Youtube recording
available; also available at Project Playlist--make sure you search "Bible Study Marco Beltrami" or you will get recordings of sermons and such. While you might be into that sort of thing, it's certainly not the subject of my entry today.
I listen to a lot of film scores; I find them much more emotional than classical or baroque music though I'm sure there's a certain level of tackiness associated with listening to movie music (this from the girl who does musical freestyle reining--I am the queen of tackiness.) There are actually a lot of scores I have for movies I haven't ever seen (Last of the Mohicans, Last Samurai, National Treasure, Pearl Harbor, The Fountain, Mists of Avalon, and so on) but in some ways I like this better--I can imagine my own storyline, cut my own film with shots from whatever is going on at the time. Though Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is one of my favorite films, I had all sorts of moments already associated with it before I even saw the movie, because Ben sent the soundtrack to me in Wyoming long before I was able to get to the film.
I did see 3:10 To Yuma before finding this piece, but that didn't stop me from running it through my head after one of my first mornings on the ranch last summer, imagining the scene from above, from before us, from behind us, beside us, close up or panoramic. I can call it like I imagine it, or I can tell it like I saw it. Both are beautiful moments in their own ways.
Dawn in Wyoming: see the sandy dirt turn golden with the light's first touch. Panoramic view of the snowcapped Absarokas as the sun rises behind them, illuminating the sage flats where two young women on white horses are cantering through the brush. Close up on the riders as they rein in their champing horses on a slight rise, breathing steam in the chill dawn. One rider nods towards the foothills and points, and they canter off again, the ground rising steadily as their legs brush sage. Cut to view from above as the two riders push a band of horses across the flats, some trotting, many cantering, as many colors as creatures. Close up from just ahead of the herd as they wind down the road to the river, splashing their way across at the fording point, water hitting the morning light with the colors of a jewelry box.
"You know, I thought it would get better the longer we were out here...but I think it's actually getting fucking worse." Richard speaks wryly; he sounds as though he's balanced on the edge of laughter, and I glance down to see the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes crinkle up as he grins up at me, water dripping off the edge of his hat. His poodle (a poodle, of all dogs to have on a ranch) is wet and floppy in his lap as he sits on the idling four-wheeler. My mount, Whitey--this was before I renamed the poor thing Gray Lady--fidgets from side to side; no one would have guessed that an old mare like her would be so fired up this early in the morning. And yet here we are, at dawn, though you couldn't tell from looking at the sky--the clouds are thick, and at the very moment Richard starts to bitch about the weather, it changes to snow, large wet flakes that stick clumpily to the sage and rapidly soak through our layers and down to the skin of our mounts. Hadley is riding Pocahontas, another unfortunately-named creature, the handy Appaloosa with ranch instincts. She discusses where to split with her husband, and finally she and I head towards the gorge while Richard roars off on the forest road to check the gates.
Our search is fairly feeble--we come up with a handful of horses. I drive the four or five down towards the river valley myself as Hadley heads up the hill, having spotted another small band halfway up. At the bridge, I send my horses across for the wranglers to chase into the corral--it's already well past breakfast, since the horses have scattered wide and far on the 800 acres available to them and aren't coming in easily despite the weather. I head back out over the sage alone, my ears picking up the revving of a distant four-wheeler.
Hadley appears at the top of the ridge and I ride up to her for instructions. "I couldn't get them down off the hill, but we won't bother with them now," she says quickly. "They were surrounded by coyotes though. There must be a new den up there." She and I both turn to look up the forest road as Richard rises into view, driving over twenty horses at a good pace. "Oh, well done Richard!" We join him, yipping and hissing at the herd to drive them down the hill and over the bridge. We ride into the corral where the dry and breakfasted wranglers take our horses from us, ordering us into the kitchen to dry and get a hot meal. Mel comes out a few minutes later to tell us that she's cancelled all the rides that day anyway. Our morning ride in the snow was all for naught. I rose at six to ride in the cold for nothing--but no ride to me is ever wasted, and since this is my first morning wrangling, I can't really complain.
On another morning, my last morning at the ranch, I head up to the Bench pastures--now that summer is in full swing, the horses do not roam free any longer but spend the nights on the mile-wide Bench to feed. Already the days are growing visibly shorter--it's only just getting light as I rev the four-wheeler and start the ascent to the pastures, the rocks and ditches on the road barely visible to me. Fortunately this is a journey I've made dozens of times this summer, and I could practically drive up the hill with my eyes closed, knowing exactly where to speed up, slow down, dodge or turn.
At the top of the meadow the horses are already running towards the gate, having heard the engine long before I reached the summit. I fling open the gates and nip inside quickly before the flood of horseflesh begins; I roll into fourth gear and speed across the flat pasture, the wind tearing my eyes and whipping back my hair. The horses are running, those furthest from the gate creeping forward like a steady tide, and I zip around to follow them across, yip-yipping behind them, shouting the names of the slow ones ("Charlie! Winchester! GIT GOIN!")
By the time I roll the four-wheeler back into the shed, the dust only just beginning to settle from the passage of a hundred and twenty horses, the sun is just peeking over the edge of the mountains.