A Horse's Tale, Chapter 13, The Stockings were hung by the water barrel with care.
Steph stands up. Time to feed the crew, but before she leaves the house, she reaches for a copy of "Draft Horse Quarterly" and puts it in her pocket. Steph turns "Rob, I am going to out feed the gang." Rob answers back, "OK, I have one job this morning then I will find that retired Doctor who is supposed to be a wagon Wright."
Steph heads out on her rounds, Lady's Parlour, the Football field, the back row. Everyone is happy and waiting, she turns toward the round pens, let's see how these guys are doing. She grabs a flake of hay and walks toward Justice, who for some reason he is laying down, not sleeping laying down but reading laying down. "Justice what are you reading now?" As Steph walks into the pen, and drops the flake of hay Justice very carefully gets up, as to not get any dirt on the Magazine. Steph walks over and bends over and picks it up, "What is this?" Justice reply's, "Its a witch book." Steph very carefully turns it over, as it seems very old, looks at the cover, Montgomery Ward's Wish Book, dated Winter 1978. "Justice it's not a witch book, it's a Wish Book, and it's very old." Justice looks over Steph's shoulder, "What is a Wish Book?" Steph slowly opens it up, "Its a catalog for the holiday season and this one is very old." Justice reaches around Steph and using just the tip of his upper lip, turns the pages, stops and looks up at Steph, "Look." Steph looks where Justice is pointing, it's a holiday season photo of a fire place with a holiday tree in the corner, "Yes it's a very nice holiday photo, Justice, "No no, look." using just the tip of his upper lip Justice points to the fire place. "See." Justice is using every skill he has and is pointing at the socks hanging from the fire place. "Ahh, Stockings hung by the fire place with care." Justice cocks his head a bit and looks at Steph, "We need Stockings." Steph begins to smile, "Who told you this, who told you that you needed stockings?" "Oh, Spirit told me." Steph nods "What for?" Justice replies, "For holiday cookies." Justice steps back and smiles, "Yes holiday cookies." Steph very gently lays the wish book on the ground. Steph asks, "How long have you guys had this catalog?" Justice, looks up kind of puzzled, "I don't know, but General keeps it safe."
Steph remembers her surprise for Justice, "I found a picture of a Draft Horse for you to look at." Justice looks up, smiles "Race Horse?" Steph pulls out the copy of Draft Horse Quarterly and opens the full page photo of two Shire horses, "Look, when you get old you will look like them." Justice moves his over next to Steph's shoulder, and looks intently. Justice's mouth drops open, "I will look like that when I get older?" Steph nods, Justice turns his head first looking over to his left side then his right side, he looks down at his legs, then back to his rear end. "Oh, my word, I am going to have a big butt when I get older." Steph starts to answer, but thinking to herself, "well it happens to the best of us." Steph points to the picture, "See Justice, you will be a very big and beautiful horse when you are fully grown up. Not a race horse." Justice nods, "May I have the magazine." Steph carefully hands the magazine to Justice, who places it next to the Wish Book. As Steph leaves the pen, Justice is up eating and seems quite happy.
Steph stops to fill a couple of the water barrels and rake out a couple of pens. As Steph gets to the front door, Bruno, Adrian, Truffles and Moo are running out with Bruno yelling "Tiger Tiger", they head off in all directions. "You know I think they are watching too much television..."
Steph relaxes a bit, "hmmm, let's see chores are done. Now on to finding where Fred lives. Let me look at my notes. hmmmm Pete Wilson, down on highway 372. Shouldn't be too hard, highway 372 is only 200 miles long." Steph gets up grabs her bag, phone, keys and pauses a bit, reaches over and picks up the remote for the TV, walks in to the kitchen and puts the remote in the fridge. "That might work." Steph heads out, she drives out to highway 160 and heads south, traffic is light, she drives by the Wal-Mart Super Center, and the few other business's on the road, gets to the junction of 160 and 372, she turns right and heads down the road. She drives a couple of miles, "How am I supposed to find Pete Wilsons place, people don't put their names out, and those that have names on mail boxes its so small you can't read them. Dang...."
As she approaches what could be called the end of town, only two miles from the California line, there on the right is a single ranch, with big sign next to the gate. The sign reads "Wilson Ranch, Fine Pygmy Angora Goats", Steph says, "I wonder why I have never seen that sign before?" She slows, waits for a bit of traffic and turns around and turns into the drive, stopping at the gate. Steph gets out, walks up to the gate, place looks very similar to MHR about 5 acres with the house in the middle, all though there are a lot more out buildings.
