| The bright white silky smooth horse glided along on wings that seemed to propel it through the air with little or no effort. As it passed through the trees hardly a leaf was disturbed as it flew along its way. The beautiful flowing mane trailed along behind its head, leaving bright, glittering stars in its wake. I was peacefully floating there on a cloud watching the horse perform in this way. It banked to left and accelerated towards me and as it did, dagger like fangs developed in its mouth. Liver colored sores began to develop along the horse's sides, weeping bodily fluids. Its head was surrounded by flame instead of the beautiful mane that had been there a short time ago. The bright light that was all around the horse began to fade and all began to get dark. I tried to escape to safety but the cloud I was on had turned to sticky tar and held me fast. Soon the winged devil’s fangs sank deep into my arm. The winged devil held me tight as it began to pommel me with its hoofs. The sound of breaking bones could be heard. The flame from the horse’s head seared my flesh. And then the devil horse tossed me in the air with a flip of its burning head. Screams could be heard in the dark, screams of agony. I began to fall and as I hit the ground there was great pain. I woke up with a start and jumped from bed. It was nearly a month now since the trip had ended and still I was waking every few nights in this way. The same dream, ending in the same way. The psychologist said it would take some time to heal, and for the dreams to go away, but I was ready for this healing now. And I had a lot of healing to do, both mentally and physically. The list of Doctors involved in this healing was long, confusing and costly. I was still dazed and in pain, and that was from the checks I had been writing for my doctors visits. After the torture I had been through though, it was understandable. 10 days of the worst imaginable torture ever devised by man or nature. The ten days of torture did not just appear and engulf me! No, it had been a long and for the most part, an enjoyable process. Just a few phone calls had been made and the first stone was set for the path that would lead to my nightmares. It took months to build the path but in the end the path was built and the tortuous journey began. A life full of decisions had led up to this ten days of torture. Ten days of torture that had permanently aged me. Ten days of torture I had longed for. A goal when achieved, not what I thought it would be. As I grew up there would be goals that I would wish for that were age oriented. For instance, as I lay there in the crib sucking on my bottle, I wished for the freedom of the open room. Freedom to roam throughout the large distances between my crib and the four walls surrounding it. It was not a big goal as goals go, but it was one of my first goals. And when that goal was obtained, it also came with bumps and bruises. Not exactly what I had planned for! And unfortunately, I did not learn from this early experience. I only dreamed of getting older! There was always some reason to wish to be older! Someone was always using the phrase, "When you are older……" to exclude you from some activity or other. And thus there was this constant rush to get older and be able to do what you wanted. To be in control of your own destiny and plan your life. But this plan, desire, or goal often came with more than you had thought. Sometime ago I began to realize that I had gotten older. I did not feel any older, but those around me constantly would remind me about how old I was. Like my children! Always the problem, they went and grew up. How could they do this to me? They are a constant reminder of my age. Add they’re twenty or so years to my age when I was married, and you get an old man. I am not sure how this is possible. I don’t look that old? Oh sure, I have more gray hair than I would like. My mid-section hangs a little lower than it should, and I have a grandchild. Yes, I am a grandpa. A sure sign of oldness! I would not want to give up my grand child but I am not sure I am old enough to be a grandpa! I actually wished for this! The ten days of torture had also been wished for, and like getting old, the day of departure had finally come. And so it was that I found myself helping to saddle and pack horses for a long ride into the backcountry, in the pursuit of the highly prized Elk. We had rented these horses and were thus unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of each individual horse. Horses being what they are, namely stupid, not all were cooperating. Some had peaceful sounding names given them by the outfitter, but that did not always accurately describe the horse. Although I must say that he was right on a scale slightly better than the predictions of weathermen. All the horses performed their jobs adequately. Some with more enthusiasm and a bit too much vigor than was needed. We had horses with names like Dr. Pepper, Grant, Heather, Birdshit, (sorry but that was his name, even if the young driver of the horse trailer was not supposed to tell us that) Willie, Shadow, and so on. None with particularly scary sounding names. You could not determine by their names, what horses had other than a friendly nature. Nothing of any help was in the names of our horses. By the end of the trip, we developed a better vocabulary in the description of each horse. Of which we happily passed along to the outfitter. Grant turned out to be as advertised. Gentle, with a great work attitude. What Grant did not lack in heart he did lack in stamina. He made it only part of the way to camp that first day. Granted, (pun intended) he was only about a hundred and fifty yards short of camp at the time. Also, he was carrying the Fruitman, and who knows how much that huge saddlebag weighed. Them papayas have a lot of water in them. Birdshit turned out to be one of the better horses on the trip. But even as good as he was, he still had his faults. You could ask Doc about that! While we were waiting for the delivery of horses