Lost & Found in Monahans
Updated: 8 hours ago
Today marks the six year anniversary of finding my horse after he was lost in the West Texas desert for two days. Thank you for riding with me as I revisit a cherished memory - now I must go forth and hug him.
I lie back on the picnic bench and dip one toe into the sand tracing lines to and fro, an arm thrown overhead to block the sun. A slow breeze rustles the strings of my cut-off shorts and I can just make out what sounds like waves in the distance.
Clouds of watered ink stretch across a crisp, white canvas tracing the contours of the land. I rise, walk the dogs out into the dunes and look toward the west. The wind comes from nowhere and takes my hat. I slide downhill after it but this west Texas beach takes over and in moments the hat is buried like any other old bone in the desert, of which there are many.
The dogs and I wander further and find shade in the shadow of a westward dune. Frac silos rise to the northwest, the same place I started my search for the horse three years ago.
I can still hear the train, the growing, rumbling engine and shattering horn. The same monster that spooked Dex during the night and sent him out into this wasteland; lost for two days. You can disappear in the dunes here and he has. I wonder if he remembers.
I do.
I remember stepping into nothing where solid ground should have been. An empty pen, scattered hay, hoofprints to nowhere, the only proof a horse was even there the night before. I remember driving these dusty backroads dodging pump jacks and cacti, focused on only one thing – finding Dexter.
Six years ago, on our way home from a month on the road we camped at Monahans Sandhills State Park, part of a vast series of dunes stretching through west Texas into southern New Mexico; a sand strewn world kept in check only by the occasional Shin Oak and scrub grass.
Searching for Dex, a one-night stop turned into three. Drones, helicopters, and ATVs worked in tandem to follow his prints that first day - large, soft, and hollow in the shifting desert sand, threatening to disappear each time the wind changed direction.
The second day I spent enveloped in the white dust of caliche roads under blistering sun, searching for tracks among the pump jacks and sand traps. Water and feed in the truck bed. Dog riding shotgun. Pistol on my hip.
I followed Dexter at least nine miles northwest of the park, stopping at every intersection to scan the dirt for hoof prints and readjust my path, to watch for circling buzzards. Always afraid I would be going home alone yet determined not to.
Sitting here in these dunes now, it’s hard to shift my gaze from those silos standing so tall in the distance. I rise, brush the sand from my legs, and follow the sunset back to camp sinking with each step as if the ground beneath me has no end. The dogs run ahead, fading into the desert glow and I follow behind, walking my own path, making my own way as I am blessed to do. It is the only one I really know of course.
To survive in this parched ocean, to navigate the waves, the thorns and traps, the vast expanses of directionless earth, you’ve got to have a little stick-with-it-ness. Discouragement comes easily, perhaps it does everywhere.
I return to the sandhills at times for strength and forgiveness. I lose myself there in the dunes, but I find myself too. I remember what I’m made of… that I am the girl who tracked a horse through the desert - and found him. I needed that reminder today.
A HUGE thank you to the town of Monahans - there are still good people out there.
Camp, ride and explore the 800-acres equestrian area at Monahans Sandhills State Park, with new covered and secure pipe-fenced pens. We'll be back there this fall!
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