Chasing a Dream: A Horseman's Memoir Page 18

  While I was in the central part of the state attending a horse clinic with Tara, the concrete trucks rolled into the ranch without warning carrying two hundred thousand pounds of concrete. The Idaho crew poured the footings and then returned home for the weekend. The temperature dropped below zero and blizzard conditions set in, putting our foundation in jeopardy of freezing and crumbling. The heavy insulation covers on the concrete were soon blowing away, and Jane, bundled from head to toe, rushed out squinting and leaning into the wind to try to drag the covers back in place. She couldn’t do it. Finally, with help from a neighbor the two of them managed to reset the covers and keep the heaters running all weekend.

  The snowfall began to pile up. When we asked the contractor about the schedule, we learned he had forgotten to order the steel. I asked, “Does this mean we can choose a different color?” Using my new found information we appealed to the planners, and though they didn’t like the idea, they acknowledged that the provision was clear. After a long hesitation they agreed to the color red.

  In mid-December, Peter, who by then was a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, called Jane. “I have a bad stomachache, a dull pain that won’t go away.”

  “I think you should visit student health services to have it looked at and make sure it’s not something serious like appendicitis.”

  The doctors at the infirmary told Peter their initial tests were inconclusive—he may have the flu or appendicitis, but they couldn’t say for sure. It might be something as insignificant as indigestion or gas. The attending doctor sent Peter home with instructions to get plenty of liquids and return the following day if the pain hadn’t improved.

  Peter called back at around six in the morning. “I’m really hurting. I’m at the hospital in the waiting room. I tried to make it back to the infirmary but I could hardly walk. A security guard drove me to the hospital.”

  Peter waited a long time. His vomiting finally convinced the staff to shuffle him into the exam area.

  He called us again. “I’m waiting to go into surgery,” he said.

  We sat by the phone until afternoon when a surgeon called to tell us Peter’s appendix had ruptured. We booked a flight for Jane. Luke, who had graduated from Harvard, left work in New York City to stay with Peter.

  When Jane arrived Peter was pale and groggy from painkillers. She phoned me to say something didn’t seem right. She was worried. Would I pray for Peter?

  When Peter’s drain tube needed to come out, the nurse tugged on it and Peter, who had always been a tough kid, screamed in pain.

  “It’s okay,” the nurse said. “It’s supposed to hurt a little when it’s removed. You’ll be all right.” She continued to pull but the tube wouldn’t come out. She finally realized it had been sutured to Peter’s stomach lining. He was rushed back into surgery.

  He stayed in surgery until that evening. When Jane inquired about his condition, they found him where he had been for a long time—in the recovery room, unattended. They had forgotten about him. Jane, who is very steady and slow to anger, turned into a mama bear.

  I tried to help as best I could from a distance while tending the ranch and keeping the barn project moving forward. Peter began to eat a little and his energy increased. The doctor told Jane that if she would agree to change his dressings, he would release Peter to fly home. She called and said, “I’d rather take my chances in Jackson than in this hospital. If we can get on a plane, we’re coming home.”

  Late the following evening, their plane landed in Jackson. Pale, weak, and hunched over, he hobbled down the aircraft stairs and took tiny steps to make his way across the icy tarmac and into the terminal. Like a movie screen, my mind flashed back through all the challenges Peter had faced with the severe scoliosis that had required Jane and me to strap him into a plastic body cast every night for years. When he was a junior in high school; serious spine surgery left him with a foot-long rod in his back. Through it all he had, while studying from home, maintained a 4.0 grade average and met the requirements for acceptance to the University of Pennsylvania. As I watched him make his way across the tarmac, a wave of pride and gratefulness rolled over me.

  Grant and Jane enjoy some time with their family outside their home in Moran, Wyoming. From left to right Peter, Tara, Grant, Jane and Luke.

  Peter’s scare helped Jane and me realize that though we were a blended family, we were a family just the same. We reveled in our time with him. Jane carefully changed his dressings daily. At Christmas, Luke flew home to be with all of us. We hugged and laughed. That Christmas was one of the best our family ever shared.

