This is the final chapter about H-bomb. This story is based on a horse that I rasied from a colt, my wife learned to ride on him and so did my kids. When he died it was a sad day and that part of my life was really over.
I would really appreciate comments on this.....
H-Bomb The End
I have had H-bomb for years now; we got him when I was in JR high school and all though my high school years and a couple of years of college all of which came to an end this year. It was now the end of summer and I was getting ready to head off on my own see what was out there. I had managed to get a job working at the sale barn in Rapid City. My grandfather had worked there since before it was build, meaning he worked at the original sale barn, so I kind of had an in to the job.
H-bomb was no young colt when we bought him all those years ago at a horse sale in Billings; he already had quite a few years on him. Over the years that horse and I had been mortal enemies at least I thought so for a long time, I don’t think he ever did. It seemed every time he bucked me off, left me a foot or dunked me in water he was always waiting for me or waiting for me at home, which is where he was always waiting, and he would nuzzle me and then turn and run off. Kind of like saying, “well, another day, I’ll see you tomorrow” and away he would go.
As the years passed it became a job for me or maybe more of a contest to see who would win every time we would go riding and in those days it was all riding and it was all done on horseback. None of these 4-wheelers to run around on then, if you were lucky the best you would have would be an old broke down pickup or maybe even a go cart. But when it came to actually working cows, the horse was the only way back then.
We had lots of different horse to ride back then and they all got a work out, but like always we had favorites and we would use them as much as possible, the horses in my day were tough, they may have to work days on end, but when it was done they had it easy for weeks at a time with a little light riding once in awhile.
H-bomb was that to me, not exactly my favorite but not far from it, mainly because I couldn’t let him win all the time, I had to show him who the boss was. We would go out and every ride was an adventure, some days he won and I would end up on the ground, some days he would leave me walking and some days he just bucked me off and waited for me to get back on as if to say “see, I can still do it.”
Now as I stood there looking in the corral there he stood staring back at me trying to figure out what he could do to me next, I know that was what he was thinking. As I looked I could see the gray in his hair, he was getting old, I had no idea how old but he was getting up there, probable close to twenty if his teeth were anything to go by. It actually gave me an odd feeling to think of him as being old.
I walked into the corral and rubbed his neck and went to the saddle shed and got a bridle out and put it on and swung up bare back and we took off. As I was riding along with him, his head down as low as it could get swinging back and forth pulling up a month full of grass every third or fourth swing, I thought back to all the times we had been out and he would do the same thing usually just before he bucked me off, thinking about it gave me a pause for a moment.
It was an easy ride but his back bone had not improved with the years, in fact it got sharper. I remembered the time the chin strap broke and he ran off with me and I dropped a rope over that post in the middle of nowhere, I remembered that when I woke up and he woke up I had to ride him bare back to home, the thought brought a smile to me.
As we rode along we passed several ant hills and I remembered being bucked off into one and thought I had got away free and clean till about twenty minutes later a little red bugger was biting big chunks out of things best left unbitten and this all because of H-bomb.
As we were wandering around I looked at all the trees and brush on the river bottom and remembered the time that we were chasing a calf and I looked back at something and when I looked forward he had ran right under a tree branch that was about saddle high. I hit that thing and was knocked on my butt behind H-bomb. I had all the wind knocked out of me and I was wishing I was dead and when I could breathe again I thought that dirty rotten skunk had left me to walk. But no, he was standing there waiting for me to get up and back on. I couldn’t believe it, but I never complained, the way I was feeling walking would have taken a week to get home.
There were more thoughts and adventures that I thought about on the ride, it was just a slow easy ride with my thoughts wandering. My last mistake with him because just as I was lost in thought he let out a big old fart and started bucking. I was all over that saddle pulling all the leather I could find but this time I stayed on board. After a few minutes of this he stopped, looked back at me, wiggled an ear and we started off again. Guess he decided it wasn’t worth any more effort.
We got back to the house after a couple of hours of just wandering around. I took him in the corral and tired him up by the saddle shed and got the hoof knife out and cleaned his hooves one last time. He never even laid on me as I did this. It was at this point that I knew and that he knew our time together was over.
I finished up rubbed his neck and behind his ears which I knew he liked and talked to him a few minutes telling him I was leaving to work someplace else with my grandfather but that I would be back once in a while to make sure he was behaving himself. He just looked at me. I walked over to the water tank and he followed me. I got to the tank and remembered the time I was shoeing him and he picked me up and dunked me in the tank. H-bomb stuck his head in to take a drink so I stuck my hand in and splashed him, he jumped back and then walked up and stuck his head back in the water and shook it back and forth splashing me. I scratched him behind the ears again and walked out of the corral to the house. When I left the corral he was looking at me over the top rail. I turned and looked at him for minute and went to the house.
The next day I was leaving for my new job and I went out to the corral one last time to feed the livestock and when I got there H-bomb was there lying down. I whistled at him to get him up but he never moved. Not feeling good about this I crawled in to get him up but when I got there I could see he was gone. He was lying there with his eyes open but you could tell he was dead. I stood there looking down at that old brown nag with big tears falling off me, no matter how much I wiped them they just kept coming.
I finally went back to the house and told mom and dad about H-bomb and we all went back out and stood around looking at him. They brought up some of the stuff that he and I had been through and we talked and laughed told stories about him. But for me, I felt like something was gone.
Dad went and got the tractor with the backhoe on it and dug a grave down behind the building just a little way from the river. We then loaded him on a trailer and hauled him down and put him in the hole and I took over and did the job of burying him. It was the least I could do for him.
When I was done I sat there on the tractor just thinking.
“Goodbye my friend” I said and I started the tractor and drove back to the house.
