Chasing a Dream: A Horseman's Memoir Read online

Grant with an orphan antelope he found near Buckskin Crossing.

  We found a small table in the corner, ordered drinks, and made our way to the dance floor. I had become a pretty good western swing dancer, so I spun her every which way, but Locke matched my every move—and more. We swung our way through the night until the bar closed at two a.m. I was certain that this girl was my soul mate.

  To put miles on my young horses, after work I would trot a colt the seven miles down the Oregon Trail to Buckskin Crossing. Locke’s old cabin had been a stage stop on the trail. Someone had tried to update it by plastering white stucco on the outside of the logs. It offered no running water or electricity, but included an old log barn that Locke used as a tack room. The stage line’s log mail house had been turned into a two-holer outhouse. An old white ceramic bucket hung from a pulley at the well, which had been dug by hand. Best of all, the place included a solid set of corrals, which housed five beautiful Thoroughbreds. Louis L’ Amour couldn’t have imagined such a perfect setting.

  We spent many an evening sitting at Locke’s kitchen table talking and warming ourselves by the old Majestic iron cook stove. Locke would light the propane lantern on the wall, strum her guitar, and sing my favorite cowboy songs: “Whispering Pines,” “Little Joe the Wrangler,” and others. Her beautiful voice stole my heart.

  From our conversations I learned that Locke was the daughter of a third-generation doctor from a prominent family near Philadelphia. What is this eastern girl doing in such a remote place in Wyoming? I wondered. Turns out she was nursing wounds from a broken relationship. The old cow camp was a good place for her to hide out with her dog Trapper.

  One morning Trapper disappeared; Locke ranted on and on. “Those damn sage grouse hunters probably shot my dog,” she said. We were about to go searching for Trapper when he came jogging across the meadow with something flopping in his mouth. He trotted up wagging his stumpy tail and proudly displayed a plate-size pancake the grouse hunters had given him at their camp.

  12

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, 1979

  After the summer season on the Big Sandy, and eager to avoid the Wyoming winter, I followed Locke to San Antonio, Texas where she had a job working for Harold Barry, a well-known horseman and polo player. The United States Polo Association (USPA) rates players according to their ability on a scale of goals from minus one to ten. A ten-goal handicap was the highest handicap a player could achieve. Fewer than ten percent of all players ever rise above three goals. Harold had maintained a nine-goal rating for fifteen years. Rumor had it that Harold, a true Texas cowboy, would have reached the top ten-goal rating had he not chewed tobacco in the presence of the Queen of England.

  Locke’s connections helped me land a job riding colts for a Texas horse trainer named Billy Wayman, whose son Tommy was one of the top polo players in the country and one of the best horseman in the industry. I thought, This sounds like fun, another new adventure. I wouldn’t be cowboying, but at least I’d be riding horses for a living.

  I loved my new job and the warm Texas sun. My first task was to break a bunch of colts, and it wasn’t long before I was riding them in an English saddle and knocking a polo ball around. The next step was to ride the young horses in training games, and soon I was hooked on the game of polo. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to have so much fun. Little did I know I was headed down the path to a new career.

  BEEBEE

  All the colts I had started made good progress except one, a big sorrel Thoroughbred gelding named BeeBee who had lots of speed and stamina and was a very good mover. BeeBee was a bad bucker. The first time I rode him he bucked blindly, heading straight for the front end of a gooseneck horse trailer. I thought he was going to buck right underneath the nose and crush me, and at the last moment I slammed my hand against the sheet metal of the nose cone, which made a loud noise and caused BeeBee to spin back and buck out over open ground.

  BeeBee bucked every time I rode him. One day Billy walked out holding a hackamore, a contraption combining a bit with a piece of rebar that would clamp down on his nose.” Billy said, “When he goes to bucking, jerk on the reins as hard as you can.”

  Reacting to the pain, the horse put everything he had into his bucking. Finally he came to a standstill, white with lather, legs trembling, nostrils flaring to take in more air. The ribs of the metal rebar had cut an indention into his nose, leaving ribbons of blood dripping down.

  From then on BeeBee seemed to buck harder each time I rode him. One day Billy said, “It’s not worth it, Grant. We’ll just get rid of him. You can have him if you want him.”

