Wild Blue - The Story of a Mustang Appaloosa

by Annie Wedekind

  The stall was cool and comfortable with a fan blowing a gentle breeze through the high window. Blue stood, head drooping, half in a dream. There had been more ropes and another trailer, but it was not as frightening as it had been the first time. Now she was actually in one of the men’s buildings, but surrounded by the scent of her own kind. There were other good smells, too, borne on the breeze: grass and trees and water. Blue sighed in her half doze and listened.

  She looks like she’s been beaten up pretty bad. Whoever had her doesn’t deserve to get her back, that’s for darn sure.

  No, Blue thought, I should not go back to the river. And then suddenly, she startled awake, snorting with surprise. She had understood the men’s words!

  “Hah, she’s awake,” Josiah said, switching back to English from the Nez Perce tongue in which he and his brother had been speaking, as they often did together. “It’s incredible that she doesn’t have more serious injuries. When I first saw her, I thought she was much worse off than she is.”

  “She’s a survivor, that’s certain,” Sam said thoughtfully. And Blue, hearing the voices return to an incomprehensible murmur, went back to sleep.

  * * *

  The boy was standing outside her stall, peering at her through the bars. Blue backed automatically into the far corner and stared back at him. He had the same sweetish odor as the children who had visited the corral—it wasn’t as unpleasant as men usually smelled. The boy slowly put his hand through the bars and opened his palm. He was holding something out, Blue didn’t know what. She eased back a bit farther into the stall and blew a warning note through her nostrils. The boy held his position for a long time, talking in a soft stream, but finally he made a face, dropped the thing into the sawdust, and left the barn.

  Some time later, Blue took a cautious step toward the object the boy had left behind. It looked like a short, chubby stick, but it smelled delicious. Blue nosed it, then startled back as dramatically as if she’d been struck by a snake when it rolled over beneath her breath. A few minutes later, courage regained, Blue nosed the thing again. It smelled so good! She put her lips against it and gave it a brief lick. That did it: Throwing caution to the wind, the filly gobbled up the carrot, relishing the sweet, crisp, unfamiliar taste. It was so good! Blue looked around the stall on the off chance that the boy had dropped more of these wonderful things, but no luck. And despite herself, Blue found that she wouldn’t mind if he happened to come back. As long as he kept his distance … and brought carrots.

  * * *

  The old men didn’t keep their distance, but Blue, hobbled by her sore body, was unable to fend off their ministrations. Day after day, they put their hands on her, leaving behind the sharp smell of herbs. While she was in the trailer, they had put something around her head that allowed them to hold it still and to tie her to the sides of the stall. Too tired and injured to protest, the filly became accustomed to their regular visits as well as to those of the boy, who had since broadened Blue’s treat repertoire to include apples and sugar cubes. She would only eat them from the floor of the stall, never from his hand, and he had to back all the way to the barn’s entrance before she’d approach the offering, but Joe was still proud of his progress. At least she wouldn’t refuse to eat them until he was out of sight!

  For Joe and his grandfather and great-uncle, trying to solve the riddle of what had happened to the mysterious Appaloosa was even better than reading a detective novel. First Josiah had contacted the Bureau of Land Management offices in Boise, but they had no record of housing a blue roan Appaloosa filly—or of any Appaloosa, for that matter—during the past year. The woman at the Boise office told Josiah to check the filly’s freezemark, and when he read her back the registration number branded under Blue’s mane, she told Josiah that the Appaloosa had been penned in Oregon, not Idaho. This set off another round of calls: Josiah and Sam to the BLM offices; Sam to Joe, back in Moscow, reporting on the brothers’ progress; Joe to Josiah, wondering when he could come back to the ranch to see the filly; the BLM offices to Josiah, apologizing for the delay and asking for his patience; Sam to his daughter, Joe’s mother, asking if Joe could spend a week with him and Josiah and Mary on the ranch; and Joe to Sam, at midnight, too excited about his upcoming visit to sleep!

  It was over pancakes in Mary’s kitchen the morning after he arrived that the phone call came.

  “Mr. Gray Wolf? This is the Oregon BLM office calling. I heard y’all found our runaway.”

