Horse Lover (13 page)

The next time Cole and I checked on Blackberry, we noticed her wound wasn’t any better, but wasn’t any worse either.

“Al, I think you need to sell her,” Cole said. The thought had crossed my mind, but I had not grabbed hold of it. “She won’t heal up. I’m afraid she’ll never make a horse.”

“I know. But I hate to lose any horse, especially one that’s so good-natured,” I said. Cole reminded me that the wound had changed her physically and might have changed her emotionally, too. I still saw a sweet, gentle horse, one of the sweetest I’d ever seen. “Look,” I said, “I’m just not ready to give up on her. I know you’ve operated, but why don’t we try once more? Open the wound with the scalpel and go a little deeper. Whad’ya say?”

Cole said okay. When he went in, he found a hole as big as his finger. He widened it and went deeper, removing infected tissue. We put in a bunch of antibiotics, gave her some combiotic shots to help stop the infection, let her rest in the corral for a week, then hauled her back to Robb’s Well. The wound never reopened and Blackberry fully recovered. Except for a scar on her shoulder where Cole had whacked and cut on her. We turned her out for another year. By the time we hauled her in, she was a healthy, fat little girl.

Even though she was still small, I started riding her. She wasn’t big enough to take out on really heavy days. If by chance she did have a long day, her strength would be zapped and she would need a good solid rest for a few days. No matter. She loved being around people and always wanted to know what was going on. When I went to catch a horse, her head popped up in hopes she would be the one I’d pick. On days I did choose her, she was eager to experience whatever I had in mind. We’d ride out and I’d share the day’s itinerary and she’d walk and bob her head, agreeable to it all. On those days, I felt like I was hanging out with one of my best friends. Even if I was working alone gathering cattle, I never felt alone.

She never offered to buck except once. That was the day my daughter Marina didn’t have a horse to ride.

“Why don’t you ride Blackberry?” I said. “You’ll love her.” I saddled her up and Marina got on her. I forgot to tell her to hold up the reins a little and ride her off gently. That was my habit, my way of telling Blackberry I was there. I’d hold her up a little bit, ride a couple of yards, then let her have her head and all would be fine. Poor Marina didn’t know that. Marina rode her down to the far end of the corral, where Blackberry put her head down and started to bow her back. “Hold her head up! Hold her head up!” I shouted. Whether Marina didn’t hear me or chose not to follow my orders, I didn’t know. But the next moment, Blackberry stuck her head between her legs and bucked about three jumps. Or at least it was her attempt at bucking. It looked more like crow hopping. Marina fell off. I went running over, already feeling bad because I hadn’t given her the heads-up on what to do, but Marina realized what had happened. She didn’t blame Blackberry. (She had every right to blame her father but didn’t do that either.) She climbed back in the saddle and ended up making a new friend that day.

Around the time Blackberry turned ten, I hired a young cowboy for the roundup. He wanted to bring his own horse. Normally, the cowboys rode Lazy B horses. In fact, with the exception of those owned by some of my close friends, few outside horses ever came to the ranch. Our herd was so isolated that the horses didn’t develop the antibodies for common diseases.

“Has your horse been sick recently or ever had any health problems?” I asked the cowboy.

“Oh no. Not at all. He’s the healthiest old horse I’ve known. Helluva good rope horse, too.”

A little voice nagged not to allow the horse in, but I didn’t listen. “Well okay then. You can bring him.”

When he arrived, that horse was starting to get sick with a kind of influenza that affects horses in their lungs, making it hard to breathe and causing a high fever. The symptoms were not yet evident. Within twenty-four hours, our entire remuda was sick—every horse, even the ones we didn’t ride that day. All from that stupid horse I allowed to come on the ranch. When the horses’ fevers shot up to 104 and 105 degrees, I was frightened that we would lose them and, on top of it, not get the cattle rounded up in time to sell. I called the vet and he came over and said, sure enough, this is influenza. He administered antibiotics and vaccines to the tune of twenty-five hundred bucks.

“You’ll have to close down the roundup for a few weeks,” he said, “while this thing runs its course. Keep them on good feed and don’t ride them.”

