Hello everyone! The Boulder River Ranch and the Aller family provided some of our fondest memories while living in Sweet Grass county. We got to stay in their cozy cabins, fish their property and use their horses just like we were family. We will never forget their kindness.
Remember to hit that Like Button! It really helps get the word out!
Four horses were saddled and tied to the hitching rail. I knew them all by name. Peel, the line back dun wranglers rode who was Kerry’s ride for the day. Gomer, the gentlest animal God ever created, perfect for youngsters like Michael. Patty, a retired barrel racer that was a bit rough at the trot, but our Jack loved her. Last of all was Star. Star was a bay horse with a star on her forehead and a little wickedness in her heart, so of course I was riding her. I think the wranglers caught her specifically for me because they knew of our complicated relationship.
Star wasn’t mean or fractious. I could catch her in a dusty corral full of milling horses with no trouble on the first try. She would stand on the aisle like a lady and even give me a little nicker in greeting as I walked in. The trouble began as soon as I started to pick up her foot. She would wrench her foot from my hand and slam it down on the floor and sashay away from me. If she had shoes on, she would pull back against the lead rope and create enough friction between the metal shoes and the concrete with her scrambling that you could smell hot metal. She never did it barefoot by the way. It truly was an all-star performance. But her eyes never changed from being kind to mad or scared. That was her undoing. I knew this was an act in an attempt to get out of being shod.
You might not believe this, but I have done enough dude horses over the years that I spotted a common herd mentality amongst them. Dude horses know being shod means work. They also know having shoes pulled and feet trimmed means vacation time. It was hilarious to watch veteran horses push each other out of the way to get caught first to be pulled and trimmed at the end of summer while in the spring they tried to hang back and let some rookie horse go first.
The first time Star and I did our little dance I was surprised at her behavior. I had done about 15 head of the dude string, and they were all as good as gold. After several failed attempts to hold her leg up I pushed her against the barn wall, so she had nowhere to go. Sometimes that works. The mare, however, walked right over me, pushing me out of the way with her body while stomping right on the little toe of my right foot. The Kevlar toe of my boot saved me from a broken toe, but it still hurt. A lot!
Now, I don’t hit horses. You just hurt your hand or break a tool and it usually doesn’t mean anything to the horse. If you have ever seen what they do to each other by kicking and biting, you’ll know what I mean. This mare, however, was trying to dominate me and that would not do. In one motion, I flipped the rasp in my hand to the smooth side and cracked her one on the belly being careful not to break the expensive rasp (I’ve seen it done) or hurt Star. I was going for shock value. She stood stock still, stiff legged, watching me with one eye, ears forward. Then, with a big sigh, she shook herself and relaxed. I went to her side, gave her a pet on the neck then slid my hand down her leg to her foot.
“Pick it up, Star.” I quietly said. She carefully lifted her foot up. I got the leg between mine and started trimming. She sniffed me once and I worried about a nip on my butt but no, she just stood there letting me do my work. Forty-five minutes later, I was done and took her out to rejoin the herd in the corral. She politely turned to face me as I took off her halter and she waited for me to tell her she could leave just like the books tell you should happen.
I shook my head as I led another horse to the barn. I guessed Star just needed to see who was boss. I allowed myself to feel proud of my horsemanship not to mention my horse whispering. (We joked about the Horse Whisperer movie a lot. The movie was made right in our county.)
Little did I know that I would be doomed to crack Star on the belly at the beginning of every shoeing session for the next six years. So much for whispering.
While checking my saddle and tying on our saddlebags full of the wonderful lunches the ranch cooks made for us, I wondered if Star might bear a grudge against me. I swung up into the saddle and sat there for a moment waiting for a protest but she seemed more interested in following the other horses out the gate and down the road than my sitting on her.
Jack had gone out on the morning ride with Jeane, the ranch owner, and learned the lay of the land including where to ford the river. He nominated himself to be our scout and led us down a ranch road, past a big shimmering trout pond and through some wonderful aspen groves to the hay fields along the river. The other horses were there grazing so they ignored us, despite some plaintive whinnying by Star. We had passed through a big gate on our way down that was open. We wondered if we should go back and close it since there were those horses in the fields below, but we obeyed the unwritten Code of The West. If a gate is closed when you come up to it, close it behind you. If it’s open, leave it open.
Jack led us to the ford, and we crossed without incident. I remarked that this seemed so out of character for us. Horses crossing moving, belly deep water? A host of things could go sideways, yet we had no trouble at all. I found it disconcerting but my family assured me I was being paranoid.
We found a great picnic spot near some big pieces of granite that had thrust themselves out of the ground at the base of Mount Contact. As we ate, we scanned the sides of the mountains for mountain goats or an avalanche. The boys were hoping for avalanches, goats were fine with us. Kerry teased me about Star.
“I thought she was a problem?” She said with a sly grin.
We had turned the horses loose to graze next to us and Star came over to me looking for one of my potato chips and of course I obliged.
“Mares,” I muttered while slipping another chip to Star and let her lick the salt off my fingers. “They just know how to bamboozle you.”
“Uh huh. You don’t like her at all, do ya?”
