13.

Saber

The new colt in the corral at Lazy B headquarters caught my eye. The cowboys had brought him, his mama, and the eight other mares and ten-month-old foals in from the pasture where they had been born. It was weaning day. It took an hour to separate mamas and babies. The mares took a last, long, loving look at their foals and with a goodbye nuzzle headed back on their own volition to the pasture for grazing. Since they were only a few months away from the birth of their next babies, their bodies were telling them it was time to wean the current foals. The colts didn’t have a chance to mourn their departed mothers; they had to start school. The curriculum included learning to lead, learning to load in a trailer on command, and learning to trust the two-legged creatures who were now picking their feet up and asking them to stand still. We rewarded them with the new taste of grain.

This particular colt had a larger build than his peers, with a broad chest, smooth barrel, and muscular hips. The dark hair that most foals have at birth had been replaced with a shiny white coat, a dark stocking above each hoof, a black mane, and a streak of black down his backbone reminiscent of Spanish influence. He explored his new territory, poking along the fence, his nose up and ears forward, and when the cowboys weren’t holding class, nudged his more timid companions into games. He was the leader on the playground, and he brought home a report card full of As, though sometimes the teacher had to work at keeping his attention, which drifted if he learned the lesson quickly and became bored.

I felt an instant attraction similar to what you feel when you meet someone you want to get to know better. Maybe it’s the energy in the smile and eyes or the sweep of hands in conversation, or you see a glimmer of something that reminds you of yourself and you know that you want to start spending more time with that person. This little white guy fit those characteristics. I could see him in my string of horses. It wasn’t a decision I needed to make right then since he was headed out to Robb’s Well for the next fifteen months or so.

When I was in the area of Robb’s Well, I would stop to see the young horses. I observed how they walked and how much they had grown. I also did a sort of mental check-in to see if it was time to integrate them into the ranch system. Which horses in our strings would soon be retired? How many hands were available to bring them in and break them? When we had the extra hands I’d send out a few cowboys to round up the horses at Robb’s Well, cut five or six of the biggest ones, and bring them into headquarters for breaking.

I had been keeping an eye on the white horse. The day he arrived at the corral, I was waiting for him. Though he had not yet attained full stature, the muscles in his upper legs, forelegs, and haunches had thickened, and the vertical between his belly and the ground had lengthened. He had a smooth, effortless gait that exuded confidence. Based on his physique, coordination, and disposition, I already could tell the white horse had the potential to be an athlete. I could see the disappointment on the cowboys’ faces when I said, “I’ll take that white one for my string.”

He needed a better name than “that white horse.” The best way to name a horse is to allow the name to emerge. It always does. Once, as teenager, I named a horse Dumas. My dad and I attended the 1956 Olympic trials at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and we saw Charles Dumas set the world record by clearing seven feet in the high jump. Shortly after, one of our young horses went and jumped a six-foot-high corral and I promptly named him Dumas. Aunt Jemima found her name when a can of syrup stuck to her foot. And her mother, Tequila, well, we don’t need to go there.

The white horse reminded me of Robert E. Lee’s famed white horse Traveller. I recalled seeing some photos of Lee mounted on this steed, dressed in full military regalia with a saber hanging at his side. Saber. Now there was a strong, steadfast word. “Hey you rascal,” I said to him one morning, my arm extended over the fence into his space. He trotted over for a pet. “You good with the name Saber? I’m thinking you can live up to it. What do you think?” He pushed his nose against my shoulder.

Saber and I began to get acquainted. Since he wasn’t full-grown, and probably wouldn’t be for another year, he couldn’t do a hard day’s work, but he could join me on less demanding days. Saber had an idea of what he wanted, and what he wanted didn’t always agree with my bidding. Sometimes he could get a little prickly. He never bucked, but he didn’t always want to cooperate. If I wanted him to turn right, he pulled to go left. If I rode him with spurs and touched him, and I rarely touched him, he’d look back and kick a hind foot at the spurs or try to bite them, an especially annoying habit. By this point in my life, I had moved away from the Jim Brister style of breaking a horse by breaking his will. Too often this required punishing a horse severely and I had grown unwilling to settle for the consequences. Candy had drowned and Sally’s entire personality changed. I had vowed to break Saber in a more gentle fashion. Except this required dredging for patience because Saber could be like a burr in my boot.

