The Vilisar Times

SEVEN HOURS ON HORSEBACK THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS
Monday, 12 September 2005

Ever since my first attempt a few days ago I had wanted to do more riding while I’m at Rancho el Nogal. When I heard that the rancher, Bob, had asked Simon to deliver some important document to a neighbour yesterday, and when I discovered that he would be going there on horseback, I asked Simon if I could accompany him. He said the journey would take about 3 or 4 hours.

(As Simon and I are getting ready to go, Kathy is trying to get the electric agitator washing machine working. Eager to be off, I help get the gasoline-powered generator fuelled and started, to connect the water hoses to bring cold spring water from the tanks near the corral to near the ranchhouse and to dig out detergent and bleach, etc. The washing machine is 120 volts; after agitating the clothes in cold water, you wring them out either by hand or using a mop squeezer and dump them in a galvanised tub of spring water, wring out the rinse water, and finally, hang them out on the line. You don’t have to scrub the clothes on a scrubbing board but everything else is pretty much as our grandmothers and great-grandmothers did it. Oh, yes! And pray that the horses and mules that sometimes come into the yard to graze on the grass don’t brush the clothes off the line when the dogs try to chase them out.)

For the trip Simon brought in a brown mule and Alazan, the same large chestnut horse that I rode last week. He and Israel, one of the other hands, show me how to catch the horse once it is corralled. Simon having instructed me how the last time, I saddle and bridle Alazan myself. At 1130 we climb into the saddle and start off out through the swinging gate onto the open meadows behind the corral trailed by three dogs.

Bridles and Saddles

Stock or western saddles differ markedly from “English” saddles. The latter are flatter and use iron stirrups shortened up so that the knees are bent. Stock or Western saddles are much heavier, have a seat with a back (like a knight’s saddle only not quite so pronounced), and have a pommel so the cowboy has something to tie his lasso or lariat to when handling livestock. The stirrups are usually made of wood and much larger than English saddles. Cowboys also use boots with large heels; they don’t just toe the stirrup, they often shove the boot into the stirrup right through to the heel. The stirrups are adjusted so that the rider’s legs are at nearly full stretch. Simon doesn’t, but I have noticed that several other hands wear spurs (and, yes, they do jingle when they walk.) Cool!

On the way up to Yepachic on the bus we saw quite a few cowboys on horseback. All of them wore leather chaps and the stirrups were covered by leather hoods. I asked Cindy about why the cowboys here don’t wear them. She said that farther south there is a lot of chaparral, meaning I think, underbrush of thorn-bearing plants including plenty of cacti. The chaps and stirrup guards are part of the cowboys armour-plating. Sometimes, I guess even the horses get leather aprons.)

Although the bridles look similar the whole steering system for a western pony is different from that found in traditional European riding. In the latter case there are two reins, usually brought together to be a circular, but attached to the bridle at the horse’s mouth. The rider guides the horse by pulling the rein on the side he wants the horse to turn toward. A metal bit inside the horse’s mouth allows the rider to keep control over a much more powerful beast than the human himself is. The horse soon learns that he will experience pain around his mouth, a very sensitive area, if he does not turn. Western horses are also steered by two reins leading to horse’s mouth and attached to the bridle. But traditionally there is no bit and, when the rider wants to turn left, he lifts the reins and lays the right rein alongside the right side of the horse’s neck. Only if the horse is very recalcitrant will a bit be used and sometimes a kerb will be placed on the bit, i.e. instead of a straight piece of metal from one side of the horse’s mouth to the other, the metal has a large loop in the middle. If the horse does not stop when the rein is pulled gently or does not turn as commanded using the above system, a jerk on the reins will lift the kerb so it presses on the top of the horse’s mouth. That hurts.

Western horses don’t normally need to be hitched to anything. If a cowboy has to leap off his mount to deal with a calf at the other end of the lasso, he can’t have to be looking around for some place to tie the horse. Instead, the rider dismounts and drops one or both reins on the ground; the horse will stand there as if tied to something. Stock horses are also trained to back up and keep a steady tension on a lasso tied to something.

Although at first I had not even noticed the workmanship, I have since come to admire the tooled-leather stock saddles that are used around the ranch. Simon has two, possibly his own property, and there must be another half-dozen straddling a railing in the covered walkway between the house and the corral area. The leather on the one I am using has been tooled all over in a kind of woven-basket design. It must have taken weeks. The pommel is leather-covered but I have seen stock saddles here with brass ones. The leather is drawn over a wooden frame. The metal snaffles, rings, etc., mostly invisible under the leather, are nowadays mostly stainless steel. On Simon’s saddle however, I notice, they are bronze. He also carries a lasso tied next to the pommel of his saddle the long end of which he uses as a quirt and constantly gave the mule gentle swats with it as we go forward.

While the bridle on Alazan is the standard leather type with a metal bit, I notice that Simon’s mule has a hand-braided bridle made of string with the loose ends made into interesting tassles. Considering that these mules are tough beasts, the little decoration look a little anachronistic. When he wants the mule to stay he also ties his mule rather than just letting the reins drop, which I can do with Alazan. I guess this mule or maybe all mules are a little more bloody-minded than horses.

