Swept Away at the River Crossing

Mid-channel the current shoved a drowned cottonwood into you both, and the horse went under the tangle and did not come up. You clawed to the bank alone, and there is no medicine in any saddlebag that works underwater. A quarter mile down, the river gives the body back in a drift of branches, quiet as an apology it does not mean.

• Your horse is gone, the river does not sell them back
• You are half-drowned yourself: coughing river and shaking for the rest of the day
• Saddle, bags, and gear went down with it, tally what you owned this morning
• /me stands hatless at the drift pile, one hand resting on the wet mane

Recovery The chill passes by tomorrow. The rest of it does not keep a clock.·No doctor needed

It went under twice in the brown water before your loop caught its head and you dragged it grounding onto a gravel bar. It lay flat a long minute, river running out of its nostrils, then coughed itself back into the world. The danger is not over, a horse with river in its lungs takes chest fever fast, and the next week is blankets, steam, and listening at its ribs.

• All-night vigil tonight, walk it, blanket it, listen to its breathing
• No work of any kind for 7 days; fever checks morning and night for 5
• Steam its head over a bucket of hot bran mash twice daily for 4 days
• /me presses an ear flat to the wet ribs, counting the rattles

Recovery 7 days of blankets and fever-watching with a horse doctor near, without one, the rattle in its chest gets the deciding vote.·Doctor, urgently

The current took you both down through a hundred yards of rapids and used the horse for a bell clapper the whole way. It stands on the far bank at last, streaming and swaying: a gash along the haunch that wants silk sutures, legs stone-bruised from knee to hoof, and one eye swelling shut where a boulder said hello.

• Sutures in the haunch, carbolic wash and fresh dressing daily for 7 days
• No saddle for 7 days; the stone-bruised legs allow a slow lead-out walk only
• The swollen eye has it spooking at everything on the near side for 4 days
• A long white scar down the haunch when it heals, the river's signature

Recovery A week to walk sound and near a month back to the saddle, half again all of it without a doctor's needle and carbolic.·Doctor, urgently

The horse rolled midstream and your boot hung in the stirrup, three heartbeats dragged under brown water, bounced off a rock that cracked something in your side, before the leather gave and spat you loose. You crawled out fifty yards down. The horse made the bank on its own and stands looking at you like you were the problem.

• A cracked rib, wrapped tight, no lifting, no roping, no laughing for 7 days
• Coughing up river water for 2 days; your chest burns with every deep breath
• A bruise the shape of a river rock from hip to armpit, a campfire exhibit
• The horse is unhurt, which you may mention bitterly

Recovery Wrapped and rested it settles over 7 hard days, the knitting runs weeks beyond, ridden gently. Unwrapped, every trot is a knife.·Doctor required

It swallowed and breathed more river than a horse is built for, and now it stands head-low with a deep wet cough that bends its whole body. Not drowning, not well, the in-between place where an 1899 horseman earns his keep: rest, warmth, steam, and honest prayer against the fever that loves a wet lung.

• Full rest for 4 days, picketed warm, no work, no travel
• Steam its head over hot mash twice daily for 3 days
• Listen at the ribs morning and night for 4 days, a new rattle means ride for the doctor

Recovery 5 days coughing itself clear under care, 7 and a fevered gamble without it.·Doctor required

The far side was a cutbank, and the horse clawed and slid twice back into the water before it heaved out over the lip. The price is written on its hind legs: torn by roots and buried stones from hock to pastern, every cut packed with river mud that must come out before it festers.

• Scrub every cut with carbolic water daily for 5 days, the mud is the enemy
• Hind legs stiff and sore, walking pace only for 3 days
• Watch the pasterns for greasy heel where the mud sat wet, for 5 days

Recovery 5 days to clean, scabbed legs with daily scrubbing, skipped days buy fever and a lame week.·Doctor required

Snowmelt water, and too long in it. You both came out the far side shaking too hard to be much use, your fingers will not close on a match and the horse stands humped and miserable, coat steaming into the cold air. Nothing is torn or broken; everything is simply freezing, and the next hour decides whether this stays a story.

• Build a fire NOW, the next hour of your life is firewood, friction, and swearing
• The horse wears your spare blanket and travels nowhere until tomorrow
• Your hands are too stiff for gun, rope, or buttons for the rest of the day
• /me hunches shaking over the fire, hands shoved under the horse's blanket for warmth

Recovery A night by a big fire sets you both right, camp wet and cold instead, and a chest fever finds one of you by morning.·Doctor required

It fought the current crossways the whole swim, driving with its hind end against water that would not negotiate, and by evening one hock is hot, puffed, and unhappy. Strained, not torn, says the man who knows, cold wraps and patience. Your bedroll, meanwhile, made its own crossing and is presently en route to the Gulf of Mexico.

• Cold river-water wraps on the hock twice daily for 4 days
• Walking pace only for 4 days, no hills, no hurry
• Your bedroll is gone downstream, buy, borrow, or sleep cold

Recovery 4 days of cold wraps and the puffiness falls, worked hot, it thickens into a 7-day limp.·Doctor required

It took a little water going over, enough to leave a soft, huffing cough that shows up at the cinch and at the trot, though the horse is bright-eyed and eating like a senator. Light duty and a dry picket while the lungs clear themselves; it earned that much just by keeping your boots dry.

• Light work only for 3 days, no gallop, no hauling
• A soft cough at every cinch-up for 4 days, other riders will comment
• Keep it out of rain and cold wind for 3 days

Recovery 3 days to a clear chest resting, 5 if you work it wet and cold.·Doctor advised

The river let you go and the bank took you instead, hock-deep mud that swallowed the horse to the belly two strides from dry ground. It took your lariat to a leaning willow and an ugly half hour of heaving before the mud gave it up with a sound like a pulled boot. Both of you are painted brown to the ears.

