April 2024 e-edition - 46

The starter horse
I
Story by Tom Reed | Illustration by L. Eslick
f yours is the tender heart, rent to pieces from the unfairness of
this world, it is best to avoid the daily news and partnerships
with an equine friend. Or learn to live with the pain. Truth
be known, I am unable to do either so I must conclude that my
soul has been hardened by years, or I actually enjoy the self-harm
that is paying attention to the headlines and horse ownership. The
former is a pain of general scope awash in fretting for the human
condition. The latter is deeply personal and must be summed up
this way: don't fall in love with a horse, but you will.
I met Marvin at a sale in middle Missouri
in the last round of a poor economy when
the habitually horse-poor suddenly found
themselves needing to jettison some of the
herd. Horses were cheap. He was not named
Marv at the time, he was just Lot 57, a sorrel
gelding belonging to no particular breed's
registry, about 8 years old, being sold near
the end of the auction. My old friend Paul,
a retired horse buyer for the United States
Forest Service's backcountry rangers, and I
drove from the West in search of good horses
to buy and sell back home, horses made in
Missouri's horse country to be honed in our
high mountains and rugged deserts. I figured I
had enough money for two horses and already
had sealed the deal on a long, tall drink of
water named Harold, a walking horse whose
family happily shouted, " Harold, you're going
to Montana, " when they learned where I was
from. Then up came Lot 57, a nondescript,
coarse-headed horse of the most common
color. But his legs were straight, he moved
well and most buyers had gone home for
the day.
I paid $800 for him and had two red horses
to take back West. I named Lot 57 Marvin
after a retired postman-turned-custom-knife
maker who lived in northern Arkansas and
was not only gracious enough to write me
about how much he enjoyed my Wyoming
Wildlife columns, but he also came to have
lunch with me and Paul while we were in Missouri
horse country on our buying expedition.
46 | April 2024
We humans underestimate the secret lives
of animals. Imagine happily enjoying your life
on a lush farm somewhere east of the 100th
meridian. Then one morning you are in an
indoor arena with a pile of strangers and a
man with a microphone who loudly blathers
away an unintelligible cascade of words, ending
with, " Sold! " Then you get stuffed into
a strange horse trailer next to a fellow you
have never met and driven into a rainstorm,
then a snowstorm, then a windstorm to find
yourself in a land where there are no trees to
block any of it. You end up being good pals
with your traveling partner because, well, you
really have no choice.
When I got back home, Harold and Marv
were inseparable.
I was pretty proud of my purchases, being
down a few horses and needing riding and
pack horses for my traditional summer pack
trips and elk hunts in Wyoming's high country.
Right from the start I was able to put a rookie
rider on either one of these sorrel boys from
Missouri and take to the mountains. A friend
who had just moved back to the home ranch
after his father's passing was my upstream
neighbor and together we made a habit of
riding some of the backcountry on his ranch,
repairing fences, checking on range conditions
and moving cows from one pasture to another.
Both horses took to it as if they had been doing
it for years. After a long day of this, we rode
up and over a ridge and into a tiny town with
one operative business, a bar, where there was
a hitch rack made specifically for customers
like us who needed a cold beer after a long
day in the saddle. Then we rode Harold and
Marv home.
When I purchased Marv I had a specific
friend in mind, a pal who really liked to ride
but who was built like a Serbian professional
wrestler, a slab of beef who pushed the scales
past 280 pounds. Those two made quite the
pair and it was only in his later years that I
imagined Marv wince whenever Jason came
out of the tack room carrying a saddle. I
retired Marv to more average-sized humans
after that.
A few years into the Marv and Harold show,
Harold fell victim to a twisted gut and had to
be put down - see cautionary statement at
the beginning of this story. Marv was never
the same after that. His personality changed in
grief and he became an old man, the old man
sitting alone at the end of the bar nursing his
beer, cranky and cantankerous. Except for kids.
The old man loves kids and they love him. That
is what Marv became. He stood away from
the herd, laid his ears back when approached
by other horses, sometimes delivered a precise
kick to a rump if pushed too closely.
Then a little girl, my wife's daughter,
entered my life and Marv's. Before long,
Marv's routine changed from range riding,
elk hunts and high-country summers, to one
of glitter hoof paint and braided manes. Sure,
I still took him into the tall mountains when
I needed him, but without me acknowledging
the change in ownership, he became the kid's
horse. I remember looking toward the corrals
one day and seeing Clara, my stepdaughter,
up on a fence combing his mane while Marv
dosed in the sunlight. Her first ride was on
Marv at three years of age. Then she really fell
in love with him. He started going to 4H and
county fairs. He had his hoofs painted purple,
and mane and tail braided and adorned with
ribbons. One summer morning I was on the
porch of my writing cabin taking a break
from my computer when Clara and Marv
came riding by. Clara was barefoot in tights
April 2024 e-edition

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