Tonight, an example of being impartial.
When Cody was on a cattle drive from Texas, there was one young cow puncher named Andy who didn’t like Cody–not that Cody had done anything to rile him, he was just ornery and found Cody a good target for his irritation.
He would trip Cody around the campfire, tip over his coffee cup, make bad jokes about him and refused to take his turn on guard duty if he was relieving Cody—anything he could do to aggravate him.
Cody, however was a peace-loving man and chose to ignore this young trouble maker, hoping that the hard work would take some of the ginger out of him. Cody took some time to pray and think about the challenge Andy presented.
After he’d spent time praying, it came to Cody that probably something was eating away at Andy and he was taking it out on Cody as a result “He might have bad motives, but I have to have good ones,” Cody said to himself. After thinking about it, the good motive he came up with was to protect Andy and others from harm, and he would do this by not taking Andy’s bait.
One night, Andy got some hard stuff from somewhere and after drinking a bit was feeling pretty good. As the evening wore on, he became louder, more boisterous and belligerent. He began maligning Cody, who ignored it. Some of the other hands told Andy to back off, knowing that he was no match for Cody, but he ignored them
Cody’s lack of response aggravated Andy even more, and suddenly he came up off the ground and took a swing at Cody, who was sitting on his saddle on the ground.
Cody ducked and the force of Andy’s swing took him right over. Andy landed hard and didn’t move for a bit. Cody stood up and quietly waited for him to get up.
Andy rolled over and came slowly to his feet. But he was not a quick learner, so came at Cody again, who used Andy’s momentum to throw him over his shoulder and Andy crashed to the ground.
Cody spoke, “Now that’s enough, Andy. I don’t want to fight you; I’ve got nothing against you, so quit it! Now you go wash that blood of your face and get to bed.”
Andy climbed to his feet and stumbled off to his bed roll. But Cody was pretty sure Andy didn’t know he was whipped, and he thought he had to watch out. But he didn’t know the coming events that would change things with Andy.
The next morning the hands spread out along the edges of the herd, keeping them moving forward. As they moved through a low spot in the hills, they were suddenly attacked by Indians who came down on the herd without warning.
As the hands were all spread out to hold the herd, the Indians could come at each as a lone man. There were fifteen of them, and it was like they had each already picked out the man they would attack. Cody had his rifle out immediately and shot from the hip, hitting two Indians right off. The others coming at him went to ground.
He looked over and saw three attacking Andy, who seemed to freeze, so Cody swung his rifle and shot over the herd at those Indians. Unfortunately for them, he was an excellent shot and two went down right off while the third, who was a learner, turned and ran.
In the end they were able to hold those Indians off without losing anyone. A couple hands got winged, but no serious injuries.
That night at the campfire, one of the hands asked Andy if he knew who saved his skin.
“’Nope,” he said, ‘I was too busy shooting myself to notice” Now Cody knew that wasn’t true, Andy hadn’t done any shooting, but Cody let it pass.
“’You know, it was Cody, he shot two of them right out of their seats. Otherwise you would have lost your scalp and probably your life today. Cody treated you as he would anyone, not letting your nastiness influence him. He was and is impartial in doing good.
Picture: Andy struggling with a rowdy cow.
