HORSES TO BELIZE
by
Ron Fox
After returning with eight bullet holes in my T-Bone
from my near fatal ambush at the Pineapple strip, I decided
to take a couple of weeks off and go on a vacation.
Charlotte and I decided to go to my parent’s house in the
east bay hills of San Francisco for a visit and to rescue my
1959 Land Rover which had been sitting for two years in the
circle at the end of the culd-de-sac near my parent’s house
since I had returned from Alaska in 1980. That poor Rover.
It would sit for years between long road trips. The seals in
the hydraulic brakes and clutch would dry up and all the
fluid would leak out. Mice would make homes in the glove
compartment and under the rear floor. Leaves would collect
on and under it amidst a heavy layer of dirt. The last time
I had left it was in Fairbanks while I was flying from the
interior of Alaska. There were no roads there, so I had to
leave it parked at a friend’s cabin through two winters.
When I had retrieved it then, it turned over just four times
and fired right up. The AlCan highway took just four days to
San Francisco (3,200 miles) and it had been sitting there at
my parents ever since. This time, I was not so lucky. The
battery was shot. Fortunately, the Rover had a hand crank
and was easy to start.
After a thorough cleaning which included removal of
several mice homes (fortunately unoccupied), I took it down
to J.C. Penney for a Lifetime Guarantee battery. Wouldn’t it
just be my luck that J.C. Penney stopped selling auto goods
soon afterward. It was not my last Rover battery.
My Rover was a 1959 British Leyland 109 Land Rover
Station Wagon (the long one, most often seen in Africa
settings) with only 55,000 miles on the engine I had rebuilt
in 1973. The entire back end was converted from seats to a
double bed mattress with storage space underneath. It could
cruise all day at 58 mph (the point at which the valves would
start to float and make a racket) and only needed maintenance
or repair about once every two days on the road. Fortunately
I had a two-volume set of the best illustrated shop manuals I
have ever seen. It was built for field maintenance and was
very forgiving in tolerances. There was nothing you couldn’t
do in repair which required any more than common shop tools.
I always carried a spare generator, front and rear axles,
carburetor and other small various parts and never got stuck
anywhere for very long. That is until this trip back to
Texas.
After a visit with my parents and provisioning the Rover
for our trip, we left the bay area and headed east past
Stockton and Sacramento into the foothills of the Sierras.
One of my favorite areas to explore had for years been up
highway 88 past Kit Carson Pass at the nine thousand foot
level about fifty miles southwest of Lake Tahoe near what
used to be called Twin Lakes. I used to camp up near the
tree line in a very isolated spot near the old Immigrant
Trail from which I amassed most of my arrowhead collection.
The last three thousand feet up the mountains towards
the crest of Kit Carson Pass was very steep and I always had
to downshift the Rover to third gear, then to second and even
to first before laboring up the final thousand feet. The
road, a two-lane, was very narrow as it approached the peak.
It was carved out of the side of the mountain so was rock on
the right side and a drop of several thousand feet on the
left. At the crest was a turnout for cars which allowed a
fantastic view of the mountains and it was just past here
close to a very dark midnight that the Rover’s lights went
out. All of them. At the same time, just as we were
beginning to go downhill, the engine stalled. We were
experiencing a complete catastrophic electrical failure.
Somewhere in the headlights/taillights circuit was a short
which also shorted out the ignition system.
To say I was watching the road intently before the
lights went out would be an understatement. My feelings at
being suddenly thrown into total darkness at this critical
juncture at Kit Carson Pass were similar to sudden engine
stoppage in a single engine airplane at night. Respiration
stops, the eyes widen, your heart leaps into your throat and,
if you’re in a mind to say something, the only thing that
comes to mind is, “Oh shit!.”
I grabbed the steering wheel harder and pulled myself
towards the windshield as if getting closer to the windshield
would improve my visibility. It didn’t. Without thinking
about what to do, I turned on the right turn signal and
gently pulled the wheel to the right, expecting to run off
the road into the mountain. I felt this the better
alternative to going off the road to the left into oblivion.
To my great surprise, the turn signal worked and by its
blinking light I managed to stop the Rover on the narrow
road’s edge. I was thankful that, when I installed the new
turn signal system a few years before, I had wired them
completely separate from the rest of the lighting system and
they were powered directly from the battery.
After sitting in shocked silence while Charlotte woke
up, we decided to remain the night right where we were. The
engine wouldn’t run anyway. The next morning I discovered
the engine would run, only to stall again when I turned on
the lights. Until we got out of the mountains, we decided to
restrict our progress to daylight only. We went on into Lake
Tahoe and spent most of that night in the hotel casino. With
just a few hours sleep, we pushed on into Nevada stopping at
Lake Washoe State Park just past Virginia City to work on the
Rover.
