vehicle’s oil pan. During the night, these ruts and puddles froze, making the raised earth ridges on either side of them as hard as concrete. We didn’t use horses that much anymore, not since four-wheel drive became the main means of transportation in the Southwest. But, unless one had the time to do it on foot, a horse was the only way to follow this fence line right now.
Riding was one of the reasons I took this job in the first place, one of the things about my work that nourished me. In the saddle, I was someone else-half horse and half human. On a horse, there were no clocks, no stoplights, none of the rigid constraints and limitations of civilization. Instead, I felt a sense of freedom, of rugged challenge, of rightness with the world.
My normal routine would have been to establish a base camp before dark fell and make planned forays from that point, doing the bulk of my range riding during daylight hours. In the remote country where I normally worked, I had few human interactions, and my greatest concern was survival in bad weather. In the areas I patrolled most, I buried caches of supplies and survival gear so that I could travel light. I chose the most beautiful spots for my camps because there was no reason to camp elsewhere. But for this assignment, I would try to cover the fence line first-all the way from one end to the other-so I knew the terrain. After that, I could determine where to place a base camp for the following night, in a spot where I felt it was most important to maintain an active presence. Tonight, I planned to ride just over five miles to meet the forest ranger at our appointed rendezvous site near Canada de la Entranas, more than halfway to Canoncito.
There were things only a night rider could discover and report. At least half of the illegal woodcutting went on after dark, for example. A crew of men would muscle four-wheel-drive trucks into a remote area where they wouldn’t be seen or heard at night. Using a generator to power work lights, they would put their chain saws to work and quickly denude a swath of pristine forest, piling their trucks full of cut logs and vamoosing out by daylight, before being discovered. And much of the vandalism and destruction of rock art, ruins, and even fences on public lands took place in the dark, fueled by cases of beer and a lack of respect for the earth’s beauty. Poachers came to take up their positions at watering holes at night so they would be ready to bag illegal prey at first light.
Redhead and I set out in the cold, and soon the sky became a dome of ebony pierced by the cold points of blue-white stars. A low bank of snow clouds in the east obscured the stars in that direction, while a weak quarter moon hid behind another patch of clouds directly above, leaving this isolated landscape as dark as pitch. The biting chill in the air promised to deepen as the night went on, and the dense, pungent smell of mountain sage hung like incense. There was no real trail along the fence, and occasionally a thick stand of brush or an outcropping of rock would force a wide detour from the fence line. The terrain was rugged and sloping. Surging upward to the east were the high peaks of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. The only evidence of civilization was the ever-present barbed wire barrier that separated Carson National Forest from the BLM land I now patrolled.
The quiet was broken only by Redhead’s steady plodding and blustering, as warm breath fogged from her nostrils and quickly vanished into the frigid, dry air. Wherever a rock outcropping sheltered the snow from the day’s sunlight, stands of drought-stunted pinon huddled together like wolves at a watering hole ready to drink the melt. Thin tendrils of white mountain sage reached out to touch Redhead’s legs, seeking to pollinate and thrive for another season.
My nose hurt from the cold. It was slow, tedious work, picking our way along in the dark, looking out for rocks and other hazards. My eyes had barely adjusted to the darkness. I could only make out what was immediately before me.
Redhead was unhappy with the routine, too. She balked going down hills and tried to race going up them. She stopped abruptly several times for no apparent reason. And one of those times, like a mule, she stubbornly refused to take another step. I pushed my heels lightly into her side. “Come on, Redhead.”
She snorted, shook her head.
I dug a little harder with my heels and bounced my seat once on the saddle. “Getup!”
She pawed at the ground.
I kicked a little harder, not wanting to hurt her, but determined to give her the message that I was in control. “Come on, Redhead!” I said.
She’d grown deaf. And apparently immobile.
