I met my third wife Kayce in the Spring of 1991 in Fort Collins, Colorado. I was living with my parents who had just moved their business from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I was between gigs and had a few months to kill so I had come to help dad set up his factory and train new employees. He manufactured motorcycle helmets.
We met at a country dance club called the Sundance. Our common interest was horses and our first date was a horseback ride in Horsetooth Mountain Park west of the city. I rode her father Max’s gelding Rio. We dated for three months and then it was time for me to leave Fort Collins. I had an annual obligation in Wichita.
Around the first of July of every year I begin calling on potential clients for the annual Fall Home Idea Show I’d been producing since 1986.
Kayce and I had a tearful farewell, and I left for Wichita. I rented an apartment and a temporary office and began making calls. I was missing Kayce’s company. She was tearful and missing me, so I asked her if she’d like to join me in Wichita.
She agreed to come if I’d marry her. I said “If we can get along until October when the show is over, it’s a deal.” I knew that bringing Kayce would mean bringing her horse as well. But I had a friend, Gaylan Nett Jr., who lived in the country and had horses of his own. I knew he’d let us board her horse there, and he readily agreed to it.
I don’t remember the name of that knot-headed gelding of hers but I do remember he had a bad habit of kicking the side of the trailer whenever he was being hauled. By the time we’d gotten to Wichita he had jammed splinters of plywood up under the corona band of his left hind foot. That’s the place where the hide meets the hoof.
The vet was called and the prognosis was bad. He was lame and wouldn’t recover from it. We sold him to a killer and Kayce was devastated.
One horse down. Keep count because like the title says, it was destined to be a bad year for horses.
There was nothing to do but buy Kayce another horse and Gaylan’s dad had one for sale; a beautiful sorrel gelding; a registered Quarter Horse that wasn’t fast enough for the track. He raised a few horses every year and sold the ones that didn’t show promise. He offered me a bargain, and a payment plan. So I bought the gelding for a thousand dollars. He was well worth twice that.
Now Kayce had something to ride. When she and I went riding together on Gaylan’s place I’d borrow one of his saddle horses. He had three or four of them. The four of us, including Gaylan’s wife Melody, went for a trail ride one weekend up in the flint hills, where we followed a chuck wagon across the rolling plains and pretended we were on a trail drive – sans cattle.
The home show came and went and we were married in Dallas in late October. Why Dallas? I’d lived there the year before and the wedding chapel belonged to a friend, and former advertiser. I’d been the publisher of a bridal magazine – a business I’d acquired from a friend. It hadn’t made any money so I’d shut it down, stored my furniture and headed to Colorado. Now we were married and on our way to Nashville with a U-Haul truck filled with the stuff from my storage unit.
I had already planned to move to Nashville and take a stab at songwriting. I’d taken to it as a cathartic emotional outlet after a painful divorce from my second wife and I’d shown some talent. I’d gotten one song published by a small Nashville publisher and a lyric was being set to music by two professional songwriters, Dave Robbins and Van Stevens who later became two-thirds of the group Blackhawk. One of Arista Records more successful country groups in the ’90s.
We headed for Nashville to find a place to rent that had a place for our horses. That sounds like a tall order and it probably was, but I get lucky sometimes. And sometimes I can feel it in advance. I knew I’d find us a place. I had no idea just how perfect it was going to be.
We found a cabin overlooking the Cumberland River just across the bridge from Ashland City, a 15 mile drive from the outskirts of Nashville. It had a barn just the right size for two horses AND it backed onto 25,000 acres of state game preserve. We had all the riding trails a person could ask for. And the rent was only five hundred dollars a month.
The cabin was the guest house located behind the main house of one of the largest land owners in Cheathum county Tennessee, Leonard Melton. Leonard was a real southern gentleman with a loooong drawl that was as pleasant as his personality. “If ya’ll need anything just come up ta tha house and knock.”
We moved our furniture in and told Leonard we’d be back in a few days with our horses.
Kayce had her gelding but I wasn’t going to have anything to ride since I’d been borrowing a mount from Gaylan. I needed a horse.