Mules

Mules are produced by cross-breeding a horse (caballo) and a donkey (burro). A mule can be a male (mulo) or a female (mula). More so than horses they like to work in packs, which is one reason they are used in mule trains. If the father is a horse, the mule is actually a “hinney” but the expression is rarely used. Mules are smaller than most horses but bigger than donkeys. Their legs and hooves are not only smaller, they are disproportionately smaller than a horse. But they are more sure-footed than a horse and can carry a greater amount of weight proportionate to their size.

There are as many and perhaps even more mules on this ranch than horses.

It is Sunday and Simon has pulled on all new clothes. For one thing he is wearing black cowboy boots (most of the Pimas here just wear heavy shoes even if wearing spurs; this may be an economic issue for all I know). He has on his white straw Stetson, new black jeans and a leather belt with a big metal cowboy buckle, and an olive-gold long-sleeved shirt. I tease him about dressing up for Sunday and going on a visit. He smiles, embarrassed.

We both tie a rain jacket to the saddle behind the seat. I have no western gear. I am wearing just long cargo trousers and a long-sleeved jersey as well the Borsalino straw hat that I bought for US$ 1.50 at a thrift shop in Dallas last July. Except that it is yellow straw, it looks kind of like the felt hat that Harrison Ford wears in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a kind of Twenties Look. I have on my Swiss hiking boots since the only other footwear I have at the ranch are my sandals.

Even though it is almost noon, the air is a pleasant mid-70’s, the sky is azure blue with large puffy white clouds that will probably bring rain later in the day. But for the moment the weather is nearly perfect. Three of the ranchhouse six dogs are along for the day: Greta, the springer; Cody the tail-less, herd-dog; and Phil, walker and runner (that’s all he done so far except to eat and sleep). Even following the mule, Alazan pulls gently but determinedly to the left at first to head back to the corral. A working horse on a working ranch, he probably knows better than I do what to expect today. The mule takes the lead. Simon is whistling.

Both Kathleen and I understood Simon to say that the whole journey will last three to four hours. In the end it is seven hours by the time we come down the last steep slope to the ranch shortly before the sun goes behind the mountain range to the west, the mounts beginning to pick up a little speed from their slow, exhausted, head-drooping plodding.

My saddle and the horse’s action today are as comfortable as anything I could have desired. In past rides years ago, I recall, I often came back with skin rubbed raw around my ankles, knees or seat because the saddle was too small or improperly adjusted or my clothes were not fitting. None of that today. But I am definitely fatigado and my leg and pelvic muscles very sore. I actually expected this and started taking aspirin before we left. Despite the aspirin, however, by the time I climb down in the evening I feel like I gave birth yesterday to elephant triplets. Had I known how long and rough the day’s ride would turn out to be, I might have waited for something less ambitious. This just goes to show that it’s not always good to know the future.

Fifteen minutes on, we pass through the first of some eight barbed wire or log gates, leaving the open plateau behind us, dropping down into a small stream bed, the first of many, and then beginning to climb. Our path leads up through woods and into the open. Before we drop over the pass, the view back into the valley to the river, the ranch buildings and corrals, all set about with rich green grass, is stunning. The path however, while broad enough, is rough and the mounts walk carefully. As suspected, once past the first gate, Alazan stops trying to circle back to the corral. He has, I hope, accepted his fate for the day.

Over the first pass the trail heads down into the next canyon, at the bottom of which is another rushing stream. We splash through it and find that the path going up the other side narrows significantly. The horses begin to climb, and by climb I mean nearly steeply upward. They are straining and puffing to get up the path which is strewn with rocks ranging in size from baseballs to soccer balls, making the footing very unstable indeed. Sometimes they almost have to spring up onto a ledge. I did not know at this point that this was what nearly the whole journey would be like: steep, slow, unstable, narrow.

Way off to our left, though I do not know it yet since I have no detailed map of the area, lies one of the main canyons of the Copper-Canyon system. What we are in fact traversing are the upper reaches of tributaries to that main canyon. While we might be riding parallel to the main canyon, we are actually crossing across the grain of tributary arroyos, climbing up to the interstices between one arroyo after another and then dropping into another deep canyon, usually fairly narrow this far up from where the streams flow into the river.

Invariably there is a river or a stream at the bottom of the canyon, each in full spate after the rain of recent days. It is precisely these streams that have cut the canyons over the millennia through the soft rock. So far up, the streams are not usually very wide. But sometimes the canyon is so steep and narrow that we do not hear the rushing water until we are almost on top of it. The dogs usually have to swim for it. Wading the creeks, the water sometimes reaches up to Alazan’s belly and the bottoms of my boots. He picks his way gingerly across the deeper waters because the footing is rough, loose, washed-down rock and usually out of sight beneath the murky surface. Greta always and Cody sometimes lie down in the stream, floating if it’s deep enough, lapping up water at the same time from the surface. On the way back the horses stop frequently to drink, though we do not let them drink deeply; we keep them moving.

