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An excerpt from Alex Cord's newest book --
YES
HOOKING UP WITH SOOT
They pulled into the driveway at the lazy JB, ominous quiet in the trailer behind. Jesse backed the trailer up to the entrance to his round pen. He got out and opened the door to the eight-foot-high walled pen to form a funnel when the trailer gate was opened against the pen. From the outside, he untied the rope that held the colt against the trailer wall and set him free. In a clatter of hooves, the black shadow bowled out of the trailer and into the pen, dragging the rope behind. Jesse, shut the pen door and parked the truck and trailer in its place.
Walking back with Holly at his side, carrying her camera, she said, "What will you do with him now?"
"Well, we'll start with kindergarten and see if he's got any sense at all or if he wants to be a retard and end up in a can."
"Can I watch?"
"Yeah. There's a platform on the other side of the pen. You can stand on it and look over the top of the wall."
The pen was a circle, sixty feet in diameter. The walls were solid inch-thick plywood panels bolted to six by six inch posts. The bottom half of the eight-foot wall was lined with three-quarter inch-thick rubberized conveyor belting. It was a combination combat zone, therapy room and padded cell.
Jesse stepped in and secured the door behind him. The colt in the center thirty feet away turned with fury in his eyes and froze. How dare someone step in here with me. He flattened his ears and showed a rim of white glaring at the top of his eyeballs. His nostrils stiffened wide. Jesse had only a long soft ranch rope, coils in his left hand, loop in his right. They stood there sizing each other up. Jesse, trying to read the colt, to anticipate his first move. Neither flinched. Jesse knew well the behavior patterns in the hierarchy of herd animals. The colt was a stallion, a dominant monarch with a troubled childhood who saw Jesse as a challenging interloper to be vanquished and run off into the hills with his tail between his legs. Jesse's job was to show him there were other ways to go.
He made the first move. He shook out the loop, feeding it rope, increasing its size as he swung it over his head in a buzz of nylon against the rawhide burner. He took one step forward with the rope whirring. A move that would have sent most horses into flight. The soot-colored colt reared up, pawing the air and came down charging, ears pinned and teeth bared . . . straight at him. Jesse had thought he just might and was ready. He stood his ground and at the last possible second stepped aside and snapped his wrist, and like the crack of a bullwhip, the tip of the soft loop popped the colt across his nose and stung him good. He bawled and bucked, clacking his heels high in the air. Then he whirled and came again, with the same result. He stopped and shook his head saying, that didn't hurt, but still thinking about this creature in front of him and trying to figure how to deal with him. The regular stuff wasn't working. Jesse took a step toward him. He backed, still considering. Jesse had the loop laid out behind him.
The colt decided to try again and made a move but Jesse read him right and quickly swung the loop up ready to pop. The colt stopped. Jesse advanced swinging the rope. The colt decided departure might be an answer and took off around the pen on fire to get somewhere and there was nowhere to go. Jesse stood in the center of the pen swinging, feeding rope into the loop as Soot, head tossed toward the wall looking for a hole to freedom, bucking and lashing out with powerful kicks, galloped through the deep sand on his way to nowhere with mounting fury fed by frustration. He'd begun to breathe deeper now, sucking air into the gaping funnels of his nose as Jesse stepped in front of him popping the rope and forcing a change of direction. He dug in and whirled around his hocks, and spurted away from his adversary with such intent, he tried to climb out of the pen by diving up the eight foot wall and hanging his forelegs over the top. He scrambled with hind feet not meant for wall climbing and fell back with a heavy thump, landing on his side in the sand. Driven by the equine instinct for survival, he got up galloping, panicked, lost his balance, flipped ass over head and came up running breathing harder now.
Jesse jumped in front of him again, forcing him to turn away and flee once more. He quit swinging the rope and just stood there watching the colt run, hearing the labor of his heart and lungs. The colt began to steal glances at Jesse, then he'd look away at the ever-present wall, then back at Jesse who began to murmur soothing sounds of greeting. He flicked an ear in acknowledgement although continuing his run.
Jesse stepped toward the path the colt would take but not so quick to force a turn, more to arrest the forward motion, saying whoa as he came. The colt began to slow. The furious pace in the deep sand had taken its toll. Rest was becoming a good idea. Jesse continued his seductive whoa, offering a soft place to sit down and relax. The colt quit the gallop for the lope and then the lope for the trot and finally a wary walk, never taking his eyes from Jesse. At last he paused, turned, facing the foe, ribcage bellows pumping breath rifling in and out of flaring wells, sunlight glistening on the soaking black hide, veins pulsing underneath, eyes burning, aimed at Jesse.