I had some barter dollars in my account with the Wichita Barter Bank. I’d accepted trade dollars from a couple of their members for booths in my home show. I asked if any of their members might have a horse they’d trade for the $800.00 in my account and low and behold someone did.
What she had was a gray mare, nothing special, just what is known as a “grade horse”, meaning it wasn’t pure bred or a registered breed. Just a Heinz 57 mix of whatever. But, she was gentle and had been a spoiled pet. The problem was that she’d never before been in a trailer.
Getting her loaded in Kayce’s tight little two-horse trailer was a chore, but we got it done. I cowboyed her in after all the “pretty pleases” and apple bribes hadn’t worked – a bit to the consternation of her previous owner. I had no intention of mistreating the mare, but she was a horse, and horses can take a lot of abuse, without being abused. Usually.
The next morning we loaded the mare and Kayce’s gelding, who we called Red. We set out early for Ashland City, pulling two horses with an underpowered Chevy Blazer. It was all we could do to stay above 70 miles an hour. It was going to be a long trip, but we didn’t have any choice but to make it in one shot. These horses were too damn hard to load, to unload them anywhere along the way.
The first time we stopped for gas, somewhere in Oklahoma, Kayce drew my attention to the mare. She was stressing. She was standing straddle legged and trembling, and had broken a sweat. I assured Kayce, “She’ll be alright. She’ll settle down in a bit, once she gets used to it.”
We stopped for gasoline several hours later and the mare was still stressing. She didn’t look any better, but no worse either, so we pressed on.
At about 10:00 pm we pulled into a truck stop in West Memphis, Arkansas, just as a light rain was beginning to fall. I was pumping gas when Kayce said “Mike, I think the mare is in trouble. You’d better take a look.”
I opened the front hatch and looked in. Sure enough, she was a terrible sight. Her tongue was hanging out, her head was hanging low, and her legs were trembling. I finished filling the tank and pulled the trailer back behind the station where the big rigs were parked. I opened the trailer gate and backed her out. As she cleared the trailer she fell to the asphalt of the parking lot.
I urged her back to her feet and she staggered, trying to stand, but down she went again. It’s better for a sick horse to be on its feet, so I urged her up again. The third time she collapsed she died – claw hammer dead. In the rain.
That’s two down.
Well, there we were, living a country song.
Tell your mamma tell your paw
Its pourin’ here in Arkansas
And we keep losin’ everything we gain
Nashville’s still a five hour ride
But damn, the old gray mare has died
She’s layin’ in this truck stop in the rain
(I just made that up. Not my best but you get the idea)
There was nothing to do about the mare, but I couldn’t bring myself to just leave her carcass laying in the truckstop parking lot. An old tire, or a bag of trash is one thing, but twelve hundred pounds of dead horse is somewhat more than litter.
We unloaded Red and tied him to the trailer beside his dead traveling partner, then we did our best to sleep in the crowded front seat of the Blazer. It poured rain all night.
The next morning at sunup I went inside the truck stop and asked the young female at the cash register if she by any chance knew of anyone who could haul off a dead horse. Evidently she missed the adjective because she replied by asking me “Do you need a vet?”
“No,” I said. “It’s a little late for the vet. I’ve got a dead horse outside in your parking lot and I need to find someone to haul it off.”
“Oh,” she said with a wide eyed look on her face. “Maybe the highway patrol could help. Here I’ve got their number.” She scratched a number out on a piece of paper and handed it to me, then pointed to the pay phone on the wall.
I called and sure enough they knew a guy who might be able to help. He owned a towing company and had a small piece of property where he could lay the horse to rest. I called, he came, and for a very reasonable thirty dollars he winched the gray mare up onto a flatbed trailer behind his tow truck.
Red was absolutely determined he was not climbing back into that trailer. If it hadn’t been for the help of a truck driver who weighed every bit of 300 lbs. I might never have gotten him loaded. But we did and set off again for the cabin in Ashland City.
One horse wasn’t going to be much fun, so I began to search the ads for a replacement for the mare. I found one that seemed affordable, and the owner was kind enough to bring the horse by for our inspection. The owner was also honest enough to tell me this eight year old gelding was a “cribber”, though the belt around his neck would have been clue enough.
