Some horses are horses, and some horses are legends. The minute Orphan Easter came into this world, it was apparent that he was born just so stories could be told. As his name implies, he arrived on Easter day and lost his mother in one fell swoop. It was a hard and early morning for Grandpa, but it was an exciting day for us, his crew of eager cowgirl nannies. Aged 9, 6 and 4, we were assigned to bottle-feed and mother the stick-legged newcomer. Grandpa always had a weakness for thoroughbred horses, but Orphan Easter was a buckskin with a charcoal black mane and tail – a novelty on our farm of black and sorrel animals. He stuck out like a sand dune in a sea of black and red. I thought he was the most beautiful horse I’d ever seen.
Easter stood out for other reasons as well. As might be expected from his privileged nannying situation, he didn’t know he was a horse. The old “duck test” – if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck – didn’t apply to him. Look like a horse? Check. Act like a horse? In all the important ways – biting, nipping and running with more energy and length of leg than he knew what to do with – yes, he acted like a horse. But in his mind and heart, he was a human, a cowboy, one of us.
One of the most frightening and exhilarating experiences of my life was playing tag with him. It actually turned into a hybrid game of hide-and-go-seek and tag, and I’m not sure how it started in the first place. When it was Easter’s turn to be “it” – and let’s be honest, it was always his turn to be it – he chased and nipped at us like we were his equals in size, speed and teeth. We were not.
We soon realized things were getting out of hand and decided to do exactly the worst thing possible. We ran for Mom. Screeching across the driveway, over the porch and into the house, we were a runaway panic train – with Easter following hard behind like a steam engine. We dove through the mudroom, across the kitchen and into the living room. Easter charged in, too. Out of options, we sought high ground and clambered up our steep and narrow stairs. Easter made it halfway up before he realized he didn’t know how to climb stairs, and he crashed back down, landing at the bottom in a tangled horse heap – legs everywhere. Mother was not impressed. Easter was banished from the horse nursery and turned out to pasture that very day.
As he entered the larger equine world, it became apparent that he didn’t know how to speak horse. He certainly didn’t practice horse etiquette, and for a while, he was an outcast – too wild and too tame all at the same time. He didn’t make the best kid-riding horse either. He had no respect for his former nannies, and how could he? He may have been a mixed-up horse-human, but he knew the three of us were nothing but hide-and-seek chickens.
One summer, we took him and several other horses up to the Humboldt Forest Range in Nevada, where Grandpa was working for the Forest Service. Mom loved to camp, and we were making a week of it. As always, she also wanted to ride, and in some mistaken maternal teaching moment, she decided that I’d ride Easter. I don’t know who she thought was going to be in charge in that pairing, but I knew it wasn’t going to be me.
We took off, four ladies on three horses, and all that can be said for my horsemanship that day was that I was holding on. Then we came to the river. The other horses waded in without any problem and crossed without drama, but Orphan Easter had never encountered a raging river before. To put it mildly, he was freaked out of his mind. He trotted and whinnied anxiously up and down the bank, but wouldn’t cross. My traitorous family just kept going, casually marooning me, a 7-year-old girl, on the wrong side of the river.
As the other horses moved farther and farther into the distance, Easter became increasingly frantic. He had no intention of touching the water, but he wasn’t about to be left behind either. Unfortunately, there was only one solution left, and he took it. With a great running leap, he took flight, leaving me – the hostage in the cockpit – holding on for dear life. We were suspended airborne for days, and I was more than sure that I was going to die upon impact. Unaccountably, miraculously and absolutely improbably, though, I managed to stay aboard as we hit dirt. Then, if you can believe it, my clueless family started clapping and cheering, just as if I hadn’t almost met my mortal end.
Now, 50 years later, I’m beginning to realize how much age and time have altered my mother’s memory. She retold the story of the great river crossing during a recent family Zoom call, and I was stunned. She misremembered every detail. She called the river a “stream” and Easter’s great leap a “hop,” and she claimed she’d clapped and cheered my landing – not in awe – but to keep me from crying. Most stories grow with age, but this one appears to have diminished. Orphan Easter and I knew the truth that day, though. We knew we’d made the greatest river crossing the West has ever known – though apparently some people can’t see the truth for what it is, even when it lands right in front of them.
