It was the spring of 1959. I was 19, my brother Ben, 18. We had been back on the family farm in east central Alberta for less than a year after growing up as city kids in the small city of Chilliwack, British Columbia. Our family had spent ten years in the centre of the famous and fertile Fraser Valley. Mother and Dad had purchased a motel and the whole family had helped with the business.
We had settled back into life on the farm where we were born. Ben was finishing high school in the tiny hamlet of Bruce, travelling there and home by school bus for the first time in his life. I was at home with Mother and Dad, doing farm things and deciding if I wanted to be a farmer for the rest of my life.
Ben and I both wanted a horse.
We had convinced Dad, who had been a good horseman when he was younger. So today, the three of us were setting out in the mid-fifties red International pickup truck with our somewhat crude, homemade stock racks on the back. We were headed for Kinsella—a hilly, cattle-country ranching area about 35 miles east of our farm. Dad had found out that the Olsenberg Ranch (which later became, and still is, the University of Alberta Ranch) often had horses for sale.
We found the ranch, north of Kinsella. It looked like a real ranch, not at all like our basic farm at Bruce. There were a lot of corrals past the house and yard. We could see a large livestock truck and men with cowboy hats walking around. Dad drove toward them.
The big truck was backed up to the loading chute. There were some horses milling around in a small corral. It looked like they were just about ready to load. Ben and I walked over to the corral, looking at the group of wild-looking horses still a bit shaggy with winter hair.
Dad soon joined us. All of the horses in the corral were for sale and about to be loaded onto the truck. They were all three-year-olds, only halter-broke. We could have our choice for $60.
Ben and I knew nothing about horses. Dad looked them over carefully as they circled and turned. A handsome cowboy with a black hat and steel-rimmed glasses came up.
“Well?” he said to Dad.
Dad didn’t answer right away.
“Well?” he said again. “Make up your mind. I’m ready to load.”
Then Dad didn’t hesitate. “We’ll take the bay gelding with the star,” he said, pointing to a dirty black-and-rust-coloured horse.
The cowboy turned around. In minutes, the bay gelding was left, frightened and alone in the corral. The other five or six horses hurried up the chute, one behind the other, onto the truck. The stock rack gate dropped and the truck moved forward a few feet. The black-hat-and-glasses cowboy got out of the truck, walked around to the back, secured the gate and checked the horses inside. He got back into the truck and drove off.
We put the stock racks on the pickup. They didn’t seem very high compared to the racks on the big truck. Dad backed up to the high chute. He left the tailgate up; the entire back width of the truck was open. He stood to one side at the back of the truck, holding the wide stock rack gate.
The gelding came roaring up the chute. He leaped into the truck and skidded to a stop when his front hooves hit the front of the box. His head and neck were completely over the racks, above the cab. The cowboy following grabbed the stock rack gate as Dad lifted it up to him and got it into place just before the gelding backed up solidly into it, then sprang forward again. He was wide-eyed, trembling, his feet stomping up and down. Another cowboy appeared with a halter and rope. With one cowboy on each side of the truck, they somehow, very quickly, got the halter over the gelding’s nose and buckled it behind his ears. Ben and I just watched, mesmerized. We thought the horse would jump out any minute.
One cowboy held the halter rope; the other talked to Dad. They decided there should be a rope on each side of the halter to prevent the horse from turning around or jumping. Another rope soon arrived. They fastened it to the halter and tied it to the opposite corner of the rack from the other rope. The cowboys conferred with each other.
“He should travel okay,” they said to Dad. “He hasn’t even tried to jump.”
Dad got three 20s from his wallet and gave them to one of the cowboys. The sale price must have included the halter and ropes.
“Has he been ridden at all?” Dad asked.
“The boys have been on him a few times,” was the answer. “He’ll make a good horse!”
The gelding was still shaking and wide-eyed, his feet prancing. But he wasn’t going anywhere.
Ben and I got into the truck with Dad. We were shaking a little too at the sudden events of the past few moments.
