by Wendy Dudley
For the first three years of her life, Lucy and I basically hung out together, with Raven trotting along on our daily explorations. Mom and I would sometimes halter the two of them, then go for a walk into the west fields, weaving through underbrush, stepping over fallen timber, and crossing the creek ditch. They saw deer and moose, smelled bear, and heard thunder —a picnic for the senses.
In a round pen near the barn, Lucy learned to stand tied without pulling back, listen to my voice and verbal commands, walk across a billowing tarp, and accept ropes draped over her body and loosely coiled around her legs. I had her drag a rope in a small pasture, so that if I ever dropped a rein she would not panic. At first, she kicked at it, stepped on it, and backed away, snorting, trotting, and racing around until she realized the winding serpent meant no harm. I did not want Lucy to be like her mother, running into a barbed wire fence because of her rage over a trailing rope, or like other horses that, tragically, have jumped off cliffs, knocked over people, and raced across busy highways, all because they were not taught to accept a dropped rein.
Cold or hot, wet or dry, school was in: these were not fair-weather lessons. When it rained, we worked on ground cues inside the barn. Lucy was a fast learner, backing up with a wave of my hand towards her chest and moving away from pressure if I nudged her in the shoulders or along her flank. In winter, when snow drifted along the lane, I attached driving lines to her halter, jogging along behind as if my feet were sled runners. Sometimes I put a collar of jingle bells around her neck, just so I could listen to the merry sound and pretend I was driving a one-mule open sleigh.
During these sessions, Mom often leaned against the fence or sat on a hill, watching the two of us match wits. Some days it was tough to tell who was winning, she said, as the two redheads jockeyed to be boss. Many times she said her life was repeating itself, as she recalled watching my dad train horses. Long before my time, they too owned horses—a fiery mustang called Judy and a palomino named Tootsie. Later came Penny, a lovely red mare and retired racehorse that they harnessed to a cutter, a light two-seater sleigh. The horses, of course, are long gone, but their memories have travelled here, their bits and breast collars, hand-tooled by my father, hanging in our mud room.
When Lucy turned three, I started to talk about climbing aboard her broad back, an event none of the neighbours wanted to miss, especially Pete. "Hear those mules can really buck," he said. "I'd like to come by and see that." Others wondered if the big show would ever happen, or if Lucy and I were professional students, having fun but with no intention of putting our lessons into practice. "Got that mule broke yet?" Bill, a close neighbour, called out one day as he rode by. A former rodeo champ, Bill is all business when it comes to horses. You won't find a bag of sugar cubes in his barn.
"Not quite," I said. "But we're getting there, slow and easy." Bill frowned, then smiled, and kept on riding. He knew there was some big-time spoiling going on and that, in his hands, Lucy would be playing Trigger by now. But I was paranoid about making mistakes, about rushing her too fast. Compared to horses, mules are about a year behind in mental and physical development. Push them too hard and they sour, losing their willingness to work.
I must have heaved the saddle on and off Lucy's back at least a dozen times before I finally left it there, easing up the cinch and double-checking that it wasn't pinching or grabbing any hair. And when it came to a bit: well, she carried that snaffle around for three days until she stopped trying to paw it off or grind it into the dirt and grass.
As the big day approached, I began slipping one foot into the stirrup, while keeping my other foot on the ground. With a hank of Lucy's mane in one hand, I would haul myself up so she could feel the weight. One day, probably bored with the routine, she let me pull her ofd balance, my hand on the saddle horn as she crumpled her legs, dropping her body onto my foot like a dog lying at my feet. I might not have been riding her yet, but I could already make her lie down. Maybe I too could train her to be the next Trigger.
