Four Feet for Christmas

 I hope to add photos soon, but for now, here is a mini novella.  Sit back with a cup of tea, relax, and read about life in the countryside.

Four feet for Christmas

Little Feet is lonely.  Horses are herd animals, and this poor boy is living herdless.  Unless you count myself and my stable hand, Manny.  Or the two small dogs and ten cats, who casually stroll through his stable and mingle their manure with his.  I think it is time to find him a more suitable companion. 

Horses, like golf, is a rich man’s hobby.  Or so I have always thought.  Little Feet came to me through a friend, who then abandoned us.  In discussing the subject of the price of horseflesh here in an impoverished part of Durango, Mexico, I came to decide that buying a horse was actually affordable.  A luxury, yes, but taking a very small bite out of my savings, my ‘emergency medical fund’. 

I am a senior citizen retired on a small social security pension in a tiny village six thousand feet up in the Sierra Madres.  My hectare sits in a small valley, with hills to the east and hills to the west.  What I am learning is that the price of a young colt is about the same price as a new saddle, a few hundred dollars.  That’s from Manny’s dad, a retired horseman himself.  We decided to go on a search, and see for ourselves what is out there.   Manny’s dad noted a few horses for sale in their village, worth checking out.  But first I wanted to go back to the place where Little Feet was born.  I was hoping for a birthdate for him, although we know he is about three years old.

The village as recorded in the title certificate for my horse as his birthplace is about 12 miles north of us.  Yesterday we drove up the two-lane highway to see if we could actually locate the ranch in this tiny village, with the little information that we had.  We reached the sign that identified the village, Arnulfo R. Gomez.  This follows the custom of naming villages after Mexican historical heroes.  We saw a handful of stores, long stretches of adobe wall, and a church steeple.  Fortunately, we saw a man on horseback heading towards us on a dirt side road.  We pulled alongside and rolled down the window.  The brand on my horse’s flank is an M inside a circle.  This is the mark of Martin Ortiz.  With the help of this local cowpoke we located him, finding ourselves in a cluster of men dressed in plaid shirts, dusty jeans, boots and cowboy hats.  We mentioned that we were from Pozole, and one man smiles broadly and identifies me as the person who has Little Feet, Isabel’s horse.  And so it is in the countryside, the grapevine phone network.

We chatted for a bit.  I praised the quality of Little Feet, his calm and easy temperament, for which I presumed to credit good blood lines.  He regretted having to tell me that he sold the sire.  I assured him that was no problem.  I wasn’t looking for a race horse or anything, just a simple companion to make my boy comfortable.  In my mind, I thought that asking for a yearling or two-year old would bring me into an affordable negotiation.  We arranged to meet the next day, and he would show me what was available.

At the dawn of a new day, during Christmas week, I arose to a very chilly morning.  I hadn’t bothered to set a fire in the cast-iron stove, since we would be leaving out early and why waste the wood.

We stopped in Canatlan at the Oxxo convenient store for a cappuccino fix, turned the car heater up to Blast, and we were on our way. 

We arrived at the designated spot a little past ten, driving slowly on the dusty road.  We stopped and got out, and then noticed a parked pickup about 50 meters back.  It fired up and came towards us.   Actually, we weren’t sure at all that we had found the agreed upon meeting place.  This typical village was a unmarked maze of adobe and stucco, the color of the road merging with the color of the walls.  Whirls of dust marked our slow progress.  We had exchanged phone numbers the day before, so we did connect.  The guy who had been sitting in the parked pickup was indeed our contact Rudolfo.  We parked beneath a dusty tall juniper tree, and waited.  First one, then another of yesterdays gang showed up. 

I tuned out while Manny fulfilled the social pleasantries and learned what the next step would be.  We got back into my car, and followed the pickup truck with its two guys and one 8-year-old grandson.

We went back to the two-lane highway and drove another five minutes north.  We pulled off and waited while the guys opened the barbed wired fence that led us into a large pasture.  Ahead of us to the west the vast sweep of valley ended in hills.  As we followed the pickup meandering through the fields, down a narrow ravine and up again, we saw a stream of cows moving from our right to the left, towards the hills.  We looked right towards the highway and realized there was a tunnel under the road, a black hole through which the herd was streaming.  We drove on, passing through one field after another, until from our vantage on a hillock we saw a large lake.  We parked at an iron orange pen with gates and walkways, whose paint had faded and was overgrown with dried weeds.  We waited.  The view was enthralling. Time ticked by.  The old guys started telling us stories.  These distant hills contain a vibrant ecosystem, with wild cats, coyotes, wild boar and deer.  The hundreds of cows, plus whatever horses as needed for work, roamed freely here.  The barbed wire fencing hardly held out the many predators.  The dogs kept guard.  Every being in this wild place served a purpose.