The gelding whinnied only once, just as we were leaving the ranch, like he was saying goodbye to his birthplace.
We drove home carefully and cautiously. The horse in the back stepped and moved, but he didn’t try to jump.
Back in our yard, we untied the ropes and turned him around on the truck. Then we stood, one on each side, with rope in hand, while Dad took off the end rack and dropped the tailgate. The gelding paused, put his nose down, sniffed, then jumped easily to the ground. We held him tight, rope around our thighs, with one hand in front and one hand back, as Dad had instructed us. He fought just a little, but we held him. We worked our way slowly to his head. We talked to him, touched him, stroked him.
A moment later, each of us led him with a halter rope. All around the yard we led him. We led him right into the barn and tied him in his new stall.
We had a horse. We named him Rusty.
We curried him, talked to him, touched him, fed him. We led him around the yard. We led him to the water tank twice a day. He seemed to be getting quieter, gentler. He was getting used to us. He was ready for the saddle and bridle.
We didn’t have either one.
Dad came home from Bruce one day with a saddle and bridle. A friend of Dad’s from north of town had a young daughter who had passed away from cancer. She had a horse. It had been her saddle.
It was really much too small for us. It was smaller than a regular adult saddle—maybe half-size or three-quarter size. It was too small.
The whites of Rusty’s eyes showed as we started to put on the saddle. He was really nervous and edgy, humping his back as soon as we began tightening the cinch. The bridle was too small as well, but it fit using the very last hole of the headstall strap.
We took the saddle off and put it back on each day inside the barn for the next few days. We slowly got on and off the saddle too, sliding over from the side of the stall, not using the stirrups. Rusty certainly wasn’t calm. He moved around, frightened, seeming to hold his breath every time we got on or off. But he didn’t buck, which was good, as our heads would have banged on the hayloft joists. They touched even when we sat up straight in the small saddle.
We were ready for the big day. This was the plan. One of us would be in the saddle; the other would lead Rusty slowly around the yard. He was well halter-broke; he wouldn’t try to get away.
I don’t remember who was in the saddle and who was doing the leading. It wouldn’t have made any difference.
We got outside the barn. We stopped.
Rusty was apprehensive—edgy but calm, we thought. We took him a few steps, stopped and talked to him, petted him. Our plan was working! We took a few more steps.
Suddenly Rusty became unglued! He put his head down and bucked. By the second or third solid buck, the rider was on the ground. At the same time, the halter rope holder let go of the halter rope.
Rusty was bucking hard and steadily in a large circle. He had his head down, bucking, dragging the halter rope. He was making a noise—ka-rumff, ka-rumff, ka-rumff—exactly like the bucking horses at the Bruce Stampede did after they dumped their riders. Ben and I stood and watched the show.
The small saddle was sliding down his side. After a few more jumps, it was under his belly. In another buck, his back hooves caught the back of the cantle, sending the saddle flying sideways to the ground. After another buck or two, Rusty stopped.
He just stopped and looked at us, breathing hard.
We walked over to him, slowly and quietly. We picked up the halter rope and petted his neck.
We may as well have added, “Good job, Rusty!”
The cinch on the saddle was broken. It didn’t matter. We couldn’t get near him with a saddle for months.
“The boys have been on him a few times,” the cowboy at the ranch had said. Did any of the boys stay on him? Had they tried to make him buck as a show?
We decided to go bareback. Besides, we didn’t have a working saddle anymore.
We sat on Rusty in the barn for long periods of time. He was getting used to us on his back and getting on and off.
He lost his winter hair and was filling out. He turned almost completely black, except for a little brown on his legs, at the top of his head and on his nose. He had one white rear hoof with a very short white sock above it. He really was a fine-looking horse. His name suited him, summer or winter.
We took him into the small poplar pole circle corral that our father and grandfather had built many years earlier. He was used to that corral. We often put him there during the day and overnight.
We could ride him bareback in the corral. He was very alert, but fine. He didn’t buck. It was the saddle and cinch that he didn’t like.