One day we were driving cattle back from New Well to the Lazy B headquarters, a six-mile trip. The previous two days of rounding up had been difficult, dusty work, but this was an easy day so I opted to ride Saber. Jim Brister was pointing the cattle up front with another cowboy. The herd fanned out behind them. I brought up the drag in the back with the rest of the cowboys to show that I wasn’t above doing drudgery work. I could see the whole show from there and could tell who was or wasn’t carrying his load. Maybe Saber wanted to be in the lead or maybe he was bored. Whatever the issue, he was crankier than a teenager awakened from a sound sleep. I’d spur him along and he’d turn and try to bite me. It seemed like every hundred feet I was pulling his head up and scolding him. I was getting annoyed at him being annoyed at me. That’s when I saw Jim break from the lead and circle back toward me, something he wouldn’t do unless he had to unload a piece of his mind.

He rode up next to me and gave Saber the once-over. “Alan, if I were on that damn horse, I’d draw that knot in your get-down rope and whip that thing against his sheath until he squealed for mercy.” I held back a wince. The sheath protects a horse’s penis and is a very sensitive area.

Saber’s strong shoulders shifted rhythmically under my saddle and a cow in front of us called out for her calf. I didn’t want to argue with Jim or go against his judgment. I may have been the boss, but Jim was my senior and my mentor. For the first time in my life, I bucked his opinion. “Well, I’m trying something a little different on him this time. I’m going to give him a chance to learn it on his own,” I said.

Saber turned his head and jabbed his mouth at my spurs. Large teeth flashed between curled lips. I yanked the reins, pulling his head back. Jim looked straight ahead and without a word rode off.

“Damn it, Saber. Knock it off. What are you thinking?”

Saber jogged a few side steps. I took a deep breath. It was going to be a long day.

Not every day with Saber was long, and of course I didn’t ride him every day. Occasionally he would be so interested in the task at hand that neither of us remembered that I wore spurs. Within a few hours, however, he would bicker with me, forcing me to ladle out more patience and reaffirm my vow of training. I could see his potential when I watched him in the corral, feel it when we galloped, trotted, or even walked. He was long-legged, powerfully so, and could outrun his peers. I never timed him or any horse, but if I had I suspect he would have won the race by many lengths. I babied him with extra grain, and like a teenage boy inhaling any food put in front of him, he continued to grow.

As he learned cowboying, I learned gentle horse training. Most cowboys forced a horse right there and then to submit to their will. Within a day or two, the horse wouldn’t have an ounce of argument left. More often than not, when Saber returned to the horse pasture for the night and I slid off my boots and hung my hat, issues between us remained unresolved.

About three months after Jim offered his advice, something happened. It was an unassuming day. Saber and I led a crew of cowboys to cut out cattle for sale. The sun spilled over us, bright as always, and a mischievous breeze scrambled the desert dust with the thuds of hard hooves and the sweat of men on horseback. We were nearing a late lunch when it hit me. On any other day, Saber would have tested me a dozen times by now. But here he was with his head and ears held high, so fully engaged in his job that I hadn’t needed to reprimand or spur him once all morning. In fact, he had just moved a large steer to the outside of the herd with little direction from me. I had eyed the steer and thought, okay, this guy needs to go. Maybe my hands had slightly, perhaps subconsciously, pulled the reins in the steer’s direction, but maybe not. Maybe Saber read my mind. Regardless, he had moved the animal, slowly, gently, and before I knew it, had the steer in exactly the right spot at the edge of the herd. A new alertness tensed his body. I could feel us working together.

I said, “Wow, Saber, you’ve arrived.” It was like what a hunter experiences the first time his young dog points, waits for the shot, then perfectly retrieves the bird. By the time we returned to headquarters, I was sitting on a completely different horse. For whatever reason, Saber’s resistance had hopped off the train and full cooperation had moved in. From that day on, Saber became the best cow horse I ever rode. When we were out on the range, he seemed to know what I wanted to do. It was as if this athletic, smart companion could read my mind. I’d throw the saddle over him, chitchatting about the day like you would chat to your best friend, and then we would have the luxury of spending the entire day together, hanging out, running into challenges, having adventures. The line between work and pleasure dissolved.

About the same time, Saber did another extraordinary thing I’ve never seen a horse repeat. One morning, the air cool against our faces, we set out at Saber’s usual gait. I urged him to walk a little faster. I felt his gait change. He had broken into a running walk, the same gait as a Tennessee walking horse. No other horse on the ranch had such a gait, so he hadn’t learned by imitating. His body naturally slipped into the pattern. I didn’t even know how to respond except to enjoy the ride. It was like stepping off a tractor and into a Lexus.

