This time of year, I want to chuck everything in the back of the pickup and head to the high country. I guess it is from the years I spent living the ranch life, because just about now is when ranches in the mountain west start bringing the cattle down from grazing leases and pastures for the winter.
It is an awesome time to ride through the aspens, or quakies as they are often called. The air is soft and cool, and the leaves make a special kind of chuckle that has no equal. Not to mention those same leaves are beautiful amber, buttercolored or shine like a gold dollar, unless it was a wet year, then they are interspersed with russet, sundown and fire-engine red.
If you’re lucky, and quiet, and the dogs are silent, you might hear an elk bugle. From far away, you might see a dusty commotion in the scrub willows along the creek bottom and know it is either a bear or a moose. Bears usually run off, but a moose, especially a young bull or a group of young bulls, will chase a horse and rider. Don’t ask how I know.
Thinking of those days reminds me of some good horses I had under me. Don’t get me wrong, there were quite a few broncy pissheads, but the good ones are easier to remember.
Joe was a favorite, although I never took him to the mountains. I rode him for 10 years and he never did learn to hold a rope. He was a big, stout red dun, and in spite of his registered name – Cottoneye Wimpy – I called him Joe. Cottoneye goes with Joe, and he was the same color as my morning coffee, thick with cream. I later learned his great granddaddy was Wimpy, whose registration number in the Quarter Horse Association was 1.
But he got old and needed expensive medical care, so I let him go to live with someone who could afford it, because I sure couldn’t.
Then there was Shorty, a small, quick black horse. I got him at auction and later found out the owners sold him because with him around, no one would ride a fresh colt. They would take the old reliable Shorty.
He was not a friendly pet, but he was cowy all day long and could put me where I needed to be to head off a cow or make fast work of sorting a pair from the bunch. He was also great to rope off of. That’s how I lost him. A friend of my husband’s called and said he needed a safe horse for his middle school daughter, who wanted to start roping. Something that would put her in the right place, fast enough, but safe. And my husband said, “Rod, I have that horse. Come get him.” What could I do?
There was Decker, a fancy Suffolk Punch cross, with the long wavy mane and tail characteristic of the breed. He wasn’t a ranch horse to start with, but he was by the time we parted ways.
There was a little Appaloosa I called Penny who was almost as sure footed as a mule and got me out of some tight places, and an 18-hand mule named Moe who packed me into Hell’s Canyon to cook at elk camp one fall.
But Elmer was my favorite, I think. He looked like nine miles of bad road when he came to us. His mane and tail were solid mats, he was thin and wormy. His teeth needed attention and he couldn’t care less. To our surprise, when we took him to the vet, we discovered he wasn’t older than dirt, as we suspected. He was less than 10 years old and broke all day long.
I rode him for several calving seasons, and he never let me down, even when a calf ran all the way under his belly, dragging the rope with it. The only time he ever got snaky was once when we were riding through a canyon full of hoodoos. Even then his only protest was picking up his pace, letting me know it was time to go somewhere else before it got dark. It was his sixth sense working. Even the cows wouldn’t stay in that canyon, despite it being full of good grass and sweet water.
I miss those fourlegged companions, and I miss the high country. Maybe one day soon I will write about some of my other adventures there.