Village Horse Doctor by Ben K. Green Page B

used strong medicine because they could tell from the old herder’s expression that there was no pain. One of the young herders spoke up and wanted to show me a tooth, and the old ranchero explained for him that he had been eating on one side of his mouth because this tooth was very sore. When I examined it, I saw the only thing that would help would be to pull it. He asked if he could have some strong medicine before I pulled it. I shot it down with cocaine and got a pair of small horse forceps and the other herders pulled back on his shoulders while I pulled up on the tooth. When it came out, he said in Mexican that it felt much better already. This would be the most medical attention that these Mexican sheepherders ever got and made them to think of me as their friend.
    The riders had been gone from sight long enough that we decided we had better make our plans for the night, and I very slowly picked my way through about three hundred yards of sick sheep to my car. Just at dark I heard some commotion back up at the spring among the herders. It developed that one of the banditos had been sent in to tell the ranchero that they wanted my spare tires from the car and all the American dollars I brought with me and that I could go tonight or tomorrow without any fear.
    The old ranchero waded through the sheep with this messenger, who was maybe nineteen years old, slick-faced, wearing two big
pistolas
, big spoke rowel spurs, a ragged white cotton shirt and ragged, what were once white, cotton britches. He was not a big Mexican and didn’t have a tough face or voice.
    The rancher spoke English and told me what the proposition from the banditos amounted to, and I asked, “What makes them think I’ve got any fear now?”
    Since the bandito was only the messenger and neither spoke nor understood English, I was at a great advantage. I told the ranchero, while I searched around for my money and got my keys to unlock the turtle of my car to get the spare tires for him, to call two herders to come help carry the spare tires through the sheep. He hollered at his herders in Mexican and explained why I wanted them, and even in the dark you could see this young bandito was well pleased and had begun to get real brave.
    By the time the herders were about fifty feet away, I had filled a 50-cc. syringe with calcium gluconate and had put a two-inch 16-gauge needle on the hub of the syringe during the time I was pretending to get the spare tire out of the back of the car. At the right moment I told the ranchero for him and the herders to surprise the bandito and overpower him, and then I would give him a shot of
real stout
medicine.
    Mr. Bandito had become so relaxed and so sure of himself that it was easy for the herders to sneak up behind him, throw him to the ground, and tie his hands behind his back while the ranchero jerked his pistols away from their scabbards. Of course, the calcium gluconate wouldn’t hurt a sheep or a Mexican either, but that two-inch 16-gauge needle and the mass of calcium gluconate being forced into the muscle structure was painful when I jabbed him in the thigh with it.
    While I was doing this, I told the ranchero to tell him that this would give him the disease of the sheep, and he would give it to the rest of the banditos when we turned him loose, and in a little while we would be rid of them all. When I jabbed him with that big needle, he howled at thetop of his voice, and as he got up and stumbled back through the sheep when we turned him loose, he was hollerin’ to the other banditos to bring him his horse.
    We had a big laugh, sat around awhile in the dark, and all of us pretended to go to bed. It’s not often that sick, fevered, vomiting sheep smell good, but that bunch smelled real good around my car till morning.
    Most of the sheep were lots better the next morning, and I left plenty of medicine for them to be treated as long as they needed it. The ranchero thought he would help keep the banditos off