Last Chance Mustang

by Mitchell Bornstein

  If I was to continue Samson’s training, if the intent was to saddle break this Mustang, then my degree of control and his corresponding ability to assent would have to exponentially increase. And as my grip over Samson tightened, both the unpredictable victim and the willful aged Mustang would respond in kind with greater bark and greater bite. Yes, I believed that saddle breaking Samson would provide an authorized outlet for his great stores of energy, keep him stimulated, and improve his self-image. But conversely, I had to consider my health and safety and the overall cost of making such a commitment.

  Taking Samson to the next training level would no doubt invite a huge struggle and an epic battle. As I looked upon this impressive warrior and his freshly scabbed wound, as I considered our fates, in Nevada Samson’s brothers, sisters, and cousins—still free and still wild—were engaged in their very own colossal struggle and epic battle. For on this very day, the BLM started the Calico Mountains winter roundup.

  Over the objections of Mustang advocacy and animal welfare organizations, the BLM was moving forward with its ill-advised and potentially catastrophic helicopter-led rundown of some twenty-seven hundred wild Mustangs—nearly 90 percent of Nevada’s Calico Mountains wild horse population. Court actions seeking injunctions had been filed and lost. The BLM was set and determined. Winter conditions or not, Mustangs would be chased, culled, and captured. My hope for Samson was that he could be bit and saddle broke, mounted, and ridden. But more important, my hope was that he could, once and for all, shed his past’s many demons and ghosts. The very same ghosts and demons, in fact, that now had the Calico Mountains Mustangs in their sights.

  In the weeks that followed, Samson and his Nevada cousins would be concurrently engaged in all-out warfare. He would fight to maintain his independence and autonomy; they would fight for their lives. Both would struggle to maintain and preserve their wild ways. Sadly, for Samson’s herd mates, it was a struggle with a predetermined outcome. The Calico Mountains roundup would cost dozens their lives and go down as the deadliest BLM operation in decades. The horse that had survived the horrors of the Early and Middle Ages, withstood the charge of the cavalry, battled the captains of industry, and outlasted Mustang Fever was now engaged in a battle that it could not and would not win.

  No longer affiliated with the therapy center, I should have had more time, more freedom, to get to everything on my plate. But as Samson’s instruction had progressed, as his skills had advanced, this perpetually doubting and distrusting horse needed more of my time and a great deal more of my patience. Having worked with horses across Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, I understood the concept of sacrifice and commitment. But whether I realized it or not, my Samson Experience was swallowing me whole and would come at a cost.

  I really had no choice in the matter. To say no to Amy would damn Samson and seal his fate.

  Horse and horseman stared hard into each other’s eyes. “He’ll be broke and mounted by spring, or not at all.”

  Samson’s clock was ticking.

  {9}

  DETERMINED FOUR-LEGGED CAPTIVES

  A horse gallops with its lungs, perseveres with its heart, and wins with its character.

  —FEDERICO TESIO

  When the BLM announced that it planned to move forward with the Calico Mountains winter roundup, twenty-seven hundred wild Mustangs living on 550,000 acres in five Herd Management Areas instantly became targets for the low-flying BLM contractor’s helicopters. It was a new year but still the same old story: horses were being removed for their own protection and horses were being relocated to prevent rangeland degradation. The decision was especially surprising given the sworn testimony by a local BLM wild horse expert two years earlier that “… there’s significantly more animals out there than what we thought were, so I would have expected the monitoring data to show higher levels of use than what I collected. And I guess I’m learning it’s a big country, animals move.”27 With 180 acres of rangeland previously available to each free-roaming horse, life would drastically change for the Calico Mustangs. Chased, harassed, and then interned, the Calico wild horses who survived the fated winter roundup would soon be relocated to holding facilities with a mere seven hundred square feet per animal.

  As the new year started, Samson the formerly wild, maladjusted Mustang had claimed yet another casualty. Only this victim hadn’t been charged and run off from deep within the pasture, hadn’t been mercilessly kicked, and hadn’t been bodychecked to the ground. This casualty had never even crossed paths with the unruly Mustang.

