by H. Alan Day
I felt like I was listening to a John Wayne soliloquy, perched on the edge of my seat, too engrossed to eat the popcorn the waitress had set in the middle of the table. I asked if they were abused, and he waffled. The horses weren’t starved. They had good flesh and nice coats, but they weren’t happy.
“Imagine a hundred professional athletes,” he said, “crowded into a building with no rooms big enough to exercise in. To add to their misery, you tell them they can never get out and run again, they are destined to live in this one cinder block building. No matter what you feed those athletes, they remain downtrodden, frustrated, angry people. Wild horses are born to run across miles of open land, just like athletes. That’s what they do. Over the prairie, across the hills, through canyons, they can track miles and miles each day. So even though they’re being fed and physically cared for, prohibiting them from doing what nature intended could be considered abuse.”
Wild horses couldn’t be slaughtered, that much I knew. Wild Horse Annie had seen to that. Velma B. Johnston made national news for almost two decades starting in the 1950s after driving behind a truck loaded with captured mustangs. She noticed blood dripping onto the highway. Careful not to be seen, she followed the truck to a rendering plant where she watched men unload the horses. A yearling fell and was trampled to death by the other frightened mustangs. The event incited her to launch a grassroots campaign to get Congress to pass legislation protecting the wild horses, which it finally did in the early seventies.
“So what do you propose to do?” I asked.
He swirled his glass as if watching words melt off the ice. In a somber tone he said, “It’s my goal to take these unwanted, unloved horses and put them on good range where they can roam again. Roam and be cared for. Not live in those goddamn foolish feedlots. And we can do it for less than half the cost the government now pays the feedlots.”
Interesting idea, but how did any of this pertain to me? Come on, wild horses? I was a cattle rancher. Yes, I loved my horses. Alongside the soil flowing in my blood was a river of love for my horses. They had been a part of my extended family as much as the cowboys who helped raise me and spent their lifetime on Lazy B. Chico, Little Joe, Saber, Aunt Jemima, Blackberry, Little Charlie Brown, and so many others. We had shared cowboying adventures of the unbelievable kind. But my connection to herds of wild horses? Nil.
“Here’s what I propose.” Dayton held his hands up as if framing the idea. “I want to establish a wild horse sanctuary. It’s never been done before but I’ve given it a lot of thought and I believe if it’s set up correctly, it could work. We need the government’s approval and support, of course. And we need land.”
At that moment the scotch, or maybe something on a grander scale, shifted my brain into a new gear. A panoramic vision of the lush prairie grass on the South Dakota ranch spread across my mind’s eye. I had been hoping to find a use for the land other than running cattle. Might it be suitable range for a herd of mustangs?
“How many unadoptables are we talking about in the holding pens?”
“Almost two thousand,” Dayton replied.
I just about had to scoop my jaw off the table. Trying to envision that many horses on the ranch was a ballbuster. I’d run more head of cattle than that before, but horses? I had no clue how much fifty horses ate, much less two thousand. Or what their grazing patterns would be. I wouldn’t bet my next drink on the number that could thrive on the South Dakota ranch. The thought of managing a ranch full of two-thousand-pound animals that have had minimal experience with humans, and that mostly negative, evoked more than a little trepidation. It was like going from being a pilot of a little Cessna to a pilot of a 747 jetliner without lessons.
Yet, if I took a deep breath and dove below the fear, something felt possible here. Perhaps the government’s coffers could support such a venture. Perhaps the land could too. Good luck had stuffed itself in my pocket long ago, and adventure had been my friend since I was old enough to scramble on the back of Chico and head out on the range, trying my five-year-old darnedest to keep up with the big cowboys. Usually I was contemplating adventures that involved animals I knew—ranch horses, cattle. But with this I could very well be stepping in over my Stetson.
Dayton continued. “The idea of a wild horse sanctuary has never occurred to the BLM, or if it has they haven’t gotten around to trying it. Most likely they need persuading that it’s a sensible, solid game plan to contract with and pay a private landowner to care for two thousand animals nobody wants.”