“What the hell got into your horse? He just hit fourth gear. How’d you teach him that?” said Cole, pulling up beside me. His horse had to hit a long trot to keep up with Saber.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Good cowboys get the best out of their horses,” I said. Three miles later Saber wasn’t even out of breath. The boss always sets the pace when riding out to the roundup and cowboy culture says you never gripe about that pace. But that day the crew certainly looked disgruntled.

Another time, on an early fall day, the cattle were scattered on the High Lonesome pasture in the Summit section of Lazy B, a half-day horse ride from headquarters. I gathered a crew of cowboys and, to save time, we loaded our horses in trailers and drove out to Summit. Saber was still young, a green colt that could handle a day of rounding up cattle spread out over the six square miles of pasture.

The grass at High Lonesome grew the thickest on the ranch. It didn’t have to angle around mesquite trees or contort between rocks. It just had to poke its head straight through the soft ground and drink the sunshine. Only an occasional badger hole dotted the ground.

I assigned each cowboy an area of pasture. We had just started to spread out when a coyote jumped up right in front of Saber and me. Its gray, mangy body tripped my cowboy switch and I plunged right into roping mode. Cowboys are trained practically at birth to go after anything running away from them—rabbits, bobcats, calves, coyotes. It’s not that you need to catch the animal. It’s the challenge of the event. Are you good enough to rope the critter? If you do, you’ve earned your bragging rights.

I turned Saber on that coyote. He knew exactly what we were up to and caught up to the coyote like he was standing still. I jerked my rope down and built a loop. I leaned forward to throw the loop, and BAM, Saber stepped in a badger hole. His front end jolted down. His back end popped up. We were going so fast I didn’t have a split second to lean back and regain my balance. The sudden stop shot me over Saber’s neck, ass over teakettle into the air right toward that running coyote. The only thing going through my harebrained mind was, oh shit, this really is going to hurt. And it did.

I rolled to a crumpled stop and lifted my head, looking for Saber to see if he had broken a leg. He was getting up from his fall, twenty feet away, and had a terrified look in his eyes. He didn’t even shake himself but took off running, a white streak across the brown desert. Aw hell, is about all I could think. Well, at least he ran without a limp. I pulled myself up, my rope still in hand, and hobbled across the hard ground after my hat, cussing myself out for being such a stupid cowboy to rise to this bait. I surveyed my distant crew. You would think by the way their horses’ rear ends faced me they hadn’t seen my dumbass attack. But I knew they had. Feeling the fool, I began limping along the two-and-a-half-mile trek across the pasture to reclaim my horse. He wouldn’t be able to go beyond the fence, but would he be able to forgive me? If I hadn’t been on Saber, I never would have tried to rope that coyote. No other horse could have caught him.

An hour later, a few cowboys started heading toward me, Saber in tow.

“Gee, boss, what happened?” Snicker.

“You know what happened. Don’t you be laughing at me. You all have had a fall before.”

I took the reins. “Saber, can you forgive my stupidity? I shouldn’t have turned you to that coyote. I’ll try to be a better friend to you from here on. I owe you one.” I climbed back in the saddle. And Saber? Friend that he was, he went on like nothing had happened.

By the time Saber was five, he was so powerful and fast that when we worked cattle I always held him back a little. One day, curiosity got the better of me. I finished lunch before anyone else at the bunkhouse and didn’t feel like shooting the breeze, so I headed outside to get a jump on re-saddling Saber. He was feeding with the other horses in the corral by the barn. That morning we had herded four hundred cows and another two hundred calves into the large working lot at headquarters, where we would spend the afternoon selecting and cutting cow-and-calf pairs. Calves over six months would be sold; younger calves would be branded and remain on the ranch.

I put my hand on Saber’s neck and led him over to the saddle I had set on the ground. He looked like he was as eager to get out of the corral as I had been to get out of the bunkhouse. I could feel his muscles under my hand, relaxed but alert, ready for action. I saddled up and settled on the worn leather like you settle in a car seat. But this wasn’t a minivan or pickup or souped-up SUV. This wasn’t a Lexus or Infiniti or even a BMW or Mercedes.

This was a Ferrari.

I had never done an all-out test drive. Every day I obeyed the speed limits. What would it feel like to pull on the Autobahn, shift into eighth gear, and let it go? It would be plain wrong never to answer that question. It was time to see how truly fast my horse could run.