I consulted my shop manuals and in the electrical system
section, traced the wiring for the light harness and
discovered a short. Repairing that, I decided to go one step
further. Ever since the short my generator light was
staying on dimly whenever the engine was running so I decided
to adjust the voltage regulator. There was a very detailed
section describing the procedure for setting the air gaps
within the various relays inside the regulator so I began the
procedure with a feeler gauge. This turned out to be a big
mistake, although I didn’t know it at the time.
I installed the voltage regulator and when I started the
engine, the generator light remained out! After patting
myself on the back, Charlotte and I began loading the Rover
to continue our trip. I was at the rear side door putting
some boxes onto the bed when I smelled the acrid smoke that
wiring makes when it is burning. Turning towards the front
of the Rover, I saw a mushroom cloud of dense white smoke
pouring out of the center instrument console! I ran to the
front of the Rover and pulled up the hood only to see a flame
about two feet high flickering around the recently
reinstalled voltage regulator. I grabbed a large pair of
insulated pliers out of my toolbox and ripped off the large
positive battery wire and the flames died down and then
finally stopped. When the smoke cleared I was staring at a
mass of melted wires and components. All the hot battery
wires were fried. The voltage regulator was fried. The
wiring for all the lights was fried right up to the light
switch inside the center console, all the way to the
headlights and back to the taillights. The generator wiring
was fried and the entire ignition system wiring was fried,
right up to the ignition switch inside the Rover center
console. The magnitude of this event left me stupefied.
Charlotte was looking at me with incredulity. I looked back
at her and said, “I guess we’d better unload. We’re not
going anywhere.”
After finding a pay phone, I called Scotty in Concord,
California. Scotty was my ever faithful Rover wizard who ran
Scotty’s Foreign Car Service. He dealt exclusively in Land
Rover repair and had been my friend and supplier of Rover
parts for years. When I told him what I had done to the
voltage regulator, he laughed and said one wasn’t ever
supposed to try to adjust a voltage regulator. I gave him a
list of all the parts I would need and he promised to have it
ready for pick up the next day. I then called my parents who
graciously volunteered to drive them to us at Lake Washoe
State Park the next day, a good days drive.
Charlotte and I spent the rest of that day and most of
the next swimming in the lake, playing cribbage and drinking
beer. My parents arrived late the next day near dark, so
they camped with us that night. The next morning my dad and
I went into Virginia City and bought an electrical connector
kit and many rolls of different gauge wire at a local auto
parts store. For the next eight hours, with the shop manual
in hand, my dad and I rewired the entire electrical system of
the Rover with new wire. We installed a new generator and
voltage regulator. At the moment of truth, the Rover fired
right up and ran as if nothing had happened. I installed a
wire connector bus which powered all the lights, (except the
turn signals. I decided to keep these lights powered
separately).
After packing up and saying thank-yous and good-byes,
we were off once again on our trip. We stayed the night at
the Grand Canyon and then went through Carlsbad Caverns.
Crossing the Pecos River in Texas, we stopped to look for
artifacts along the river and then pushed on to Brownsville.
Not counting the hair-raising episode at Kit Carson Pass
and the subsequent meltdown at Lake Washoe, Nevada, the trip
was very relaxing. Charlotte and I had plenty of time to
talk about my retirement from the smuggling game and we
decided I would do it.
Being a pilot, I had always assumed that if I did my
job well, regardless of the marginal conditions and
equipment, that the success of any mission was largely
dependent on me and within my control. My last flight south
had proven that thesis basically incorrect.
When I was jumped at the Pineapple strip and I escaped
in a hail of bullets, it was all due to several simple
errors of other people. Our receiver, Mr. C. and his people
who were normally very reliable had simply neglected to
notify Mexican Customs that we had switched from our strip
north of Vera Cruz, called Herreras, to the Pineapple strip
south of Vera Cruz due to rain washing out the other strip.
Just the day before I had brought a DC-3 into the Pineapple.
This had been a new aircraft to us and to Mexican Customs.
They hadn’t seen it before and had figured there was some
new operator making runs without their sanction. It was
painted white with a big red stripe down the sides. The next
day, I was flying Gus’s new T-Bone which he had just bought
to replace the one I had crashed at the Hacienda strip a few
months before. It was also white with a big red stripe down
the sides. Normally the security at any strip Julian, Mr.
C’s son, was working was very good. I was led to believe
that a half-mile defense perimeter was always secured by
armed guards with walkie-talkies. The day I was shot up the
Federales were lying down between the rows of pineapples in
the adjacent field.