  Without thinking through the consequences, I said, “Sure.” I believed that after a summer in Wyoming and enough wet saddle blankets, BeeBee would turn the corner. What do I have to lose? I thought. Can’t go wrong with a free horse.

  The following spring we sold our horses for a good price and headed back to Wyoming in Locke’s 1974 pickup pulling a twenty-four foot gooseneck horse trailer loaded with three horses I would train over the summer. During the long drive home the conversation turned to Locke’s and my future. I said, “This living together isn’t right, Locke. I wasn’t raised that way. We need to either break up or get hitched.”

  We agreed that we loved each other and that we were pretty good partners, and in spite of our troubles we had become best friends. We enjoyed being in the horse business and experiencing life’s adventures together. I thought, There are things about her that bother me, but the good outweighs the bad. And besides, I think I can help her change.

  When we were nearing Pinedale, Wyoming, the snowcapped Wind River Mountains gradually rose up out of the high desert. Suddenly, Locke hit the brakes and pulled off into a turnout. Now what, another flat tire? I wondered. We’re almost home. As I pulled in behind her, she sprang out of her truck and ran wildly toward me like she often had when something had upset her. I jumped out to see what was wrong and she grabbed me by the arms, drew me out of the truck, and began dancing me round and round. “Isn’t it great to be back in Wyoming?” she asked. “Can you smell the sagebrush? Isn’t it wonderful? I’m so happy.” Her smile covered her entire face, and we danced.

  Our return to the cabin at Buckskin Crossing brought new energy to our relationship. We were now pursuing our dream of training horses together. I took in outside horses to train and helped Locke with her polo mounts.

  But from the outset Locke’s parents were against the idea of our marrying. Her dad wrote us a long letter explaining why he believed it was a bad idea. He said our backgrounds were too different; his daughter came from a distinguished eastern family, while I came from the west and the lower-middle class; and his daughter had a very strong will and would be a difficult partner. He knew her well, he said, and was trying to spare us both the heartache of a bad marriage. Locke was furious about the letter, and I felt insulted.

  BeeBee and I continued to work. One day while I rode him upriver to check on some cattle, Locke and I tried to cross the Big Sandy while it was running at spring flood stage. I couldn’t see the bottom through the murky water, and against my better judgment I spurred BeeBee into the rushing river. Immediately he sank down over his head. Panicked, he turned back and swam with all his might to the shore. He clawed his way back up the bank, paused for a few seconds to get his air, and without warning he sprang loose, bucking furiously up the side of a steep hill overlooking the river. Then he leaped. We smacked the water and went under. When we surfaced I kicked free from the saddle and the current swept us together downstream. I swam hard, but my leather chaps soaked through and my boots filled with water and dragged me down. Minus my old Stetson, I swam hard until I reached the bank. BeeBee floated downriver, my hat alongside him. Waterlogged and numb from the cold, I stumbled along the bank giving chase.

  BeeBee reached the bank but a line of thick willows prevented him from climbing out. He kept treading water, holding his nose just above the surface. I had no idea how I would retrieve my saddle from a drowned hors
e.

  I pushed my way through the willows, hoping he might find a better exit point downstream, I put my foot on his head and shoved him back into the current. Through chattering teeth I yelled, “Locke, ride downstream and keep an eye on that colt!”

  BeeBee found a place to climb out, but my hat floated away. For comfort, he mothered up to Locke’s horse. Wet as a frog, he shivered hard. I pulled off my chaps and dumped the water out of my boots. The wind had come up. I was shivering. I trudged hatless toward the cabin leading BeeBee and cursing my judgment.

  Locke got a fire going in the cook stove. Teeth chattering and wrapped in a towel, I huddled close. Who knew the heat from a stove could feel so good?

  Locke looked frightened. “That was really scary, Grant. I nearly lost my pard today. I think you better get rid of that horse before he kills you.”

  I laughed it off. “Yeah, scared me, too. I can’t believe he bucked up that bank, and then jumped back into the river again. Crazy!”