We taught him the basics of “whoa” and starting and reining. But we were neither very good horsemen nor very good teachers.
One day, something startled him when he was tied by the bridle reins to a corral post. He pulled back hard, and broke both reins. After that, whenever he felt like it, or anything startled him, he pulled back and broke the reins or the halter rope or the halter itself. It was impossible to be sure something wouldn’t break when he pulled back hard and long.
By this time, we were riding him in the small night pasture, as Dad called it, for the milk cows. He was energetic, always ready to run, but we held him back, never venturing beyond a fast trot. Riding bareback, a fast trot is rather uncomfortable.
One day, I decided to let him gallop. And gallop he did! In a few powerful jumps, he was going incredibly fast. I tried to slow him down, pulling hard with both hands on the reins, shouting, “Whoa! Whoa!” Nothing fazed him or slowed him in the least. There was a fence coming up fairly soon and no hope of stopping him.
I let the reins go, grabbed his mane with both hands and slid over his side. I let my feet touch the ground and began running as fast as I could while hanging on to his mane. Then I let go. I fell hard and rolled as well. Shocked and shaking, I got up not more than bruised and dirty. My glasses were gone. I found them, bent, back where I first hit the ground.
Rusty had stopped before he hit the fence. He had turned around and was standing watching me as I walked slowly toward him. One bridle rein had torn off at the bit when he had stepped on it. I easily caught him. I found the broken rein as we walked back to the yard.
On Dad’s suggestion, we changed the leather chin strap on the bridle to a strong, flat-chain chin strap. He could still run away if he got into a gallop or if you were going home and he got away on you, but he always stopped hard at the barn door. We always left the wire gate at the yard wide open if we were riding in the pasture. Both Ben and I could recognize the point of no return if he started to gallop hard. After that, there was no stopping him. We got another bridle with a more severe bit, which helped to some extent. We could gallop, but still only to a certain point.
His bad habits were adding up. Can’t use a saddle. Can’t tie him outside anywhere. Can’t tie him with the bridle reins; that seemed to initiate a guaranteed pull-back. Can’t gallop very fast.
Our closest neighbour, school bus driver and good friend, Elwood, stopped by one day when Ben and I had Rusty outside the barn. He knew all about Rusty’s behaviour and bad habits and the problems we were going through trying to break him. Elwood was a good horseman.
“The first thing you boys have to remember when breaking a horse,” he said, looking soberly at us, “is you have to be smarter than the horse.”
Another horseman/cowboy neighbour, Harry, came over with a sure-fire pull-back cure. With Rusty tied in his stall, the cowboy put the large loop of a lariat over Rusty’s back, close to his rump, with the honda under his belly, at his flanks. He ran the lariat between his front legs, through the ring on the halter, and tied it, halter-rope length, to the large hole in the sturdy manger top plank. Rusty was nervous, apprehensive.
Then we gave the cowboy a sack. He waved it in front of Rusty. Rusty reared back hard, as usual. The lariat noose tightened suddenly under Rusty’s belly, in front of his back legs. A shocked and surprised Rusty leaped forward. A few seconds later, the sack was waved again. Rusty reared back, then sprang forward immediately. After a pause and the third sack wave, Rusty wouldn’t pull back. He stood wide-eyed and nervous, but he wouldn’t pull back. The cowboy rubbed the sack gently around Rusty’s head, neck and shoulders. He didn’t pull back. He rubbed Rusty all over with the sack. (We should have used the sack or blanket treatment when we first started breaking Rusty, but we didn’t know about it!)
We removed the lariat and tied him with just the halter rope. The cowboy repeated the sack treatment, but Rusty wouldn’t pull back.
He was cured! Rusty never pulled back when he was tied inside the barn again. Outside was a different story. He could pull back with so much strength and for such a long time that something had to break. We just didn’t dare tie him outside.
We got another saddle. I’m not sure how we found it, but we bought it from a real, southern Alberta cowboy who had moved north of Bruce. It was a heavy saddle, possibly from the twenties, with large cupped undercut swells and a high cantle, which was popular at the time. The steel saddle horn had been hacksawed off. Strong and well built, it had been used as a bucking saddle.
