In my own experience, whispering to horses does not work.
It worked for Robert Redford in the new movie, "The Horse Whisperer," which I rushed out to see last weekend. (My movie motto: Why wait for the crowds to die down when you can go early and view the movie from a severe angle on the righthand side, four rows from the front?).The only communication that's ever worked for me and a horse is screaming.
Several years ago I found myself on a horse called "Lightning" while on a deer-counting expedition with Deseret News outdoor editor Ray Grass, Ray's friend Fred Ferre and a Division of Wildlife Resources ranger I knew only as "Blackie."
Blackie brought the horses to a range of badlands in central Utah, where the idea was to mount up and count the deer.
* * *
I have also discovered that there is nothing that brings greater pleasure to "horse people," such as Blackie, than messing with those they size up as "non-horse people" by giving them horses that, if they were human, would be in a federal lockup.
Such was Blackie's appraisal of Fred and me.
He put us on two horses he described as "spirited."
All was fine as we headed out away from the trucks and horse trailers and counted the deer.
The problem began when we turned around.
By now, the horses knew two things:
- They were being ridden by a couple of greenhorns.
- They were headed in the direction of the barn.
The barn was in a place called Indianola. Ten miles away.
At the rate the horses were going, they planned to be in Indianola in roughly four minutes.
The odds were very slim Fred and I would be with them.
It was stark fear that made me pull hard on the reins by Lightning's neck as he tried to lose me with a Porsche-style turn around a fence post, and scream, "Stop, you *#%&#!"
Very un-cowboyish.
But to my surprise, and Fred's, both horses screeched to a stop.
* * *
My favorite horse from a book made into a movie, and my favorite horse name, is the "Hell Bitch." To most humans, a name like Hell Bitch would be a real insult, while most horses would no doubt consider it a high compliment.
The Hell Bitch was the horse personally chosen by Capt. Woodrow Call in "Lonesome Dove," my personal nomination for the best book/mini-series of all time and one that portrays cowboys as people more like the rest of us when it comes to being scairt of things like bulls, snakes, horses and women.
Call liked the Hell Bitch because no one else could handle her and it reminded him of his ex-wife, and he enjoyed the challenge.
* * *
I figured "The Horse Whisperer" was going to be a good movie when both Newsweek and Time panned it. I was not disappointed. I liked the casting, the acting, the writing, I thought it was very arty, as they say, but not in an "English Patient" kind of way, and I liked the way they fixed up the ending.
Most of the time, Hollywood ruins good book endings, usually with long chase scenes, such as in "The Firm."
But with "The Horse Whisperer," they improved it.
A year ago, when I finished reading the runaway best-seller by Nicholas Evans, I slammed the book down. The story, and the characters, including Pilgrim, the horse, had been so compelling, I couldn't fathom such a downer of an ending.
But the other night in the theater, I was left with an entirely different feeling. When the movie was over, I had a strong urge to go see what Lightning was up to.