Chapter 7

Later Saturday morning
Nesbitt Ranch
Outside of Harborton, Washington

“Gawd dammit Joe!” exclaimed the drenched rancher sputtering as he stood up in the horse trough.

The Appalousa strutted in circles around the pasture tossing his head whuffing and neighing hysterically. Ben would swear that the horse was laughing and trash talking the rancher.

“You are lucky I promised Ned or you’d be on your way to the glue factory you hooved son-of-a-bitch.” The rancher yelled, shaking his fist at the horse.

Ben couldn’t hold his own laughter in any longer as the horse then strode over to the wooden rail fence where an old towel had been placed. The horse snatched the towel free and with a bowed head apologetically, ‘handed’ it to the rancher.

The rancher started laughing himself as he gently rubbed the horse’s nose and ears then looked up and waved Ben over.

“Hey there, c’mon over. My name is Curt,” said the stocky gray haired rancher. “This juvenile delinquent is Joe. Otherwise known as ‘Montana Joe’ registered Appalousa, who’s very lucky today that he’s not been registered for the dog food factory.

“He seems like quite a character.” Ben said as he approached the fence. “My name is Ben Clarkson. We bought the McReady ranch next to Ferg’s”.

Ben reached out with his animal sense, but hit nothing but a blank wall. Either Joe didn’t want to talk or he wasn’t one of those that could. Ben was immediately suspicious though. This was obviously a very intelligent critter. Ben thought just maybe he was being conned.

“Nice to meet yah Ben. As for Joe here, well yeah you could say that, if troublesome is a character trait, he’s full of it.” Curt laughed.

Joe looked sideways at Curt and snorted.

“Well we are starting up an animal rescue for animals that are having problems getting placed. We recently came in to a little money and my associates thought it might work to combine the rescue with an abused women’s shelter and therapy center.”

“Dang that sounds like a handful, but we could really use something like that around here. My wife works at the shelter in Harborton and she says they never have enough beds or other resources.” said Curt as he wiped the water from his face.

“Hey, she might know my fiancee’ Kelly. She also volunteers there a few times a week.” Ben said.

“I’ll have to ask her then.” Curt reached out to shake Ben’s hand.

“So I saw the ad you placed in the Penny Press. Can you tell me a little about Joe?”

“Well, I sorta inherited Joe from my brother Ned when he passed away a few months ago.” said Curt.

“Sorry, for your loss. Losing a brother is tough.” Ben said.

“Yeah, it was a heart condition that got worse really fast. His wife was in no position to continue their small cattle operation and with two young girls to take care of she decided to move back East to live with her parents. Ned made me promise to take Joe with me and to only let him go to someone who could really appreciate him. I was able to liquidate the other stock but the local ranchers there are prone to not treating their horses very well.”

“Ah so this was over in Eastern Washington.” said Ben

“Yeah, so you’ve heard the stories too. Ned’s place was adjacent to the Colville reservation and he knew a lot of the tribe. They would’ve been a good choice to take Joe, but there just wasn’t any one of them that’d be able to feed and keep him properly in addition to the animals they already had.”

“That would be tough alright. So where did Joe come from?” asked Ben.

“Well Joe was in repayment of a debt. Not to be too old fashioned about it but it was what you might say a ‘debt of honor’. Ned was traveling through Idaho when he came across a young Nez Perce girl at a rest stop. She was all of 14 and was about to get into some very serious trouble. She had been hitchhiking, running away from some family drama, and two truckers had cornered her at the nearly deserted rest stop.

They had already beaten her nearly senseless and were about to rape her when Ned stepped in. My brother wasn’t a big man, nor was he much of a fighter, but he was fierce and could not abide a bully. With the help of a tire iron he was able to get the girl free and they fled before the truckers came to.

She ended up staying with Ned and his wife for almost a year when the girls were 7 and 10 years old. Eventually the girl was able to track down her grandfather who raised horses up in the Bitterroot mountains and Ned made sure she got to them okay. A few months later a truck pulled up to Ned’s place with a horse trailer. Two huge Nez Perce fellas got out and led Montana Joe out. When they led him out he had eagle feathers braided into a horsehair hackamore and was painted like a Gandy Dancer. I think I still have the bridle here somewhere with some pictures Ned sent.”

Curt, paused to wipe more water from his face then continued.

