by Kim Meeder
Staying until another officer returned to the truck, I asked if any of the dogs were in need of a home. He assured me that with nearly miraculous speed, they already had homes waiting … for all of them.
Continuing my evaluation of the scene, I moved on past the gigantic pile of trash and dogs, the couple’s battered travel trailer, and the tiny pens imprisoning horses mired within their own manure.
The main herd beckoned like a sickening song. The enormity of what loomed before me was staggering. It was becoming more difficult to make my mind focus on such hideous sights as they continued to multiply like a revolting swarm.
While picking my way through trash, rotting lumber, and collapsed fencing, I noticed something else … something unspeakable. Their unmistakable presence shouted in silence of unfathomable horror and suffering—there were … bones … everywhere.
Dear Lord, how many have died here?
Like somber witnesses of what could be kept secret no longer, a myriad of dull bones, scattered as far as I could see, began to murmur the truth of what really happened here.
As the starving horses collapsed in death … the starving dogs devoured their flesh.
Overwhelming sorrow poured down my spine like ice water. My entire chest tightened with the realization of such horrific carnage.
The fog was continuing to lift. The heavy gray light of morning seemed to join the frozen earth and groan in mourning for these lost ones.
But the worst was still before me.
Troy had made his way from the crush of people toward the main herd as well. In silence, we met at the makeshift gate which was nothing more than two poles caught in a twisted ream of barbed wire. After passing through, we spread out to cover more area. The entire scene was unspeakable, unthinkable, incomprehensible.
Every horse I examined was a new example of the various stages of suffering. Even though they were nearly all young, most wore the expression of those who have seen and known much anguish, like broken souls returning home from war. None were approachable; all moved away with wary, rolling eyes. Eyes that futilely searched the earth for something, anything, to fill the yawning emptiness within.
The area that encompassed the main herd of horses was enormous. I could not see the perimeter fencing in any direction. My best guess was that the herd was pressing against the area closest to the vicinity of the pens, trash, and “house” because they were thirsty. Troy and I continued walking. The milling mass of horses opened and closed like phantoms around us as we drifted through their midst. Having seen nearly all I could take, I looked back at Troy. There, standing amongst a sea of ragged, serrated spines, Troy returned and held my gaze. His handsome face was streaked with compassion. Without speaking a word, he heavily raised his arm and pointed.
I looked in the direction he indicated … and could not believe what my eyes saw.
As the horses parted before my hesitant steps, only thirty feet away stood the embodiment of the living dead. Gripped by horror, I could not move another step. She was the most grotesque creature I have ever seen. I could hardly breathe. She was later confirmed as a two-and-a-half-year-old thoroughbred quarter-horse cross. In the world known by most, this cross-breeding produces a towering, muscular horse. At this age, most would stand between fifteen and sixteen hands and weigh well over one thousand pounds. Yet in this forsaken wasteland, she didn’t even reach thirteen hands and her life looked to be vanishing nearly as quickly as the morning fog. The wasted filly’s total body weight was estimated at less than four hundred pounds!
Never have I known a horse in this condition to live.
I have held a horse in better condition … that died in my arms.
Her skeletal body was so parched and drawn that she looked more like an ancient mummy than a young horse. It appeared as if one could nearly span her haunches with their open bare hands. Her top-line was lifted above her body by a spine that resembled uniformly spaced daggers, each threatening to pierce the thin flesh that it supported. Her weakness was so extensive that she appeared to not be able to bend any of her joints. What remained of her utterly withered muscle structure was so frail, it looked as if she were to bend her knees, she might not have enough strength to stop herself from crashing to the ground. There was evidence on her knees, shoulders and chest of where this had already happened countless times.
In my many years of equine rescue I have seen numerous horses grow unnatural body hair in a desperate, eleventh-hour effort to maintain their core temperature, but this horse’s lanugo was unlike anything I had ever witnessed before. Her hair, instead of being straight like a normal horse, had become nappy and wool-like. Its rampant growth was even invading her mouth, nostrils, and eyes. Sadly, her desperate efforts to stay warm were not supported with enough fuel to work. Consequently, she had many patches on her back where her skin had literally frozen off. Even from my distance, I could easily smell the stench emanating from her rotting back.
There she stood, emaciated beyond comprehension, balancing on pencilly legs so stiff that her minimal movements resembled more that of a tin man than of a young horse. Would she have enough strength to be moved? Could she survive one more night? Would she be the next to collapse into oblivion?
Tears were dropping off my jaw onto my heavy coat. All I could think of was Mercy. She was a similarly starved, pregnant mare that we had rescued a few years earlier. Immediately I was overcome by the memory of the last moments of holding her head … as she finally gave up her struggle to live. Dear Lord, my precious Mercy. Not again … please, Lord … not again. The memory of her death rolled over me like a crushing boulder of sorrow. My heart splintered into immeasurable fragments of grief. Standing in the presence of this dying little soul yanked me back to the moment when Mercy gave up her life in my arms. She suffered immeasurably more than any creature should have to endure. For long moments I wept in silence.
Grief can be like a thunderstorm—blue sky suddenly giving way to black. We can be caught off guard by the hurt of what we have seen, what we have felt. Mourning has consumed many of us in a crashing downpour of pain.
Please, Lord; with this little one … show me what to do …
Thankfully, heaven’s blue is permanent … grief’s dark clouds are not. Gradually, if we hold fast and keep standing, our grief-blackened skies will once again give way to the enduring blue.
With new resolve, I wiped my face and took a few deep breaths.
Indirectly, I took several steps toward her … then a few more. In near silence, I had slipped to just a dozen feet away from her.
She did not move her feet; instead, her eyes rolled to look at me.
Immediately I looked at the ground. I did not want to frighten her or cause her to expend herself in any way. Like two watchmen guarding a post, we both stood fast.
I glanced up to see that her eyes were so rolled in my direction that much of the white sclera surrounding her eye was visible. As her eye held mine, I rotated slightly so that she could only see one of my eyes. For most horses, to be engaged with both eyes of another being is considered stalking, while to be watched with only one eye is merely observing. I continued to watch.
Her white-rimmed eye held mine.
There, like a distant beacon winking within the frigid, drab light, I could see it … an ember within her was still burning. Although her body was very near death … her will was not. She was still fighting. As horrific as she appeared, she had not yet given up hope … and neither would I.
Troy’s hand gently squeezed my shoulder as he joined me and whispered into my ear, “She’s the one. Of all these horses, she is the ‘least of the least’ … the one that needs help the most. Truly, she is why we are here … when she is able, she is the one that will come home with us.”
In silence we stood hand in hand, quietly verifying the new pact between us. A thinness in the low cloud cover allowed weak yellow shafts of sunlight to filter through. Hope was beginning to flow.
After what seemed to many
of us as some of the longest hours of our lives, two final locations were found for the horses. It was around one o’clock when the good news arrived. The lieutenant in charge gathered the volunteers together and made the long awaited announcement. The first location was in Bend, about twenty-five miles away and in close proximity to a veterinary practice. This facility would be used to house the thirty horses that were the most critically ill. The second location would be the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond, which was about forty miles away. The livestock set-up which was already there would become the perfect place to house the remaining one hundred.
It was time for the long, dangerous process of moving the horses to begin.
The next daunting challenge was how to safely coax primarily unhandled horses into the claustrophobic confines of a horse trailer. As with most things in life that people are passionate about, everyone had their own distinct opinions of how they thought things should be accomplished. Although most of the officers and volunteers had skill in trailering horses, few had ever experienced the unique challenges associated with attempting to move truly wild horses.
Now that locations were determined and waiting to receive us, as a group we needed to start loading horses as quickly and safely as possible. Being unsure for so long as to even if we would be able to move the horses on this day, little had been organized in that direction.
Again, no equine rescue equaling this level of danger or volume had ever been attempted before. In the volunteers’ efforts to help expedite the method of how to accomplish this monumental task, attitudes rose with tempers as the day wore on and no horses were yet loaded into the growing serpentine of waiting trailers. Everyone wanted what was best for the horses, which was ultimately to move them out of this living hell. In an effort to make this happen, the lieutenant and officers were being verbally pulled into pieces by strong personalities that fought to be heard.
Shortly after the announcement had been made, one volunteer took it upon himself to try and load a stallion with hooves so horrifically overgrown that they curled upward and backward toward his knees like grotesque “slippers.” Although frightened, the stallion was readily trying to step up into the trailer. Yet every time the horse lifted his leg, his hoof would catch and bang on the underside of the trailer bumper. Many watched in rising hopelessness as the weakening stallion tried over and over to accomplish such a seemingly simple task. As the stallion’s strength ebbed, his sense of discouragement flowed, until in utter exhaustion he gave up completely. Everything about the body language of this fatigued horse indicated that he sadly believed that what was being asked of him was impossible.
Unfortunately, perhaps acknowledging that daylight was fleeting by, the volunteer lost his temper and began to lash the spent horse until the horse collapsed in absolute exhaustion under the trailer. Among those who came to give aid, this incident incited a verbal riot. Everyone was so anxious to help, yet no one seemed to know how or where to start.
Several women literally ran up to Troy and begged him to do something. Before he could answer, their composure disintegrated like an earthen dam besieged by a flood. Their frustration, anger, and anxiety gushed out in a wash of tearful words pleading for a “kinder” solution.
Understandably, the emotional intensity of the day was exacting a toll on everyone. There were so many more people with far greater horse experience there than Troy and I; who were we to go to the front and lead others with vastly superior skills? It was already after one o’clock, and our window of daylight would soon be closing.
Very quietly, Troy asked the lieutenant if he could please try to move a few of the stallions off the little hillside up by the garbage pile. While talking on one cell phone and waiting for a reply on another, the overwhelmed lieutenant simply nodded and waved Troy in the direction of the trash heap. That was good enough for us.
In our earlier evaluation, we had noticed that many of the stallions that were being kept in the pens had, in fact, been handled before. We were able to approach several who allowed us to scratch them a bit. These would be the first few that we would try to convince that a better life lay waiting for them on the other end of this trailer ride.
I went to our truck and retrieved all of the rope halters that we had brought with us. Troy expertly backed our three-horse trailer through a maze of downed fences, tiny pens, and trash. When he was as close to the corral of amiable stallions as he could safely maneuver, he shut off the ignition and met me behind the trailer. There, in the fading light of the afternoon, we held hands and prayed. Both of us asked for wisdom, for ourselves and everyone else present … wisdom to do something we had never done or seen before … load 130 wild horses.
The first pen held two adult stallions that had obviously been living together for quite some time. Both allowed us to quietly approach and catch them with ease. With gentle reassurance, Troy let the first stallion know that he meant him no harm and that all would be well. The first stud stepped right up into the trailer without hesitation.
The second stallion was a monstrous paint that stood easily more than sixteen hands. Had he been inclined to do so, he could have seriously hurt anyone who got close enough. Instead, he was a perfect gentleman and, like the first stallion, peacefully stepped up into the trailer.
The third stallion was living alone in a tangled wire pen that shared a common line with the pen of the two horses already in the trailer. He was a very small, very beautiful black and white colt. By the time Troy and I had convinced him to come and just “look” at the trailer … a small crowd had started to form.
This stallion was clearly the youngest, and perhaps had never been in a trailer before. As Troy led him up to the open door, he balked and snorted in fear. Although most who had gathered were there in hopeful support, some of the “strong personalities” voiced jeers that rose like fiery arrows flying toward our backs. “You can’t load stallions side by side, they’ll kill each other!” and “He’s never been in a trailer … whatta ya think you’re gonna do? Just walk him right in?” and “That big paint horse is gonna kick the fire outta that little black and white guy!”
Troy stood with a very “soft” posture and just stroked the youngster’s neck. I could tell that he was praying. More onlookers were arriving by the minute. Everyone was there to help … but truly no one knew how to start. In my heart, I joined Troy in praying that this frightened young horse would trust him enough to “step up” with him.
Very gently, Troy began to ask the young horse to move forward toward the waiting box. To everyone’s great surprise, the colt lifted his left front foot … but not quite high enough. His effort was rewarded with nothing more than banging his hoof against the rubber bumper of the trailer. Several times the youngster repeated this process with the same result. He was lifting his foot up … just not high enough to reach the trailer floor.
I knew what Troy was thinking. If he could just “show” the young horse how high to lift his foot, the colt would probably do the rest himself. In what is certainly a very dangerous maneuver, Troy began to run his hand down the back of the colt’s front leg. As the horse picked his foot up in response to the gentle pressure Troy applied … Troy moved his foot to the trailer floor.
In silence, Troy turned and just looked at me. I knew exactly what he was asking me to do. While gently raising my arms, I took several very measured steps toward the young stallion’s rump. He glanced at my approach and began to slightly cower in the hind end.
Troy hinted for him to come forward. The attentive colt slowly lifted up his other front foot. Now, both his front feet were inside the trailer.
Together, we paused to allow the youngster time to process this new accomplishment. While speaking only to the horse, Troy softly rubbed his neck and shoulder. After several moments, Troy glanced at me again; it was time. Again, I silently raised my arms and stepped toward the horse. Like a little Cub Scout going on his first outing, with ears up he hopped right into the trailer. I quickly closed the
door in case he changed his mind. He didn’t. He seemed completely content to be in the space he was in. I let Troy slip out the back and secured the door for travel.
Upon noticing his new “bunkmate,” the giant stallion in the middle of the trailer announced that he would be the boss by bellowing with earsplitting volume. “That’s your cue!” I yelled to Troy, who was already in the truck cab preparing to leave. By putting the truck in its lowest gear and allowing it to literally inch forward, he shifted the concentration of all three of the stallions to their feet and staying balanced, instead of who would be king. While barely rolling forward, the trio of horses began to trailer like peaceful, four-legged peas in a pod.
The results of this tiny victory garnered an unexpected response. I watched in private awe as visible tension surrendered into visible relief. Many individuals were absently nodding in agreement as the full trailer pulled away. A few women even shared a high five, muffled by gloved hands. This is what we had all come for; this simple action was our uniting cause.
Troy, with a cowboy’s nod and a thumb’s up to me, was the first to leave this nightmarish site with a full trailer of “evacuees.” While waving back at my sweet man, I couldn’t help but feel deeply moved by his silent kindness and leadership. Choosing to stay behind, I would follow the fresh path that he had cleared and help organize the mass relocation that was to quickly follow.
The collective sparks of hope bolstered by this minor success ignited into an unstoppable flame. The door had been opened, now it was time to move forward, shoulder to shoulder. The volunteers began to lay aside their own “agendas” and come together as a team … a team that had a big job to do.