Day Four - continued
After dinner, we head back to visit with Raker
and give Jerry some last minute lessons. Jerry tries his hand at longing and
then rides Raker in an area resembling a freshly plowed field. It’s heavy going
and Raker tires easily. We meet Jerry’s brother Chad who comes out to greet us.
He remarks on how pretty and fancy a horse his brother has bought. Chad himself
owns a roping horse that he uses extensively. Later that evening he will share
with us his day’s horrendous and near fatal experience.
After unsaddling Raker and leading him back to the security of his enclosure we pass some time with Chad and his family. We have interrupted an important basketball game – a win or die game for the Utah Jazz. The whole family is gathered there rooting for the Jazz and we soon find ourselves in the cheering section as well. If you’re in Utah, you are a Jazz fan!! We jokingly add that the Jazz have nothing to fear from our miserable Raptors team. They laugh.
In between commercials, Chad begins his tale of his day’s riding as several of his five young children gather around him, siting cross-legged in their jammies on the floor. Their innocent eyes gaze up towards daddy, all in awe of his storytelling.
He’d been out looking for cattle on the faceless desert when he came across some tumble weed that, unknown to him and undetected by his horse, was hiding a large wash below. As Chad’s horse, Link, was cautiously picking his way through the prickly tumble weed, all of a sudden he dropped like a stone. They had fallen into a deep crevice of sorts, roughly 100 yards long, eight feet deep and only four to five feet wide. There was no way out with sheer brutal walls imprisoning them at either end and little room to manoeuvre. Chad had miraculously survived the fall remaining upright in the saddle while, by the grace of God, his horse managed to escape serious injury.
Chad attempted to pull off the thistle like tumble weed that covered them like a smothering tent, but this only frightened the horse causing pandemonium. After quietly dismounting and scrambling out of the hole, suffering deep scratches inflicted by the stubborn clutches of the tumble weed, he tried in vain to encourage his horse to battle the steep incline, as he desperately tugged on a lariat around the horse’s neck. No amount of coaxing would budge this horse trapped partially by his own fear. Abandoning the lariat on the ground and left as a marker, Chad then took a mental snapshot of what little insignificant landmarks of the area as best he could. Hopefully, he could locate his horse again. That panic feeling was beginning to lurk in his mind like fateful demons.
Chad takes a breather from his storytelling and unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt, rolling up his long sleeves to display his desert wounds. With increasing curiosity, the children ask what happened next. Chad begins again.
He headed off on the desert by foot in search of help for poor Link. Approximately two to three miles out, he located his good neighbour Blaine Taylor. Blaine is a long time horseman who sold Chad his horse. Blaine was on horseback so they turned around to go rescue Link.
The landscape changes frequently, and is a master of disguise as the tumble weeds roll away at the briefest whim of a breeze. Chad was becoming increasingly worried that he might not find Link. Every unimaginable thought crossed his mind. Thinking that he would have a better vantage point atop Blaine’s horse, it only made things more confusing as he tried in vain to recall the lay of the land. It was now a matter of pure guessing to find his horse.
As they continued to search in the possible direction where Link lay trapped out-of-site, the other horse hesitated for a moment and whinnied. About 20 yards away, a return whinny was heard deep below the ground. They had found Link! Both Link and Blaine’s horse had been raised together. With the other horse giving comfort by his familiar and welcome presence, Link struggled until he finally managed to scramble out of its predicament. It’s a wonder how much basic herd instinct can translate into such a powerful drive, and in this case it saved the horse. Jerry looks at both Bob and I and says, "I don’t think I’ll take Raker out on the desert just yet."