I had been working with the tightfisted BLM all my professional life. They would need persuading all right, bales of it.
“The reason that I contacted you, Alan, is because you have an in with the BLM folks. All your ranching buddies tell me that the BLM thinks you walk on water.”
I shook my head. “Not sure that I’d go that far. They don’t exactly send me birthday cards.”
“Okay, well, let’s just say you can hook and catch their attention and reel them in. They don’t know me from the next wrangler and would brush me off faster than a biting fly.”
Dayton was right on one thing. The BLM and I had a good rapport. When they needed rancher input on land and grazing issues, they often asked me to participate on boards and panels. They had designated me a steward of the land for my work in grass management on Lazy B. Most crusty cowboys considered the BLM their enemy. But that attitude only made their lives miserable. I chose not to walk down that road. Over time, I inadvertently became the point man for other ranchers. I would relay their issues to the BLM, go to bat for those boys, and try to hollow out common ground that allowed bureaucrats to be bureaucrats and ranchers to be ranchers. We didn’t always agree, sometimes we were miles apart on our stances, but other times we could carve out a compromise acceptable to both sides. And if we didn’t agree, we’d keep talking.
I took a sip of scotch and tried to visualize the South Dakota ranch with horses on it. For a moment, I saw myself sitting on Aunt Jemima. We stood on the top of a hill, the prairie below sloping down toward the Little White River. Horses young and old, a spectrum of browns, blacks, and whites, grazed before us. Healthy, thick grass beckoned. Something inside of me was waking up, warming to the idea. A little voice said the mustangs would thrive on that windswept prairie.
But then another vision hightailed it in. The horses shivered in a blizzard. Could we shelter them from the killing wind? Would we have enough hay and could we get it to them, or would they have to slip across ice, paw through snow, and graze the dead grass? Would older horses survive winter’s grip? The ranch was tuned to caring for cattle during tough winters, but horses might tow a different set of challenges.
I flitted back to the possible stream of income in this wacky idea. The Bureau of Land Management had a budget in place to pay for the care of horses. We needed that first and foremost since neither Dayton nor I was in a position to give away services. Maybe we could charge a lower rate and save the government money. Could this be an industry waiting to happen? Perhaps. If nothing else, it seemed to be an opportunity to do something gigantic, something that had never been done before.
“You know, Hawk, this is a pretty interesting proposal. I might very well be able to open the door with the BLM. I can talk to Les Rosencrantz, the state director of Arizona, and I’ve met the national director, Bob Burford, a pretty nice guy. A rancher from Grand Junction, Colorado. I bet we could get an audience with him if we needed to. But there’s an even more interesting thing about your timing.” I leaned forward and spun the basket of popcorn. Dayton looked at me, curious.
“As it happens I’m in the process of buying a thirty-five-thousand-acre ranch in the Sand Hills of southern South Dakota.”
Stress lines evaporated from his face, and his body came to attention.
“Think a couple thousand mustangs might be able to live up there?” I asked.
I could almost see his mind holding up this piece of the puzzle, the last of the border pieces, rec
ognizing it, and pushing it into place. The only sound that escaped his mouth was a whispered “goddamn.” After a moment of sitting stock still, he let loose a throw-your-head-back yelp that would summon any pack of coyotes. Cowboy hats swiveled. Seeing two faces plastered with three parts excitement and a shot of disbelief, they turned back to their conversations.
Then in true cowboy fashion, Dayton “Hawk” Hyde said, “Let’s order another drink and chew on this one for a while.”
Man, was I jacked on the drive from Las Cruces back to Lazy B, and not from the scotch. I had been a cattle rancher for so long that entertaining an idea not involving cattle felt exhilarating, foreign, and daring all at the same time. Not even in my wildest, far-out imaginings could I have thought up a wild horse sanctuary. But here it was, served to me on a silver platter. The miles zipped by as my mind shifted the pieces of this puzzle to see how they might fit together. Dayton had the vision. The BLM had the money. I had the ranching experience and business skills. The land offered space and grass. Then there were the horses, possibly two thousand of them.
