Horse of a Different Color by Ralph Moody Page A

Robinson.”
    He stood for a minute or two, watching me strip the saddle off Kitten. Then, probably because I didn’t say anything, he went on, “Well, shucks, it won’t make no difference no ways. The moon ought to be up by the time we’ve eat supper, and we can feed ’em just as good by moonlight as daylight.”
    By the time we’d eaten, the sky was completely clouded over and the night so black that a man couldn’t see his hand six inches from his eyes. The temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees, the wind had veered into the north, and it was salted with particles of snow that cut like glass slivers. There was no need of corn-feeding the steers, but with a storm coming on they must have at least a ton and a half of hay, and my hogs in the pasture a ton or more of corn.
    Wearing double suits of overalls and jumpers, earlapper caps, and heavy gloves, Bob and I set out for the stackyard, carrying a lantern and a couple of pitchforks. As I hung the lantern where it wouldn’t be blown out Bob started up a ladder, shouting that he’d pitch down from the top of the stack. By chance, I’d hung the lantern in such a position that I was left in deep shadow, but the light shown upward onto Bob as though he were an actor on a stage. He’d tossed down no more than a hundred pounds when I saw him plunge his fork tines deep into the matted hay, slip a knee under the center of the handle, and throw his full weight onto the extreme end. There was a sound like a rifle shot as the handle broke, and Bob imitated a howl of pain so well that anyone might have thought he’d been hit by the bullet. He clamped both hands over his spine and wailed, “Daggoned if it don’t feel like I busted my back with that lifting. Don’t know if I can make it down from here by myself or not.”
    I didn’t try to control my anger, but shouted, “If you don’t get another fork in a hurry, I’ll bust the handle of this one the same way you did yours, and come up there after you.”
    With any other man I ever knew that would have started a fight or brought him to terms, but not Bob Wilson. He hobbled down the ladder as if he were in agony, leaned against the stack, and groaned, “Just leave me have a couple of minutes to rub some of the ache out, and maybe I can try it again.”
    “I saw you break that handle intentionally,” I told him, “and I don’t believe you’ve got any more backache than I have. If I could prove it I’d take my half of the stock out of this feed lot before daylight.”
    Even that didn’t bring him around. “You don’t reckon I’d try to fool you at a time like this, do you?” he asked between groans. “Just leave me hold the lantern for you a spell, and I’ll be all right soon as ever this pain eases up.”
    With all Bob’s ingenuity he couldn’t find a way to pitch hay without as well as admitting that his back injury was a fake, and I made him pay for it. When the temperature is only a few degrees above zero and there is icy sleet in the wind, pitching hay and shoveling corn are a lot more comfortable jobs than standing and holding a lantern, and I kept Bob holding that lantern for more than two hours. When at last we headed for the house he was so nearly frozen that his face had turned blue, but he was still sticking to his story.
    When I woke at dawn Sunday morning a full-fledged blizzard was raging out of the northwest. I had no concern for the steers, as the feed lot was well protected by the buildings and the thick growth of trees along the creek. But I was badly worried about my shipping stock, for the creek flowed through a deep, narrow gorge along the eastern side of the pasture, so the trees afforded no protection from a northwest storm. I dressed in my warmest clothes, built a fire in the kitchen stove, then shouldered the door open and went out.
    The wind was so thick with powder-fine snow that I could see only three or four feet, but I groped my way to the barn and saddled Kitten. Trusting