
                         I BUY ME COUPLE HORSES

                            By W. C. Tuttle


All I said was----

“I’m movin’ out where I can have couple horses.”

I didn’t say when, how or where. The movin’ vans ain’t got quite all
my worldly plunder through the front gate, when horses began to come.
Trailers loaded with horses; a lot of peddlin’ cowboys, workin’ on
commission--beatin’ the Universal Zoo lions out of a meal.

“This here horse is worth twelve hundred, pardner. Five gaited, sound as
a dollar, and as kind as a--as kind as a--well, he’s kind, thasall.”

“What’s the extra thousand for--haulin’ him out here?” I asks.

I took him on approval and found he was kind--the kind that eats
your shirt. And I paid twelve dollars for that shirt. The next one
was a polo pony, which whirled so quick that my hat was on backwards
when we stopped. I got off and found that my chaps had turned around
on me, too. That was too fast. I took another on approval, ’cause he
didn’t try to bite me--and found out his teeth were all gone. They
told his age by the rings on his hoofs.

Then I got weak minded and bought a horse. But I sure worked up a
reputation as a discriminatin’ judge of horses. Refuse a couple hundred,
and they think you know somethin’. One man cried over his animal. Hated
to part with it. Said it had been in the family ever since they had been
in California. I saw it and cried with him.

Then came a Horse. He came at dusk, and I choked with joy. Johnny had
found the one horse in the world.

“Five hundred bucks. Mebbe can shade it a little. Man leavin’ town and
must have the cash.”

“Gotta try him, ain’t I? Too dark now, Johnny. Try him early mornin’ and
have check ready. Four hundred’ll do, eh?”

“Lotta horse.”

“Lotta money.”

“... See you _mañana_.”

I say to the wife:

“Honey, I’ve got _the_ horse. He’s in the stable. Whee!”

_Wham! Wham! Wham! Bing! Bang!_

I got there in time to save my other horse, but the stable and corral
is a wreck. I found one box-stall door over in another man’s place
next mornin’. I managed to rope this cross between a batterin’ ram,
Bengal tiger and a rattlesnake, after almost getting kicked, chawed
and trampled, and hog tied him to a two hundred year old oak tree.
Then I ran to a phone.

“Tell Johnny to come and git this blankety blank sorrel!”

“Whatsa matter--is he restless?”

“He ain’t now. I’ve got him hog tied to a tree.”

“What’ll you bet he stays tied?”

My wife’s yellin’--

“Honey, he’s loose!”

“He’s loose,” said I over the phone. “But I guess the tree is still
there.”

“You’re lucky. Your stable is the seventh one he’s wrecked in six
months. I’ll send Johnny over to git him.”

“Is the owner of him leavin’ town?”

“Nope.”

“Gimme his name, and he will.”

“Boy, if we’d have told his name, he’d have been gone six months ago.
Now listen, Bill. I’ve got a brown mare, five gaited, weighs a thousand
pounds. She’s a lady’s pet, I tell you. You can crawl under and over
her, she ain’t scared of anything. What do you think?”

“I think you’re lucky,” says I--and hung up.


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the October 1, 1930 issue of
Adventure magazine.]