The continued climbing up and down very steep canyon walls makes both mount and dogs hot. But the horses never stop in the three hours on the way over. After several arroyos and successive steep descents and climbs up wooded slopes, each pathway more narrow, each pathway, it seems, more steep, each pathway more strewn with loose rock, we finally reach a high plateau, a mesa, between two table-top mountains. As we come out of the woods from the climb, suddenly it opens up into one of the most dramatic views I have ever seen. Under a blue sky with puffy clouds the pasture directly in front of me is heavily carpeted with yellow meadow flowers. To my immediate right and straight ahead of me are two tabletop mountains; the mesa is actually a pass between them created by the erosion of rock and debris from the tabletops. The tabletops themselves are what is left of the high plateau. Millions of years of rain and wind-erosion have cut the deep canyons into the high plateau leaving isolated towers like in Monument Valley. Raising my eyes I can see for probably fifty miles to the west or northwest and, to my left to the south as we ride out onto the plateau, dwarfed by the tabletops, and the huge sky, I see the upper regions of the main canyon.
I see cattle grazing here and there around me. The silence is as enormous as the natural phenomena around us; I hear only the wind and the horses on the sandy and grassy ground. Off toward the butte, a young mule comes loping to see what’s what. He’s playful and dances around Alazan to get his attention, cutting closely back and forth in front of him but eventually just following him within a couple of inches. After a few minutes a whole herd of eight or nine mules arrive on the scene, summoned no doubt by the colt’s early calls. Half of them, Simon says, bear el Nogal brands marks, which I think is a heart with a bar underneath. Eventually the loose animals go honking and frolicking off into the woods again leaving only the young mule to follow us right to the barbed-wire gate where we start down off the mesa and then gazing forlornly after us.

One of the things I can see so clearly through the pure air from the top of the plateau was several maize fields. These are I estimate to be about five miles away as the crow flies. Eventually we reach them but it takes another hour or more of hard descending and climbing. Sometimes I see no path at all. Other times the route is basically a small channel for rain runoff and therefore fetlock-deep mud. Elsewhere, usually on the high land, we traverse bare rock, the horses’ hooves clopping like on a city street. The path across the bare rock is only about twelve inches wide and worn white against the grey of the bedrock. At places animal hooves had even cut away the slope into a ledge. I wonder for how many centuries riders and other animals have been using these paths. Perhaps the Pima and Tarahumara Indians were the ones who first initiated them when they fled to the mountains to escape the Apache, the Yumas and the Spaniards, the latter of whom had wanted to enslave the women into textile mills and the men into silver mines.

Eventually, after two and one-half hours or so and a last steep decline, we came to another stream and some loose buildings.
“Rancho Agua Caliente,” Simon said. Alazan thought a visit would be in order, tried to head there and had to be convinced otherwise as skirted the ranch buildings, passing through several gates to do so, and riding past the maize fields that I had seen from the mesa. The ranchers had been cutting and stripping logs for a new log corral, which looked as if it might be finished.

After another fifteen or twenty minutes and some light climbing and descending, we cross a last creak with a small waterfall and arrive at another collection of buildings: a typical rectangular Mexican adobe house with a beamed ceiling, a corrugated tin roof, and a covered porch at the front, a litter of three or four pickup trucks in various stages of cannibalization, a flock of chickens scratching in the grass and sand. Simon called it Rancho “Margate”, though of course it couldn’t have been that.

Three little-girl faces suddenly appear at the window. Without dismounting, Simon asks if their Mama is at home. A few minutes later a pretty woman, perhaps no longer quite young, also appears, the little girls in their spotless play clothes gathering around her legs. After a little introduction, we are invited to dismount. We loosen the saddle girths. Simon acts a little shy and, standing there in the warm sunshine the whole time, the two persons never get closer than about three yards. In fact, for the most part, Simon keeps the mule between him and the woman, talking over the saddle with her. I wonder if this is his shyness or if it is the accepted politeness around women here. I lead Alazan into the shade of a nearby willow tree, the only such tree I have seen since I arrived in the area, drop his reins and, when I see that this conversation is going to take a while, find a railing to sit on. Alazan stands relaxed and appears to be dozing off. The little girls bring yellow apples for him, and sneak up to pat the three dogs, now collapsed panting in the shade as well.

I have only a very vague idea what it was all about. We are offered a coffee early on but Simon declines. Shortly before we leave we get a glass of water each. In between I get snatches of the conversation. Some of it has to do with the urgent message that Simon has brought; he hands her a letter. Some of it though is I am sure just country people bringing each other up to date with the local gossip. The conversation is generally light-hearted; it’s nice to get a visitor once in a while. In fact, until we got past Rancho Agua Caliente, we had not seen a single person or building, never heard a human sound, and except once for a very high-flying jet plane, never heard or saw anything except what nature had to offer: cattle and mules, songbirds, rushing water, the wind on the high mesa, the horses’ hooves, meadow and woodland flowers. In fact, what we heard behind those sounds was an almost palpable silence.