I walked Saber through the empty corrals and into the working lot. The cattle had drifted into siesta mode, bunched in one end of the long corral. I spotted a big, old Brahman cow that I knew was fast.

“Let’s give this gal a chase, Saber.” I was the racecar driver at the starting line, the F-16 fighter pilot about to break the sound barrier for the first time. Adrenaline and curiosity revved my blood.

Saber knew what to do. He pushed that cow out of the bunch toward the back of the corral, close to the fence fortified with rows of double barbed wire. She swung her head back and forth, irritated at having to move. Saber jump-started her into a sprint and took off after her. I let the reins go slack, shifting him right into eighth gear. He passed that cow like she was moving in slow motion, pulled ahead of her to turn her back against the fence. He pivoted so hard we angled to the ground, like a water-skier taking a quick turn, elbow and shoulder skimming the water. My lower leg dragged on the ground. Before I knew it, we were sliding across the soft ground, rocketing toward the barbed wire instead of along it. My leg was tucked under Saber’s side, and I was still in the saddle. The sandpaper ground roughed my arm and side. The barbed wire rose toward us like the wall of a racetrack rising toward the driver of an out-of-control car. But where a driver has only the traction of a slick track, we had the traction of soft earth. It slowed us down like sand and gravel slow a runaway truck.

We came to a complete stop. I was in the saddle, but on my side, one leg under Saber and one on top. Other than Saber’s weight compressing my trapped leg, nothing hurt. I lifted my head and assessed our predicament. Saber’s legs had slid under the barbed wire, but he had miraculously stopped just before his belly made contact with it. But I could see the surly wire inches above him, ready to attack at his slightest move and tear into him. The fear that he would try to scramble up gripped me.

“Saber, look, we’re in a fix here,” I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt. “It’s not your fault your legs slid out from under you. I ran you too fast and turned you back too hard.” I rubbed his neck. “I’m the one to blame here. But right now, I need you to lay here real quiet and not struggle, because if you struggle, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

I kept petting him and talking to him, assuring him the other cowboys would be out soon. Saber didn’t move one muscle. He just lay there like he was going to take a nap in the sun. I didn’t dare dislodge my leg from under him or sidle out of the saddle. If you go down together, you stay down together. Besides, I knew someone would be headed our way soon. Funny how “soon” can feel like the span between lunch and dinner.

Jim Brister arrived first on horseback. He looked down at us, assessing the situation. “Looks like you got yourself in a helluva wreck here, Al.” He threw down one end of his rope, waited for me to put the loop around my saddle horn. He dallied the rope on his saddle horn and then turned his horse to pull Saber and me out from under the fence. We slid out as smoothly as a deck of cards falling out of a tilted box. Saber lifted his head, pushed his feet into the ground, and snorted. I swung my free leg over him and disengaged from the saddle as he hoisted himself up. Then I found my legs, brushed off the dirt stuck to my shirt, and readjusted my chaps and hat, still perched on my head. Saber pawed a hoof at the ground as if scolding it for betraying him.

“No, Saber,” I said. “I own this one, buddy. Blame me.”

I untied the rope and threw it back to Jim. I waited for the question to pop, the one that hung between us: What happened here? All Jim did was recoil the rope, hang it back on his saddle, and ride off. But under that black hat of his, I thought I saw the tiniest of smirks.

“If you’re rounding up at Robb’s Well, you oughta bring a gun. The biggest buck is running around up there.” My friend Eddie’s excitement palpitated through the phone. He loved hunting season and had a hunting permit on our ranch. I can take it or leave it, but his enthusiasm sparked that competitive edge in me. “You shoot him, hang him in the tree, and I’ll come get him,” he said. Well, that sealed the deal. I got down my rifle and cleaned it, so it would be ready at 3:00 a.m. when the crew and I headed out. I didn’t even have to think twice about which horse I would take.

Sure enough, the next day while Saber and I were scouring for cattle in the remote part of the range down near Robb’s Well, a king-sized buck popped out from behind a clump of greasewood fifty feet from us. He stood for a cautious second, a regal rack of antlers balanced between radar ears. His nose twitched with the scent of enemy. Then off he shot, crashing through the brush.

