Horse Lover (11 page)

My partner in the Nebraska ranch, Allan Stratman, unexpectedly showed up one Saturday at Lazy B headquarters pulling a horse trailer behind his pickup. He had driven the three hours from Sonoita, Arizona, where he lived. I was in the house and saw him drive up and walked out to greet him. My eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, who had been playing nearby, and her dog Boots joined me.

“Hey, Al. How you doin’? Brought you and Sarah here a little something.” Stratman opened the trailer door and backed out a quarter horse palomino mare. She was tall, about fifteen and a half hands, sleek, and beautifully put together with an intelligent head.

“Meet Blondie,” he said, holding the lead rope out to Sarah. “She’s about to move in with you.”

Sarah looked at me as if I could explain away her puzzlement. I had no clue what was happening so answered with the same quizzical look. Sarah took the rope. “Hey, Blondie.” Blondie lifted her head in quick acknowledgement, then turned to check out her surroundings.

Stratman explained that he bought Blondie six months ago. She came from a lineage of top-notch quarter horses. He had been trying to break her since. “But she’s so hardheaded I’ve had next to no luck breaking her. Yesterday I got to thinking she just might be better off with a female trainer.” He put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “You’re the finest young horsewoman I’ve ever seen and I think she belongs with you.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “Do you want me to train her for you?”

“Nope. She’s yours. I give her to you, and I wish you better luck than what I’ve had with her.” Sarah looked as if she had been handed the biggest and best Christmas present from under the tree. Blondie looked down her muzzle at the small, pigtailed creature bouncing on the tips of her tennies.

With that and a brief visit, Santa Claus drove off over the horizon, a cloud of magical dust in his wake. We stood there awestruck, rubbing on our newest family member. Sarah already had the look of love.

“Go on,” I said. “Get your boots. Let’s see what this girl has to offer.”

Stratman was right. Blondie could be a real butthead. Sarah wanted to train her to be a jumper because she loved horse jumping and the competition it offered. But that rebel of a mare had her own ideas about how the world works. She’d grab the bit in her teeth and cold jaw, then run off with Sarah, refusing to do what Sarah wanted. More than once, Blondie threw her head up and hit Sarah right in the face and hurt her. But Sarah never cried. In fact, Blondie couldn’t do anything to make Sarah fear her or abandon the task of breaking her.

One day I came in from work and saw Sarah on Blondie. I went over to the corral to check on her.

“Dad, when I want her to gallop, she wants to buck. Here, watch.” Sarah spurred her and Blondie jumped but not into a gallop. That horse went to bucking across the corral. I couldn’t do a thing but watch and be ready to scoop up Sarah if she flew off. Halfway across the corral, Sarah looked back at me, grinning. “Look, Dad, isn’t she cute?” It was one female will against another and Sarah was determined to win.

Another day, I noticed the two of them in the jumping arena.

“How’s it going, Sar?”

“Dad, I can get Blondie to jump the regular jumps with the poles across, but not the roll top.” They must have been working at it for a while because she sounded frustrated. The roll top was solid and wide but only three feet high, the same height as the pole jumps Blondie easily cleared. “Can you help me?”

“Run her at it and show me what she does.”

Sarah rode straight at the jump. Blondie stopped right in front of it. The next time, Blondie veered right. Every time Sarah tried to jump her over the roll top, Blondie refused.

I had an idea. I hauled over two corral panels from the shed and set one at either end of the roll top at an angle, creating a V to prevent Blondie from veering. It didn’t take that horse but a few runs to figure out that she could turn in front of the panels. If Sarah managed to get her inside the wings, Blondie stopped at the roll top and refused to jump. Sarah tried this and that, all to no avail. The frustration factor was beginning to multiply. Without saying anything to Sarah, I picked up a piece of old plastic pipe lying on the ground and got in position near the jump. Sarah lined up Blondie and started riding her. The second Blondie started to stop, I swatted her a good one right across the hips. Blondie jumped about twenty feet forward, but not over the roll top. Sarah landed behind the saddle but didn’t fall off.

“Dad! What are you doing? Don’t hurt my horse.”

“I’m not hurting her,” I said. “I wanted to see if I could change her mind. This is a test of wills. Your will says one thing, and hers says another.”

“But that’s not the way to do it,” said Sarah. She scrambled back in the saddle, adding some further tongue lashes.

We worked with Blondie for a while longer without success. By this time, all of us had lost our temper. Blondie had her head set in every direction but over the jump. Sarah was angry with Blondie but angrier with me, and I was angry with Blondie for being so stubborn. We were locked up in a box of frustration with no productive place to go. I pushed my mind out of the box, breathed in some fresh air, and did some thinking. Sarah tried the jump again. Blondie stopped short again.

