The Pastures of Beyond Read Online Free PDF

said, “an’ I’ll have you reining horses just like this one.”
    That evening, after I had unsaddled Sleepy and turned him out to graze, I got up enough nerve to wander over to the bunkhouse and sit on the porch with the men. I felt out of place until Jack started telling the crew about my ride on old Sleepy and how tight I had choked the saddle horn. I didn’t mind being teased, for I was the center of attention. It was the general opinion of those cowboys that Sleepy couldn’t buck off a wet saddle blanket. But I didn’t know that at the time, and I was some proud.
    On the bunkhouse porch was a hook-nosed, roundshouldered cowboy named Buster Griffin, who was generally accepted to be the best ladies’ man and bronc rider in the lot. Talk got around to a BarY horse named Whingding, who just happened to have come over in a load of fresh horses from my uncle’s hay ranch, the BK. Some of the cowboys admitted that they had met their match trying to ride that horse and would be willing to put a little money into the hat to see Buster try to ride him.
    Whingding was hard to catch and left the herd to stand alone at the end of the corral. He was a stocky dark bay horse with a jagged lightning streak of a blaze down his face, a heavy mane that hung on both sides of his neck, little gimlet eyes, and a snort that sounded like the report of a buffalo gun. According to Jack Morgan, Whingding never bucked more than six inches off the ground, but hit so hard he could make blood run from a cowboy’s ears.
    While Buster was getting his rigging from the big A-frame barn, the rest of us ambled over to the corral to watch the fun. Jack Morgan roped Whingding around the neck with a backward horse loop he called a “hoolihan,” and the big horse settled down and followed Jack over to the fence. There were a couple of white saddle marks on his back, indicating that the horse had had some hard rides. Other than squatting when the saddle dropped on his back, and blasting our eardrums with a snort, the animal acted like any other seasoned cowhorse.
    Buster had managed to get one foot in the left stirrup when Whingding whirled away from him and dropped his head to buck. For two jumps Buster stood in one stirrup, and then managed to gain the saddle and find the off stirrup with his toe. Our war whoops only seemed to turn the horse on. He bucked across the corral, turned at the fence, and started back. We could see a little daylight now between Buster and his saddle. Suddenly, Whingding sucked back underneath himself and whirled, sending Buster flying headfirst into the heavy logs of the corral. There was a loud crack as a lodgepole pine log broke in two, showering the ground with splinters. For a moment Buster lay quiet, then wiped his bleeding nose on the back of his buckskin glove. He stared in fascination at the blood for a moment, then grinned sheepishly at the crowd.
    â€œSure is lucky,” Jack Morgan chuckled. “Sure is lucky Buster hit that log with his head. Otherwise he might have hurt something.”
    â€œOne big goose egg for Buster!” someone said, laughing, as we trailed back to the bunkhouse. The cowboys who had lost money on the ride didn’t seem very happy.
    I looked back over my shoulder at Whingding, who was standing quietly, waiting to be unsaddled. I was already daydreaming about taking a setting on that horse while Rose watched and making one helluva ride.
    I had been at the ranch about a week when Ern Morgan told me to saddle Yellowstone and ride over to the willows in front of the ranch house to make sure there were no cattle grazing in the garden. Ern had a silly grin on his face that made me suspect I was being had, but I went anyway. I rode out of the willows, and there, sunning herself on the great gray rocks in front of the house, was a naked woman. Her long white hair was spread out on the rocks like clothing hung out to dry. Yellowstone snorted and almost