Stories
Gone Ishing
My long love affair with the horse Ishiwah
page 2
Buffalo are routinely a part of every ride as are elk and often grizzly bears.
Out in the valley Ish and I overlook a buffalo wallow in a carpet of spring flowers.
Never has there been more a "Yellowstone Horse" than Ishiwah Fuller, but still, he has never been able to fully trust geysers.
As autumn slips into winter we ride along the rim of the Grand Canyon, where a month ago bus loads of visitors congregated.
In early November the deep snow begins to accumulate and soon it is too deep for either of us to enjoy riding anymore. So, with a heavy heart, I load him into the horse trailer and haul him down to the low country valley in Montana where he will winter.
Ishiwah was killed in an accident in winter pasture down there in Montana on October 24 while I was camping in the Richtersveld on a full moon night on the Orange River in southwest Africa. This isn't Ishiwah, but when I look at it I think of him....This is my Orick. Ishiwah still visits me in my dreams and I always welcome his coming.
In the summer of 2002 a good prospect finally came into my life. Then in August of this year, when we were becoming one with one another, he was traumatized by a very close encounter with a grizzly bear day bedded on an elk carcass.