Keith, my farrier, has not ridden much in the past couple of years. “I’m underneath horses all the time, so I don’t have much time to get on top of them,” he explains. Back home, Kacy is always trying to get him to ride to no avail, so having him along now is fun for her.
In November, when they made the four-day haul down here with the horses, Keith asked Kacy to marry him out on the front porch of Casa Durazno. Now she wears a beautiful engagement ring, and they plan on marrying up at our place on Rose Hill: 09.10.11. That should be easy to remember.
Kacy has been working for me since she was fourteen. Her parents used to drive her up to my barn to muck the stalls, until she got her own car. In her modest, quiet way, she knows more about horses than almost anyone I know. She has won so many blue ribbons that she doesn’t even bother to collect them anymore. She is also in charge of the Beinecke barn, Harmony Hill, back in South Egremont, Massachusetts, and helps train young riders who want to jump and show, while continuing to take care of my horses when I am away. I feel fortunate to have her and Keith in charge of transporting Barranca and Peanut back East where Rocket is waiting for them. Tonka will stay here in Arizona in a large turnout with many companions, going barefoot until I return.
With his mechanical bent, Keith can fix anything. “He is such a guy,” I exclaim, as he recounts hunting and fishing tales. Kacy agrees, nodding sweetly. He tells us about some of the games farriers play, including shooting anvils up into the air with explosives.
The sun is intense, and we all agree that we should head back—they have four long days of hauling ahead of them, and I don’t want them to be sore or exhausted as they start out. Riding up the arid trail to the parking lot, I notice that in just a few short hours of midday sun, the ocotillos have begun to fully open, as if some higher power with hot chile breath had exhaled on them. The hillsides are now a sweep of red. “We’ve got to appreciate beauty wherever we can out here,” I tell them. This might not be as astonishing as New England’s autumnal display, but in Arizona, this is about as good as it gets.
We leave the outside barn lights on that night, as they want to leave for Santa Fe at around 5:00 A.M. when it will still be dark. They should arrive at their first stop no later than 3:00 P.M., and will have the afternoon and evening to explore the city.
I kiss my big boy, Barranca, good night, and begin to have separation anxiety, knowing how much I will miss him during the next three weeks. I whisper to him that soon he will be back in the green fields of the Berkshires, and that he should try to endure the long ride. “Horse Heaven is waiting for you,” I tell him. He seems to understand and licks my hand, licks both of them.
It does matter if your horse has a sweet personality. Barranca’s loving licks are like kisses. Perhaps he’s just searching for salt, but I feel it is heartfelt, especially in contrast to one horse I had years ago.
My dressage trainer at the time convinced me that I should buy this amazing Selle Français-Thoroughbred cross who was 16.3 hands and very well-educated. From the get-go, he pinned his ears back when anyone approached his stall, but my trainer assured me that a lot of horses had that bad habit.
Once I was on him, he seemed nice enough. He had beautiful gaits and could also jump. But when my trainer tried him out, he reared, and she quickly dismounted, as she had already suffered a head injury from a rearing horse and didn’t want to get hurt again. Still, I quickly fell for this flea-bitten grey. I named him Nashotah, after a small town in Wisconsin. Having grown up with a difficult mother, I was sure that I could get him to love me if I tried hard enough. But he could never forget whatever it was that had warped his sense of trust.
He developed a foot abscess shortly after I purchased him, and whenever I cross-tied him to dress his wound, he would paw and paw at the rubber mat in the barn. I thought it was an odd habit, but I ignored it, and soon, as he healed, he seemed to paw a bit less, but the ear-pinning continued throughout the rest of his life.
Confused by his behavior, I brought in a horse psychic, and she spent a good deal of time going over him. Without asking me anything about his behavior, she suddenly announced that he had been severely beaten around his legs for pawing in his stall. This had made him defensive. I was amazed. But even given this understanding, there was no changing his behavior. This deep hurt had been stamped into his unforgiving brain, and we never established a heartfelt connection.