A cribber is a horse that has become addicted to sucking air down it’s throat. Most people don’t know it but horses can’t breath through their mouth like people, and most other mammals, do. They breath entirely through their noses, and their mouths connect directly to their stomachs via their throats.
A cribber, also commonly known as a “stump sucker” will hook his upper teeth on a post, or a tree stump, corral rail, anything sturdy, and then straighten out their neck and expand their chest sucking air into their stomach. It gives them and endorphin rush which sends a pleasure signal to their brain. Once a horse has discovered this trick they’re incurable. Strapping a belt tightly around their necks will prevent them from doing it.
But some of them go from stump sucking to wood chewing. This old gelding, unbeknownst to me, had become a 1,200 lb beaver. I think I paid fifteen hundred dollars for the horse. He was gentle, and well mannered. Kayce actually rode him more than I did because Red was still a bit young and hadn’t been ridden enough to be trustworthy. I’ve always been good about feeling when a horse is gathering itself up to buck and distracting him away from it. A well timed kick in the ribs will stretch him out and take his mind off of whatever it was he thought he was going to throw a fit about.
Kayce and I enjoyed our year in Ashland City. We rode up into the game preserve often and I managed to keep the cribber from eating too much timber by coating the corral rails with kerosene, and creosote.
I was writing lyrics and putting them to music by singing into a tape recorder. I’d found a country singer wanna-be who, like hundreds of others in Nashville, was making money on the side by cutting demo tapes in his basement. He would listen to my tape and then record a more polished version, with guitar accompaniment, that I could “pitch” to the publishers along Music Row.
I was having very little luck, but one small publisher saw that I had talent writing lyrics and he suggested I join forces with a song writer he knew that was weak with lyrics but extremely talented as a musician. His name was Danny Wells.
I called Danny and he began coming to the cabin a few days a week and we would collaborate on songs. We were improving, turning out some songs we thought were really good. The small publisher who had put us together agreed, but Nashville is a very political place. If you aren’t a staff writer you’re stuck pitching your stuff to the smaller publishers who are willing to accept what the industry terms “outside material”. And outside is exactly what they mean. The big publishers only pitch the songs written by the writers who are under contract to them, drawing against future royalties – they’re known as staff writers.
When late summer rolled around it was time for Kayce and me to head back to Wichita for about three months to put together the home show. We needed a house sitter and the logical choice was Danny. He was living on a friend’s couch anyway, so he was happy to have the cabin to himself for a few months.
Danny didn’t know one end of a horse from the other but I gave him some simple instructions – feed them a chunk of Alfalfa twice a day and a coffee can full of grain every evening; be sure the water trough stays filled; and the horse-shoer will be here in about three months to trim their feet. I’d coated the corral with fresh creosote so I wasn’t worried about the cribber.
We left for Wichita, where we rented a small efficiency apartment on a month to month basis. Everything was going swell. Then two weeks before the show I got a call from Danny. “Mike,” he said, “The horseshoer wanted me to call you right away and tell you that your 1,200 pound gelding weighs about 900 pounds now.”
“What the fuck Danny?” I replied. “That’s incredible. Didn’t you notice that he was getting skinny?”
“He looked okay to me man. But hell, I don’t know anything about horses,” Danny said, with a defensive tone in his voice.
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. We’ll be back in two weeks, and I’ll deal with it then. Thanks for calling Danny. Sorry to jump your shit like that, it’s just… well, I know you would have said something if you’d known. We’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”
When we got back to Ashland City it broke my heart to see what that cribbing son of a bitch had done to himself. His head was hanging and green snot was dripping from his nose. He had clogged his throat so full of splintered wood that he couldn’t eat. I looked and creosote hadn’t kept him from indulging himself to a 2×8 board. He’d chewed it in two.
I called the vet. He came out and it only took a minute for him to concur with my own diagnosis. “Can you do anything for him doc?” I asked.
“I might be able to,” he said. “But I’d only give him a fifty fifty chance of surviving, and the bill would be at least two thousand dollars.”
