Turning at the small restaurant I remembered from our last visit, I took a side street to catch Montana highway 191 that lead to our rental home. All I knew about it was that it was a double-wide trailer with a wood stove, it was painted red, and it had a big shop and tiny barn next to it.
A friend, who knew the rancher who leased the place, had arranged for us to rent the house. He had assured me it was the perfect place for us to get started. Kerry and the boys had gone ahead of me by plane and had met the moving truck, but I had no idea what she thought of the place since the phones had not been hooked up. Not knowing had been nagging me since I had driven my horseshoeing rig over the Wyoming border.
The house sat at the foot of the Crazy Mountains that dominate the landscape. On this day, the peaks were colored blue/black, the summits shrouded by mist and rain clouds. Gaps in the walls of clouds gave glimpses of brilliant white snowfields on the mountainsides lit up by the sun that was shining behind the leaden sky. On my side of the cloud banks, the spring grass was a bright, glowing green despite the lack of sunshine. It was raining sporadically. A cold, wind-driven rain. I pulled over to sit and take it in. This was how the Northern Rocky Mountain West should look. Vast, bold, and intimidating
My hands began to tremble on the steering wheel. All the unknowns had conspired to start a wave of doubt and, if I was honest, fear.
“What have I gotten us into?” I said out loud.
It was a silly thing to say, even to myself. Kerry and I made this decision together. The way we looked at it, we had no choice.
Connecticut was changing. The farms were almost all gone, replaced by “Farm Stands”. The old swamp Yankees who were a source of knowledge and entertainment were dying off. Land and homes were so expensive we couldn’t see a way to have our own place no matter how hard we worked. The roads and trout rivers were crowded on weekends with people from New York who had country homes that sprung up in the hayfields. Jack was going to start kindergarten and we got a notice that his backpack needed to be clear so that the school could see he wasn’t packing a gun. That was the final straw.
We decided that the boys would have a better chance to grow up happy roaming around in rural Montana than they would in increasingly citified Connecticut. We might even be able to get a place of our own. We both also wanted to have a big adventure before we got too old.
Staring at that adventure in the face on a rainy, windswept day was what got my hands shaking. Back in the wagon train days, some called this feeling, “seeing the elephant”. Some of them, their hands trembling as they held the reins, turned their wagons around and went home. I remember reading about that and not understanding why they did it. I got it now.
But we had advantages the pioneers didn’t have. We had been to Big Timber before. We knew some people there. As a horseshoer, I had skills that weren’t common and were badly needed here. Besides all that, we had each other. We had learned that together we could get through anything life cared to heave in our direction. So, I squeezed the steering wheel to get rid of the shakes, put the truck in gear and headed up the road, radio volume turned way up. Loud rock and roll always makes me feel braver.
All the spring rain and ranch traffic had churned the county roads into slippery, sticky mud that threatened to grab my front tires and toss the truck into the deep ditches along the side of the road, even in four-wheel drive. If you ended up down there you would probably roll over at worst, or at best need a tow truck to get out. I slithered my way along trying to stay in the middle of the road and praying no one would come in the opposite direction. I definitely was going to need different tires!
I could see the red trailer in the distance with the mountains as a backdrop. It was truly beautiful. Only the nasty road conditions could take my eyes off of it. After a couple near slide offs and a tense moment when a mule deer contemplated jumping in front of me, I arrived.
As I rumbled over the cattle guard at the ranch entrance, Kerry and the boys rushed out of the trailer to greet me. The boys, of course immediately found a puddle to play in and gave me back handed waves. Kerry gave me a hug and a kiss and asked about my trip.
“I was worried about the muddy road and if you could get in.” she said. “I’m glad you made it so we can get some groceries. We haven’t gone out in the car since it got like this.”
“I’d be happy to. So how’s the place?”
“The boys are thrilled. There is a lot to roam around in and explore. We are going to have to teach them about snakes for sure before it gets warmer.”
“How about the house?”
Kerry grinned.
“It definitely was built in the 1960s, shag carpeting and all but the wood stove is great and we have a dishwasher! There are some mouse issues, but I figure you can take care of that. We are mostly moved in, and the extra stuff is out in the shop out of the rain. Our landlord Butch is a great guy and a big help…”
She led me into the house, one arm around my waist, while filling me in on all the details. Just listening to her voice made my anxiety fade away.
We were all together. Pine slabs burning in the wood stove crackled and popped. The house was warm and smelled of beef stew and fresh bread as the rain suddenly lashed down against the windows, driving the muddy boys inside.
“Did you see we have our own bathroom?” Jack, the five-year-old asked.
“Our own room too.” Said Michael the three-year-old.
“Show me.” I said and they took me on the grand tour of our new home.
As we got settled, I was also checking out possibilities to advertise myself and my services in town. I started at the two most obvious places, the veterinarians, and the saddlery. The vets were thrilled to have someone local who could do corrective shoeing and promised to put the word out as they traveled the county.