After what I estimate is about forty-five minutes, Simon tightens the saddle girth on the mule and I get up to do the same. We mount and, after a bit more talk, we head out. The little girls wave. Alazan thinks he might like to stay but I talk him out of it. We head back over the stream by the waterfall, along the maize fields and start to climb the mountain path again.

The return journey seems to be faster perhaps because I recognise things. The sun is getting lower and the light is warmer. In the distance the hillsides look like the landscaped parks around stately English homes. The grass is so green and the trees spaced apart in just the right amount. It’s deceptive because what I am seeing is not an English lawn or meadow; up close it’s all broken rocks and stones with just enough grass to give an impression from distance of solid green. In fact it’s exactly what we have now underfoot.

The mounts are tired now. Alazan plods even on the level and stone-free ground. But he seems to be struggling on the climbs and the descents, the latter of which are perhaps even more strenuous, since the horse has to take all the weight of himself and me onto his forelegs, sometimes even having to make a little leap down. On the smooth rock I wonder his shod forefeet don’t slip. Other times where the path is rock-strewn and hanging along the side of a steep canyon where a misstep will send us tumbling down several hundred feet and hurt us badly, I hold my breath. There is no way I would have come along such a path alone; I would have regarded it as totally unsuitable for a horse and rider. But I am following Simon who does not seem to mind at all. After all, he does this nearly every day of his cowboy existence. And this is his home territory. He knows the way. There is no way I could have found even my way home let alone to Rancho Margate. Everything here is local knowledge.

For some time I realise that he knows he’s on the way home and at one point Alazan wants to take a path to the left. But Simon has decided to take a different route home for the final third. This is even rougher and steeper than the way out. On the way up, the mounts have to scramble up. Coming down, Alazan is frequently either slipping on smooth rock or ever-so-carefully picking his path down. For me as rider, the upward part involves hanging on with my knees and encouraging the horse with gentle kicks with my heels. Both on the way up and on the way down I try to let the horse pick its own path provided it is not too devious. Although Alazan almost invariably makes allowances for the rider’s legs when passing a tree or gate; he never, for example, like some horses I have ridden, seems to be trying to brush me off. Once or twice, however, I am nearly impaled by a low limb pointed in my direction or nearly brushed off by low branches. I lie flat on the horse’s withers. After an hour so of very, very steep descent, I catch up to Simon at a gate. He points out that my saddle and saddle blankets have all shifted forward on the horse’s neck. I dismount and re-saddle before passing the gate, dropping down into the stream where Greta is lying in the water to cool off. A brief drink for the horse and then it’s climbing again up the other side to the next gate.

“Media ora,” Simon announces. Half an hour. I am tired and sore and will be happy to see the home valley from the pass. This is the roughest territory I have ever been on. It would be exhausting even to hike it given the steepness and the loose rocks. I realise that I wish it were over now but push the thought out of my mind. Most of a cowboy’s life, I guess, is just endurance. Simon is whistling and asks if I don’t have a song to sing. I try but my throat is dry. I also realise that Simon has no sense of time; he has told me “media ora” twice already. And wasn’t he the one who said this morning that it would only be one and one-half hours over there and the same back.

But we do finally come over the last pass and spy the ranchhouse in the distant warm evening light. We are going to make it before dark and before rain comes on us. Thank God for that, at least! The thought of descending those slopes at night and/or in rain doesn’t bear contemplation! A few hundred yards out Alazan shows a little spunk before the finish lines and breaks into a slow trot. I see Kathy sitting at the picnic table behind the kitchen and yodel to get her attention. As we pull into the corral area it is just 1830; seven hours gone. I dismount onto my stiff and unsteady legs and pull the saddle and bridle off the horse. I am sore but, thanks to the aspirin I took during the day, I am not in any great pain.

What a day! I have seen some fantastic scenery and had to work hard to get there. I have experienced nature untouched except perhaps for some grazing domesticated animals and the odd perhaps manmade trail. I can hardly believe that people like Simon ride this country every day. And women too; the lady we delivered the message to is riding over to visit with the Bob (or Roberto, as he is known around here) on Tuesday.

I am full of amazement too for the working animals. There is no babying these mounts. They either cut it or they are out. There’s no place on a working ranch for useless mouths. They have walked and climbed for seven hours over brutally tough terrain and may have to exactly the same tomorrow. They must have been crossed with mountain goats. The dogs throw themselves down around the yard and fall instantly asleep. While I slump exhausted and sore on the sofa and wait for dinner, Alazan is grazing on the grass with the other horses and mules near the ranchhouse. He comes up to me when I go out and gives me a nuzzle.

