Kids and wild horses

Very few grew up as we did. As kids go, we were very independent at early ages.  Huge difference from kids today. On our side of the Colorado River, lived just a hand full of families with kids. We played in the dry washes, ditches and desert out our back yard while learning to swim in the canals and river. 
This quick story is about 7 kids heading out to bring wild horses off the mountain.
It was late in the spring when dad and our friend’s dad thought it was time to get  some horses rounded up. You see we helped the herd back then by releasing a good stud and some nice mares. Over the years they made some very nice and sure footed riding animals. 
Anyway, back to the story. I was the youngest at 8 years old and the oldest of this bunch of kids was 11 years of age. We got our best mules gathered up (remember wild horses) because staying safe on the nasty, rocky and steep country was a priority. We did have one race horse with us and 3 other horses plus 5 mules.
We all slept that night in the bunk house, 7 of us in sleeping bags on the floor and two farting dogs. We already packed our food and water for 3 and maybe 4 days because we did not know how far we had to go or how long it would take so to be safe, we were prepared.
That morning we all mounted up and leading the chase horse and pack animals we headed out. This trail is just a mountain trail and not a cow trail or maintained type of trail. It was very steep climb in places as the hill we headed up was a very big hill. After about 4 hours we were getting close to the top, maybe an hour left. But we ran into an issue. The trail was going sideways on the north slope of the hill. It had been warm enough at some time that the snow had melted but then froze on the trail. Now this trail was from 12 inches to maybe 18 inches in the wide spots. Two of us got off their horses and were leading them, the others stayed on their mules.
Well that trail became slick as snot! We were about half way across this bad shaded area of maybe half a mile when the wreck happened. My friend was in front of me leading the race/chase horse when that flatland horse slipped and went of the trail.
I will never forget those eyes! I have seen some stuff even at that age but never did I see an animal so scared as this one. His back end went off first and so his front feet were going a hundred miles an hour for what seemed like a long time but in fact was only a couple of seconds. Then over backwards he went. The hill was very steep and so he rolled four or five times before he was able to catch himself and stand. Well he was shaking so bad and so scared that he went down again. He went over some small drop offs and through some trees. I lost count of how many times he rolled down the hill and out of sight. 
We assumed he was dead as we left our animals tied on the trail and headed down with ropes. We found that puke standing and bleeding at the bottom of the ridge. He was at least a hundred yards off the trail, a hundred very steep yards.
Well five of us made it down to him while two stayed with the animals above. It was impossible to take him down because of the cliffs. It was also impossible to take him back up the way we came down. The only option was up the other side away from where we left the trail. That meant if we got him up, we would still need to get him back across on that icy trail.
Well we got the saddle off and its tree was broken so one of the guys took it back up to the trail. That stupid falling down race horse was in pretty good shape considering. His eye was swollen, he had some cuts on his head from bouncing off the rocks I’m sure, but his legs were not broken and neither were any ribs or other bones that we inspected.  
Well we gave him about half an hour to get his wits about him again, as I and another headed up the hill making a path to follow up to the trail. Now this side of the hill was not as bad as the side he came down but…it was still pretty salty!
Kids, from 8-11 years old…but we had been around and raised by men. Men who knew how to make things happen and had a (never give up attitude). So we did not know we couldn’t do what we were going to attempt. We did not know how incredible and dangerous our plan was, so we just did it!
Ropes and kids… So, the 1st thing is to control the horses head and keep it pointed in the right direction. We had some pack ropes that were 30 and 50 feet in length but we saved those. We always had manila tie ropes in our saddle bags so we tied 3 together and tied it to the lead rope. This way we could be over 20 feet uphill from that horse who we knew was going to try and run us over or flip over! The pack ropes we tied  to the girth of the horse with no slip knots so we had a guy on each side of the horse to help stabilizes and even help pull him up when he needed it. On his rear we had the BIG guys, Foot ball players at 11 years old, strong, quick and tough as nails. They needed to be. They had to keep ahead of the horse in steep rocky ground, keep the rope on his rear and hip and not let it foul up by getting it low on his legs.  
