Close Call for Peanuts

Close Call for Peanuts

Death is never far when you live in the wilds of Nature.

The year I was fifteen, our family moved to Southern Alberta to a grazing reserve that was sixty-two sections (square miles) in size. The South Saskatchewan River cut across the bottom portion which left fifty-seven sections of natural prairie to the north. One huge old lonely tree grew smack in the middle of that expanse and served as a landmark in the featureless gentle undulations of prairie.

It was love at first sight for me. The openness and the badlands that bordered the river were utterly captivating, and the work was so much easier. It now took three hours to move a few hundred cattle from one grazing area to the next instead of three days of hard riding. There was no more rising at three o’clock in the morning to ride to a distant herd of cattle, so you could move them before the day got too hot. There was no danger of being impaled by a hidden branch, and no slogging through insect-infested swamps to retrieve recalcitrant animals. All you had to do was look, and there they were! I believe I was the sole person in Southern Alberta who loved the near-constant wind, as it blew the mosquitoes and hornets away. I was in heaven!

I was so enamored of the beauty, I almost forgot that Nature is not gentle and kind. She allows and befriends the vigilant but is brutal and ruthless with the unwary and uninformed. Those who disagree have never lived in her backyard.

I can almost hear her chortling as she set her traps.

At the time I had a pony we called Peanuts who was just over half the size of the powerful ranch horses. His coat was a beautiful deep red, and his mane and tail were thick, fluffy, and white. He looked like a My Little Pony come to life. One morning soon after arriving at my new home, I put a bridle on Peanuts and leaped astride bareback. At fifteen, I still liked to ride without a saddle and in shorts and bare feet. We were headed to explore the badlands along the river where I’d heard I could find fossils.

It wasn’t long before I came upon a sun-baked narrow canyon at the edge of the badlands. The base was broad. smooth, and flat with a gentle slope. Perfect! This looked like a good place to cover some ground. I urged Peanuts into a lope. The area had no badger holes, no rocks, no abrupt drop-offs, and no places for rattlesnakes to hide.

I should’ve suspected a trap.

We’d gotten to the centre of the flat area when Peanuts stumbled, righted himself, and stumbled again. I was about to pull him to a stop so I could figure out what was wrong, when his front end crashed to the ground.

I rolled and skidded along the hard-baked surface until I came to a confused halt. I was flat on my belly and couldn’t for the life of me see what’d happened to Peanuts’ front legs. They were gone! His head and part of his neck were stretched along the surface as his hind legs slowly buckled.

I crawled to my friend with mounting horror, as I realized he’d fallen through a thin hard-baked surface. The rotten stench that emerged from the hole in which he was trapped made me gag. Thick black stinking slime was half-way up his shoulders. Fortunately, his head hadn’t gone under, and his chin was stretched along the hard surface. His hind end hadn’t broken through either, so his head and back end were on the solid surface, but his front legs were buried and sinking fast.

Nature gave me some fast instruction — a little too late. I learned there were bogs and quicksand in the badlands under what appeared to be a solid dry surface. I’d experienced bogs in my previous home, but who in their right mind would expect a swamp in the middle of a desert? I certainly hadn’t! But there it was, hidden beneath an innocent-looking sun-baked surface — and it might cost Peanuts his life. Nature’s school was in session.

Still on my belly, I scanned the area. A cattle trail meandered along beside the flat area partway up a rocky slope. Spiky, dark-green, horse-tail-like grass grew along the edge of the flat baked area. I hadn’t noticed Nature’s clues. If the flat had been safe, there would’ve been an animal trail right through the middle of it, but it was devoid of hoof prints. Not even deer had walked across it. I later learned that the spiky, jointed, grass-like plants only and always grew at the edges of these bogs. But that didn’t help me at the moment.

I jerked my attention back to my sinking horse. Even though he struggled, his front legs were in too deep for him to escape. He couldn’t get the leverage to pull them out. If I ran for help, he’d be gone before I could get back. My only tool was his bridle, and I wasn’t strong enough to lift him.

As a Canadian, I’ve had experience with ice, so I knew enough to keep my weight evenly distributed on a thin surface. I kept spreadeagled on my belly and listened for sounds and signs of cracking. If I fell through, neither of us would survive. We’d disappear, and the only clue would be the rapidly-baking surface of a mud hole.

I expected I’d survive myself if I skidded on my belly to the cattle trail, but Peanuts would not. How on Earth was I going to get him out?

My brain raced until an image of my father lying a horse on the ground came to me. If I could shift his weight onto his side, Peanuts might be able to get his front legs free. Then maybe I could skid him a short ways if I could get him to push against the bridle — something he’d been trained never to do. It was a long-shot, but it was all I had.

Perhaps I should explain what I had in mind. A good horseman can gently lay a horse on its side using only a bridle. The process involves the horseman standing to one side with a rein on each side of the horse’s neck as if he was riding him. Feathering the touch, the horseman tucks the horse’s head around to the far side while keeping the animal from moving forward by careful checking of the near rein. As the horse is restricted from moving forward, and his head is turned to the opposite shoulder, the weight transfer goes onto the near foreleg. After a few minutes, the knee buckles, and the horse falls gently onto its side. The horse is kept prone by holding its nose up on the far side. This procedure is painless and without trauma to the horse. It can be used if you are alone, far from home, and need to attend to an injured mount.

