Almost Paradise

The next horse came soon enough. It was cooler and a slight breeze had started up. Long shadows fell across the round pen from the tall cypress trees planted along one side. There was a burgundy-splashed roan mare tossing her head and peering through the rails. Outside the pen was parked a truck with a stock trailer hitched to it. It had a ramp but no dividers. It was spacious and clean. 
Julian caught up with me and put his hand on my arm, kind of like I was one of the guys, which was all right with me. 
“Listen, Serena, this horse has never been in a trailer. She’s had her head in a vise and electric prods on her rump. She’s thrown herself down and slid half-way under a two-horse. She’s gone completely over backwards with a lariat around her neck. I don’t expect much. Do what you can, but stay safe. The fellows are going to give you a bad time.” 
“If the mare can take it, I guess I can, too,” I said, and I went in the round pen with two soft ropes. 
“You wanta halter?” someone called out. 
“Nope.” 
I began by playing with the ropes, just turning them and trailing them along the ground, ignoring the mare. I threw a few loops her way but they landed shy of her. She ran a little but not in a frightened way. Her eye was always turned in toward me, no matter what I did. Did the boys know how much this meant? The mare was already including me in her world. Wow! I was really excited by this. 
“Dumb mare,” someone said. 
I didn’t hesitate. I said, “Mr. Rose, please take that man out of here.” 
“Hey, girlie, I work here, too,” he chided. 
“But not with this horse. Not right now.” 
Julian sent him to clean and fill water troughs. 
The roan could not contain her curiosity. Soft ropes were something she had never known, so I made her part of the game. I held out one large loop and pretty soon she was mouthing it. I took it away and then made another loop. She thought she would try some other things, and finally she stuck her head through it. I did not tighten it down but flipped it off, moved to another part of the arena and made a new loop. She found it and stuck her head in. The loops were different sizes, but I never closed one on her neck. Soon she was walking beside me with her head swiveling around inside that loop like it was the most fun she’d ever had. She knew and I knew she was testing it and learning to trust. 
“That’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” someone said. 
They just didn’t know how good this mare was. They’d never given her a chance to be good. I knew the trailer was not going to be easy, but I believed she would try. 
“Can you guys back the trailer up to the pen and remove a section of rails?” 
“Sure thing, Serena,” one of them said. 
Well, at least I was batting two horses and two cowboys. 
While they were maneuvering the trailer, I increased the difficulty of the game, partly to keep her from noticing the object of her failure drawing near. I asked the mare to go with the loop, keeping her head in, wherever I moved, forward, backward, sideways, trot to halt, halt to trot. When she slipped out and ran off, I ignored her and kept doing figures with the ropes, tossing them against the fence and jumping into one of the loops myself. 
She couldn’t stand it and would come back for more. One time she pawed the ground a ways from me like bring that thing over here! I didn’t budge. I watched her make the decision to seek that loop of rope. My arms got tired holding it. A stiff lariat would have been easier, but I wanted her to have a whole new experience that had nothing to do with the trailer and no reminders of what had happened to her in the past 
Everything was set. The open trailer fit in the space where there were no longer any rails. The roan and I played the game, over to the trailer, backing away, going by the trailer right, going by the trailer left, side stepping up to the opening. I stroked her and released her from the game from time to time. Then in one random moment when we passed by the open door, the mare’s head securely in the soft loop, I turned and walked into the trailer. And there she was, standing right with me. You could have heard a pin drop. 
I handed that mare some hay from a net hanging inside the trailer, and then, with a motion of the soft loop, backed her right out, took the loop away and sat down on the ground. The mare put her mouth on my hand where there was still the smell of oats. I thought, okay, girl, let’s blow their minds, and I put the loop up with her back to the open trailer. She put her head eagerly in the loop, and as I moved toward the opening, she backed herself right into that trailer. I was standing on the ramp. Her feet were completely in. She wasn’t a large horse and the trailer was extra wide, so I took a chance and walked up the ramp moving the loop to the right. She stayed right with me and turned around inside the trailer, facing the front. 
It was something I had never done. It was something the horse had never done. We had talked each other through it. When we backed out, there were fifteen ranch hands crowding around and praising that mare, just loving her and touching her gently. She just ate it up, forgiving them their former cruelty and frustration, as only a horse can do.