The Strange Horse Appearance
-- by Bev Huber

In October we had one of the most strange occurrences take place since Roy and I have been married. This in itself is a story and a half spanning almost two months, with a bitter-sweet ending!! (Names have been changed to preserve confidentiality.)

It all started Saturday evening, October 21, 2000. We had gone to dinner and shopping and were to meet our friends back at the house later. After arriving home, Roy went to the barn to clean Buffy’s stall and hang the ball we had gotten for her. She is a 4 year old Palomino mare. She loves playing with soccer balls in the pasture so we thought we would get her another ball and hang it from the ceiling so she can play while she’s in her stall.

I had collected our packages from shopping and was carrying them into the house when our friends pulled up. The three of us went in the front door and were talking while I put the packages down when all of a sudden we heard Roy yelling "Annie, get out here!!" I immediately thought Buffy was hurt. I grabbed the flashlight and ran out there, not knowing what to expect. I got about half way to the barn when Roy said "You’re not going to believe this…there are TWO horses out here." He’s right, I didn’t believe him and said as much. "Yes, there ARE!! TWO horses!!" I shined the flashlight on one then the other and sure enough, there’s two horses!!

After 45 minutes of looking EVERYWHERE for some kind of message…the answering machine, the mailbox, the barn, and the garage, we DID finally find a note on the front door. That’s right, three of us walked through that door and we ALL missed it.

Our neighbor down the road was on his way home and saw this horse walking down the middle of the road toward our place and thought it was ours. So he, along with the help of other neighbors, walked it a mile to our place.

Of course, when they got here they realized it wasn’t ours since ours was in the pasture. We didn’t know what the horse’s name was so we called him Shadow. When Roy first saw him, he thought it was a shadow of Buffy, until the shadow moved and Buffy didn’t, hence Shadow.

Since neither of our helpful neighbors had a barn or fence to keep the horse, they put him in with ours. We put the word out all over town about this horse. He is a beautiful Appaloosa gelding and he is HUGE!! He has a wonderful disposition!! We told everyone we knew, we called the sheriff’s office, we watched the papers for ads, watched the bulletin boards around town, everything we could think of short of placing an ad ourselves. For 2 ½ weeks no one claimed him, not a word from anyone!

Sunday, the 5th of October we had yet to hear anything, so we decided to build Shadow a "room" of his own. Although, we had had some small discussions about getting another horse, we still had only one stall, for Buffy. We didn’t want Shadow staying outside in the weather and we didn’t want to put Buffy out of her "room" either.

On Monday the 6th of November, Roy started on the new stall for Shadow. We also had the vet out to make sure he was healthy and give him AND Buffy any shots and worming they needed. The vet said he was thin, underfed, and had a cold, but was otherwise healthy. He also said Shadow looked to be about 10 years old.

Roy finished the stall Tuesday, the 7th and one-half hour after he finished it a small, noisy, red pickup truck pulled in the driveway. A frazzled-looking couple got out and claimed the horse as theirs. Shadow was in the stall where they couldn’t see him, so Roy had them describe him. They did.

I was at work at the time. Roy had no choice but to let them have him. We had gotten extremely attached to this 4-legged gentleman over the last couple of weeks. For that reason, Roy was not very pleasant to these strangers. He also was very upset that it took these people so long to come looking for the horse as we had not made a secret of his presence here. He even asked them what took them so long to come after Shadow. Annie M. said that she had been sick for a couple of weeks. We can accept that, but why didn’t her husband come and tell us the horse was hers? If he couldn’t get it home without her help because she was sick, then he could have asked us to keep it a while longer until she was well enough.

Roy did offer to buy Shadow. Annie M. (yup, her name is Annie, too and she also had red hair) said she bought him for $750 from a man in another county and was offered $1,500 for him by someone else and wouldn’t sell him.

The man, JM, asked to borrow our horse trailer because his had a flat tire. Roy said we didn’t have one. Her husband got into the pickup and she sat on the tailgate of the truck with a rope no bigger than a child’s jump rope tied to the horse’s halter and led him home that way for 5 miles. Before they had even gone one-half mile the horse had gotten loose and was running across the neighbor’s cornfield with Annie M. running after him. She did catch him.

Wednesday, November 8th, we were both working. Roy got home before I did and met me half way up the drive and told me to pull around to the barn. As I start driving back I heard him yell "Guess who’s back"!! I was so EXCITED, I sped back to the barn and jumped out of the car leaving the door open and ran in. And sure enough, there stands Shadow in his new stall. Grain was scattered all over the floor between the two stalls.

