Life in a Nutshell

The Names of Horses

"Hi, Snippy."

He nudged my pockets for more snacks but even without them, he stuck around for me to halter. We were friends from that point on. The Black Phantom was now Snip and he was the best horse I ever knew.

I was a really thick-headed ranch girl. The lifestyle didn't come naturally to me. I had to be taught the 'ins and outs.' I wasn't intuitive and rules that would've been obvious to others weren't that clear to me.

But I did ride my horse often. Every weekend and almost every day during the summer.

I knew how to keep him from getting saddle sores, and to curry him before and after a ride. I knew how to saddle him, so his coat wasn't bunched, I knew to walk him until he was cool when we'd been running in the hot weather, and I knew to care for his feet.

We'd saddle up and go for a run just for the fun of it. I'd go searching for shed antlers in the scrub pines around the grasslands, and I'd come home laden with antler treasures and a very ticklish, jumpy horse.

He had a wonderful Mustang gait with his sturdy thick frame and solid legs. When he'd gallop it was like riding a rocking horse, so easy and comfortable.

He was what my folks called an "easy keeper." He could practically live on a straw bale in a dirt corral, and gain weight. We never tested the theory, but he was always fat and sleek and happy in our care.

His frame was strong, and squat. He wasn't ugly, but he wasn't lean and proud like a Thoroughbred, or shaped like a Quarter Horse. He was barrel-chested and round-rumped. Four black feet at the end of strong short legs. His hooves were hard as rock and didn't need shoes unless I was riding on gravel or pavement a lot. If he was a man, I'd have imagined he looked like Harvey Keitel. Someone you'd overlook as inconsequential, until it was too late, and you were smitten.

Like any good man he took care of the girl who was with him, no matter how dense she was.

Especially if she brought snacks.

The following summer I was sixteen, and we'd moved from that ranch and took Snip with us. We were about seven miles out of town on another ranch, and I had gotten a job working the day shift, four days a week at the only cafe in the small town nearby.

The only problem was that I didn't have a car and couldn't drive. I asked the owner if I could use the small corral behind the cafe during my shift and she had no problem with it. So, I rode my horse to work that summer. Four days a week, for three months. I became a bit of a local gossip topic for my daily rides to work.

I'd leave an hour early each work day and he got to where he was waiting for me in the morning. Nickering softly he'd meet me at the gate and follow me to the tack shed. No catch string needed. He'd get restless on my days off and look at me like I was shirking my duty.

We'd take a back route off the roads to get to the cafe, and I'd have to open and shut three barbed wire gates to get across the fields to the gravel roads that connected the ranches.

Once at work, I'd unsaddle him, curry him, take off the bridle and leave his halter and he'd munch around on the grass in the corral watching the cars, trucks and motorcycles go by until my shift was over.

Then the process happened all over again.

I'd joke that I had a 1972 Black Mustang with the crushed velvet exterior, four on the floor and lots of horsepower.

Heading home one day he froze. I couldn't get him to move, no matter what I did. He would not move. Finally, I got it that something was wrong and as I got down, I realized he had gotten tangled in some old, barbed wire that had been left on the ground. So very dangerous to both cattle and horses. Old wire can get caught around an animal's legs and cause severe damage.

Most horses would be scared and jump or buck to rid themselves of the wire menace. But not Snip. He froze, and turned to nudge me when I was too dumb to figure out what was wrong.

I carefully picked up his feet, and moved the wire out from beneath him, then led him to an open area and we were on our way again.

Later that same year, again we were out on a frequent adventure and came to a few cattle guards. Cattle guards are metal barriers that prevent cattle from crossing roads or highways. Cows have small hooves and can slip between the metal rails of the guard and get stuck or sometimes even broken. Most animals know to never attempt a crossing.

I didn't know any better and encouraged Snip to cross. It was for cows, not horses, right? He asked for his head and I gave him the reins. He put his nose to the ground and crossed right over that cattle guard. My mother came unglued when she heard I had ridden him repeatedly over the cattle guards nearby. It was incredibly unsafe for both of us to do that. But he was fine with it. Leftover skills from his wild days, I think. As I grew older and was away more, he tended to like the smaller ranch children better. I was growing up and further from my roots. I wanted to go to art school and move away from the desert, but we always had room for the kids and usually the girls would beg to ride my horse. He was what was affectionately known as "idiot proof."

I gave one little girl full access to Snip, because she loved him so. She was maybe ten years old, and I saw her out there before breakfast standing on an overturned five-gallon bucket with a bridle outstretched in her hand calling him from the big pasture. Snip came up and voluntarily stuck his head in the bridle, opened his mouth and took the bit. Stuffed his furry ears inside while she had to pull them through. Then he lowered his head almost to the ground, so she could get off her bucket, fix his other ear and fasten the throat latch.

That's love. That's full on, Big Daddy type love. I can just hear him, "I'll take care of you, little one, don't you worry."

That horse never bit, kicked or bucked with any of his girls. He was a rare gem. A true gentleman and a better father than some men.

We gave him to a family when I moved away from my folks the final time. My parents were divorcing and leaving the high desert of Oregon's outback region. There was no future for him with us. He was twenty-one. Years later, I heard from one of my girlfriends from high school that he lived another eight years with that family and died at a full old age.

My most favorite poem in the world is "The Names of Horses" by Donald Hall. Donald Hall was appointed the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2006 and passed away in 2018. His work is expansive and covers all the emotions. Here is the first stanza.

All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding
and steerhide over the ash hames, to haul
sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer,
for the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range - D. Hall

The poem even though more about draft horses, never fails to bring tears to my eyes every time I read it, just as the memory of Snip does. We are afforded only one truly magnificent animal in our lives, and I cherish the Black Phantom of my heart.