Gentle As A Dead Pig

The sun was just beginning to set. Dick and Billy were perched out on the porch enjoying a warm evening last spring, when they heard the distinct rattle of a horse trailer coming over the hill.

“Wonder who that could be?” Dick belched as he reached for another barley sandwich. (He’d been on the wagon for a while, but because he and Billy split the groceries 50-50, he had to start drinkin’ again just to get his money’s worth.)

“I’ll be doggoned if ’n it don’t look like ol’ Slick Jacobson’s outfit,” Billy slurred in reply as the pickup pulled in the yard. Slick was a horse trader deluxe, and always seemed to have some old plug in his trailer that was lookin’ for a home. Ever’ once in a while he accidentally came up with a dandy.

Sure enough, it was Slick alright.

“Howdy, boys,” Slick called as he slammed the pickup door. “Nice evenin’ ain’t it?”

“Slick…. I thought that was you. I heard you was down to Arizona monkeyin’ around on the racetrack,” Billy hollered. “Come on over an’ have somethin’ to wet yer whistle.” Dick dug out a cold one for their visitor.

“I jus’ got back…. ran across the best lookin’ geldin’ I seen in a long time down there. I drug him back up this way an’ I thought I’d give you boys the first chance at ‘im. I think he’s the best son-of-a-gun I ever saw… an’ gentle as a dead pig.”

After a lengthy visit and a little more liquid supper, Slick backed his geldin’ out of the trailer to show the boys. He was a tall long legged thoroughbred lookin’ bay.

“Boy, this guy can cover the country,” Slick started his pitch. “Only seven years old an’ gentle as a dead pig.”

“You already tol’ me that,” Billy belched as he checked the horse’s teeth.

After an hour or so of Slick’s sales pitch and three or four more barley sandwiches, that horse really did start to look pretty good, and Billy scrawled his name on the bottom of a check. The bay gelding was his.

“I’m gonna name him Slick,” Billy slurred at his horsetradin’ friend. “That way if he ain’t no good ever’ one will know where I got him.”

“If he’s not just like I told you, you don’t own him,” was Slick’s confident reply as he rattled out of the yard. Billy ambled down to tie his new horse in the barn.

The next morning that brand new horse didn’t look so good.

“That durn Slick must have doped that nag,” Dick chuckled as the bay flashed a white eyeball his way and stood quivering in the stall. “….gentle as a dead pig, my foot. Only thing he’s got that resembles a pig is those itty-bitty eyes. You just been rooked, Billy.”

Billy was too proud to admit that he may have made a mistake, so he saddled him up and stepped on in the round corral behind the barn…. just in case. It sure was a good thing. Slick took off like he was shot out of a rocket, and stuck Billy’s head in the dirt. Now Billy’s no slouch, but that gentle-as-a-dead-pig bay gelding bucked him off three times before he finally got him rode that mornin’. Dick could hardly contain his glee, and was thinkin’ that this whole show was even better than the county fair.

Billy might be a booze hound but he dang shore isn’t a quitter, and he finally got Ol’ Slick where he could ride him….. at least most of the time. He spent the whole summer puttin’ miles on that cayuse. His dumb pride wouldn’t let him call the horse trader up and make him take the nag back. He was determined to make a horse out of him.

One evening this fall, Dick was out behind the house just finishin’ up hanging some overalls on the clothesline, when he heard something coming up the lane. Billy was still out putting a few more miles on Ol’ Slick, and was due back anytime.

“Sounds like a dad-blamed moter-sickle,” Dick says to himself. That seemed a little strange. He couldn’t remember anyone ever drivin’ one in the yard before.

It was Billy. It seems he’d dropped in on one of the neighbors over across the ridge and traded ol’ Slick off on that contraption. He was so glad that he’d found someone that would trade ANYTHING for that jug-headed horse that he’d forgotten the itty-bitty fact he didn’t even know how to ride a motorcycle. But then how hard could it be?

Boy, was he a sight for sore eyes. His old hat brim was blowed straight up in the front, and his batwing chaps were floppin’ a tune in the breeze. He smoked right through the yard with his saddle tied on the back and made two frantic circles around the chicken coop trying to get ‘er stopped. Feathers were flying everywhere with the squawkin’ old hens headed for higher ground.“Whoa!… WHOA!…. WHOA!.... you Japanese &%$#,” Billy yelled at his iron steed, pulling for all he was worth on the handle bars. “Look out Dick! I can’t figger out how to stop this durn thing!” Dick jumped out of the way as Billy zoomed past, clipping the corner of the porch; disappearing behind the house.

Somehow he miraculously missed both clothesline poles, but in his haste to dodge between them, Billy forgot that the clothesline was just about neck high. As a matter of fact, it was exactly Adam’s Apple deep on a moter-sickled cowboy. It was an awful wreck.

Billy and his saddle wound up in a pile with Dick’s wet overalls and two busted clothesline poles. The loss of its cargo didn’t seem to slow down the demonic motorcycle a bit. It careened headlong another fifty yards and then crashed into the creek.

“Where’d ya get that thing, anyway?” Dick asked.

Billy untangled his head from the clothesline and spit out a tooth. “None o’ yer business! If you was a real friend you’d help a fella get that dad-blamed thing strung out so I could take it back home.”

Dick bit his lip to keep from laughin’ out loud. There’s times a fella just has to get all by himself to get really tickled, and this was one of ‘em. He fished the motorcycle out of the creek and helped Billy strap his saddle back on and straighten the handlebars.

Billy wasn’t sayin’ much. “Just point ‘er towards the gate, an’ git out of the way,” he grumbled. Out of the yard he roared in a cloud of smoke.

A couple of hours later, he trotted back in the yard on a big long legged bay.

“That’s about the best lookin’ son-of-a-gun I ever saw,” Dick grinned.

“Yep,” Billy grinned back, his smile freshly missing a tooth. “Gentle as a dead pig, too.”

Keep Smilin’….

and don’t forget to check yer cinch.

Ken Overcast is a recording cowboy singer that ranches on Lodge Creek in North Central Montana where he raises and dispenses B.S. http://www.kenovercast.com