Valentine’s Day Story From Angela Blair

I’ve written before about Texan Angela Blair and here’s another one of her wonderful stories.
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Bill and I married against all odds. We were both very young – he was barely 21 and I was seven days shy of 18 – each had only a high school diploma, no real skills at making a living and both had a bit more than a touch of attitude. He was the only child of down-to-earth ranching parents and I was raised by a doting grandmother who still embraced attitudes and social graces from the late 1800’s.

Bill was a cowboy, and for the most part, I was a tomboy; both a point of consternation for my grandmother. We had no money and planned to live with Bill’s parents at the ranch until we could afford our own place. All-in-all our marriage was the perfect setting for disaster.

We tied the proverbial knot on Valentine’s Day, which was cold, dreary and wet, with both our families and a few young friends in attendance. The prevailing mood of Bill’s parents and my grandmother matched the weather! The marriage took place and we left on our honeymoon which was spending our wedding night in a motel 30 miles away and being back at the ranch by 5:30 the next morning to help load cattle.

I adored both of Bill’s parents but living with them was a real wake-up call for me. The old ranch house had no indoor plumbing and no hot water. I’d been there on many occasions prior to our marriage, but usually just in and out, on the way to do something else and had never even noticed their facilities – or lack thereof!

In the first glow of marital bliss, Bill and I were happy as a couple of kids can be. Bill and his father not only raised and trained their own Quarter Horses but took on outside horses to break and train. I’d helped Bill with the horses on many occasions prior to our marriage and we just naturally continued that chore.

It was the breaking and training of horses that provoked our first real argument. The process was that Bill rode a horse until it was used to a rider on it’s back or what was called “green broke.” Then the animal was turned over to me for training and manners. Between those two jobs was a process called “ponying.” Some horses don’t buck and some do but both are “ponied” during the green breaking process. Ponying teaches a horse to step-out and travel rather than focusing on disposing of a rider.

Ponying a horse is simply one person riding a trained, dependable horse which is designated “the pony horse.” That person was me. We just called the unbroken horse a “bronc” and Bill rode that one. The bronc always had on a head piece (bridle) with soft rope reins and Bill held one rein firmly in each hand so he could pull the horse’s head from side to side.

In addition to the rope reins the bronc would also have a sturdy lead rope attached to the head piece which was dallied (which means wrapped around; NOT tied) around my saddle horn on the pony horse. We’d crowd the bronc up close to the fence after I had him dallied to my horse and Bill would climb aboard.

Some of these occasions were uneventful, some resulted in pinched legs and banged up riders and others were downright dangerous. I can’t count the times I’ve had a bronc attempt to climb in the saddle with me. Bill’s patience didn’t go very far when riding broncs and his language would get quite colorful. In fact, the times I didn’t perform, as he thought I should, he would address me in the same manner he did the bronc, to which I took great exception!

It was Valentine’s Day, our first anniversary, that Bill announced we were going to pony Diablo again. Diablo was a big grey horse with a mind of his own, and in my estimation, properly named. He was a devil! We’d ponied Diablo on three separate occasions already and I couldn’t see that we were making any progress at all.

I had hoped to spend the afternoon getting ready for our anniversary dinner on the town and Bill and I exchanged a few heated words. We finally compromised by me agreeing to pony Diablo for an hour and then having the rest of the afternoon to myself. We saddled, I dallied Diablo to my saddle horn and Bill climbed aboard. Both of us were still at odds with one another.

The horse acted like he’d never seen a saddle, rope or another horse in his life. He jumped, reared, bit at the pony horse and my leg; it was a precarious situation. Bill began swearing with a vengeance at Diablo’s first jump, and never ceased his tirade until Diablo set back and caused the lead rope around my saddle horn to slack and unwind a couple of turns. I think Bill took a deep breath at that point and then turned his anger on me.

By then I was not only exhausted but scared. I’d never encountered a horse like Diablo and I had visions of him killing both of us. In fear and anger I returned Bill’s rhetoric: “You loud-mouthed S.O.B. if you cuss me one more time I’ll cut this horse wild loose and you can deal with him by yourself — what’ll you do then?” Apparently Bill believed me because he shut-up!

I finally managed to dally Diablo up tight against my pony horse once again and we had a pretty uneventful ride back to the barn. Bill and I didn’t say a word all the way back. When we got to the barn I dismounted, unsaddled the pony horse and went to the house – stomping mad! I didn’t lay eyes on Bill the rest of the afternoon.

It was nearly dark and I was putting the finishing touches on my makeup when Bill came in the bedroom. He was dressed to go out to dinner, and to me, was disarmingly handsome. “I got you a little anniversary present,” he hesitantly announced. I waited for him to hand me a gift and when he didn’t I finally asked, “Well, where is it?”

“Down at the barn,” he quietly answered.
“I’m dressed to go out and I’m not trudging down to that damned barn,” I rudely replied.
“Aw, please. I can’t bring it to you,” and he seemed on the verge of tears.
“All right, but I’m still mad and you can’t give me anything that’ll change it!”

Together we walked down to the barn; me in my best dress and high heels and Bill following along behind. He switched on the barn light and I didn’t see anything that looked like a present to me. He silently pointed to the last stall on the right at the very back of the barn. I followed his direction and found the little Appaloosa stud colt I’d watched and dreamed about for the last six months.

High heels and all, I opened the stall gate and waded through the hay and etc. (and the etc. was a bit deep), to lay my hands on the colt. I was speechless, thrilled and enchanted and forgot all about being mad – and my shoes. Bill waded into the stall right behind me and we both began talking a mile a minute. When the initial joy and surprise of the colt was over we apologized to one another for the afternoon’s events. Bill said he wasn’t really cursing me (which he was) but promised he’d never, ever do again. I said I’d never cut him loose from the pony horse – unless he broke his promise.

Somehow we never got around to going to dinner that night. Instead we brought cheese, crackers and wine to the barn, along with our sleeping bag, and spent the night in the barn with the colt. I went to sleep that night in Bill’s arms, amid the fragrant hay, thinking about Valentine’s Day. It had turned out to be the strangest and funniest I’d ever spent — our first wedding anniversary, our first fight and first reconciliation!

The strangest part of all was Diablo’s owner had also been the owner of the Appaloosa colt. Bill had agreed to turn Diablo into a reliable ranch horse in exchange for the colt, hence his anxiety in training Diablo. We’d had our first fight because of Diablo and made up because of the colt’s presence — an odd, disjointed chain of events!