  “Runaway, huh?” Josiah raised his eyebrows in surprise. Joe and Sam started clamoring for more details and he raised a hand to shush them so he could hear.

  “Yessir, she broke out of one of our adoption facilities a coupla weeks ago, over near Enterprise. Where y’all at? We’ll send someone to come and get her.”

  “Not real close to Enterprise is where we’re at.” Josiah laughed. “Your filly’s crossed state lines into Idaho.”

  “Back where we picked her up—ain’t that a funny thing?” The man sounded bemused.

  “How’d you mean?” Josiah’s face registered such surprise this time that Joe and Sam demanded an explanation and he had to ask the BLM man to hang on while he caught them up.

  “Apparently, some cowboys found her and another Appaloosa up in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, or somewhere thereabouts. Old guy had stopped them—thought they were gonna sell ’em to a slaughterhouse, and maybe they were.… He had the fillies corralled back of his gas station, and he called us. I was bringing some other horses to Enterprise and I swung by and got ’em.”

  “So you don’t know where the cowboys found her?”

  “Well, pretty close to that gas station, I b’lieve. I think that old man knew a bit more than he was letting on, as a matter of fact. Anyway, she’s a Bureau horse now.”

  “Hmm. You remember his name?”

  “I got it here somewhere.… Gimme a sec … uh, Ryder. Ezra Ryder.”

  “Ryder. Ezra Ryder,” Josiah repeated, looking at Sam with a twinkle in his eye. “Thanks very much for your help. I ’preciate it.”

  “Wait a minute now—you haven’t told me where you got the filly. We gotta make arrangements—”

  “Thanks again. I’ll be talking with you,” Josiah said briskly and hung up. He looked at his brother and started to laugh.

  “Ezra Ryder,” Sam said, mystified. “What’s that coot got to do with this?”

  * * *

  The boy was back again, and this time it appeared he wasn’t going to drop the carrot. He’d had his arm stuck through the bars for about half an hour, trying to coax her near. Stubbornly, Blue stayed stock-still in the corner of her stall. Just as stubbornly, the boy kept the carrot dangling tantalizingly near … but still in his hand.

  One of the old men approached, laughing.

  “Still won’t take it from you, huh?”

  “Nope,” Joe sighed, disappointed, and withdrew his hand. “I think my arm’s fallen asleep.”

  “Be patient, Joey. She’s a wild creature, and I don’t think her experience with people has been all that pleasant so far. Tell you what—Josiah’s about to take her for another walk, stretch her legs, see how well she’s moving. We’ll tag along and watch.”

  Blue and Josiah had taken several of these excursions. The gentle horseman managed to persuade the filly to move beside him without too much resistance. Joe was amazed by his great-uncle’s skill with the horse, but Josiah modestly insisted that if Blue were feeling well, he’d have no chance at holding her.

  “Look at those eyes! If she had the energy to run, I couldn’t stop her, that’s for sure. This filly’s got the spirit of her ancestors.”

  “So do you, brother,” Sam said, winking. “Our ancestors were horse breeders—Appaloosa breeders. I think that’s why you two get along.”

  His quiet younger brother blushed under his deeply tan skin and turned away to tend to the filly standing calmly beside him.

  As he watched them, bright eyes flicking from brother to brot
her, Joe thought how much he wanted to be like his great-uncle and like his grandfather, too. A great horseman and a great fisherman! After all, he was a Gray Wolf, too!

  * * *

  That evening, Sam called a family conference around the kitchen table.

  “I don’t want to run things in your own house, Josiah, but I just got off the phone with Ezra, and we have some things to discuss about our filly.” Joe hopped up to pour a cup of the strong black coffee that Great-aunt Mary had made. It was bitter and scalding, but it made him feel very grown-up to get to drink a small cup … especially since his mother would never have let him.

  “Then let’s discuss them.” Josiah smiled. “How’s old Ezra doing anyway?”

  “If he’s ‘old Ezra,’ then I’m ‘old Sam,’” his brother grumbled. “Our mothers had us on the same day.” He turned to Joe. “Ezra Penahwenonmi Ryder is sort of a cousin of ours.… We’ve never figured out exactly how. Our mamas were good friends and we grew up together. He lives off of Highway Twelve, runs a gas station,” Sam explained.

