story # 11

Before-Richard

by bob gottlieb

This story was made possible by encouragement from both Patsy and J.P.S."Joe" Brown -
if you know them you know what i mean, if you don't know them, they are rock solid people
and you can make up your own story about them

copyright © 1992-2012 Bob Gottlieb, all rights reserved.

“It's Aliens!" was Susan's reply. My head whirled to her as if it had been turned loose by an over stretched super extended giant spring, as she is not the type to speak lightly of things pertaining to livestock. In fact I've always found her to be a real sensible and down to earth ranch woman, not prone to making the idle comment, particularly concerning horses. She was raised on an isolated ranch in ragged, rugged and dry country; where something was done only if you did it. Dreams came at night in sleep; there wasn't time for them during the day. There was too little time to get done all that had to be done. She picked up on my look and proceeded to give an explanation. She knew me well enough to know I’d demand one sooner or later. She also knew I was open enough to give anything a fair listen.

“Some horses are sure spooky at the silliest of things! There are times when they seem to be just looking for a reason to jump.” had been my comment that prompted her head rocking response, that still had me shaking my head in a manner of disbelief as we were moving along the trail at a good fast walk. The two of us were mounted on our Arabian horses. She was on her 9 year old gelding, who is a veteran of many an endurance ride. I was on my 12-year-old mare, which was a well-seasoned horse of many uses, with lots of wet saddle blankets coming from the miles of experience in her head. The conversation was the result of the horses attempting to jump out of their skin and into our back pockets when the morning sun hit some rocks causing them to expand, shift, and roll a bit on a slope that was a couple of hundred yards to our left. Neither horse is the buggery kind, but today they were acting as if in the midst of four acres of snakes, all coiled and ready to strike. Anything out of routine was cause for them to bugger.

“Aliens live around some rocks while they are visiting earth doing surveys, other sorts of business, or vacationing on this planet, at least that's what it seems to me. Horses have the ability to see them, even though we can’t. Sometimes these foreigners are having trouble with a spacecraft, or are doing a particularly long intensive survey of us so that they will inhabit a rock area for several months or years before moving on. Other times it is like they're doing a brief survey or a quick traffic count to see how much the thoroughfare is used or some such thing. Then they move on in just a couple of days. Though sometimes it is just to another rock in the vicinity to check on certain variables or something of similar nature. It is the horses’ intense loyalty to us that makes them shy away from the inhabited areas so that we won’t be captured by the aliens. Most horses have taken an oath, sorta like the Hippocratic oath Doctors take, to protect their riders, though not all of the horses feel this kindly towards us humans. Thus when they see the aliens they get nervous because of their duty to protect us from the lazar lassos the aliens use to capture us, or whatever it is they might try to capture us with if that is the intent. That’s why many times the horse’s dance, but don’t pull a full-fledged dodge. Then we assume the aliens are just observing and either leaving their lazar lassos coiled up, or the horse's dancing confused them enough so that they didn't build a loop. Our job is to hang on and let the horses do their best to keep us safe. As if we were riding a good cutting horse. So really we should thank the horses when they do that dodging as they are looking out for us, not trying to dump us, as most people think.”

This made as much sense to me as any other explanation I'd ever heard. It started me thinking about a series of incidents I'd been puzzled by on a particular route I'd used for training some of the new horses I rode. It seemed for about 2 or 3 months almost all the horses had been very edgy going through this one particular gate. All of a sudden as suddenly as it had started, the edginess around the gate had stopped. There had seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the antics.

She continued, “That’s why I didn’t keep Zeena around too long.”

Again I did a sharp take, I thought she sold Zeena to make amends with a former friend. Zeena (an Arabian) was a calm quiet horse that never shied or seemed to take a misstep. She was the type of horse you would put the most inexperienced of riders on, you know the kind I mean. The little buckaroos and buckarettes that once you had placed them in the saddle, the ever vigilant super caring mother would ask where the seatbelts were. You knew Zeena would go along the trail with nary a jostle to the rider, and you wouldn’t ever have to worry about the horse doing something wrong. Only the rider doing something stupid was cause for concern, and even then she was likely to let it go.

“I knew she really hated humans,” said Susan, " she either never took her horse oath, or she if she had taken it, but just didn't take it too seriously and she flat didn’t care what happened to us. She was never doing anything to keep us safe from the alien’s. I know many times my girls were out late riding her, and they could never recount the story of the ride that didn't contain a blank piece of time.”

 

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