I’m not sure where in my podcast history I discovered This American Life, but I almost immediately fell in love with it. Not only was the style of storytelling so entertaining, but the stories are, with few exceptions, very human stories about ordinary people and their lives. No matter the subject, no matter the theme, Ira Glass and crew manage to elevate storytelling to such an art that they can take story suggestions from their own family and make an entertaining show. That’s some talent right there.
This story is my little homage to them.
So sit back, relax, and read a little human interest piece from another universe.
Mother to Horde-Beasts
by Pat Humphreys
Dateline: A Possible Near Future
“It was probably the scariest thing to ever happen to me,” claims University of Texas student Alejandra Salinas. Like most college students last December she was worried about finals and heading home for the holidays. “The last thing you expect to happen on your way to class is having to dodge Mongol hordes-men.”
But that’s just what she and most other students walking down the the Drag ended up doing when an Inter-Universal Event occurred and thirty some-odd men riding what looked like horses where suddenly charging through the crowd.
“One second I was flirting with this hottie and the next I have an arrow sticking in my shoulder,” says Tim Ziehr. “It was like they were chasing someone and we were just in the way.”
As one of the more famous IUE’s since the CERN incident, we all know what happened next. The hordes-men, confused by the sudden change of environment did what confused hordes-men are want to do in those situations: They rode off as fast as they could, attacking anyone in their way.
Forty-seven people were injured. Twenty six were killed. Of the hordes-men, thirteen were captured and eighteen were killed.
This is not their story.
Nor is it the story of the brave police and firefighters that stopped them or the story of the Department of Homeland Security folks who have custody of the surviving hordes-men.
No, this is the story of Jim and Charlie Gordy and their new charges.
“When we heard about the U.T. incident, the only thing that Charlie could think about where those poor animals,” says Jim in a thick Texas drawl. “It was the only thing she’d talked about till Christmas and she went right back to it after that.”
“I most certainly did not,” says Charlie in the female version of that same accent, “I waited until after New Years and you know it.”
“But you did go on about them all the damn time,” retorts Jim with a wry smile. “It was ‘where ever shall they put those poor, poor beasts,’” he says imitating Scarlet O’Hara. “‘Just thinking about it gives me the vapors.’”
“You are so full of s***,” is her response.
Jim, mechanical engineer, and Charlie, a former history teacher, live on some 1500 acres in central Texas ranching country.
“Before Daddy died, he’d pretty much shut the ranch down,” remembers Charlie. “It just got so hard to compete with the big commercial ranchers that he was losing more and more money every year. So in 2000 he decided to call it quits.”
“It’s not like they needed the money or anything,”adds Jim. “Somebody had found natural gas and a little oil on their land in the 80′s. Still, it was kinda sad to see it shutdown. Charlie’s family’s been raising cattle around these parts since Texas was a republic.”
Charlie’s parents died within a month of each other in early 2001, leaving the ranch to Charlie.
“1500 acres is a lot of room,” Charlie says, “and its not like we need much of it.
“Davey Crockett called Texas the ‘garden spot of the world’, but when I looked out my window, I couldn’t help but think that something was missing. It was the first time in God knows how long there wasn’t buffalo, cattle, or horses grazing out there.
“It just looked empty.”
Unfortunately, it was about to get emptier.
In May of 2008, at the age of 42, Charlie was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She underwent a hysterectomy in early June. Twelve days later Lance Corporal Jonathan Edward Gordy, Jim and Charlie’s only child, was killed in Iraq when a car bomb exploded at the check-point he was guarding. He was 22 years old.
“It was like the bottom fell out of the world,” remembers Jim. “Charlie would just sit there all day in her house coat and stair out the window all damn day. I was worried sick about her. She’d lost her only child and her womanhood all at the same time. I was afraid she was just going to sit there and waste away.
“And there wasn’t anything I could do about it.”
In the aftermath University of Texas incident several details needed to be ironed out. The wounded needed to be cared for and arraignments needed to be made for the fallen. Of course, one of the biggest problems was what to do with the hordes-men and their steeds.
The hordes-men were relatively easy. Once they realized they were captured, they became very cooperative despite the language barrier.
Their animals were a different story.
“They may look like horses,” says Tammy Zindler biologist at Texas A&M University, “but they are more closely related to cattle.”
“The horns were a big clue,” jokes Charlie. “It’s like someone decided to breed cattle for speed.”
“We’d have loved to have kept them at the university,” mulls Zindler. “Problem is, these guys seemed to be barely domesticated. And the hordes-men weren’t much help. About the only thing that we got out of them was that they call them jī-mǎ, which literally translates as ‘horn horse’ and that they eat grass and occasionally meat. We had to learn the hard way that they don’t like being stabled.”
“Nobody was really set up for dealing with a herd of horse things,” says explains Charlie. “We we heard they needed open spaces for them we volunteered.”
The Gordy’s contacted the university. Two weeks later the Gordy’s ranch became home to twenty-three, horned jī-mǎ.
“When they told us that they eat grass and meat I was hoping that they were talking about the hordes-men,” jokes Charlie. “I mean, grass we got, but I wasn’t sure where we were gonna find meat for them. Turns out the university folk think that they only get the meat when they go to war or they’re pregnant. They think that the protein speeds their healing and growth. Otherwise they eat pretty much the same thing as horses and cattle.”
It was a match made in the multiverse. The horde-beasts (as the Gordy’s call them) needed a home and Charlie was just the person to take care of them.
“The change was amazing,” recalls Jim. “She perked right up when the horde-beasts were delivered and has been going non-stop ever since.
“All of them are more or less docile. There isn’t really a wild one in the bunch. We haven’t had real any problems with any of them.”
“I named my favorite one Sally,” says Charlie, grinning like a school girl. “We usually go for a ride twice a day.”
“They’re protective too,” continues Jim. “I saw a gang of them take on a feral hog and come through with barely a scratch and every now and then we’ll see one gnawing on a copperhead. It only seems to be the dangerous wildlife that they have a problem with, cause they leave the dogs and cats be.”
“You know, I know that it was a tragedy with what happened in Austin and all, but when I think of where I was before the horde-beasts came here…” Charlie trails off with a sniffle.
“I think what she’s saying,” helps Jim, “Is that every cloud has a silver lining, and in this case, the lining has horns and eats snakes.”Sunday, 7 June
By Ira Wickham
Red Flier Syndicate
