Horse, take me home
A story from my father
My father was born in the Texas panhandle in 1914. Sometimes, when we were lucky, he told us stories of those days.
As Dad and I drove home one night, we got to talking about seeing at night. Which animals can do it, and which are as helpless as humans? Is that related to whether their eyes shine in the dark?
He told this story.
“I know horses can see in the dark. But I can’t remember whether their eyes shine.
One time Chester Graham and I were out riding, coming home from somewhere, and it got late. (This would have been around Crowell, Texas, probably in the late 1920’s or early ’30s.) There was no moon, maybe there were clouds, but anyway you could put your hand in front of your face and not see it. It was really dark, and we couldn’t see to get home.
Well, we’d heard about horses taking their riders home, so we decided to just lay the reins down and see what happened. The horses took off walking, and we rode along for a while, but then they just stopped. We’d spur ’em on, and they’d kind of circle around a bit, then they’d stop again.
Chester got down and felt around in the dark, and discovered we were at a gate. We opened the gate, let the horses through, then got back on and they started walking again.
It’s a funny feeling. We suddenly started going down, steep like you’re going in a hole it felt like. Well we were going down into the creek bottom, which we knew well but when you can’t see you don’t know what to expect.
The horses took us home that night, right into the yard. And I’ve heard other stories like it since.
There was an old guy in Crowell who used to drink a lot. When there was nothing else to drink, he’d drink vanilla extract. He’d go into town with his wagon and team, and get drunk, and eventually he’d pass out. People in town knew him, and they’d just load him up into the back of his wagon, untie his horses, and the horses would take him home.
He’d wake up in the morning in front of his barn.
