Fifteen

Horseshoe

A horseshoe isn’t a natural part of the horse, but mountains are a place where horses don’t naturally go. In the mountains, horseshoes are necessary.

The horseshoe is aerodynamic, shaped so that its front edge banks toward the direction of travel, its bevelled curve cutting the air as sleekly as the starship Enterprise slicing through interstellar space.

When I swing a horseshoe in my hand, it reminds my body of gravity, of the comfort of the earth’s metal. The horseshoe is a U, it’s a C, it’s a sickle of moon and shines best when nailed to the hoof of a horse whose movement polishes it against the surface of the earth.

The shoe is the interface between the horse and the earth—the horse transfers its flex and muscle through the shoe onto the moss and boulders, and the ground transfers the qualities of the moss and boulders through the shoe to the flex and muscle of the horse. On the underside, the shoe becomes scored—by rocks, flakes of metal shaving off in travel, tiny sparks snapping when the shoe flints a boulder—thinning over time like a wedding ring. Tony (short for Antoinette), one of the mares on Wayne’s pack string, has a slightly heavy-to-the-left step so her shoe is thinner on the left edge. If a shoe is put on so that the metal of the shoe extends even a hair’s breadth beyond the hoof, a thin raised rim will occur where the bottom of the shoe, hammered by the ground with every step, and without a hoof to stop it, pounds upward a thin ridge or lip, as if it’s been squeezed like a wax seal.

Eventually, though, the hoof grows beyond the shoe, and the shoe no longer sits firmly on the hoof. The shoe starts to unseat. Sometimes the heads of the nails that fasten the shoe to the hoof pestle off from constant grinding against the earth, and without the nail heads, the shoe loosens, creating a thin crack between shoe and hoof. Rocks or sticks catch in the small gap and slowly the shoe is pried away. The material most likely to unseat a shoe is mud, just like gumbo sucks my gumboots off. A horseshoe falls off the hoof of a horse because it is an inanimate object mated to something alive.

Being on the trail in the mountains with a string of horses means that if a horseshoe comes off, it has to go back on right away. It’s a big deal when a horse loses a shoe on the trail. If someone spots a horseshoe sunk like a cookie cutter in the mud or hears the ping of metal on stone, it is the one time they will be applauded for getting off their horse mid-ride. That shoe will be their lucky charm, the toy inside the crackerjack box, their Cinderella slipper. They will be complimented on being alert (also having common sense—proof they don’t think horseshoes appear out of nowhere, are dispensable—and how would you feel if your hiking boot came off and someone saw it but trotted on by?).

When a horse has lost a shoe, someone has to help Wayne put the shoe back on. Their job will be to retrieve the tools from wherever Wayne tosses them and to predict as best they can the tool he will need next and have it at the ready, while never losing sight of the fact that their stooped head is in the path of the flying horse hoof nippers. Here is the general order of things:

1. Wayne will take a hoof knife and clean the hoof of dirt and pebbles. He will also look for any injuries.
2. He will then trim the ends of the hoof. With the big nippers, he will clip away any excess hoof. The nippers cut through the hoof as silently as a knife carving through a rind of cantaloupe.
3. With the rasp, he will even out the bottom of the hoof, shreds of hoof grating off white and thick as soap shavings.
4. Wayne will then take the horseshoe and place it on the underside of the hoof, testing to see if it sits flat as a plate on a table. If not, he will hammer the shoe on a rock until it does.
5. Then Wayne will place the fitted shoe on the hoof, take the hammer and pound each nail (eight holes, eight nails) at an angle so each nail exits the top of the hoof at the angle of the sun’s rays in December. The nails are, like the shoe, bevelled so they naturally exit the upper side and veer toward the outside of the hoof.
6. When the nail comes through, Wayne’s assistant will take the small blue nippers and clip the sharp ends of the nail off to a square. The assistant will pick up the butt ends of the nail and pocket them so they don’t lodge in a horse’s hoof.
7. Wayne will then rasp underneath the cut ends of the nipped nail to prevent the hoof from splitting when the nail is bent over.
8. Next, the assistant hands over the clinch block, which Wayne will brace against the cut off end of the nail.
9. Wayne will hammer the nail against the block, starting to bend the nail down against the hoof and setting the shoe solidly in place.
10. With the clincher, he’ll finish bending the nail down flush against the hoof.
11. Shoeing a horse on the trail is a challenge. If part of the hoof exceeds the edge of the horseshoe at the end of the process, Wayne will take the big nippers and nip the hoof flush to the shoe.
12. Finally, Wayne will take the rasp and smooth the edge of the hoof against the edge of the shoe. Not only will it look pretty, but it will keep things from catching on any rough edges (which could put the horse back to where it started, that is, missing a shoe, and that’s a bad refrain).

When I’m back home, headed to Emilie’s for a visit or out to weed the garden, I will find the butt ends of horseshoe nails in my pocket, metal castings that are so sleek and shiny, so sharp—in contrast to the grains of dust and sugar sucked by dew into a crust that clings to the inside seams of my pocket or the string of leather, stiffened by salt and grit, that I keep in my pocket for practising knots—that the metal, with its nature to transfer rather than absorb, seems wide awake and always at the ready, just like the body’s senses.

I like to think of myself this way—that just as a horseshoe is the interface between the horse’s hoof and the earth, my senses are the interface between my body and the material world. The material world, with its moss and boulders, exerts itself on my senses and my senses transfer those qualities to my body—How green and lush the moss is! And in the same way the horse’s hoof is protected by its shoe, my body is protected by my senses—Look out for that slippery rock! Here’s to the horseshoe! Here’s to my bright and silvery senses clinched to my body, transferring the shape of the birch leaves, the sound of horses as they move through the buckbrush and pine, the sshh of their hides against the leaves like rain coming in from the north, horseshoes glinting as they go.