“Is Squaw in the corral?” I asked. Squaw was Sarah’s other horse.

“Yes,” said Sarah.

“Go get her. I’ll stand here and hold Blondie. When you get back, I want you to take the roll top with Squaw. I’m going to have Blondie watch you jump.”

Sarah stuck out her chin. “That’s a dumb idea. Blondie’s not going to jump just by watching another horse do it.”

“Sarah, do you have a better idea? We’re all angry and we’re up against the wall here. I don’t have another idea, but if you have one, now’s the time to lay it out. Otherwise go get Squaw and let’s try it. I agree it probably won’t work, but maybe it will give us time to cool off.” Sarah rolled her eyes, but she dismounted and huffed off to get Squaw.

She returned to the arena leading Squaw with Boots in tow. Wherever Sarah and Squaw went, Boots went, so Sarah, Squaw, and Boots all took the roll top.

“Now turn around and jump it coming the other way.”

“This is stupid,” Sarah muttered. Yeah, it probably is, but I didn’t admit it out loud.

The threesome prepared to jump. I squeezed Blondie’s halter and forced her head in Sarah’s direction. “Now you pay attention to this, you hardheaded bitch. Look how Squaw jumps that.” No response from Blondie.

“Do it again,” I said.

Sarah, Squaw, and Boots jumped four more times each way. I kept a tight grip on Blondie and told her each time to pay attention. She quietly stood her ground.

“Let’s try Blondie now.” Sarah rode Squaw over and swapped lead ropes with me. “Boots, stay here,” I said.

The three of us watched as Sarah and Blondie readied and started toward the jump. When Blondie came to the roll top, she shifted her weight onto her back legs and pushed off the ground. She cleared that jump like she had done it a hundred times before. Sarah quickly turned her and jumped her the other direction, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. She jumped her again and again. Boots and I joined Sarah and Blondie for a little congratulatory hoopla.

The switch had flipped in Blondie, and with the flip came the pledge of allegiance. From that day forward, Blondie acquiesced to Sarah’s every bidding—not just with jumping. Blondie was eager to read Sarah’s mind and did just that as often as possible. She and Sarah went on to win so many shows I lost count.

10.

Renegades

The Suburban bounced over the ground in the meadow east of headquarters. The snow had melted and the soil underneath the tires had a new give to it. The sky had decided to wear its blues instead of grays, but a wicked spring wind had kicked up after breakfast, so I opted to check on the horses from inside a heated truck. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been getting fresh air. I had spent almost the entire winter at the sanctuary, and except for Sundays and a few days lost to a snowstorm, the cowboys and I had been on horseback every day in the training arena. When conditions became slick, we took the pace down a notch.

Driving through the herd, I felt optimism surge. The sun highlighted the horses, now twelve hundred strong, creating a canvas of golds, bronzes, beiges, blacks, and deep browns that stretched out before me. This entire gang had graduated from training school. Every one of these mustangs had learned to follow a lead horse through corral gates, then into the wide lanes separating corrals from pastures, and finally into the horse pasture or meadow. Best of all, we had become friends, bonded in part by mutual trust. If we left them for a week, then came to gather them, we had a controlled game of follow-the-leader rather than a day at the races. On May tenth we would take the horses from headquarters to summer grazing. It was a six-mile journey to Mud Lake and we needed the horses to stay in a group. I suspected the herd could handle the journey now, but I didn’t mind having another six weeks to reinforce the training.

I drove slowly, keeping an eye out for injuries, limps, or a pregnant mare having trouble delivering. I passed a mama, a light-gray mare, and her dark-haired baby, one of the first foals to drop. This time of year was special. We weren’t sure how many babies to expect. As it turned out, sixty would be born by early May. Ahead the big black-and-white paint had assumed his usual position near the edge of the herd. He was handsome and regal and always caught the attention of anyone viewing the horses. John had taken to calling him Happy.

I squinted into the sun. Were horses on the wrong side of the fence? Four stood looking right at me. Well son-of-a-gun. Those suckers were in Randy Campbell’s pasture. Now how in the world had they gotten there?

I turned the Suburban toward the fence. Happy looked up as I drove by and chewed a greeting. While going through training about two-thirds of the herd acknowledged us in this way and continued to do so, though not every time we interacted with them. I rolled down the window. “Wouldn’t want to give me the scoop on those renegades, would you?” He tilted his ears forward as the wind swooped up my words. On the opposite side of the fence, one of the four, a big dun, shook her head up and down as if laughing, then took off at a run up the nearest hill. Up and over she went, accomplices close behind. Oh great, they were playing hooky.