to the site of the last elk harvested, Birdshit who was the only horse there at the time, decided to go and get a drink of water. The problem was that the stream was a mile away. This little side trip added some exercise in Doc’s day that he had not planned on. Running up and down a mountain chasing a horse is a lot of work. We did not come up with any different names for Birdshit owing to the fact that his name was colorful enough. I had suggested “Thirsty” but it did not stick. “Paint”, the only name we had for him, was my horse. A good all around horse! Well, there was that one incident when my scabbard fell down around his feet and I jumped of his back as he danced around and around. Well I guess you might say I was bucked off. Dr. Pepper was an interesting horse. A slightly built horse, having an uncontrollable desire to see what was above and behind her. Getting the urge to look there at the most inconvenient times. She broke my wrist on the first day of the hunt. I had not even got up on a horse yet, and one had broken my wrist. The urge came upon her as I was trying to bridle her. She reared-up knocking me backwards. The amount of force exerted on her part was equal to that needed to send me through the air about twenty feet. I put my hands behind me to stop my fall and snap, there went my wrist. Just a minor inconvenience! We had ten days of hunting to do, and I was not going to let something like a broken wrist slow me down. A trip into the mountains was all that was needed to heal a broken wrist, that and Doc’s medical kit he always carries. Usually the desire came upon Dr Pepper when going up a steep trail. This resulted in Dr. Pepper going right on over backwards. Unfortunately, if you happened to be riding Dr. Pepper at the time this maneuver was attempted, the view you were left with was one of the ground rushing up to meet you. Bashoy Raub experienced this twice on the ride up the first day. Later in the week, Dr. Pepper having been demoted to packing only non-essential equipment, (anything other than people) performed this maneuver while in the “Tail End Charlie” position of a three-horse pack string. Again while going up a steep hill. The three horses ended up rolling to the bottom. The result of which was that not only did us humans not have a particularly warm place in our hearts for her, neither did those two horses. We did happen on a method of preventing Dr. Pepper from doing this again. We loaded her with more weight than a single horse should carry, thus surpassing her ability to lift the weight in an airborne manner. Things got worse as the week wore on. We actually started finding and shooting elk! What a major mistake! Apparently, I had forgot to tell everyone that the elk licenses we carried were just an excuse to take nearly two weeks off from work. Harvesting elk is not what it is dreamed of. They are heavy. They live in remote and nearly inaccessible places, and large amounts of work are needed to get them to the butcher. The day that Elkless George lost his virginity dawned like all the rest, cold and clear. The night before, around the fire, was spent showing scars, scrapes and malformations to each other. And these were not from years past, but from the last few days. The morning began as the night had ended. Everyone was tired and complaining about some injury or other. My job later that morning was to bring up some horses to retrieve an elk shot the afternoon before, so I could lounge for a few more hours in the sleeping bag, while the others left. As I was leading two horses towards the downed elk from the day before, I heard Elkless George shoot. I looked up in time to see his elk rolling right down on top of me. “Death By Elk” was not what I had envisioned being the epitaph on my tombstone, and thus I made all possible speed in the direction of safety. There was a lot of dust surrounding the elk as it came down the hill. I was worried I would not make it in time, but I had nothing to fear. The horses were even more concerned about “Death By Elk” and drug, kicked and otherwise delivered me to safety. Oh well, more to talk about around the fire. “Just George” had lost his virginty! “Just George” had a new name. At long last it was time to break camp and head home. All the elk had already made the six and a half-mile trek to the trucks and had been delivered to the butcher. I was feeling pretty good having just taken the handful of pills Doc gave me each morning for my broken wrist. I was holding a horse we all called “Jumpy”, as Bashoy Raub tightened the cinches on the packsaddle. Jumpy was a nervous horse and it was always an adventure getting a load on his back. Holding the lead rope of a horse should not be associated with pain but this morning it was. “Jumpy” feeling less than pleased with the tightness of the cinches being inflicted upon him, lashed out with his laser sharp teeth and sank them into my arm. “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllpppppppppppppppppp! I jumped from the couch in the Psychologist’s office, and began running away from the horse as I had, that morning, months ago. The door to the office was shut and was of solid oak, and repelled my assault. It took some time for me to recover from the hypnotic state the Doctor had put me in. Then the Doctors repeated question broke through the fog. “Did I feel anger towards the horse?” “Yes, I felt anger!” “The bite hurt worse than the broken wrist, Doctor.” “The cast on my arm has been gone for a couple of weeks now but the bite is still there.” “I flinch in fear anytime I see someone smile a big toothy smile.” “I am worried Doctor.” “Do you think I can survive with these dreams of mine?” As I left his office, I heard him say, “You will never be the same again after such shocking experiences, all a country boy like you can hope to do is survive!” “See you next week Doctor, that is if I survive writing the check to pay for this week!” |
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A Country Boy Can Survive
"The Day Elkless George Lost His Virginity"