Manny was just as taken as I.  He was filling up gigabytes of his phone camera with videotaping of the herds, the lake and the wilderness.  I saw a few riders off in the distance, on the far bank of the lake. 

When I glanced closer at the far bank, I realized there were a cluster of objects, indistinguishable in the distance.  I saw a pickup truck, a small flatbed behind it, and a cluster of men. Their saddled horses waited quietly nearby.  On the ground just beyond the flatbed there was an odd-shaped lump.  Nothing much seemed to be happening, and my gaze drifted.  When I looked back they all had gone.  The lump, which I never saw moving, was gone as well.

Suddenly a pack of white horse came thundering up the hill from lakeside, followed by two or three mounted herders.  These were the wild horses rounded up for my purview.

They were herded into the pen, and into a narrow walkway where they stood single file.  One of the three whites was albino with pink eyes.  There was the brown two-year old whose picture I had seen the day before, an unremarkable horse.  Then I saw the palomino.  She was still nursing at her mother, who was a white mare with blue eyes.  The tiny colt might have been six months old, the smallest in the pack.  She has gorgeous upturned eyes, with a soft and tender look about her.  She has a long winter coat.  She is not completely golden, but is dappled with color.  Unfortunately, the owner of this one was not in our little group.  My heart was quickly grabbed by this tender babe.  The brown horse, my intended, spooked while in this narrow walkway.  She panicked and tried to back out, pushing the other two horses behind her.  I thought this was not an auspicious sign.  

And then it was over.  The cowboys left with the herd, back down towards the lake.  We got back in my car and followed the blue pickup through the fields.  At the raven Manny was driving too slowly, and we were smelling burning rubber.  The guys got out of the pickup thinking we needed help.  Manny backed up far enough to get a running start, and made it up the steep bank.

We got back to Arnulfo R. Gomez.  We shook hands and gave our hearty thanks, and left our friendly hosts. It was noon by now.  Manny called his dad and we arranged to meet at his village to look at more horses.  We drove south again, passing through Canatlan where we stopped to use the WalMart toilet and grab a bite to eat to-go. 

During the drive I asked Manny if he had noticed the pickup and activity on the far bank of the lake.  He had not. I described the scene to him.  Slowly it dawned on us that this may well have been prey killed by the wild animals; a calf, or a colt.

We drove east and then north again, until we reached Nogales.  We parked under another dusty cedar, and waited.  Throw away your watches when you are moving in these circles.  Eventually Manny’s dad and a friend arrived, and drove us to another large warren of fields.  We waited until the two horses for sale could be rounded up and driven towards us.  We couldn’t get too close; they stopped at the corner fencing in the middle of the fields.  If we pressed them, they would bolt over the fence. 

We saw three horses moving towards us.  One was a small white pony, which was just along for the ride.  The two I was looking at were a brown and a gray.  The brown has a narrow white streak down his face, but is other wise unremarkable. She seemed bored. After checking us out she was not at all interested in us, showing us her back.  The gray, however, was curious.   She would walk in a circle and then look back at us.  She has a broad white face, outlined in gray.  Her coat is a mottled gray, not solid.  Her ears seemed smaller and rounder than the others.  As we got bolder and tried to approach, they ran away.  But the gray stopped at a distance, turned, and continued to watch us with ears forward.

We trudged back along the fields to the car.  Manny’s dad talked about other horses he could round up for the following day, but I felt that I had seen enough for now.  My mind was still on the baby palomino.  I needed to know if she was for sale, and for how much.

We passed through Canatlan on our way home, but it was still Siesta time. I had hoped to buy alfalfa seeds, and to pick up an Amazon package that was waiting for me.  Everything was closed, and I had no patience to wait twenty more minutes.  The clock was ticking again, and I wanted to get back to the comfort of my home. 

On the following day I went into town to buy alfalfa seed.  The first shop I tried had none.  I went to a larger seed warehouse, where I was already known by the owner.  No, he did not have any alfalfa seed.  We stood and chatted for a while, when he told me that normally they would have received the seasonal supply of alfalfa seed.  The agent usually delivered twice a year.  This year the agent had ghosted Canatlan.  He encouraged me to go to Nueva Ideal, I would find seed there for sure.

