Mustang: Wild Spirit of the West

by Marguerite Henry

  “Thirteen head! Three colts!” O’Brien was getting his story, shouting it. “It’s the mares in the lead!”

  “Sure, you big dude!” Chug shouted back. He reduced speed, lost more altitude, and the engine backfired. The horses reared up like rockets. The stallion, pure white, sprang into action, prodding his family, nipping rumps right and left. Faster and faster they fled toward the brink of a canyon. Toward self-destruction. They were going to dive!

  “Bank away!” O’Brien shouted.

  With a surge of power the plane banked steeply off to the east and left the wild horses blowing in fright, but safe.

  On his way back home, O’Brien wrote down the end of his story: “You never see these proud animals from the highway any more. They never come down from the hills unless driven by planes. As my pilot and I watched the band moving swiftly across a mesa, he let out a shout of joy: ‘More power to them!’ And I say more power to Wild Horse Annie and her friends who are trying to save them.”

  The power came like a growing storm—from the corners of the earth a deluge of mail! The postman could no longer use the slit in the office door. He had to come inside and spill the mail on a table. Some of it was addressed just to Wild Horse Annie, Nevada. No city. No street.

  Mr. Harris took the flood good-naturedly. He rubbed his fringe of hair in puzzlement. “Great guns, Annie! You’re getting more mail than I am. You’ll have to be a secretary’s secretary to get it all read, let alone answered.”

  It was all I could do not to peek at my mail during work hours, especially at the ones with the strange stamps from faraway lands and the musty smell of travel about them. There was the big reddish stamp of Japan, with the lake and the twin mountain peaks with clouds dancing above them. And one from Australia with a Koala bear clinging to a eucalyptus tree, and a dancing girl from the Republic of Indonesia, and a bright plumed bird from Ghana. Sharp at five I swooped them all up and hurried home.

  Charley, like Mark Twain, was a meat and potato man. But now, with all the excitement of the letters, supper was something to get over with in a hurry. Often he had the batter ready for buttermilk pancakes, or a chicken stew simmering on the back of the stove so we could eat right away. Then while I “redded up” the kitchen, he rummaged through the mail, happy as a squirrel hunting nuts.

  “Listen to this, Annie! And this!” And he’d read aloud choice kernels from here and there. Some of them were written in a language so foreign we could not even read, except for the one word that was always spelled out in English. It was “mustangs.” There was something about these letters that brought a tingling to the skin. Maybe it was the anger in them.

  Charley carefully sorted them into neat little stacks—from children, from teachers, from ranchers, humane societies, businessmen, big and little. Always it was the children’s letters we answered first.

  We laughed a lot those evenings. One of our dogs, a fringy tan cocker, loved the taste of glue and we taught him to lick our stamps. Sometimes he even licked the flaps of our envelopes for us. He’d sit up, begging to get his licks in.

  I loved these evenings, both because I felt good about our work and because they made Charley happy. And when he was happy, it was like wearing rainbows round my shoulders.

  By the hundreds people wrote; by the hundreds we answered. In Portugal, an angry man, horse breeder and author both, gathered up a complete set of his works on horse training and shipped them to us by air. “Here’s proof,” he said, “that mustangs are a breed and can be trained for work or pleasure. Don’t destroy that pure Andalusian blood!”

  From Cyprus, a sergeant in a regiment of Scottish Highlanders exploded: “Fight back, Mustang Annie! Keep your elbow up!”

  An old Indian chieftain, thin as a crow quill, sent us his picture with fighting words below it: “Let me at them two-legged skunks of wild-horse chasers with a band of my Sioux warriors . . . ”

  In New Jersey, a blind man ran his fingertips along the dots on his Braille copy of Current News. He pulled his stylus from his pocket and punched out his plea: “The fading drumbeat of wild horse hoofs that once pounded the western plains must not stop. What music they made!”