The sun had gone behind some clouds and some rumbling came down the valley. A storm might be heading our way. We packed up our trash, tightened up our rigs (Saddles to the uninitiated. We loosened the belly straps while we were eating so the horses were more comfortable while eating grass and potato chips) and headed out behind our stalwart scout.
We were a few hundred yards short of the big gate when the rumbling got noticeably louder.
“Uh oh,” I said to Kerry while looking up the valley at the gathering clouds. She stood up in her stirrups looking behind us.
“That’s not thunder,” she said. “That’s horses running.”
She was right. The whole herd spilled out from a stand of trees, barreling towards us. It wasn’t the sight of them running that impressed me. It was the sound of them running that did it. Horses whinnying. Shod feet clacking on rocks. Labored breathing. Snorts and roars. (Ever hear a horse roar? Once you have, you never forget it.) The thunder getting closer and two boys’ voices yelling,
“We’ll get the gate!”
What the hell?
It all happened in the blink of an eye. The boys knew the gate led to the county road. It was a dirt road and rocky, but it did get a lot of speeding traffic from campers and summer residents. A herd of horses suddenly running out on it could be a wreck. They thought, being ranch kids, they should close the gate.
Jack shouted, “Stampede!” and the two of them wheeled their horses around taking off ahead of the herd to cut them off at the gate. Kerry yelled at them to stop but they were already gone. Neither boy understood they were nowhere near experienced enough on horseback to gallop ahead of a herd. Maybe that’s why they had grins on their faces as they left. They were having fun!
That’s when Star decided to help by spinning around in a circle with me . Around and around, we went. She wanted to run with the herd, and I wouldn’t let her. I wasn’t any more experienced than the boys were, so I wanted to make a fast plan with Kerry. Our spinning wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Are you all right?” Kerry yelled.
“Go get the boys!” I yelled back. She kicked up Peel and galloped after the kids expecting the worst, I’m sure.
“Damn you Star!” I grunted as I tried to stay on and stop her at the same time. My riding lessons with Kerry hadn’t covered this little maneuver.
Star suddenly stopped spinning and I darn near toppled off her back. She was staring down our back trail. A four-wheeler appeared with one of the wranglers aboard. In front of him was the ranch corgi who barked a greeting at me as if to say, “everything is under control now that I am here!”
“Oh crap!” said the wrangler. “I didn’t know you folks were out here. I’m bringing the herd in for an evening picnic ride for the guests. Are you all right?”
I quickly put on my best John Wayne persona and sat tall in the saddle.
“Oh, we’re fine. Kerry and the boys went up ahead to close the gate. We didn’t know you were why the herd was running. Hope we didn’t screw you up.”
“Oh, they’ll just hang there until I let them out. They know the routine. I better go.” And he roared off with his corgi barking goodbyes.
Kerry and the boys appeared right then and rode right past the wrangler, giving him a nonchalant wave.
“You didn’t come off, did you?” Kerry asked me over the snickers of the boys. The little boogers actually laughed at me!
“No, I’m fine. Did you guys catch the herd?”
“Yup. They got slowed up by some trees, so we got ahead of them and stood in the gate. The herd stopped running and milled around. Then we heard the four-wheeler and realized what was going on.”
“What a dang rodeo.”
“As usual!” Kerry chuckled.
We walked the horses home and let the boys ride ahead. Kerry hung back so we could ride side by side. She leaned into me confidentially.
“Are you sure you are, OK?” She said. “I didn’t want to leave you but…”
“I know. I’m fine, really. Nothing hurt but my pride. Star just needed to get in the last word.”
We watched the boys way up in front of us. From their hand waving and excited voices, we could tell they were talking about their wild ride to head off the “stampede.”
“I can’t believe how well those two did. They rode at the gallop like they knew what they were doing. I didn’t catch them until the gate.”
She took a deep breath and sighed looking all around.
“Look at it.” she breathed.
The thunderstorm was almost on us. Advancing black clouds, funneled towards us by the valley’s steep mountainsides, provided an ominous contrast with the blue sky and snow-white clouds directly above us. The thunder was a continuous echoing rumble now and a streak of lightning bounced off an unnamed mountain top probably 20 miles away. The preceding wind was jangling the aspen leaves, drying our sweat soaked t-shirts and the horse’s hair, leaving us all a little shivery.
Jack the Scout had stopped at the road and was waving at us to hurry up.
“We are going to get wet!” He shouted over the wind.
“Now this is why we moved to Montana!” Kerry laughed while kicking Peel up to a gallop and racing ahead.
“Let’s go Star!” I shouted and leaned forward. Star laid her ears back and chased after the gang all the way to the corral. We got all our rigging put away in the tack shed and were just finished cooling off the horses when the rain came down in sheets.
Two important details to add:
1) I found the right spot to cross the river, but I didn’t think we were crossing a deep eight part of the river. If you’re fording a river on horseback, you’re supposed to get your feet wet! My fun was ruined by parents who insisted that “you’ll end up getting blisters” or “you could drown” like those things mattered compared to being a super cool cowboy.
2) That corgi’s name was Gizmo and Gizmo was the exact right name for that corgi.