Baku was the one that came to us in our clumsy method of
horse dealing. He was a 3 year old
Arabian gelding who was described to us as “green-broke.” These were all new terms to us as we
exchanged dollars for reins. Sure, we
understood three years old, in human terms anyway. But Arabian? Gelding? Green-broke didn't sound too bad. This was before Google.
We did no research.
He was beautiful and that held enough sway for us. He was tall (to this day I still don’t know
how to measure in hands). He was as
sleek as satin. His chestnut coat shone
so bright in the sun that the image of the hills and meadows appeared to reflect
off him. He was perfectly
proportioned. His eyes were alert and
intelligent. There was a deep knowing in
those eyes. He held himself in high
esteem and we knew who was boss. Very
quickly he became friend.
Very quickly Rob also learned what green-broke meant. But it was a pretty equal relationship. Baku had been around about as many people as
Rob had been around horses. To put it
succinctly, neither one had a clue how to interact with the other. Rob’s understanding was that horses were
meant to be ridden. Baku’s understanding
was that that wasn't true. Both of them
were unequal in their attempts to prove themselves right.
Daily, Rob would go out to the corral and spend hours ‘catching’
Baku. Baku would eventually take pity on
Rob and let him get caught, as long as Rob could catch him on a run. Once he allowed the bailing twine Rob was
using as a dual purpose lasso and rein to loop over his head, he would let Rob jump on his un-saddled and un-blanketed back while Rob was
running madly alongside him.
Then it was out of the corral at break-neck speed. It
is unclear to me how Rob would be able to keep his vice-gripped thighs clenched
on Baku’s back, lace his fingers through his mane, and flip the corral latch
open, all the while knowing he was about to be launched through the
neighborhood and up into the forest with the wind chasing them the whole way.
Baku and I also had a special relationship. One night there was an especially long and
severe thunderstorm. Lightening seems to
hit closer up here in the mountains. We
had become accustomed to the fact that trees could get hit and split or limbs
would fly off. The morning after this
particularly fierce storm I left the house for a walk in the forest to enjoy
the cool wet day. I was not far into the
woods when I felt a presence. I walked a
bit farther and looked around feeling that feeling, but never seeing
anything. As I walked along I felt a
gentle pressure on my shoulder. Baku had
come up behind me and put his chin on my shoulder and asked me to take him
home. He was wandering in the forest and
the terror of the previous night was still in his eyes. The lightening had struck a tree near his
barn and he bolted out of the fence and into the woods. This big, noble, devil-may-care creature could
be subdued — but he trusted that I would never betray his secret. His gift to me would be that he would always
come to me.
There were the days when I thought Rob had been riding for
an inordinately long time and I would begin wondering when they would be coming
back home. Some days Baku was an endless
tease and just wouldn't let Rob catch him.
For the hours that I thought they were off on some wild ride, they
really had never left the corral. Rob
would very dejectedly come back into the house and ask me for help. I would walk out to the corral, stand there,
look right at Baku and he would come over to me, lower his head for the “rein”
and stand still while Rob jumped aboard.
And off they would fly!
These jaunts were notoriously epic, always. One day in early spring Rob came home, alone,
looking like he was wearing a long skirt — a long, bloody skirt. Seems man and horse were galloping through a field
– a freshly pot-holed field created by a new community of prairie dogs. Baku stumbled in a hole and Rob shot off him
at full speed, flying Superman style through a barb wire fence. The barbs cut a straight line down the length
of his legs, splitting his pants open.
Baku was already home and having dinner by
the time Rob limped back. We deemed Rob's flesh wounds not serious enough for stitches.
In the winter they would tear up the mountain to the gravel
road that cut through the pass. Enough vehicles would have attempted to drive
on the road, packing the snow down and creating icy patches. They were going full tilt down the road when
Baku hit an icy patch and flipped on his side.
Rob was able to maneuver himself enough during the fall to also land on
his side — at Baku’s head, such that they were facing each other; staring at
each other with the same look of astonishment that said, “Oh dear God, what
have we done now?” They were still
traveling at about 20 mph on their sides, on the ice, and Rob with a 1,000 pound
horse bearing down on him. They stopped
mere inches from the edge of the road that dropped off precipitously and before
they hit the culvert that was jutting below them. Slowly they took stock of their senses, stood
together sharing a moment of mutual stunned silence before Baku turned and flew
back home, sans Rob.
The glory days were in summertime. The destination would be Schultz tank, a rare
body of water in the mountains of Flagstaff.
