Faraway Horses by Buck Brannaman, William Reynolds Page B

health. We had a great visit, and it never crossed anyone’s mind that he wasn’t going to be around much longer.
    It was a real shock when Stuart called me in the middle of the night to say that Forrest had passed away. The cause was an aneurysm in his lungs. I can’t describe how bad I felt. At the same time, I felt guilty. My dad was still alive at the time, and I found myself thinking I would have gladly traded my dad’s life for Forrest’s. I thought there must be something wrong about that, but I couldn’t help feeling that way because of everything Forrest had taught me.
    Solutions to problems often come from knowing when to ask for help.
    While I was riding colts for the public at Spanish Creek, I was having trouble with a roan horse. I’d been working for a while on getting him to turn around and on getting him balanced. By “balanced” I mean getting him so he’d move the same way in both directions. At that point he was pretty much the same on both sides, but it was sticky going either way.
    It was early morning on a fine summer day. As I looked over the top rail of the round pen, the only sound was that of my horse catching his breath. Through the steady rhythm, I realized how desperate I was to solve the problem. Nothing seemed to work. I did everything I thought was correct; for example, I tried leading with my right rein and supporting with my left rein against the base of his neck and putting my left heel against his side. Still, I didn’t get any response. I couldn’t get the horse to put out any effort. If I asked him to put any effort into turning to work a cow, he wouldn’t go any faster. It was as if he was going in slow motion. The more I kicked and the more I pulled, the worse it got.
    I was frustrated to the point of tears. I couldn’t seem to make any headway.
    Now, Montana may be short on population, but it fills the void with a fine lot of colloquialisms. “If you don’t get it, you’d better be barking at the hole,” is one of them. It means “keep trying.”
    I knew I needed some guidance, and since Ray Hunt was off doing a clinic and I had no way of getting ahold of him, I figured it was worth a shot to call Bill Dorrance.
    Bill was Tom Dorrance’s brother. He and I hadn’t met yet, but for years Mike Beck, a good friend from the Madison River days, had been telling me about the man’s horsemanship. They had spent quite a bit of time together on Bill’s ranch near Salinas, California, and according to Mike, Bill’s skill with a bridle horse and the way he handled a rope were legendary. If I was ever to be a Jedi, I needed an Obi-Wan, so I took a deep breath and called him.
    “Bill, you don’t know who I am,” I stammered, “but I need some help with my horse. Mike Beck told me what a great horseman you are, and I’ve admired the things you’ve shown him. I hope you can help.”
    He didn’t say anything, so I went on. “My horse turns around pretty good, but I can’t seem to get him to put any effort into it.” I told him all the things I had done with the horse, how frustrated I had become, and how worried I was that I was pushing this nice little horse harder than he deserved.
    When Bill finally spoke, he acted as if he’d never heard a word I said. He started talking about the hindquarters. “You know, Buck, if you can move the hindquarters right or left, you can get his body arranged to where he can do some things that you didn’t think he could do.”
    I just sat there and thought, How sad. Poor Bill has gotten so much age on him that he didn’t hear what I asked him. I suppose I was hoping that Bill would tell me just to take the tail end of my McCarty rein and whack the horseacross the shoulder, or maybe to turn my toe out and use my spur to move his front quarters. I had no idea why he was talking about moving the hindquarters right or left.
    I asked him again, “How can I get my horse to turn around a little sharper so I can get him to work a cow a