help, but it didn’t leave time for sports or goofing off with classmates. I worked Saturdays sometimes for a brick and block yard in town. They paid a dollar an hour, cash, to sort and stack blocks and bricks. Back-breaking work, but a way to get strong arms and broad shoulders. Some of the nonunion contractors would pay me to help on weekend jobs. Mostly moving blocks and materials for the masons, but I made more money than mowing lawns.

It was a tough little town. There were a lot of Latinos, and I was pretty proficient swearing in both English and Spanish. Pops always said, Don’t look for trouble but never run away from it. Once you start running, it is hard to stop. I remember in elementary school, we had this really big kid. I don’t know what his parents were feeding him, but he was big. He discovered how easy it was to push the other kids around and became quite the bully. He pushed me down one day, and I tore my jeans. When Pops saw them and asked what happened, I shamefully told him what had happened. He told me:

J. D., when an opponent is a lot bigger and stronger, you have to use your brain. A bully is a coward and only likes to bully others because they know they can. Next time he approaches you, and don’t wait until he actually pushes you, haul off and punch him as hard as you can square in the nose. The nose will really bleed, and the combination of the blood, the pain, and the surprise will set him back.

I asked him what part of my brain would I be using, and he only smiled and said the part that told my fist to punch him before he could push me down again. It happened pretty much just like that the next day. He walked up to me, and I hit him in the nose as hard as I could. Blood covered his face and he screamed like a girl and cried like a baby. I got sent to the office but didn’t get in too much trouble. They called Pops, and his reaction was to ask them if I kept my elbow tucked in like he taught me. He always said keep your elbow in and punch through like you were aiming for somewhere the other side of where you hit. The school thought we were both a little wild. The bully never bothered me again, and any time he started on someone else, I told him to knock it off. I earned the reputation of a tough guy that followed me through school. The bad part of a tough guy reputation is sooner or later, a really tough guy will want to see how tough you really are.

By the time I was a senior in high school, Pops was really drinking heavily. Sometimes, when he happened to be at home, I would cook him some simple meal, but he didn’t seem too interested in eating. In 1968, I turned eighteen in April, graduated high school in June, and watched Pops drop dead of a massive heart attack celebrating our country’s birthday, July 4.

You would maybe think a guy that worked as a loan officer in a bank for a time would have learned a little financial responsibility. Pops learned how late a payment could be on any type of loan before repossession or foreclosure. The house had three mortgages, and almost everything in the house was on overdue payment status. After the repo guys finished, there wasn’t much left. I boxed up any old photos and Pop’s pistols and stored them in a neighbor’s garage. Then it was off to see the navy recruiter. I was hot for the draft, and Pops always said join the navy. Better to be miles out of range and shell the hell out of them from a distance. So for the next four years, I was on the Mighty Mo battleship. Having learned from Pops what not to do, I saved most of my pay instead of drinking it up like the other young guys.

I actually liked navy life. Too many rules and discipline by people not very bright, but I did get to see a lot of the world. I made a name for myself boxing. I never had time for sports in school, so it was fun competing. I used some of my learned-in-school tactics along with the rules of boxing. I even won a few championships in tournaments when in port. Of course, I lost some as well.

When I got out of the navy, I was hired as an electrician apprentice and learned quickly a great trade. I was making decent money and used my GI Bill loan to buy an older house in Long Beach, California. Several of the neighbors were into dune buggies and dirt bikes, and I was soon part of the gang, camping and partying on the weekends in the High Desert.

I purchased a ten-acre lot off the beaten path and eventually parked an older single wide trailer there for a weekender home. I was on vacation out there and happened to see a help wanted sign for a maintenance worker at a local mineral plant. As a whim, I stopped by and, a week later, started working there and living in my little trailer. The secretary was named Maggie, and she was quite the character. She took one look at me and said:

Oh great. Just when I’m leaving, they hire a hunk! Around here, you need to find two men to have one complete set of teeth.

It turned out she was moving to the Bay Area as soon as she could sell her horse. Long story short, I bought the horse, corral, saddles, tack, etc. The horse was a roan leopard Appaloosa mare about four years old. Green broke, easy keeper, and the registered name was Maggie’s Painted Lady.

Back in those days, you could learn just about anything by reading books. I went to the library that night and checked out every horse care book they had. By Saturday, I was an expert. Green broke meant gentle enough to not buck you off (generally, unless spooked). Easy keeper meant she had hard little feet and didn’t need shoes. Maggie called her Lady, but I always called her Maggie. I rode her the eight miles across the desert to my little rancho. We arrived unscathed, and we both learned a lot on the way. I suspect she taught me as much or more as I ever taught her. I met an old-timer that ran the first open-range cattle ranch in that part of the desert. He told me the most important thing I ever learned. He said:

Walk directly up to the horse with confidence, never show fear, act like a two-hundred-pound man can control a one-thousand-pound horse with no problem, and the horse will generally believe it too.