I had a split second to decide if we were good for the chase. Before I could utter a word, Saber burst into action. “We’re gonna catch him, Saber,” I yelled. I held the reins slack in my right hand and grabbed my rifle in the left. The buck bounded in front of us, tacking around mesquite, springing over rocks, another athlete in his prime. Saber hurtled forward, his hooves thundering against the hollow ground, gaining on the animal. I leaned into the rushing air. Twenty, fifteen, ten more yards and we’d be within shooting range.

“Whoa,” I said. Saber slowed. I took aim. The barrel bobbed in time with Saber’s panting. I couldn’t steady it. There was no way I could get a shot off. The buck didn’t wait.

“Saber,” I said, lowering my rifle, “I hate to ask you to do this, but we’ve got to get him. This time I’ll jump down to shoot.” Saber hadn’t taken his eyes off the racing deer. “Do you think you can catch him again?”

Saber lit out. That deer must have been surprised to hear hoofbeats gaining on him. Saber flew over rocks and brush like he was on an asphalt track running the sixty-yard dash. He ran within twenty-five yards of that deer. I stopped him, jumped off, took aim, and fired. Instead of crumpling to the ground, the deer bounded over a little gully and ran behind a tree, then a rock. I couldn’t track him with the rifle. Goddamnit. My horse had performed and I had dropped the ball. I leaned against Saber and stomped my boot heel into the dirt. But I climbed back on. Saber had run quite a ways, at least a quarter mile, maybe even a half. He was panting but not gasping for air. Dare I ask?

“Saber, can you catch him one more time?”

The horse that never said no took off for the third time. Our last chance. I couldn’t ask him to do this again. We ran up on that old buck so close I could have roped him. A big wash suddenly appeared, and the buck was running so fast that he couldn’t stop and tumbled out of sight. Saber came to a screeching halt. I threw the reins down, hopped off with my rifle, and ran over to the edge. Ten feet below me the buck lay on his side. I took a deep breath, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

Saber and I strung that deer over a tree using my saddle rope, and the next day Eddie drove the truck out and collected him.

I always knew where Saber was on the ranch. He was my number-one horse and my best friend. Yes, I loved Aunt Jemima dearly. She had won my heart in her own special way. And I loved my other horses—Blackberry, Tequila. Love is not finite. We are creatures capable of loving many times over, loving all our children, all our friends, all our pets. But every relationship boasts its own set of fingerprints. My relationship with Saber glittered with adventures, but we shared life on a deeper level. If horses can be soul mates, Saber was mine.

When I walked across the pasture, still monotone in the dimness of dawn, to catch him, he gave me a look that told me he was glad to see me and was ready to work. When we herded cattle, I almost could see his mind in action, planning out the next, best play and then with that innate gift of athletic coordination, putting it into action. We thought alike when it came to ranching. We embraced new experiences. Best of all, we respected each other one hundred percent. With mutual respect came true companionship and the magical bond of being best friends.

By the time he was six years old, Saber had reached his prime. After about age sixteen, seventeen, maybe eighteen, we’d retire our horses from ranch work. Some of them went on to live until they were twenty or even twenty-five. I didn’t put it past Saber to be working cattle into his third decade.

It was an early summer evening, when the sun sits a little longer in the sky. I had turned Saber out in the horse pasture and was at home in my office catching up on some bookkeeping before dinner.

My mother came into the room, her face ashen, tears streaming down her face. She had been driving the Chrysler, returning from town, and was on the part of the main ranch road that ran through the horse pasture for a half mile or so. When she rounded the bend, sunlight exploded in front of her, penetrating the protection of the lowered visor and her sunglasses, robbing her of vision. She didn’t know which horse she hit until she got out of the car. There were five standing alongside the road, as they always were at that point in the pasture. One horse lay in the middle of the road. It was Saber. The impact broke his hind leg at the knee, the one place on a horse that can’t heal.

One of my fast and hard rules is that I never ask someone to do something that I couldn’t do myself. I have broken that rule only once in my life. I asked Cole Webb to put Saber down. I had put down his favorite dog some years back. I would not have been able to hold the gun steady nor see my target as anything but a blur through my tears.

I was in the house when Cole honored my request, my mother and I holding each other, her seeking the forgiveness I already had given and me seeking solace. I’m not sure if I cried for two days or four or six. You never really stop crying over the loss of a loved one. Nor do you stop loving. Love is kind of like the sun. It can be warm and gentle, nourishing every part of you, but sometimes it shines harsh and hard. And it burns. On a ranch, where you live in the palm of Nature, you learn to accept what that hand holds—hardships, heartbreaks, adventures, joys, and love.