Few have planned a first ride like I planned mine. I knew Lucy was ready, and I had long ago run out of excuses as to why I wasn't. I had read every mule-training book and attended several horsemanship clinics, including one with the legendary Ray Hunt, a man who thinks like a horse and teaches harmony between a horse and its rider. I even took two weeks of riding lessons, just to get back into the rhythm. Yes, it was definitely time to get in the saddle. So one night, I listened to the weather. The next day promised plenty of sun and no wind. Perfect. I lay in bed, visualizing sitting square on Lucy's back, dreaming we were riding together like two of sodbusters. I hoped she was having the same dream.
The next day, after saddling Lucy in the round pen, I called Mom to come watch. I wanted her to be part of the big event, but I also wanted somebody around to call an ambulance if need be. I put my foot in the stirrup, grabbed a piece of Lucy's mane, and then slowly swung my leg over her back. I paused for two seconds, easing myself down into the saddle. My stomach was in a knot, but I made myself breathe. In and out, in and out.
"What is she doing?" I said to Mom, who was holding the lead close to the halter.
"Well, her eyes are huge, sort of rolling in the back of her head. But other than that, she seems fine."
I told Mom to step to the side and let Lucy go.
"If she bucks, or goes nuts, just get out of the way."
"What will you do?" Mom asked.
"I don't know. I haven't thought about it yet," I said.
So here we were, just Lucy and I. For three years, we had worked together, always with this day in mind. Now she was about to let me know what she thought of me. Lucy stood still, as if her hooves were nailed to the ground. Her head didn't flinch, her tail didn't swish, and I could barely feel her breathing. Only her ears danced, one tipped forward and the other back; then they would trade places. I squeezed with my legs and clucked to her.
"Walk on, Lucy," I said, but she didn't move. I squeezed harder and clucked louder. "Walk on, Lucy." Nothing.
I asked Mom to lead her around, just like she did when I was five years old and riding my first pony at a fair at the local shopping plaza. Lucy took a step forward, then froze again. Then another step. She was trying to find her balance, like someone after an all-night binge trying to walk a straight line. Slowly, she put the steps together and we shuffled around the pen, completing one whole circle. I wanted to scream, to yell to the world to see me on my mule that I'd trained myself. We may not have been the most dazzling couple, but I felt like royalty, as if I were riding a white Lipizzaner stallion. There never was a miniature Calgary Stampede bucking show, at least not that day. And the neighbours never did drop by to hoot and holler and pick up the pummelled pieces. There was just Lucy, Mom, and I. And I like to think that there was one other person leaning over the fence, that my dad was there cheering me on, proud to know another Dudley was about to ride the range.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Two Broads and a Mule
No wonder Mom and I are attracted to donkeys and mules. We're beasts of burden ourselves!
I scowled at the truck's flat tire, its sides bulging like a pancaked mud pie and a fat nail so deeply embedded in it that only its round head was visible.
"You know what this means, don't you?" I said to Mom, both of us dirty and weary from loading and hauling three truckloads of baled hay. "We're going to have to unload all these bales, then wait for the guy to fix the tire, and then go back for the last load. So if we're going to make it into town for dinner, we're going to have to take a change of clothes with us and drive straight to town."
Mom nodded in agreement, the two of us aware of the darkening sky to the west. Racing the storm clouds, we tossed the bales from the back of the truck, keeping our thoughts to ourselves. I wondered why we were always in a rush and why everything goes wrong when we can least afford it to go wrong. And why do we always promise my brother, who lives in the city, that we'll be there in time for the family dinner? The questio
ns flowed like a funnel of grain, but I had no answers.
Settling into our plough-horse pace, Mom and I swung the bales into a wheelbarrow, then pushed the loads across the paddock and into the barn. We dumped the bales on the ground and wrestled them through the narrow stall-room door, whose width shrinks every year, I am sure. Then we stacked the sixty-pound brutes from the floor to the rafters, keeping them far enough back from the stall bars that Lucy couldn't stretch her rubbery lips and steal a mouthful. With my apologies to the porcine species, it is a "pig" of a job, sweaty, dusty, and itchy. I feel like a pincushion by the end of the day. Prickly hay stalks slip down my pants, under my collar, and through my socks, while alfalfa leaves find their way to the most unusual places. When we pause for a rare break, Mom and I cough and hack up black dirt and dust—a mild and temporary case of farmer's lung.
