A couple people told me to blog while I was out here so here goes. I've been at Medicine Bow Lodge for about a week and let me state the obvious, Wyoming is so different from back home. There's snow capped mountains everywhere. When I got here there wasn't a ton of snow on the ground, maybe an inch. But the drifts were ten feet tall around the lodge and two and three feet deep around my cabin. Never seen anything like this in May.
Rebel immediately loved it out here. He's made best friend's with my boss's Australlian Sheperd, Roper. He gets to run around all day and is allowed inside as much as he wants, so long as he's not in the dining room or kitchen. It's funny b/c he'll walk a few steps into the dining room and I'll say, "Back up." He'll take one step back and stop. I'll say it again. He'll take another step back and stop. And it will go on like that until he is finally out of the dining room. He is catching on very well. Doesn't bark around the horses nearly as much as the other dogs.
On the horse note, I was starting to get discouraged because I had been out here for a week and hadn't been able to ride cause of the snow, which leads me to my story and the reason for my first blog, I suppose. I woke up this morning and realized it was John Wayne's birthday. As all of you know, I'm a John Wayne fanatic. So of course I was sitting in my cabin, getting ready for the day (it was my turn to cook breakfast for everybody.) and just thinking about the Duke.
Well we get to breakfast and my boss, Tim Bishop, about six four, maybe 180 pounds, a gray goatee, squinty eyes, the last real cowboy, says, "We're gonna ride horses today." Naturally I was eager to get on a horse b/c that's gonna be my job and that's why I'm out here. But I haven't been on a horse since I was about six. I was pretty nervous and actually went into my cabin and prayed before we went out to ride. I kept saying to myself, "This one's for the Duke, this one's for the Duke." Yeah...I'm cool.
It was just me and Tim taking a couple of the horses out first. He asked for volunteers and I was ready to get it over with. We sat there brushing them down before we put the saddles on them. I could already tell they were spooked and it didn't help when Tim told me they were dumber than dogs. I looked over at Rebel eating horse crap and thought, "Good, good." (Not to mention that hadn't been ridden all winter).
Tim showed me how to saddle them up. I found out I was going to be riding a horse named Speedy. Not good, I know. Speedy is brown with a white patch on his forehead. I started talking to him b/c I generally talk to animals anyway and Tim said it was a good idea. Tim's a tough old hombre, but great with people and horses. When I got on, he made me mount up off of a little wooden stand since I've never ridden. I kind of felt like a sissy, but figured it was for the best.
Once I was on the horse, Tim led it around for a minute. He could tell I was uncomfortable. I'm sure some of y'all ride horses all the time but I don't. It was holding on to the horn for dear life. You feel so unstable up there, it's like you can sway off at any second. Tim stopped the horse and looked up at me. "Be calm," he said kindly, "You're tight right now. I need you to loosen up." (Go on Nathan, have a field day). For some reason, it clicked at that moment. He was right. I relaxed myself and let the horse walk around. You just kind of have to move with the horses' body. It's actually not that hard to guide them. It's a lot like driving a car. If you wanna go right, you just barely pull the reigns to the right and so on. Anyway, I'm sure y'all know that.
So me and Tim went off into the fields at a trot, pretty slow. Of course Rebel and the three other dogs around here decided to tag along, which made me uneasy. But I actually felt right at home on the horse. Tim was talking me through things as we went. Then all the sudden it happened...
Speedy starts bucking. Again, I'm sure some of y'all are accustomed to that. I am not. I thought I was coming off for sure. I grabbed hold of that horn and pulled back the reigns just like I'd seen the Duke do. Turns out having watched all the westerns helps out after all. I managed to calm Speedy back down and patted him on the neck. Tim looked back and smiled and said genuinely, "You survived your first bucking on John Wayne's birthday. Pretty cool." I smiled ear to ear.
We kept going and came to a creek. I wasn't so sure about the water, especially with Rebel and the other dogs diving in, swimming around, barking, the whole nine yards. But the crossing turned out fine. The horses kind of slipped around on the rocks, but found their footing. The terrain is like a different planet, smooth round stones and sage brush lined the trail alongside us. I thought how bad it would be to fall right there. It was almost inevitable that you would be thrown on rocks. Just yesterday I dug a rock out of the ground that outweighed me by a good two hundred pounds I bet. (What's impressive, and makes me feel ashamed, is that Tim, fifty-one years old, lanky as a pine needle, rolled that rock out of the hole with his chest and arms when the chain hitched up to the truck kept sliding off. (Get to play in the dirt a lot around here)). I later found out that we didn't need to dig that hole afterall and had to fill it back up. Fun. But I digress...
Anyway we came pretty much to the end of their fences and turned to head back. Me and Tim were just riding along and chatting when Speedy decided he did not want me on his back anymore. I've been in some car wrecks, and several other occasions where I thought I was gonna die. This was just about as scary as any of those. Speedy went from a gentle trot to braying and running. It jolted me initially. And there were 'speeding' along (drum roll).
Tim was thirty or forty feet away yelling at me, "Pull back on his reigns, pull back!" I was probably ghost white, one hand on the horn of the saddle, the other clenched to those reigns for dear life (at least that's how I felt). I looked down and noticed by right boot had slipped out of the stirup. I was unbalanced on a runaway horse that hadn't been ridden in a few months, my first time out. So Tim's yelling, I'm sliding off, and the horse is running (probably not at full speed but it felt like it). This was one of those slow motion moments. I was positive I was going to fall.
I looked over to my left and all I could see was a field of rocks. There was no good place to land. If I fell, I was probably gonna break something. So I look back up and decide to pull on the reigns as hard as I can. Tim is stilling yelling for me to. And I do. I tugged that horse to a deadstop. He sat there grunting and stomping and shaking his head for a few minutes. I slid my foot back into the stirup and let out a sigh of relief. We stopped dead short of a patch of tall brush and little trees, which probably would have knocked me off for sure. My heart was racing faster than his hooves had been.
Tim rode up and asked if I was okay. I nodded. The rest of the ride back was fairly uneventful. The dogs started barking at the horses towards the end. Tim threatened to kill them, as he always jokingly does. Speedy was kind of uncomfortable the rest of the way back. He kept snorting and grunting and trying to get some more slack on the reigns. I gave him some but not much. We got back and dismounted and unsaddled the horses.
As we were walking back towards the main lodge for lunch, Tim walked up alongside me and said matter-of-factly. "You got bucked around and nearly had the horse run out from under you, but you held on, and never started yelling or panicking. You're a real cowboy." I know I've still got a lot to learn. And I'm sure I'll get thrown off the horses plenty of times before summers out. But today all I can do is look heavenwards and say, "That one was for the Duke."
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