At the end of my last post, Dad and I had arrived at the Gila River, just a bit north of the small town of San Jose, Arizona. We arrived on a Saturday evening, after having made nearly 20 miles on a late start that day. Poor Clancy was very foot-sore, so I had carried him on my saddle much of the day. We arrived at the river, at a place called Diversion Dam, which, as the name indicates, was near an irrigation diversion dam. We crossed the river, very shallow at that point, and made camp in a small sandy area on the north side of the river.

It was becoming pretty obvious, by the gathering clouds, that we were going to get rain that evening, so after unsaddling and unpacking the horses, and caring for them, Dad and I stacked our gear and covered it in preparation for the moisture.  We then had our dinner of re-hydrated corn chowder. After dinner we selected a decent  sleeping area, laid out our bedding, and covered it with a plastic tarp.

Now, that plastic tarp had been pretty ill-used, having been the cover over the pack of our mustang, Jimbo, who had gotten it hooked up in a barbed wire fence early in our trip. Still, it was better than nothing. By the time we got our bedding prepared, it was after dark and we were both absolutely exhausted. With Clancy already asleep between our sleeping bags, Dad and I pulled our cover canvas up over our heads and passed out.

About 3:30am, I awoke with water dripping directly onto my face. It was raining, a nice light, steady rain. I crawled out of my sleeping bag in my skivies and tugged and pulled and tightened lines, and finally was able to redirect all the drips so that they fell on our bedding where it would run off without soaking us. I was cold and wet and by the time I slid back into my bag, I was shivering. As I got back in bed, however, out of the corner of my eye I saw something dash by the foot of our bed. I looked, thinking Clancy had gotten up with me. I growled at him to get in out of the rain. When I did, something next to me moved and Clancy poked his sleepy head up out of his place between our sleeping bags, where he was snug and warm.

Whatever I had seen, it wasn’t Clancy. I was worried that maybe a coyote or bobcat had invaded our camp, so I got out my flashlight to look. As I strained to see into the dark, something licked me on the back of my neck! Startled, I turned to find two wet and cold dogs wagging their tails at me and trying to lick my face. They were both soaked to the skin and shivering. Rather than waste time trying to run them off (I didn’t have the heart to do that) I simply told them to come on under the tarp and lay down on the canvas between Dad and Me. Clancy simply wagged his tail and tucked his head back under the tarp. The two dogs laid down comfortably and went right to sleep. They were still there when we awoke at sunrise on Sunday morning.

When I got up I noticed both dogs had collars and tags. I took a look and found the telephone number of the veterinarian out of Thatcher, only about 20 miles away. I had sufficient cell phone coverage, so I called. Of course, being a Sunday, they weren’t open, so I left a telephone message that we had found the dogs and a description of where we were camped. She called me later that day, told me she had gotten the message and had passed the information on to the owner. She said the owner would pick the dogs up later in the day. About 3pm or so, a lady did, in fact drive down to the river and picked up the dogs. She told me she owns a nearby ranch and that the dogs, who belonged to her late mother, would occasionally take off on a little walkabout and be gone for a few days. She appreciated us taking care of them for the day.

That afternoon, Al Smith, who guided us through the Chiricahuas, showed up at camp with an apple pie and some soda pops. We passed an enjoyable hour or so just talking, and that apple pie sure hit the spot!  Later in the afternoon, a couple dropped by, having seen our horses, to meet us and see what we were about. They were Josh and Melissa Patton. Turns out we were in Josh’s regular horse camp, so he was just checking us out. They ended up very generously bringing us a bale of wheat hay for the horses. It was a welcome supplement to the horse’s diet. They certainly enjoyed it.

That evening, as I was feeding the horses, I noticed that Daisy was acting sore. I checked her over and discovered she had a very swollen udder. It appeared to be lactating a bit as well. Though she had not recently foaled, her udder looked as if she had mastitis. I told Dad we had a problem. As we checked her and discussed the possibilities, it suddenly occurred to me that I had the veterinarian’s telephone number still in my iphone, thanks to the two lost dogs that visited us for the previous night!

The following morning, Monday, I put in a call for the vet, which she returned shortly thereafter. I told her our problem with the mare. She was out to see us at our camp by 9:45am. Her diagnosis was that Daisy had likely been poked in the udder by a mesquite thorn, which had caused the infection. The actual puncture wound was right on the nipple. The vet was able to drain quite a lot of the infection, relieving much of Daisy’s discomfort. She provided us with antibiotic for the infection and bute for the pain. She gave us instructions for medication and told us Daisy should be fine to continue. What a relief.