Perhaps because of the sack treatment or because he was now accustomed to us, Rusty let us get the saddle on him. We led him to the small corral behind the barn and took off the halter rope. Rusty walked around a little, then he bucked hard and stopped. He walked a little more, then he bucked hard again. The saddle hadn’t moved. Rusty gave up and we left the saddle on overnight. Dad said he couldn’t hurt that saddle even if he rolled.
The saddle was still on in the morning. He had rolled. We rode him with the saddle in the corral, then the yard, then the pasture. We got on and off using the stirrups. He didn’t buck. Rusty was saddle-broke at last.
The saddle gave us a lot more leverage when holding him back. I don’t think there were any more wild runaways, but we were always watchful, careful not to let him get wide open. If he did, the best you could do was aim him for home and the barn. Rusty always stopped at the barn door.
Rusty was now a good-looking, strong and mature horse. We used him and liked him, recognizing his characteristics and habits. We almost never let anyone else ride him. If we did, the rides usually ended with a wild-eyed, terror-stricken rider hanging on for dear life (or falling off at the abrupt barn door stop).
We often rode Rusty on summer Sundays. I don’t remember how another riding ritual developed, but it went like this: We rode slowly across the yard, then down the driveway to the road. We turned left, to the north, and galloped (under control) to the crossroads about one-eighth of a mile away. At the crossroads, we turned around, let him have his head and race wildly for home and the barn door, where he stopped short.
Rusty caught on to the game quickly. For the rider, the tricky parts were: (1) keeping him under control until you got to the road and were sure no cars were coming (unusual, but possible); (2) hanging on once you’d flown to the corner because Rusty knew this was where he turned around; (3) turning in to the shallow ditch just before the driveway after roaring home (here, you really had to hang on); and (4) coming to a hard stop in three or four jarring jumps in front of the barn door.
We never timed this event, but we did it quite often. Rusty could really turn. Perhaps he would have made an incredible barrel horse, but I don’t think he would have stopped after the final go-for-home run!
Mother and Dad, together with Aunty Rosie and Uncle Raeder, invited the German Baptist Church of Edmonton to come to Holden for a once-a-month program at the Holden Community Hall in spring, summer and fall. Only a very few other locals attended; Ben and I never went.
One summer Sunday, Mother and Dad invited the church group to the farm for a small picnic. The group brought food and ate it somewhere near the house with Mother and Dad. There was a carload of young people along, likely a musical or singing group.
Ben and I didn’t join in at all. It was a regular “ride Rusty” Sunday. We’d already done a few down-to-the-corner-and-back runs. Rusty was back in the barn.
Ben and I wore cowboy hats on ride-Rusty Sundays and at the Bruce Stampede, where almost everyone did. We weren’t cowboys, but we were wearing the hats that Sunday. We were at the barn when the picnic was over. The youth group came to the barn—possibly three young men and three young women. They could all speak perfect English and they could switch suddenly and easily from English to German and back again. They were a nice, friendly bunch.
They were interested in Rusty. One of the young men asked if he could ride him. He was familiar with horses and was an experienced rider, he said. He was self-assured and confident.
We got Rusty, still saddled, out of the barn. We cautioned the rider to go very slowly, holding him back, to the road, then turn north.
Okay, we should have added that Rusty would be turning around at the crossroads.
With the entire youth group watching—the older folks, too—the young man kept Rusty under control, prancing and ready, to the end of the driveway and turned north.
Rusty was anxious. He took off madly and raced north. Members of the youth group audibly drew in their breath. For a short distance, we couldn’t see Rusty through the trees, but we could hear his hooves pounding. As Rusty neared the corner, all of us standing by the barn could see horse and rider again.
Rusty came to a stop and wheeled around. The rider flew off, continuing north, arms flailing.