  Up in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, Sister Mary Bridget was putting her light blue coverall apron over her black habit. It was very early morning but Brother Francis, a shaggy black burro, was braying his lungs out. He wanted his breakfast, and then to work in the little garden patch of the convent. As Sister Mary Bridget buckled on his halter and fastened his lead rope, she was thinking of the bill to protect wild horses. She was glad it included burros too. For Brother Francis’ sake, and for all wild burros and horses, she wanted to help. So she wrote to her Congressman, and he drew up his own bill to protect the mustangs and stirred his whole state to action.

  From all walks of life more and more letters came, and more mustanging pictures to back up my own. Each letter ended, “How can I help?”

  “Write to your Congressman!” I urged. “Ask your friends to write, too. Let’s unite in outrage, unite as Americans until the lawmakers are swamped with a sea of mail.”

  The storm was reaching its peak. “Congressmen have never had so much mail over any one bill,” Mr. Baring wrote. “They’ve been hiring extra help to handle it. ‘Who’s this Wild Horse Annie?’ they ask. ‘Does she know everybody?’”

  Mr. Baring’s letter ended on a sobering note. “We’ve done all we can. The bill has been assigned to a committee for study. There is nothing we can do now but wait.”

  Nothing but the waiting.

  21. No Compromise!

  GRANDMA ALWAYS said, “Time’s got a lot of elastic to it. The way you feel inside makes all the difference. It’s like one of those fat rubber bands. If you’re havin’ fun it’s got no give at all, goes fast as light. But if you’re waitin’ on somethin’ or somebody, it stretches till doomsday.”

  Now my restless waiting made me think of Grandma. How right she was! That monster Time was stretching out to the breaking point. Why was the committee wasting so many days? Why were they so slow? What was there to study? The mustangs couldn’t wait. Nor Charley either. I could hear his breathing at night. It kept me awake, counting his three quick breaths to my one. I wanted so terribly for him to feel that he’d accomplished something important.

  If only I could be down in Washington, fighting, instead of letting others fight for me. If only Washington weren’t so far away: thousands of miles away, hundreds of dollars away. If only . . . if only . . .

  Then all of a sudden one morning, Washington came to the office, to me!

  “Could we see the person known as Wild Horse Annie?” a strange eastern voice said. “I’m from headquarters, the Bureau of Land Management, Washington.” It was the kind of deep-timbered voice that comes through whatever you’re doing. I couldn’t hear what Ruthie answered, even though her reception desk was only a horse-stride from mine.

  In a moment she was ushering two men over to me. One I recognized at once. It was Mr. Duck Fuzz from the Bureau office here in Reno. He gave me a sheepish smile. The other man was slick as a cedar waxwing. He wore a brown silk suit and carried a brown attaché case to match. He flicked a card out of his pocket and presented it with a bow.

  MR. RAOUL REYNARD

  Bureau of Land Management

  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Mr. Harris happened by just then on his way out to lunch. Nervously I introduced my callers.

  “Annie,” he said, “why don’t you take these gentlemen into the conference room where you can talk in privacy?”

  This suited me fine because our conference room was an exciting place. Instead of the walls being crowded with a lot of maps, jabbed with colored pins, they were alive with horse pictures. If Mr. Harris had ever told me to take one home for keeps, I’d have had a hard time deciding. There was a pony-express boy riding hell bent for leather with an arrow sizzling over his head. And a stagecoach pulled by six runaway horses, nostrils sh
owing, blood-red and manes and tails whiffling in the wind. There was a quieter picture, too, of an old gray mare asleep on three legs. But I guess my favorite was a copy of the mustang picture I first saw at the hospital. Yes, I am sure it was, even though it brought up times I didn’t care to remember.

  “These wild horses,” Mr. Reynard said, pointing a manicured hand at my beloved picture, “are not the sorry-looking scrubs I’ve seen.”

  “No,” I answered. “This picture was painted long ago, before planes and trucks forced the mustangs back into the hills where they almost starve.” I thought my being direct like that would steer the men right to the point of their visit. But no, they had to skirt all around it, talking about the weather—how the days might be hot in Reno but so dry you didn’t feel it, very different from Washington—and how lucky we were to have a fine office overlooking the beautiful Truckee.

