My little alarm clock went off at 4:03am. I threw on my boots and stumbled to the porch where I quickly brushed my teeth and spit into the dusty, dry dirt at my feet. Questa was snorting and stomping in the front pen, so I went ahead and gave him a feed bag while I groggily went around back to the outhouse, stretching my arms as I walked. Before brushing and saddling Questa, I took a few quick back and leg stretches to prepare for another hold-on-for-your-life ride with Questa.
Clark’s Forks’ grazing pastures were vast, and each morning all 30-50 horses had to be rounded up and brought to the pens in front of the barn for feeding, grooming and then to use for work and/or dude rides that day. That’s called “jingling the horses,” and we took turns each morning for who had to jingle the horses. Those horses didn’t necessarily care about this round up because the green grass a brush were so abundant that summer. Plus, they occasionally got a random carrot or apple from bold campers cutting through the ranch, so they were often spread out all over the pasture at 4:30 in the morning. To add to the fun, the grazing area had a number of deep ravines, trees, shed-sized rocks and the occasional clothesline from the aforementioned campers. We actually had to work hard to jingle those prima donnas into the barn corrals.
“A’ight. Here we go, Questa,” I said a little reluctantly as I opened all the gates and led Questa into the pasture.
Then I mounted up.
We were off – racing down the west side of the pasture as fast as I could hold on. At the sight of Questa, horses started to flee in all directions. This just revved Questa up more – cutting left then right, herding them together and pushing them faster. The horses were all aware of Questa’s speed, his power and most of all, his temper. As we chased this group towards the Southern end, we rounded up more turning east towards the hay loft. A couple of horses tried to break away to the left, and Questa cut so hard, he almost lost me over the side. The strays were chased back in line, and I looked ahead towards the hay loft. Even though we were still a good distance from those horses, they took off running at the sight of us – in no mood to take on testy Questa.
As we turned up the east side, almost all 40ish horses we had raged ahead of Questa. They were running like the Devil himself was after them. Passing through a denser, forested area nearing the barn, I saw some tents where folks had evidently made camp. Most fortunately, as Questa barreled after his tribe, I turned just in time to see the clothesline. Questa barely ducked, but I had no time: I let out the reins and laid back almost completely flat on my back, my head bouncing off Questa’s rump.
“Holy …” I held my breath not knowing if there were children in the tents. “Damnit!”
Loosening the reins on Questa is like handing the keys of a Bugatti to a testosterone-fueled, ADHD-plagued 17 year old boy on the Autobahn. Questa took full advantage of my predicament and kicked it into an even higher gear. After some left to right maneuvering to tighten the herd, he got behind them and ran them as hard as I have ever seen a pack run – ever. They were running so hard that … not … a … single … one … broke stride jumping a 10 foot wide, 30 feet deep ravine – and neither did Questa. (That may seem like an insignificant point – except that Questa was saddled and actually had a loosely attached living being on top of him as he did it.)
As we slammed home into the corrals, the boys who were previously slowly waking, still buttoning shirts and searching for their tobacco suddenly came to life fearing they may be caught in a stampede as fast as Questa had ‘em going. However, every horse managed to stop before ripping down the corral fences – although they were all crowded against the farthest one, leaving 2/3 of each side completely empty.
I had regained some control of Questa and was able to just trot him in down the lane. The other horses parted for us, and I stopped on the other side of the fence by the boys.
“Mornin’ fellas,” I casually remarked throwing my reins around a pole and giving Questa his apple.
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