  Not willing to give up on him, I rode BeeBee all summer. Although he improved, he never got over his panic and unpredictability. We finally decided to dump him at a local auction. Ignorance had cost me money and time, but at least I hadn’t lost my life.

  13

  BUCKSKIN CROSSING, WYOMING, 1980

  That July, we married at the tiny log Episcopal Church in Dubois, Wyoming. Locke looked gorgeous in her grandmother’s wedding dress. I felt lucky to be marrying such an elegant woman who was an excellent hand with horses and a good fit for my lifestyle. We had a reception party at her parents’ vacation home on the East Fork River, ten miles east of Dubois.

  Not long after our wedding Locke was in the meadow at Buckskin Crossing riding Smarty Pants, a pretty little bay mare who was tough-minded and quick as a cat. I was schooling another horse. Locke was trying to get Smarty Pants to respond to leg pressure, and the little mare resisted by throwing a fit and leaping in the air. Smarty Pants lost her footing and landed on her side and Locke’s leg. Locke screamed. Smarty Pants jumped up and ran off leaving Locke lying in the grass. I galloped over and jumped off. “Are you okay?”

  Locke winced. Her boot was twisted at an odd angle. “Damn it!” she cursed, “Damn it! I think my ankle is broken.” I hooked my arm under her shoulder and with my other hand, led my horse while Locke hopped on one leg back to the house.

  I pulled off her boot, and about a pint of blood sloshed out. The force of the fall had caused the metal stirrup from her English saddle to cut through her boot and into her leg, breaking her ankle and tearing ligaments.

  She needed to get to the town doctor fast, but it was an hour’s drive away and Locke would not go until I caught the horses, put them away properly, and finished all the chores. We had no ice to slow the swelling. She was trying to be tough, but the color had drained from her face and she was grimacing from the pain.

  I put her in the pickup and drove like a madman down the dirt road towards Pinedale, reaching eighty miles an hour on the straightaways, a cloud of dust billowing behind. We finally arrived at the doctor’s office. With little more than a glance at her ankle, he packed it with ice, gave pain medication, and waved us on to St. John’s hospital in Jackson Hole, another hour and a half away.

  We spent the night at St. John’s, and the next morning a surgeon repaired her compound fracture. Afterward he emphasized the seriousness of the break and the ligament damage. He turned to Locke. “You’ll be lucky if you ever walk normally again.”

  The daughter of a doctor, Locke was not intimidated. She looked hard at the surgeon. “By God, I will, too, walk normally. You just watch.”

  Handicapped by a huge plaster cast that summer, Locke turned into a grizzly bear. She growled at everyone, especially me. She hated that she had to watch while I rode her horses.

  Grant felt lucky to have found a perfect match in Locke and they married in July of 1980 at the Episcopal Church in the small Wyoming town of Dubios.

  Dad and Mom drove up from Colorado to tend our chores while I drove to Texas to return the horses I had been hired to ride. My mom Jeanne, who had always been diminutive, soft-spoken, and kind, did her best to help around the house and prepare meals. But she was not prepared for Locke’s sudden outbursts, her barking orders and cursing. My dad, Joe, tried to stay out of the way by tending the livestock. After a couple of days Locke informed my folks that she didn’t need their help, and ordered them off the property. Hurt and dejected, Mom and Dad packed up and drove home.

  When I returned Locke was hobbling around doing the chores herself. “Where are my folks?” I asked.

  “Your parents are nothing but common white trash. I have no use for them. I told them to go home.”

  I’d always been taught the philosophy, “If you love me you love my family.” I felt deeply wounded.

  Later in the summer a scratching noise underneath our bed awakened us in the middle of the night. “Grant, wake up.” Locke was poking me in the ribs. “What’s that noise?”

  Wiping my eyes, I sat up. “Probably some kind of varmint.”

  “Get your gun and look under the bed.”

  I reached for a flashlight and my .22 Ruger that hung from the bedpost. Ready to blast away, I leaned down to look. “There’s nothing there,” I said. “Must be your imagination.”

  Locke’s eyes narrowed. “No, there’s something down there. I can hear it scratching. It must be under the house.”

  This went on for several nights, and every time we sat up the scratching stopped. Finally, after an investigation I discovered a hole leading under the house.

  “Probably a family of skunks,” I said. “I’ll set a trap and see if I can catch one.” In addition, we had pack rats living in the attic. At night they would scurry across the metal sub-ceiling in the old cabin. Between the scratching above and below we hardly slept.

  Someone had told me that if you shoot a skunk in the head, it dies before it can spray you, so I set a trap in the hole leading under the house. In bed that night we heard the trap spring. Pistol in one hand and flashlight in the other, I ran outside in my red union suit and pulled out the rope I had tied to the trap. At first sight of the skunk’s eyes I shot the critter in the head, after which it sprayed a horrendous cloud of noxious scent that somehow soaked through the logs of the cabin and permeated everything inside, and I do mean everything. There was nowhere for us to retreat. The temperature was too cold outside, so we had to cowboy up. For days the smell remained. It was nearly intolerable and almost drove us mad.

  Having witnessed the murder of their relative, the remaining members of the skunk family had dug in and gloated over our inability to evict them. But no, I would not be outwitted by a bunch of striped weasels. This time I had a new plan. I reset the trap and tied the rope to the log fence way out in the yard. That night when the trap tripped, I sprang out of bed, slipped on my boots, and ran outside pistol in hand. I quickly pulled the skunk out of the hole and sprinted out across the grassy meadow dragging it behind and hoping it couldn’t spray or at least that the wake would stay behind us. I would outrun the cloud. Standing way back I shined my light on the skunk and then shot it in the head, and the odorous cloud floated harmlessly away.

  Four more times I repeated my new trap-sprint-shoot strategy. Our nemeses were no more. I might not yet be a hundred percent true-blue cowboy or mountain man, but I was a bona fide skunk killer.

  Now what to do with the pack rats? The mother had given birth to several young in the shack next to the well where we stored some of our belongings. Mother rat made sure she rearranged our stuff and placed items like pieces of cactus among them. Pistol in hand, each night I’d lie in wait in the dark. When a rat would scratch around I would switch on the flash light and then let him have it. This went on for several nights until I had killed seventeen rats—all except the mother—and shot the shack full of holes. The mother expressed her consternation by peeing on our tack and gear and giving birth to a huge new litter.

  In the fall, L
ocke, despite her cast, wanted to go elk hunting with me. We wrapped the plaster cast in a plastic bag to protect it from the early fall snow, and she rode her horse with me ten miles to one of our favorite spots in the Wind River Mountains. We set up our wall tent and cooked dinner over our wood stove, and bedded down on the ground.

  Grant spent several hunting seasons with Wolf Creek Outfitters.

  In the morning fresh snow covered us. These were ideal hunting conditions. I saddled the horses, happy that Locke and I were enjoying each other’s company.

  While riding our horses through the quiet snow we jumped a small herd of elk. I hurried to tie the horses, helped Locke dismount, and pulled her gun from its scabbard. Locke lay on her stomach, braced her rifle against a rock, and dropped a cow with one clean shot. On her good leg she danced around with me. We laughed and hugged. I said, “You are one tough tomato.”

  “You better believe it, pard!”

  While I was away working at hunting camp, Locke spotted Mother Rat in the rafters of the cabin. Since I had taken the .22 pistol, she grabbed the only remaining weapon in the house, her Winchester lever-action .30-.30. It only took her one shot to send mother rat tumbling from the rafters.

  When I returned from camp, Locke was so excited. She grabbed me and danced me around the cabin. I believed she was overjoyed by my return, but she said, “I killed Mother Rat.” We celebrated by eating fresh elk tenderloin and sipping peach brandy. We raised our glasses and toasted the new hole in our ceiling.

  After I finished guiding elk hunters, we returned to San Antonio for our second winter of polo. Locke and I both went to work for Billy Wayman riding young horses for $450 a month. It wasn’t long until Locke’s strong will clashed with Billy’s Texas ways. One day she talked back to Billy after he had given her some tips about a colt she was riding. Billy wasn’t used to being treated disrespectfully, especially by a woman, and told her he had had enough of her smart mouth. He looked straight at me. “Grant, you can stay. Locke, you’re done.” Head down, Locke stomped off toward her pickup, cursing under her breath, and drove off.