  “Yes,” I said, “it’s pretty now, but you should be here when it overflows every few years and swishes right through our office. All our files have to be put on dollies and moved.” I didn’t mean to sound impolite; I was just anxious to get on. But nothing could hurry them.

  When they couldn’t think of any more to talk about, they took a second look at the horse prints and then we all sat down at the big mahogany table.

  At last Mr. Reynard cleared his throat. “Harrumph. Now about that mustang bill . . . ”

  He paused and a lump of fear began to form in my throat.

  “My colleague and I,” he continued, “agree heartily that any cruel planing of the wild horses must be stopped.”

  I sat forward, listening.

  “And we plan to support your bill to the hilt. To the hilt!” he repeated, nodding his head vigorously with never a hair sliding out of place.

  Tears of relief filled my eyes; I was afraid they were going to spill over. If Headquarters in Washington felt like this, the bill was as good as passed. I tried to smile my gratitude.

  “There are a few words, however,” he said in a confiding tone, “that we should like to add. As a reasonable person, you will agree to them, I am sure.”

  “Yes?” I asked, looking away and blowing my nose.

  “You know what Mr. Baring’s bill says.”

  Did I know! It was carved in my mind like the Ten Commandments.

  “It prohibits,” he began quoting, “the use of aircraft or motor vehicles in hunting any wild unbranded horse, mare, colt, or burro running at large on public land.”

  He paused to take a breath. I could hear my phone ringing and someone answering. Uneasily I wondered if it was Mom or Charley. “Yes, yes, I know,” I said impatiently, “but what needs to be added?”

  “Harrumph. Just strike out the period at the end, substitute a comma, and add: ‘Provided that the Bureau of Land Management may authorize such activities in carrying out its duties.’” He adjusted the handkerchief in his pocket, and waited for me to speak.

  “Mr. Reynard!” I gasped. “That would kill the whole bill!”

  “Now, now, Miss Annie, you don’t understand. I’m afraid I’ve not made myself clear. You see, we would employ only reliable pilots, and everything would be under the careful supervision of our BUREAU.” He said the word in enormous capital letters.

  I stared at the man. “I do understand.” I tried to swallow my anger. “But so few mustangs are left! They’re no longer a threat to the ranges.”

  “You’re right, Miss Annie—that is, for now. You see, we do agree in all major points. But if the time should come when the wild horses multiply and overrun the ranges, the government must use airplanes to get rid of them.”

  Mr. Duck Fuzz put in his word here. “May I add, sir, that air pursuit is the least expensive and the most humane method.”

  I wanted to cry out, but I spoke quietly: “That could be true, if the horses are not sold to the rendering works. Those people don’t care about rope burns, or even broken legs.”

  I grew bolder. “Do you have pilots in the Bureau,” I asked, “that are trained especially for this work?”

  Mr. Duck Fuzz reddened. He glanced unhappily at Mr. Reynard.

  “No, we do not,” the man from Washington admitted.

  “Then you’d be using local pilots, wouldn’t you?” I had to get at the truth.

  “Probably we would.”

  “You’d need flying cowboys who know how a horse thinks, wouldn’t you?” I persisted.

  Mr. Reynard looked annoyed. But he remained polite. “I must say, Miss Annie, you’ve a sound business head on those slight shoulders. Your Mr. Harris is very fortunate indeed.”

  The compliment went over my head and out the window. Sharply aware now, I knew in a cold flash that he wasn’t thinking of the suffering of the horses at all. And he would be using the very same roundup men I’d seen, men who could keep a horse just alive enough to walk into a slaughterhouse under its own power.

  The man went on unruffled. “Now if you’ll agree to the slight change, we’ll give you a helping hand in Washington to put your bill through.”

  I made no answer.

  “But if you don’t,” the voice never raised its pitch, “I must warn you that we’ll do everything possible to defeat it.”

  I stood up, feeling utterly alone. And suddenly not alone. I remembered the child in the plaster cast, and her crying in the night from helplessness. And I remembered all of the helpless things of the earth crying somewhere in the night. And courage was there beside me.