It sometimes helps me to remember these things as I try to understand difficult people as well—to know why they act the way they do, and to try and work around it, not to expect too much. All you can do is give. I have found that when someone lashes out at me, it rarely has anything to do with what I have done. I have to remind myself—don’t take it personally. There is usually something else going on.
Nashotah passed away in his own good time one winter while I was out in Arizona. Kacy took care of him and had him buried at the foot of the pasture. It was only then that I discovered the ease of my cousin Sarah’s gaited horses.
I remember riding her well-trained Tennessee Walker one day in the hills of Colrain. We were moving up a steep incline and I could not believe it. “I feel like I’m dreaming,” I called back to her. “It’s like spreading cream cheese—this is fantastic! He is so smooth!”
Sarah felt that her horses were also more bombproof than most, possibly because they had been used for hunting. I had been dumped too many times by Nashotah. All it took was the appearance of a leaping deer, or a flapping plastic bag, or one of those terrifying “walking birds” (wild turkeys), and then it was as if a car had hit us broadside.
Now, if something alarms Barranca, he stops in his tracks, stock-still, but he doesn’t bolt or hurt me. I imagine what it would be like to lose this horse, how bereft I would be, inconsolable. You might think that an animal could never compensate for the lack of human love, but I disagree. A big-hearted animal can be the greatest consolation.
Looking Toward Home
Anxious
Even in my sleep I am anxious about this departure. I wake at four in the morning and go see if the trailer is still in the yard. There it is, lit up by the barn lights. But when I finally get up around seven, it is gone, and I feel a pang—a big hole of absence inside me.
Tonka is probably feeling the same thing, locked into his stall. I know he must be worried, left behind, but he lets me brush him down. Tonka looks off in the direction the trailer took earlier this morning. He whinnies out to his friends, but they are long gone, probably passing into southern New Mexico by now. I lead him over to the pasture across the road, and he goes galloping around the field whinnying and searching for his companions.
When I get back to the house, I give Helen a call, and she offers to let me borrow Bendajo as a companion horse. How wonderful to have an understanding cousin close by. Tonka is thrilled to see a pal arrive, and I am also grateful.
Ocotillo Trail
We Saw Everything!
There is nothing nicer than riding alone on a good horse with a faithful, quiet dog beside you. Bali is a good follower—he instinctively understands the path, and it is a joy to watch him exploring, submerging in the water and then trotting ahead. Here on the Sonoita Creek, I am beginning to feel the heart-tug of departure, soon to leave my beloved Southwest. Tonka is cooperating exceptionally well today, as if he senses he is now my “Number One Horse,” and his big-horse-ego likes that—he is responding with great athleticism as well as sweetness.
Tonka also wins the award for the most poops per ride. Inevitably he lets loose in the trailer, and I have to kick it out with my boot, but then, out on the trail, he will stop and do his duty seven or eight more times. I figure, better here than in the paddock. I don’t know if he is just a “Nervous Nelly,” or if he has an exceptionally good digestive system, but right on schedule, he stops and takes another dump.
The ocotillo is now in full flaring bloom, but many of the other wildflowers have passed, with the exception of the “fried egg in the pan” whit
e blooms of the prickly poppy. Their tissue-thin blossoms rest on top of their thistles all along the trail. Nature has its rhythm, as if she didn’t want us to go without a visual treat for long—always something orchestrated to entertain the eye.
By Sonoita Creek
Tonka is quite familiar with this trail by now, and we move along smoothly until we descend into the creek and our path is blocked by an enormous bull, his massive balls hanging down like gunpowder sacks. But this old fellow is rather sedentary. Perhaps he is a bit of a “Ferdinand” as he munches on fresh green cottonwood leaves, not paying us much attention.
We skirt around him and ride on out to the Indian cave where we normally stop for lunch. It is still early, only 11:30 A.M., but I don’t want to tire my dog. So we cross the creek and settle down in the shade, a perfect place to take a break. Tonka is treated to riverside grass, and Bali wanders about in the stream to cool his feet, while I eat my salami-and-cheese sandwich and drink a mango smoothie. The day is dazzling, and the greenery surrounding the creek is a pleasure. I could stay here for hours.
