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The momentum of my run down the hill helped my legs leap from the rock to roping distance. Speed was the only requirement, and I used the quick double overhead throw to send the loop around the magnificent animal's neck. He reared briefly; then ran straight for me. I had half expected this and I ran a tight circle around a rock for a snub. As usual my pal Murphy with his law was right there along with me. He might have been sitting on my shoulder. A sharp edge on the rock sheared my rope cleanly and the palomino lunged forward. I instinctively leaned back and over I went on the uneven ground. The great animal's hooves loomed above me. I leaned back on my shoulders and tried to obtain just one more inch....
But I am getting way ahead of myself, aren't I? For I had lived with troubles back East, perhaps not as abrupt but certainly more nerve wracking. "Maybe if I hadn't of sold my motorcycle I wouldn't have come out here," I thought to myself. Deep down inside I knew better. The money from my old Harley financed the move to the West, but I knew I would have got here if I had to hitchhike. I had simply been through too much. The time had come to simply pack up and go, regardless of the consequences.
Just like most fellow you meet with long faces and a tale of woe, my problems had been with women. Perhaps I'm so much of an old woods beast that I'm better off alone. Sometimes I wonder.
My actual marriage had been a disaster from day one on. Maybe I wasn't fair to my wife. I just knew she was the most shrewish person I had ever met, and I expected it to stay that way. I had many friends who said they were going on a fishing trip to get away from their wives, and I knew they weren't joking. At home they had shops to work or watch TV in out in the barn.
I had figured that was the way the rest of my life would be. I was a dreamer, and that did not match up with a woman who only spoke of the most trivial items, and then with a stinging tongue. The prospects were bad, and I had resigned myself to such.
After twenty years an amazing thing happened. I met Julie. My existence suddenly turned from one of agony to one filled with the first days of spring, to the certainty that for the first time in my life I had found true love.
I was up front about it, for I had believed my wife when she said on a daily basis that she couldn't wait to be rid of me. When this certainty faced her she changed her song to one of "poor me." This brought about my first mistake, for I was awash with remorse and self doubt. When I got the divorce I gave her everything, lock, stock and barrel. The house, the bank account, everything. I left with next to nothing.
Julie had been hesitant about having me move in because of several factors, and I couldn't wait to tell her that I was finally free. Turned out there wasn't such a big hurry after all. For it was safety that had drawn her to me, the fact that I couldn't be permanent if I was married. Oh, the conversation was still good, and I was welcome to buy groceries or a vehicle for her. But the intimate moments, when we shared everything that each had to offer, all our inner thoughts; these times faded into heartbreaking memory.
After a year and a half of living in the woods I had endured enough. Any bystander would have seen it long before I did. This hunt was over. It was time to call in the hounds and douse the fire.
She didn't carry on when I told her I was going. She only said okay, so I said 'goodbye' instead of 'see you later' and hit the road, a modern day seeker on the trail of the lost.
I didn't keep anything in storage. I took what I needed and that was it. I wasn't coming back. The first day took me to western Pennsylvania where I had friends. Upon leaving there I took every road that said West.
For over a month I wandered, checking out all back roads and vistas that I could find. I was still sleeping in the cab of my Silverado, but at least it wasn't below zero the way it had been that last winter in New England. I wasn't eating too much and I dropped fifteen pounds of excess in that one month. I felt the better for it.
What meat I ate I shot, and that mostly amounted to rattlesnakes and jackrabbits. Jacks run to being tough, and should be stewed for a long time. I didn't want to take the time, usually, so I chewed on a lot of stringy rabbit meat. The snakes are much better. They are easier to cook but sometimes harder to find, especially in the daytime. Plus you have to be very careful around that head. It's a good meal, but not worth dying for.
I had always lived close to the land and I wanted to become closer. I wanted to get a feel of what the people had felt here a hundred and fifty years ago. After a while wisps of it would come to me at odd moments, like pieces of memory trying to move into my consciousness. Déjà vu, or something more? I decided it was the first. The mind is so open to suggestion that memories can be planted that will take a form all of their own, and the owner will swear up and down that they are true.
I watched the wild animals a lot more than I ate them. Elk, antelope, mule deer; these species were all new to me and I spent hours watching, reading their tracks, trying to learn. In places I saw buffalo, which had come so close to becoming extinct in the late1800's. That would have been a shame, but I often wonder how people can talk so much about a western animal when the eastern version, the woods bison, had been killed off without any remorse. Perhaps this is because the farms are smaller in the East, and it was an obvious necessity for many. They did not understand that the slaughter of the buffalo was advocated for control of the Indian nations. This deepened the tragedy of it.
It was in northeastern New Mexico that I caught sight of the most beautiful creature that ever ran the open spaces, a wild stallion. It was a palomino, rare in itself as wild horse coloration.
I understand that most of the wild horses left today are a pretty poor lot. One writer described them as hammer headed, knock kneed scruff that was not desirable for any use. The horse that I saw was certainly an exception. It was a truly magnificent animal that seemed to be the master of all he surveyed. He disappeared in a cloud of dust. I didn't expect to see him again.
