Black & White in the South, Pen & Ink Drawings of the Rural Southeast by Charles Sims: May 2012

    Some days just have magical powers. Today was just such a day. As I awakened from a restful sleep, I just lay there in bed. The memories swept across my mind as if they were clover in mist covered meadow with the soft blowing wind sweeping over them. As the wind blew, the clover danced in wondrous rhythm with one another. Swaying gently front to back and side to side. So it was with my mind. The memories came and went, dancing softly on my conscious, some good a few bad.
     The one that stuck was a good one. At least it ended up that way. In 1993, we moved into our house that we had just built, sitting on fourteen acres. We moved in on May 5, just a few weeks after my stud colt, E-Bob-A-Ho was born. He was a typical stud colt, into everything. At that time I had four horses, including Bob, and feeding them was a challenge. My plan was to buy and sell horses to pay for their feed. As you can guess, that did not work out very well. I would buy high and sell low. It was cheaper for me to feed the horses, than for me to sell them. It was like silk screening T-shirts, each transaction cost me money.
     Our land was covered by woods, except for the strip under the power lines. That strip was fifty feet by 800 feet. That was not enough grass for four horses and I had to keep them supplied with hay at all times. After we had been there for a year or so, the two spinster sisters that owned the six acre pasture next door, approached me about renting it. At the time the price was reasonable and we agreed.
     The horses thought that they were in heaven.With grass up to their knees, eating was now a chore. You would think that they would mow everything down evenly across the pasture. Well no, they didn't.
The pasture soon looked as if a drunk was driving the mower. The grass would be a foot tall in one area and dirt next to that. I spent a lot of time on the tractor, bushogging.
     Major was seven years old when I bought him. He had won several blue ribbons for speed racking. A big bay horse, he was a gentle giant, but stubborn as a mule. His master had died and the black man that bought him almost starved him to death. When I purchased him, he was skin and bones, probably four hundred pounds underweight. It took Sheila and I almost a year to fatten him up. During this time we discovered that he had a comical personality, or maybe he was just a doofus.
    Honey Babe was ten at the time and sweet as sugar. Not to Major though. She would give him a wide berth and stick her tongue out at him when he was not looking. She worshipped Princess, the bitch of the bunch, and Bob's mother. She, like the others, was a racking horse. However her gait was so rough, that at the end of the ride, her rider was sore. she was well mannered and obeyed every command.
     Princess was a solid black, beautiful mare that should have been named Queen. She manipulated and controlled the herd, except for Major. He was not going to let a girl tell him what to do. When she wanted to move from one spot in the pasture to the other, she would just wander off in that direction. All the other horses would follow, except for Major. Not only was Princess a bitch, she was the smartest horse I had ever seen. Leaving Major behind would in her mind, undermine her authority. Shes developed a new strategy. To move to a new spot, she would shriek and bolt off as if something had burst out of the woods and was attacking her. That startled everyone, including Major, into following her. As soon as she reached her destination, she would stop and graze as nothing had happened.
     I came in from work that hot summer day and went to the barn to feed up. All the horses were there in the barn yard except for Major. That was unusual, for he like the others, knew that feeding time was always at the same time each day. As you probably know by now I talk to the horses and most times they talk back. Princess was nervously pacing around the paddock. I did my whistle and rang the dinner bell for Major to come eat. Finally I asked Princess, "Where is Major?" She seemed relieved to know that I finally figured out that knew where he was. She turned and slowly walked to the woods on the side of the barn. I don't know how to stress this, nothing had ever gotten her to leave before a meal, so I knew that it was serious. We had gone a couple hundred yards when I caught sight of him. He was in a thicket of thorns and tangled up helplessly in bullis vines. I could tell that he had been there a while. "Be right back, boy." I told him and walked back to the barn.
     When I returned with the wire cutters and made my way to him, I could tell that he was agitated. However, he remained still and calm while I cut away the briars and vines. To make matters worse, deer flies were swarming all around and eating us up. He would stomp his feet and swish his tail, but never in my direction. Princess, Bob and Honey Babe were standing at the edge of the woods watching us. As I cut the last vine and slapped him on his butt, he took off. As he tore out the woods, he went around the other horses to get to Princess. I don't speak horse very well, but I understood very well what he said to her. After he kicked her a couple of times, he said."Don't you ever scare us again, bitch!" And she didn't.