posted by rjb,
7:24 pm

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		News From Ron and Kathy Bird__
For more pictures of Ron and Kathy Bird and the Vilisar, see these beautiful photos by Albert Pang Click here to e-mail Ron Click here to e-mail Kathy Archives January 2004 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 February 2007 March 2007 Vilisar Translation Expert German-English translation available; business and finance our specialty. SachverstÃ¤ndige Deutsch-Englische Ãbersetzung; GeschÃ¤ft und Finanz unser Spezialgebiet.	Monday, September 12, 2005 SEVEN HOURS ON HORSEBACK THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS Monday, 12 September 2005 Ever since my first attempt a few days ago I had wanted to do more riding while I’m at Rancho el Nogal. When I heard that the rancher, Bob, had asked Simon to deliver some important document to a neighbour yesterday, and when I discovered that he would be going there on horseback, I asked Simon if I could accompany him. He said the journey would take about 3 or 4 hours. (As Simon and I are getting ready to go, Kathy is trying to get the electric agitator washing machine working. Eager to be off, I help get the gasoline-powered generator fuelled and started, to connect the water hoses to bring cold spring water from the tanks near the corral to near the ranchhouse and to dig out detergent and bleach, etc. The washing machine is 120 volts; after agitating the clothes in cold water, you wring them out either by hand or using a mop squeezer and dump them in a galvanised tub of spring water, wring out the rinse water, and finally, hang them out on the line. You don’t have to scrub the clothes on a scrubbing board but everything else is pretty much as our grandmothers and great-grandmothers did it. Oh, yes! And pray that the horses and mules that sometimes come into the yard to graze on the grass don’t brush the clothes off the line when the dogs try to chase them out.) For the trip Simon brought in a brown mule and Alazan, the same large chestnut horse that I rode last week. He and Israel, one of the other hands, show me how to catch the horse once it is corralled. Simon having instructed me how the last time, I saddle and bridle Alazan myself. At 1130 we climb into the saddle and start off out through the swinging gate onto the open meadows behind the corral trailed by three dogs. Bridles and Saddles Stock or western saddles differ markedly from “English” saddles. The latter are flatter and use iron stirrups shortened up so that the knees are bent. Stock or Western saddles are much heavier, have a seat with a back (like a knight’s saddle only not quite so pronounced), and have a pommel so the cowboy has something to tie his lasso or lariat to when handling livestock. The stirrups are usually made of wood and much larger than English saddles. Cowboys also use boots with large heels; they don’t just toe the stirrup, they often shove the boot into the stirrup right through to the heel. The stirrups are adjusted so that the rider’s legs are at nearly full stretch. Simon doesn’t, but I have noticed that several other hands wear spurs (and, yes, they do jingle when they walk.) Cool! On the way up to Yepachic on the bus we saw quite a few cowboys on horseback. All of them wore leather chaps and the stirrups were covered by leather hoods. I asked Cindy about why the cowboys here don’t wear them. She said that farther south there is a lot of chaparral, meaning I think, underbrush of thorn-bearing plants including plenty of cacti. The chaps and stirrup guards are part of the cowboys armour-plating. Sometimes, I guess even the horses get leather aprons.) Although the bridles look similar the whole steering system for a western pony is different from that found in traditional European riding. In the latter case there are two reins, usually brought together to be a circular, but attached to the bridle at the horse’s mouth. The rider guides the horse by pulling the rein on the side he wants the horse to turn toward. A metal bit inside the horse’s mouth allows the rider to keep control over a much more powerful beast than the human himself is. The horse soon learns that he will experience pain around his mouth, a very sensitive area, if he does not turn. Western horses are also steered by two reins leading to horse’s mouth and attached to the bridle. But traditionally there is no bit and, when the rider wants to turn left, he lifts the reins and lays the right rein alongside the right side of the horse’s neck. Only if the horse is very recalcitrant will a bit be used and sometimes a kerb will be placed on the bit, i.e. instead of a straight piece of metal from one side of the horse’s mouth to the other, the metal has a large loop in the middle. If the horse does not stop when the rein is pulled gently or does not turn as commanded using the above system, a jerk on the reins will lift the kerb so it presses on the top of the horse’s mouth. That hurts. Western horses don’t normally need to be hitched to anything. If a cowboy has to leap off his mount to deal with a calf at the other end of the lasso, he can’t have to be looking around for some place to tie the horse. Instead, the rider dismounts and drops one or both reins on the ground; the horse will stand there as if tied to something. Stock horses are also trained to back up and keep a steady tension on a lasso tied to something. Although at first I had not even noticed the workmanship, I have since come to admire the tooled-leather stock saddles that are used around the ranch. Simon has two, possibly his own property, and there must be another half-dozen straddling a railing in the covered walkway between the house and the corral area. The leather on the one I am using has been tooled all over in a kind of woven-basket design. It must have taken weeks. The pommel is leather-covered but I have seen stock saddles here with brass ones. The leather is drawn over a wooden frame. The metal snaffles, rings, etc., mostly invisible under the leather, are nowadays mostly stainless steel. On Simon’s saddle however, I notice, they are bronze. He also carries a lasso tied next to the pommel of his saddle the long end of