Al Smith stopped by again, so with his help we got the horses saddled and packed and were ready to make tracks by about 11:30am. Our original plan had been to follow the Gila River, however, after talking to Al, the Pattons,  and checking with the local BLM office, we were convinced that following the Gila was a bad idea. Much of the Gila River in that area flows through the Gila Box National Conservation Area. In recent years the Bureau of Land Management has removed cattle from the area, which has had a very detrimental effect on the trails. There are no more trails through the area along the river, so we would be fighting our way through brush, quicksand, and deep areas of the river with no marked trails to show us safe routes of passage. The quicksand in the Gila is a real danger, not just a bit of mud. We were told of a hunter who lost several mules recently, when they were stuck in quicksand and could not be extricated before they drowned.

The route we decided upon led across the Black Hills, which lie between Safford and Clifton, south of the Gila River. My DeLorme Explorer iphone application, Earthmate, which provides topographical maps on my iphone, showed a jeep trail that took off from a dirt road not far from our location, which led in the general direction we needed to travel, and eventually joined with the old Clifton highway, now the Black Hills byway. We headed that direction, generally following the guidance of my GPS and the topographical map. We wandered around for a couple hours looking for that jeep trail before we were convinced that our topo map was wrong. According to the map and my GPS, we were standing exactly on the road…but there was no road to be seen anywhere and we were in the middle of some very rough and difficult terrain, with prickly pear and volcanic rock everywhere.

From the location where the road should have been, we could see a power line heading over the mountains toward Clifton. We decided we would follow the power line service road, knowing it would be a rough and steep road, but would eventually get us where we needed to go. Experience also told us that any fences we might encounter would likely have unlocked gates or gaps on the service road. Ranchers also tend to use them for access to the back country, so we hoped we would be able to find cattle water troughs every few miles within striking distance of the service road. That turned out to be the case, once we got underway.

As we headed in that direction, though, I started hearing a “clink-clink” sound from Ranger’s right rear hoof. When I got off and lifted his hoof, I was quite surprised to find we had worn out the shoe and it was literally falling off his hoof! The shoe itself was no thicker than a nickel and the nail heads were completely worn off. The shoe had not been pulled of, but was simply falling off. A quick check of the other horses told us we were in trouble. I tacked Ranger’s shoe back in place and we headed back to our camp on the Gila. We traveled about five miles that day and ended right back where we started.

On the way back, seeing I had cell phone signal, I called Al Smith and asked if he might be able to assist us again. He showed up at camp shortly after we arrived and drove me into town to buy some horse shoes and nails. While we were in town, I had Al stop by the local Sonic Drive-in and I bought us all hamburgers and Cherry Limeades (I don’t ever remember a better tasting hamburger!). We spent that evening pulling shoes and cleaning up hooves, but we ran out of daylight and energy before we finished.  We completed the shoeing job the following morning. Al came back out to lend a hand and we had all the horses re-shod and ready to hit the trail just before noon.

I did the shoeing on Lizzy and Ranger. While I have been trimming my horse’s hooves for about ten years, this was my first experience of actually shoeing a horse. With Dad and Al coaching me, I did a fair job. I am proud to say that neither horse became sore or lost a shoe the rest of the trip, more than 170 miles through some of the roughest terrain on earth. I learned a lot…among other things, that I’m glad I don’t do that for a living. It’s hard work!

Our stay in the Safford area was supposed to have taken two days, Saturday and Sunday. Due to some unplanned delays and problems, we ended up staying four days. However, looking back at it, everything that happened there was providential. There is not one thing that could have happened differently without creating a potential disaster for our trip. We were able to order new water filters which were overnight expressed to us from Montana on Friday night. On Saturday night, we had two wet and cold lost dogs join us for the night.  They provided us with the phone number for the local veterinarian, who was able to come to our camp to provide the necessary care for the mare with the infected udder. Then, our little misadventure with the missing road allowed us to discover that our horses needed to be re-shod before we got out into the middle of the lava rock of the Black Hills, which likely would have lamed horses and put us afoot. The four day delay also allowed Clancy’s feet to heal up and gave us and the horses some much needed rest.  We were very well blessed by the Good Lord that all those things happened right there near Safford, where we had all the help we needed. Those things could not have happened in any other way that would have allowed us to continue our adventure without serious problems.

Thank you Lord.

That day, Tuesday, Day 18, we made only 11.6 miles, having shod five horses (the mule was shod the previous Saturday), started late, and having passed through some steep and extremely rough terrain. We camped that evening at a water hole not far from the Double C Ranch in the middle of the Black Hills, south of the northern end of the Gila Box. It was the first decent campsite we had seen all day, so we called it quits a little early. We made ourselves a small campfire and enjoyed a restful evening.