  “What does Penahwenonmi mean?” Joe asked. He knew some of his tribe’s language, but his mother and father didn’t speak it, so mostly what he picked up was from his grandfather and great-uncle.

  “It means ‘helping another,’” Josiah said. “It’s an old name. Almost as old as Sam.” He winked solemnly at Joe as his brother began to splutter again.

  “And he knows about the filly?” Joe pressed on.

  “According to Ezra, they got a herd of wild Appaloosa mustangs up where he lives,” Sam replied, and his eyes were as bright with excitement as his grandson’s.

  Josiah grunted with surprise and took a long pull on his pipe. He and his brother looked at each other.

  “Wow,” Joe said. “Wild horses up in the Wilderness?”

  “Wow is right,” Josiah said thoughtfully. “And your grandfather, who likes a good story, thinks that these horses are descendants from the Flight, am I right?”

  “Just because it’s a good story doesn’t mean it’s not possible,” Sam said defensively. “The way Ezra describes it, there’s a whole herd of Appaloosas up there—has been since his grandfather’s time, so since you think he’s so old, that should tell you something.”

  “Sure does—tells me I’m right!” Josiah laughed, and Sam couldn’t help joining in.

  “Wait, you mean our Flight, the Nimi’ipuu?” Joe asked eagerly, trying to keep up.

  Josiah nodded. “That’s right, Joe. You know the story. Why don’t you remind your grandfather of the details?”

  Joe knew full well that Grandfather Sam Gray Wolf did not need a lesson in the history of the Nimi’ipuu, or the Nez Perce as they were commonly known—after all, he was the one who had told the boy most of the stories he knew about his ancestors. But Great-uncle Josiah was giving him a chance to contribute to the conversation, and that made him happy. He reached back into his memory, hoping not to disappoint his elders.

  “Well, a long time ago, in, like, the eighteen hundreds, Chief Joseph led our people on a long march to get away from the white man’s army.” He paused.

  “That’s right,” Josiah said encouragingly. “And why did our leader, Chief Joseph, have to do this?”

  “Because he didn’t want his people to be put in a reservation like the other Nimi’ipuu,” Joe said promptly. He hoped Josiah wouldn’t ask why the other tribes were already in the reservation, because he couldn’t remember. Luckily, his grandfather, unable to stay out of any storytelling, even if he was supposed to be playing student, stepped in.

  “Some tribes had already taken the bad deal the U.S. Government had offered them … which amounted to giving up most of their land and getting shuffled off to a little old reservation … the same little old reservation where you come and visit me.”

  The lines that spread around Josiah’s eyes and down his cheeks, like the tributaries of a river, deepened with sorrow.

  “Our fathers’ land once spread for thousands and thousands of miles, Joe,” he said. “In Oregon and Washington, as well as here in Idaho. Chief Joseph and the other brave leaders like Looking Glass took seven hundred of our people east and north, looking for a new homeland. The army stopped them.”

  “But they gave them a good chase, didn’t they, Great-uncle?” Joe said wistfully.

  But it was Sam who answered, his voice ringing with pride. “You bet they did. Matter of fact, it was one of the most brilliant retreats in all military history. And our horses helped us every step of the way.”

  “So our filly might just have just retraced her steps from the old homeland to the new.… Joe, you found her near the place our people—and horses—crossed the Snake River during the Flight,” Great-uncle Josiah said.

  “The Snake sure could have caused those injuries, too, if she missed the calm spot and got caught in one of the rapids,” Sam mused.

  Josiah suddenly stood up and pushed his chair back from the table. “Before we continue this discussion, I need to think a bit. Let’s all get a good night’s sleep and have some dreams and talk in the morning.” And with that, Great-uncle Josiah moved abruptly to the kitchen’s screen door, shutting it gently behind him.