which he uses as a quirt and constantly gave the mule gentle swats with it as we go forward. While the bridle on Alazan is the standard leather type with a metal bit, I notice that Simon’s mule has a hand-braided bridle made of string with the loose ends made into interesting tassles. Considering that these mules are tough beasts, the little decoration look a little anachronistic. When he wants the mule to stay he also ties his mule rather than just letting the reins drop, which I can do with Alazan. I guess this mule or maybe all mules are a little more bloody-minded than horses. Mules Mules are produced by cross-breeding a horse (caballo) and a donkey (burro). A mule can be a male (mulo) or a female (mula). More so than horses they like to work in packs, which is one reason they are used in mule trains. If the father is a horse, the mule is actually a “hinney” but the expression is rarely used. Mules are smaller than most horses but bigger than donkeys. Their legs and hooves are not only smaller, they are disproportionately smaller than a horse. But they are more sure-footed than a horse and can carry a greater amount of weight proportionate to their size. There are as many and perhaps even more mules on this ranch than horses. It is Sunday and Simon has pulled on all new clothes. For one thing he is wearing black cowboy boots (most of the Pimas here just wear heavy shoes even if wearing spurs; this may be an economic issue for all I know). He has on his white straw Stetson, new black jeans and a leather belt with a big metal cowboy buckle, and an olive-gold long-sleeved shirt. I tease him about dressing up for Sunday and going on a visit. He smiles, embarrassed. We both tie a rain jacket to the saddle behind the seat. I have no western gear. I am wearing just long cargo trousers and a long-sleeved jersey as well the Borsalino straw hat that I bought for US$ 1.50 at a thrift shop in Dallas last July. Except that it is yellow straw, it looks kind of like the felt hat that Harrison Ford wears in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a kind of Twenties Look. I have on my Swiss hiking boots since the only other footwear I have at the ranch are my sandals. Even though it is almost noon, the air is a pleasant mid-70’s, the sky is azure blue with large puffy white clouds that will probably bring rain later in the day. But for the moment the weather is nearly perfect. Three of the ranchhouse six dogs are along for the day: Greta, the springer; Cody the tail-less, herd-dog; and Phil, walker and runner (that’s all he done so far except to eat and sleep). Even following the mule, Alazan pulls gently but determinedly to the left at first to head back to the corral. A working horse on a working ranch, he probably knows better than I do what to expect today. The mule takes the lead. Simon is whistling. Both Kathleen and I understood Simon to say that the whole journey will last three to four hours. In the end it is seven hours by the time we come down the last steep slope to the ranch shortly before the sun goes behind the mountain range to the west, the mounts beginning to pick up a little speed from their slow, exhausted, head-drooping plodding. My saddle and the horse’s action today are as comfortable as anything I could have desired. In past rides years ago, I recall, I often came back with skin rubbed raw around my ankles, knees or seat because the saddle was too small or improperly adjusted or my clothes were not fitting. None of that today. But I am definitely fatigado and my leg and pelvic muscles very sore. I actually expected this and started taking aspirin before we left. Despite the aspirin, however, by the time I climb down in the evening I feel like I gave birth yesterday to elephant triplets. Had I known how long and rough the day’s ride would turn out to be, I might have waited for something less ambitious. This just goes to show that it’s not always good to know the future. Fifteen minutes on, we pass through the first of some eight barbed wire or log gates, leaving the open plateau behind us, dropping down into a small stream bed, the first of many, and then beginning to climb. Our path leads up through woods and into the open. Before we drop over the pass, the view back into the valley to the river, the ranch buildings and corrals, all set about with rich green grass, is stunning. The path however, while broad enough, is rough and the mounts walk carefully. As suspected, once past the first gate, Alazan stops trying to circle back to the corral. He has, I hope, accepted his fate for the day. Over the first pass the trail heads down into the next canyon, at the bottom of which is another rushing stream. We splash through it and find that the path going up the other side narrows significantly. The horses begin to climb, and by climb I mean nearly steeply upward. They are straining and puffing to get up the path which is strewn with rocks ranging in size from baseballs to soccer balls, making the footing very unstable indeed. Sometimes they almost have to spring up onto a ledge. I did not know at this point that this was what nearly the whole journey would be like: steep, slow, unstable, narrow. Way off to our left, though I do not know it yet since I have no detailed map of the area, lies one of the main canyons of the Copper-Canyon system. What we are in fact traversing are the upper reaches of tributaries to that main canyon. While we might be riding parallel to the main canyon, we are actually crossing across the grain of tributary arroyos, climbing up to the interstices between one arroyo after another and then dropping into another deep canyon, usually fairly narrow this far up from where the streams flow into the river. Invariably there is a river or a stream at the bottom of the canyon, each in full spate after the rain of recent days. It is precisely these streams that have cut the canyons over the millennia through the soft rock. So far up, the streams are not usually very wide. But sometimes the canyon is so steep and narrow that we do not hear the rushing water until we are almost on top of it. The dogs usually have to swim for it. Wading the creeks, the water sometimes reaches up to Alazan’s