The day was clear and hot. The horses, tall and muscular. I was a bit smaller but had no apprehensions. It was simply a day of horseback riding with my sister Karen at a local dam outside of Stockton, California. Little did I know it would turn out to be such an adventure.
I wore Wrangler jeans and a button-up safari shirt, standard riding apparel for any self-respecting cowgirl on a hot day. The pink visor was a last minute inspiration. We started down the canal trail and soon spotted movement in the brush. Commandos: the weekend-warrior, paint-gun variety. They were most respectful and didn't get into any skirmishes that would spook the horses until after we had passed by. Then all hell broke loose and the horses decided it was time to trot, ears back and heads tossing, trying to get a look at the big scary monster that was undoubtedly coming up behind them.
When we came to a wooded trail that led down to the water, I took the lead because my horse was older and had quite a lot of trial riding experience. His name was officially Satan but was so sweet everyone called him Satin. He wasn't mean or evil, just fearless. I could point him at anything and he would go: water, jump, rocky hill. He took everything in stride.
We meandered through pine trees and brush and soon came to the water, where the trail headed down to the bank and then alongside it. Out of nowhere it seemed, we came across a gigantic tree blocking the trail. As I tried to determine how to go around it, I realized there was no "around." The trail ended abruptly at the fallen tree with a lagoon on the other side. There was a sandbar in the middle of the river to our right and tulles floating around in the water.
I think of tulles as a cross between a water lily and a turnip. The bulbous tops float along on what look like lily pads, and make a great big popping noise when you break them apart. How do I know this? Because as a kid, my next door neighbor's dad used to take us fishing and pretend to bite into the tulles with great gusto, the loud popping noise a nice effect simulating his teeth ripping into it. When you're nine, you think that's neato. But I digress.
Tags: horseback riding, horses, how not to ride a horse, sisters, adventures
I craned my neck around to tell Karen the trail had ended and noticed three things simultaneously. First, her horse was nose to tail with mine so I had no room to back up. Second, the trail had changed from hard-packed dirt to loose beach sand. And third, Satin's hooves were desperately trying to get a good footing in the sand. In the next moment, I felt a little queasy and disoriented, like you do during an earthquake before you realize it's the ground moving and not that shellfish you had for lunch. I also saw Karen's eyes get really big and wondered why. As I opened my mouth to ask, I began to turn back around to face front but instead came face-to-face with the water. In the brief moment before I went under, I tried to comprehend how the water could possibly have shot vertically up out of the river to be staring me in the face.
KERSPLASH!
Satin rolled over the top of me like we were doing a big water-ballet cartwheel and I thought, "Hey, I haven't touched bottom. Must be pretty deep here." I yelled "I'm okay!" as I surfaced so my sister wouldn't think I'd been killed. Miraculously, my sunglasses were still on my face and I still had hold of the reins. I discovered this last piece of information as Satin headed for the sandbar and jerked me across the water after him. When he felt the resistance, he turned and looked at me as if to say, "I am a land animal, you know."
So we headed to the sandbar, which I hoped was really an extension of the bank on the other side of the river. Alas, I was denied the easy way out. So my grand steed and I plunged back into the murky water at what seemed to be a shallow crossing and were soon stuck in the muck on the home shore. Ick.
Having apparently lost my mind, I still gripped the reins of a large animal with sharp hooves. As we both flailed around in the muck, I ended up underneath his belly with my legs sticking out his other side, my butt stuck in the mud, my shoulders at his withers and my arms desperately trying to gain purchase over the top of his rump to pull myself free.
Then time slowed down to one perfect moment of clarity: I saw/felt Satin's haunches bunch and realized he was about to try to jump out of the mud. The only problem was he was essentially straddling me. I calmly reviewed the possible scenarios in my mind:
One: His back legs will not come free of the mud and he will roll over and squash me.
Two: His hind legs will come free but then land on my gut and disembowel me.
Three: He will land on my thighs and break my legs before using my broken body for traction out of the muck.
Or Four: His hooves will rip my face off as they fly past.
As I was having these cheery thoughts, I heard Karen and her high-strung Arabian somewhere a-way up the embankment. I felt bad then. Here I was, going to be killed or seriously maimed and she was going to have to clean up the mess. I found out later she had taken her horse up where he couldn't see what was going on because he had launched into a screaming hissy-fit as soon as we hit the water and had been trying desperately to cut and run ever since. She, too, thought I was about to die and wanted her horse out of the way so she could attend the situation. We tend to be quite calm in an emergency, we two. The freaking-out part comes later.
At this point, time sped back up and I watched Satin's rear legs with accompanying sharp hooves sail up out of the mud to my right...and arc gracefully over me to land - kerplunk! - on my left. I sat there with my mouth open as he scrambled up the embankment and thought:
Five: He will successfully jump over me and I won't be hurt at all.
Wish I’d thought of it sooner.
I unstuck myself from the mud, only to find Satin stuck again a little farther along the bank. He was exhausted but couldn't lie down completely or his head would be underwater in the muddy shallows. He tried to lie down anyway, just too tired to go on I guess. Karen held his head up by brute force to keep his nose out of the water until he regained his strength and scrambled up the embankment. I'm pretty sure I heard him say, "I'm going home. Catch me if you can, you puny two-legged things," as he headed for the trailer.
We caught up with him and tied him to a tree, then set about gathering up the debris - saddle here, saddle-blanket there, stirrup, cinch, bridle. We never did find the bit. In a valiant effort to rescue my pink visor, Karen stepped off a fallen tree into five feet of water. "I thought it was shallow here," she said with weeds streaming from her hair.
We lugged the sodden tack up the embankment, which had somehow grown to twenty steep feet. At the top, we dropped the mess, took one look at each other...and lost it. Muscle control? Gone. We sank down into sodden lumps next to the muddy gear and laughed until we cried. Then when we were relatively calm, we did it all over again. Sisterly love.
Back at her place, Karen offered me the first shower and I took it. Greed outweighs politeness when you are covered in slime. As I unzipped my jeans, I noticed the part of my shirt that had been tucked in was still white while the rest of it was dark gray with bits of slimy black swamp goo stuck to it. Euw. My socks were equally disgusting because my boots had filled with water. Let the self-pity begin! "I'm so dirty...this is so inconvenient...why me? WHAAAAA."
Then I took off my shirt and found a large tear in the back. A quick check in the mirror revealed a nasty scrape beneath my right shoulder blade, about lung height. It occurred to me that, had I encountered whatever did this at a different angle, I might have been impaled. I flashed back to thinking I was about to be disemboweled, then to Satin's body rolling over me in the water. What if it had been shallow?
As I stood in the shower washing the gunk down the drain I thought, "This must be my lucky day."
