Man Eater – Chapter 2

By: J.V. Andrus

I was only a small girl but I’ll never forget the first time I saw that wild horse.  He was crazy-mad and full of hate.

We stood still as Daddy and Frank brought him through the yard, fighting and screaming.  His nostrils were flared wide and red and his white rimmed eyes were full of hate.  His head and short mane were caked with blood and lather covered his huge black body.

The angry stallion fought the ropes that circled his neck and held him between the two other horses.  He dived at Daddy’s horse only to be brought up tight by Frank’s rope.  He turned and charged at Frank but was thrown backwards when Daddy’s rope pulled tight.  He was a mass of flying feet and catching one of the ropes in his teeth bit down on it with such fury that the rope snapped but, Frank was too fast and another rope whistled through the air and landed over his head.

I was sick.  I thought the poor horse would kill himself before he would stop fighting.  It took the men an hour to corral the crazy, mad fighting horse.

When they got him in the corral, Shorty one of the other ranch hands front-footed the big stallion and threw him down.  Another cowboy jumped on his head.  The poor horse could only scream.  They put a halter on his head.  It was raw-hide, double stitched.

I could hear Shorty.  “Hey, we have a brand here!  There’s a nice plain C on his neck.”

Daddy yelled at Shorty, “Okay, let him up.”

Shorty jerked off the ropes and jumped for the corral.  He grabbed the back of Shorty’s worn leather boot and ripped it from his foot.

I could hear Shorty drawl, “Yer a regular damn Man eater ain’t yeh?”

We stood by the corral and watched as the wild horse circled and circled it, whipping his neck and battering his beautiful head until it and the halter were a mass of blood.

Daddy came over and threw a sack of straw at him.  The Man Eater jumped on it and tore it to shreds with his teeth.

Someone yelled, “You can quiet him with a bullet soon enough!”

A few men laughed and I turned and ran for the house.  I could watch no longer.

Later that night, my Dad recalled some of the events of the previous day.

“That stallion is the fastest horse I have ever seen,” he mused.  “It took us six horses to run him down.  Them mares, crazy old things, they ran straight away from their foals.”  Daddy stopped and shook his head.  “The orphaned foals,” he continued, “poor little things, we shot what we could find of them.  Sure hated to just let them starve to death.”

“Son-of-a-bitch,” he said in a sick voice, “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for that.  That stallion though, he hasn’t stopped fighting from the moment the noose fell over his neck.”

The next day the other ranch hands arrived with the mares from Man Eater’s band.  The stronger mares were out in front, weaker limping mares were towards the back.  I noticed big mares, little mares, old and young mares.  Some were well-bred and some were from the original band.  They were just starting to shed.  Some of them had dried blood caked on them from their struggle with the snares the day before.  This added to the scraggy appearance of the mares.

Man Eater went crazy when he saw them.  He roared and screamed.  Several times he tried to jump the corral but it was too high and he fell back.  The round corral was one of the highest in the mountains and was built especially for breaking horses.  It was impossible for Man Eater to get to his large brood of mares.

Ranchers came from all around to re-claim their run away mares and to take a look at the hated black stallion.  Some of the mares had been missing since the beginning of Man Eater’s reign and looked as shabby as the mares in the original band.  One old sorrel mare which ran in Man Eater’s band carried the same brand as he did and was never claimed.  Once roped, she was as quiet as a kitten, but the harder they worked with Man Eater, the more full of hate he became.

To most people Man Eater was ugly but, I thought he was beautiful.

My uncle who was staying with us at the time of Man Eater’s capture, came up to me and took my hand on that first day as I stood watching with my Mother and my sister.

“You stay away from that corral, won’t you Joanie,” his voice was full of concern.  “That horse is a real mean one and he’ll kill you sure!”

I looked at my uncle, “Poor horse, he looks so scared.”

My uncle’s stern voice came back to me, “He’s ugly and mean.  Stay away Joanie!”

Although I had been warned, I could not stay away.  I was mesmerized by the big black stallion.

My sister Julia and I would creep down to the corral and watch Man Eater as he raced around and around until his black body was covered in white lather.  His angry screams would pierce our ears and his shrill whistle could be heard for miles.

Man Eater was about five or six years old.  He had long legs that he picked up high when he ran and a short thin tail that he threw right over his back as he raced around the corral screaming out his hatred.

As time went on, Man Eater still refused to eat.  He continued to rip the sacks of hay apart with his teeth and when they pushed a pail of water under the fence for him, his sharp hooves sent it flying and he would kick it to pieces.

Sometimes, I would creep up to the corral and ask him, “Man Eater, why are you so mean?”

To my question, he would scream and roar, barrelling around the corral at break neck speed.

I even tried to pick him green grass but like the hay, he only tore it to pieces.

As the time slipped by, Julia and I became frustrated at our feeble attempts to befriend Man Eater.  We began poking sticks through the corral at him but, this only succeeded in aggravating Man Eater even more.

The men continued to try and work with the hate filled stallion but when they tried to halter break him, he fought fiercely.  He whipped his neck back and forth and his front feet flayed in the air in an attempt to strike the men down.  Finally, they gave up.

In desperation, Daddy tied a four foot length of loose chain to Man Eater’s leg and turned him out.

He came out of the corral with his head held high in the air.  Eyes white rimmed and bulging.  His short rat tail was thrown over his back as he circled the yard, chain dangling from his leg.  With a final scream, he headed for timber.  He cleared the fence that bordered the house and barns but went end over end when the chain on his leg tangled in the wire.  Once on his feet, Man Eater pulled up pickets and strung wire for a two mile radius.  Never once did he look back.

My Shetland pony and two of the ranch hands best cutting horses went with Man Eater.  They stayed in the bush for weeks.

It was late in the spring when we next saw Man Eater.  My Dad and the other ranch hands had some fencing to do, so they took Julia and I along with them.  The ranch hands were grumbling about the fencing.  They figured that without a certain black stallion, they would probably have about half of the work to do.

Later that day, we saw what we thought was a willow bush, as we came nearer, we noticed that it was Man Eater.  He was tangled and helpless in a mass of wire.  The ranch hands fought amongst themselves, they had no desire to go anywhere close to the black stallion.  Most had dealt with the crazy horse and were afraid for their lives.  Irritably, Daddy instructed the men to keep the wagon between him and the stallion and he would cut him loose.

Too our surprise, Man Eater laid still while Daddy cut the barbed wire from him.  Never once did Daddy take his eyes off of the stallion and as the last wire snapped, he leapt for the wagon, his courage failing him.

Man Eater now free from the wire that bound him rose slowly.  Weak from loss of blood, he stood stiffly.  Eyes bulging and nostrils flared, his massive body covered in cuts, Man Eater screamed a warning at us.  Although his pride had been hurt, his spirit remained unbroken.

The ranch hands whooped and slapped their legs.  In their good humour, they whacked Daddy on the back.

“Well Slim,” they jeered, “don’t appear ol’ Man Eater’s much of a threat now.  Jest look at ‘im standin’ thar a shakin’!  Takes a lotta nerve to scream at ya like that when he’s so weak he cain’t hardly stand.”  They whooped and laughed some more and we drove off in the wagon to continue fencing.

The next day, Daddy and Frank gathered what was left of Man Eater’s band, branded the better mares, threw them in with ours and turned them out with Man Eater.  They gave him about twenty five mares and ten sections of bush land to run in.

After that, we saw little of Man Eater, but stories of his rare appearances spread like wild fire through the hills and Man Eater became a legend.

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