  Samson’s latest victim was in fact my girlfriend, Jamie.

  Weeks earlier, I had told Jamie of my intention to move out to the suburbs after eighteen years living in downtown Chicago. The weekday commute back into the city would be nowhere near as time-consuming as the countless hours I had spent driving to and from the numerous horse farms that dotted the outlying counties. Jamie and I had been dating for only about nine months, so I didn’t think it necessary or appropriate to seek her approval. Her response was brief and to the point: “It isn’t my business; do whatever works for you and your horses.”

  I couldn’t tell if her statement signaled hurt, anger, indifference, or a combination of the three. Perhaps if she was a horse, I would have been able to decipher what it meant; perhaps not. Either way, in the three weeks since we more or less had had nothing to do with each other.

  And then, on New Year’s Eve, as Chicago’s lakefront fireworks display heralded the start of 2010, as the reds, blues, and greens exploded above our heads, our relationship imploded. Jamie was angered by my refusal to take a trip out of town and leave Samson, and her feelings of rejection boiled over. My recent actions had been thoughtless and my priorities had been skewed—the sentiments that seemed to sum up her feelings.

  “You care more about that horse than you do about me,” Jamie declared in summary.

  While I certainly tried to understand Jamie’s position, the smirk on my face said that I could not. Since rejoining with Samson, I had indeed bent over backward to cater to everyone’s needs—friends, family, legal clientele, horse clients, and my significant other. Ironically, the one person’s needs—the only person’s needs—that had been neglected were my own. Unable to devote any more time and any more effort and clearly earning failing marks in the boyfriend department, I suggested that Jamie search elsewhere for the one man who could satisfy her needs and her wants.

  As Samson learned to walk under lead, Jamie simply walked.

  I probably should have been upset by this unfortunate start to the new year. With my fortieth birthday just weeks away, still unmarried and childless, still wanting marriage and children, I was once again a jockey with no horse, a horse with no jockey. Perhaps I should have blamed Samson for suddenly overly complicating my life and ruining what may have been a promising relationship. Maybe it was time to grow up—to hunker down as a lawyer and stop my crusade to rescue, rehabilitate, and fix every broken horse who came my way.

  The problem, however, was that I wasn’t devastated, I didn’t blame Samson for my romantic failings, and I didn’t immerse myself in my legal work. In truth, if Jamie were “the one” then she would have understood, if not admired, my work with Samson. While she by no means had to share my passion, she at a minimum had to respect it. And if she truly had feelings for me, then Jamie would have suspended her needs for more than just a brief few weeks and sacrificed for me in the same vein as I had sacrificed for Samson.

  I was alone again, but this time I had Samson and he had me.

  The following day, my arrival at the farm brought a troubling and bizarre sight. As I pulled up the driveway, two of the property’s resident canines were running wildly and barking vociferously as the third, Cosmo the horse-Lab, sat wedged between the barn’s two large sliding doors. With his head sticking out and the rest of his body stuck on the other side of the doors, Cosmo was yelping for his life and in one heck of a fix. I jumped out of my truck and immediately headed toward
the trapped canine, but my rescue mission was abruptly aborted as the black mutt—the dog who shunned all human contact—stepped in my path and took up a definitive defensive position.

  Oh no, you don’t.

  With Cosmo frazzled, frightened, exhausted, and left unable to defend himself, the mutt was prepared to do it for him. Like two gunfighters squaring off in a Sergio Leone spaghetti western, human and human hater squared off and stared each other down. Then, the oldest dog of the pack—the plump shepherd mix I affectionately labeled “Jenny Craig”—appeared at my side and diffused the tense standoff.

  Moments later, the black mutt wearily and slowly came to my side. In one halting and hesitant movement, she rubbed against my left leg and looked up to me with heavy, doubting eyes. Please, I know he isn’t the smartest, but can’t you help my friend? I bent down and lowered my hand to pet her, but the mutt cowered, dropped her head, and seemingly braced for a beating. She, like every other animal at the farm, was an outcast, a victim, a reject.