Jesse let the rope slip from his hand to the ground, moving slow and smooth toward the quivering colt. He stopped, extending his hand, palm down, in a gesture of friendship and peace. A step closer, his hand a foot from the charcoal muzzle, air pumping warm from nostrils now tense. An inch closer, he reached. The colt flung his head, froth fleeing his lips, and turned away from this god who was trying to get inside him. Jesse supported his desire to leave, chased him away and picked up his rope, swinging the big loop and tossing it easily out at the colt running. He kept flicking half-hitches softly, smoothly, over the colt's head, around his neck, across his butt till the ropse draped the horse like a string of pearls and he trotted easily under the ornament.
Ten laps later, Jesse offered again a soft place to sit and rest, saying whoa, easy boy, easy now, dragging the words out long and slow and stepping easily ahead of him to encourage a willingness to stop. The colt was looking at him now, flicking an inside ear.
In five minutes, he'd gotten to where the colt was standing still, letting him stroke his face and rub his neck and wipe away the sweat dripping from his lips. The mouth began to soften, the ears were tuned to him.
He snapped his fingers in a steady beat while he stroked and rubbed and leaned against the colt. Then he stepped away and beckoned the colt to follow, snapping his fingers. And as if on a lead, he did, his nose a foot behind Jesse as he walked a figure eight, trailed by the colt festooned in rope. Jesse murmured reassurance as he took the rope and slowly unwrapped the colt, letting it drag over and around the sensitive parts. He fondled the coils and brought them slowly up to the colt's nose. He snapped his fingers and rubbed the slick neck with the back of the hand holding the rope that flopped against the wet hide. Soot tensed, Jesse talked him out of it and went to flapping his coiled rope all over the colt's body. When he got near the tender underbelly, the place where the lion rips first, the colt thought seriously about leaving town. But Jesse had sensed it and backed off till the colt was ready to trust him down there.
Five minutes later, he could flap the rope anywhere on the colt's body while he stood like stone. He snugged his loop around each ankle, separately, and led the colt in a circle by the roped foot alone.
When he eased the saddle down on the Navajo blanket, the colt bunched his back but he never moved. Jesse talked him into a soft acceptance of the girth pulled around his belly. He leaned against the colt, denying he was wild and dangerous and stroked him as if he were a friend in grief.
He stepped away from the colt who started to follow but Jesse pushed him off and sent him around the pen at a trot to get the feel of the saddle on his back and the stirrups flapping at his sides.
He had slipped a halter on the black's head and held the lead rope in his left hand, standing close to the colt's shoulder, right hand on the saddle horn, he raised his left foot to the stirrup and tested his weight in it, the colt looking at him and fixing his legs to accept the weight. He stepped off the ground, standing in the one stirrup, ready to bail if the colt exploded. He eased his right leg over the saddle and lowered his seat till the colt was bearing his weight. The colt's feet were rooted in the ground. Jesse knew he could uncork at any second. He was the kind that if he panicked would dive to the sky, flip his belly to the sun and come to earth upside down on top of you. He gently pulled the halter lead bringing the horse's head to the left. He moved his left front foot and then the right. Jesse squeezed his legs and the colt walked off as quiet as a kid's pony carrying a friend he'd never had.
Jesse didn't try to guide the colt but let him take him where he wanted to go. In that moment, came the mutual acceptance, the genesis of an inspired relationship.
He opened the door to the pen and invited Holly in. She seemed mesmerized walking up to the colt. Stroking his face, gazing into his huge brown eye, the rage gone and in its place, the world seemed to exist. "That was the most amazing thing. I can't believe you did that. You got him to trust you."
"He's a pretty good boy. He's just scared. I don't think he's got a mean bone in him." He reached and rubbed the once clenched muzzle between his hands and felt it soften like dough before it's bread. "We just might suit each other. What do you think, boy?" He traced a circle lightly between his eyes, then stroked an ear. "We've got to come up with a good name for him." He was looking at Holly. "You've got to do that. You name him."
"I'll have to think about that."
Holly was holding the lead rope at the wash rack getting showered with over-spray as Jesse wielded hose and sponge, flushing dirt and sweat from the seal-smooth hide. The colt seemed content with the attention and his very first bath. Maybe this wasn't such a bad world after all.