On many of these rides, Rob would work all day in his appliance business
and take Baku out without bothering to change out of his blue work
uniform. Baku was easy maintenance – Rob
always rode bareback, so he was always at the ready. Rob and Baku would climb the four mile
mountain trail; shoot out of the woods to the edge of the tank and splash
headlong into the tank with no indecision, and with much exuberance. Baku would swim to his heart’s content with
Rob on board. When he was done with his swim he would take a
few moments to shake himself dry with Rob holding on for dear life. This always gave Rob the research opportunity
to understand just how wrung out he should be if he ever found himself in the
spin cycle of a washing machine. And
then with great abandon, they would sail back on down the trail.
These experiences created an ineffable bond between Rob and
Baku. Rob would often wake in the
morning after spending a night in that alternate reality called sleep, and tell
me of his dreams where he and Baku would be speaking to each other. Baku had a loving effect on the dogs and cats
and chickens of Lake Joybehere as well.
We adopted our most loved cat, Spot, who secretly lived with Baku for
the winter before we noticed her. Rob
would sometimes see movement near the crisper drawer that Baku ate his cracked
corn out of in the evening. Turns out,
Spot was eating right alongside Baku, and at that time Spot was about as big as
one of Baku’s teeth. The chickens took total advantage of Baku’s philanthropy
with corn too. In a display of their
love of their mighty steed, they would unabashedly dust bathe themselves at his
feet with nary a care of being in harm’s way.
Our black lab, Sally, was the best playmate. They would chase each other all over the
yard, making up the rules as they went.
When Sally came home from the vet after having been spayed, it was Baku
she wanted most. Barely alert from her
anesthesia, she wobbled out to Baku’s yard.
He came over to her right away as she stood there lifting her leg to
show him where she was hurting. He
sniffed her and nuzzled her; they agreed it was egregious and she came back in
the house a bit more mollified knowing that someone finally understood her.
There was no mistaking that Baku helped set the tone of
harmony at Lake Joybehere in its infancy.
We were all young then, full of health, happiness and hope. But one summer Baku started having some minor
bouts of colic. One bout was
particularly bad the same day I had had a minor surgery that required a local
anesthesia. Rob was out with Baku and
distraught with worry. Baku was clearly
in a lot of pain. He raced in and asked
me to call the vet’s office. It was
after-hours and we reached the answering service that passed on the
message. The situation grew more severe and
we didn't even know if we could get hold of the vet. Rob just kept talking to Baku and pleading
with him not to leave him. Baku’s eyes
were blank and distant. Rob stayed with
him and kept talking to him. Baku turned
his head towards Rob, still with little life in them and listened. His pain eased and his eyes slowly filled
with his spirit again. He looked at Rob
intently and gave his assurance he wouldn't go, just yet.
In the meantime, I was in the house recovering from my visit
to the doctor’s office, when I was overcome with intense light-headedness and
nausea the likes of which I – in my almost inhuman capacity to endure suffering
– had never experienced before and was certain no one else dead or alive ever
had either. Lifting my head from the
bucket I called my doctor’s office to insist I be treated immediately for this
most unfathomable side effect. My calls
for help were answered by the same answering service that the vet used and who
had taken our earlier call. The woman
actually asked me what was going on out there at our house. I assured her it was all very legitimate and so
she passed my message on to my doctor.
He called within minutes to comfort me by saying, “You are experiencing
what we call pain. Take a pill.”
I took my pill, Baku ate dinner and life settled down and was good.
A consequence of having a family of large, mostly
outdoor-living members who are dependent on you for their very existence is the
responsibility of at least two feedings a day for their bare means of
survival. Because we doted on them to
extremes that went way beyond their bare essentials it was hard to leave Lake
Joybehere for extended periods of time.
We were always on the lookout for someone who would house-sit for our
menagerie. I wrote booklets of instructions for the care and feeding of our
whole crew; no detail was spared in making our sitters know every minute detail
of their eccentricities. These were the
days before cell phones were commonplace and we would sometimes be out of touch
for days before we could reach home and see how everything was going.
We pulled out of our driveway on the way to Montana to visit
my sister one summer day. We stayed an
extra day on the road and pulled up to her house about 4 days after we left home. The night we left Baku had a fatal bout of
colic. We were inconsolable with despair
and helplessness. But as the tragedy
adjusted itself into our hearts as it must, we knew we had known
greatness. We had transcended a barrier
across species and came to know a new level of love and to know that we were
loved.
And in the parallel reality of dreams, Rob and Baku are
still talking.
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