Leaning against the tailgate, I asked a question.
"So, did you expect to be stacking hay bales in your lifetime?"
"Can't say I did," Mom said, her fitness masking her near eighty years. Heaving another bale from the truck, she yelled, "Come on. We better get this hay unloaded before that man arrives to fix the tire." I guess there are some things not worthy of deep conversation, and this was one of them.
Mom and I have never been afraid of using our arms and backs, but we don't necessarily work well together, pecking away at one another like two crusty of hens. But by the end of the day, the chores are done and we're still on speaking terms, which, for most mothers and daughters, is quite an achievement. My mother's friends say they could never live with their daughters; my friends say they could never live with their mothers. It's sad, because the memories you make as adults are so different from those you make as parent and child. People raise their eyebrows when they hear that Mom and I live under the same roof, but it wasn't that many years ago when parents, children, in-laws, and grandchildren worked the same piece of land. Look at Hoss, Adam, and Little Joe. They lived with Pa Cartwright at the Ponderosa. And what about John Boy Walton and his siblings? They sat around the dinner table every night with Grandma and Grandpa, and I don't remember anyone thinking them strange. Even today, many ranching families live next door to one another, sharing machinery and muscle, good years and bad. My friend's grandfather worked the farm with his son and grandson until he died a few months short of his hundredth birthday. Living in a small house across the yard, he was always within shouting distance of the back kitchen door.
Now, I'd be the first to admit that Mom and I go squirrelly from time to time, nattering away over something as small as a pine nut. Like housekeeping: my cleaning may not be up to snuff in my mother's eyes, but what daughter's is? She'll never understand a writer's habit of saving every scrap of paper, every newspaper clipping and magazine article that may someday come in handy as background information. Or maybe it's the way I store these valuables that drives her crazy. Yes, I have a filing system. It's called organized chaos. My office floor is covered with papers, making my room look like a dog kennel, one that's in danger of spreading into my bedroom, as well as the dining room, living room, and laundry room. But hey, I know where everything is, so don't mess with it. Besides, I have to put up with my mother's orderliness: tea towels folded a certain way, dish cloths left to dry a certain way, this utensil in that drawer, that utensil in this drawer, and heaven forbid if you mix them up.
It's enough to make you laugh, and on most days we do. A healthy sense of humour will cure most of life's headaches. A touch of whimsy also helps, so we recently hung from our gate a wooden cut-out of two blackbirds perched above the words Two Old Crows Live Here.
I sometimes refer to our set-up as "Two Broads and a Mule." Neighbours are kinder, addressing us (at least to our faces) as "the ladies" or "the gals." Others, quite accurately, think of us as hermits. It's not that we're antisocial, but with so much work to do, we have little time for meeting over cups of coffee. Most of our catching up is done over the gate or down at the general store. In some ways, I can't blame people for scratching their heads. We live in a swampy hollow, with a guard mule and donkey, and, before it was stolen, we had a bear skull wired to the front gate, its canines greeting all incoming visitors. Perched on the rails is a silhouetted murder of black crows, their metal bodies often mocking hordes of ravens, a scavenging bird attracted to death. All of this had a television producer, who arrived to shoot a segment on unusual pets, creeping down our lane until I met him halfway. Slowly rolling down his window, he looked more than a little nervous.
"I was just asking the cameraman whether he thought you'd come out with a shotgun or something. I wasn't too sure what to expect," he said.
OK, maybe the fence needed a paint job, but I didn't think the place looked like Hillbilly Hollow. Why is it that people who own mules are suspected of running illegal stills and holing up like criminals on the run? Taking advantage of the situation, I decided to have some fun.
"Actually, the shotgun's back at the house, up against the porch wall, behind the rocking chair, next to the banjo," I said, eventually cracking a smile so the poor fellow knew I was kidding.
I guess what baffles people is that we do most of the work ourselves, without machinery and without a hired hand. But believe me, with my mom's back of bronze, a hired hand would get in the way. She swings a mean axe, hammers a straight nail, and gives a cold eye that could freeze a bear in its tracks. Between the two of us, we shovel a snowbound laneway that measures about two football fields and we clear trails and cut our wood without a chainsaw, preferring a cross-blade or bow saw. My riding trails are pruned with lopping shears, the paths just wide enough for the mule's fat belly and my stubby legs, with bruised knees a regular mishap. We spread and rake our manure by hand, cut hay with a scythe, take down fences, put up fences, hand-pull weeds, haul rocks from the creek (sometimes we cheat and use the donkey to pack them out), and sleep in the barn with sick animals. Much of this is because the cabin where we once lived on weekends and holidays had no power, heat, or running water, so if you didn't want to freeze, starve, or die of thirst, you learned to use your backbone. Another reason I shun most machinery is that I am not mechanically inclined, and get easily frustrated when a turn of the key fails to fire up the engine. I look at a motor and it stalls. And Mom, well, she doesn't even drive.
We prefer the primitive look, fortunately, because much of what we patch and build is far from pretty. Take the first gate I hung, a job that just about gave me a hernia. First, the posthole I dug hit about four inches of water. But if the post was to line up with the existing fence, it had to go there, so I kept pouring dirt down the hole, hoping the clay would set up like concrete. It didn't. Next, I tried drilling holes for the gate bolts, but the bit was too short to screw through the post to the other side, so I had to drill two holes, hoping they would match up. Of course, they didn't. By chipping and banging and turning the air blue, I eventually hung that monster steel gate, but I almost twisted my intestines straining to lift it off the ground.
"You're going to ruin your insides, you know," my mom said, watching me groan under the dead weight. "Women aren't supposed to do this kind of work." I laughed.
"Well, I don't see any guy standing here, so who do you think is going to do it?" I said, ending the conversation on an abrupt note. That gate is still there, but it drags across the ground, digging a channel of mud in the spring, and ploughing a windrow of snow in winter. Someday I'll fix it, but not today, and probably not tomorrow.
Some neighbours think we're as stubborn as the mules and donkeys we care for, knowing we'll never ask for help unless it's an emergency, but we prefer to call it old-fashioned pride. We didn't move out here expecting people to drop everything to help two of gals down the road. When we can no longer lift a bale or dig a hole, we'll know it's time to move on. When we do, we'll know we cared for our land, leaving it a better place than when we arrived. Anyway, we never really own land; we just borrow it. In the meantime, we're weaving some wonderful memories to take
with us: meadow mornings when everything is fresh with new sunlight; sailing through a sea of grass, with the dogs riding the crests and Hud the cat tiptoeing behind; watching geese fly overhead, their wings catching a piece of autumn grey sky; sipping morning coffee on the back deck as the butterflies float above the summer garden; seeing falling stars streak across a black sky; listening to the crows call our name; turning the mule and donkeys out each morning, the dew shining their hooves; and sitting by the fire at night, calling it a day, while outside the northern lights splash waves of red and green. These are the moments that will be tucked inside our journals, precious and private moments shared between a mother and a daughter.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fergus
Dog people are often not cat people, but I enjoy the company of both animals. During the day, I love the shameless loyalty of a dog, but at night, I am drawn to the soothing purr of a cat curled in my lap.
Fergus, my orange cat, is missing. I last saw him this morning when he wandered outside, straying to the top of the hill where he sometimes likes to nibble grass. With friends and family dropping by for a visit, I forgot to check on him, only noticing his absence at dinnertime when he didn't show up for his meal. Mom and I combed the house, opening cupboards, peeking under beds, and even checking the clothes dryer. Searching among the tools in the outside shed and the stacked boxes inside the open garage, we called his name over and over, but there was no answer. I even let blind Hud tag along, thinking his mewing might bring Fergus out of hiding.