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 Nelson
Nelson was born while this nation was at the beginning of the Vietnam Was. Beyond that single statement, we know nothing about his history until 1998, when he was found behind a trailer in Santa Fe. When the police arrived to check on the resident who had been reported missing, they found the almost skeletal remains of a stud in a small pen behind the trailer. The last time mail had been retrieved from the mailbox was three months prior to their arrival. The single tree was devoid of bark and a water bucket caught the run-off from the roof, but the small amount of water in the bottom was covered in filth and crusted with algae.
The starvation was so severe that the muscles around his eyes atrophied, leaving him blind. The officer wanted, almost demanded, that he be allowed to shoot the horse, but as it happened, Judge Nelson decided that the horse should be turned over to us. Hence his name, Nelson, or more formally, Admiral Nelson, the commander of his kingdom who resided in Stall One of the ICU barn behind my house. Far before we had the ranch, he attracted the hugs and tears of many volunteers and became the center of attention to Cheryl, the Barn Mom.
Because of his blindness and because there is a small pond on the back of the pasture, Nelson stayed in his stall most of the time. He has a small paddock behind his stall and he often wandered back to sniff noses with other horses, but his main activity was walking around his stall, sleeping and banging the door in happiness when Cheryl or I arrived with the promise of either food or snacks. His stall was the only one I could see from my office window. With the barn light always kept on, he was the first horse I’d see in the morning and the last horse I’d see at night.
It seems like a hundred horses passed through my gates, but the one that always remained was Nelson. He was always there, always ready for grooming, for hugging, always willing to listen when I had to talk to someone and no one else would listen. He became like a rock, a cornerstone, always solid and firm and never having a bad day. In that sense, I depended on him far more than he realized.
When the ranch opened, the small three stall barn behind my house because the official ICU barn, the place where the really sick horses came to get well. Many of them didn’t make it. Stall two and three were the final stops for what seemed like an endless stream of terminal horses. Nelson knew and often stood silently while those final moments of courage and despair took place within a few feet of where he stood. He knew when vets and volunteers crowded into other stalls, for he stood quietly and waited and listened.
When Rebecca moved she offered an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. She opened her barn and her arms to those few horses still residing here. Nelson, Nichol and Blinky jumped in the trailer and never thought about looking back. Their new home was a thousand times better than my ragged, old barn. Before long, Nelson was running with the herd, in love with Nichol, bouncing off other horses instead of just touching noses, and walking large pastures instead of walking around in circles in his stall. The best part of it all was that Cheryl came with them, complete with her bag of cookies, and Rebecca gave far more hugs than I ever could.
Nelson could not have been happier. He had scrapes and cuts, became dented and bruised, but it was because he was free to be with others, free to wander on his own, free as he was meant to be, as free as his blindness allowed. He bounced into walls and fences and trees, but he stood beside the mare he loved and played at grazing on grass that he couldn’t chew. After all those years he finally became a real horse, a stud, and the barn at Sunny Brook Farm often echoed with the wild cry of the stallion calling his mares to him. For all he knew, he was the leader of the herd, traveling far and wide through the wild, golden pastures of the west. Cheryl and her bag of cookies did not shatter his dreams. To him, no doubt, that was the way wild horses lived - unseen hands gave out Equine Senior and beet pulp before sunrise, at noon and late in the evening. Mares with high voices hugged and kissed on him and cookies would suddenly appear before his lips. He was the Admiral, after all, and being the leader of the herd, such things were expected.
What Nelson didn’t know was that cancer had taken over his body. Open, festering sores drew flies and blood started dripping out. What he didn’t understand was that his mares could offer no cure, nor could that other male, the one called Jerry, and that meant that his herd had a decision to make.
We made that decision today. Nelson’s worn out body is now beneath the same tree as Willie and Kelly, and close to the only dog he knew, Jake. It is right that he should be there. He was my friend, and that’s where the bodies of so many of my friends are – beneath the soil of the pastures on which horses roam.
Life as we know it is such a small part of infinity, but it is all we truly know. Were we to live a week or were we to live a thousand years, it would make no difference, for we would love and, if all were fair, we would be loved in return. Nelson knew love, of that I am sure. For all the horror done to him, he forgave and forgot and moved on to greater dreams. Now, perhaps, those dreams are a reality. I pray that it is so.
For Nelson will not go gently into the night. He will roar, his hooves will stomp the ground until the earth shakes beneath him and he will charge forth across the golden plains, demanding his herd and challenging all who stand in his way. He is a leader, and his destiny is nothing less than to have his own kingdom.
And if God is a good God, as I believe He is, He’ll offer Nelson a cookie and a hug before the sun sets in the western skies of Heaven.
Goodbye, my friend. I will always love you.
Jerry Finch
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