This year the rainy season has made up for past years. Big storms have sent water rushing through mountain-side milpas.
Campesinos with upland crops have been kept jumping by wind and a jungle of weeds that seemed set on uprooting fencing, by downhill chorros trying to turn every furrow into the Mississippi.
It reminds me of 1998. In that year, up where my friends and I did a lot of work, the soil is mostly clay, which during a heavy rainy season turns as slippery as a ski slope.
In August, an acquaintance who’d been hit with arthritis lent me a big bay gelding he didn’t like, hoping hard mountain work might take some stubborn corners off him. As the rains picked up, I used the bay to ride fence, a job nobody likes, looking for slack wire and loose posts where cattle, persistent critters, like to push though.
On a Monday morning I set out to do that and to round up some of the dry cows we had in a high rocky pasture. The morning was warm, but by the time it was light — though you couldn’t see the sun for the clouds — it seemed certain a storm was coming over the mountain. But I got a good lick of fence work done before it began. Wind, rain, weeds, skunks, weasles, rats, termites and, of course, livestock all work on the fencing, which is strung on palo dulce posts, interlaced with spiny branches of the huisache bush.
The dry cows, eager to move on to better feed, came along easily. On the way back down I ran into another stretch of flimsy wire. Along with my Levi jacket and rain slicker — a sheet of plastic with a whole cut in the middle — I had a big Tres-CH spade and a heavy pry-bar strapped to the back of my saddle. I was digging a new hole for a downed post when the wind started up. By the time I had the post in, the wire nailed and was snaking huisache ramas through the barbed strands, big raindrops were pounding in my sombrero. I just got my foot in the stirrup when lighting cracked overhead. That was all the bay needed. He jerked into a dead run downhill, jumping boulders, tearing through low bushes. By the time I got him turned around, a cloudburst had swooped down from the mountain top, and neither he nor I could see more than a foot in any direction. Going uphill took some of the starch out of the gelding, though lightning continued to pop around us, spooking him with every bang.
About the time I remembered my rain slicker, the storm stopped as quickly as it had started. In its place, the wind picked up, turning the air surprisingly cold. I dug out my jacket from under the plastic sheet, and was pushing the cattle downhill when the storm started up again. This time I stopped and pulled out my slicker. A graceful gust seemed ready to help me, neatly lifting the crackling plastic into the air — then dropped it across the bay’s face. Bam — he went straight up and sideways. I let go of the slicker, which flipped between his legs and he several cows and I topped some sagging wire and, skidding in the mud, plunged , snorted and bucked on a slanting route toward a newly deepened arroyo that was turning into a river. I got the bay’s head up and pointed straight ahead instead of cranked sideways so he could glare at me. I was beginning to wish I hadn’t have brought him along.
The ground was black ice. One of the cows went down, and the gelding lept over her. He landed like a coked-up skier testing Vail, hooves fighting for solid footing, sliding through swales of belly-high weeds — aceitilla, orejas de raton, hoja ancha He got more scared as we picked up speed, for he was skating downhill unable to guess what might be under his next step.
We hit the side of the arroyo at a pretty good clip. For a moment I thought maybe we’d sail right over it. A dream. The steep rain-loosened side gave way and we plunged into the water, bringing along several hundred pounds of mud, weeds and rocks. I had a foot hooked into the stirrup leathers as we seemed to whirl downstream. My shirt and jacket were yanked high under my arms, scooping up mud and weeds as we sent, by butt riding along the rock bottom.
The problem with fallen horses is that they fight and kick a lot trying to get up. My foot was still jammed with a couple pounds of debris in the saddle, and I was getting real anxious to shake loose and way from the bay’s hooves. Of course, it was good not to be under him — he weighed about 1,300 pounds. I was kind of above and to one side, my back scraping along the bank as he jerked and pawed water and mud. His eyes were rolling and he was snorting and bellering when one of his twists popped my foot loose. Moving a lot slower than I wanted, I grabbed his head to calm his craziness, and got hold of a rein.
With me pushing and pulling, he soon got upright. Stumbling in sucking mud, we found a place where a big piece of the bank had fallen in making a slanting draw shallow enough so we could climb out into a thriving corn field.
Though I hadn’t noticed it, the rain had slowed to a cool sprinkle. Of course, neither that horse nor I could have gotten much wetter — or muddier.
I wiped clods of clay paste off his face, out of his eyes, checked his legs to see that he hadn’t gotten hurt in the melee. Then I started digging weeds, gravel and mud from under the back of my shirt and jacket. Finally, I just stripped and stood in the drizzle, emptying the goop out of my boots and wringing muddy water from my clothes.
Every now and then, the bay, so exhausted his head dropped to the ground, would wheeze then shake to get rid of some of the grit covering him. We must have made a weird sight, standing in somebody’s fine cornfield shaking and groaning and stomping, trying to recover from our mud bath.
The gelding was more than just done in. He looked like he’d shrunk. This kind of treatment wasn’t what his owner had in mind when he lent me that pony. And I was supposed to give him back, nice and fine-tuned, the next day.
Luckily, the owner was still laid up and sent a mozo to collect the bay. I was so stove up myself I could hardly move, and didn’t say a word about our jump in the mud, except to mention that the gelding had calmed considerably. Fact was, he still looked green around the gills — if a bay horse can look green.