AD LOST HIS THUMB

when i was at toveras there was a cowboy there who i kinda looked up to. he was as good a cowboy and horseman as you could hope to ask for. he had trained race horses, rodeoed, run ranches , lived a wild raucus life. trouble was that wild raucaus life was mostley illegal !!
    his name was A. D. , he liked to tell people  it stood for after death!! he drank whiskey like water, dipped copenhagen snuff , cussed a blue streak and was generaly a pain in the butt. but he was a cowboy. he was prematurely gray headed, about 6 foot tall and lean as a whip. tom t halls song faster horses was written about A.D.  if it wasnt it should have been!! A.D. was a team roper, a damn good one, header or heeler made no difference. ive seen him rope for weeks and not miss a loop.  his horses were fast, quick and deadly. they had to be because his temper was a terrible thing to behold, man or beast!!
    A.D. s pride and joy was a sorrel bald faced, stocking legged gelding named.....you guessed it SOCKS!!  when heading in the arena socks could run a hole in the wind , get you to a steer so fast you couldnt get your loop up quick enough. the minute you turned that loop loose he was slidding his left hind foot and running on the other 3 feet turning that steer almost as fast as he was running.  he was still a young horse, and basicly still learning , but he made that turn at full speed on his own, if the loop was to miss there was no way to bring him back in line with the steer.
    we were practicing one afternoon when a
A,
.D. roped a big steer and was dalling as socks went left, only this time A.D. s thumb got caught in the rope and with socks speed and the weight of the steer that thumb came off, just like a knife had cut it off.
    sams pickup was parked close so we loaded A.D. in the middle and headed to the hospital 18 miles away. as we went by sams house he stopped ran in and returned with a bag if ice and a pint of whiskey . we wrapped the hand in a towel and packed the ice around the mangeled thumb. as we drove out the gate sam handed the whiskey to A.D. asking if he needed some . he was white as a sheet and shook his head no. THAT was the only time i ever saw him turn down a drink!! but he had a healthy pull from that jug by the time we reached the hospital!! sam said he didnt think he was that bad off!