Clip, creak, clop, creak, clip,
creak, cop, creak. 15 miles into the trail and Buster is setting a steady pace
as the hooves and saddle make music on a warm spring day. I’m swaying along and
letting my thoughts wander… and my eyes close. It’s the sun doing it! I’m not
sleepy. Only closed ‘em for a second… really! I open my eyes again as a slight
turn wakes me up and realize that Buster has started down the wrong path. Oops,
I guide him back before Jessica notices I’ve dozed off. We’ve been silent the
past mile, both of us talked out. We still have over an hour to go to get home.
This is our longest ride to date.
This ride came about after Jessica and I had been riding for
a couple of months, after she had decided that I was a real rider, after we had
discovered we got along on the trail. Out of the blue, she invited me on her
annual Mother’s Day ride. For some years now she and some friends have ridden
from the field where her horses are pastured to Roche Harbor resort for the
brunch that they sponsor. This is close to a 20 mile round trip ride so her
asking me meant that she had confidence in my ability to go the distance. It
also meant that she was willing to let me mingle with her other horse buddies.
I was flattered that she would include me in this ride. This was months before
the Pacific Crest Trail ride came into being, so for that time, this was my Big
Ride to look forward too.
As the weeks progressed, Jess told
me that the girls liked to get dressed up in full western gear to do this ride.
They made an “Event” out of it! I had a hat and plain boots, jeans and a plain
shirt but nothing fancy like she had so I asked if I could wear my pistols. I
may not have a fancy western shirt or expensive boots but I do have a brace of
real Colt revolvers and a very nice set of custom holsters made in Tombstone
Arizona! If you want real holsters to match the pistols, I can’t think of a
better place of origin to have stamped into the leather than Tombstone. It
always botherd me that I had a set of fancy, Sunday-go-to-meetin’ holsters with
no place to wear them. A trail ride to Roche seemed the perfect chance to show
them off. What better way to celebrate Mother’s Day!
Jessica laughed and whole-heartedly
endorsed the idea. I said that it might cause a stir. She said “Good!”
Sometimes I do impulsive things with very little provocation, but with this
kind of support, impulsive actions are guaranteed. Meanwhile, my Fearless Wife
got on board with the ride by saying that she would meet us at Roche. She’s not
horse rider but she does like her bicycle so she planned on the 20 mile trip as
a nice workout and lunch. It would also be nice to have her there with bail
just in case things went badly.
The trip out to the resort was easy
tho it was just Jessica and I as everyone else had other obligations. We
saddled up and headed out. We’d done some 10 mile rides previously and as the
weeks progressed, I was less tired each time we rode so I wasn’t too worried
about the trip to the resort. It was the ride home I was ‘anticipating’. Yes,
that’s the right word. I was anticipating it.
Arriving at Roche we tied the horses in the brush far enough
off the road so that they wouldn’t be bothered by casual passers by. From the
hill overlooking the harbor we walked down to the café. I pulled my cell phone
out of my pocket and called Lunnette and found that she had just arrived. We
met in front of the store and walked back to the restaurant and got a table on
the deck.
On the way in, I got a few looks
and one tourist asked me why I needed a gun? “Well, you just never know when
you may meet someone who needs shooting.” I replied. He edged away but no 911
calls so far. Sitting down, I find that plastic chairs and holsters are from
different centuries and don’t work well together so I had to take off the gun
and lay it on the table. A young couple sitting behind us asked if it was a
real gun and again, “Why?” I decided to play the colorful sidekick roll this
time.
“A young woman with a wild heart
(gesturing at Jess) needs an old man with a fast gun to back her play when she
goes to town.” They liked that explanation and smiled. Being the colorful
sidekick is a durable role and one I’ll cultivate. Jessica can be the star in
this movie. Of course I’ll have to learn how to cook and grumble about my age.
These are standard lines for a colorful sidekick but I think I can swing that
without too much trouble. One last thing on the way out confirmed that our
western dress was just the ticket when a woman in a fancy Mercedes came up the
narrow road as we walked back towards the horses. She was chattering on her
cell phone when she noticed the gear and guns and her eyes bugged out and I
could read her lips as she exclaimed to whoever she was talking to, “Oh my God!
You’re not going to believe what I just saw!”
Lunnette meets us on the way out
and took some pictures. The horses did just fine with her bike. As we rode up, she’s talking to an acquaintance who we met as we rode in earlier. We would
see this same friend a third time as we rode by the Roche Harbor airport. She
lives on the runway and she waved from her house as we went by. We take the
long way back to the watershed trail and as we start up the hill, conversation
lags and I started dozing. There is this about horses: unlike cars, they can
drive themselves! There are places you need to be in control and alert but
other times, your attention can lag for a bit. You can even nap! Of course
“drive themselves” doesn’t mean that they can navigate.