I steered the truck along the fence line. No broken wires or fallen posts. No open gates. Those horses must have jumped out. What needled me more than having to be the truant officer and go out and collect them was the fact that they were trained. They knew better than to leave the herd. What was going on here? Were these horses part of the one-third that never spoke to us using the mustang code of friendship? Would the rest of this group revert to their wild ways and start jumping fences? I shivered, rolled up the window, and cranked the heat to melt the heavy thought out of my mind.

Back at headquarters, I found John and Alan Jr. leaning over the engine of a tractor. Alan Jr. had come up from Arizona for the week, something he liked to do every month or so, and had been amazed at the horses’ progress. Until twenty minutes ago, I had shared his awe. I related what happened.

John stood up and wiped his hands on a rag. “Well, darn. Didn’t want to hear that news,” he said. “I thought they were all good and trained.” He tossed the rag to Alan Jr. and slammed down the tractor hood. “I’ll go saddle up after lunch and see if I can’t bring those badasses back.”

The shadows were already lengthening by the time John came riding across the meadow, shoulders drooped. “He didn’t get those horses gathered,” I said to Al. I had a cold beer waiting for him in the doublewide. John leaned against the kitchen counter and took a healthy swig.

“Those four head, man, they are one stubborn group. They sure did default back to their skittish state.” He sounded like a father disappointed in his children’s behavior. “One rider can’t take them. I blew through that meadow back and forth more times than I care to count and never got them to turn. We’re going to need a crew to outflank them.” He suggested that Russ, Alan Jr., and I slip around the group on the east side, while he would cross the creek pasture and flank them on the other side. “We’ll leave the meadow gate open and when they run from us, they’ll run right back into the herd.” He shot his empty hand forward like it was taking off down a runway.

I took a sip of scotch and considered the idea. The wild turkeys marched past the window headed for their nighttime roost. Whatever was going to happen it would have to happen tomorrow.

“What do you think, Al?” I asked my son. Though fairly quiet, he had a way of coming up with the right answer at the right time.

“Well, Dad, we have those good motorcycles here. I’d love to blow the rust out of their pipes a little. Why don’t I take one of the fast ones and show those rascals how to run? Maybe I can bend them and get them back into the herd.”

We had used the motorcycles—wide-tired dirt bikes—while training each group of horses. We would walk the bikes into the arena, fire them up, and wind through the herd. Motorcycles come in handy on a ranch, so I wanted the animals to get accustomed to the sound and sight of them. Although they didn’t like the snarly beasts, they grudgingly accepted them. I didn’t want to rely on the bikes; I wanted to keep things as natural as possible. Since most of the mustangs had been freaked out by loud motors at some point in their past, I tried to avoid having them relive that horror. But now four recalcitrant animals were throwing a challenge directly in our faces.

I weighed Alan Jr.’s plan against John’s. The trainer in me needed to teach those horses a lesson, to show them that their safest place was in the middle of the herd. The speed of a dirt bike might just help ingrain that concept. Alan had raced cycles extensively in high school and was clearly the best rider among us. A part of me acknowledged my hypocrisy for preaching against helicopters, then using motorcycles for the same purpose. At least a dirt bike didn’t have near the noise of a chopper. Besides, we might learn something new.

“Go for it,” I said to my son.

The next morning Alan groomed the cycle, topped off the tank, oiled the chain, donned helmet and gloves, and set out on his mission.

I stayed busy at my desk and kept one eye on the clock. A little before noon, I walked outside thinking it time to get in the Suburban and go look for him, but there he was, putting back up the meadow. I met him on the side of the shed where we stored the bikes. His jeans were muddy almost up to the knee. Maybe the ground was softer than I had thought. He told his story over lunch in John’s kitchen.

Even before he opened the gate to Randy’s pasture, Al saw the horses. When he drove through, they took off in a high run to the east. He set out in hot pursuit. The horses ran, ducking and dodging through the hills and vales. Al would pull up alongside and try to turn them, but they refused to be turned. He tried a few more times but realized his efforts would continue to be futile. These were smart, stubborn
SOB
s. So he tried something a little different. While driving parallel to them, he pushed just a bit. They, in response, turned just a bit. He kept at it, patiently pushing, little by little getting them to bend how he wanted them. He became so engrossed in the task that when the horses ran on one side of a small rise, he stayed on course with them and zipped over the center of the hill. Suddenly he found himself airborne and looming above a large pond. He splashed smack-dab in the middle of the waist-high muddy water. The motorcycle sank out of sight. I could just see the horses snickering as they ran off. Al managed to push the cycle through the spongy mud onto shore.