The youth group gasped. Rusty was now flying home again. He turned through the ditch, wide open, toward us. The group scattered out of his path. He put the brakes on at the barn, as usual. We put him back in the barn.
The rider came walking back. He didn’t limp; he wasn’t hurt very badly, just humiliated.
No one else asked to ride Rusty.
Somehow, we taught Rusty to rear. It started innocently enough. Once, when Rusty was prancing around, anxious to go, he lifted his front feet off the ground just a little, momentarily. A few days later, he did it again. Unwisely, we encouraged him, holding him back, touching our heels to his sides and saying, “Up, up.”
It didn’t take him long to learn to rear, on command, quite high and even hold that pose for a second or two. We pretended we were like the Lone Ranger and his mighty horse Silver, standing up, pawing the air just like the cover of a Lone Ranger comic book.
In the early sixties, we didn’t have very many cows on the farm. We had about ten milk cows and perhaps a dozen range cows. We had more pasture than we needed. Dad rented some of the pasture to John M., a farmer north of Holden. He trucked over about ten Shorthorn-Hereford cross cows with calves. The cows were mainly roan or white-faced roan, quiet and gentle. They ran together with our small herd of beef cows.
In the fall after the crop was harvested, John was ready to take his cows back home. He made arrangements with Dad. He would be coming with his son M., a freshly graduated RCMP constable. We were to have Rusty ready, so that M. could ride him and sort out their cows.
We saddled up Rusty and led him outside when John and M. arrived. We cautioned them about Rusty’s runaway habit.
John was not concerned in the least. M. was an RCMP constable who had taken horsemanship as part of his training in Regina.
M. didn’t say anything. He wore regular jeans, shoes and a ball cap. He also had a pair of gloves—yellow, leather and brand new.
He was relaxed and confident as he approached Rusty. We put the reins over Rusty’s neck and M. walked to Rusty’s side.
M. was carrying the new yellow gloves in his left hand and Rusty was eyeing them. M. put both gloves on the swell of the saddle, by the horn. He slapped down the gloves like there was Velcro on the saddle and they’d stick. Rusty jerked, then stood still.
M. gathered the reins in his hand, put his foot in the stirrup, grasped the horn and started to mount. In the process, the gloves were somehow brushed. They fell off.
Rusty didn’t buck. He just jumped quickly sideways, away from the falling yellow gloves. M., who had never got his right foot over the saddle, sprawled on the ground. He swore as he got to his knees, then stood up.
“I’m not getting on that SOB of a horse!” he said.
We put Rusty back in the barn. We walked out to the pasture and started bringing home all the cows. John’s cows were really quiet. By the time we got close to the yard, it was only his cows and calves left. We put them in the corral. Then, two or three cows and calves at a time, he hauled them back to his farm. We never saw M. again. I’m sure he became a fine RCMP officer.
As I mentioned, we were still milking cows. We separated the milk and sold the cream. In the winter months, most of the cows were dry and they stayed outside. Possibly four or five cows stayed in their stanchions in the cow barn overnight. Their manure was cleaned out daily and piled on the large stone boat that Dad and I had built.
Every farmer had one—two heavy 2x8 or 2x10 runners with 2x6, 2x8, or even 2x10 planks nailed across. Ours had the runners spaced the same distance apart as a bobsled. We used the heavy rod and hitch section from the rear half of an old bobsled to attach the stone boat, with a clevis, to the tractor. The sled was about five feet wide, seven or eight feet long. It was heavy and sturdy.
When the stone boat was full of manure, we chose a nice day to start the Massey 44 tractor and haul the manure to the field. Often it was frozen solid, making it very difficult to unload. Sometimes we used a crowbar to break off big chunks or even most of the load, leaving the large frozen piles on the field. In the spring, we would have to go around with a fork to spread the manure before the field could be cultivated.
Rusty was around, close by, outside. I came up with the idea that Rusty could pull the stone boat out to the field each day and I could unload the fresh manure easily and quickly.
