Story 4: The Preacher and the Bronc
After the whole escapade with Martha much explaining had to be done in the town. After all was said and because the Preacher was known as a just and good man he was pardoned for his act. Things began to go back to normal in the town. In fact things were almost too normal for the Preacher. After living such an exciting life for a short amount of time he began to miss it. Don't get me wrong, he loved his new family and the life he had, but some part of him missed the adventure. He knew God would come to him when he had a new task for him however. So the Preacher would go out with his son and adventure throughout the town. This went on for a few years and the boy was now a mischievous 8 year old. He would always go about and try to find trouble. One day he went down to the town stables and watched as a cattle rustler brought in a new horse to the corral. The horse was large in every way. His muscles jolted from just body and he seemed to tower over all the other horses. The man bringing him in looked very angry and dragging the horse into the corral he looked at the operator of the stables, threw him the reins and told him, "Here you can have him! No one can
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seem to ride him!" The preachers son just looked on and shouted, "I can ride that bronc no sweat!" The men just laughed at the comment. The owner of the stable shouted back to the boy, "I'll give you 2 dollars boy if you can mount this wild bronc for 4 seconds." The boy climbed over the rail of the corral and walked up to the horse. Surprisingly he was not frightened of the horse. He went to jump up on the back of the horse it began to breath heavily and started to buck and kick. Just as the boy tried to settle onto its back he was bucked off. Laughing the man told the boy to give him his two dollars. The boy knew he could not give him his money so he pleaded with the man.
"Sir give me one more chance to win my money. I will bet double or nothing that my father can ride this bronc."
The man thought for a moment then took the bet. The boy rushed home and told his father what he had done. The preacher was angry at first but then thought about the horse and the money. Four dollars could help their family out tremendously. He also felt like this horses mind must be in some state of agony because of all the rage it had. He above all wanted to rid the horse of anger and give it a more peaceful life. So the Preacher agreed to take the bet. He did not want to go immediately to try and ride him however. Instead he would sneak to the stables at night and give the horse sweet feed and calmly talk to him. Soon he was able to hop up on the horses back. So the next day the preacher went down to the stable with his son and told the keeper of the stables, "I hear my son placed a bet with you, I am here to uphold that bet." The preacher jumped the rail and went into the corral where the man had brought the horse. With a quick jump the Preacher mounted the horse and rode him around the ring as many times as he wished. He came back to the stable keeper and collected his money.
Author's Notes
I wanted to do a story over a Jataka's tale and also keep it with my western theme so when I read the story "The Ox that Won the Forfeit" I knew this would be a perfect story to retell. In the tale the ox loses a bet for his owner because he whips him and speaks meanly to him. After asking his bull why he didn't win the ox just said he had never been treated like that before so he didn't know what to do. So the owner was gentle and kind to the ox and he went back and won his bet back from a crowd of people. As you can see I kept a lot of the story the same except the characters and the fact that the son made the initial bet.
Bibliography
Title: Twenty Jataka Tales
Author: Noor Inayat (Khan)
Illustrator: H. Willebeek Le Mair
Year: 1939
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