I lay on my side on the steep ravine and pushed against the Tennessee Walker’s spine with the fingertips of one hand, an unconvincing amount force because his hooves faced uphill. He was panic-stricken, trying to roll his enormous body over.
Quietly, I said, “Please don’t roll over, I don’t have any health insurance.”
Moments ago, Gwen, my longtime buddy in troublemaking, had reached a part of the trail that was so narrow, even we thought the safe thing to do was dismount and lead our horses. The name of her horse’s breed, Tennessee Walker, said it all – he belonged strolling on flat grassy land in the southeast, not on a narrow trail in the high Sierra.
When he accidentally lost his footing on the of trail’s most cramped part, he knocked me down the steep ravine, pulled his reins out of Gwen’s hand and slid down after me.
Buck, my dependable, slightly boring quarter horse, responsibly stopped on the trail and Gwen took his reins.
What now?
It was autumn, we’d gotten our usual late start, dusk was approaching and Gwen’s husband and their two-year-old son were at home waiting for us to make dinner.
We agreed on a plan, she jumped on Buck and trotted as fast as she could down to the trailhead, certain that the people who lived at the house there would let her use their phone to call home.
I scooted sideways, out of the Walker’s rollover range, scampered above him, gently pulled on his reins and talked to him. At last, I persuaded him to roll over so his hooves faced downhill. With more quiet persistence, I got him up onto his feet.
To get out of the ravine, we had to walk downhill – not one of his skills. I lifted one front hoof, then the back hoof, then the other front hoof, then the other back hoof. Once he got it, we slowly made our way to the dirt road at the bottom of the ravine, where Gwen, her husband and baby waited with their pickup and horse trailer.
Gwen’s husband knew the two of us well enough not to blame me for the incident. But, after we loaded the Walker into the trailer and crowded into the pickup, his attitude toward his wife and me was stern and chilly.
And that’s where it stayed for a couple years, until they divorced.