Chapter 6

In a flash of insight, I hitched the stallion to my horse walker and tied the mare's lead rope to the pommel of his saddle. All the horses and mules, except for the newest arrivals, were familiar with the horse walker drill, and this new wrinkle with the mare being tied to the stallion's saddle was old news for her after a few rounds. It looked like this was actually going to work.

I left them at it and started reorganizing my packing and re-evaluating the amount of things I could take with me. I spent the rest of the day merrily playing with my camping toys and even wound up trying to decide if there was anything else I could convince myself I needed. I had mules who didn't have anything to go in their packsaddles and even had four new mules I didn't have packsaddles for.

After four hours of following the stallion around and around on the horse walker, the first mare was cured. I unhitched the stallion from it, untied the lead rope from his saddle and then mounted him. The mare was more than happy to follow him without protest, and she seemed to have no interest in coming up to walk side by side with him.

Next I tried putting the string of mules in line behind her. It didn't bother her in the least by now. She was not at all interested in the mules behind her. When I tried her on the tail of the line she didn't feel slighted in the least this time either. I even went so far as to tie her behind the fourth mule and then tie the rest of the mules behind her. Everything was merry now.

I figured I had the cure for the mares' intransigence now, but I put off the instructions for the other mare until tomorrow, and put all my stock away for the night.

Bright and early the next morning I was out, saddling the stallion and the mares, and hoping the second mare had learned from her sister's mistake.

She hadn't learned a damned thing except to stand still while she was tied to the post. I gave her the same treatment the other one had gotten. Leaving the stallion going round and round on the walker with this mare tied to his saddle's pommel.

I figured four hours would do it for her too. This meant the stallion was going to do double duty, and through no mischief of his own. What the hell, life was often unfair. Meanwhile, I took another spin around the packsaddle packing.

It's really awkward trying to pack a packsaddle while it's lying on the ground. I tried putting them on sawhorses for this practice, but it didn't really work out. So, I pressed the mules into service. They didn't seem to mind and in fact I think they were relieved when they realized they didn't actually have to go anywhere, but only had to stand still while I messed around with that crap on their backs.

The mare which was currently in training had slightly pissed me off this morning, so I let her follow the stallion's ass for a little over five hours. When I finally stopped the walker and mounted the stallion, lead rope in hand, she was on her best behavior.

I had time to try her at the front, back, and middle of the string, all with good results. I even caught the first mare again and let her in on the fun. I was finally satisfied I could put any of them anywhere in the string and everything would go as expected. I rested well that night with thoughts of a job well done.

I started the next morning with tying both the mares and all the mules into a long string, without any packsaddles, and then leading them around for about an hour. I even took them into the woods for half a mile or so and brought them back out.

For my next trick, I saddled both the mares also, and then put the packsaddles on all the mules I had packsaddles for and loaded them, filling out the ones which had no official cargo with crap I had lying around. We made a more extended ride into the woods this time, probably three miles with all the twists and turns and double backs I made. I pronounced my camping expedition ready for anything.

The proof would be in the camping. Even though the weather forecast for the upcoming October weekend wasn't geared for comfortable camping, I made my plans.

Wednesday afternoon the packsaddles for the new mules and those I'd ordered for the mares came in via UPS. I hadn't been up to much that day - just making the stallion and then the mares, one at a time, haul me around on their backs. I put the stallion away, got out all the mules and the two mares and spent the rest of the day making sure everyone's packsaddle fit properly.

I spent all day Thursday arranging my gear in the packsaddles and I finally had to pack up a lot of my guns, ammo, and reloading equipment to try filling the yawning maws of all the packsaddles I had.

It turned cold Thursday night. Not bitterly cold, but it got down into the upper thirties, and that's cold in North East Texas. I was undaunted. I packed my mule train, saddled my stallion and even put the packsaddles on the mares. I didn't like to see them getting by without carrying anything, especially after all the trouble they'd caused about the whole thing, and mounted up. We went all the way to the back edge of my property again, and I even took a winding path, crisscrossing my property four times just so I could have a nice ride.

I'd been over an hour and a half packing all the equipment and it took two hours to unpack and pitch my tent. With the horses picketed and their feedbags on, I built my campfire and cooked my supper of a New York Strip, Ranch Style Beans, and I opened a bag of Fritos as an extra treat. Of course the wine of choice was Lone Star Long Necks, cool from being in the little nearby stream. Actually, in this weather they were very cold.

After supper was eaten and I'd cleaned my camp dishes I set up my portable Directtv/TiVo and actually got a good picture on my color tv. While I was watching a rerun of The 2004 World Series of Poker on ESPN, it came to me I should probably buy one of those flat panel tvs which could double as a computer monitor and I should build a nice computer in a small, portable, mid-tower. I could fit all of it easily into one packsaddle or another. I already had room to spare aplenty. I drifted off and was dreaming of it in minutes.

Thunder woke me and I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. I could hear sleet rattling against my tent. I put my clothes back on, picked up my big flashlight, and went outside.

The horses and mules looked miserable, standing there with their heads down, dripping from the rain which no doubt preceded the sleet, and bunching up together as best they could to share their body heat.