100 plus yards, myself and Jack in the lead controlling the head, Steve and Grant on the sides, Will and Dale on the rear and Ronny behind with a tree branch for additional encouragement. One big whack on the butt and up the hill we all scrambled as fast as we could. It was not pretty but as one of us slipped and fell, the others would pick up the slack and pulling and kicking, up the hill we went!
We made it, all of us. I had slipped and the horse stepped on me before he stopped and took a breath. Just a bruise is all we got out of our horse rescue, but that made us the winners!
Dumb dang race horse, he was done in after that. I will grant him one thing, he did not try to flip over and he did his best to keep his feet and climb that hill. A couple of times he stopped to blow and must have thought for a second of giving up but a well timed smack, got his mind off that and his eye back on the trail above him. Once on the trail we all gasp for air and thanked God for the strength he gave a bunch of kids and a frightened horse.  
Now remember we are on the other side of that frozen hill with a horse that was not going to make it back over the ice. Ok, I understand how dumb this was afterwards but…we all spent the rest of the day building fires on the trail to melt the ice. I was tired, sore, bruised and disappointed and the ice was not cooperating. The fires did help but wow, it takes a long time for that to work. So as we feed the fires, we took our hatches out, for those of us wise enough to carry them, and the older not so wise used their pocket knives or a rock to beat on the ice on the trail. We did what we could on that trail for hours and then threw dirt and cedar branches on it for traction. We had already taking the other animals back to safety and had a camp site picked out. The only thing left to do was to get that horse back down the trail and on the other side to safely before night fall and freezing temps.
There was no way we could help the horse on the sides because it was just too steep. So, Grant took the lead rope and down the trail they went. That horse only looked once off this side of the trail but bless his heart, he did not want to go off that trail again. He did not, he never slipped and we all got back to the camp site with no permanent damage to anyone.
Kids…Will and I finished watering and staking out the animals. Now we had food for 3 days right, wrong! Dale was a big kid and the others must have thought they had not eaten in weeks because as Will and I came to the camp fire, 2 hotdogs ( I know they fell in the dirt), a spoon full of dirty beans and no chips was all that was left! I think Dale ate the chip bags!!  Candy was gone and the few sodas we had were also missing in action. Being the youngest and dumbest I had a few choice words for my buddies, but it did nothing to appease my appetite.
Well, what can you say or do right. So we got the fire up and running as the cold night sat in. bunch of kids huddled around a fire in the most flammable sleeping bags known to man. Do you know what pitch is? How it sticks to your hands like  sticky glue? Well, on a fire it adds a whole new dimension to the night. It pops, it flames up and it sends sparks that fly into the air and like some crazed WWII kamikaze pilot, they seek out kids sleeping bags as if they are on a one way mission of destruction! So, if you sleep to close to the fire you get burn holes in your bag, to far away and well, it’s a long cold night.
It must have been around mid night when I had enough of this. I woke up Will and asked him if he was hungry and he replied “Yup, what on your mind?” My mind??? FOOD! We snuck out of camp, saddled our 2 mules and down the trail at a high trot we went, all the way back to the ranch. Once there Wills mom fixed us pork chops, biscuits and gravy. We stayed for many an hour filling our belly’s and packing away pork chops for the ride back. One last thing, Chocolate milk!  Hey, we are kids and we love chocolate milk so we made us a gallon and headed back. We got back in the dark and buried the milk outside the camp and stored the chops in our saddle bags. We both were tired and worn out so the hard ground and cold bag sure felt nice…until the sun came up.
Well I will finish up this story. That next day everyone just hung around played. No one wanted to cross that trail again and we were too embarrassed to head home so soon. So it was decided that we would stay up there another day and go back the next morning. I could not help but chuckle to myself each time I went out to our stash of chocolate milk and pork chops! The others were thirsty and hungry, eating gum and sipping water where they could find it. It was much later that Wills mom finally told on us but she never said we took a stash back with us, that was our secret.
No wild horses, just a lot of good memories.
Bruce