I’d never done it.

Horses don’t handle stress well, and I knew a trapped horse wouldn’t struggle for long, I had to move fast. I needed him to fight . . . and I had to avoid the trap while I rescued him. Broken chunks of the surface showed a layer of baked sand about three inches thick — at least where we were. I’d assume it was the same all over, and it seemed to be holding my weight. But my plan meant he’d be fighting hard against me, which would greatly increase my weight on the fragile surface.

Having considered the dangers, I set them aside and focused on my plan — something I knew was a long shot. But I wasn’t ready to watch my friend die.

I skidded as close as I dared to the open hole, flipped a rein over his head to the far side then crept to the side, talking to him all the while to keep him calm until I was ready for him to fight. I didn’t want his struggles to pull him deeper. I was lucky that the bridle I used came from an old set of harness, so the reins were made of thick leather and were extra-long. I’d need every inch.

The sweat that poured down my back and into my eyes wasn’t just from the blistering sun.

Praying I could do it right, I tugged his nose away from me. Was there enough room? His chin was on the ground. I didn’t want him to fight until I had his nose where I wanted it. Too soon, and he’d sink further. I kept an eye out for new cracks in the surface — especially those that might form around me. If my weight caused the surface to crack, I wouldn’t be able to leverage him when he started to fight.

Since he was well-trained, he followed the pressure on the rein and turned his head away from me. It was half-way to where I wanted it when he panicked, thrashing and heaving against the thick putrid muck and pushing hard against the bit in his mouth.

Praying I didn’t overestimate the strength of the surface, I spun around onto my butt, pressed my feet against his rump, lay on my back, and pulled with every ounce of strength I had. I hoped that in his panic, he’d push against the bridle hard enough to shift his weight towards me, so I could get him onto his side. If the surface held (and I wasn’t confident it would) I might be able to extract his front end from the bottomless hole. If I could get his front feet free, maybe I could skid him across the surface on his side.

I didn’t know if I’d have the strength, but I had to keep him on his side to spread his weight. If the surface was too thin, he’d just enlarge the previous hole and go down again . . . and I’d be out of options.

It’s amazing what strength you can summon when you need it. With my bare feet braced against his rump, I looped my hands in the reins (a no-no), lay flat on my back, and pulled as hard as I could. I yelled and pounded his rump with my feet to get him to fight as I pulled with all my strength on the reins. Peanuts responded by thrashing violently and slamming against the bit which I held as steady as I could to give him something to leverage against.

A few eternal seconds later I heard sucking sounds. His front legs were pulling free! As I kept pressure on the reins, he shifted onto his side. I skidded backwards to try to give him something to push against, — but I wasn’t very heavy. With a dizzying sense of relief, I saw his front legs were over the hole dripping slime, and he was flat on his side. Exactly what I’d been trying to do. He was out of the hole, but he still had no surface on which to stand.

What could I do next? If I let him up from this position, he’d fall back into the hole, and maybe it would be his entire body this time. I could never get him out if that happened. How was I going to get him skidded at least a couple of feet towards me? His hind end hadn’t broken through the surface yet, so maybe it was stronger than it looked. My weight hadn’t caused any cracking either — but ninety pounds didn’t put much pressure on it.

I kept Peanuts’ nose high to keep him from struggling to his feet while I considered options. I couldn’t keep him immobile forever.

I could see only one choice. I skidded to the ends of the reins and moved behind him to press my feet against his rump again but further back this time. I wanted him to struggle again. I was hoping to provide enough pressure that I could keep from from moving any direction except to the side — which was away from the hole. I yelled and kicked at him with my bare feet again, encouraging him to fight even though I was keeping him from getting up. It must’ve been confusing for him.

Knowing I wanted something but no doubt having no clue what it was, Peanuts struggled. Using his rump as leverage, I was able to skid his front end a few inches at a time. His hind legs were folded, but they hadn’t broken through the surface yet. Maybe it would hold for the few seconds I needed.

There came a point at which I had to let him get up. But, he was so close to the hole . . . Would he fall back into it? Would the surface hold? Would his hind end break through into the morass which was only inches away from his hooves? Half of his body was covered in black slime, and his beautiful fluffy white mane was a mass of thick stinking strings.

When I thought Peanuts was as far as he was going to get while on his side, I took a deep breath, checked once again for cracking of the surface beneath me, and released his head enough for him to get to his feet. I kept a tight hold on the near rein to keep him away from the hole until the instant he was up. Then I released all pressure, hoping he’d move straight ahead.

He did.

The surface held. Only a couple of feet from the putrid hole myself, I skittered on hands and feet like a monkey as far from Peanuts as I could get in order to spread our combined weight on the fragile surface. Having been well trained never to drop the reins, I still kept control of him and ensured he walked slowly until we reached the rocky trail. I’m not sure I took a breath until we were at the top of a rocky ridge.

Remembering to check for rattlesnakes (a new danger of which I’d been warned), I sank onto an ancient rock. A warm breeze cooled my body as I stroked Peanuts and apologized for getting him into such a predicament.

The sage-scented wind was parched, so the muck on Peanuts soon dried, and I scraped it off with a sharp rock. After casting a final look at the putrid hole behind us and filing away the new information, I re-mounted, and we continued our exploration of the badlands. After all, it was a beautiful day, and my friend was safe.