  The new year arrived, but construction on the barn had not started. Our contractor’s wife came down with a rare colon disease that nearly killed her, the foreman’s house caught on fire, and the company’s structural engineer was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It seemed as if our project was not supposed to come to fruition.

  Luke called to share a dream he had had: Tornadoes were touching down all over the property and wreaking havoc. This is exactly how the situation felt to us—like an unseen force had been opposing us the entire way. We were in an invisible storm. Although we felt terrible about all the misfortunes our construction people were experiencing, we realized that at this rate the barn would not be completed by spring. This would be a disaster for our business because we needed the building to continue our corporate demos. We needed to press on.

  In mid-January we hired a project manager to drive the project forward. The added expense was a huge burden but a necessity. By the end of January the steel arrived, and by early February the first beams were erected. The building was rising before our eyes, just as I had first imagined it.

  The fire marshal then informed us that to meet the fire codes we needed the capacity to pump one thousand gallons of water per minute for two hours. This would be a massive new expense. In early May we dug an underground pump house and reservoir large enough to meet the requirements. Our remaining money was draining through our hands like water. Is it really worth it? I often wondered. We could have retired with the money from the property sale, and enjoyed our lives. Why is it so important to have this facility? Why do I feel such a drive to help people? Why are we running into so much trouble? I couldn’t answer any of these questions. I just knew in my heart that building the barn was something we had to do. We only hoped that somehow it would pay off.

  By late May the barn was finished: nearly fourteen thousand square feet. A massive wall of windows at one end revealed magnificent views of the Teton Range, along with green meadows full of grazing cattle and horses. Inside we had a round corral for my demonstrations, a seating area around it, and a huge open area large enough for dinners and dances. All we lacked was the final inspection and our occupancy permit. We would be in the barn just in time to host our first summer groups in June. We were wild with excitement.

  Then, a water pump died and caused a flood in the pump house, which delayed our inspection. By the time we made the repairs, the county’s only inspector had left for two weeks of vacation. Our gleaming new facility, which had doubled in cost, was ready, but we had to drag out the old tent and grunt and groan to erect it in front of the new barn.

  Though the struggle had been difficult, it had deepened Jane’s and my relationship even further. We were strong. We had come to understand the power of agreement, that whatever decisions we made, as long as we made them together, we would accept the consequences and rewards together. We were also very proud of Tara, who had graduated from Jackson Hole High School and had been accepted into the equine studies program at Delaware Valley College in Pennsylvania.

  Dad was thrilled that we had finished our dream barn and had not lost the ranch doing it. He planned a trip to drive up with Mom to see it, but they never made it. Dad was stricken with a heart valve infection, and Mom’s kidneys began to fail. She died, and Dad, who had often said he could never live without her, died only seven weeks later. They had been married for fifty-three
years.

  36

  MORAN, WYOMING, 2004

  By mid-June we were finally hosting groups in our new facility and realizing the advantages of working in a permanent structure. We were no longer a temporary business but were committed to the future. We had gambled everything to drive our flag deep. We booked corporations as well as large banks, health care groups, and organizations like the American Bar Association and the Federal Reserve. I felt happy to have found our niche, and I delighted in the work. More than ever though, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, that I needed to work harder to spread the message. I wanted the whole world to discover what we had learned from the horses.

  Considering our corporate guests, I often asked myself, Who am I with only a high school education to work with such people? What do I have to offer them? I had to constantly remind myself that I was only using the platform I had been given to share the lessons horses had taught me. I believed the message wasn’t mine; it was the horses’. I was simply a voice for them.

  We continued to pasture a few cattle and buy, train, and sell horses. They continued to teach me fresh lessons to pass on to our groups. One of the most difficult came from a horse named Little Joe. I had named him after one of my favorite songs Locke used to sing, “Little Joe the Wrangler,” a tune about a poor young cowboy who died in a cattle stampede trying to save the herd.