The idea of working with horses felt as natural as the idea of working with cattle. After all, horses were as much a part of my life as my parents, my sisters, the Lazy B cowboys, the land. The benchmarks of my childhood and adolescence involved horses. The first time I mounted a horse without help. The first time I brought a runaway cow back to the herd without help. The first time I roped a calf and didn’t lose my rope. The first time I rode a bucking horse and didn’t get thrown.
My first horse was a little wild mustang named Chico. He had been part of a herd of twenty or thirty that ranged the flanks of Steeple Rock Mountain, just north of Lazy B. A local cowboy decided to capture and break some of the horses, but the fleet-footed animals proved too elusive and quick for him, so he decided to try to shoot one. The mustangers of that era would aim their gun at a specific spot on the horse’s neck. If they hit their target, they could stun and knock down the animal without killing him. Before the horse could recover his senses, they would throw a halter on him. It was a brutal way to capture mustangs and one that Congress eventually outlawed. Chico always had a scar on the top of his neck where the bullet creased him.
Chico became my best friend almost as soon as I could walk. A pretty bay color with a star on his forehead, he was a small horse, too small for a cowboy, but just right for a child. Chico and I lived many adventures together while he stood patiently in the corral and let me clamber over him like a jungle gym. One day I would be the cowboy chasing and catching wild cattle to the amazement of the other cowboys. The next day I was an Indian stalking game and evading the cavalry. The fact that Chico came from a wild horse herd enamored me. When I was old enough to ride, Chico would go at a speed I was capable of handling and no faster. When I fell off and cried and grew angry with him, he would stand still and patiently wait for me to collect myself and get back on. He took care of me more hours than my mother did and at least as well.
Chico and I were a team the day I became a real cowboy. World War II left my dad short of help, so he allowed me to join the roundup at Old Camp on the southern part of Lazy B. It was to be a long, hard day, just the kind of day for a five-year-old to make a hand. I don’t remember breakfast at 3:00 a.m. or the long bumpy ride in the pickup out to Robb’s Well where the horses awaited us, but I do recall the sweet, acrid smell of the horses, the squeak and creak of the leather saddles as the cowboys tossed them on the animals’ backs, the snorting and farting of the horses as the cowboys mounted. Because I wasn’t tall enough to get my foot in the stirrup, I had to lead Chico to the water trough to mount.
We all set out, Chico and I riding side by side with the cowboys. Many times, I had heard them make fun of dudes, the wannabes who could never get cowboying quite right. I was determined not to be a dude, and this was the day to show I wasn’t one. After riding a couple of miles, the cowboys split into groups to search for cows in different parts of the range. The plan was for everyone to arrive at Old Camp by noon, cattle in front. I split off with Jim Brister and another cowboy, Ira, and started the cows heading down a wide canyon. After a bit, Jim instructed me to keep the herd moving, that he and Ira were going to work Lightning Canyon and push the cattle into Rock Tank Canyon, which connected with this main canyon a mile down. They would catch up with me in about an hour.
What a big job! I sat straight in my saddle and beamed. Of course, a five-year-old has no idea how long an hour or how far a mile is. Nor does he realize that his mentors trusted the horse he rode to take care of him.
The cattle knew water awaited them at Old Camp, so keeping them going downhill proved easy work. I’m sure within fifteen minutes I thought an hour had passed, but I kept doing my job. Pretty soon, though, I started getting thirsty and I had to pee. I couldn’t dismount because I needed help getting back in the saddle. I kept Chico and the cows going, determined not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The cicadas started to buzz in the hot, dry air. They grew louder and louder until the whole world was buzzing. The buzzing crept into my head and strung itself between my ears. Certainly we had gone more than a mile and much longer than an hour. Thirst joined the buzzing. All I wanted was a drink of water and to pee. I wondered if this is what it was like to go crazy.