• Strained hindquarters from the hauling, no speed and no hills for 3 days
• An hour of scraping mud off horse, saddle, and self before anything else happens
• The horse refuses soft-looking ground with great conviction for 5 days

Recovery 3 days for the hind end to loosen, 4 if it stands cold and stiff.·Doctor advised

You had ridden it hard since sunup, and the swim on top of the miles emptied the last of it, it staggered out of the shallows, went down trembling on the sand, and would not rise for a long, frightening while. Not hurt. Spent. Ridden to collapse, the way the flat-out habit ruins good horses, and tonight the debt comes due to you personally.

• No riding for 2 days, it rests, full stop, while you walk
• Rub it dry and feed warm bran mash twice daily for 2 days
• It goes reluctant into water of any depth for 5 days
• /me rubs the trembling horse down with a saddle blanket, murmuring apologies

Recovery 2 days of mash and rest brings it back, asked for more work instead, it breaks down properly and takes a week.·Doctor advised

The horse crossed honest, but the river went through your rigging like a pickpocket, saddlebags torn off at the buckle, slicker gone, half your provisions feeding the fish. And the soaked cinch worked a raw gall behind the elbow before you noticed, the small mean cost of hurrying wet leather.

• Girth gall salved daily, ride loose-cinched or bareback for 2 days
• Backtrack the bank an hour hoping the river snagged your bags on a sweeper
• Some of what you carried is simply gone, narrate the tally

Recovery The gall skins over in 3 days salved, a week if the cinch keeps chewing it.·Doctor advised

Midstream the horse lurched and swung you sidelong into a submerged boulder, and your knee took the introduction. You kept your seat and made the bank, but the joint is swelling in your boot as you sit there, hot and tight and of firm opinions about stairs, stirrups, and standing up.

• A pronounced limp for 3 days, mount from a stump, a rock, or a friend
• Cold wet cloths wrapped on the knee each night for 2 days
• The boot goes on hard and comes off harder for 3 days

Recovery 3 days to walk it quiet, 5 if you insist on being useful.·Doctor advised

You made it, you, the horse, and forty pounds of gear that now weighs eighty. Matches ruined, tobacco a brown paste, hardtack swollen like a drowned man's boots, and every stitch on your body wringing wet with evening coming on cold. Nobody is hurt. Everybody is miserable.

• No dry matches, beg a light off a stranger or fight it out with flint and steel
• Dry the bedroll by the fire tonight or sleep in a wet blanket and regret it
• The horse gives every puddle a dark look for 2 days
• /me wrings a steady stream of river out of one sock, then the other

Recovery One smoky evening by the fire and the misery is a story by breakfast.·No doctor needed

The crossing went fine right up until the far-bank mud, which held on to a front shoe like it had a lien on it. The shoe is gone to the river's collection, and on gravel your horse walks like a man with one boot, tender, head-bobbing, and put-upon.

• Lead the horse over gravel and rock until it is shod, riding soft ground only, 1 day
• A farrier visit before any hard travel
• The bare hoof chips at the edge, note it for the farrier's lecture

Recovery An hour under the farrier's hands, a day of tender-footing until then.·No doctor needed

The current won the argument and took you both a hundred yards downstream, then set you down soft as a parcel on a mid-river sandbar. You waded the last shallow channel leading the horse, laughing the unsteady laugh of a man who has just been handled gently by something enormous.

• One scraped fetlock, salved once and forgotten
• Your heart runs high the rest of the afternoon
• You study every river twice before entering for days after

Recovery A salve and a sit-down, both of you sound by supper.·No doctor needed

The horse dropped into an unseen hole mid-ford and lurched, and for one long heartbeat you were going over the downstream side, saved by a fistful of mane and language unfit for church. You ride out the far side with one boot full of river and your rifle held high, dry as scripture.

• One boot squelches for the rest of the day, blister-watch on that heel
• Bragging rights on the dry rifle, to be exercised freely
• The horse steps like it's testing courtroom evidence at every ford for 2 days

Recovery Dry the boot by the fire tonight and there is nothing to recover from.·No doctor needed

You pointed it at the deep green line and it flatly refused, planted, sidled forty yards downstream against every squeeze of your legs, and stepped off into a gravel ford you never saw, belly-deep at the worst of it. On the far bank you look back at the channel you chose and take your hat off to the animal that overruled you.

• Barely a wet cinch between the two of you
• You owe the horse an apple and a public apology
• From now on you let it pick the line at water, and tell people why

Recovery Nothing to heal but your pride, and that was overdue.·No doctor needed

The bottom dropped away mid-river and the horse never hesitated, ears forward, level as a ferryboat, swimming the deep channel with a power that shrugged at the current. You slid off the downstream side, held the horn, and were towed across like paying freight. It walks out streaming and looking for grass.

• Wet to the waist and grinning about it
• A story for the saloon: the horse that ferried you over the spring flood
• /me pats the streaming neck as the horse walks out like it was nothing

Recovery None needed, the horse would do it again before breakfast.·No doctor needed

You went under in the churn, lost the reins, lost which way was sky, and then the horse came back for you, swinging its hindquarters through the current until your hand found its tail, and it towed you grounding onto the far shallows. And there in the driftwood where you land, snagged and waiting: somebody's lost saddlebag, and in it a bottle of rye and a fold of riverbank dollars. The river took its look at you and paid out instead.

• A salvaged saddlebag: a bottle of rye and a few dollars, courtesy of the current
• The horse that swam back for you gets whatever it wants for life
• The story is true and you have the bag to prove it, tell it forever
• /me raises the river-found bottle to the horse before taking the first pull

Recovery None required, the river settled its account in full.·No doctor needed