by Ron Diener

G21 Alumnus

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WENDELL, NC, USA - In spring, Doug and Mary found that a young horse named Nina was for sale on the Web. They got a video from the owner and asked that I drive to Wagener, South Carolina, to take a look at this mutt. She is a good horse, well built, a Paso Fino not quite two years old, with very little training. Doug and Mary decided to buy the horse and only THEN did they try to find a way to get the horse from South Carolina to their home in Montana. Ah, but they knew this knucklehead in North Carolina, a nincompoop who might do the unexpected: he might offer to take the horse to Montana. That is the "Ron" part of the "Nina and Ron" duo.

It all began on a Friday morning, in Wendell, North Carolina, the truck packed and ready to go, a sandwich and a cup of coffee on the console, the fuel tanks full and a jug of transmission oil behind the front seat, the Reese hitch behind the passenger seat, a few snacks, four bottles of flavored bubblewater, $200 cash in the pocket and a fresh Discover card, I head down I-40 to I-95, via Florence, SC,to Columbia, SC, then on to Wagener southeast of town. I called ahead and said that I wanted to be ready to go bright and early Saturday morning. I discovered that there are no motels in the Wagener area and had to return to Columbia where I found the Days Inn to be [yet another] Patel-Motel, the young man at the front desk both a nephew of the owner and himself the manager. He looked to be all of nineteen years old.

The "new style" of Patel-Motel accommodations now include a restaurant and bar - this one in a TexMex motiv. I sat at the bar with a young couple and had a taco salad. He worked freelance Web stuff, writing HTML and Java, a recent discharge from the U.S. Army under his belt, just getting his feet on the ground, returned a month ago from Iraq, still having bad dreams and hearing sounds in the night. She worked as a "private entertainer - various types of private entertainment services." [She was] pierced every which way (eyebrows, nose, lips, ears - presumably various other spots that private entertainers like to pierce), sipping a draft Amber Bock like her male friend, talking about the psychological effects, long-term effects, of violence. Adam - he is thinking of arabizing his first name out of sympathy for the victims of war in Iraq - wants to stay physically strong and if successful will have an easier time overcoming the nightmarish memories of the Gulf. And she is encouraging him to satiate his senses, eating very tasty and exotic foods, drinking nothing but the most delicious drinks, wearing wonderful smelling cologne, etc., etc., paying much attention to senses and feelings on a real basic level. Talked for an hour or so, then off to bed.

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Arrived at the horsefarm at 6:40 am, ready to go. At 7:15 knocked at the door and Owner answered. She said she had been up for a while.

I noted I had called to ask if I could leave plenty early.

The Coggins test papers were all in shape, but the horse's health certification had expired two days ago. She was waiting to call the vet at 8:00 a m. Vet will be available at 12:00 noon.

I repack the truck, wash the truck, wipe the windows of the truck (twice). Then I brush a horse, then bathe another horse, then bathe another horse, then brush the first horse I had bathed.

Husband came, and we went to breakfast, returned to find the health certificate.

Loaded the horse in three minutes, the trailer all hooked up and down the driveway we go. In the rearview mirror I see the owner weeping, being held up by loving husband. It's tough when it is a hand-raised horse and there are just a few of them in the yard - and she is going so far away ...

The drive was uneventful. Back to Columbis, SC, then to Asheboro, NC, I-40 through the mountains to Knoxville, TN, more mountains north into Kentucky, staying overnight at the Tennessee Kentucky border. My passenger, Paso Fino that she is - allegedly smart horses all - does not know "back" or "back up." It takes fifteen minutes to get her out of the trailer. She looks at the stall, all laid out with fresh water, hay, sweet feed; on the floor fresh hay and woodchips. Smells good enough for me! but Nina will not put any more than her head into the stall. I hold sweet feed in my hand and begin to walk into the stall. She steps ahead of me and wammo! the gate is shut and I unsnap her lead. So far, so good.

I head to Jellico, TN, to a motel that has bad smells, looks down-on-the-heels, "free breakfast" (ya, sure, as though I did not pay for it in the overnight charge.) My kind of place. No restaurants open, I had a bag of pretzels and two slim jims for dinner, washed down with a Sprite and a Budweiser. I always was the goumet type, you know.

Back at the stall six hours later, I try to get her loaded. The owner and his two grandchildren (twins: boy, girl, about twelve - both of them beautiful children) watch and wait.