Dad was opposed to the plan. “He’s not the right kind of horse and it’s not the right kind of sleigh. The stone boat will run into his heels on a downhill if the sledding is good. Or you’ll pull it into his heels when you’re standing on the sleigh and pulling on the lines. And you’ve got nothing to tie the lines to that would hold him while you’re unloading the manure. And that horse,” he shook his head. “It’s not a good idea.”
I didn’t listen to his advice. I built a sturdy front rack on the stone boat braced down to the sides. It had a 2x4 higher than the rack with a “V” cut in it to hold the reins, just like a regular bobsled or hay rack from an earlier era. I found an old singletree for the sleigh hitch at the front.
We didn’t have any harnesses. Harnesses were getting pretty scarce by the early sixties—collars too. They usually came in a set; no one wanted to sell only one harness. And the collars for draft horses were far too big for Rusty.
Dad said a breast collar harness would work. “A breast collar harness—a stud harness—is what you need.”
A stud harness was used on a draft horse stallion, usually together with a two-wheeled cart when someone with a draft stallion travelled around the country, usually in May or June, to service the farmers’ draft horse mares so they foaled in April or May. Heavy old stud harnesses were really hard to find. Someone said that the old bachelor cowboy Ed Dorin, east of Bruce, might have one. He did. He sold it to me for $15.
Breast collar harnesses are a lot easier and quicker to put on and take off than collar-and-harness harnesses. Slip the strap near the middle of the breast collar over the horse’s head, loosely buckle the belly band, toss the tugs over the horse’s back, snap the lines to the bridle and you’re ready to hitch up. Unharnessing was just as fast.
I put the breast collar harness on Rusty. Every strap and buckle was set for a much larger horse. I buckled the neck strap and belly band to the shortest hole. There was a different bit for draft horses. I had found a draft horse bit, which I attached to another headstall. Proper draft horse bridles have blinders, which keep the horse from seeing what’s happening behind it. The bridle I used had no blinders. Rusty could easily see exactly what was happening behind him when he turned his head.
I took Rusty to the little circle corral and tried driving him around, walking behind him. Rusty was confused and bewildered with the new concept. He wanted to turn around and face me. The steering was different too from the neck reining that Ben and I had eventually taught him.
After several days of walking behind him, turning left and right, stopping then starting again, even walking with the tugs and their chains beside and behind him, I felt he was ready to hitch up.
“You should wait until we have at least a foot of snow,” said Dad. “The stone boat will pull harder. It won’t run into his heels and there’ll be less chance of a runaway.” He shook his head again. “He should really be hitched beside a gentle old workhorse. That’s how you break a horse to harness.”
We didn’t have a gentle old workhorse. We just had Rusty. There was some snow—not a foot, but maybe enough to keep the stone boat from running into his heels.
After allowing him to sniff and examine the stone boat, I very cautiously hooked him up. I stood on one side of the sled, not on it.
I gave Rusty the signal to move ahead. He was startled by the thing following him. I stopped him immediately. I talked to him, petted him.
We went a few steps further again. Rusty looked ready to make a run for it. We stopped. We went ahead a few steps. We stopped. He didn’t like having something following him so closely. He was twisting his head from left to right, trying to see what was behind him. His eyes showed fear and his nostrils flared. He was on the edge of losing it.
Somehow, I got him back fairly close to where we had started. I unhitched him and led him to the front of the stone boat so he could look at it and sniff it again, touch it with his nose.
“A good, safe start for the first time,” I thought.
We did it again the next day, perhaps for a little longer. I only walked beside the stone boat.
He wasn’t happy with the change of routine and didn’t like the thing following him any more than he had the day before. But he hadn’t got away on me. I was pleased about that.
Several days and several more training sessions later, there was a small pile of manure on the stone boat. I walked beside the sled and only allowed Rusty to walk. We stopped often. We got to the field and slowly, ever so slowly and carefully, with Rusty watching behind him, I got the manure off. I had tied a knot in the lines; my arm was between the lines in front of the knot. It was very awkward to get that small pile of manure unloaded.
