(I love writing about cowboys. I found this story in my archives, told to me by longtime Fort Collins resident and former co-worker Nicholas Rael. I remembered it today when my writing/readers group, Sisters in Crime Colorado, started talking about lightning.)
***
Timing is everything. That was especially true the day Juan Rael saw the horse in the sale yard.
Blood bay, tall and powerful, the gelding had the look of an eagle, the body of an athlete, and high-stepped like a parade horse.
Juan Rael loved horses. Juan Rael hated horses. They drove a practical man like him crazy sometimes with their unpredictable and demanding ways.
People remembered long after Juan died that the day he switched from ranching with horses to ranching with tractors, Juan also quit swearing.
Juan went out window-shopping for ranch stock that day in the 1930’s. He took one look at the bay and knew the animal carried good blood.
Juan timed his bidding perfectly and went home with the horse they later called “El Bayo”.
El Bayo soon made it clear that he would not work for everyone.
“He was highly-spirited and he loved to prance,” said Juan’s youngest son, Nicholas Rael, who lived through what he calls “a strange love story”.
Nicholas grew up working for his father on Rancho Uraca (Magpie Ranch) in a valley at the foot of Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
“El Bayo was very, very big.,” said Nicholas. “Not just any person could ride that horse.”
One man fell in love with El Bayo, and that was Luciano Jaramillo, Juan’s dashing, part Ute Indian brother-in-law and partner. Apparently the feeling was mutual.
“The horse has fallen in love with me,” Luciano would tell Juan.
“Careful, that’s my horse,” Juan would reply.
Partners do not always agree, and on those days, Luciano, who liked Juan almost as much as he loved El Bayo, would again point out the horse’s passion for him, and him alone.
“No, if you fire me,” Luciano would tell Juan, “he’s going with me.” The repartee marked a daily rhythm, and El Bayo and Luciano soon became a team.
It was irrigation season, and the brothers-in-law would switch shifts, sometimes working early, sometimes working through the afternoon to shepherd the flow of precious ditch water. Again, timing was everything.
Luciano and El Bayo took the early shift. In those days, ranchers used horses, not motorcycles, four-wheelers or all-terrain-vehicles to get around. Juan agreed to take over for Luciano at midday.
Hot summer days in Colorado often bring violent thunderstorms, and this day proved true to form. They think Luciano and El Bayo worked through the storm.
Juan rode out to the hay fields when the weather cleared, and for a long while could find neither El Bayo nor Luciano.
“He called and called. There was no answer,” said Nicholas. Finally Juan saw a heap in the distance. He spurred his own mount closer.
Luciano and El Bayo lay together next to an outlying ditch, Luciano still in the saddle. Both were dead. A black scorch mark ran through the gullet of the saddle and down the horse’s back.
“El Bayo’s tail was blown completely off,” said Nicholas. The two had been hit by lightning. “There was not a mark on Luciano. He never knew what hit him.”
Juan returned home to tell his family of the tragedy that young Nicholas would never forget. From that day on, whenever Juan talked about Luciano, he would quip, “Well, I didn’t fire him, but he took my horse.”
(More of my writing: https://prstables.com/books/)