Oscar Casares
Tall In the Saddle
My 91-year-old father had many jobs: taxi driver, fireman, farmworker. But nothing defined him more than the time he spent on horseback patrolling the mighty Rio Grande.
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At that point, every boy on the street started begging, “Me, sir! Pick me, sir!” frantically waving his hands. Then my father reached down and lifted me high into the air until he gently sat me down in the saddle. Once I was secure, he tugged on the pommel and cantle.
“Does it feel tight enough?” he asked.
And I nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”
He gripped my hands around the horn. “Hold on then.”
The stirrups hung far below my feet, but my father was guiding the horse by the reins. I could see the other boys trailing us—some jogging so they wouldn’t fall behind, others keeping pace on their bikes—as we walked to an empty lot, made a huge circle, and headed back home.
After 33 years of service, my father retired from the USDA and sold the last horse he would ride. For the next 22 years he stayed at home, mainly working in the yard. He was in good health for a man in his seventies, then eighties, and eventually nineties. About the only thing that bothered him was a weak left leg—the same leg that caused him to fall, break his hip, and wind up in the nursing home.
As I put together the collage for his room, I made sure to include the color photo of him on horseback. I tried to use only the best images, but I knew anything I chose would be better than his staring at a blank wall.
When I walked in the next day, my father was lying in bed, waiting for his physical therapy class.
“What do you have there?” he said as he watched me tape the poster to the wall.
“You’ll see.”
When I stepped away, he looked at the images for a long time, allowing his eyes to focus on faces he hadn’t seen in years. Each photo had a story that he wanted to tell me, some of it as clear as if it had happened that morning, other parts fogged over by his medication and years of living. I helped him where I could, giving him clues to see if he could recall the name of an old friend or one of his partners from work. A couple times he had trouble remembering relatives who’d died years ago. Once I said the name, he’d nod and repeat it—“Rodolfo,” “Rodolfo”—as though all along it had been on the tip of his tongue.
After a while, he squinted and pointed at the color photo of himself on the horse.
“And that one?” he said.
“That’s you. Remember?”
My father glanced up at me and shook his head. “No, I mean the horse. Which one is it?” Then he grabbed ahold of the bed railing and pulled himself up for a better look.
“Junior?” I said, reminding him of his habit of naming each horse after the man he’d bought it from.
“Nah, you don’t know what you’re saying,” he told me. “Junior was a lighter color.”
My father stared at the horse for some time, as if he might will the name back to him after so many years. Finally he lay down and looked off at the retractable curtain to his left.
I wanted to ask what year he thought he’d bought the horse, but I figured this would frustrate him even more, since over the years he had bought and sold several horses. The photo looked old enough for anyone to forget some of the details. Still, I could tell he was upset that he couldn’t remember the name. For years after he’d retired, he’d spent his nights dreaming that he was still patrolling his 35-mile stretch of territory, starting alongside the dusty farmlands and ending at the mouth of the river, where he would gaze out at the Gulf of Mexico.
A few minutes later, my father looked at the photo, again. A nurse’s aide walked in about this time, ready to take him to his physical therapy. She was a young, heavyset woman, big around the shoulders, in a way that must have helped her when she had to move a patient.
The aide greeted both of us but then quickly got distracted and walked straight to the collage on the wall.
“¿Un vaquero?” she said, widening her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder. “Ay, sir, why didn’t you tell us you were a cowboy?”
My father pretended he didn’t hear her and adjusted the collar of his pajamas.
The aide shrugged and then pulled out the wheelchair, parked in a corner. She was lowering the bed railing when an older nurse rushed in and said she needed her help.
“I’ll be right back, sir,” the aide said, before hurrying out the door.
My father mumbled something and sat up. I asked him to wait for the nurse’s aide to get back, but he wasn’t listening. He turned so his legs were dangling off the side of the bed.
“Come closer,” he said.
I moved the chair up a little and locked the wheels. Then I squatted and put my arms around my father’s waist, as he took ahold of my shoulders. I counted to three and slowly raised him, surprised at how light he felt in my arms. When I had him standing, he turned his feet enough for me to lower him into the chair.
I was adjusting the footrests when the aide walked back in.
“Already you got in the chair?” she said.
My father nodded and looked to his right, toward the photo. The aide turned the wheelchair away from the bed. They were almost out of the room when he raised his hand and asked her to stop. Then he called me over.
“What is it?” I said.
“Billy.”
“What?” I leaned down so I could hear him.
“The horse, in the photo—his name was Billy.”
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