We always carried tools under the seat, so he pulled out the spark plug, then dried it and the wires going to it. An hour later, the cycle fired up and he was off again. He probably was freezing, but he also was determined. He found those four head. This time they responded to him and turned. He said they seemed glad to go through the gate and ran pell-mell into the main herd. Maybe they were happy to get away from the wild, noisy demon. Maybe they finally recognized the calming safety of the herd. Maybe they were tired of running. Regardless, they learned something because they never ran away or jumped a fence again.

Two horses must have been understudies for those four head. A chestnut and a palomino soon followed and jumped over the fence. Not just once or twice, but every day. There they would be on the other side of the fence, taunting us. We’d have to spend time getting them back through the gate. After three weeks of these antics, my patience wore thin. “Let’s bring the herd through the lanes and cut those two out,” I told John. It was time for some remedial training.

It took us a couple of hours to gather the herd and push them through the lanes. As the two naughty renegades went through, we switched the gates and pushed them into the corrals. John and Marty managed to get each in a separate small corral.

I rode into the first corral feeling like a boxer going into a cage fight. The corral was so small that when we entered, the mustang freaked. She started running around bug-eyed and crazy, rearing up and racing side to side. Clyde and I stood our ground at one end, moving as little as possible. My senses were on high alert. I kept Clyde facing the mare and watched for the start of an attack. I watched her ears, the tension in her muscles, her body language. Never did I allow my fear or nervousness to surface. Either of those would have been a magnet for an attack. The entire time I talked. Gentle, firm, encouraging words. After thirty or forty minutes, the horse, now foamy with sweat, started to calm down. Her sides heaved and she sent out a string of snorts, but she listened to me. Clyde and I could approach a few steps without her having a tantrum. At the end of the hour- and-a-half session she was exhausted. As was I. I turned her back out into the herd and repeated the same routine with the other horse.

The two horses never reached the point in the corral where they would bob their heads in acknowledgement, one ear forward and one ear up, or chew their mouths or paw their front legs. Their pride got in the way. They were more like reformed teenagers, too stubborn to admit their erroneous ways but no longer eager to disrupt the class. Later I could spot them in the herd. They were content to hang in the middle, not at the edge. My will won those battles and the outcome was positive for all. That hadn’t always been the case in my life. My proof was Tequila and the day that started with a simple phone call.

“When are you gonna come get your bull? He’s tramplin’ our cotton plants and almost lives in our alfalfa.” Charlie Clouse didn’t sound angry, just a little frustrated.

“I’d be happy to, but what are you talking about, Charlie?” I said into the phone. Charlie owned a farm down on the Gila River across from Lazy B.

“One of your bulls has been jumping the fence,” he said.

This was news to me. Apparently, for the past year, this bull would hightail it over the fence and maraud through the fields, crushing cotton plants, feasting on alfalfa, and making a general mess of things. Charlie would run him into the thickets by the river, where he would hide until Charlie disappeared. Then the naughty guy would jump the fence again and the cycle would repeat.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner? I would have come and gotten him.” I felt a prickle of irritation. I could already tell this bull had taught himself well. He had the upper hand and was working the system. Now we’d have to retrain him, if that was even possible. Charlie wanted to know how we were going to get him. “Will you rope him if you have to? Because that’s one big sucker of a bull.”

“Yeah, Charlie, if I need to rope him, I will.” I didn’t particularly want to rope a full-grown bull, but if that was the only way to gather him, I would do it. Shooting him wasn’t an option.

“Then tell me when you’re gonna do it cuz I’ll stay home from work. I want to see this one.”

Oh good grief. What were we running, a rodeo? “Stay home tomorrow, Charlie, and we’ll come get that bull.”

If Saber had been in my string, I would have chosen him for the job but this was the pre-Saber era, so the next morning I went out and caught Tequila, a young mare with mousy, grulla coloring that I was riding at the time. She was Candy’s older sister but from the start was a sweet, kind gal. She had a big, solid frame, with strong shoulders, and never shied away from work. She liked to work cattle but wasn’t a top-notch cow horse or particularly athletic. We had never been in a situation together that demanded she give everything; thus I didn’t know her limits. Since she was the biggest horse in my string, I chose her for the job hoping she could handle it. I recruited Cole Webb, our foreman, and Vince Sanchez, a Lazy B cowboy, to accompany me. Cole’s horse was smaller than Tequila, but I didn’t think that would pose a problem. Vince would work the corral gate on foot. We saddled the horses, loaded them in the trailer, drove over to the Clouse farm, and parked near an old corral adjacent to the cotton field. The plan was to run the bull in there, then load him in the trailer.