Anne Pruw: The Scarlet Brown Horse

Anne Prue

Dedicated to Buzz Marley

The winter of late 1886 and early 87 was bitterly cold. That's what all the damn Highland Plains history books say. There was a drought that summer, and the over-grazed pastures were stocked with large herds. Wet snow falls early, freezes and forms a layer of hard ice that cattle can't break through, so they can't eat grass. A blizzard and cold temperatures followed, and the mountains of cattle carcasses piled up in the depressions and wadi valleys made the scenery bleak.

A young cowboy from Montana, a little vanity-minded, ditched his coat and gloves to invest all his salary in handmade leather boots. He crossed the state line and headed south to Wyoming, believing that the warmer the weather would get the farther south, but that night he froze to death on the bitterly cold west bank of the Shield River, the breadth and direction of which is well known. An inch deep and a mile wide, it flows north from Texas.

The next afternoon, three cattle herders rode past his body, which was as green as whetstones, and half of his body was buried in snow. They were shrewd and skilled cattle herders, dressed in blanket coats, woolen trousers, sheepskin gloves, and raw woolen scarves around the crown of their hats and down their hawthorny chins. Two of them were lucky enough to wear high-quality leather boots and chunky socks. The other, Deter Hitz, was cross-eyed, liked to drink hair oil, had a decent upper body, but the further down he went, the more unfortunate he became, he wore no socks, and his boots were cracked and torn on the toes.

"The boots in that canned corn and beef are the same as mine," Hitz said as he dismounted, touching the ground for the first time that day. He tugged at the Montana cowboy's left boot. Helplessly, he has been frozen. The right boot is not necessarily easy to take off.

"Sick cattle mongrels lying in the snow," he said, "come back after dinner to cut and thaw." Hitz took out his single-edged hunting knife, cut it at the Montana man's calf, sawed it off near the top of the boot, and put the booted foot in the saddlebag while admiring the heart and plum blossom ornamentation with the leather surface and seams. The trio continued down the river to search for the lost cattle, and found more than a dozen of them buried in the alluvium of the river, and it was too late to dig them all up.

"It's too late to get back to the dorm. Old Grice's hut was right in front of it, and there must have been prunes or other goodies, or at least a stove. "When the temperature drops, it's so cold that saliva crackles in the air, and it's so cold that men don't dare to urinate in the field because they are afraid of being frozen tightly on the ground until spring. They agreed that the temperature must be below -40 degrees Celsius. The wind is like a scythe, wheaking a Wyoming-style roar.

They walked four miles north and found the hut. Old man Grice opened a crack in the door.

"Come in, whether you're a cattle herder or a cattle thief."

"We've got to lock up the horses first. Where is the barn? ”

"Barn. Never. There was a monopitched roof hut behind the pile, which should have sheltered the horses from the wind, or probably from the cold. My two horses are kept at home, right next to the cupboard. Spoil them. You can sleep when you find an open space, but I must warn you not to provoke the blood-red brown horse, which will swallow people alive. It is a spirited horse. Grab a chair and sit down and eat my stew. There are a lot of things to talk about, and you can talk about it while eating. The soft round cake has just come out of the oven and is hot. ”

The atmosphere was pleasant, everyone ate and drank, played cards, bragged to each other, the stove burst hot, and the old man Grice's spoiled horse sighed comfortably. According to the three cowboys, the only thing that made people complain about this night was that the owner of the lion opened his mouth and asked them for three yuan and four five-cent copper plates. At midnight, Grice blew out the lantern and went to his wooden bed, while the three cattle herders stretched their limbs on the floor. Hitz laid out the spoils behind the fire and fell asleep in the saddle.

He woke up half an hour before sunrise and thought that it was his mother's birthday, and that if he wanted to send a telegram to express his filial piety, he had to run faster than the lightning that had been struck repeatedly, for the telegraph office in Oworan Town was closed at noon. He examines the creepy loot and finds that it has thawed, so he takes off his original boots and socks and puts on new ones. He tossed Montana's nameless bare feet and his old leather boots into a corner near the cupboard, slipped out silently like feathers, saddled his horse, mounted his horse and departed. The wind slowed down, and the crisp cold wind lifted his spirits.

After sunrise, the old man Grice got up, grinding coffee beans and frying bacon. He glanced down at the guest curled up on the ground and said, "The coffee is ready." "The blood-red brown horse stamped the ground and kicked something that looked like a human foot. Old man Grice leaned over to take a closer look.

"It's been a bad morning," he said, "and there's a man's foot and another beside it." He counted the sleeping guests. There are only two left.

"Wake up, pick up your little life, for God's sake, wake up, get up."

The two cattle herders turned over and stared at the old man with panicked eyes. Grice was foaming at the mouth of his mouth and pointed to his feet on the floor behind the blood-red brown horse.

"It's eaten Hitz. Ah, I knew it was a ruthless horse, but it was too ruthless to eat up the whole person. You brute bastard," he screeched at the blood-red brown horse, driving it out into the bitterly cold outdoors. "You are not allowed to eat human flesh anymore. You sleep in a blizzard, with the wolves, you demon from hell. In private, he was actually very proud that he had the courage to eat cowboys alive with such a horse.

The surviving Boxwood Cowboy gets up for coffee. They squinted at the old man, Grice, with their hands on the belts of their pistols.

"Ah, boy, for God's sake, it's just a terrible accident. That blood-red brown horse was so savage, I never knew it. Let's not talk about it. Hitz is not a good thing, I have forty gold dollars here, plus the three dollars and four five-cent copper plates I received last night. Eat the bacon on your plate obediently, and don't get into trouble. There are enough troubles in this world. ”

Yes, they didn't want to get into trouble, but they put their heavy possessions in their saddlebags, drank the last cup of hot coffee, put their horses in the saddle, and went out to meet the smiling morning.

When they met Hitz in the dormitory that night, they nodded to him, congratulated his mother on her birthday, and said nothing about the blood-red brown horse and forty-three yuan and four five-cent copper plates. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are just right.

(Excerpted from "Up Close: The Wyoming Story", by Anne Prue, translated by Song Yingtang, People's Literature Publishing House, 1st edition, November 2006, pp. 61-64)