Punk Breaking Horses
by Mary Belle Jones
In the late 1960's we had two children in high school, two in junior high and one in elementary. Punk's wages as Sheriff Tax Assessor-Collector were stretched almost to the limit. He decided to do something on the side to make more money. He put an ad in the Pecos paper announcing that he was breaking horses. Punk, having a reputation as a good horseman, was soon inundated with wild horses.
One Friday a man brought 3 horses. Just as he left one of the horses began to cough and snot at the nose. They all three had distemper. Punk put the three in a pen away from the others, then went to get combiotic and a syringe. He doctored two of the horses but came to the house saying that he would need a little help with the third one because he was one sick wild horse.
Punk explained to me that he had filled the syringe, hobbled the horse and planned to use a nose twist. That all he needed me to do was to stand behind him, then when he stuck out his hand to put the syringe into it. He would pop the needle into the horse's neck giving him the shot and we would be done.
Well, I did just as I was told, standing right behind him holding the syringe close to my chest. Punk twisted the horses head round to the side with the nose twist. He grabbed the horse's ear clamping his teeth down on the ear.
I had never, then or since, seen such a sight. Then instead of sticking out his hand for the syringe, Punk half turned throwing the upper part of his arm into the needle, the plunger into my chest and the 10 cc's of combiotic into his arm.
Punk let out a loud squall right in that horse's ear. The horse reared up, broke away, ran, hobbled, and jumped the fence into the pasture. Punk stood there breathing hard and said, "I'd better not die". He didn't die, in fact he wasn't sick, even with a cold, for years. Later in the day Punk caught the horse. When our three sons got home from home from school they helped doctor the horse.
Punk is now 75 years old and still rides like a bandit and works like a man half his age.
[Sheriff Elgin Ray "Punk" Jones]