I left Canatlan heading north, passed El Pozole.  I stopped at Luz de Compasion long enough to pick up Manny, and we continued on together to Nuevo Ideal.  As we were passing through Arnulfo R Gomez again, I asked Manny to call our friend Martin and ask if he had spoken to the owner of the palomino colt.  He had, and the colt was for sale.  The quoted price was just a tad above the conservative amount I had offered.  I said I was definitely interested, and would get back to them. 

One question Manny and I had been discussing was the right age to wean a colt.  I was remembering the years I spent in East Tibet around yak herds.  The yak calves were about the relative size as the palomino when they were forcibly weaned.  Their method was a device that was like a wooden crown of thorns attached to the yak calf’s muzzle, to prevent access to the teat.  Manny called his uncle, who was well-versed in horse rearing.  Manny thought that as soon as the colt was eating on his own, alfalfa and grass, he would be weaned.  But his uncle told him that it was best to let the colt stay with his mother until he was a full year old, to ensure good growth.

We asked Martin when the Palomino would be ready to be sold off.  He said right away, no, he did not need to stay with his mom. 

I want a third opinion. 

Anyway, I thought I would pay half the price now, assuring my ownership of the colt, but leave him with his mother for another couple of months at which time I would pay the remainder and take possession.  Or perhaps pay the whole amount, but take the mother with us until the colt was old enough to be separated from  her.  And then, how would we get the horse?  Surely it was too young and wild to enter a trailer.  So many questions!  I am entering a new world, with much to learn.

We arrived at Nuevo Ideal, turned left at the main intersection towards the commercial district, and looked around for a seed store.  After a few enquiries, we were sent back down the highway a short stretch to the John Deere dealership.  Yes they have alfalfa seed, we could buy a bag of 20  kg for 3,000 pesos.  Uh, was there an option B?

We went back up that stretch of highway and took a right towards the Mennonite settlements.  We found another seed store, and they were willing to open the 20 kg bag and sell us just a few kilos.  We are one step closer to finally growing our own horse feed.  My neighbor Julian had already done a beautiful job on our little field, plowing it smooth with his tractor.  We have begun our collecting of natural fertilizing, packing four bags with it, free for the taking, at the cattle auction pens.  We dumped these onto the alfalfa plot, though it looked like a paltry amount.  Many more bags would need to be collected, if we were to fertilize the feel evenly.

Our main mission accomplished, we went back to the commercial district of NI and I showed Manny the great grocery store that is there.  We bought the fixings for the Christmas turkey dinner, and finally made it back home. 

The following day would be December 23, and I had bravely offered to fix a ‘traditional’ turkey dinner for as many of my English-speaking Mexican friends as wanted to come.

I awoke early, with a list of tasks focused on receiving and dining guests.  As I worked my way through the monotonise chores of cleaning and cooking, I mulled over what had transpired the day before.  Since the young age of the paolomino was a stumbling block, I focused on the gray in Nogales.  I had invited Manny’s father to come and spend the night of Christmas Eve with us.  These two are very close, the son being like a physical clone of the father. 

The dinner went well.  Only two friends showed up, and with Manny, there were four of us at the dinner table.  The meal was simple, basic, and all from scratch.  I baked a turkey without stuffing, mashed potatoes with carmelized onions, giblet gravy and cole slaw.  It feels good to occasionally verify to myself that I am a competent cook.  Joel brought a lovely bottle of Merlot.  He and Lupita discussed the possibility of her locating her planned luxury hair styling salon and spa at his second floor hall, in the center of Canatlan.  He is planning to move to El Paso, Texas in January.  Once again he asked if I would manage the place for him while he was gone.  This time, with my friend Lupita involved, I said yes.

The next day, Saturday, Manny and I went to San Jose de Gracias to pick up Manny Senior.  I had hopes of duplicating the previous night’s meal, with the abundant leftovers.  However, the power went out in the afternoon, and we were all left in the dark.  We did not have nearly enough candles.  They stayed the night in the guest cottage, and I took a long nap in my place with the dog and a handful of cats.  I had fond hopes that I had hear Father correctly at the previous Sunday’s Mass, saying that there would be Mass on Christmas Eve.  I awoke from my nap, got in the car and drove to Canatlan at midnight. Sadly, all was dark and nearly deserted.  I turned around and came home.

Morning dawned without electricity.  I invited the two Manny’s over for breakfast.  I added some flour and eggs to the mashed potatoes and made my version of potato pancakes, served with bacon.  Senior and I had a long discussion during that morning.  In the end, I made up my mind to collect the gray horse on Tuesday, the 27^th. 

