Cowgirls swimming upstream

An unusual spring morning greets us as we head north. The saddle creaks as Sting rocks me slowly up the trail in the noonday sun. Ten women, spaced every one hundred feet or so rode on horseback ahead of me. One of them, begins singing,

All I'm ready to do is have some fun
What's all this talk about love
I'm ready to run
I'm ready to run
I'm ready to run

Two more voices joined in, alto and base, harmonizing.

I was thinking how pretty the view and the sound of capable women singing as we slung along the trail high in the mountains.

Each spring this group of friends hosts a trail ride at different ranches in the county. The ride would last several days. The women set up their own version of "camping" out under the stars and prepare all the meals together. We would ride horseback each day, discovering the varied terrain, grasses, wildflowers and wildlife in different regions of this northwestern county. It was a nice break from our families and a chance to visit with other women with common interests.

Unlike me, most of them had traditional lives, taking care of their husbands and kids, daily ranch chores, tending stock and large gardens. And unlike Annette, my good friend. We called her the cosmic cowgirl. I was her sidekick as she had taught me many of her horsewoman skills.

Long before we met, she was running a family owned 25,000 acre ranch high in the Bald Hills. A redneck rodeo barrel racer, she used to ride 30 miles downhill to the local country store for a candy bar, just to get out of the house. Now three daughters later and a divorce behind her, she began to discover her ‘psychic’ skills. Anything she did was full bore.

Re-entry college students, we had been ‘playing’ in the dimensions all through college, learning and then teaching others to practice the latent abilities that lie within each of us. Our art classes included meditation, clairsentience, and clairvoyance - exploring different ways to interpret the information received. We also grew herbs in our gardens along with muti-hued flowers that attracted hummingbirds.

Her horse, Sting was an old friend, a heavily-muscled quarterhorse/morgan cross with great athletic ability and versatitlity. I knew that he could probably run a quarter mile faster than any other horse in this string. He was coal dark and handsome, a stout and steady mountain horse, with a cooperative disposition..

Now, reining him up the trail, my tail bones ached as I knew they would. My face was getting sunburned and I was thirsty, but I still wouldn’t trade this time with the ‘cowbelles’ for any city pleasure.

Later we stopped for the night on a shady plateau above a slower clear mountain stream. Unloading our saddle bags and sleeping gear, some of us gathered firewood, others started dinner or took care of letting the horses out to graze, rubbing them down, checking their feet.

It had been a long second day, we were all tired, and as we laid around the campfire that warm spring night, they asked us whether we had brought the brownies.

“You ladies all want to try em”, we laughed. “We said we would bring them and we did, but you you can’t tell anyone we were the ones who made them.”

“Oh come on, we all know what you all grow in your gardens. And out here this is our chance to try it.” More than several of the women were nodding their heads eagerly.

“Ok, here’s the deal,” we said. “Each of you that want some, get a quarter of a brownie and see how you feel. Then if you think you want some more, we will monitor how much.”

Breaking off pieces, over half of the group started munching. Soon someone picked up a guitar and began playing George Straight.

‘I wanna dance with you
twirl you all around the floor
that's what they intended dancing for
I just wanna dance with
I wanna dance with you
hold you in my arms once more
that's what they invented dancing for
I just wanna dance with you’

We sang and giggled and drank beer and told stories about heartaches and good times for a quite awhile before that fire. The moon came out all silvery and lit the river below in arching light and shifting shadows. The ladies were high on each other’s company and brownie medicine.

The night was warm by the fire and the soon jackets and blouses were stripped off. Someone suggested a swim in the moonlight.

“Ok, let’s get naked and everybody stay close.” All but a few splashed in, our bodies in all shapes and sizes, matrons and daughters-in-laws, buxom and white, swimming in the mountains on a starry night.

“I feel like a salmon swimming up stream,” someone yelled. And so we pretended we were. Eleven beautiful, bare beauties, free of responsibilities and children, husbands, or chores, spawning in a wild green river on a clear spring night.

Later, as I got out of the river to dry off, I glanced over to the horses tethered in the meadow nearby. Sting turned his head and stared at me with those big, expressive intelligent eyes. Was that a wink I saw or was he just blinking sleepily at me.

“I know, bud. Kind of crazy, us human kind.” He just reached down for another clump of grass doing his job, being a horse. Tomorrow he would haul me over another mountain, cantering over the rolling coastal hills back to home.

The “Salmon Run” became a legend amongst some folks on ranches in Northern California and some ladies are still practicing the psychic arts.