belly and the bottoms of my boots. He picks his way gingerly across the deeper waters because the footing is rough, loose, washed-down rock and usually out of sight beneath the murky surface. Greta always and Cody sometimes lie down in the stream, floating if it’s deep enough, lapping up water at the same time from the surface. On the way back the horses stop frequently to drink, though we do not let them drink deeply; we keep them moving. The continued climbing up and down very steep canyon walls makes both mount and dogs hot. But the horses never stop in the three hours on the way over. After several arroyos and successive steep descents and climbs up wooded slopes, each pathway more narrow, each pathway, it seems, more steep, each pathway more strewn with loose rock, we finally reach a high plateau, a mesa, between two table-top mountains. As we come out of the woods from the climb, suddenly it opens up into one of the most dramatic views I have ever seen. Under a blue sky with puffy clouds the pasture directly in front of me is heavily carpeted with yellow meadow flowers. To my immediate right and straight ahead of me are two tabletop mountains; the mesa is actually a pass between them created by the erosion of rock and debris from the tabletops. The tabletops themselves are what is left of the high plateau. Millions of years of rain and wind-erosion have cut the deep canyons into the high plateau leaving isolated towers like in Monument Valley. Raising my eyes I can see for probably fifty miles to the west or northwest and, to my left to the south as we ride out onto the plateau, dwarfed by the tabletops, and the huge sky, I see the upper regions of the main canyon. I see cattle grazing here and there around me. The silence is as enormous as the natural phenomena around us; I hear only the wind and the horses on the sandy and grassy ground. Off toward the butte, a young mule comes loping to see what’s what. He’s playful and dances around Alazan to get his attention, cutting closely back and forth in front of him but eventually just following him within a couple of inches. After a few minutes a whole herd of eight or nine mules arrive on the scene, summoned no doubt by the colt’s early calls. Half of them, Simon says, bear el Nogal brands marks, which I think is a heart with a bar underneath. Eventually the loose animals go honking and frolicking off into the woods again leaving only the young mule to follow us right to the barbed-wire gate where we start down off the mesa and then gazing forlornly after us. One of the things I can see so clearly through the pure air from the top of the plateau was several maize fields. These are I estimate to be about five miles away as the crow flies. Eventually we reach them but it takes another hour or more of hard descending and climbing. Sometimes I see no path at all. Other times the route is basically a small channel for rain runoff and therefore fetlock-deep mud. Elsewhere, usually on the high land, we traverse bare rock, the horses’ hooves clopping like on a city street. The path across the bare rock is only about twelve inches wide and worn white against the grey of the bedrock. At places animal hooves had even cut away the slope into a ledge. I wonder for how many centuries riders and other animals have been using these paths. Perhaps the Pima and Tarahumara Indians were the ones who first initiated them when they fled to the mountains to escape the Apache, the Yumas and the Spaniards, the latter of whom had wanted to enslave the women into textile mills and the men into silver mines. Eventually, after two and one-half hours or so and a last steep decline, we came to another stream and some loose buildings. “Rancho Agua Caliente,” Simon said. Alazan thought a visit would be in order, tried to head there and had to be convinced otherwise as skirted the ranch buildings, passing through several gates to do so, and riding past the maize fields that I had seen from the mesa. The ranchers had been cutting and stripping logs for a new log corral, which looked as if it might be finished. After another fifteen or twenty minutes and some light climbing and descending, we cross a last creak with a small waterfall and arrive at another collection of buildings: a typical rectangular Mexican adobe house with a beamed ceiling, a corrugated tin roof, and a covered porch at the front, a litter of three or four pickup trucks in various stages of cannibalization, a flock of chickens scratching in the grass and sand. Simon called it Rancho “Margate”, though of course it couldn’t have been that. Three little-girl faces suddenly appear at the window. Without dismounting, Simon asks if their Mama is at home. A few minutes later a pretty woman, perhaps no longer quite young, also appears, the little girls in their spotless play clothes gathering around her legs. After a little introduction, we are invited to dismount. We loosen the saddle girths. Simon acts a little shy and, standing there in the warm sunshine the whole time, the two persons never get closer than about three yards. In fact, for the most part, Simon keeps the mule between him and the woman, talking over the saddle with her. I wonder if this is his shyness or if it is the accepted politeness around women here. I lead Alazan into the shade of a nearby willow tree, the only such tree I have seen since I arrived in the area, drop his reins and, when I see that this conversation is going to take a while, find a railing to sit on. Alazan stands relaxed and appears to be dozing off. The little girls bring yellow apples for him, and sneak up to pat the three dogs, now collapsed panting in the shade as well. I have only a very vague idea what it was all about. We are offered a coffee early on but Simon declines. Shortly before we leave we get a glass of water each. In between I get snatches of the conversation. Some of it has to do with the urgent message that Simon has brought; he hands her a letter. Some of it though is I am sure just country people bringing each other up to date with the local gossip. The conversation is generally light-hearted; it’s nice to get a visitor once in a while. In fact, until we got past Rancho Agua