The summer between my Junior and Senior years. It was a long hot one in which I was back doing my full time cowboy girl gig--many hours most days out working on or with the livestock, rain or shine. Already there were too many, mostly mules but some horses as well and of course the burros. Socializing was near zero but I still kept up with the pen pal routine since that was better than nothing.
Aug 23, 1961 Wed
Today did not go along too well for me. I got up about medium, fed the monsters etc. because Mom was ironing. After breakfast I rode Ruby out as usual, also up to the PO.I only got one letter, a dull one. I saddled up Tina and led Ritz for an hour. She is really recovering now. I’ll have to cut down on her barley some. She’s getting sassy. Dad had to go help Charley B work on a horse. When I got in I worked on clothes some, wrote on my Ransom story and just messed around. While doing the evening chores I was stung by a wasp. It was all Charlie Mike’s fault because he threw a rock at the nest and made them mad. It sure hurts like bloody hell. I put ice on it etc. but to little avail. We may or may not go to Phoenix tomorrow. No telling. I hate to leave Chip down there too long though. We’re now crowded into hurrying on the Everly place. I hope we can get them both. Actually I guess I don’t care. I’m so damn tired all the time that I find myself caring little about anything. Like Gug said, “I’m so damn busy.” Gug—how do I always get back to him? He has a terrible fascination for me. I can’t help myself. I think of him being with Juana instead of Spooks, but it doesn’t change me any. Aw hell with the dirty whoreson.
Ruby I have mentioned before, the small red mule we had gotten in a trade deal the summer of 1959. She was one of my pets and I rode her quite a lot. She had easy gaits and could run pretty fast if I encouraged her to do so. It took awhile to convince her but by now she went across the Clarkdale Verde River bridge without a fuss. That road was the quickest and easiest way to get to the pasture out behind Tuzigoot. The only way to avoid the bridge meant going along the west bank of the river a ways, opening a gate or two and fording the stream. Tina is familiar to my readers I know! Ritz was the filly born to a mare we had acquired in one of the batches of mules from the Kansas dealer.She was in foal when we got her but we did not know that at once. Her colt was born in the spring of 1960 so Ritz was now a year old. I think she had been sick with distemper earlier. Like for dogs, that is a sickness like the flu or a bad cold. She was a pretty filly, bright coppery sorrel with flaxen mane and tail and very high spirited! She was killed in a strange sad accident later that fall.
For amusement I spent the hottest siesta hours in the house normally and either sewed or worked on some stories I was writing. The Ransom of Rio Del Sangre was a Zane Grey style western tale I spent a bit of time on. That manuscript of maybe 25,000 words was lost in later moves although I had a few earlier and shorter tales in steno notebooks that I kept with my journals and have to this day. I was far from becoming a commercial and professional author at that point but I was trying!
The ranch hunt which I have mentioned before was on and off for a number of years. Several times it seemed we were on the verge of making a deal and actually being able to move to a much better place to do the livestock business but it always fell through at some point and my flickering hopes finally died completely. The deals on the radar here were among them.
Chip was a mule we had sold to a very picky woman in Tucson. He was the second one she had decided would not satisfy her and she had left him at a stable in Phoenix where we had to go fetch him. When we shortly did so, we found he was kind of banged up and thin--I was pretty disgusted.
Gug was my often mentioned crush/nemesis. Finally that actually did really die and I was fortunate not to be damaged in the interim beyond an occasional bout of 'broken heart' or disgust. Clearly I was unhappy here and dredged up an epithet from the historical novels I read so many of! A nice Shakespearean sort of slur. Juana was a woman who lived a few doors from us and had many male callers and 'dates'. Among them was a co-worker of Gug's who I called Spook. Spook also was married and used to whine that when he got home his wife was "cold," as if that excused his tom-catting around. Living lessons of the seamy side of life, right on my block.
Photos: Mom is feeding Ritzi some grain out of the bucket and Ruby is probably sniffing up some that dropped. Then the bridge from the downstream side--still standing last time I was there but has not been used for a long time and probably dangerous to even go out on it. And last, where I might have crossed if taking the bridge-less route. Charlie Bryant leading the ornery mule Albert and me on Tonalea, the little Navajo pony I had for awhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment