A Lesson in When to Take a Stand

This old picture of me as a teenager has inspired the following short story. Like a fisherman's tall tale regarding the one that got away, this story is a tale that marries facts of things that actually did happen, those things that happened at various times during my life and those things that happened only in my imagination. It will be up to you, the reader, to decide which is which. Which ever it may be, you can be sure that my horse, Stockings, did teach me the value of being stubborn during the many years of our friendship. Even though this is still a rough draft, I hope that you enjoy it.

A Lesson in When to Take a Stand

The tall middle-aged man and his fair-haired daughter had just returned from the fourteen mile ride to and from the Bull Pasture after herding a few heifer cows back to the family's summer grazing spot near the east end of the long lake known as Omak Lake. Discarding their outer flannel shirts and caps, they each took a turn at the kitchen sink to wash their hands and face. Hastily, they made several peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwiches. Both grabbed a Coke from the refrigerator. The girl grabbed a partially eaten bag of original Ruffles potato chips from the cupboard as her father drifted into his den. She placed her Coke and chips on the kitchen table as her father looked out of the front window. The man's frown wrinkled his deeply tanned face as something caught his attention. In the green field about a quarter mile southwest of the house, the water had been turned off, but the hand lines still needed to be picked up before he could start the next cutting in a few days. His sons had failed to do this before they headed out with the old ski boat for their customary afternoon swim at the lake. His frown deepened when he noticed the neighbor's prized Brahma bull lazily grazing on the partially bloomed alfalfa blossoms in the waist high field. He grunted at the slender teenager then pointed at the huge gray bovine with it's long white horns which was as characteristic to the Brahma bull as the hump on the back of it's neck. When she walked over to his side and leaned over to look out the window, she spotted her father's concern. They both looked at each other, shook their heads, shrugged then went back into the kitchen to sit down at the large wooden table to hungrily eat their late lunch quietly.

"Ready?" the weary rancher asked as he rose from the table and started to put their dishes in the sink.

The weary girl felt the sores on the inside of her knees start to sting from the rubbing of the seam of her favorite old blue jeans during the morning ride as she moved. She mentally cussed to herself as she uncrossed her long legs and started to stand. The muscles in her legs protested as she slowly rose from the wooden kitchen chair and pressed her hands against the wood of kitchen table that was made from a door by her grandfather many years ago. She slowly straightened then rolled her sore shoulders back until she stood up to her own considerable height.

 "Ready." She stated as she mentally prepared herself for the pending afternoon's ride.

Silently, they finished straightening up the kitchen then walked through the laundry room which shared a door just north of the large kitchen. The make-shift laundry room/mud room was filled with dirty linen that was waiting for her to finish. The sun-burnt girl sighed quietly as she looked around for the thin bare flannel shirt and farmer's cap that she had worn earlier that day.

As she noticed the piles of clothes stacked on the floor, she thought to herself, "That'll have to wait until we get back."

To protect her arms from getting further burnt, the reddened girl gingerly donned the over-sized soft flannel shirt and cap that her father had lent to her before the morning's ride. The balding man opted to only put on his favorite worn out John Deere cap. They stepped out of the solid door that led to the covered back porch. Walking swiftly side by side, they steered southwest toward the horse tack and storage shed through a small field of waist high weeds and old dilapidated junk cars. The antique wheel-less wonders had been haphazardly laid to rust in the field many years ago. The deteriorating white-washed house that served as a storage and tack shed was several hundred yards southeast of their log home. This two-story building had long ago been affectionately nick-named the "White House" as it was the original house that the family had built over 100 year ago when they first settled on the Colville Reservation. The wood floors creaked and moaned as they stepped through the loosely hanging green wooden door located at the front door of the old house. Careful to avoid the rotting loose boards that were carelessly marked with sheets of splintered plywood, they grabbed a few handfuls of rolled oats from a burlap sack and placed them in two small rusty buckets located nearby. They also grabbed a couple of pieces of orange spindly bailing twine hanging from a nail which had been pounded to a stud in the peeling white-washed walls. They would need these items to catch the mares for the second time that day.

They had left the horses about an hour ago out in the muddy pasture a couple hundred yards from the "White House" after a rub down and a promise not to bother them again that day. To entice and catch the two mares, they each carried an old bucket with just enough rolled oats to cover it's warped bottom and some old twine behind their backs as they headed out of the front  door, closing the old door behind them as they went.

The two Appaloosas neighed a greeting to their friends. The mares spotted the familiar buckets and started to walk towards  their favorite treat. As the couple walked towards the horses, one of the ropes swum free of the girl's hold, the mares spotted the movement of the rope as it moved out of it's hidden spot behind her back. Upon spotting the orange unraveling twine, the sister horses, Stockings and Kartar, realized that the pair were trying catch them for yet another ride. At this realization, both spotted horses pulled back and started prancing around the small pasture. The whining horses easily danced around each of the riders as the humans determinedly plodded  through the mixture of mud, hay, weeds and manure of the pasture... determined to catch them.

Patience for the playful horses ran out quickly in the afternoon summer heat. Exasperated, the girl slammed down her bucket of oats, splashing her already soiled blues with more mud. Hands on her hips, brown eyes glared at the shorter muddily spotted horse with the white forehead and nose. Pointing her finger at the bucket, she glared at the horse who tilted it's head to one side, ear perked.

Angrily, the cowgirl growled, "Stockings, it's either this ... or the dog food factory!"

The puzzled horse's ears twitched. The mare paused as if to consider the girl's proposal for a moment, then flattened her ears and lowered her head. The small horse stood almost motionless as she waited for the girl to approach as her sparse tail twitched back and forth to flick away a pair of deer flies which were aggressively circling her rump.

"I thought so." the girl huffed as she stomped over to her contrite ride.

She quickly looped the orange bailing twine around the lowered neck and loosely tied it in place. Then she flickered a glance over at her silent father as she started to lead the resigned horse over to the barb-wire gate. The man smiled to himself then walked over to the taller horse with the naturally spotted blanket on its rump.

His horse, unlike her sister, had the coloring of a classic Appaloosa.  Kartar politely waited for him. His daughter often made such threats to her horse, Stockings, but he knew that she never would follow through; she had a strong connection to the mixed breed since it was born. It was their way. He followed his daughter through the gate to the hitching post in front of the old white-washed house a few yards from the horse pasture.  He followed her into the kitchen of the "White House" which had over the years been roughly converted into a horse tack room to retrieve his saddle and reins. They quickly saddled up and mounted the two weary mares.

Trotting almost side by side with the girl slightly behind, the riders headed southwest for about a quarter of a mile towards the pasture where the bull grazed lazily. The bull raised his head and looked at them as they approached then went back to his meal. He was unconcerned about the approaching group as he easily out weighed the horses and was just slightly shorter than the one that the thin girl rode. The taller painted Appy and man broke off and went further west of him as the girl and her brown spotted horse waited. He glanced over and saw the opening of the barb-wire gate. Both the girl and the man started yelling at him. He did not want to go through the opened gate that he had came in earlier. Nor did he want to be locked out of the pasture thus ending this delightful meal, so he stubbornly started to trot in a random pattern away from direction of said gate. They persisted to follow him and tried to shooing him towards the opening. So started the dance of him darting around the pasture as the horses tried to herd him back towards the gate. In the heat, the obese bull easily tired of the dance. He ran back and forth through the pasture fence, snapping barbed-wire as if it were thread. Frustrated that the horses and riders would not give up on ruining his party, the bovine decided to warned the rider and horse closest to him. He turned towards the smaller horse, then lowered his head. This aggressive action seemed to frighten the girl, but only annoy her stout horse who snorted and angrily tossed its head. Since his threat failed to slow her approach, the bull glared at the approaching mare and girl, then pawed the ground with his left front hoof. At the girl's command, the sweaty horse stopped in her tracks. The small mare snorted her frustration at him.

The girl had been riding the small mixed bred Appy for many years and she knew how to read the mare's moods by the way the horse stood, positioned her body, head, ears and mouth. She tugged at the reins when she saw the bull's threat to charge her. She was relieved when Stockings stopped, but became alarmed when she felt the horse move her mouth and roll the bit between her teeth. She started to tug harder on the reins to turn her. The little horse just bit down harder on the bit, flattened her ears and stood still. The frightened girl realized that the horse was refusing to back down, so she tugged as hard as she could, first on one rein then the other, kicking  the horse's ribs hard in an urgent plea to get out of the path of the enraged bull before he decided to charge. With the stubbornness of the horse's pose, she knew that screaming profanities and threats about the horse becoming dog food would not convince the stubborn mare to move this time.

"What now?" the terrified girl thought to herself as she looked dumb-founded at the back of the horse's head.

"Get out of there!" screamed a familiar male voice contoured with fear as her father and his horse frantically started to run towards her.

"Where am I going to go?!", she thought to herself as she desperately looked around for higher ground... only to find that in the open pasture, the horse that she was riding was her best possible way of avoiding getting hurt. Realizing that the stubborn and tired horse would not back down, she prepared herself to move with the horse. When Stockings showed her what her next move would be, she would be ready to move with it. The mare was stout like her barrel racing champion mother. She could move and turn very fast and if she wasn't ready, the girl knew that she could easily be thrown off her ride and become vulnerable to the whims of the bull. She stopped her tugging and kicking and waited for her friend to make their next move.

The bull continued to snort as he turned his head side to side, not looking away from the target of his anger. Suddenly, he lowered his horns then started his charge. Stockings lowered her head, glared at him in an unwavering stare and snorted as the girl sat quietly on her back. The man had stopped his horse short a few yard away to watch the surreal scene with a horrified look on his face. The bull ran several steps then became confused as the little brown horse refused to cower and move out of his way. Instead, the horse's ears twitched, flattened as she lowered her head. Stockings returned the Brahma's threat by pawing at the ground with her right hoof. Puzzled, the bull stopped his charge abruptly. He stared at the girl and horse for a moment.

The look on the bull's perplexed face seemed to convey his thought, "You're crazier than I am, Lady!"

With a loud snort, the bull  promptly turned and trotted towards the opened gate.

Frightened, the man barked at his daughter, "What the hell did you think you were doing?!"

Not knowing how to explain what happened, she shakily responded, "I dunno." as she stared at the back of her horse's neck in disbelief. She raised her head to glance in amazement toward the bull who was now happily trotting out of the open gate and down the dirt road that led to his home.

"As if it were your idea the whole time!", she quietly mumbled under her breath. Clearing her thoughts, she shook her head then shakily dismounted her horse as her father walked his horse over to stand by her.

Both fell silent as they led the horses over to the gate. Together, they closed it as they wearily watch the bull aimlessly trot down the dirt road towards the neighbor's property.

"I'll give 'em a call when we get back and let them know what happened to the bull. Let's go home. The boys and I will get the fence later." the father stated flatly as he watched his only daughter expertly mount her horse and slowly start to walk back towards the "White House".