  The men were waiting for my answer. Mr. Reynard’s mouth smiled a little, as if sure of victory.

  I made my decision. “Your coming to see me is a great compliment,” I said. “And I can appreciate your problems of range management . . . ”

  “Then you agree?”

  “No,” I said in a voice so cool I hardly knew it for my own. “The bill must stand as it is.”

  Mr. Reynard slowly picked up his straw hat and the brown attaché case. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “It forces us to oppose your bill.” He held out his hand and limply, formally, shook mine. It was not a handclasp like Pa’s.

  I saw the men to the door, as Mr. Harris had taught me, and said good-bye. Then I noticed Ruthie waving at me madly.

  “Quick, Annie! Get to your phone. It’s long distance from Washington.”

  22. A Call from Washington

  THE WAY Ruthie was waving at me, I thought it must be the President of the United States on the wire. But it was a woman’s voice. Warm. Friendly. “Annie Johnston?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, still shaken by my talk with the Bureau men.

  “I know all about your crusade for the wild horses, but you don’t know me.”

  I could think of nothing bright to say, so I just said, “Oh.”

  “My name is Mary Warren, and I’m a director of the Society for Animal Protective Legislation.”

  Inside myself I repeated, “Society for Animal Protection!” I said a quick prayer. Dear God, please don’t let it be chicks and bunnies; let it be the mustangs!

  “Hello . . . hello . . . are you there?”

  “Yes,” I said with a little clutch of dread.

  “I’m just calling to make sure you’ll be here in Washington next Wednesday. You will, won’t you?”

  “Oh, no,” I said quickly.

  The faraway voice was plainly shocked. “But the sixteen members of the judiciary committee are hearing your bill then. The battle could be won or lost that day.”

  “I know.”

  “But, my dear, we understand you have facts and figures and pictures, too, that you could present.”

  “I do, but I hadn’t planned to go to Washington. Mr. Baring has all the information. Thirty-two pages of it!”

  There was a stunned silence. Then a sudden burst. “Why, you’ve been fighting to save the mustangs for years. And now when you’re most needed you’re not even coming to help?”

  “No,” I said thickly.

  “Don’t you care any more?”
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br />   “Care!” I choked on the word.

  “Well, then, do you mind telling me why you are not coming?”

  I had no voice at all.

  “Is it because your employer won’t let you?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Then what is it? Can’t you please tell me?”

  I thought, why not admit the truth? Why not? I almost laughed my relief. “We just don’t have the money,” I said.

  Mrs. Warren seemed glad with relief, too. “Well, then, it’s all settled,” she said brightly. “The Society will take care of your expenses. Proudly!”

  And before I could say yes, no, or thank you, she had thanked me and hung up.

  All at once I was terrified. The nation’s capital! Lawmakers by the dozen. Big bureaucrats. Big cattlemen and sheepmen. All fighting me, accusing the mustang. Accusing me. I had to get home to Charley. He could call Mrs. Warren, tell her I was sick, tell her anything.

  “I just can’t go!” I said when he had pried every word of the telephone conversation out of me. “I simply can’t!”

  Charley was standing in front of me, Nip and Tucker on either side, gazing up at him. “Why can’t you, Annie?” he asked quietly.

  “Because—because—if you must know,” I sobbed, “I’m afraid. I’m plain scairt!”

  He stood there, silent and thoughtful a moment. “Of course you are, Annie,” he said gently. “We’re all plain scairt of a lot of things. But fear is bad only when you’re afraid of it. Actually fear breeds a special kind of courage. You might say a double helping. It makes you find the courage to beat down the fear; and the courage to keep on fighting.”

  Oh, my blind eyes. Here I was talking to Charley about being afraid, forgetting that he was fighting his dreadful sickness with all of the brave strength of himself, in silence.

  I bit my lip to keep from crying; and Charley looked at me, smiling his understanding. “Now then,” he said softly, “what do we do to get you ready?”

  My insides were still crumpling. “I don’t want to go without you,” I whispered. Especially now, I cried to myself.