The horses we had been riding that day ran the highest fevers and became the sickest. It was one of the days I had chosen to ride Blackberry. The infection damaged her lungs to such a degree that after she recovered, she could gallop only about a hundred yards before she pulled up, panting and out of air. Previously, despite her small size, she could gallop quite a long way. For all practical purposes, we couldn’t use her anymore, especially for roundups, when you’re forced at times to gallop a lot farther than one hundred yards. I felt so sorry for Blackberry. She had such a sweet heart and had been through enough in her life.

I couldn’t sell her, nor did I want to. Then it came to me what I could do with her. Our cook Janice Chote had a seven-year-old son who loved to hang around with the cowboys and wanted to be one ever so badly. When she wasn’t cooking for our roundup, Janice lived in her home near Animas, New Mexico. She had a little five-acre patch of hay right next to her house. A perfect place for a horse. And one that came with a playmate who wanted nothing more than to be a cowboy with his own horse. So Blackberry went to live with Kyle Chote in New Mexico.

“Now you treat her gently, because she can’t gallop around,” I said, handing over the reins. “But you can ride her in a walk or a trot as much as you want.” Talk about a boy being beyond ecstatic. I could tell he would love Blackberry beyond life itself.

Every so often I had reason to go to Animas, and the route brought me past the Chote homestead. If it was a weekend or a weekday after school let out, Kyle and Blackberry would be out in the hay field. Most of the time, he didn’t have a bridle or saddle on Blackberry but would be on her bareback. She was a fat little girl with a kind of flat back. Kyle would lie on her back with his head by her hips, looking up at the clouds and the sky while his best friend grazed happily on hay.

I always felt bad Blackberry got that infection, but she sure did end up having a nice retirement. And for that, I was grateful.

12.

Bound for Summer Grazing

The pinkness of dawn peeking around the edge of the blinds spoke of a clear day. Judging by the smell of bacon and coffee, it probably was time to get up. I must have fallen sound asleep around 4:00 a.m., the last time I checked the clock. Sleep had been fitful. Scenarios of the day’s impending adventure kept playing out on the silver screen of my mind. In one version, I led a mile-long string of wild mustangs along spring-green rolling country, brought them through gates, and without a hitch delivered them to the promised pasture of Mud Lake. The cowboys and horses all did their jobs. It was a blockbuster of a success. In the next screenplay, our entourage hit the three-mile point when something spooked a group of horses. They took off running perpendicular to the herd. Their draft sucked up horses behind them. The cowboys lost control and hundreds of mustangs scattered across the ranch, jumping fences, repudiating our long hours of training. That image kept rewinding and replaying.

I pulled up the blind. With noisy ceremony, a wild turkey flapped down from its nighttime perch in the big elm and bobbled toward the group already en route to the pond. It was May tenth. The day needed to go as beautifully as the sun sparkling on the water.

How could the horses not stay together? We had spent so much time with them they practically had graduate degrees in following a man on horseback. These horses were wild, but still they were horses as much as Aunt Jemima, Blackberry, and Saber. They had heart and soul. I believed we had touched that part of them where trust and loyalty reside and the bonds of friendship form. The preliminary tests — vaccinating the entire herd in less than a day, moving them through corrals and lanes and into various pastures — indicated that today’s move to Mud Lake would end on a successful note. If it didn’t, well, I would need a new game plan on how to run the sanctuary.

I dressed and went out to the kitchen. Alan Jr. stood at the stove frying eggs. He wouldn’t have missed this day for the world. My friend Ralph Stinson, a retired physician, highly medaled World War
II
pilot, and all-around good guy, had flown out from California to join us. An investor in the sanctuary, he had fallen in love with the ranch during a visit the previous fall. When I told him we would be taking the horses out to summer grazing, he asked if he could join in. He had arrived a few days ago with enthusiasm and optimism that infused my own.

Alan Jr. whisked my plate away as I chewed the last bite of breakfast and had the kitchen cleaned before Ralph and I finished our coffee. His usual calm demeanor was on fast forward this morning. We headed across the dewy grass to John’s house. I wondered if the horses out in the distant pasture were stirring, picking up on the energy of our pumping adrenaline. The screen door of the big house swung open and Megan bounded down the porch steps.

“Daddy said it’s moving day for the horses, Alan.” She grabbed my hand. “Do you think if I sit real quiet on Clyde I could come with you?”

I scooped her up. “Tell you what, sweetheart. Those horses will need some loving when they’re all settled in their summer home. We’ll saddle up Clyde and you can help make a hand then. How’d that be?”

