#4 My Cowboy

Horses were the reason for my Arizona visit and it was horses that I wanted. I grabbed my ranch map and searched for the corrals. I didn't really need the map... my nose and the tantalizing whiff of my favorite fragrance, that of eau du corral, led the way.

Just beyond the tennis courts, the corrals sprawled for several acres. These were a serious of various sized pens attached to a small building. Originally white, these pen fences were in various shades of soft grey. Age and weather, plus the power of equines, had taken a toll.

My arrival in Tucson brought with it sun. Winter rains had turned the desert landscape into a green vision but had left the corrals a sea of mud. All in sharp view with the warm sun.

I climbed the greying fences and peered at a milling herd of mouse colored animals in the large corral. The occupants were a uniformly mud-colored group with only the occasional spritz of color to show differences. My heart went out to whomever had to clean these unrepentant mud ponies.

I heard the clink of horse shoes on gravel and saw a group of horse riders coming towards me. It was a trail ride returning from an afternoon ride. And there he was... my first real cowboy.

My Cowboy led this group on a formerly white horse. Parts of the horse were still white but all four legs, parts of his tail and a spot or two through his body were the uniform color of the corrals... mud brown.

He was followed by a long line of riders, all on similarly mud covered horses of differing colors. I now knew who the person was whom I had pitied a moment ago, that person was leading this motley line of filthy animals.

I was tongue tied, I was smitten at first sight... and I was in the way.

"Move it lady," My Cowboy uttered as he rode up to the gate.

Obligingly I skittered away. I watched from a distance the age-old ritual of dude ranch cowboys helping city slickers dismount.

It was a comical scene. Most of the people had never ridden before and now sported bowed legs and saddle sore bottoms. The laughter was contagious as I watched them. Their grins and happy exclamations made their discomfort disappear. Everyone had had the time of their lives.

Then, as one the group, headed back to the lodge. I was left alone to watch My Cowboy and his assistants unsaddle this milling herd of mud horses.

One by one the horses made their way to a cowboy and was stripped of all gear. He took the gear into the small building. One by one the horses then moved to the corral gate and waited. When all were unsaddled My Cowboy threaded his way through them and opened the gate into the large horse corral.

A sudden rush of horseflesh pressed past him into the muddy field beyond, where each in turn, dropped and rolled. Soon every horse wore the full body uniform of the corral, a rich coating of mud. 

This was just a day at the ranch, a day that would become part of my life.