SAGEBRUSH, WATERCRESS, AND CHOKECHERRY JELLY
From the Journal of a Homesteader
by
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An Excerpt From the Story
"I have never ridden with a saddle, sir. I can tell more what he’ll do if I can feel him. But I’d like to have a longer rope on the halter, in case he throws me."
Mr. Sibbett heard John and said, "Okay, take the saddle off. Somebody get a longer rope. I’d like to see what this guy can do."
The cowboys took the saddle off and tied a twenty foot rope on the halter. John coiled the rope in his hand and lowered himself onto the horse. He gave the signal. The horse sprang from the chute and after a series of jumps and shakes, disposed of John in about six seconds. But John landed on his feet and hung onto the rope, running with the horse and keeping constant pressure on the rope until the animal stopped. Slowly coiling the rope, he moved in speaking softly. The gelding stood still until John had coiled half the rope in his hand, then reared up and struck out with his forefeet. Staying out of the horse’s range, John began again with his constant pressure. Again and again, the horse reared up and tried to get him, but he was always out of range. After several minutes of coaxing and pulling, John got close, the horse keeping his eyes on his new enemy. John reached its side, he turned his head toward John just as he grabbed its shoulder, and, like a spring suddenly released sprang onto its back. The crowd thought he had bitten John on the butt and laughter rippled through it. Screaming, the horse leaped straight into the air, shaking himself like a whip. John tightened the rope pulling the horse’s head to one side. Turning, bucking, jumping, whirling, rearing, he could not shake the thing loose. Once John almost fell, but pulled himself back up quickly. Slowly the wild horse tired and began to run, jumping and bucking, unable to look straight ahead as John held the halter rope tight. When the bucking stopped, John jabbed his heels into the horse’s side, relaxed the rope, and yelled, "EEEEEaaaa! HAAAAAAAAA!" Suddenly free, the gelding flew around the corral, tired, frightened, and beaten. Knowing the horse would attempt to jump out of the corral, John pulled hard again on the halter rope. Every time the horse slowed, John yelled and kicked him to make him run some more. Mr. Sibbett and the three cowboys watched with a mixture of fear and admiration while John gained control of the wildest horse ever born on the Sibbett ranch. When the horse slowed, John urged him to run some more, and when he refused, guided him, lathered with sweat, blowing and panting, to where the owner waited. The audience stood up and cheered.
"That’s the goddamndest ride I ever saw! Where the hell did you learn to break horses? I swear you could read that horse’s mind," James Sibbett exclaimed.
John, himself winded, puffed, "I never learned, sir. I just had to do it once with my own horse, Is the horse really mine to keep?"
"Jim Sibbett never went back on his word. I need a piece of paper to make it legal." One of the cowboys found a stray piece of paper and produced a pencil. He wrote, "I, James Sibbett sold this black gelding with the white star in his forehead to. . . What’s your name, again?"
"John Fountain, sir."
"to John Fountain on the 4th of July, 1914 for a good price. James Sibbett." He handed the paper to John. "Keep it in case you ever need it. What a ride! I thought he had you once, but you got back up. Can you read his mind?"
"No, sir, but without the saddle, I could tell about what he was going to do by the way he moved. Thank you, sir. Does the horse have a name?"
"Not one you’d tell your mother."
"I’ll call him Shoni. How old is he, sir?"
"He’s just about four. By the way, you can keep the halter and the rope. I don’t know who the rope belongs to."
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About the Book
After his father’s death, Jean-Pierre Lafontaine’s Shoshoni Indian mother told him, "The white man’s medicine is strong. It has changed our way of life and it will never change back. Go and live among the white men and become one of them like your father was."
Far more an Indian boy than white and with his Shoshoni mother’s words burning in his mind the sixteen-year-old mixed-blood reluctantly left her teepee in a small village on the bank of the Snake River near Blackfoot, Idaho. He headed north to Idaho Falls and finally to Ammon. Henry Monson, a farmer found him in the Ammon store and hired him to work for room and board. Uneducated, but handsome and intelligent, he looked little like an Indian. Henry recognized his intelligence and sent him to school where he changed his name to John Fountain . After four years with the Monson family, he struck out alone in a white man’s world and staked out a homestead on Bull’s Fork.
After two serious romances including a near seduction, he married a girl he knew as a homely child but didn’t recognize as a pretty grown-up woman. His prospects looked very good, but World War I interrupted his homesteading and he left his pregnant wife to go into the Army. After returning from the war, two crop failures left him discouraged and unsure, and at the urging of both his wife, and his father-in-law’s admonition, "Get the hell out of those hills, they’ll kill you," he left his precious homestead and entered the University of Idaho to become a lawyer.
The story tells not only the heartbreaks and problems of homesteading but the joy of accomplishment, faith in one’s self, and neighborliness shared by a rugged, individualistic people with a common destiny.
About the Author
Mr. Hansen grew up on a farm in He retired in 1993, published his life story for his immediate family in 1996, and started a career as a freelance writer. He has published articles on many diverse subjects in several magazines. This is his second book. He presently lives with his wife Hilde in a beautiful valley in the