I sold the house in Long Beach and used the equity to finance my gentleman’s ranch. If you are not familiar, it is a ranch where all money flows out. I was able to fence and clear the lot and fenced a couple of acres in a back corner as a turnout pen so Maggie could run around a little and kick up her heels.

I worked every afternoon training Maggie, and it helped that she was smart and willing. People started asking me to train horses for them soon after. I bought a bunch of pipe corrals from another old-timer, along with his horses that were more or less pets and untrained. I gentle broke and trained them and sold them to neighbors for their kids. I gave the kids basic riding lessons as well. I didn’t make much money training but was having so much fun it didn’t matter. I made out pretty well when a wealthy man asked me to train his daughter’s horse for barrel racing. She wanted to compete in local horse shows, and her dad wanted to keep her away from the boys. I think she was about sixteen years old and very pretty. He bought her a beautiful little gray Arab mare. Man, that horse could run. I set up an arena in the turnout pen with the three barrels. The event is for women and kids too in the junior rodeos. Too bad it is not for men, as it was a lot of fun. The event is timed. You run to the first barrel, go around as fast and close as possible. Then run all out to the second barrel around and over to the last barrel. Something like a clover leaf. Turns in the wrong direction or knocking over barrels are penalized. Then back to the start line. I charged him a flat fee and told him to leave the horse with me for two weeks. The first time we ran the course, the horse was a gray blur. By the third try, the mare was pawing the ground at the starting line, ready to go again. I think she was trained at that point. I never rode any horse that fast or with the sheer love to run. Maggie was fast and would keep her head in front of any other horse. If the other rider increased speed, so did Maggie. Always at least a nose ahead. I saw the girl ride barrels for the next six months or so at the local equestrian club’s horse shows. If she didn’t knock over a barrel, she generally won. Then I didn’t see her for some time and happened to see her in town. Looked like her dad’s plan to keep her away from the boys had failed. Looked like she was very close to worrying about her own child. I think she was about eight months pregnant. I had noticed a lot of young boys watching barrel racing when she was riding.

I started doing team roping in the local rodeos. It was a lot of fun, and I met some real characters. The old guy that got me started roping gave me an old rope after asking how old I was. He told me to practice until my birthday. I found out later he wanted to participate in one last team roping event. It was a special they called Century Roping. The two rider’s ages had to add up to exactly one hundred years. It was his last rodeo, and he died of cancer not long after.

As is usually the case, just when everything was going well, I disregarded one of Pop’s cardinal rules. Never marry a bad girl. They are fun for a night, but bad girls make bad wives. Well, the marriage ended about the same time the mineral plant closed. Thank God there were no children. When the money and job was gone, so was she. She left in her wake a mountain of debt. I sold everything I could, including all the horses except Maggie, to pay off the debts. I found an industrial electrician job in Long Beach/Los Angeles area and moved Maggie into the equestrian center and me into a tiny bachelor’s apartment. I was able to buy a used Toyota truck with a camper shell to keep my saddles and tack in.

The job was great, and as the single guy, I worked a lot of overtime weekends and holidays. I swore off women and hoarded every cent I could. City life was a shocking change, and going from fifteen-mile rides across the desert to a half-mile bridle path along a concrete flood control was really not for me. I don’t think Maggie cared for it much either, but as usual, she kept her opinions to herself. I became the unofficial horse expert at the equestrian center and became a good friend of the manager. Brian Scott was a former equestrian competitor, jumping the big fences on bigger horses with tiny saddles. His parents had been very wealthy, and when he wanted to jump fences, they purchased a $15,000 horse along with a groom and box stall in an exclusive stable. When his parents lost everything in a market crash, he used his horse experience along with a business administration degree to become the recently acquired equestrian center’s administrator. The city had just bought the equestrian center that year. It was there under private ownership before but was always pretty run down. The city had done a nice job fixing it up. Whenever a horse was acting up and I was around, Scotty would send for me.

Chapter 2

So, as I said, the morning of April 7, 1980, I was at the equestrian center. I had just finished washing Maggie when into the driveway pulled an old blue Ford truck pulling a horse trailer. The horse inside was trying his best to kick his way out of the trailer and screaming his head off. I approached to see if I could help as the driver was trying to exit his truck. He was a short wiry older man and a caricature of a grizzled old cowboy if I ever saw one. He was obviously too stiff from a long ride to stand but was obviously very worried about his horse.

I asked him: Can I help, sir?

Buster isn’t very kind to strangers, but you could try. I hate to see him hurt hisself.

I opened the ramp door, and he continued kicking his feet in the air. He was cross-tied so could not rear up but was trying his best. I squeezed in between him and the center divider. Not a great place to be, but I wanted to release the divider and give us both more room. I patted him as I walked along his side and asked: What seems to be wrong, mister? I continued talking