Early one morning in August 1969 we left Alvin and headed towards Tucson. We had a nice Mercury nine-passenger station wagon that was still fairly new. And we had a used truck your Dad bought. All I remember is that it was white. Your Dad built a cage over the truck bed to put the dogs in and to carry hay for the horses. We sold all the horses but two. Sioux P and the little Galicino, a Spanish breed that is built like a quarter horse, but much smaller.
We didn't have a real horse trailer, but rather a cattle trailer. It was not very sturdy, and was meant for short hauls. It was made of wood slats and did not have a covered top. Dad and Bill were in the truck with our St. Bernard, Cindy, and our little Rat Terrior, Chiggers in the truck bed with the hay. The horses were anchored to the back of the truck in their flimsy trailer. Chiggers had to have tranquilizers because she was terrified of riding in a vehicle. Cindy loved it. I followed in the station wagon. Stephen sat in front with me; all the girls (minus Mary who was headed to school in Missouri) were in the back - Catherine, Barbie, Lea and Missy.
Catherine had just returned from a big Jesus festival in Mississippi and had learned a lot of new choruses. She kept the girls occupied teaching them all her new songs. I kept Stephen in the front becaue he was such a tease and I didn't want to hear the girls railing against him.
I'm sure we stopped for breakfast somewhere. We usually left for trips very early and then ate along the way. We had probably been on the road two or three hours, probably an hour from Austin, when we started down a rather steep incline. Daddy and Bill were in the lead. The trailer began to weave back and forth. The rocking became more violent until they were lurching dangerously and headed toward a ravine at the bottom of the hill. Quite honestly, I panicked. I pulled off the road, threw my arms around the steering wheel, buried my head in my arms and screamed, "Everybody pray in tongues."
I don't know how many minutes passed, or even what made me willing to look up. Maybe one of the kids said everything is OK. When I looked up Daddy had stopped the truck and both it and the trailer were upright. Souix P had been thrown out of the side of the trailer and this had enabled Daddy to get control of the truck. Her lead rope held for a time and she became an anchor as she was dragged along the road.
Daddy and Bill managed to get her back in the trailer and make it up the hill to a filling station. They gave us the name of a vet and we called him. He came out and they were able to tie Souix P to the little Galicino so that he was supporting her. They somehow stabalized everything so we were able to make it to the small farming community just ahead.
Souix P was badly injured. She was skinned to the bones in several places. One hoof was nearly torn off. It was awful -- she looked awful. The vet pur our horses into a small corral with a couple other horses. He began to go all over Sioux P, feeling all her bones and putting some sort of black goo over all the skinned places. The little Galicino took over protecting her. Souix P had been the queen bee, but now the Galicino was the top honcho! He wouldn't let the other horses near her. The vet said there was no way Souix P would be able to make a trip like we were looking at, even if she was able to really heal from all her wounds, and he wasn't sure she would heal. We had planned on taking a month to get out to Tucson.
We made arrangements to meet him at 5:00am the next morning and assess what we should do.
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