After a three-second pout, Megan bobbed her ponytail. “Okay. Maybe tomorrow, huh?”

I laughed, the tension in my jaw siphoning off. “Maybe tomorrow,” I said. I carried her up the stairs and set her down with a tickle in the mudroom. I tossed my hat on the bench and led the way into the kitchen. John and Jordan sat at the table, the map of the ranch spread out between them. Jordan had shaken off his teenage sluggishness at the prospect of missing school and looked alert as he wolfed down a donut. Russ and Marty leaned over, following John’s finger along the map.

John looked up. “Mornin’ everyone. Grab yourselves some coffee and donuts.” Debbie restocked the empty plate in front of Jordan.

Here we were, the magnificent seven, or at least the seven, magnificent if we could pull off our adventure. Between us, we had over a century of experience working with horses. I filled a coffee mug and sat down for the last-minute cram session that we didn’t really need but felt reassured doing.

“You all know the plan. John and I are going to lead.” We had figured the two of us could best hold the pace to an easy gallop even with the lead horses pushing us to go faster. If horses accelerate to full speed, they tend to lose touch with reality and slip into full fright-and-flight mode. If that happened, regaining control would be about as likely as preventing the sun from setting. We’d have to head back home and try again another day when panic wasn’t their strongest emotion.

“We’ll gather them just before this corner,” I said, pointing to the space on the map, “and get them warmed up with a training drive around the pasture. When we get to the northwest corner, we’ll go out the gate. Then it’s on to Mud Lake.” I looked around the group to make sure everyone understood.

“Russ and Marty, you two will bring up the rear. Alan Jr. and Jordan, once we take them through the first gate you each take a side and keep the herd from getting too wide.” The only one remaining was Ralph. “You tag along in the Suburban,” I said to him.

We rehashed the issue of the babies. This had been a concern for weeks now. Would they be able to keep up at the fast pace for six miles? The oldest was no more than fifty days and the youngest had been born only two days ago. How would these gangly, long-legged foals keep up with their mothers? No one could answer that question. Even though we had spent the past four months planning for this, mulling over the possibilities and options, we couldn’t account for every little detail. Such is life on a ranch. Sometimes it’s like improv theater. You make up the lines as you go.

Debbie and Megan’s chorus of good luck followed us out of the kitchen. I settled my hat and inhaled the crisp, fresh air. The lawn had spruced up its green carpet in honor of the day. Even the barn with its fresh coat of red paint and midwestern charm seemed to herald our presence. We stepped into our man cave and our horses stirred in greeting. Clyde cocked an ear when he saw me. “Hey Clyde,” I said. “Were you wondering about breakfast?” I spread out the sweet-smelling grain mixture in his manger. A shaft of sunlight illuminated fine dust drifting above his bent head. While he munched, I curried him and listened to the clinks of cowboy gear and the banter of cowboys.

“Get off my foot,” Jordan yelled at his horse.

“Am I goin’ to have to saddle that horse for you?” said Russ.

“Hell, no. He’s just being a butthead.”

I hefted my saddle over Clyde’s back and felt the immediate connection that always ensued. My twenty-year-old saddle had been made to my specifications by Wilbur Thomas. The leather was half-worn, but I had no intention of replacing it. Every cowboy becomes attached to his personal saddle, and every saddle feels different. This one was a gem. Clyde wiggled under its weight and, smart as ever, held his breath while I cinched him.

I patted his rump and led him out into the training arena. “This is it, buddy. The big day we’ve been working on. You’ll do great. Look at the shape you’ve gotten into.” I rubbed his neck. “You just be your calm, cool self and we’ll do fine.” I pulled the cinch one notch tighter and swung into the saddle for what would be one of the most defining rides of my cowboying career.

We rode through the corrals into the wide lane leading to the heifer pasture and the wild horses. I heard the distant rumble of the Suburban. Ralph planned to keep us in sight but stay a respectable distance behind so as not to alarm the horses. They knew the truck, of course, but the day would be so out of their routine that even a familiar truck doing the unfamiliar — traveling at a faster speed than normal and pushing from behind — might add to the anxiety they were sure to feel.

Russ dismounted and opened the gate into the pasture. We rode through at an easy trot and headed up the grassy hill. At the top, a prairie panorama stretched out before us. Without anyone saying a word, we stopped. It happened every time. It was like being parched and coming to a well with fresh, cold water. I gulped in the sight. Miles and miles of grass waved at us, happy to be speckled with twelve hundred wild horses.

