By Len Wilcox
excerpted from 'Mojave Time', a work in progress
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Dally Press Gazette
Desert Destinations |
We were west of Jean, Nevada, on a cool and windy winter day, heading for the hot springs in Tecopa, when they chose to appear: a band of wild horses. They were magnificent: calmly waiting by the side of the dirt road we were on, a pair of bays, two paints, and a palomino.
The desert lands are famous for burros and wild horses. This, with the high country of the Great Basin and the Rockies, is one of their last refuges, the only lands left that are open enough to support them.
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Once more than 2 million wild horses ranged with the buffalo and antelope on the prairies, before the land was cut up into cities and cornfields. Now, about 50,000 remain wild in the west.
But a casual visitor to the desert will seldom see them, for, even as big as they are, these horses are wild animals that take full advantage of terrain. They seem able to hide in plain site; many times we've seen their trails and fresh 'stud piles', but only seen the horses or the burros themselves a few times. When we do see them, usually they are quite far away in terrain that would be hard to cross quickly enough to catch up to them. This was the first time we'd found a band of horses close enough to stop and observe, and suddenly we were within 100 yards of them.
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Contrary to popular belief, the stallion isn't the boss of the herd. The lead mare runs their small society and, with the stallion, will challenge possible threats. Either the lead mare or the stallion will use delaying tactics to give their family unit time to escape. She will stand between the threat and the herd until she decides whether they should fight, run or ignore the threat.
The lead mare stood watching us, challenging us to do something. The challenge was in the way she stood, with her ears pointed forward and her muscular body tensed and ready. We stayed in the Jeep, quietly shooting film and watching her. She seemed curious.
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These horses were used to people. None of the herd seemed very ill at ease with us, as long as we did not approach too closely. Gradually the lead mare's tension eased and she returned to watchful grazing. We idled the Jeep around a bend, and waited.
None of the herd was too concerned with us. The stallion was sitting on the ground with a bay mare beside him. He was nuzzling her affectionately. After a while they stood, and continued nuzzling.
Later we were able to slowly leave the car and walk closer, finding better photo opportunities. But we never were allowed too close. The line seemed to be around 50 feet; at that distance, the horses would get nervous and move away. We did too; they are large and wild beasts, even if they are gentle grazers they can turn mean in an instant if they feel threatened by us.
We never made it to Tecopa that day. After watching this herd for hours, we headed down the road. Across an arroyo we spotted a lone Palomino.
We parked, and headed out into the brush to get where the light was right for photography. We hiked around a hill, and spotted the herd. It consisted entirely of palominos.
These horses were very skittish. Unlike the band up the road, this group would not allow us to approach. We could see why: in the herd was a pair of beautiful young colts. We moved slowly and indirectly, but they kept moving away from us, seeming to anticipate where we were heading. The lead mare stayed between the herd and us, challenging us and telling us to leave them alone.
Which, of course, we did. We did not want to disturb them further; as much as we wanted to get close to them and photograph their raw, natural beauty, we did not want to force them to run. Food and water are scarce in this land. We did not want to make them burn up calories escaping us. So we reluctantly went back to minding our own business.
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