  “‘Good night’s sleep,’ ha,” Sam grunted. “I know where he’s going. He’s going to go talk to that horse.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Blue was surprised when the man pulled back her stall door—he had never visited her so late before. She was even more surprised when he attached the lead rope, which she’d learned meant they were going out. Sure enough, Let’s have a walk, he told her, and again she understood the sense of the words. All right, she thought. The night air smelled sweet coming through the barn door, and she was a bit restless. Josiah could feel her energy beginning to quicken and knew it meant the filly was healing. He looked at her with satisfaction and stroked her neck. Blue shivered under the caress—it was pleasant, but still strange. She allowed him to do it once more, then pulled back her head sharply. Enough. The man removed his hand, and Blue followed him willingly into the soft, star-sprinkled night.

  The man didn’t seem to be leading her anywhere in particular. They simply ambled, side by side, over the lush green summer grass. He lit a pipe, and Blue bent her head to graze. And as she settled into the deep comfort of walking and nibbling, resting and nibbling, then walking and nibbling again, the man began to talk. Blue listened, but it was listening in a way that was more like feeling than hearing words. Something ancient in her blood was stirred, responding to him, to his smell, his voice, even his touch. And as he told her the story, she realized it was her story he was telling. Her story—and his.

  You and me, we’ve been friends a very long time, though you don’t know it, Josiah Gray Wolf began. My people, the Nimi’ipuu, helped you come to be. We bred horses with the most beautiful colors and patterns, horses like you—Appaloosas. But we bred for strength, too, just as you are strong and sure of foot. Together, your ancestors and mine ran with the buffalo.… Ah, so many years ago. There are no buffalo now.

  Together, your ancestors and mine traveled to rivers full of salmon for fishing.… They traveled to the kouse meadows and the camas prairies … and they went into battle together. And finally, they lost the battle together.

  You see, my friend, the same people who took you from your home took my people from their home. For them, it does not matter that we were here first. More than one hundred years ago, when they wanted us to give up our fathers’ land and to move into what they call a “reservation,” we fled, with many thousands of brave horses like you to help us.… We went north to find freedom, from Oregon to Idaho, Wyoming, and finally Montana, where we were trapped, so close to freedom. Most of your ancestors were taken from us, or killed, or they ran away, like you did. And my brother thinks that you and your family, up there in the Wilderness, are Nimi’ipuu Sikem—descended from the horses bred by my ancestors and lost during the Flight. So this is why I say that you and I have been friends for a long time. And
the man chuckled softly in the darkness, the bulb of his pipe briefly lighting his face with a warm flare.

  Now the people you ran away from want us to give you back. They have put their mark on you, they say, and now you belong to them. I can tell you it’s not a bad life, being with people. My horses are happy, and I treat them well. When they leave me, they go to good homes where they are cared for. But you … I do not think this life would make you happy, even with me, your friend.

  I will not give you back to those men, blue filly. And I will not keep you for myself, as much as I’d like to. You must be free. It seems that it is still possible for you, even if it’s not for my people.

  As Josiah finished speaking the sad words, he suddenly felt a warm breath in his ear. For a fleeting moment, Blue nuzzled the man’s neck, and his eyes shone over with tears.

  * * *

  Joe bounced up and down with impatience, kicking gravel and fidgeting with the truck’s door handle. He had never been to the Wilderness before, and that was exciting enough—but more than that, they were going to return the wild mustang to her family! He ran to the barn’s entrance yet again, hoping that his grandfather and great-uncle were almost ready to go.

  The brothers were finishing a final inspection of the filly. Josiah had worried that she wasn’t quite ready for the journey, but Sam and Joe had convinced him, pointing out the mustang’s obvious return to health and spirits. Indeed, Blue was in fine fettle—and just as impatient as Joe to get going! A thin network of scars laced her right foreleg and an area of her hindquarters, and a small patch of hair was missing from her forehead where it had collided with the rock in the Snake. She was still a bit sore all over, but that would fade, unlike the scars—and the brand on her neck. Now she had as many markings as her fierce father, and as hard won.

  She knew she was leaving this place, and she trusted the man whose hand was on her halter. She trusted that he was taking her home. Her feelings as she practically pranced in place beside him were an unfamiliar brew … eagerness to get away, but also sorrow at parting … gratitude, but also the feeling of otherness. She was not his kind, and she was not his horses’ kind—she was, above all things, wild Blue.