A Journey to Softness

Powerful Softness  1

Dwight and I hadn't been on horseback very long when we reached the top of a small mesa and looked down into the valley below, green with new spring grass and bathed in the yellow glow of sunrise. The valley was maybe a half-mile long and two hundred yards wide, and in it were a handful of horses. One looked to be black or very dark brown, one was an Appaloosa, two were gray, and three were sorrel. One of the sorrels had what appeared to be a new foal running at its side.

"Is that her?" I asked.

Dwight shifted in his saddle. "I don't think so."

"No?" I asked. "She's got a foal, and I doubt there were any other pregnant mares out here."

He tipped his weathered cowboy hat back and scratched his forehead. "No." He readjusted his hat. "I think she was a bay."

"A bay?"

"Or brown."

"You don't know what color she was?"

"It was dark."

"The horse?"

"I think so. But the sale was at night, so it was dark out."

He squinted down into the valley and watched the sorrel with the baby. "And it was over a week ago. I'm pretty sure she weren't no sorrel."

"Pretty sure?"

"Well, I did buy two sorrels," he said, still looking at the small herd below us. "But they was geldings. The mare was a bay . or brown . I think."

Satisfied, at least to some extent, that the mare we had come to find (and that, at Dwight's suggestion, we would take off the 3,500-acre pasture on which our ranch horses had wintered) was not with the band we were currently gazing upon, we turned our horses and continued on our way.

The excursion that morning had begun a couple of days earlier when I received a call from Dwight about some horses he had bought the weekend before. Dwight had made a trip up to Minnesota that weekend to visit friends and family, and while there, took a little side trip to a horse sale. Saddle horses were going pretty cheap, so he had taken it upon himself to buy a few head that he figured I might be able to use at the guest ranch where I was foreman.

Dwight, an excellent and lifelong stockman, had a good eye for both cattle and horses. He also had a heart as big as Montana; if there were a way to help someone, especially a friend, he would do it without hesitation. In this case, he knew I was going to be short some horses for the upcoming season and so had decided to "help" by picking up a few for me. Details-where the horses would go once he bought them, were they rideable, did they have some kind of communicable disease that could possibly infect every horse on the place-just weren't that important.

So, when he called to tell me he had bought a few horses for the ranch, and then told me he thought they were all healthy and had turned them in with our herd out on the pasture, I wasn't too concerned. Of course, I hadn't actually asked him to buy any horses for us and I had no idea what these horses looked like. The fact that he also seemed to be having trouble remembering what they looked like was a little troubling, as not all of the horses on the pasture belonged to the ranch. Some, about fifteen head or so, belonged to other folks from the area who also pastured their horses there during the winter.

There was a very good chance that we could accidentally take the wrong horse, which would open up a whole other can of worms.

At any rate, when Dwight called, he told me that he was pretty sure one of the horses he bought (the only mare) was pregnant, and he was just as sure that she was not more than a week or so away from foaling when he put her and the others in the pasture.

"I just got to thinking," he said. "We may want to go out and get her. Maybe bring her up to the ranch so she can foal out up there."

"You bought us a pregnant mare?"

"She was pretty cheap," he happily replied. "Besides, you get a two-for-one!"

"But we don't have a place for a mare and a ."

"And while we're down there, I'll try to pick out the others I bought for you. I think they'll work out real good for your outfit."

"You'll try to pick them out?" I remember asking, making an effort to hide the fatigue I was beginning to feel at the thought of all the extra work it was looking like his generosity was going to generate.

"Yeah," he said, cheerfully. "It was dark when I turned them into the pasture, so I'm not real sure what they look like."

So there we were, spending the better part of the day riding a big circle on 3,500 acres, looking for a mare I'd never seen that might be bay or dark brown, that also might be pregnant.

By half past three that afternoon, some nine hours after Dwight and I first threw a leg over our saddle horses, we found ourselves back at the same mesa we'd started out on, looking at the same little band of horses down in the long, narrow valley below. We had eliminated the rest of the horses-I knew which ones we already owned, recognized the brands on ones we didn't, or concluded that the colors of the horses we found didn't match the colors of the horses he bought.

This time, however, as we looked down into the valley, we could see that the foal was no longer running beside the sorrel it had been with earlier that day, but rather, was next to what appeared to be a black horse.

"Well," Dwight shrugged, "that's got to be her."

We turned our horses down a small ravine and worked our way to the valley floor. It didn't take long to get to the small band. The mare was a nice-looking, very dark bay, refined, with what looked to be some Morgan in her. She had a kind eye and was spending all her time moving her baby, an equally dark little stud foal, away from two of the sorrel geldings. One of the geldings, a sixteen-hand, rawboned mustang-looking horse with a Roman nose and a white strip on his face, seemed fixated on getting to the foal. The other, a much smaller, stocky little fellow with no markings whatsoever, seemed more intent on following the bigger horse rather than going after the mare or baby.

The baby had most likely been born that morning, probably just before we arrived, and looked worn out; the geldings' constant attention had caused the mare to keep the baby moving nonstop. There was no telling how much rest, if any, the foal had managed to get since we had first seen it that morning running at the gelding's side, or how much, if any, it had been able to nurse.

"Looks like that gelding's trying to get at that baby," Dwight said as he moved his horse into position to cut off the gelding.

I moved toward the mare and began turning her and the baby back in the direction of the path Dwight and I had taken to get into the valley. Once at the top, we'd be able to make our way over to a large catch pen near where we'd parked the truck and trailer that morning, not more than a half-mile away.

The mare started up the path easily, but it was clear almost from the start that the baby wasn't going to be able to make the climb. As soon as the trail gained elevation, which was pretty much right away, the baby stalled out, then stopped. This, of course, stopped the mare, who turned and nickered to the baby. But the already-exhausted youngster wouldn't, or couldn't, move.

"We'll need to take them around the long way," I said, bringing the mare off the path and back into the valley. "The little guy won't make this climb."

The "long way" was a narrow trail that followed the bottom of the mesa and then sloped gradually upward along its face to the south and, eventually, to the catch pen. It was about a half-mile farther than if we'd gone to the top of the mesa, but with the baby and our saddle horses as tired as they were, it was going to be easier to take the lower route.

I maneuvered the mare off the path to the top of the mesa and eased her forward along the lower trail, her baby walking wearily at her side. Dwight brought up the rear, with the two sorrel geldings trailing behind him. From time to time, Dwight would turn his horse and chase the two geldings back down the trail toward the valley, but inevitably, as soon as he turned back around to rejoin us, the geldings would charge up behind him once again.

On several occasions, the bigger gelding tried to pass both Dwight and me, but the trail was much too narrow and rocky for him to get around us, and he'd fall back in line. Finally, after nearly a half-hour and numerous stops to allow the baby to rest, we neared the flat ground that would take us to the catch pen. Dwight and I both knew that if the gelding got to that opening, he would easily be able to overtake us and get to the mare and baby.

So, with less than a hundred yards to go before the flat, Dwight turned and moved the two geldings almost all the way back down to the valley. While he was doing that, I took the mare and baby to the pen, opened the rusted metal gate, and moved them both quietly inside. Once that was done, my horse Buck and I headed for the truck to get a halter for the mare.

I had taken a halter with me that morning, tied to my saddle. We figured we'd just put it on the mare and pony her back to the trailer...