The saddlery was run by a man named Jim who looked and sounded like Ben Johnson from all those John Wayne movies. He was talking on the phone as I came in so I wandered the store. I noticed that he did beautiful work. I can’t even begin to figure out how you craft a saddle, but Jim sure knew.
He finished his phone call and invited me to sit at his bench with a cup of coffee and a cookie. First thing I noticed about him besides his being a Ben Johnson doppelganger was that he loved to talk as much as I do, so we hit it off pretty quick. We told stories and jokes, and he asked a few technical questions about horseshoeing. I assumed that was his way of deciding if I knew what I was doing. Lots of folks out west call themselves horseshoers. Usually, they talk about it in bars. I’ve gotten under a lot of horses over the years, one time in a swimming pool, but I’ve never once shod a horse in a saloon. (The swimming pool incident is a whole story unto itself.)
As it turned out, Jim and I even had a friend in common down in Wyoming. The “interview” went on for an hour and Jim must have decided I was for real because he hooked me up with a local shoer named Larry.
Larry was a real estate agent and a part time horseshoer. He is a big man, several inches taller than me, with a friendly face and personality to match. Still, I instantly knew you wouldn’t want to make Larry mad. The tough guys you read about and see in the news? You know, the ones with the perpetual scowl on their faces? You can ignore them. It’s the guy with the smile on his face that you need to worry about in a tense situation.
Larry and I met at his office, and we connected right away. He had a big job coming up at a dude ranch and really wanted some help. He asked if I would mind giving him a hand at a ranch down the road and I was happy to agree. We needed the money at home for sure. I also figure that he wanted to see my work to be sure I would be more of a help than a hinderance at the dude ranch.
We began to shoe together most evenings and we split the horses and money 50/50. Larry is a good shoer, and our styles were similar. But maybe most important of all, he was fun to work with.
On our way home from a two-horse ranch, Larry brought up the dude ranch and made a proposal. We would split all the costs and the horses. There were 60 head total. We would charge $45.00 a head. It would take a week to do. We would need to shoe the string again mid-summer and then pull and trim in the fall. What did I think?
What did I think? This was great and beyond anything I had hoped for. Kerry was going to be thrilled. My brain was buzzing with excitement about the future and having some income. Larry was explaining about the ranch but all I could do was sit there with a goofy grin on my face and nod.
Then he said something that professional writers call “foreshadowing”.
“… and I promise you won’t get hurt.”
That snapped me back to reality because it was an odd thing to say. In our profession we accept that horseshoeing is relatively dangerous. You work with sharp tools and red-hot shoes. Horses are large, strong animals and can be ornery sometimes. Maybe I had missed something but guaranteeing me I wouldn’t get hurt was something you just can’t promise.
But who cares? I was going to make some money right away and the best part was the ranch was up in the mountains behind our house! Larry would pick me up Monday morning and I didn’t even need to bring lunch because the ranch would feed me.
Monday dawned bright and clear, and I was ready to work. I had cleaned my tools and organized everything so I could transfer to Larry’s rig. I even polished up my anvil with my grinder. It was like I was a kid the day before Christmas. I sat outside on the deck drinking coffee to wait for Larry and watch the sun rise. Our house faced east and the beauty of the Sweet Grass hills, misty and colored in dark blue shadows in the distance, would only last until the sun rose high enough to bathe everything in glaring light. The hills would disappear but return just as the sun set behind us and the shadows creeped back in. I still miss that view.
I could hear a diesel engine coming toward us on the county road and sure enough Larry’s Dodge crested the hill south of us. But, he was towing something. I couldn’t make out what it was. Back then, most horseshoers didn’t tow a trailer to work.
As it drew nearer, I could see that the trailer had a sort of scaffolding on it. Swinging from it were ropes! A lot of them. Kerry appeared at the door drying her hands with a dish towel.
“What the heck is that?” she asked shading her eyes with her hand.
“Portable gallows?” I joked.
“John, those are stocks!”
(If you didn’t know, Kerry is a horsewoman. She knows quite a bit about them, certainly more than me, and can sit a horse. That means the woman can ride. Not praise I lavish on just anyone.)
“I’ll be damned. They sure are portable stocks.” I had never seen them before except in pictures.
Then another thought popped into my head, and it wasn’t a good one. Kerry had the same thought.
“Why would you need stocks to shoe at a dude ranch? Shouldn’t those horses be pretty easy to work around?”
“Well, Larry did promise I wouldn’t get hurt. Maybe this is what he meant.”
“Hmmmmm.” She replied in an unconvinced tone and walked back into the house to feed the boys.
Larry stopped in front of the deck and bounced out of the truck.
“Good morning! Are we ready to begin your lessons on shoeing in the West?”
“Stocks, Larry?”
