Bridge Called Hope (4 page)

“I can be such a sap when it comes to pretty horses … obviously, I cannot drive by them,” I said, while still trying to put our host at ease.

Perhaps realizing that we came in peace, the woman softened into a gracious host and invited all of us to leave the truck and enter the corral to pet her “babies.” I was very aware that while I engaged the woman, my staff was running their hands over each of the horses and mentally recording every detail.

While in the starving horses’ corral, I noticed that a light breeze had scattered the meager serving of hay across the pen. A small handful had blown within the tiny black filly’s reach. She silently moved toward the dozen or more straws of hay to consume them as quickly as possible. She ate as if her life depended on it, and by the looks of her skeletal form … it most certainly did.

The woman was more than happy to share with me how she had acquired her horses and what her future plans were with each one of them. As she continued to rattle off personal accounts of training adventures, I inconspicuously moved to the filly’s shoulder and placed my open hand on her withers. This is usually one of the safest and most non-threatening places to touch an unfamiliar horse. For young horses, it is also reminiscent of the favored place for a mother to lovingly groom her foal. Sadly, for this young horse, it was obvious that she was not accustomed to human touch.

Once the filly understood that it was a strange woman who was touching her, she instantly swung her head in an attempt to bite me. She missed. It was clear that even in her weakened state, she was going to fight me for those few stems of hay that had blown her way. With her expression she seemed to warn me, “I will die if I don’t eat this … it’s all I have.”

Poor baby girl
I thought to myself, as I gently and cautiously stroked her neck, shoulder, and back.

With more effort than it should have taken, she drove her abnormally sharp hip bone toward me in a weak but aggressive move that clearly communicated that she would kick me if she could. I kept my hand firmly on her repulsively bony hip and stood fast. With this little girl, had I stepped back I would have placed myself in a position where she truly could have kicked me. Also, my moving away from her threat would have not only rewarded her bad behavior, in horse language it would have told her that she was undoubtedly the boss.

The owner didn’t seem to notice any of this and continued to share with me one horse story after another. Finally, during an appropriate break in our conversation, I asked her plainly, “Would you ever consider selling any of your horses?” Her eyes moved very slowly upward in a near forty-five-degree angle. She blinked a few times and then abruptly returned her gaze to me. “Maybe,” she finally answered.

After extremely gentle negotiations, we were able to convince the owner to sell us the very worst of the four starving equines—the black filly. Like a carrot dangling from a fishing pole, the promise of hay and cash was enough for her to finally oblige our request.

The girls were wonderful; each thoughtfully shook the woman’s hand and thanked her for her time and generosity in
sharing her “family” with us. After climbing back into the truck, I started the engine and we all waved good-bye, promising to return as soon as possible to pick up the filly.

Once we were down the driveway, everyone nearly exploded in a released rush of information. Each of the girls did an excellent job in gathering and reporting the details that they noticed. Once the flourish of words died down, Karmen, who was quiet by nature, began to speak. The intense contrast between her clear blue eyes and dark hair always seemed to give her words a greater impact, a weightiness beyond their casual meaning. She said very quietly, almost to herself, “We’re getting the right one … it’s the little filly that is suffering the most.”

I reminded the girls that we needed to hurry because a greater time lapse offers owners a greater time frame to change their minds about releasing their horses. Although it is not a common occurrence, it has happened in the past.

During our return trip back to the ranch, we organized the completion of the rescue. Every member of the team was given a specific job to help facilitate the quick and safe release of this devastated little horse. Once at the ranch, I would hitch up the trailer and Karmen would help me load up as much hay as it would hold. Marie was responsible to find as much cash in the office as she could, while Faith made the appropriate calls to clear an opening in our time frame.

After all these tasks had been completed, our small team reunited at the cab of the truck, kicked the snow off our boots, and slid inside. While traveling back to recover the filly, we choreographed all our following actions.

Marie is remarkably funny and likable—and volunteered to gather the necessary paperwork. She would encourage the owner indoors to write up a usable bill of sale. While the two
were inside, Karmen, Faith, and I would quickly unload the hay. Because of the potential danger, I would halter the filly and lead her out of the corral. Once out of the corral, Karmen and Faith would assist me in helping to load the young horse into the trailer.

As we drove down the drive toward the hungry horses, I noticed something interesting. Karmen saw it too. She turned back to look at me, perhaps wondering if I was thinking the same thing. I glanced at the horses and back at her … and smiled. In her quiet way, she smiled back and stated what we were both looking at: “The filly is waiting at the gate.”

Only two hours after the initial call for help, in what was surely a horse-recovery speed record, we were pulling up the driveway with the first rescued horse of the year.

Even though she was documented to be nearly two years of age, her actual size was that of a six-month-old baby. As a young quarter horse filly, she should have weighed twice her desperate 440 pounds. Her flesh hung from her spine like a sagging canvas over a tent pole. On this diminutive waif, the normally graceful arc that connects a horse’s head to its neck looked more like an old boot hanging on a broomstick. Her hooves were so small they didn’t even come close to filling the palm of my hand.

Her dull coat was nearly three inches long with large bald patches on either side of her neck. Her oozing and crusted skin was completely destroyed by one of the worst lice infestations I had ever seen. The poor little babe was literally being eaten alive by parasites.

Adding to her woes was the fact that her previous water source was a large galvanized tank with a dilapidated hose frozen tightly into an eight-inch-thick solid block. The ice was so
old that it had substantially pulled away from the edges of the tank. As near as we could estimate by the length of the last deep cold spell, she had not had a drink of water for approximately eleven to thirteen days.

