Chapter 4: Break From The Border

Riding the Outlaw Trail

Back on the trail the battle to get the horses moving along smoothly was becoming a war of attrition. We had grossly underestimated how awkward this form of travel might be. The horses were no more a team than we were. They were acquired from different remudas and constantly fought for the lead, swinging and jerking the lead ropes out of Barbara's and Simon's hands.

After a couple of hours trailing through sand dunes and scrub, two water canteen bottle straps snapped, adding to our frustration. Once we switched from the line of the railroad track to a compass heading the navigation got much harder. Distant points of reference would disappear as we rode into dead ground. Altitude slowly decreased from 4,400 to 3,250 feet and the heat rose commensurately. By four that afternoon Joe decided to call it a day and we stopped at Strauss.

We pitched up near a homestead and coaxed the horses to a stagnant green pond but they refused to drink. The homesteaders arrived, gave permission to use their corrals, pointed us in the right direction for tomorrow and wished us the best of luck, together with the cheerful information that they were currently in their seventh year of drought.

We picketed the horses in the corrals on 'T' hitches to evaluate their suitability for later, laid our bedrolls, ate supper and by nine pm collapsed into our sleeping bags for the first night under the stars. All around the hum and whirr of insects and other desert nightlife was punctuated by the snorting of our horses. Overhead the clarity of the stars was reduced by the massive orange haze that marked El Paso. We had ridden a grand total of seven miles. I slept.

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