Horses in Love, continued
...
Dennis nevertheless filled his stock semi
with doomed horses. He got all but one of the duns, and also
got the two Shire colts. Bill, as usual, got the well-muscled
but lame quarterhorses, and Thoroughbreds fresh off the track.
And, yes, he had gotten the Shire mare.
|
Weight-conscious Europeans would be happy
with their steaks. I wondered what the slaughterhouse would do
with the Shire's fetus.I paid for the dun at the front office.
Then I drove home to borrow a horse trailer from neighbor Arlene
Walsh and to pick up my teen daughter Valerie. I'd sold my old
trailer and hadn't gotten another one yet -- but that's another
story.
Late that afternoon we returned to the
auction, towing the trailer with my '86 Volvo station wagon.
I backed the trailer up to a loading gate. |
 Tiger
Girl. Photo courtesy Carolyn Bertin. |
An old wrangler with pocked face waved
a fluorescent pink cane as he chased the filly down the walkway
toward our loading chute. She hesitated, then wheeled and tried
to escape by running him down. He scrambled to his feet, got
behind her and beat her with the cane back toward the chute.Suddenly
he froze, staring at the Volvo. He turned to me, slowly, chuckling.
"She's wild. You'll never be able to handle her." He
turned back to beat the filly with the pink cane. He backed her
to a corner where she couldn't jump into the trailer. She cowered
beneath his blows.
I begged him to stop. He continued to beat
her. She lowered her nose to the ground -- the "I surrender"
stance -- where was her mother? -- afraid to run him over again,
nowhere else to turn.
Valerie jumped into the chute and shoved
between flailing cane and flashing hooves.. "She's our horse,"
she hissed at the wrangler, her hard face inches from his.
I stared at Valerie. Only 16, with long
blond hair and bosomy build, she didn't look like the sort a
grizzled wrangler would respect. I had never seen her so daring
with an adult.
He panted a few times, an assortment of
emotions playing across his lumpy face. He finally settled on
a snicker. "All right, you load her."
Valerie crooned "Hi, pretty, it's
OK, it's OK." The striped mustang raised her head. Valerie
opened her arms and gestured at the open trailer. After perhaps
three or four minutes, the filly calmly jumped in.
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