Without knowing what happened since Shadow hasn’t told us anything yet, we put together our own story of what had happened. We assumed, of course, that Shadow found his own way back, which is amazing in itself. We always keep the big barn doors open during nice weather. We had Shadow’s stall door closed since he wasn’t there. We had bought four new sacks of grain on Sunday along with a new barrel to go with the other one we had to keep the grain in. We had yet to put the grain in the barrels, so the sacks were just sitting on the floor of the barn. When Shadow came back, he was hungry and proceeded to break open a bag and help himself to about 20 pounds of grain. Thank goodness he only opened one bag!! I watched him extremely closely for signs of founder, but he was fine.

We heard that evening part of what really happened and how Shadow got back in his stall.

Our neighbor’s wife, Dorothy told us she had driven by around 7:30 that morning and the little red pickup was in our driveway. Later on, about 10:00 a.m., her husband, Rudy, went by and saw the horse walking around our fence trying to get IN and again at 11:00 still trying.

Our neighbor behind us was working when the couple came to get the horse the day before so knew nothing of what transpired the day before with Shadow’s owners. He saw Shadow loose and thought he had gotten out of our pasture. So he put Shadow in the stall thinking that there was a problem with the pasture and that’s how Shadow got out.

We immediately called the County Sheriff’s office and had a deputy come over to report that the horse was back and to assess the situation. We took him back to the barn to see the horse and the accommodations we had for him. We also told him the story of what had been taking place over the last couple of weeks.

He went to Annie’s house and told her about the horse being here. He advised her to call us and make arrangements to pick Shadow up. He also strongly advised them to get their horse trailer fixed as he did not want them to transport the horse the way they did previously. We did not hear from them that evening or all day Thursday.

Thursday the 9th of November, as we are finishing the cleaning of the stalls and are exiting the barn, this same pickup is coming up the NEIGHBOR’S drive which is attached to our property/fence line. It was very dark outside with no moon. We assumed they were trying to sneak up the neighbor’s drive and get the horse while we weren’t home. They saw us when they were about half way up the to the barn. They stopped, backed out of the neighbor’s drive, and went home. I called the sheriff to let them know what had happened, not expecting them to do anything, just to let them know.

I sat there all evening trying to figure out a way to keep this horse, legally. So…I decided to call the County Sheriff early Friday morning to escort me to Annie’s place to either make arrangements for her to get the horse or to buy it. Keep in mind that she would not sell it to Roy earlier this same week. Please keep in mind, I had never met this lady and had only heard rumors (not good) about her and her husband, so I had no idea what to expect.

When we got there, I parked out front of the place while the deputy parked in the driveway. I sat there for a good 15 minutes waiting for him as he asked me to wait in my car and he would bring Annie to the car.

The deputy finally came back out and said she was getting dressed. This is what he said to me: "That woman is really dingy…, that place is filthy, and they have a pot-bellied pig living IN the house along with 6 to 10 dogs, it’s a pig-sty. I told her you wanted to make arrangements to have the horse picked up, but I first wanted to see the feed she has for the horse. She said she didn’t have any!!! If she picks the horse up and it gets loose again, we will get the Humane Society involved." Thank goodness that wasn’t necessary.

Annie finally came out, sporting a black eye. (Her and her husband both have been arrested numerous times for domestic battery to each other.) The deputy introduced us and told Annie "Ms. M., Mrs. Huber would like to buy the horse." She looked and me and said "Okay, what are you offering?" I immediately offered $1,500.00 and she AGREED!!!! I screamed and shouted and cried and even hugged the deputy, I was SO EXCITED!!! I couldn’t believe it!!! I told her I couldn’t give her the whole amount right away, but I could give her $500 and the rest on the 1st of December. She said that was fine. I went to get my checkbook and a pad of paper to record all of this. The deputy said that wouldn’t be necessary as the entire conversation was going in this report.

He stressed to Annie that the horse was mine now and she could not, under any circumstances, go and get the horse. I told her she could come and visit anytime as long as she called and let us know first.

