Won'tcha Be My Neighbor? (cont.)

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Outside Magazine July 2001

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Won'tcha Be My Neighbor? (cont.)

THE JEWEL OF THE Squalor Zone, the object of every horseman's desire, is a 100-acre savanna stretching along the Clark Fork's eastern shore. When I discovered this grassy parkland in 1993, half of it belonged to a clan named Copeland, which was leasing the other half from the state for use as cattle pasture. Celebrating an intoxicating summer afternoon by floating the river in an inner tube, I had drifted into a trough of whitewater on the far side of what I call Radish Island, the island's namesake paddling furiously by my side, snapping at the foam. We were hurled into the main channel, and when the current slowed as the water deepened we headed for the bank to catch our breath.

Wandering the game trails meandering through stands of purple willow, I saw that the river had created these grounds for just one thing—riding horses at breakneck speed, something we could do only in short stretches back home because of rocks and tree roots. The river had been thoughtful enough to carve a system of relief channels that run parallel to it for a mile, and had blanketed these serpentine recesses with a cushioning two-foot layer of washed white sand. Riding in these dry washes would give our horses the sort of pumpitude they could only get on a treadmill or at the beach, the edge they need to bring home the money when Kitty competes on them at rodeos and barrel races.

I sat down on a stump ferried here by the floods, while Radish excavated the den of a field mouse, and confronted my own hypocrisy. In order to ride from Dark Acres to the State Land we'd have to cross a piece of private property. I yearned to make this place part of our daily routine because of the great forward motion it would yield, and because I had fallen in love with the illusion that we were living in a less complicated world where we were free to jump on our horses and ride wherever we wanted. But getting a visa would be a problem.

That's because the land we'd need to cross was owned by Emmitt Hooper. Our relations with Hooper had been less than cordial from the start, when he had stormed onto Dark Acres the autumn we moved in to yell about my leaning of branches against the wire dividing his place from ours. I explained that I was trying to keep down our vet bills by reducing the exposure of horseflesh to barbs, and hello to you, too, neighbor.

But now we'd have to give Hooper something for allowing us to put a gate in that very fence. I was willing to bribe him, but first I'd try to get what I wanted for free. What he asked for was our permission to let archers enter Dark Acres to chase down wounded deer. We knew Hooper resented the deer for stealing his heavily irrigated grass from a dozen mangy, low-bred sheep he owned. So we weighed our contempt for bow hunters against our sudden affection for the State Land and agreed to give Hooper what he wanted. Then, pushing our luck, we went to C.R. Copeland, the lumber-mill worker, and got permission to ride on his property as well.

Kitty and I saddled Timer and Rolex and rode from our corrals to Copeland's farthest corner, a sandy peninsula on the mouth of a placid riverside slough that I had named the Mabel, after my grandmother. Turning for home, we opened the throttle. Timer glanced back to see if I'd lost my mind, then got so excited she started her gallop with a buck and a fart. As we shot along the beach and turned inland for the savanna she pivoted her ears to listen for the familiar whoa that always reeled her back to earth just as she was starting to have fun. Radish couldn't keep up with us now and began barking in frustration, his yap fading as we distanced him. After Kitty entered one sandy wash and I rode into its parallel twin I glanced over to see her disembodied blond head skimming just above the ground at 30 miles an hour. We shot from the washes onto a sandy beach through a thicket of willows, and I put my forearm over my eyes to shield them from slapping branches. Finally, as we trotted into our own pastures and slowed to a walk, everyone was winded and trembling and bathed in a righteous sweat. When Radish showed up for the apple all the animals get after a good ride we stood in a circle—woman and man, horses and dog—glowing with endorphic well-being, smiling the smile that says, this is so worth the hassle.

And so for several years our ride to the mouth of the Mabel became a fixture at Dark Acres, something we did almost every day.

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