CURLY, JAKE AN' ME
Poems and Stories of the Old and New West
by
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That Bronc
Curly and me
an’ Jake
decided that roundin’ up broncs
Was the way to make our stake.
We’d heard of the wild ones
where the Piute dwell,
So we set up our camp by the Settlers well.
We’d seen a herd between the White and the Snake
So we built a corral of brush and stake.
We’d chased that wild herd and corralled a few.
They wuz the sorriest lot that I
ever knew.
Now the army was payin’ ten dollars a head,
But they wouldn’t take nags that looked half dead.
So we went to work with brush and comb
Tryin’ to get ‘em ready to
make the army home.
A wild one that aint never been tamed by man
Can try a man’s patience much as any woman can.
Requirements were thet a hoss
must be broke to ride,
And groomed to look halfway decent beside.
We’d accomplished that with the best of that lot,
But there was this cayuse that was the worst we’d
got.
That bronc was a cayuse of
low degree.
He’d been raised in the sagebrush runnin’ wild and
free.
His hair was growed long and it hung loose and slack.
He had a hump for withers and a real swayed back
His tail was broom like and matted with burrs.
He was more like an orphan with a cowboys curse.
I put the brush to that low swayed back.
He snorted and his broomtail gave me a whack.
Jake grabbed a fetlock. Thet horse musta had wit.
Before Jake knew what happened
His behind had been bit.
We tried every trick but our mere muscle met
with “horse sense” that caused quite a tussle we can’t forget.
I looked at Jake and Jake looked at me,
And in solemn silence we set that cayuse free.
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About the Book
It was new country. Away to the horizon in all directions there was nothing to be seen but a wide expanse of grassland.
To Chloe Foster it was bleak and unpopulated at first. Ed Foster saw the tract of land as needing a lot of work.
Four years old Katie saw it as cactus patch with sharp spines, yucca with long needle leaves and snakes. She heard her mother say, “wait for your sister Carrie before you go walking.”
Carrie asked her mother “why did
we leave
Little Willie, two and a half, said “Where’s our house? When will we have a house?”
These were the Fosters who left
the comfort of a farm in
What lives had they before?
What had they left to locate here?
Was this the home where they would rear their children?
That day in 1894 Ed and Chloe had no answers, but they stayed because they respected the land and themselves.
About the Author
“Born on the prairie, never had a pet. Don’t want nuthin, ‘ never got it yet.”
That was the beginning of life
for Bob. He was born in a ranchhouse eight miles south east of
After graduation he held various
jobs until he entered the army in 1941.
He was assigned to the cavalry and was sent to
Educationally, he completed work
on a Doctorate in Education at
Bob and Ruth have two grown children and four grandchildren.