By Peter Christensen

Op-Ed Commentary

Joe MacDonald, an old-time guide, was working Toby Creek. He was guiding a hunter from an urban centre in the US and was riding his favorite saddle horse, a big blonde quarter-horse with a dark mane named Sugar.

It was Joe’s custom to turn Sugar loose to graze when he and his client were up-country sitting at the base of a slide-path in the evening waiting for an elk to bugle.

Leaving the horse untied did not sit well with the urban hunter. He wanted the horse tied up. In his mind they were a long way out in the wilderness although in reality a few hours walk would have brought them to base camp, maybe half a day’s walk to the trucks. Joe assured his hunter that Sugar would not go anywhere. The hunter kept insisting that Joe tie up his horse.

Exasperated Joe finally asked, “Why do you want the horse tied up?”

“Because he might run home and leave us stranded!” said the hunter.

“Run home!” Said Joe, “this is home.”

I was guiding a hunter up the Middle Fork of the Findley Creek on an elk hunt, we had waited at the bottom of a slide-path till dark before starting the ride back to base camp. About half an hour down the trail, I could hear the man quietly sobbing. True enough, it was very dark. I had instructed him to give his horse lots of rein as horses found their way with their heads down about an inch off the ground, smelling their way along the trail.

I was not worried, for an experienced trail horse an hour walk along a familiar trail was not a big deal. Nor was it worrisome for this “night rider.” All I had to do was stay centred and keep my head tipped down so that my full brim cowboy hat could do its job of keeping sticks out of my eyes. We were moving slow but steady. The sobbing got louder.

I stopped the procession and went back to talk to the man. I assured him that the moon would be up soon and visibility would be good. I said being scared was nothing to be ashamed of; however, his attention would be better used to stay centred on his horse.

“Just give the horse her head and you will be alright.”

I suggested that if he felt like it, he could sing. It would calm him and let any bear or other animal know we were coming. I remounted and we continued our slow amble down the trail towards camp. After a while I could hear him singing an old hymn, ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’ He had a deep choir practised voice.

“Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
Darkness be over me, my rest a stone,

Yet in my dreams I’d be
Nearer, my God, to Thee.”

This was my father’s favorite hymn; he was a Christian and believed in God.

Hearing the hunter sing brought a childhood image of my father, a farmer, a big bellied man over six feet, with a baritone voice, standing in the corral behind the barn leaning on a pitchfork singing. It was a spring day and the sun had broken through heavy clouds. He had paused from his work to enjoy the sun and express through song his desire for closeness to God.

After a time, the full moon came over the ridge and shed a tumbling light on the boulder strewn creek the hunter and I were ambling beside; with the risen moon the hunter stopped singing as did the memory of my father.

Peter Christensen is a Columbia Valley based writer and poet.

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