“Well, I’m not spending two thousand dollars to save a fifteen hundred dollar horse,” I said..
I shook the vet’s hand and paid him for the house call.
I led old cribber up into the game preserve and found a little gulley off the trail. A place where only the buzzards and coyotes might find his carcass. I put a gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger. Blam! He dropped like 900 pounds of dead horse.
I’d had to euthanize more animals than I liked to remember in my sheep herding days. It’s sad, but I don’t like to see an animal suffer. Old cribber never felt a thing. Third horse down.
Kayce and I had decided to move back to Colorado. Danny accepted our invitation to come along and drive the car. We were going to drive a rented U-Haul pulling the horse trailer and our one remaining horse, Red.
I’d anticipated that loading Red would be a problem. Sometimes you can train a horse to load by feeding him inside the trailer. I’d moved the trailer into his pasture and put his daily ration of grain inside. And he had stubbornly gone without his grain. Refusing to put a single foot inside the trailer.
When the day came to leave we got up early. The truck had been loaded the day before. I hitched the trailer to the U-Haul truck and backed it up to a hump in the ground so there was just a short step up into the trailer, to make it as easy as possible to load Red.
Up until that day I’d never failed to load horse or mule. I’d had stubborn ones but usually a rope tied to the trailer on one end, then passed around the animal’s rump just under the tail, and then a strong tug on the bitter end will do the trick. The horse feels that rope up under the tender part of their ass just below their tail and they jump from it.
When that doesn’t work stretching a strong rope through the escape hatch to a helper who pulls on it with all their might while you beat the living fuck out of the reticent cayuse will do the trick.
Nothing was working on Red.
At one point he was sitting on his rump with all four feet shoved up under the back end of the trailer but by noon I hadn’t managed to get a single hoof inside the trailer and I was beyond pissed off.
I was bleeding from a few scrapes and so was Red. We were both at the end of our ropes.
I said to Kayce, “Go to the feed store in Ashland City and tell anyone there that you’ve got a registered Quarter Horse that’s worth every dime of two thousand dollars that you’ll sell for three fifty providing they come buy him right this fucking minute.”
She began to argue with me, saying that was not enough money, blah blah, when I cut her off with a look that would have set her hair on fire if she hadn’t turned and headed for the feed store.
Within twenty minutes she was back, trailed by a big raw boned Tennessean wearing a pair of overalls. He looked Red over, running his hand over the patches on his hocks where the hair had been skinned off from our morning’s struggle – man against beast.
“Those skinned places will hair back in no time. He’s just a bit skinned up, but you can see he’s a damn good looking gelding. He’s gentle and rides well. I wouldn’t normally take less than two thousand dollars for him, but I’ve gotta go to Colorado and I can not get him loaded.”
The prospective horse buyer could see Red was everything I said he was. His breeding was evident. “Would you take three hundred?” he asked.
“Hell no,” I replied indignantly. “I could cut his head off and lay it beside him and get eight hundred as horse meat.” It was true. “Killers” as they’re called when they’re bought for slaughter were bringing about that much at an auction barn.
“Would you take a check?” was his next question.
“I’d take a good one,” I replied.
Old Tennessee farm boy wrote me a check for three hundred and fifty dollars and we headed west pulling an empty horse trailer.
We’d gone through four horses in a year.
I called Leonard Melton, our landlord, a couple of weeks after we got to Colorado to give him our mailing address. We talked for a few minutes and in his slow southern drawl he said “Ya know that old boy you sold yer horse to?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What about him?”
“He came up here the day after you left to pick up the horse. He was pullin’ a trailer. One of those big stock trailers,” Leonard paused, knowing what my next question was going to be, but savoring the pause, like a well timed punchline.
“Well, did he get Red loaded?” I asked, feeling a bit sheepish at the idea that he might have succeeded where I had failed.
Leonard chuckled as he said “Hell no. He had to ride him home.”
By the way. Two years later Danny co-wrote George Straights monster hit “Check Yes Or No”. It earned him a quarter million dollars the first year, and, because it’s become a country standard, still earns royalties every year.