  LITTLE JOE

  We bought this handsome gelding from the neighboring ranch. I had started his mother who had tremendous athletic ability, so when I heard that she had a colt; I set my sights on him. He was a light sorrel with big, kind eyes and a well-shaped head with a large white blaze down his face. From the beginning he was gentle and friendly.

  Like his mother, Little Joe was easy to start, and his training came along nicely. He was one of those horses that just naturally centered up underneath you and quickly learned his boundaries. He was sensitive and soon became very soft in the bit and had a comfortable, easy stride. Unlike many horses he possessed both talent and willingness. He had a bright future ahead, and he grew on me.

  One day while I rode Little Joe in the arena, he suddenly jumped straight in the air as if he had stepped on a rattlesnake. The surprise caught me off guard and I rode him around in circles looking at the ground and trying to figure out what had spooked him. Nothing. His reaction was at odds with his quiet disposition.

  I dismissed it as an anomaly and didn’t think about it again until a couple of weeks later when I rode him across the ranch and crossed the Buffalo Fork River and up valley to the neighboring ranch where he had been born.

  Returning home, I decided to ride up a steep ridge to give Little Joe some experience climbing. Little Joe was willing, leaned uphill and climbed to an outcropping that overlook much of Buffalo Valley. The river meandered through willowed meadows and snowcapped peaks rose in the distance. The sun felt warm on my face. I thought, Life doesn’t get much better than this. I was riding one of my favorite horses in one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes.

  The sun made me drowsy, so I unsaddled Little Joe and hobbled him and let him feed on the mountain grass. I fell asleep to the sound of his munching and the smell of wildflowers.

  I awoke refreshed, rubbed the dried sweat from Little Joe’s back, re-saddled him, and rode down the steep grade. He was doing so well shuffling his hind feet underneath and naturally collecting himself down the rocky hillside. At the bottom we rode along through the sagebrush and the occasional aspen grove. Suddenly Joe sprang straight in the air as he had in the arena. The jolt unseated me and sent my hat flying.

  While grabbing leather and scrambling to right myself I thought about the previous episode. I screamed at Joe, “Hey, that’s enough. I’m not going to put up with that.” He needed to know such behavior would bring an immediate consequence, so I spun him around and spurred him back up the mountain. Once on top, I galloped him hard in a big circle.

  We trotted back down to where I had lost my hat. He was moving a bit stiffly. As I stepped off to pick up my hat I saw a basketball-size wad of Joe’s intestines hanging between his hind legs. What in the world? I thought. But there was no time for speculation. He needed to get home where I could call the vet.

  We still needed to cross the Buffalo Fork, which was running hard and deep. It was too deep for me to ford on foot so I rode him across and then dismounted and led him home. Sick to my stomach, I knew that it was only a matter of time before he died. He must have stepped on a branch that flipped up and punctured his abdomen. I chided myself for assuming his reaction had been misbehavior. I am so stupid. I can’t believe I did that. If I had discovered the injury earlier I might have been able to prevent his intestines from coming out. Walking as fast as possible, I broke down and sobbed. Over and over I said, “I’m sorry Joe. I’m so sorry.”

  The pain made him want to lie down and roll, so I led him to the lush grass in front of the barn. I hoped that somehow we could push his intestines back in and stitch him up, but over the phone the vet said there was no need for him to come. He could do nothing. “Put him out of his misery,” he said.

  By the time I hung up, Joe was lying down and going into shock. I called Jane at the house. “Bring my pistol,” I said. Crying, I knelt down next to Little Joe. “Goodbye, Little Joe. I’m so sorry.”

  Jane drove up and looked at Joe, shocked. She handed me my pistol. I pointed it at his forehead, cocked the hammer, winced, and fired.

  Though the stick puncturing him had not been my fault, for a long time I wallowed in the regret of knowing my assumption of misbehavior may have killed my great colt Little Joe. The pain made me less likely to judge horse or person without first looking for a root cause.