Redhead blew steam out of her nostrils, flicked her ears. She turned to look back at me, then, catching my mood, quickly faced forward again.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” I told her as I worked the strap of my canteen out from under where my rifle was holstered beside the saddle. My butt felt like it had been pounded flat and put in a freezer. I walked around a little, leaving Redhead’s reins wrapped around the saddle horn. She followed me like a dog.
“Oh, you can move now, can you?” I challenged, spinning around to confront her.
She turned her head away but her eyes watched me. I pulled off my glove and held my hand out low, palm up. She pressed her warm muzzle into it and felt with her lips for a treat. “Oh, all right.” I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a carrot, broke it in half, and offered it to her. She took it, and as she chewed it, I stroked her cheek, then her neck. She pushed at me with her nose, almost knocking me over, her way of showing affection.
My joints were stiff, my muscles nearly asleep from the cold. I drank a little water, my lips freeze-burning as they touched the steel mouth of my canteen.
After a few minutes, the chill was unbearable. “Do you think we might get on with it now, Your Highness?” I tied my canteen back on the saddle strap, then tightened her girth strap.
Redhead nosed the ground, threw her head back, and whinnied.
I climbed aboard. “Well, let’s go then.” She broke into an easy trot.
As morning drew near, I had to cross a narrow, steep-sided stream. I eased Redhead down the bank into a cold cloud of mist and through the ice along the edge, and then the fetlock-deep water. As we crossed, the fog grew thicker and rose to encompass and obscure the horse’s legs, as if her massive torso were floating on a thick pool of steam. I felt her feet striking ground but I could see nothing beneath the tops of my boots. I saw the opposite bank rising sharply ahead of us and thought we had made it across without incident. But as we started back up the slope on the other side, a figure suddenly loomed up like a ghost out of the mist right in front of us, a dark cape or blanket obscuring both face and form. A man’s voice cried out in a horrible scream, “Aaaaaaghhh!” Redhead reared and bolted before I knew what was happening, and she threw me flailing into the fog as she charged up the slope. I landed hard, a stone smacking so violently against my right buttock that I could hear the jarring impact ringing in my ears along with the thud of Redhead’s hooves and the sound of someone scrambling up the slope in the opposite direction on foot and then running away. I was stunned for a moment, and when I tried to get up, I felt like I might faint. I sat groaning and rolled my weight off of my right side. The smarting emanated from a strong, tight epicenter out in recurring, circular, throbbing waves-growing more diffuse as they got farther away from the point of impact. I gave myself a minute or two before I tried to get up again, muttering under my breath, “Great, Jamaica. That’s twice you’ve landed on your backside in just two days!”
I listened for any sign of the specter. He was long gone by now. I limped around on the icy bank of the stream a bit, testing my weight on my right side. It hurt when I walked, but I was pretty sure it would be better if I kept moving. Redhead whistled from above me and shook her head as if to say, “Let’s go!”
“You did this!” I griped at her. “Don’t tell me to hurry up!” I groped around among the thin willow reeds looking for a limb to use for a cane. The bank was too steep for me to climb without support.
I whistled. “Come here, Redhead.”
She pawed at the ground and snorted. She didn’t like the slope any better than I did.
I whistled again. She looked at me. I made a gesture, waving her toward me. “Come on, Redhead! Come here!” I was calling her like a dog trainer, in that fake-happy voice, trying to make my tone pleasant while my buttock ached unbearably.
Redhead wasn’t buying it. She lowered her head and looked at me. She reached down and pulled with her lips at the vegetation on the ground, feigning interest.
There was a stand of cottonwoods downstream a bit, so I staggered along the frozen water’s edge, wincing as my butt throbbed with each step. I almost stumbled over some whitened, weathered limbs lying at the edge of the water. I picked one of the limbs up and tried it-it would do in a pinch.
I noticed a ring of stones demarking a campfire site. I pulled a small flashlight out of my coat pocket and examined the area. The mysterious stranger had evidently camped under these cottonwoods; the ashes looked fresh but no longer warm, no more than a day old. There was no sign of litter or debris, and it was a poor choice for
