That Black Stallion

Over the years a number of our friends came up on the mountain with family members and they had various reactions to life on the mountain. I remember one of mother's friends telling mother that the mountain was like death, it was so quiet except for the eternal sound of the breeze in the trees, no people, no access to stores, no electricity, that to her it seemed like a total extinction of all the things she loved and missed. Mother told her that the mountain was life, that all life was here on the mountain.



While it was and is true that life on the mountain can be dangerous, and it was true that there was no law except the law we made, still the night was full of life and the day full of excitement. For in the city there is nothing except the sun that is natural, every thing one needs to live has to be brought in. On the mountain you have food, heat, water and safety, it is all there for the taking, in the city if a disaster occurs, there is nothing but the sun and all would die without outside help. The mountain then draws us over and over to return for here is life and safety.



To see that this is so, on the mountain there are some wild horses. People down below do on occasion lose the ability to keep a horse, which has no food or water or shelter so that they take the horse to life, towards the mountain, and let it go hoping that it can survive the winter. Some times we know who brought the horse up and some times not. The black stallion is one of those horses. He was big, black and beautiful but as wild as a march hare. He also was mean.



One beautiful day Joanne, Fritz, Kampe and I decided to go visit the Kings. It was about a three mile walk, we took the road and not a short cut. We walked for some time dodging rattlers by walking in the middle of the road, telling lies and laughing as we went. As we rounded a curve, behind us we heard a blood curling scream, we could not tell what animal it came from, it was just a loud frightening scream. I turned and looked behind just in time to see the black stallion bearing down on us at a full gallop. There wasn't time to run or move off the road and he galloped right between us nearly knocking us down and continued down the road and disappeared. The horse looked like he had not even seen us, he was shaking his head and appeared enraged.

As we gathered our selves together after being scattered like dry leaves on the road, we continued on our way to the King's place. When we got to the corner of the meadow where the road followed along side we left the road and walked along the fence.

After going about a thousand feet we heard another scream, piercing and frightening, we looked across the road and up the hill and there at the top of the hill stood the stallion obviously in a rage, twisting, rearing and shaking his head as he pounded the ground with his hoofs. It looked as if he had gotten behind us and was preparing for a deadly charge, then he did, straight at us on a dead run down the hill.

This was my first experience of dead fear combined with panic and thoughts of death. I guess every one has to face something like this once in his youth in order to face other dangers sure to come in the future with some composure. I did like any red blooded American child, I ran for my life towards a very small pine, about nine feet tall and four inches across. Unfortunately my sister was fleeter of foot and got there first. The tree was too small to hold even one of us, but we fought for it. At the same time my husband, to be at some time, took out his six inch blade, stood tall, spread his legs and shouted "Run girls, I will protect you" So help me God that is what he said.

It is no wonder young males have such a short longevity. My brother Fritz rolled under a fence only about ten inches off the ground. He is the only one who escaped to safety. Unfortunately for all of us, the stallion was not after us, he wanted to beat up Pasco who was in the meadow. We had unknowingly gotten between Pasco and the stallion. Pasco wanted none of this and galloped away to the other side of the pasture, being of a wise nature.

Kampe had been almost knocked down, but the stallion did not seem to notice him.

It was an unfortunate occurance as we had all made fools of ourselves and it was something that we did not wish to discuss.

As I recall we had had enough "Call of the Wild" for a while and went back home with our tails between our legs. I don't recall telling mother why we returned so soon.