麻豆传媒AV

As we rode through the muddy trail, narrow paths would have to be taken to go around large bodies of water. The bodies of water were best described as giant puddles that took up the entire path, the path being the size of a regular service road.

When the horses would climb the side banks to pass these obstacles, often the high bundles, wobbling back and forth on the backs of the pack horses, would catch and break off dead, overhanging tree branches. Trouble came when I heard a rumbling and shouting coming from behind me. One of the horses had caught his pack and some of the bundle pulled off enough to spook him.

I looked back to see the horse beginning to run up the path and through the group and, when it ran, those pack boxes came loose from the rope and hung crookedly towards its rear end - acting much like the rodeo tether used to make broncos buck while cowboys hang on with one hand whipping wildly in the air.

Wendell's pack horse lost control and began to buck and kick; I imagined a wild, raging, frothing emblem from a sports jersey. His legs came up high, as if it were trying to dislodge the pack by catching the bundles with his hooves alone. He was frustrated with all of that junk tied to his back, finally had enough and lost control and went bucking and charging into the bush while we all looked on in disbelief.

I probably shouldn't have been laughing, but I was.

The end and short of it is that we all had to tramp into the bush to find the horse and find the lost gear and bring it back to the trail. After this fiasco, in retrospect, it seems everyone had become spooked or irritated in some way, all of us, horses included.

Later on down the trail, all of the horses got milled up into a group where one horse spooked another. My father's horse became aggressive with another horse and reared up on its hind legs. I watched in slow motion as my father held on like he was the Lone Ranger hiking up his horse in a leg-kicking display of splendour and glory but, instead of landing on its feet, the horse toppled backwards, up and over, and onto my father. I was sure this is how people break their legs.

Luckily, a side pack of meat cushioned the blow. It somehow had made its way between my father's leg and the horse. The soft package blue cooler of meat had been hanging sidesaddle and in the foray it transmogrified into an ad hoc airbag. Thank God for five star safety-rated horses. It must have been a Volvo.

On our way, we stopped at the shack for a pee break at that outhouse, rode through the trail and out into that watershed of rained-out road. We made it back to the trailers, the trucks and the end of my first trail ride.

I'm not sure if I felt anything prolific or profound. Like any other event, it simply ended as it was supposed to end. There was no rapture, no ear splitting applause. It simply ended with us unpacking our horses, de-saddling (if that's a word) and putting those beasts back into the travel trailers.

When we caravanned back to Wendell's farm, his wife invited us to stay for supper. We obliged, as the cowboys would say, and ate burgers, potato salad and beans with one beer a person. My father described the burgers as huge; I must concede (that means agree).

I've had the offer of another trail ride next summer. I am in the mindset of joining the Saskatchewan cowboy troupe once again. I'll put in a requisition for George's Royal Red and make preparations to wash dishes and haul water, if near a lake again. If I can say one thing, it was a learning experience.

Most of the pride I have for that trip comes from a joke I made about being able to ride bareback. I have a memory of being a kid, at the family farm of my father's oldest brother James and in that memory us kids are stacked long on the back of a horse with no saddle. I figured this experience gave me the ability to ride bareback once again, except there was the problem of getting onto the horse.

Without a saddle there is no stirrup. You have to jump on, at least five feet up from the ground. I tried to no avail but then my father came over and said, "Put your left hand on the mane, put your right hand down here," he said, showing me the spot. "Use your arm to leverage yourself up."

That trip I learned to jump onto a standing horse and I know someday that skill will come in handy. Maybe I'll run out of gas some day and have to carry a jerry can back to town, see a pack of wild horses and mount up (not likely). Maybe I'll impress a lady with my country skills. And maybe I'll just do it for some friends to be funny or show off. Either way, it's a handy skill to have. Just to know I learned something new.

That was my adventure; it was a hybrid of two different spheres; the City Slicker and the Cowboy Way.