Temperance Creek. Pamela Royes
of wind. Without talking, we began to move out of our clothes. Awkwardly, he spread his shirt open on the ground, and I lay in the middle watching as he slipped my jeans down my legs. I pulled him to me and thought I heard him say my name but was lost, the earth rolling, swelling, and moving under and around us in a great breathless silence.
“I’m hittin’ the trail tonight,
I’m hittin’ the trail tonight,
The horse is pullin’ at the bridle reins,
I’m hittin’ the trail tonight.”
—BRUCE KISKADDON
Jim, the man selling the horse, told us where to find the herd and suggested we bring a little grain as enticement. Pretty big pasture, he’d said. Couldn’t miss her, though, fifteen-hand white mare, easy keeper and green-broke.
“Maybe we should get some oats?” I suggested.
“Nah,” Skip said. “Too much like a bribe.”
It was a rocky, forty-acre pasture, and she was turned out with a small band that took off running the minute they saw us. We chased them up. We chased them down. The mare was plump but stout, with terrible withers for a packhorse (Skip said), though she proved her soundness as she ran lightly over the rocks with us panting in pursuit. After about two hours she’d worked up a sweat and stood while Skip haltered her. She seemed relieved to have the chase over with.
She was sweet with big dark eyes and lowered her head while I stroked her damp neck. “Do you like her?” Skip asked me.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then she’s yours. Let’s lead her down to the ranch and see if we can make a deal with Jim.”
By the time we reached the ranch house, sunburnt and parched, I was eager to come to some kind of agreement. Jim was pretty sure he wanted three hundred and fifty dollars for her. She was young, and, you know, he didn’t really need to sell her. Skip, stuck on paying three hundred dollars tops, finally said, “Jim, Pam would really like to have that little mare . . . how about three hundred dollars cash and a shot of Wild Turkey?”
Jim rubbed the back of his neck, then, looking at our faces, smiled and said, “Okay, get your bottle and you have a deal.”
I named her Pearl.
Three hundred dollars with a Wild Turkey kick turned out to be the right combination for mule trading too when we conducted a similar trade with the Moore brothers for an espresso brown, bright-eyed hinny a couple of days later. Upon delivery, Skip opened the stock-trailer door. The mule stood looking at me. Skip, who had the halter rope in his hands, gave it a little jerk, and she reared up, striking toward him with both front feet. The men laughed, saying, “She prefers a woman!” and Skip thrust me the rope, saying, “She’s your mule, Pam, come get her!” And from that moment on, she was my mule.
We called her Hinny. Hinny is the name given to the offspring cross between a stallion and a donkey. It is hard to get a stallion to breed a donkey, so hinnies are rare and smaller than mules. Skip said the dead giveaway, if you were ever in doubt as to whether it was a hinny or a mule, was the difference in their bray. A mule starts out with a horse’s whinny and ends with a donkey bray, but I could never hear the difference between the two, though I tried.
With the bay and buckskin mares Skip already owned, gentle Pearl, and Hinny, we had our “string.”
Next, we assembled our gear and got organized. From a wooden box Skip withdrew clean and stitched muslin sacks he’d sewn to contain and protect the provisions. We made a shopping list. In Enterprise, we bought flour, cornmeal, oatmeal, popcorn, dried beans, rice, powdered milk, jerky, and raisins. Besides salt and pepper, we packed cinnamon, garlic powder, and oregano. Perishable foods included a brick of cheese, butter, eggs, oil, bacon, apples, potatoes, and onions. A small pottery crock reinforced with duct tape held a sourdough starter for making bread and pancakes. At night Skip sat with his pocket knife, carving a snug-fitting lid from a pine board. He also packed a fishing rod and slung a twenty-two rifle in a leather sheath from his saddle to shoot game birds. We carried no tea or coffee and would depend on wild teas and the fresh water found in most every draw.
The kitchen kit included a small folding grill, a skillet, a saucepan, a coffee pot, two tin plates, two tin mugs, two forks, and two spoons. A grater, a large kitchen knife, and a spatula.
Our bedroll consisted of two green army-issue sleeping bags we zipped together and customized by adding liner sheets and a beautiful Hudson Bay blanket, cream with stripes of red, green, and yellow. He wanted to put snaps on it, to hold it in place. I agonized. “You’ll ruin it,” I said.
“It’s not ruined if we use it, Pam.”
I’d begun to learn that this was his practical waste-not, want-not philosophy. If we needed it, we bought it and manipulated it to suit our purposes without remorse. I’d already watched him saw off the handles on the shiny new pressure cooker. Watched him turn the heel of a sock to the top of the foot when a hole appeared. And eat the entire apple. Seeds, core, and stem.
The finished sleeping bag was roomy and comfortable and took on the dimensions of a large hay bale when rolled, tarped, and tied.
“How are you going to pack that on a horse?” I exclaimed, thinking about the challenge it would be to buck it into the back of a pickup.
“Perfect top pack. You’ll see.” I imagined the growing mountain of gear balanced precariously on the backs of two animals—my sympathy increasing as each new item was added to the pile.
I spent the next week getting to know the animals. Bonnie, the bay mare, was big, powerful, and obviously in charge, alternately bossing the others with laid-back ears and narrowed eyes, then nickering with concern the minute they were out of sight. Candy, the caramel-colored buckskin with black mane and tail, was curious and a little lazy, falling behind on the short rides we took from Camp Creek. Hinny was always on the prowl, tirelessly pacing camp, nervous and inquisitive, and Pearl was a pearl, calm and serene. And finally Puss—every inch of her leaping with life and love—heeling the backs of our boots and weaving love knots between and around us. At night she lay near our heads, silently twitching, sleeping soundly like the baby she still was.
Copying pictures from the Seven Arrows book, I painted shields on the outside of rough plywood gear boxes. A sun, a moon, an eagle. I took my share of guff from the ranchers and visitors who showed up at our camp with nothing better to do than make fun of Skip’s girl. He kept his good humor, and I floated on my little cloud of possibility. Nothing seemed like a big deal until Sam, gruff and twinkly-eyed, came for breakfast. I’d cooked a pot of rice, and when I removed the lid, the rice was green! I looked at it, shocked and humiliated.
“What is that? Maggots?” exclaimed a delighted Sam.
I’d used Rit dye on some white muslin the day before. It was a cheap aluminum pot, and though I’d scrubbed it thoroughly, some remaining residue had bled into the rice as it cooked.
I knew I’d never live this down, and the sooner I came to grips with it, the better.
Turning to Sam, I said, “Would you like a couple eggs to go with those maggots?”
I found out there was a lot I didn’t know about putting gear on a horse. Miles of rope, to begin with. Rope to manty the sleeping bags, rope to hitch around the camp boxes, stake-out ropes, and lead ropes. Then there were knots. The slipknots that released quickly if a horse spooked and pulled back. The lacy pigtail loop that linked one animal to another in a packstring and could be undone with one yank of the rope “tail,” and a couple different methods of tying on boxes and bags, depending on their weight, size, and proportions. There were even special knots for attaching halter ropes to halters, bridle reins to bridles, and one used specifically for tying a horse up.
“The