It is not possible for a horse to live that long without water, but mercifully, two weeks before, her saving grace fell in the form of snow. The frozen white surface in her former corral had the pocked appearance of a giant golf ball. Literally thousands of fist-sized holes could be seen where all four of the horses had tried to stem their thirst by eating mouthfuls of snow.

Thankfully, all went like clockwork. While Marie went into the house with the filly’s owner to get a bill of sale, the girls and I worked together like wheeled cogs in getting the hay out of the trailer … and getting the filly in. I am uncertain if it was the tantalizing hay all over the trailer floor, or if this filly somehow comprehended that getting into this box was going to change her life forever. Either way, she was astoundingly eager to hop up into the waiting trailer. I noticed that once we secured the door behind the filly, Karmen became particularly anxious to leave. While looking in the direction of the house where Marie and the owner were apparently wrapping things up, she muttered, “What’s taking so long? Let’s get outta here.”

In her weakened condition, the simple act of being moved the few miles back to our ranch, height and weight taped, photographed, and vaccinated taxed the black filly to complete fatigue. Once all was finished, Karmen slowly led her into the ranch quarantine paddock. After a very long drink of water and a few bites of hay, our tiny new charge collapsed in utter exhaustion.

Because the weather was bitter, her new home, which was approximately twenty by forty yards, came complete with a
heated water tank and a three-sided wind shelter full of clean, dry shavings. Perhaps because she had never known the use of a shelter before, she didn’t choose its warm comforts, but instead crumpled into the windblown snow. Her condition was so severe at this point that I wondered if she might die. Her tattered black form lay in sharp contrast against the pure white snow upon which she chose to rest.

Yet, removed from her familiar hell, in this strange new world, she was alone.

Perhaps, of the four women on the rescue team, Karmen understood the black filly the most. At fifteen years of age, she was the youngest. Karmen had been coming to the ranch off and on for several years with her severely disabled sister. Now, she was coming solely for herself. With very focused intent, she sought help in traversing the lonely bridge away from her chosen life of self injury. I will always remember the day that she asked for my help.

I have seen it before, it’s called cutting. Insidious and permanent, it is the dangerous, newly revealed scourge moving through the underbelly of our country. Like an invisible plague, its only purpose is to destroy those it haunts. If attempted suicide were a sibling, cutting would be its desperate little brother, both silently screaming for help. Cutting is a symbolic ritual of releasing pain, guilt, anger, shame, or sorrow through slashing one’s own skin with a sharp blade and literally bleeding it out. It is the external equivalent of an internal agony.

The first time Karmen showed me her scars, it would have been easy to assume that she had a serious encounter with a barbed wire fence … and lost. Her forearms and lower legs bore the marks of her torment. Some marks were old and faded into a normal flesh tone. Others were purple or pink—or worse, a
recent, shiny bright red. She told me how, collectively, they all mocked her, daring her to go deeper each time, taunting her for being a coward and not just “doing it” … not just ending her life. She, as do all cutters, understood what the approaching ultimate conclusion of this behavior would be. Karmen knew that she needed help … soon.

Cutting would destroy her; she knew that. Yet removed from her familiar hell, in this strange new world, she, too, felt very much alone.

Quietly standing outside the quarantine paddock, Karmen’s freezing breath rose around her as she watched the solitary young horse lying on her sternum, motionless in the snow. Karmen silently rested her chin on her arms, which were folded over the top of the gate. She was completely motionless. Loneliness is a dark, cold prison. Those who have escaped its abandoned walls know that the only key is not found within … but without. Only by honestly giving of one’s self in true friendship can true friendship honestly be received.

After an achingly long, cold moment, Karmen straightened to her full height and with the soothing hush of the quiet breeze that moved around her, silently made her way to the collapsed filly’s side. Sacrificing her own safety and comfort, a broken young woman lay down in the snow, side by side with a broken young horse.

The utterly spent filly, sensing and taking comfort in the girl’s presence, relaxed even further. Her large brown eyes began to slowly blink and flag downward. Her neck, as if pulled by an unseen force, gradually curved downward toward the ground. The filly, in a final expression of exhaustion, finally rolled over, inch by inch, until she was lying completely flat on her side. In moments, the young horse was overwhelmed by sleep.

As the filly rolled toward her, Karmen stealthily matched her movements until her chest was against the prone horse’s back. Karmen, now in full contact with the filly, watched in complete wonder as her new friend slipped deeper into her blissful escape. Fascination overtook her as she observed the tiny horse begin to jerk, blink, and twitch. There, with snow as her bed, the worn-out equine began to dream.

A new realization rose within Karmen’s heart. Despite all the trauma and heartache this devastated little horse had been through, even through all her lack and failure … she still had dreams.

Karmen shared with me later that it was at this time, this exact moment, that she began to feel the battlefield within her heart quietly subside. It was during this incredibly special “mirroring” that she started to reconcile the fact that if this young, broken horse was still fighting for her dreams … perhaps it was time for the young, broken girl … to do the same.

So there, with snow as her bed, the worn out girl extended the arm that had been supporting her head, laid down flat, closed her eyes … and began to dream.

Karmen relayed to me that it was as if she could feel the clenched fists inside her heart begin to slowly open … into hands that reached out to the One who was calling her toward safety, freedom, release, and love. In that cold and quiet time that followed, Karmen understood that this was the time to
choose
to let go of her pain, anger, frustration, and sorrow.