I started loading at 7:15 am. Nina decided to grace the trailer with her full presence about 9:15 am. Meanwhile, she takes one step into the trailer, eats a bit of sweet feed, then rears and steps back out - no way to coax her farther into the trailer than the first timid step. I try to distract her - after all, young horses have lots of difficulty just staying on the ball; they do not focus on the work before them and readily look at the birds, the clouds, waving flags.

Really, now, they are not to be blamed: how would you like to be two years old, weigh six hundred fifty pounds, and not be quite sure where your four feet are at any moment?

I walk her back to the stall, then around the barn, then (sneaky) up to the trailer - until she finally decides to make the move on the eighth or ninth attempt.

We roar off to Lexington, KY, then Louisville, then I-65 to Indianapolis, I-74 past Champaign, IL, (where I went to library school forty years ago, no time to stop and sight-see), on past Bloomington and Peoria.

At the Quad-Cities I-74 meets I-80 and we are now moving west, through eastern Iowa. Our stop for the night was Baxter, near Newton, IA, a large horsebarn originally built for thoroughbreds, a track around the perimeter, stalls in the middle, a large ring on one end: one tenth of a mile around the perimeter, the owner tells me.

The genius, Nina, cannot remember "back" or "back up" and stares at me for fifteen minutes before she decides she is thirsty and will want to pee (outside, of course). Female horses hate to pee on their hind legs and she may have figured out that there is less chance of doing so outside, than inside, the trailer. So out she comes, and directly into her stall, no problems. Ah, but problems await.

Overnight in Newton, IA, another flea-bag hotel with mould-smelling air conditioning, a slept-in bed (I had the last room and had no intention of causing a problem with a slept-in bed, for fear there would not be another place), a new bathtub/shower and commode! The Subway [Registered Trademark} shop was still open: supper of a BMT sub, a Sprite and another ice-cold Budweiser. Six hours of sleep and here we go.

I drove out to the barn. The other overnighters were gone by 7:00 am. No one but me and the Mutt. I got the trailer ready and brought her to load. She was much smarter now than earlier in the trip. Now, she decided that there was not going to be another loading at all. Period. Over. Nada.

I called the owner three times. Three times she said she would come and help. And nothing but resistance and rearing and threatened biting. Once I tried to get her back in her stall so I could rest a while. She would not go into the stall. I lead her into the stall and she slams me against the wall. On purpose? An accident? We will never know, but the bruise is there to this day.

Across the street, a farm machine shop. I asked for help. They were busy.

At 11:15 am two of them come to the barn.

"Enough equestrian methods," I tell them. "From here on out, it is cowboy methods."

I gave the young man Nina's longest lead, wove it through the trailer, and told him that once she got her head inside that trailer, it was not to come back out.

"Check," he said.

The other man, an elderly fellow like me, I gave the snap end of the shorter lead. I held the other end. I told him to bring the lead up under the horse's hocks and on the count of three pull up and forward. She was attempting to rear when we lifted up. She hopped like a rabbit, three hops, and she was in the trailer. Four hours of attempted loading was completed in less than twenty seconds. God bless the cowboy methods.

But it is getting late and we lost lots of time. Des Moines, IA, then I-29 to Sioux City, on to Sioux Falls, SD, on I-90 to Kennebec and this time, no unload, no load, no nothing. I sleep five hours and we are on our way to Rapid City, SD, Bell Fourche and that sixteen miles of Wyoming to Alzada, MT. (That is how the total got to ten states: that little piece of Wyoming counted, didn't it?)

From here is was gravel and dirt roads to Doug and Mary's ranch, the Crazy Woman Bison Ranch. It was Tuesday after lunch as I drove up to the gate. They were waiting for me. We drove the five miles or so on their land to the house and paddocks. Nina was covered with dirt from the gravel road, so we washed her down. She had been in the trailer for about twenty-four hours, so we walked her a bit to get her feet under her again. Within a minute, the big stallion got a whiff of the newcomer - and he began to run the fence and whinney - and continued to do so for the coming days. Nina called back.

I stayed in Montana for two days, then drove back to Wagener, SC, to return the trailer, then back to Wendell, NC, to home.

Not much to report, except that I blew a trailer tire near Peoria - in a one-lane stretch of I-74 (no stopping, etc.), the tire shredded in the end. Someone had put new tires on the wheels, but did not replace the old stems. Nina's former owners were not home, so I dropped the trailer and headed for home. It was 4:25 am, Monday, and I had covered 4,949 miles since Friday a week.

Well, I am ready for the next time. When Doug and Mary find another horse in the East, I will invite them to dinner on their way to fetch the critter. As for me, no more volunteering. At least, no more volunteering until my butt heals up from this last trip.