“Yup! I call it The Box! Built by the Amish out of oak. I added some plate steel to the joints to reinforce them.”
The stocks looked solid. The ropes hanging there were the big soft cotton kind so the horses wouldn’t get burned when you tied them in. The wood looked to be 6x6s and framed the stocks into a box shape that was open on one end where the horse entered. There were angled blocks on either side of the four main beams. Those had to be places to tie feet in whatever position you wanted. There were belly bands, back bands, butt bands, and even places to immobilize their heads using their halters. A fractious horse would not be able to do anything to you or themselves once they were tied up in this contraption.
“I’ve never used stocks before.” I said a little worried.
“Nothing to it.” Larry replied. “It’s easy. You’ll see.”
That made sense. Stocks have been around for centuries and used by hundreds of thousands of shoers and vets. How hard could it be? I loaded my gear into the bed of Larry’s truck, waved goodbye to Kerry and the boys peeking out the window, and off we went up into the Crazies.
It took about 45 minutes of driving on the rock-strewn dirt road to get to the dude ranch. On the way, Larry filled me in on what our days would be like.
“There are about 15 head that need the stocks. I have found it’s easier to do a few of them each day rather than all at once. It used to be more, but we have weaned some of them out of it.”
“I don’t understand this at all Larry. These are dude horses. Why are they so rank?”
A few of them its just personality and lack of training when they were young. I think a lot of it though, is that they used to shoe them on a tilt table and the horses got some real bad attitudes about horseshoers.”
“I’ll bet they did. I’m getting an attitude just thinking about it.”
“Me too.” Said Larry.
Tilt tables are literally tables you can tilt hydraulically. You stand the tabletop upright, lead the animal in next to it and tie them in or there are bars that clamp them in. Then you tilt it into a flat position, the animal is immobilized on its side, and you get to work. Usually, you use tilt tables on dairy cows to trim their feet. I’ve only been involved with the cows a couple times at the vet’s to fix cracked feet or dig out an abscess. They don’t seem to mind too much which surprised me. Maybe it’s because cows lay down a lot more than horses, in general.
Horses, however, do not like being restrained. Running away is their first means of defense. I wouldn’t let anyone use a tilt table on a horse of mine. Larry told me that there were a few guys who used tilt tables and grinders on large herds of horses to make quick money without being bent over. The “wild” horse herds the Federal government oversees use tables as well. I get the convenience and safety factor, but too many horses hurt themselves on tables as they struggle to get free. Not to mention developing an attitude problem toward horseshoers.
“What do you do if the table shod horse loses a shoe?” I asked.
“Well, they say you have to figure it out. They ain’t coming up here for one shoe.”
“I see. So what happens if we have a horse that needs The Box to be shod safely and they lose a shoe?”
“Well, depending on the horse, we may need to use a rope.”
“How?”
“John my boy. You have a lot to learn. This isn’t the show circuit.”
I must have looked confused and a little insulted. I knew a lot about horses and shoeing them. I had the scars to prove it.
“Tell you what.” Larry said. “Let’s take this one horse at a time. Most here are fine to work on. When we get to the more...” Larry paused and searched for the right word, “fractious ones, we’ll double team them.”
He grinned at me.
“I like that word fractious! It’s so much more pleasant than all the other words I’ve been trying not to say to make my wife happy.”
I had to laugh. Larry was a wise man!
The road broke out of a forested area into some nice-looking pasture where I could see horses grazing. Larry pointed at a stout grayish white mare with a bell around her neck. She was staring at us with her ears laid back. I got the feeling she knew exactly who we were and was not happy about it.
“See her? That’s Sis. We will do her last. After shoeing Sis you might want to take a few days off!”
Larry laughed uproariously.
“What’s with the cow bell?” I asked.
“Oh, she is a bell mare. She’s the boss. When they need to bring everyone in they listen for the bells and come and find the ones wearing them. You bring them in and everyone will follow.”
“So, just like dairy cows.”
“Exactly. But I wouldn’t go mentioning that around here. They think they have some fine horse flesh here. Comparing them to dairy cows won’t go over well. Know what I mean?”
“Yup! I get it.”
Up ahead log buildings came into view. Some were obviously guest cabins and one big one that had to be the lodge/dining hall. There were some young men hanging around a gate wearing battered cowboy hats and dirty blue jeans. They were a study in nonchalance.
“Our help.” Larry said.
“Do they know what they are doing?”
“Usually. Don’t worry. We’ll whip them into shape.”
I took another sip of coffee from my travel mug. The wranglers were gathered around Larry’s open window, indifferent attitude gone, excitedly talking about the horses and the stocks. They looked green to me but what did I know? I was the new guy from someplace else.
It was shaping up to be an interesting week.
End of Part One
Very enjoyable and a education in shoeing, most of the shoers that I know just use cross ties to get the job done. I look forward to the next part.
Enjoyed this bro. Would love to see some pics if you have them.