Realizing I was not in as much control of the success of
any particular mission as I thought I was, I also realized
that this was a much more dangerous game than I had once
thought. If I stayed here doing it, the numbers would
sooner or later catch up with me.
The Mexican economy was in the process of collapse.
During the past year the peso was worth about eight cents, or
twelve to the dollar. All of a sudden in early 1982 it went
to 25, then 50, then 100 in rapid succession. Our
receivers paid for their trips in pesos. A ten thousand
dollar DC-3 trip would be paid for with 120,000 pesos. By
the time Amy could get to the bank with them, their value
could drop by half and the industry was in turmoil and
getting dollars out of Mexico was nearly impossible.
Receivers ended up in default on many trips and the industry
took quite a shock. Sales of electronics in Mexico also took
a nose-dive. Suddenly there were fewer trips south. Many
operators were fiercely competing for pieces of a shrinking
pie and things began to get nasty. The Mexican government
officials used to making thousands of dollars a day in
various positions of favor-giving found their incomes
severely curtailed and they raised the price of their favors
trying to compensate. This made the fewer operators flying
south less inclined to pay so captures and shoot-downs
increased dramatically. Suddenly it was not a gentleman’s
game anymore. Many of the newer pilots began carrying guns.
Not personal protection weapons, like handguns, but big-bore
fully automatic assault rifles and machine pistols and they
weren’t afraid to use them. Shoot-outs with fatalities
increased dramatically. Mexican press reports also increased
dramatically and all of a sudden it was no picnic to be
captured and jailed. Getting out of jail became a very
expensive proposition, especially for those caught with
guns. It just wasn’t as much fun anymore, so I told Gus I
had to get out while I still could.
Gus was very understanding and supportive. He didn’t
have enough trips lined up for all the pilots working for him
anyway. The trips he did make most of the time weren’t paid
for so the business was on its last legs.
Charlotte had just been hired at a new airline, Muse
Air in Dallas. I didn’t have anything lined up in Dallas,
but we made the decision to move there anyway.
The week before we were to move to Dallas, Gus called
me and asked me to make a trip to Belize with him to deliver
six horses by air. “This here’s a legal trip, Fox!,” he
drawled. “We don’t get many of those around here. The pay’s
the same. You interested?”
“We’re going to haul six horses in 6CA across the Gulf
to Belize? How the hell are we going to do that?”
“Easy. We get someone to build some stalls in the
airplane, tie ’em real good, get ’em shot up with
tranquilizer and take them to Belize!”
I asked him, “Why doesn’t the owner just trailer them
to Belize through Mexico?.”
“I doubt they would survive the trip, what with the heat
and all. The owner tells me he would have to pay off customs
at each Mexican state border, and by the time he got there
with them, if they survived, it would cost more that way than
flying them in. He offered us seven thousand bucks for a
three and a half hour trip! Wanna fly ’em?”
“Sure, why not. I could use the money and it sounds
like fun. I’ve never been to Belize before,” I said, not
having any idea of what I was getting into.
For the next two days, some guy worked on the airplane
building stalls for the horses. He used three-quarter inch
marine plywood sections to separate the horses from side to
side. He built a frame of two-by-fours to hold them up near
the centerline of the cabin. Half sections of plywood were
at the front to keep the horses from moving any further
forward. Three two-by-fours were slotted into the rear of
each horse area to keep the horses in their respective areas.
A narrow walking space was left down the left side of the
cabin for us to enter.
The owner of the horses was a wealthy car dealer from
Belize City who had trailered two thoroughbred race horses
from California. He also had four pregnant mares. The
thoroughbreds were very large high-spirited horses, each
weighing about twelve hundred pounds. Each of the pregnant
mares weighed about nine hundred pounds.
When the stalls were built, the builder made a ramp
which would allow us to load the horses in 6CA’s large
parachute door.
When everything was ready, the owner brought the horses
to the airport the next morning and, after shots of
tranquilizers, we began loading them. Of course, being the
heaviest, we loaded the thoroughbreds first. The black race
horse was first and was led to the ramp. One of the hands
lead the horse up the ramp while the owner slapped him on the
butt to get him moving. He went right in and was led to his
place in the right front stall. After securing the slotted
two-by-fours at his rear, The hand returned to the ramp for
the next one, the big brown monster.
The big brown monster did not want to go into the
airplane. The hand who was trying to lead him up the ramp
couldn’t pull hard enough to get him to move up the ramp,
even with repeated blows by the owner. The owner told the
hand to let out the rope and go up the ramp into the airplane
and to wait for the horse to come up to him. When the hand
was just inside the door, the owner smacked him hard on the
but with the strap and the horse bolted up the ramp. He was
moving at a pretty good clip when the top of his head hit the
top of the door. He stopped, wobbled a bit, and then
shakily backed down the ramp onto the tarmac. Once again,
the owner got him on the ramp and smacked him again. Up he
went, only to hit the top of the door again. This time he
got really wobbly and he leaned against the side of the ramp,
almost falling down. The side of the ramp began to give way
but the horse caught himself and once more backed down the
ramp, almost falling down.