  “Yes, I can take care of this. Let’s go rescue that dumb lug,” I said aloud as I gently rubbed the black mutt’s forehead.

  Once free, Cosmo instantly became my new best friend. A quick phone call to Amy disclosed that all three dogs had been deliberately locked in the barn’s second story due to the unlawful actions of just one. With three open and ongoing homicide investigations—two chickens and one duck—Cosmo was the prime suspect and apparently the farm’s other aspiring Hannibal Lecter. Spotted with feathers lodged between his teeth and sporting a sudden disinterest in his kibble rations, he was in fact the only suspect.

  Having been previously charged and arraigned, Cosmo was ordered to house arrest and denied the freedom to roam the property when no one was home. Guilty by association, Jenny Craig and the mutt were ordered to share his sentence and keep him company. Once the trio had hatched their escape plan, they somehow managed to open the door that led to the second story, and travel down the rotting stairs to the main floor. There the two coconspirators were able to slip through the gap between the outer doors while Cosmo, apparently failing to take into account his considerable size difference over his cohorts, had become stuck. I couldn’t help but think he was about as dim as they came.

  At Amy’s direction, I let the two mostly innocent escapees roam free and returned Cosmo to the second floor of the barn, where, in a scene straight out of CSI, I tried to re-create the canine gang’s escape from Alcatraz. As I stood staring at the seemingly unmovable, now-closed fifty-pound sliding door, Cosmo attempted a second prison break. Using a combination of physics, leverage, and brute force, he was able to pry the door open while I stood admiring his mix of brawn and brains. Suddenly I wasn’t so convinced that he was the dumb lug I had believed him to be. Realizing that he would quickly escape once I exited, I piled up four tractor tires in front of the door as Cosmo stared dejectedly at the unmovable mass.

  “That’s why you’re man’s best friend and not the other way around. We have the superior intellect,” I proudly announced to the canine criminal.

  Or maybe not—standing in the dark, basking in all my glory, I quickly happened upon a troubling discovery. Cosmo and I were now cellmates. I knew that there was a hay chute and ladder in the far corner, but I also knew that there were a dozen or so gaping holes in the floor that I would have to traverse in the dark. As I contemplated my predicament, Cosmo rubbed up against my leg and barked.

  Swallowing my pride, I sought out the only available help: “Between the two of us, you are clearly the brains, so what do you think?”

  Seemingly fully comprehending my interrogatory, Cosmo leaned into my hand, and I grabbed his collar. And then, like a guide dog leading his master, he led me around each and every hole and over to the hay chute and ladder. I sat down and heaped praise upon my canine savior only to have him disappear into the darkness. He returned moments later, first dropping into my lap a bowl filled with dog food, then gingerly setting down a bowl of water and, last, several chew toys.

  Woof, woof, woof. Eat up; drink up; what is mine is yours; we are now brothers.

  “No thanks,” I responded to my gracious host. “I already had lunch and prison rations have never been to my liking.”

  After fifteen minutes playing with my newfound blood brother, I made my way over to the hay chute and ladder. As I was about to disappear through the opening, Cosmo, apparently under the belief that we were now inseparable, decided to hitch a ride. When he placed his right paw upon my right shoulder and affixed his left to the corresponding side, I was nothing but impressed with his deductive reasoning powers. Looking up at Cosmo, I realized that this horse-Lab mixed-breed former stray, a canine I once believed to be little more than dim and dense, was no doubt a superdog. He could, in my estimation, run circles around both Underdog and Pavlov’s mutt.

  It was an important reminder that looks can be deceiving and assumptions can be dangerous.

  Hanging from the ladder, I gazed up at the hitcher as he rained a thick wax of drool down onto my face. “No way, buddy, you’ve got a hearing date and a jury trial ahead of you. I can’t be the arbiter of your fate or a co-conspirator.”