“The fellas wouldn’t say much. But Ned told me that it was obvious Joe was something special. Not only was he highly trained but he came with his registration papers. Ned wanted to refuse the gift as being too generous but you know how traditional those Nez Perce can be. It would have been a grave insult to refuse the gift.” Said Ned.

“Yeah I’ve had some dealings with people just like that.” Ben chuckled, thinking of his uncle Levi.

“So Ned used Joe here as a cutting horse and said he never had a finer one, even though he’s not as compact as most of the best cow horses are.” said Curt.

“Yeah he looks more old style. Taller and leaner, almost like a Thoroughbred or one of them European hunters.”

“Hmmm you’ve worked with horses before then?” asked Curt.

“Just a little. My uncle had a few horses and I rode a lot when I was too young to know how much fun I was having.” said Ben.

“Well Joe here may be a hammer headed son-of-a-bitch, but he’s about as fast a horse as I’ve ever seen, provided you can get him pointed in the right direction.” laughed Curt.

Joe looked over at Curt and snorted then rolled his eyes.

“I’m not sure if your uncle ever worked with Appalousa’s but the Indian bred ones can be a real challenge. The Nez Perce were pretty savvy breeders and they mixed up a bunch of different types of horse until they got a war horse that was sturdy, fast and had good endurance. The only problem was that they also made them too damn smart for their own good.” Curt chuckled.

“Yeah my uncle used to say the Nez Perce were such fierce warriors because by the time they had ridden their Appalousas to the battle they were so annoyed by their horses they wanted to kill everyone around them.” Ben said with a laugh.

“Hah! Yeah, that sounds right. I’m going to remember that one.” said Curt with a smile.

“Do you mind if I try something with Joe?” asked Ben.

“Sure. I gotta warn ya though, he listens about as well as a fence post.” said Curt

Ben stepped through the fence rails and walked up to Joe, careful to stay where Joe could keep both eyes on him. Ben reached up to stroke Joe’s soft nose and give him some firm strokes along his muscular neck. Finally, Ben thought Joe realized that Ben didn’t mean him any harm

“Wixsil’íix” said Ben firmly as he reached up and gave Joe a firm tug on his left ear.

Curt and Ben both were astounded when Joe promptly laid down and rolled over onto his side.

“What the hell?” said Curt.

“Dang, I can’t believe that worked either. My uncle had an old pony that had been ‘war trained’ by the Nez Perce and he would do the same damn thing. I guess they were trained this way in case they were caught out by a hostile war party in the open. It would make it harder to spot them and if it came down to it, the horse would be a bullet catcher.”

“I can’t believe Joe still remembers his training.” Curt said, shaking his head.

“I bet nothing short of dynamite would get him to spook either. My uncle would use his old pony as a rifle rest. We would hunt elk and that pony wouldn’t even flinch when uncle’s .30-06 would go off.”

Joe snorted and whuffed at Ben’s feet and then cranked his neck around to give Ben an ‘are we done yet?’ look.

“Shit, now I gotta remember how to get him back on his feet again,” said Ben. “Ah yah whiskey something...” Ben paused, thinking, then leaned down to Joe, “wiséekey’kitx” he said as he tugged on Joe’s ear again.

In a show of athleticism the 1200 pound horse leapt to his feet and strutted around in a circle.

“I think he’s rather proud of himself.” said Curt. “You know Joe’s not a bad horse. He’s just sort of a juvenile delinquent. When Ned died and Julie took the girls back to Boston, I think Joe took it kinda hard. He moped around for months. Ned said he adored the girls and I think he missed them. Now I think he just needs a job to keep him out of trouble. I’d keep him here, but I don’t have any other horses and since it’s just me and the missus, I think he gets lonesome.”

“If I hadn’t seen what I just did I might think you’d been hitting the Jim Beam a little early in the day, but you may be right. Do you think he might be okay as a therapy animal? If not, that’s okay. I know we’d love to give him a good home either way.” said Ben.

“Well he’s a stallion of course but I’ve never seen him out of control and you can tell he doesn’t rattle easy. Ned said he was great with the girls, They rode him all the time.” said Curt. “I think this might just work out. Why don’t you give him a try and ride him home. Give us a call when you get there and tell me what you think. My wife and I will drop your vehicle off and bring the trailer if we need to bring him back.

“Alright sounds like a plan.” Ben shook Curt’s hand again and they started toward the tack shed to get Joe saddled up.