We were in a cold spell, nighttime temperatures hovering around 32 degrees F.  The sun came up on time, however, and it wasn’t long before the thermometer had climbed into the 60s, and landing eventually in the 70s.  We drove out to Nogales again, and met with Senior and his cronies.  Junior had asked them to round the horse up for us, to save time.  However, nothing happened before our ten o’clock arrival.  We drove out to the fields, and parked the car.  We walked through a herd of cows and bulls who were waiting to be fed.  There was lots of milling and mooing.  Among them was a gorgeous black gelding, about seven years old.  Apparently he hung with the cattle, and when they needed rounding up a saddle was put on him and he worked.  That’s how retirement looks when you’re a horse.

We waited among the curious bulls for a long time.  Then we saw the same three horses being herded towards us.  I stayed well away as the cluster of men herded the three of them into a roofless adobe room. To me it looked like an old abandoned home.  There was the pretty brown babe with the white streak on her nose, the tiny companion white pony, and the gray that I wanted.  The pony was a sad sight.  She is the beloved pet of the owner’s once-young son, kept around for sentimental reasons.  It lives out in the fields with the wild ones.  Its mane and tail were loaded thick with burs.  I just wanted to spend hours with the thing taking all these thorny things off.  The two horses, being slightly taller, had less of tangled messes, mostly just on the tails.

Now the gray was up close, and we waited once more.  Now we were waiting for the trailer that would take our lovely girl home.  Manny went off to get it.  His dad was owed favors, and so a neighbor had agreed to let us use his horse trailer.  After what felt like a half hour, he returned without a trailer.  The neighbor had responded to Manny by saying, in effect, who the hell are you I promised the trailer to the father not the son.  So then the two Manny’s went back into town and got the trailer, as we waited again. 

Meanwhile, the men clustered outside the adobe walls chatting.  I hung at the edge of the doorway, looking over someone’s shoulder.  Slowly I drew closer.  I had no intention of approaching the colt, but I did want to calm and reassure her.  I stood just inside the wall, and spoke softly to her.  She and the brown had retreated to a corner when they were first driven into the space.  As I talked to her she did indeed begin to calm down, to the point where she left the corner and took a more relaxed stance away from the walls.  I stayed with her, while the guys were freaking out at my taking the risk of being in there with the wild ones.  Soon the soft sounds washed over her, and she was licking and chewing in contentment, or at least relaxed.

The trailer arrived at last, and I cleared out.  I left the six or seven men plenty of space while they maneuvered the trailer into the doorway.  It pained me to see the terror and panic that resulted, first from the owner trying and failing many times to lasso her.  When he finally succeeded the crew cheered.  Then forcing her into the trailer.  Its capacity was four horses; the front half had a roof, the back half open.  She was rearing up, trying to jump out, before they finally got her into the covered area.  They closed that gate and, keeping the rope tied to her, she was secured for the ride. 

That is when the owner and I discussed the price of the horse.  I thought I had been told one price, he was expecting one hundred dollars more.  We compromised, and money changed hands.  As we drove away I was filled with eagerness to get this little lady home, where I could finally get a good look at her.  Instead of heading out of that village, Manny drove us off to a little corner of it where a lady was sitting at a table under a canvas roof.  This was where they would create the document that recorded me as the owner, and Rudolfo as the breeder.  The latter is misleading.  The horses lived in the wild, there was little control over what sire covered what mare.

This step was time consuming as well.  There was discussion back and forth about the breeder’s documentation.  It seemed as if the lady at the desk was consulting an older gentleman who passed back and forth from the covered area to the attached house.  There was also a teenage boy hanging around; I had no idea his identity or function.  Manny

 

 

 

 

Went off in my car, to coordinate with the guys in the trailer presumably.  He came back with a tamale; we were both starving, as it was now mid afternoon and there was no meal in sight.  Lupita had invited me to her house for dinner, another complication that had to be sorted out.  Deliver the horse to Patas Blancas and then return to Canatlan for Lupita’s dinner? Have Manny drop me off, then, and pick me up after dark? 

I was eagerly anticipating watching the first meeting between the little filly and our young stallion. 

Leaving Nogales we had tried to keep the trailer in front of us.  Once in Canatlan, it made a premature right turn.  We had finally decided that I would forego witnessing Patas Blancas receiving his new companion, in order to fulfill my promise to Lupita.  She was expecting another guest around 4:30; it was now around 4:00.  Manny drove me to Lupita’s house and left me there, figuring he could catch up to the slow-moving trailer.  His father was in the trailer, and we presumed he would be able to navigate the way to Luz de Compasion.  Wrong.  Manny got a frantic call from his dad in the trailer.