So, Shadow was finally ours!!!! Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. The following Sunday, November 12th, a white car pulled in the drive as I was working outside. A youngish blonde female and a male get out. She claims the horse is hers!!! Yeah, that’s right. She said she had the Coggins report in the car to prove it. I informed her that a Coggins report does nothing but state the horse is healthy, it does not prove ownership. I also advised her that we bought the horse just two days before and who we bought it from. She left. As the day wore on I got more and more concerned considering the reputation of Annie and her husband and their propensity for alcohol. I was concerned that: 1) The horse wasn’t hers to sell; and 2) that she sold the horse to two different people.

I called the people Annie and her father bought the horse from and they confirmed her story. So I knew she was the owner, but who was this girl?? But, I was still concerned she sold it to two different people. I called Annie later that evening only to find out the girl is her niece.

The story Annie M. told me about her niece is this…it seems that Annie and her husband were fighting about 7 months ago and he threatened to sell the horse and since Annie couldn’t afford to take care of it at the time, had her niece keep it for her. The niece took it to the stables in a nearby town. After a while, Granddad (Annie’s father, who bought the horse for her) noticed his granddaughter was not taking proper care of him and took him to his place. A while later she comes back and convinces him she can now take care of the horse and moves him somewhere else.

Granddad continually monitors the situation and concludes that she is STILL not taking proper care of the horse and picks him up and brings him back to Annie’s place. It was shortly after that he turns up at our home.

Thursday, November 30th, I called Annie’s house to ask if she would like to come over and see Shadow and collect the remainder of the money we owed. Her step-daughter answered the phone and said Annie was in the hospital, very ill and not expected to come home. I was shocked and immediately started crying. Annie may have some problems, but she was still a very very nice and honest person who obviously loved her horse.

It was about this time I called the people Annie M. had bought Shadow from to find out what kind and how extensive his training had been. I found out that the Oldens had him for approximately a month and had acquired him through a tractor trade. He gave me Shadow’s original owner’s name, Mr. Orville Baxter.

I phoned Mr. Baxter explaining who I was and why I was calling, including parts of this story. He told me he sold/traded Shadow when he was two and he was never trained there as he doesn’t start training them until they are two. He said the Oldens told him the horse kept getting out and they couldn’t keep him in the fence. Mr. Baxter said their fence was electrical and only two feet off the ground, so Shadow just stepped right over it. He also told me that he had pictures of Shadow when he was a colt and would send them to me. I asked how old he was and was told that Shadow was no more than 5 years old. This shocked me as the vet said he was at least 10. But then I thought with the way his life had been up until now, it was no wonder he looked older.

We went over the next day and gave a check to her husband, made out to her though. We found out a couple of days later, from her father RH, that the first check was given to HIM by his daughter to put in her personal account and that this second check was also to go in the same account. Afraid that Annie’s husband might actually be able to cash the check and "drink it up" I stopped payment on it. We had RH over to the house a few days later and gave him another check. But, he insisted on taking only $900, since we had had such problems with her husband and all.

RH is a wonderful man with honor you find only in "old school" types. When he arrived at our house on Tuesday, the 4th of December, the first thing he said was "I didn’t realize you guys had such a beautiful place, I am extremely proud!" As he walked in the barn to look at the horse and check out his accommodations, RH was visibly pleased. He couldn’t believe how much better Shadow had it here than where he was. RH has quickly made a place in our hearts and we consider him as much a family as our own in just this short time.

His daughter, Annie, passed away Wednesday morning, December 6th!! Roy and I firmly believe that Shadow was MEANT to be here with us!! We believe that the Man Upstairs put Shadow in our path just as much as he brought Roy and I together 10 years ago.

Shadow knows Annie is gone. He was in a strange mood all day Wednesday and did nothing but pace all evening to the point that we spent an extra hour with him that night to get him to calm down and give him some extra loving attention. It seemed to work.

We went to Annie’s visitation last Friday night and met the rest of her family. When they saw me, they were all visibly shocked!! It is coincidence enough to have the same name, but to have the same hair color as well!! They, too, are wonderful people and were unbelievable in their expression of gratitude to us for the home we’ve given Shadow. I had expected to give them condolence hugs, but instead WE got hugs of gratitude!! I had taken some pictures of him and asked the family if it would be alright if I placed them in with Annie. They thought it was a wonderfully kind and thoughtful gesture.

Although Annie is gone, we will never forget her as we have Shadow now and will always have Annie’s family in our lives and our hearts.

This story dedicated to Annie M. = December 22, 1954 – December 6, 2000.

Author: Bev Huber
Email: brgndzbz@madisontelco.com

Human Interest
Missouri Fox Trotter Connection