I stood on the sled. We circled the field, then zig-zagged our way home in a walk, with the lines tight at all times.
We made it home. Rusty was getting the idea that when we got to the barn and stopped, the thing quit following him.
I shared my growing feelings of success with Dad.
“Don’t get too confident!” he said. “You’re a long way from having him harness-broke. Just be careful and don’t let him run away on you.”
The very next day it happened.
While I was unloading the manure, Rusty stepped back. He stepped over the tug. The tug was now on the inside of his leg; before it had always been on the outside. When he moved ahead, the tug moved up on the inside of his leg. Surprised, he jumped ahead. I was off to the side, holding the lines. The sleigh jerked ahead too. When Rusty stopped, the singletree on the hitch bumped into his heels.
Rusty lost it.
He jumped ahead and kicked with both feet at whatever had bumped his heels. The singletree broke in half. He bolted ahead, now free of the thing. I was suddenly jerked forward, still holding tightly to the reins. In a few jumps, we were racing for the barn, Rusty pulling me with the bit in his teeth. I was plowing a furrow in the snow behind him, arms outstretched, still hanging on to the reins. My face, neck and clothes were covered with snow. Snow was being jammed into every opening, every crevice.
Still I hung on to the reins. Then I realized we weren’t heading for the gate into the yard. We were headed for the feed stack fence. Within a few seconds, we were there. Rusty leaped over the three-strand barbwire fence. I let go of the reins. Something in the tugs or the broken singletree caught the top wire. It screeched and broke.
I stood up, spitting out snow, brushing off my clothes and wiping my face. My glasses were still on, but almost completely covered in snow.
Rusty was standing at the far stackyard fence, looking at me. He looked fine.
Dad had been in the stackyard, feeding some square bales of hay to the range cows. He hurried over to me.
“What happened?!”
I explained.
“Why didn’t you let go of the reins?” he asked.
“You told me not to let him run away!” I said.
“Well, he was running away, whether you were holding on to the reins or not!”
I realized Dad was right.
We got the stone boat home with the tractor and used it to haul manure for a few days.
I got another singletree. It was stronger and heavier than the other one. It had a steel strap that reinforced the heavy oak, running all along the back of the singletree.
I hooked up Rusty again. We did the slow and cautious process again. No mishaps. Another trip. I thought perhaps he was getting better. I thought he was looking a bit more calm.
I could ride on the stone boat, but Dad was right. There was very little control over many things happening every day.
A few days later, we were heading home after unloading. I shouldn’t have let him trot, even just a little trot. I remembered how he could pull me with the bit in his mouth.
We were getting close to the barn and the stopping place. I wanted to slow Rusty to a walk. He continued to trot. I pulled on the reins, pulling the stone boat toward his feet. I backed off. I pulled the reins again and hollered, “Whoa!”
We were almost at the milk house, a small lean-to addition to the lean-to cow barn. We were too close and the stone boat was angling toward the corner of the milk house. Rusty was getting close to stopping, but the corner of the stone boat was going to hit the corner of the milk house.
With a loud crash, it did. The stone boat stopped immediately. The sudden stop carried through to the breast collar. Nothing broke, nothing gave way. The sudden stop dropped Rusty to his knees. I flew over the front rack I had built, squarely against Rusty’s rump. It was the best place possible to stop my forward momentum!
Rusty stood up, surprised and dazed. I struggled around to his side and unhooked him.
I could scarcely believe that nothing had broken—not the harness, nor the singletree, nor the front of the stone boat. I could see that the milk house was quite badly damaged.
I put Rusty in his stall. I took off the breast collar harness and hung it in its usual place.
I never harnessed Rusty again.
Dad was right. Rusty wasn’t the right kind of horse and it wasn’t the right kind of sleigh.
It took us both several hours to repair the milk house.
Ben and I decided we’d sell Rusty. We had purchased several other young horses. They all had a different temperament than Rusty and we knew a little more about horses.