It was a grand area and I parked my truck there for the night. For a change I slept well, even though that sandy colored horse kept running through my dreams. In the morning I poked my head up level with the open window, remembering how I used to love a cigarette at this hour before I gave them up for Julie.
Thoughts of a smoke vanished. On top of a mesa, outlined by the rising sun, stood the same golden stallion I had seen the previous evening. The déjà vu feeling came through, just for a flash, in which I saw a huge sombrero, and hooves, and blood. But I shook that strange vision off and wondered at the horse's presence. Was he curious about me like I was about him? Did he dream of me last night like I had of him?
An idea started to take shape, even though it had no end goal. I wanted to get to know this wild thing, to touch it and earn its trust.
Have you ever been mutual friends with a wild creature? I remembered the time I hunted in a cedar swamp and a barred owl kept me company all day. When I moved, it did, looking for any red squirrel I might send scurrying up a tree. In turn I was in hopes he would show some sign if he saw a deer from its perch on some high branch. This was, of course, a working relationship, but it is as close as you can get when dealing with a creature that is, after all, wild.
As I stepped from the truck the horse seemed to float through the air with his mane streaming and that is when I named him FreeHawk. Somehow that name seemed to fit him perfectly. Little did I understand the significance of that name at the time.
I knew I had to try to catch him. I didn't want to keep him, just come to an odd understanding and then let him go. Many years before I had read several books by Zane Grey and I vaguely remembered descriptions of how wild horses used to be caught. I decided I could easily duplicate the same feat.
My first attempt involved a box canyon, across the mouth of which I had made a crude rope fence that laid flat o the ground. My intent, of course, was to raise it when the steed was inside, and presto, I had a horse.
Right He had a small harem of mares, and when I herded them with my Silverado the mares went right in, but FreeHawk easily evaded the entrance and stood on the top edge of the canyon. I was grateful that he was not Mr. Ed. Heaven know what he would have said, but I knew it would be a remark unsuitable for young ears.
My second attempt was in an open area where I fixed a corral that would rise up when I pulled the ropes. He evaded it like child's play. I felt like Wilber Post on stupid pills.
I noticed that he often traveled the same draw in the mornings. I wondered at this pattern until the morning I was bent over studying tracks and the wild beast came thundering by me, only fifty feet away. Then I understood something of his manner. He was enjoying this chase. I have heard of this phenomenon many times and have experienced it with the snowshoe hares of the north woods. The hounds give up and return to camp, only to find the big hare already there, stomping his hind foot and ready to go again. Apparently life in the wild can be lacking in excitement.
That is what I figured FreeHawk was doing. Having fun; even teasing me. So I waited just above that draw early the next morning. I had learned the rudiments of roping; how to throw a hooligan and how to work out extra rope fast. It takes years to become good; of course, any real cowboy could make me look foolish. I was dressed the part, at least, with boots, vest, cowboy hat with a snakeskin band and a drop loop holster rig holding a Colt thumb buster in 45 caliber.
In the distance I heard a commotion. The stallion drove his mares far ahead. When they were safely through he came running through the draw. And now I made my run and leap, and as I mentioned at the start of this story, things went horribly wrong. The great horse broke free and I went on my back. I hunched my shoulders and drew my 45, cocking it as I drew.
FreeHawk stopped on his hind legs and the six shooter lined up with his head. Now I spoke to him for the first time.
"If you do we'll both die together."
For a second we had a stare down, then he gently alit on the ground and walked off a few feet to stand and watch me get up. With a flip of his head he could have shaken off the loop, but I believe he wanted to meet me, who was just another homeless creature roaming the West.
I touched his neck as I removed the rope and felt no shiver of fear. Speaking gently to him I slid my hands down his back and still received no bad response. Was he truly wild, or at one time had he known the touch of man?
A minute later I had my answer. A light running brand was haired over and hard to discern, but once I felt it I knew the rest of the story. It was a crude bird, or actually a Mexican hawk, El Halcon.
I remembered the story from six years ago. Two Sonoran riders had captured this horse and stretched it like a steer while they slapped on a quick running brand. Then, being impatient, one of them had tried to saddle break El Halcon. The situation had ended up similar to mine, except that the horse's forefeet had come down, again and again, crushing the sombreroed man's face and chest and naturally, his life. Then the palomino had broken free and roamed for these past six years.
Why had he acted this way with me today? I knew he understood that he would also die if he came down on me, but there was more than that. Did he try to redeem himself for that day six years ago? Or did horses get the Déjà vu feeling like man. Perhaps flashes of his ancestors carrying the conquistadors flashed in his mind.
By all rights I should have killed him right there. He would be considered a menace on the range wherever the story of the poor Mexican was told. Once he had killed a man he would kill again.
Before this day I would have believed that, myself. Before today.
I rubbed his neck one more time and said, "Adios, El Halcon." then slapped him on his ass with my hat. He walked a few steps, turned and looked at me, and then he was running with the wind streaming through his tail and mane. At the top of the draw he stopped and reared.
"Adios, Conquistador."
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