Growing up in rural Northern California back in the seventies we always had a variety of animals on our forty acre property. Among those animals were Spyro a horse and a donkey, Jack.
We had other horses, donkeys and a mule, but the subjects of this story are unique in that they were almost always together. Hard to separate at times even though sometimes Jack would get crazy acting and kick Spyro in the ribs. In which case Spiro would run around avoiding the donkey until a truce of a sort was reached.
This story is about a time when I saddled up Spyro to show off my equestrian abilities to our new neighbor kid, a boy about my age, Tom was his name. Well, anyway I should mention that Spyro was given to my dad because he was one hard to handle gelding. My father Archie grew up with horses in Wyoming and was actually in the 115th horse cavalry of the Wyoming National Guard. This was at the beginning of WWII and Wyoming still had cannons pulled by horses and infantry on horses. So my dad had taught me as best he could, I was more interested in cars and motorcycles back then.
Anyway, saddled up and ready to go I jump on the horse with Jack and my new friend in tow. We head for the Shasta river and a place called Paradise Craggy. It’s quite a long distance for a typical ride, but I had a new friend to impress.
We rode for about an hour to our destination which was an old homestead with a spring that filled up an old wooden trough. A great place to imagine the old west and dig around for treasures.
One of the many things that made Spyro a difficult horse to love was his habit of running home first chance he got, usually as soon as you dismounted. You would always have to have a plan so this wouldn’t happen. I had rode successfully up next to a tree and tied a short rope to a branch and got off.
We explored for awhile and were ready to leave when Jack decided to have one of his fits and kick Spyro in the ribs. I had been careless as my showing off had gone well up to that point. I tied them too close together. Jack had realized we were going home and in his glee kicked his buddy. I think a good word for what happened next, is pandemonium. When the dust finally started to settle the horse was gone. Tree limbs and the saddle were still there. So was Jack, just as calm as could be, dust still in the air.
We started back to the house, Tom on Jack and me leading. Just a short distance down the road was Spyro, calmly nibbling on some grass. Maddeningly he stayed just out of reach until we were about a hundred feet from home then stood quietly waiting to be fed his oats.
I never did ask Tom what he thought of the whole fiasco. I did ask him several times of he wanted to go riding again and he never again said yes. I’m fact he and his family moved shortly after that and I always wondered if it was because of the crazy neighbor’s horse ride or just the crazy neighbor.
Tom’s story is tragic as he was killed in a gun accident shortly after moving to town.