Caliente, we had not seen a single person or building, never heard a human sound, and except once for a very high-flying jet plane, never heard or saw anything except what nature had to offer: cattle and mules, songbirds, rushing water, the wind on the high mesa, the horses’ hooves, meadow and woodland flowers. In fact, what we heard behind those sounds was an almost palpable silence. After what I estimate is about forty-five minutes, Simon tightens the saddle girth on the mule and I get up to do the same. We mount and, after a bit more talk, we head out. The little girls wave. Alazan thinks he might like to stay but I talk him out of it. We head back over the stream by the waterfall, along the maize fields and start to climb the mountain path again. The return journey seems to be faster perhaps because I recognise things. The sun is getting lower and the light is warmer. In the distance the hillsides look like the landscaped parks around stately English homes. The grass is so green and the trees spaced apart in just the right amount. It’s deceptive because what I am seeing is not an English lawn or meadow; up close it’s all broken rocks and stones with just enough grass to give an impression from distance of solid green. In fact it’s exactly what we have now underfoot. The mounts are tired now. Alazan plods even on the level and stone-free ground. But he seems to be struggling on the climbs and the descents, the latter of which are perhaps even more strenuous, since the horse has to take all the weight of himself and me onto his forelegs, sometimes even having to make a little leap down. On the smooth rock I wonder his shod forefeet don’t slip. Other times where the path is rock-strewn and hanging along the side of a steep canyon where a misstep will send us tumbling down several hundred feet and hurt us badly, I hold my breath. There is no way I would have come along such a path alone; I would have regarded it as totally unsuitable for a horse and rider. But I am following Simon who does not seem to mind at all. After all, he does this nearly every day of his cowboy existence. And this is his home territory. He knows the way. There is no way I could have found even my way home let alone to Rancho Margate. Everything here is local knowledge. For some time I realise that he knows he’s on the way home and at one point Alazan wants to take a path to the left. But Simon has decided to take a different route home for the final third. This is even rougher and steeper than the way out. On the way up, the mounts have to scramble up. Coming down, Alazan is frequently either slipping on smooth rock or ever-so-carefully picking his path down. For me as rider, the upward part involves hanging on with my knees and encouraging the horse with gentle kicks with my heels. Both on the way up and on the way down I try to let the horse pick its own path provided it is not too devious. Although Alazan almost invariably makes allowances for the rider’s legs when passing a tree or gate; he never, for example, like some horses I have ridden, seems to be trying to brush me off. Once or twice, however, I am nearly impaled by a low limb pointed in my direction or nearly brushed off by low branches. I lie flat on the horse’s withers. After an hour so of very, very steep descent, I catch up to Simon at a gate. He points out that my saddle and saddle blankets have all shifted forward on the horse’s neck. I dismount and re-saddle before passing the gate, dropping down into the stream where Greta is lying in the water to cool off. A brief drink for the horse and then it’s climbing again up the other side to the next gate. “Media ora,” Simon announces. Half an hour. I am tired and sore and will be happy to see the home valley from the pass. This is the roughest territory I have ever been on. It would be exhausting even to hike it given the steepness and the loose rocks. I realise that I wish it were over now but push the thought out of my mind. Most of a cowboy’s life, I guess, is just endurance. Simon is whistling and asks if I don’t have a song to sing. I try but my throat is dry. I also realise that Simon has no sense of time; he has told me “media ora” twice already. And wasn’t he the one who said this morning that it would only be one and one-half hours over there and the same back. But we do finally come over the last pass and spy the ranchhouse in the distant warm evening light. We are going to make it before dark and before rain comes on us. Thank God for that, at least! The thought of descending those slopes at night and/or in rain doesn’t bear contemplation! A few hundred yards out Alazan shows a little spunk before the finish lines and breaks into a slow trot. I see Kathy sitting at the picnic table behind the kitchen and yodel to get her attention. As we pull into the corral area it is just 1830; seven hours gone. I dismount onto my stiff and unsteady legs and pull the saddle and bridle off the horse. I am sore but, thanks to the aspirin I took during the day, I am not in any great pain. What a day! I have seen some fantastic scenery and had to work hard to get there. I have experienced nature untouched except perhaps for some grazing domesticated animals and the odd perhaps manmade trail. I can hardly believe that people like Simon ride this country every day. And women too; the lady we delivered the message to is riding over to visit with the Bob (or Roberto, as he is known around here) on Tuesday. I am full of amazement too for the working animals. There is no babying these mounts. They either cut it or they are out. There’s no place on a working ranch for useless mouths. They have walked and climbed for seven hours over brutally tough terrain and may have to exactly the same tomorrow. They must have been crossed with mountain goats. The dogs throw themselves down around the yard and fall instantly asleep. While I slump exhausted and sore on the sofa and wait for dinner, Alazan is grazing on the grass with the other horses and mules near the ranchhouse. He comes up to me when I go out and gives me a nuzzle. posted by *rjb,* *7:24 pm* Comments: Post a Comment
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Monday, September 12, 2005