Heading back, I notice how Tonka is always aware of any unusual creature before I am—he makes a miniscule halt and swerves when he sees a coyote standing down below in the running stream. As two separate creatures, we observe each other. And then a hundred yards up the path, I hear a rustling in the leaves and a six-foot-long, red coachwhip snake wriggles up onto the canyon wall. I begin to keep an eye out for rattlers, as the midday heat has increased, and soon they will be a real presence. Little lizards run about on the ground and up the canyon walls. A little further on, Tonka shies when a wild turkey bolts from the underbrush. “Gee,” I say out loud, “we’re seeing everything today,” including some white-tailed deer that bound across the path up ahead.
When we return to the barn, I give Tonka a bath, shampooing his mane and tail. Then I leave him tied to the rail to dry. I offer him a drink from the upright hose and he slurps it up as if it were a bubbler.
Last Ride
Goodbye San Rafael
Goodbye to the Patagonias. Goodbye to the grey-green, burnt-out grasslands that stretch all the way to Mexico. Goodbye to the transients and the burlap bales dropped along the roadside. Goodbye to the border patrol in their dusty white vans with green stripes. Goodbye to the grand Huachucas. Goodbye to Saddle Mountain, and Indianhead, too, peeking out behind. Goodbye to Red Mountain, that majestic, muscular presence. Goodbye to the border fence with all its problems. Goodbye to the red earthen roads, the desert agave, and the stunted oaks that endure the persisting winds. Goodbye to the arid skies, to undisturbed moonlight and brilliant stars. Goodbye to the Herefords huddled by the water tank. Goodbye to barbed wire and those treacherous cattle guards. Goodbye to the lone coyote and the screeching hawk wheeling overhead. Goodbye to this clean sweep of vista that always extends my soul—goodbye Arizona, goodbye—until we meet again.
MASSACHUSETTS
Love Boat
Barn Again
We leave Patagonia, and head up to Scottsdale to say goodbye to my mother. She is now in a rehabilitation facility, but it has become quite clear to my sister, who has just flown in from Wisconsin, that Mom is not going to recover. Our niece, Daphne, is also there and when she tells Gramma they are going to have to move her, Mom says softly, “No hospital, home.”
After conferring with the doctors, Cia decides to Med-Vac Mom back to Oconomowoc. The godsend is that she will never have to go into a nursing facility, or live through the terrible end-stage of Alzheimer’s.
Years before, in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, I was with my mother during her first bad hallucination episode. Even though it was way past midnight, my mother was wide awake. She thought that she had been watching a movie—it had been like a waking nightmare.
“There were people all over the room,” she said, “hoards of them, Muslims and blacks. And then I was in the cockpit of some Army plane, flying over a place like Siberia. It was so wintry and cold, and there were battleships and rooms and rooms of brothels, with men doing things to each other, beating up women, hurting small children. It was terrible, so icy and cold, and then there was this palatial hotel where they had everything you could ever want, crocodile bags that would normally cost $3,000 were only about $700, and linens you would not believe—everything, so many luxuries!” It sounded like a vision of hell.
“There’s a man standing behind you!” she pointed. “He’s ugly with wild red hair and pock marks all over his face. Tell him to get out of here!” She was so convincing, I swung around to look. “And there are children peeling the wallpaper! Why are they doing that? Daphne is destroying the lampshade. Tell her to stop it! Why are there so many people in my room? They are being very rude, sticking their tongues out.”
“Your mind is just playing tricks on you, Mom.”
“Don’t lie to me! I know what I’m seeing. And there’s water streaming down the walls, look.” She held out her hand as if she could feel it. “And what is this tissue—it’s falling from the ceiling.” I looked in her hand as if I could see it too, but of course there was nothing there.
Mom insisted that there were women in the closet stealing Popi’s clothing.
“No, there aren’t any women,” I said.
“I know what I see!”
