Teaming Up With Charlie's Horses

The bidding opened on several fronts, eventually narrowing to ours and the competing answers of an Amishman, who no doubt needed the horses more than we did. But considering the team's years, I shamelessly hoped we could afford to make the best offer. Jim and Doc had some good work years left, but they would likely have an easier transition to retirement with us. For better or for worse, our tractors would still do much of what animals do alone on Amish farms.

T last our competitor shook his head and waved his palms downward, and the horses were ours. We sought the owner as he sought us. His name was David, and he and Charlie talked quietly of the power passing between them. He confirmed what Charlie had felt through the lines: that the team, granitic in strength, handled like cream puffs. I'd never attempted to direct Ben in harness, but I could learn to work with Doc and Jim.

David was clearly relieved when we apologized that we couldn't arrange for transport right away. His lined face broke into a grin: "It'll give me a chance to work 'em a few more times."

When we did come a few weeks later, he met us, as arranged, at the barn. Stroking Jim's flank, he remarked on the 20-yard distance to the parked and waiting trailer.

"No use carrying this ourselves" he said of the harness and collars. We stood back as he lovingly dressed his team for the last time, relying on a box and the horses' gently bent heads to slip on the heavy collars. He lifted their long, honey-colored tails over the britchen straps, fastened the last buckles and straps, then took the lines and led them into the trailer. There was a soft thunder of hooves as he removed the harness and bade us all a safe journey. We could not comfort him with more than a promise of a good and permanent home.

THIS summer, at another farm auction, a man recognized us as the people who'd bought those Belgians a few years back. Were we getting along all right with them, he wondered. Charlie and I exchanged a quick glance. He had mown pasture weeds with the team early that morning, as I'd milked the cows.

I thought of the quiet work I too shared with them, hauling manure and raking hay; of sliding over the winter fields in the low sleigh, with their big hooves plowing and kicking up snow; and of their massive elegance at rest. The thing the team had restored to Charlie now enveloped me as well. There is no one word for it, but it comes of contact with a serene and preindustrial energy - through the lines to a team.

Yes, we answered, all was supremely well with us and the horses - all three of them.

It had taken some time before Ben ceased to whicker with jealousy whenever he spied Doc and Jim in harness, and even longer before Jim accepted Ben in the same pasture without a challenge. But like Old World diplomats sensing their common strengths and purpose, they eventually had come to terms. I asked our auction acquaintance if he happened to know David, and whether he was still looking for a smaller, easier-to-teach team right after his auction. Somehow he'd ended up with an even larger pair than Doc and Jim, and still, no doubt, needed a box to lift on their collars and harness. But, yes, he was still picking up lines to a team as a prelude to chores.

I wondered if his children had seen what this must have restored to him - whether they know that he isn't likely to give up those lines again until he himself decides it's time.

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