Then I backed my rig to within a few feet of my room door, shuttered the trailer tight, untied Olaf so he could move about, double-blanketed him, hung a bag of hay and a bucket of water, and patted him on the rear. As if, I thought, any other kind of traveler stays here. You're welcome to it.''ĭriving instead to a nearby town, lancing snowdrifts en route, I checked into a timeworn motel where I qualified for the $48 "stranded traveler'' rate. "All I got is that welded pen out back,'' the fellow said when I asked if he had a place for my horse. When I cracked the door to give a shout, snow curled into a boot-filled hallway. "Wheel of Fortune" was commanding his attention and the television excitement drowned out my knocking. Through a paned window I could see an old boy on a couch taking oxygen from an upright tank. On that trip I had pulled off the blacktop one evening, seeking refuge from wind and snow, and angled toward a hardscrabble spread that suggested not everything had worked out as planned. Then I led the roan gelding - his barn name is Olaf - to the rear of the trailer, where he briefly stood fast, demanding assurances this would not be a repeat of his journey north from Texas this spring when he and I were stranded in a blizzard. I showered, made coffee and petted a yawning dog. In the moonlight, the animals' shapes signaled who was who as they ambled from the dry lot onto the grassy field, dust trailing. I wanted to give one gelding in particular some time on grass before I loaded him into my trailer. The other morning I awoke at 4 and swung a gate open to let the horses into a pasture.
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