Everyone in our area knew about Rusty and the problems we’d had with him. We’d be honest, but it wasn’t likely that we could sell him locally. But at a horse auction, anything goes. You don’t need to say very much about a horse, just as much as you want to say. There were no guarantees when you bought a horse at an auction. You bought it as is!
It was June. There was a big horse auction coming up on a Saturday in Stettler, a large town in a ranching area about 80 miles south of our farm. We decided we’d take Rusty to that sale.
There were no horse trailers at that time. In the four years we’d had him, Rusty hadn’t been loaded on a truck.
We dug two holes near the barn for the back wheels of the pickup. It made the back end of the pickup a lot lower to the ground. Rusty refused to step on to the truck, no matter how hard we tried and coaxed and pulled.
Dad came up with an idea. We tied one end of the lariat to the back of one side of the truck. Then the lariat went around Rusty’s rump, above his hocks. Dad and one of us pulled on the lariat at the other side of the truck. One of us was on the truck, pulling on the halter rope.
Slowly we made progress, one step then another. Now his back feet were getting closer to his front feet, which were almost against the lowered tailgate. Suddenly, easily and effortlessly, he jumped onto the truck. Good job, Rusty!
It was a long drive cross-country to Stettler with a saddled-up Rusty in the back of the truck. We had tied him just as he had been when he first came to the farm.
There were a lot of horses at the sale, a lot of good horses and real cowboys.
We signed Rusty in as a “well-broke, seven-year-old gelding.” That’s all we said. Earlier, we had decided that we should get $200, or close, for Rusty. Dad found someone he knew at the sale. He was going to bid in Rusty for us to try to get $200 or close.
Finally it was our turn, late in the afternoon. Ben rode Rusty into the ring. Rusty had a square, three-inch yellow tag with a black number on it glued on his rump.
Both Rusty, and Ben in his cowboy hat, looked good in the ring. Rusty was in his prime—a strong, well-built horse with neither a blemish nor a wire cut.
The auctioneer called out “seven-year-old gelding—well broke.” The bidding started at $125. It went up steadily. It reached $175.
Rusty was very nervous in the ring and he didn’t like the auctioneer’s voice. When Ben momentarily stopped moving him around the ring in circles and figure eights, Rusty reared.
“Well!” said the surprised auctioneer, stopping his chant. So Ben encouraged Rusty to rear, giving him the signal.
Rusty did a good Lone-Ranger-and-his-faithful-horse-Silver kind of rear. It was a real audience-pleaser!
The auctioneer started again. He tried and tried, but there wasn’t another bid.
“Sold!” said the auctioneer. “For $175!”
$175 was Dad’s friend’s bid.
We took Rusty back home. It was another long drive.
So we put an ad in the local paper. FOR SALE: SEVEN-YEAR-OLD BAY GELDING, WELL BROKE. $175.
We got one phone call. It was from a farmer north of Ryley, a town west of our farm. The man was interested. He would come and have a look at him.
A few days later, he came to the farm. We had Rusty all shined up and saddled and ready for him.
We told him about his behaviour problems, pulling back, running wild and rearing if you wanted him to. We didn’t tell him I had tried to break him to harness.
The farmer rode Rusty around the yard. He wasn’t just a farmer; I could see he was a horseman too. He was a horse trader as well. He took his time. He worked us down on the price. He was making about $30 an hour, an unheard-of wage at the time. I don’t remember the selling price exactly—$150 or was it $140?
We had quite a time loading Rusty on his pickup. We used the holes and the lariat-around-the-rump trick again.
I don’t think Rusty whinnied as he left the yard.
A few years later, I saw Rusty’s new owner at a farm auction.
“Quite a horse, that Rusty!” he said, not displeased. I felt he was pleased with Rusty.
“The biggest mistake I ever made with that horse,” he said, “was tying him up to the old hammer mill beside the hog house. I wouldn’t have believed a horse could pull that brute of a hammer mill, backing up all over the yard before he finally stopped. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!”
He must have been pleased with Rusty. Rusty stayed on that farm until he died, many years later.
He really was quite a horse.