  37

  MORAN, WYOMING, 2006

  BRAVEHEART

  The hurtful lessons usually taught me the most. I received a call from Helga, a woman who had purchased a buckskin gelding from me while I was working at the Diamond D Cattle Company in Dubois. Helga told me how much she loved him. What a special horse he had been. Now he was retiring, and she had just bought a new horse. “He has some real fear issues,” she said.

  We went to look at him. He was massive—about fifteen hundred pounds, and tall, about seventeen hands, coal black in color with a white blaze on his face and big hazel eyes that stared at us distrustfully. “He’s half Thoroughbred and half draft horse,” Helga said. His body type resembled a horse that would pull a Budweiser wagon.

  Helga said he had been born in Canada on a farm that collected the urine of pregnant mares to make Premarin, a hormone replacement product. Colts in these types of operations were an unwanted byproduct, and were weaned at a young age and sold cheap.

  Many of these babies ended up in the United States where their heavy frames and large size made them excellent mountain or fox-hunting horses. A person could buy one for next to nothing.

  We didn’t know the history of this horse, but when I stepped into the round pen the big five-year-old snorted hard, raised his tail, and galloped frantically around the corral looking for a way to escape. He was athletic for his size and could change directions and be gone in a flash. The slightest noise or movement set him off. This one could be a challenge, I thought.

  After thirty minutes of working him, I finally got him to stand still long enough for me to touch his neck. His eyes were wide with fright. Helga said, “I saw a club in the breaking corral where I bought him. He’s supposed to have been ridden, but no one was willing to show me.”

  “He acts like he’s been beaten,” I said. “The question is, will he get over it?” Once abused, some horses never forget. If I couldn’t fix him, his future was bleak. The big black horse snorted again and trotted around the corral, extending his long legs out in front of him before gracefully touching his feet to the ground. “What a beautiful mover,” I said, “He looks like he could make a fancy dressage horse.”

  “I was hoping I could make a good jumper out of him and sell him back east,” Helga replied.

>   “Well, he certainly looks the part, but training him could be difficult being he’s this old and hasn’t been handled much.” I thought about it for a minute. “Okay. Bring him to my place and we’ll see what happens.”

  I knew this horse would make a fascinating subject for my horse demonstrations. Sure enough, people took to him immediately. During the first demo someone asked, “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know if he has one. What do you suggest?”

  Someone hollered, “Spook,” and everyone laughed.

  “Spook defines him for what he is now. Let’s give him a name that fits what we want him to become.” He reminded me of the big horse that Mel Gibson rode in one of my favorite movies, Braveheart. “How about Braveheart?” I asked. “He’s going to have to find a brave heart.”

  Everyone nodded. Perfect.

  Fortunately Braveheart was not a bucker. With his size, power, and athletic ability he would have been nearly impossible to ride. After several days of groundwork I was able to ride him in my fifty-foot round pen without him bolting. He was still very nervous about me on his back, but I felt it was time to move outside into my hundred-and-sixty-foot round pen. I hoped the larger space would allow him to run out more of his anxiety.

  At first he bolted at the slightest noise or movement. I couldn’t even spit without him becoming tense. Normally this kind of skittishness didn’t bother me, but this horse was big and powerful and full of fear. He was like a bomb ready to explode. If I picked up any object, like a manure fork or shovel, he’d let out a deep groan as if he thought he was dying. The slightest mistake could end in disaster. If I could just get him moving freely in the big round pen, he might begin to relax.

  The first ride in the big pen was one of the wildest and scariest rides I’d ever had on a horse. He was like the filly that had run away with me at the Diamond D. I was a passenger only, unable to shift or lean or move the slightest bit without frightening him more. My biggest concern was him falling and rolling on me at speed. If I can survive the first few laps, I thought, he should slow down enough for me to be out of danger. I had to trust that the freedom I was giving him would help him realize that running off was not a solution.