  Having examined the evidence against the accused canine and concluded that he was no doubt a carnivore, I handed up to Cosmo a piece of teriyaki beef jerky, which he instantly devoured. I then offered some culinary advice to my new friend: “Next time, when you go after the chickens and ducks, make sure they are first cooked; it makes for a much better meal.” I retreated down the ladder, stepped onto the concrete floor, and provided one last piece of parting advice as Cosmo’s head dangled precariously through the hole: “And one more thing Mr. Defendant, as a lawyer I would strongly counsel that from now on, you dispose of all incriminating evidence after the commission of the crime.”

  To this day, the untouchable black mutt greets my weekly arrival and allows me to pet her; Cosmo the superdog and I remain the best of friends.

  When I ventured out to catch Samson, he was nowhere to be found. Now in our fourth month working together, not a week had passed without my having to drudge to the property’s far northwest corner to capture this homesick, homeless horse. This day would be no different.

  After several minutes, I located my pupil, standing in his usual spot in the far corner of the pasture. The sight of him instantly numbed whatever pain I felt from my recent breakup with Jamie.

  As I approached from the rear, Samson stood peering out across the endless acres of farmland—staring aimlessly and endlessly at the miles of rolling and dipping hills in the distance. Every few seconds, he would glance back over his right shoulder, note my nearing proximity, and then promptly return his gaze to the vast, open, and inviting landscape that unfolded just beyond the electric line.

  Samson was ever so close but still so far from liberty, freedom, and the vast frontier. Week after week this scene replayed itself and week after week it broke my heart. It was as if a force was calling to or pulling at Samson. Like Greek sailors transfixed by the Sirens’ song, this once wild and free Mustang would not, could not, turn away. And while Samson longed for and cherished the safety and safe harbor of his far-off homeland, at that very moment Nevada’s ranges were anything but safe and secure for the free-roaming wild Mustang.

  Thousands of miles away from Samson’s safe Midwest confines, wild horses in northwestern Nevada were being chased, culled, and captured. They were also dying. Deaths were inevitable, according to the BLM. Elderly and infirm horses, those allegedly weakened by purported poor range conditions, would face an uphill battle for their survival. Just days into the roundup, one death, however, caught the immediate attention of humane observers. This loss of life didn’t involve an elderly or infirm horse. In this instance, after days of horror, trauma, pain, and suffering, a nine-month-old foal’s life was prematurely cut short.

  The foal’s tragic story began on January 2 when it, along with its dam and herd, was chased by helicopter for up to fourteen miles across the craggy, ja
gged Calico terrain. Young and weak, the foal had no choice but to keep up with its mother; to fall behind meant a certain and lonely death. Once it had been captured by BLM wranglers, the foal was segregated, examined, and identified as sickly. For several days it languished, until it was no longer able to stand under its own weight. After a subsequent medical exam yielded the conclusion that two of the foal’s hooves had completely sloughed off, the young horse was put down. The BLM identified the cause of death as hoof trauma from roundup operations.

  With this young foal denied the opportunity to roam wild and free as an adult horse, its story was both tragic and telling. Neither elderly nor infirm, the neophyte Mustang quite literally had its hooves run off. For many involved in the roundups, the death was little more than the cost of doing business. Young or old, sick or healthy, some loss of life was inevitable—they would say. “The range cannot support our nation’s wild herds” is what the brochures and press releases would read.

  But this young foal didn’t fall to dehydration, starvation, heat exposure, or the frontier’s dangerous predators. Removed from the range allegedly for its own good and for its own protection, this horse—like countless prior and many since—fell to the helicopter’s rotor blades, the wranglers’ rope, and the BLM’s policies. And while most paid little heed to this story, the foal’s sad and painful end was much more than just a single loss of life. It was a sign, an omen, and a warning.

  In the weeks to follow, tragedy would once again descend upon the wild horse. Herded into muddy, cramped corrals, overheated and exhausted, adult horses would falter, mares would miscarry, allegedly protected wild horses would perish, and an entire generation of young and unborn Calico Mustangs would meet the same tragic fate as the nine-month-old foal.