Steph looks around the gate for a buzzer or bell of some sorts, can't find one, but looks closer near the gate, there is a rope with a bit of wood tied to it, she looks beyond the gate, the rope travels all the way to the house supported in a couple of places on posts. "Well that is old school." She reaches down and pulls on the wooden handle on the rope, she looks the rope barely moved, she pulls more, the slack slowly comes out of the rope, she looks around she is nearly in the highway, Steph pulls hard a couple of times, the slack comes out of the rope. "Hope that worked otherwise I could be across the road trying to pull on the rope..."
She walks up to the gate, and waits. within a minute Steph see's an elderly woman walking up to the gate, as she approaches the gate she is smiling and waving, "Sorry you had to wait for so long but I was in the middle of watching a soap opera on the TV." Steph replies, "oh, no problem, I had to pull on the rope almost out to the road. Its a pretty long rope." Steph smiles, the woman approaches the gate, "Oh, Sorry I am Ruth Wilson, we don't use that dang rope any more, we have motion sensors, and HD cameras monitoring the boundary line, all attached to a computer monitoring system. Very high tech." Steph smiles, "I am sorry, I should have introduced myself, I am Stephanie Pierce, from Miracle Horse Rescue here in town." Ruth nods, "I have heard of your place." Steph continues, "I am looking for Pete Wilson." Ruth smiles, "well he isn't hard to find he smells like goats, he is out here some place, here come on in." she walks over next to the vehicle gate and opens a people gate. "this is easier then opening the big gate, hope you don't mind." Steph smiles, "no no problem at all. How long have you and Pete been raising goats out here?"
As they both walk towards the house, Ruth looks over her shoulder, "Oh, I don't raise goats, Pete raises goats, I tend the house, and take care of grand kids, oh and a few chickens." As they near the house Ruth stops and points over to the west, "there he is", at the top of her lungs yells, "Pete, you got a visitor, maybe someone interested in buying some your dang goats.", Steph smiles, "Seems you aren't interest in the goats as much as Pete is." Ruth look over to Steph, "Well to be honest, no, but it keeps Pete happy and active. Ya know he is nearly 90, been out here for nearly 40 years, started with cattle, horses, tried pigs once, but then the goats came along." Steph takes a breath, "Pete is nearly 90? My lord that is wonderful, if you don't mind if I ask, how old are you?" Ruth looks over and smiles, "Oh, I am only 85, Pete likes younger ladies..." Ruth looks over to Pete who is almost up to them, "Pete hurry up, lunch will be ready in a while, this is Stephanie." Pete walks up offers his hand, "Welcome to the Wilson Ranch." Steph takes his hand, his grip is strong and his hands are weathered as if he is been here for ages.
Steph says, "I have been here in Pahrump for years and never know you were here." Pete glances up, "We tried to keep a low profile, if you know that I mean, we are retired, have been for many years, nearly 40 now, oh, can I show you about?" Steph smiles, "oh yes please", Pete heads off to the south east corner of the property, "we started off here in the late 60's, with 400 acres, and slowly have sold the land around us, to help the kids, the grand kids, the great grand kids, and now the great great great grand kids." Steph, looks around "You have been here for a long time." Pete looks over "We settled here just after the big ranches began to break up, its been a fine life."
He continues, "So what brings you here? We don't get many visitors unless they are looking for goats, so are you looking for a goat?" Steph looks around "Well I am looking for one goat in particular. Her name is Fred, I understand that you raised her." "Ahhh, Fred, a most unusual goat to say the least." Pete stops at a pen, "These are Butch and Sam, Great breeding pair, and over there are Tom and Clifford, another great pair. They have produced some prize winning goats." Each pen has a small enclosure and a small barn for the goats., as they pass each pen, Pete notes each pair, and any kids with them, he then remembers the question, "Oh, Fred, ahh yes, how do you know of Fred?" Steph stops and says, "Well it appears that Fred has been out talking to my horses" Pete with a shy grin, "Yep, I know that would cause problems some day. Hope you didn't have problems?" Steph replies, "Well nothing major so far." Pete continues, "Well I donated Fred a couple of years ago to the Desert Green Retirement Community as a service animal, she likes people so much, and they really liked her, and from what I have heard, she is doing quite well. I really enjoy things when a plan comes together." Steph nods, "So do I, thank you for the tour, I really enjoyed it, oh look at the baby, it's so cute."
To be continued.
Author: Samm
MHR PMU horses