“Okay boys,” I said. “Here we go.”

The horses’ trademark scent reached us first. That strong, pungent smell of wildness sweating through the pores of their skin. When they saw us coming, they shook their heads and threw snorts that drifted toward us on the light breeze. We were familiar to them, but each time we met, an innate nervousness overpowered them. Seven of us spreading across the pasture told them that some drama was about to unfold and they were not to be mere bystanders. They stomped and called for each other. They started to move into one large herd, as if convening to discuss the situation. The soprano whinnies of the colts and fillies sat high in the air; under them came mamas with nuzzles of reassurance and an offer of milk.

I looked down the line of riders, checking our formation. With measured pace, we swept around the south side of the pasture. The leaders of the herd felt the gentle pressure and moved out along the fence heading north, then hit the corner and headed east. As the leaders picked up speed, John and I peeled away from the line and galloped in front of them to set the pace. We rode side by side about twenty feet apart, with maybe twenty or thirty lead horses close behind us, so close we could hear their rhythmic breathing. A peloton of mustangs ran behind them. We all settled into a comfortable gallop. Like a thick rope uncoiling, the herd began to string out and lengthen, with most of the mamas and babies at the back. The forty-eight hundred hooves beating the sand sounded like the muted thunder of Indian drums. The sound reverberated in the ground, up through Clyde and my saddle, and into my bloodstream. My entire being thrilled to the awe of the moment. Even then, I knew it was the pinnacle ride of my ranching career.

John and I continually turned to view the action behind us, keeping our eye on it. So far, all the players were in position. Then, without provocation, a big brown gelding and a bay veered out of the herd. As if prompted by some premeditated, hidden signal, they turned in unison ninety degrees, pinned their ears back, and shifted into high gear. They started running toward Alan Jr. and his horse, riding fifty feet away. Al noticed them, but no alarm registered in his posture. I wasn’t alarmed either. Few cowboys I know have been attacked by horses that turned out of a group. But darn, if those horses didn’t keep running. They were in attack mode. Before I could yell a warning, they slammed their chests at the same instant into the side of Al’s mount. The unsuspecting horse hit the ground flat on her side. A large grunt, audible above the galloping herd, whooshed out of her and her legs continued to run through the air like she was trying to escape the vicious attackers. Alan flew through the air. He plowed a face-plant furrow in the sand ten feet beyond his horse, thankfully away from the running herd. He lay there stone still.

Every parent totes a box of pure terror, the latch of which springs open only if your child is seriously injured or, God forbid, killed. In that instant, the latch on my black box released and out poured thick, heart-stopping darkness. I turned Clyde, raced toward my son, and jumped off before the horse stopped.

I dropped to my knees. “Alan!” I yelled close to his ear. I was afraid to move him for fear something had broken. I scanned his arms and legs. Nothing seemed to be at an odd angle. I was about to feel for a pulse when I saw his fingers wiggle. The movement shoved part of the terror back in its box.

At that moment, John rode up. His face reflected the horror still gripping me. “He’s unconscious,” I said. I looked up to see where Ralph was. The Suburban was on a hill in the distance, turning toward us. I noticed Alan’s horse stand up and give herself a good shake. The other cowboys rode up. One of Alan’s legs twitched. I prayed that was a good sign and not a harbinger of injury.

John and I rolled Al over. His face looked like a mask of sand. I cleaned the sand out of his nostrils. His eyes fluttered, and I quickly brushed the sand from them. He probably had sand down his shirt and pants and even in his boots. He peered through glazed eyes as if trying to comprehend what life-form we were.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” I said.

Al frowned and tried to push himself up. I cleaned out his ears and repeated the question. “Three,” Al said, sounding like someone who drank one too many shots of tequila.

John and I started asking questions. Does anything hurt? Can you focus? What day of the week is it? My son answered while clumsily brushing himself off. He extended a hand and we helped him up.

He looked around and in true cowboy fashion said, “Where’s my horse? We’ve gotta get going.”

“Hold on there, partner,” I said. His eyes still had a film of fog. The Suburban pulled up and Ralph hopped out.

“You really got your bell rung, didn’t you?” he said to Alan, already starting to take his pulse. He examined the rest of him and said, “Nothing broken, though you might have a concussion.”