“Okay, let’s get up and go over there.” I helped her get out of bed and led her over. She looked perplexed, rattling through my father’s naked wooden hangers. She agreed that the women had left. At least they weren’t sitting in Bluebeard’s closet with pools of clotted blood.
“Let me rub your feet,” I suggested, trying to soothe her with the rose-scented oil I’d brought from home. I sang her the songs that she used to sing to me in my childhood, “Summertime” and “Mighty Like a Rose.” In a pathetic little voice, she tried to sing along with me, sometimes leaning up on her elbow to see what else was going on.
Mom and Dad
The next morning, downstairs, Mom’s hallucinations continued—“There are those same children, standing in the hallway, with a big tall black man. What do you think they want?” She motioned them in, waving with her hand, with an endearing, welcoming expression on her face.
Mom insisted that this was not her home, and she wanted to get in the car with Wanda and go back home immediately. “I don’t like this hotel,” she said.
“This isn’t a hotel,” I assured her. “You’re staying in your own house, Broadoaks.” I encouraged her to come outside and sit down on the lawn chair beneath the pergola, before her round English garden.
Often, in the past, she and Wanda could be seen here weeding, or planting, side-by-side, both of them in broad, straw hats.
“Let me read you a story,” I said to her and she nodded her head, content for a moment. It was nice reading out loud to my mother. I liked this reversal, taking care of her, but soon the hallucinations took hold again. “Why are those children destroying my plants?”
“They aren’t destroying anything. You’re seeing things.”
“They’re using clippers. They’re tearing at the flowers with scissors. Why are they doing that?”
“Just close your eyes and listen.”
As I read, she began to calm down. She told me that my story was, “Very well written. You are an excellent writer.” She had always said that. She had always been supportive of me in that realm, even when I was ten years old and read her each new chapter from “Betsy and Pixie Ride Again,” my first handwritten book, composed on a notepad of yellow paper.
She wanted iced tea, and Wanda brought her a full tumbler. “Wanda knows how to do everything.” Mom was more dependent on Wanda than on any of us.
At odd moments, Mom seemed lucid, and continued to surprise me—coming around a corner like a burst of sunlight emerging from a cloud, only to open her arms and beam—“You know I love you, Laura.”
Lost on a sea of forgetfulness, she could still touch bottom sometimes. I felt more like a shipwrecked person. How easily people say it—I love you
, I love you…just tossed off. How rarely it’s said with true feeling.
I thought of my mother, my father’s wife, who wrote love letters to him overseas, day after day, full of passion, always unwavering. She only thought the best of him now. “He was such a wonderful husband,” even if she couldn’t remember his name. “He was always so much fun.”
“You had your difficult times,” I reminded her.
“Really, I don’t remember that, when?”
“Oh, when he’d go off riding with other people.”
“Oh yes,” she laughed, “he did do that.” She no longer seemed to care.
When my father was asked, “What was the most fortunate thing that ever happened to you?” he answered, “Marrying my wife.”
Conflicted, unsure, often secretive, I was my father’s daughter—grandiose, yet somehow dwarfed. Was I standing in for him now? I would send my mother lilies and chocolate. I could forgive her jealous heart. Still, at least, I could say it, right? “I love you too, Mom,” and mean it. I could come around, and embrace her, finally receiving her love.
On saying goodbye to my mother for what would be the last time, I consider forgiving her for not being a very good mother, but instead, I apologize for not always being a good daughter. She accepts that. We have reconciled over the years since my father’s death, but I still can’t conjure up the emotions you’re supposed to feel when your mother is dying. I feel rather empty.
It is a short five-hour flight to Newark, and soon we are picked up by our trusty driver and are off to the Berkshires. As we go, I feel disoriented. The landscape hurts my eyes—too green. Everything looks too close, not enough space. It is hot and humid. But when we pull in our driveway, I am happy to see Barranca, Peanut, and Rocket out in their enormous field. Do they know how lucky they are? And how little they would have to graze upon if they were still in Arizona?
Riding Barranca Page 10
