Cowboy Boots and Nightgowns
I love horses. We used to ride horses almost every day. I was a young wife and mother living just outside of Wellington, Kansas. It was a hot dusty summer and there was not much shade in the pasture. The horses would stay in the shade of the barn during the heat of the day. They would stand first on one leg and then another resting and often leaning against the barn. Attached to the barn was a small corral. We brought the horses in each morning and night and fed them a bit of hay and grain even when there was enough food for them in the pasture. That was so I could check on them and their health, exercise and handle them and keep them from returning to their wild ways. Most of those horses had come off the range down by the Oklahoma border having not been handled until they reached the age of three. The ranchers would drive in the herd, tag all the new foals, select most of the 3 year olds and take them to auction. Having a halter put on them as they went to auction was usually the first time they had ever been touched by human hands. When you bought one you usually weren’t sure what you were getting. It took a while to get them used to being handled and talked to. Another while to teach them to trust the lump of humanity on their backs. I was fairly good at those things.
My husband worked for the railroad. He was gone sometimes two weeks at a time. It was left up to me to run the ranch and take care of our six-year-old daughter. My daughter really liked horses. She had a Shetland pony named Julie and a white gelding named Spook. Spook was gentle as he could possibly be. He would let her do just about anything and was very careful not to step on her when she was climbing under him. She rode him in parades and around the 4 mile circuit we used for exercise. My husband’s horse was another white one named Joker. Spook and Joker were both from the range. Joker was a stallion and what I called a man’s horse. He seemed to know when a woman or kid was on his back. He would really dumb down when a kid was riding and just plod along like he was about 100 years old. He’d rather have a man to ride him. He didn’t care much for women and would act out if he thought he could get away with it. My mom came to visit once and she showed him who was boss right to start the day. They came to an understanding and whenever she wanted he gave her a wonderful ride. In fact he seemed to enjoy it. Each day while she was there he would come to the pasture fence to say hello to her. Only woman he ever did like as far as I ever knew.
Almost every day we would select the horses that needed exercise and ride a 4 mile circuit. It was a mile to each road and we went the square. I had a quarter horse named Babe who could stop on a dime and give you 9 cents change. She had a foal by her side. I often rode one of the boarded horses and led Babe and her foal down to the neighbors at the end of the first mile. Where either the wife or one of the kids would climb up on Babe and finish the ride with us. The board horse that really needed the exercise was a horse named Ribbon. She was an overweight bay colored Morgan mare with a white diamond blaze beneath her forelock. She stood about 16 to 17 hands high. There is an old saying “one white sock buy them, two white socks try them, three white socks shy away, four white socks turn them away. She had 3 white socks. She was very independent and she had a tendency to be lazy. She could really go the distance when she wanted to but she didn’t always want to. Ribbon had a sister that was the same height and color as she. Her name was Blaze. Blaze was quite a bit trimmer than Ribbon. It was about the only way to tell them apart. Blaze had a sweet temperament and would usually run along side Ribbon and me. I often did not even need a lead rope for her.
Lesa’s pony must have been related in the way back “greats” to Ribbon because she too only did what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it. When she was tired she would lay down and it didn’t matter if someone was on her back or not. When she didn’t want to walk she would walk over into the ditch and stop. Lesa was the only one who could get her to mind and that wasn’t often especially if Lesa was riding Spook. The pony would become jealous and give us a hard time but we did not leave her home because she would break down the gate and come after us anyways. It was easier to deal with her hard times and temper tantrums then it was to repair the gate. Eventually we would leave her standing in the ditch beside the road and go on ahead. When she realized we were not coming back she would run and catch up with us like a petulant child.
Animals have internal clocks and horses are no exception. In the early evening all the horses would come up for grain and hay and attention. After they had all received the attention they needed, most of the horses would go out through the gate to the large pasture. That was the one gate on the ranch that stayed open. The only reason that gate was ever closed was to keep a horse in for a vet check or a visit from their owners or because a storm was brewing. Tornados in that part of Kansas were not unheard of and along with them usually came thunder and lightning storms.
The fenced pasture covered close to 200 acres. There were two ponds in the pasture and the horses would gather around the ponds in the early morning and the late evening. They would gather around the small pond first. It was closest and it was fed by a spring so it was cool water. The mothers with foals usually stayed between the small pond and the paddock.
The large pond was further away and often wild animals came to drink from it. There were many wild animals in the area. There were wild dogs, coyotes, foxes, birds of all varieties, sometimes deer and always snakes. Most of the snakes in the area were rattlesnakes. Once in a while you would see Garter snakes or Eastern racers but mostly you would see rattlesnakes.
In the heat of the summer, schedules change and animals that usually move around and do things during the day become night creatures. It was a summer of very hot dry days and this particular day it had reached 105° in the shade by the house. We spent the afternoon resting and playing games in the house where it was a tiny bit cooler. We fed the horses and ate supper and Lesa went to sleep early. I am not one to sleep long at any one stretch. Mostly I get about four hours of sleep a night. It had cooled off considerably and I decided to take my usual nightly walk and check on the horses. That was when I learned the value of boots. I stood on the porch for a while in my nightgown letting the breeze cool me. I could hear the horses milling around coming back from the pond talking to each other rubbing each other’s backs and doing horse things. I went to the small corral where some of the horses were gathering around the hay and climbed up on the fence. I let my feet dangle over and rested there for a while. The moon was full and the stars were filling the sky as only the stars in Kansas can. I watched a shooting star and said money, money, money like mom had taught me. She always said it was good luck.
A couple of the horses came over and nudged me looking for the treats I usually brought with me. I climbed down from the fence and walked with the horses in the corral. Manes needed scratching and noses needed rubbing and backs needed itching and everyone needed a treat. Suddenly I felt something under my barefoot that sent a chill through me much colder than any breeze could produce. Without thinking I leapt from the ground to Ribbons back. Of all the horses to surprise like that, Ribbon was the most unlikely. She started to jump sideways. I wrapped my legs around her belly and calmed her down with my voice. I tightened my hands in her mane and nudged her forward towards the corral fence. When we were close enough to the fence, I jumped from her back and climbed up on the fence. I looked over to where I had stepped and there on the ground was a large rattlesnake. He had coiled up and raised his tail but had not given the warning.
Horses won’t step on something if they can avoid it and the other horses had instinctively moved away. They seemed to understand that the snake just wanted to moon himself.
I sat on the fence and watched for a while as he stretched his body out again across the pasture and slowly made his way under the fence and out into the dry grass. I think he was as shaken as I was.
I am not afraid of snakes unless they startle me and that one sure did. My grandma was terrified of snakes and always said “the only good snake is a dead snake” and to her even the tiniest garden snakes were all deadly rattlers. I guess a healthy fear of deadly snakes is not a bad thing.
Animals will teach you many lessons if you pay attention to them and that was one I didn’t need to learn twice. I never again went about the ranch without my boots day or night.
lphillipstales 