“Where are you?  Hurry up, we need you.  A cop has stopped us and is asking for the papers for the horse.”

Which goes to show you that this is indeed horse country; the police are vigilant for horse thieves.

They had missed the turn off the highway and gone the seven miles further down the road to the more familiar hamlet called Rancho Seco.

Manny got there in short order and produced the newly inked ownership documents.

I had a nice dinner with Lupita.  As she had previously clarified for me, Mexican meal times were 2 pm and 7 pm.  Apparently the timing of this meal, which she called ‘meat cake’, was driven by Benjamin’s schedule.  Benjamin is a young man who is very fond of Lupita.  He recently opened an electronics store in Canatlan, and has a busy schedule.  I had met him through Lupita, and we had made an arrangement for lessons in English.  These lessons were often canceled because of his busy schedule.  I was looking forward to seeing him.  I had called him earlier to see if he could drive me home, so that Manny would not have to drive in the dark.  I won’t go into Manny’s driving history here. 

The meat cake turned out to be a variation on meat loaf, wrapped in bacon.  She made mashed potatoes and gravy, too, as I had shown her how a few days earlier.  The meal was righteous, and hit the spot.  Manny is the elephant in the room.  He is an employee, not a partner.  I did not bother to clarify with Lupita whether or not the invitation included Manny.  He was the driver, no more.  He wound up picking me up anyway, in the end.  Benjamin received a phone call during the meal, and arranged to meet someone right away at the Oxxo store.  I called Manny, letting Benjamin off the hook.  Lupita offered the plastic containers I had sent her home with, earlier filled with turkey and fixings for her partner Luis.  She now filled them with a good meal for Manny, who showed up straight away.

Although the sun had slid behind the western hills, it was not yet dark when I got home.  There was ample time for me to stand and gaze at our new addition, and watch the interplay between the two horses.  It was lovely to behold.  Manny joined me to watch television before bed time, and we talked about a name for her.  The name Lucy popped into my head; I had heard it spoken that day in relation to Manny’s family members.  A shot of tequila for him, the last glass of Merlot for me, and we seaparately retired for the night.

At dawn, on a freezing morning, before the sun poked up above the eastern hills, I had my winter coat on and was outside.  There they were, side by side, Cinderella and her prince charming, Patas Blancas.  Now I see that she is a little smaller than he.  I was worried that she would be taller, she looked big next to the miniature pony in Nogales.  Now I am hoping that she does not grow any more, but it is still possible.  Saying a horse is two-years old is an inexact statement, when it is born in the wild.  I have heard that all horses increase their age on January 1, even a horse born in December suddenly becomes a year old.  I am enchanted with her.  She looks like she sat down in an ash pot.  She goes with Patas as if joined by the hip.  That is not to say that the usual gender play is not happening.  If he gets too close to her, she kicks him away.

The sun was already above the hills and warming up the air when Manny came walking up to us.  We discussed the day’s chores.  At least he has one less; no need to muck out the stall. The two horses had passed the night in the corral.  When he took Patas to the lunge area for his groundwork, Cinderella was a little dismayed.  She tried to follow him out of the corral.  Then, as he began his work trotting online in a circle, she ran first one way then, as he rounded the circle, the reverse, along the barbed wire fence that separated them.  Her eyes never left him.

For the past week I’ve started a training regimen for him, walking him on a lead inside the corral.  It is a brief exercise, developing focus and communication between us.  I wondered if Cinderella would be nervous with me in the corral, too.  One day she will let me touch her, but not yet.  As I walked Patas and put him through his paces, she was right beside him all the way.  She was not paying any attention to me, even when I was within inches of her face, but only on him.

Though this tale is coming to a close, it is only just the beginning of my life with Cinderella.  My plan is to spend time in and around the corral each day, getting her used to my presence.  She is learning from Patas, as well, to accept these humans.  I will not chase after her; one day she will come to me, and then her training will begin in earnest.

I look to the future, when Luz de Compasion will offer a western experience to AirBnB customers who enjoy trail riding in the Old West, where John Wayne cranked out classic western movies during the sixties.  Until that day, I live the joy of sharing my life with two of God’s beautiful creatures.

Ahem.  Not to be overlooked, sharing the joy with us are the two dogs and the myriads of cats.