I started to cry. I bent over Chico’s soft neck and let tears drip onto his hide. “Chico, where’s Jim and Ira? They must have gone off and left us.” My chance to be a real cowboy was crashing in on me. I was in danger of becoming a dude. And on my first roundup. I needed to cowboy-up before someone saw me crying.
Chico didn’t seem too perturbed that we had been walking the canyon by ourselves forever. He meandered at the same pace, occasionally nudging the back end of a cow that had slowed. This helped calm me. I had wiped the tears from my face and was contemplating how to pee from the saddle when I heard cows bawl from a side canyon. A cowboy’s yell followed. We were saved!
Jim and Ira arrived a few minutes later. I’m sure they saw tear streaks on my dusty cheeks but neither said a word. And of course, Chico never let on that there had been a problem since by his standards we had done just fine.
After lunch, the cowboys branded and sorted the cattle, and then we drove them back to Robb’s Well. By the end of the fifteen-hour day, I was one exhausted, proud little cowboy. No one could call me a dude. I had made a hand.
I turned off the state highway onto Lazy B’s eight-mile ranch road that started in New Mexico and ended in Arizona. Somehow being on Lazy B made me feel that much closer to Chico. He and I had ridden over these hills and dales; he had grazed in the horse pasture through which this road curved. Even though by age twelve I had outgrown riding Chico, I never outgrew my love for him. He had taught me so many lessons, including patience and how to keep the faith.
I pulled into headquarters and parked. The new moon thickened the darkness so I could barely see the outline of horses fifty yards away in the corral. My boots ground the gravel. One of the horses snorted; another answered with a low nicker. Maybe they were reading my mind and the question simmering there. Would my love affair with horses begin with one wild horse and end with a herd of them? The moon would cycle through its phases almost fifty times before shedding light on the answer.
3.
The Dream Takes Shape
“I’m getting dizzy watching you pace in there,” said Sue. She was in the family room adjacent to my office. “This house can’t contain your excitement. We need to get out of here.” Her tone indicated there would be no arguing. “Why don’t you go throw the old mattress in the pickup and cut some steaks from that quarter of beef hanging in the cooler. I’ll pack some potatoes and wine and we can head up to Horseshoe Canyon.”
So the day after my conversation with Dayton, still afloat in a bubble of possibilities, my wife and I drove an hour across the flatlands of Lazy B to the part known as the Gruwell Ranch, then up fifteen hundred feet into a juniper-filled canyon where the ruts of the pickup
trail ended in a flat, shaded area. With the nearest human at least ten miles away, this was my haven for chewing on a challenge, a dream, or a grilled steak.
We unloaded the cooler and dinner provisions and spread charcoal in the grill. I opened a bottle of wine and grabbed two glasses. “Let’s walk up there before we start the fire,” I said, pointing the bottle at a two-foot-high rock wall about a hundred yards above us.
We climbed through the mellowing light and leaned our backs against the warm stones. The wine gurgled into a glass. I handed it to Sue, then poured my own.
“Did I ever tell you this was the site of the Stein’s Pass Indian skirmish?”
“At least ten times,” she said, poking her elbow into my side.
I liked to come up here and imagine how the battle between the Apache Indians and the Seventh U.S. Cavalry might have been fought. Starting from Stein’s Pass ten miles east, the cavalry had driven the Indians to this spot, where they forced the band of Apaches higher and higher. The Indians had climbed this hill on foot and erected this rock battlement to shield them from the soldiers’ bullets. The cavalry, not wanting to storm the fortress at dusk, decided to hole up in the canyon’s bottom until morning. Shortly after sunrise, they discovered the Apaches had disappeared. In the dead of night, the fierce, small band had fled by foot over the mountains, running for miles without leaving a trace. I hoped the toughness, grit, and patience of those natives would transfer to me.
“Here’s to figuring out if we can make this sanctuary work,” I said. Our glasses pinged. The red liquid held the rays of sun. Its sliding warmth matched that of the stones. “Tell me what you’re thinking, sweetheart.”
