Fading Season

The first snow of the year fell two days after we buried Meeker. He came in that morning shaking, and with swollen eyes. Jess had to kick and push and shout to get him up. I was in town, watching men who understand the foreign language of mechanics repair the skid steer tires for the tenth time. I was impatient with Levi when he gave me the message-- I had been trying to get into town for two days now! It wasn't until I hung up that I realized the severity of what he was describing to me. As I drove home, I told myself sometimes the severest of symptoms portended only a mild colic, and I stopped at the drug store for some infant gas relief drops. When I first saw him, his head was dragging as Levi walked him in circles. If we stopped, he shivered relentlessly, and swayed as if to topple.

It was Saturday, it was impossible to get ahold of a vet, and I knew he was gone. When Dr. Shull called, it was to say he had to put down a horse in our neck of the woods, and would come out after. Rob radioed in then: "I'm on the saddle above Tater Heap. Levi, you'd better step up your game: I've tagged out." He had killed a cow elk, and we were in for an eight hour ride to get it out of the wilderness.

Saddling and feeding the packhorses kept me from dwelling on Meeker. Watching Cameron and Levi drive away with the horse trailer, I faced the knowledge that I couldn't rely on anyone for help-- I was fully responsible for Meeker. He'd perked up some by the time Dr. Shull arrived. His gums were pink, and he'd drunk some water. Dr. Shull seemed hopeful until the elbow-length glove went on. His small intestines were distended: he'd twisted a gut. I made the call without thinking of anything except getting Meeker out of pain-- "It'll take me fifteen minutes to get the trailer back her to transport him to a pasture where we can bury him. Would you wait?"

Jess and I led him into the cattle pasture, and I told Meeker he could lay with friends. I pointed out to Jess all the depressions where other horses were buried. "That's funny-- I walked around here one day imagining all the buildings that once stood where these stones lay, and really they were graves."

I held Meeker's head as the liquid in the pink syringe coursed into his veins. I was thankful I didn't have to pull a trigger. He fell after just seconds, and we sat with him until the gasps had ended. Jess lay a sheet over his head to keep the flies off.

I hated to see him lie there. A horse is a partner, a friend to be trusted and relied upon, not buried or forgotten. I hated leaving him, and debated taking just a lock of tail. For other horses, I've had someone else skin them out, or save their tail, and then tan it and turn it into something useful or decorative, something to remember the horse by. But it had always been someone else-- I'd never been faced with the task of handling a dead horse and been completely alone.

I brought the skinning knife out and tested its blade-- too sharp, I thought. If I get nervous I'll go right through a finger. Thankfully, I am not a squeamish woman. The first slice took the most courage; after that, it took me a simple half hour to flesh out his tail. It took me at least that long to get ahold of a neighbor with a backhoe and enough free time to come out and dig me a hole. What an awkward phone conversation.

The 14-foot-deep hole was bitten into rocks. I didn't have to think much for the two hours it took to be dug. I went home and silently cleaned his tail. Now that it was removed from a swollen, lifeless carcass, it became something of beauty again, something of the gentle ex-cowhorse it had been a part of. I rubbed a mixture of salt and ash into the skin, grateful for this thing to remember him by.

The men came home around 6:30. I'd been a strong women, stoic and quiet over the death of one of my horses, but I found myself concentrating unnecessarily hard on the simple process of unsaddling a pack horse: take the smooth leather strap, push it out of the keeper, brace it against his shoulder and pull it loose of the buckle... When Levi said, "Let's go unhook this trailer," I almost said no.

I shoved a rock under the trailer's rear-most tire, and looked up to see Meeker's fresh grave. Behind the trailer I put my face in my hands and cried. Levi came walking back, silent as a cat, and put his arms around me. "I should've stayed here with you," he said. "I should've realized you needed a hug earlier." I didn't tell him, but I was glad he hadn't, or I would've broken down into quiet sobs earlier, before the work was all done.

Today it snowed on Meeker's grave, covering the scab evident in the grass of the cattle pasture. It reminds me that all things heal, an dI am grateful for the gentle horse he was, and grateful he is resting under the shadow of the mountains.