The Trail Ride From Hell

 

Carolyn J. Rose

First, let me say that I love all animals. But have a healthy fear of many: wolves, lions, tigers, rogue elephants, snakes loaded with venom, and sharks, to name a few. Back in 1979, I added a horse named Thundercloud to that list.

My experience with horses had been limited to a couple of rides on elderly equines with the speed of sloths. But the organizers of a trail ride in the Arkansas Ozarks assured me that was fine. They had a gentle steed for me.

If only I’d considered that statement with the same skepticism I reserve for claims made by used car dealers. But I didn’t. And thus I found myself confronting Thundercloud.

He was huge. Really huge. Really really hugely huge.

“They say he’s as gentle as a kitten,” his owner, a good old boy of about 50, told me.

Thundercloud snorted the way I do when I hear a politician make a promise. Then he tried to nip my shoulder.

I yelped and jumped back. “Who are they?”

“Uh, um. Well, see, I just bought him. But they told me he’s a teddy bear.”

Of course they did. If you were trying to sell a horse, would you say he’s a killer? Would you express any negative doubts at all about his temperament? Before I could verbalize that question, Thundercloud’s owner tossed me into the saddle and we were off.

​The first half of the ride was fine, slow and easy except for a few anxious moments when we crossed a stream on slippery rocks, thus avoiding a concrete ford with gaps where a hoof could get stuck and cause a horse to stumble.

On the way back, when a boy on a pony passed us at a gallop, Thundercloud took it as a challenge and bolted. I tried to rein him in, but the bridle might as well have been a bit of holiday ribbon. When I pulled, he ran faster. We passed the kid on the pony. Hooves pounded behind us and other riders shouted advice.

Thundercloud ran even faster.

I spotted the stream ahead. The stream with the dangerous ford. I saw myself drowning beneath a thrashing horse with a broken leg.

I threw myself from the saddle. The dirt road came to meet me at an alarming rate. I blanked out.

When I came around Thundercloud was standing over me and a dozen riders were bearing down on us. Forget drowning. Now I’d be trampled to death.

But Thundercloud didn’t move as the riders pulled up, dismounted, and gabbled questions about my condition. Before I could complete a mental inventory, Thundercloud’s owner, who apparently thought worrying about a broken neck was for sissies, jerked me to my feet.

As I gasped in pain, another man stuck a wad of chewing tobacco in my mouth. I gagged. I retched. I threw up my lunch, my breakfast, and several meals I’d eaten the month before. If my tonsils hadn’t been removed when I was five, I would have hurled them as well.

Finally exhibiting good sense, I refused to remount Thundercloud and finished the ride on a calm and gentle mare with a sedate walk. My own walking speed, until my bruised ribs healed, would have made snails snicker.

I never got on a horse again.

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