Horse Lover Read Online Free Page A

Little Charlie Brown, and so many others. We had shared cowboying adventures of the unbelievable kind. But my connection to herds of wild horses? Nil.
    “Here’s what I propose.” Dayton held his hands up as if framing the idea. “I want to establish a wild horse sanctuary. It’s never been done before but I’ve given it a lot of thought and I believe if it’s set up correctly, it could work. We need the government’s approval and support, of course. And we need land.”
    At that moment the scotch, or maybe something on a grander scale, shifted my brain into a new gear. A panoramic vision of the lush prairie grass on the South Dakota ranch spread across my mind’s eye. I had been hoping to find a use for the land other than running cattle. Might it be suitable range for a herd of mustangs?
    “How many unadoptables are we talking about in the holding pens?”
    “Almost two thousand,” Dayton replied.
    I just about had to scoop my jaw off the table. Trying to envision that many horses on the ranch was a ballbuster. I’d run more head of cattle than that before, but horses? I had no clue how much fifty horses ate, much less two thousand. Or what their grazing patterns would be. I wouldn’t bet my next drink on the number that could thrive on the South Dakota ranch. The thought of managing a ranch full of two-thousand-pound animals that have had minimal experience with humans, and that mostly negative, evoked more than a little trepidation. It was like going from being a pilot of a little Cessna to a pilot of a 747 jetliner without lessons.
    Yet, if I took a deep breath and dove below the fear, something felt possible here. Perhaps the government’s coffers could support such a venture. Perhaps the land could too. Good luck had stuffed itself in my pocket long ago, and adventure had been my friend since I was old enough to scramble on the back of Chico and head out on the range, trying my five-year-old darnedest to keep up with the big cowboys. Usually I was contemplating adventures that involved animals I knew—ranch horses, cattle. But with this I could very well be stepping in over my Stetson.
    Dayton continued. “The idea of a wild horse sanctuary has never occurred to the BLM , or if it has they haven’t gotten around to trying it. Most likely they need persuading that it’s a sensible, solid game plan to contract with and pay a private landowner to care for two thousand animals nobody wants.”
    I had been working with the tightfisted BLM all my professional life. They would need persuading all right, bales of it.
    “The reason that I contacted you, Alan, is because you have an in with the BLM folks. All your ranching buddies tell me that the BLM thinks you walk on water.”
    I shook my head. “Not sure that I’d go that far. They don’t exactly send me birthday cards.”
    “Okay, well, let’s just say you can hook and catch their attention and reel them in. They don’t know me from the next wrangler and would brush me off faster than a biting fly.”
    Dayton was right on one thing. The BLM and I had a good rapport. When they needed rancher input on land and grazing issues, they often asked me to participate on boards and panels. They had designated me a steward of the land for my work in grass management on Lazy B. Most crusty cowboys considered the BLM their enemy. But that attitude only made their lives miserable. I chose not to walk down that road. Over time, I inadvertently became the point man for other ranchers. I would relay their issues to the BLM , go to bat for those boys, and try to hollow out common ground that allowed bureaucrats to be bureaucrats and ranchers to be ranchers. We didn’t always agree, sometimes we were miles apart on our stances, but other times we could carve out a compromise acceptable to both sides. And if we didn’t agree, we’d keep talking.
    I took a sip of scotch and tried to visualize the South Dakota ranch with horses on it. For a moment, I saw myself