The carpenter re-nailed the plywood side back on and the
horse was given a rest and more tranquilizer. After a half-
hour or so, the owner tried once more to get him to go up
the ramp. This time the handler ran up the ramp with him as
the owner hit him on the butt and when they got to the top of
the ramp, the handler pulled his head down and the horse
finally went in. After he was secured, the mares went right
in with no trouble.
When Gus, Tom, the copilot, and I entered the airplane,
it already smelled like a barn. We were amazed how much heat
six horses could put out which the airplane trapped. It was
only about ten in the morning, but already getting hot
outside. It was getting very hot in the airplane, so we
quickly got her started and on our way.
Tom and I were on the flight deck and Gus was staying in
back to watch the horses. None of us knew anything about
handling horses and it was to prove near fatal. The horses
were getting very skittish as we were taxiing and when we
applied full power for takeoff, they began to whinny and
jump around. They stayed put, however and we began our long
climb to altitude, heading straight out over the Gulf on a
direct course to Belize.
After reaching our cruising altitude of eight thousand,
five hundred feet, the airplane was finally cooling off.
Occasionally I would turn around and look at Gus with our
cargo and everything seemed fine.
About two three hours into our trip, Gus came up to the
flight deck and spoke to us. “Guys, whatever you do, don’t
let the tanks run dry before switching tanks like we usually
do. We got plenty of gas and I’m not sure what these horses
will do if the engines stop making noise and we suddenly lose
altitude. We almost lost them on that takeoff. They were
jumping around and I was afraid the big ones in front were
going to push the mares into the tail.
That, of course, would have put our center of gravity
too far back and we would have lost control of the aircraft.
That was a chilling thought, indeed, seeing as we were over
a hundred miles from land, VFR, with no positive radar
control or even any communication with anyone. We didn’t
even have a raft.
While I was thinking of the consequences of the horses
getting loose inside the airplane, picturing what the
airplane would do as the tail dropped and we flipped over on
our back and spun into the water, the tank on the right side
went dry and the airplane lurched that way. Flipping the
fuel tank selector to the full tank and turning on the boost
pump, I pulled the throttle and prop lever back to try to
avoid another lurch when the engine caught again. All of a
sudden I felt vibrations in the airframe and felt the
airplane lurch forward and back. I had never felt anything
like this in an airplane before and I turned around to see
what was going on. What I saw almost made my heart stop.
Gus was holding on to the big brown horse by the sides
of his halter. The half-inch manila rope which had secured
the horse to the plywood wall in front had broken. The brass
halter chain had broken. The horse was rearing up in the
air, shrieking and shaking his head from side to side, his
hooves flailing out in front of him banging on the plywood.
Gus was being shook from side to side like a ragdoll and was
being pulled off his feet half-way into the stall, still
holding onto the horse for dear life.
He started yelling, “Fox!” “Fox!, bring yer gun and
kill this son-of-a-bitch!.”
I told Tom to take the airplane and I reached down into
my boot and got the little twenty-five caliber automatic I
carried there. I ran back to the front of the stall where
Gus was still being thrown around put the gun up to the
horses head. He was only jumping a little bit now and I
thought to myself, this gun is going to make a lot of noise
in this enclosed cabin. If the noise spooks the other
horses, they might try to move away from the noise and back
into the tail. Within a second or two the horse calmed right
down. I looked at Gus and then the horse. I looked at Gus
again and then back at the horse, the gun still between his
eyes. At the same time Gus was looking at me, then the
horse, then back at me again. When our eyes met, we both
just hunched our shoulders in a shrug and looked at the horse
who was standing there still.
I yelled at Gus, “Gus, this gun is going to be loud in
here. If it spooks the horses into the tail, we’re dead
meat!.”
“I know, I know!,” he yelled back. “He seems OK now.
Stick around here for a minute and see if he’s going to go
nuts again. I told you not to let the tanks run dry!”
Gus pulled the horse a step forward and got his head
back out of the front of the stall. There was a half-circle
of wood missing out of the top of the wood where the horse
had pulled Gus’s arms through it. His hands were bleeding
from several lacerations and he had gashes and scrapes on
each arm where they went through the plywood. His face had a
couple of cuts on it and everything was bleeding. He looked
a sight.
“Sorry Gus, I didn’t mean to. By the time you turned
around to go back to the cabin the right tank ran dry.”
“Well, he seems OK now. