Old Teamster’s Dream

by Lynn R. Miller of Singing Horse Ranch

Near the end of his days I sat, bedside at the hospital, with my dear friend Jess Ross. When we were together whether he or I, one of us (sometimes both) would lapse back to our preferred context, as was always the case in moments of difficulty,

“Hey pard, when I get out of here, it’ll be time to hitch up and start dragging the fields. This time ‘round I want to try Queenie on the left side of that three abreast. Keen to see if it don’t calm her a bit.”

I remember struggling to hold back a smile, “Jess, you know if you calm that little mare too much, it will disappoint you. You know you enjoy sweet-talking her off the cliff.”

He smiled and stared at me for quite a spell.

“You know Lynn, just the other day I was telling Sharon, I’ve been at this teamstering my whole life and I reckon you are one of the best teamsters I’ve ever worked alongside of.”

I put my hand on his weak and tired shoulder, “Jess, it’s the other way round. You, my friend, can whistle, whisper, and laugh any horse to willingly follow your lead. Now, you rest up. We got fields to drag.”

That was the last time I saw Jess alive. But I see him still in my day dreams of working horses. I see him and Ray Drongesen, and Charlie Jensen, Don McInnis, Dan Kintz, Fred Baker, Ferd Mantei, Gary Eagle, Herman Daniel, Bulldog Fraser, teamstering partners from my long ago youth. Though that be decades ago their voices and faces are so clear to me now. Theirs and many many more, as this publication business and the books have given me the incredible gift of a lifetime of inspirational meetings with hundreds of great good teamsters from everywhere.

But why, I ask myself when alone, is this category of examples and friendships so uniquely powerful for me? Don’t need to ask but I do. I know the answer. It’s because we are branded by common memories. It’s because each and everyone of us share what it means to spend long rewarding hours working in union with fantastic horses and mules. I’m not an ox drover but I suspect that the exact same thing is true for folks who’ve invested lives in working cattle.

Some people might count sheep when having difficulty going to sleep. I list horses I have loved and worked, horses who have owned me; Goldie, Queenie, Bud, Dick, Bobbie, Carol, Sara, Tess, Moe (had to change his name), Bud, Bob, Ted, Tom, Tip, Mel, Abe, two Rosies, Red, Blue, Cali, Lana, Tuck, Barney, Molly, Polly, Anna, Queen, Granite, Red Bob, Matt, another Ted, Rex, Jiggs, Pete, Prince, Pat, Charlie, Dandy, Tommie, Juniper, and now Vic and Pepper. Believe me or not; that is but the tip of the iceberg.

And it is the remembered work, the working close together, that glues it all. For a thousand thousand times, I dream these days of the scented warmth standing between my horses as I rigged the harness and lines in the tie stalls. How, as I brushed her appreciating neck, Cali would turn her head towards me and nod her nose, her eye in rested calm. Or how, as I leaned over to unhook tug from the carrier, moving towards fastening it to the end of the singletree Anna would take one firm step away from the pole forcing me to tug her back in place. with the trace against her leg. As if this repeated exercise was her way of reminding me that she did these things to stake her claim.

So many different little details making up the character of each and every relationship, me with them. But the primacy belongs always to how right it always felt to be hitched to the work, to the implement, and feeling myself ‘completed’ by our working together, with fluidity, to get the job done. Slowly, certainly and with, if I was open to it, music in the moments.

With every successful day’s work, my horses get the credit for reminding me how the rigors of routine, the habits in the rigging, were what granted all of us that extra measure of comfort and safety in the working. And how my allowing them their itches, their anxieties, their demonstrations of fatigue and discomfort, so long as I did my small parts to identify and assuage, added to our ease.

Some say good horses are made. Perhaps that’s true. In my life I have found that the best horses were allowed as my working partners. Not to say that there weren’t restrictions, and lessons, and challenges. But rather to infer that when our attention was spent primarily on getting the work done together, walking together, pulling together, navigating together, my best horses allowed me as team mate, allowed that I match their pace, allowed that I matched their working heart rate.

Time and time again I have experienced how, when one or more of my harnessed and hitched horses were frightened and distracted by some perceived threat, my voice, my calm, my sense of humor, my steadiness affected them in reassuring ways. Old Jess had this ability in spades. Working alongside of him I could feel his effect.

I have written before about one time, Jess and I each with team on mower, were laying down hay in my field, each pass a quarter mile distant. It was summer time and all was right with the world. Jess was in the lead and there was maybe thirty feet between our two mowers. Of a sudden, a mule deer doe ran crazy, tongue hanging out, between us diagonally. Both of our teams ‘woke up.’ and started to fidgit. The doe ran ahead, jumped the cross fence and went into the next field where the uncut grass was tall. As we watched, three coyotes, timing the attack, jumped up from their hideouts surrounded the deer and took her down. We were sitting on our mowers, teams stopped, lines in hand, men and horse watching the scene. Within minutes the wild dogs had killed the doe. While this happened, from behind him, I also watched Jess. From his posture and angle I could tell all of his focus was on his team. And he talked to them in the lowest, calmest whisper. After the coyotes and deer disappeared, laying down in the tall grass 400 feet ahead of us, we started our teams up and returned to mowing. Within two rounds, the horses had seemed to forget about what had happened.

For a couple years after, Jess and I would alternate remembering in conversation about that experience with the coyotes and deer. The scene along with hundreds more populate my dreams of days working horses. And days they were, in long repeated strings. Days, after days, after days, because that was the only way to get the work done. And I marvel still, and will always, that with all of that repetition working with good horses never got old, never got stale, it was for me, and the teamtsers I know, always and forever a joy. Which was a good thing because that repetition is what made better teamsters of each of us, not to mention the effect on the horses, which, in my estimation, was one of ingrained reassurance. They learned by repetition that they could do this work, it would not bite them, and, given teamster partners who woul allow it, these horse and mules would come rapidly to enjoy the work. It gave the horses and the teamsters purpose and structure. Blend that with defining comfort and you have the magic that works its way into every old teamster’s dream.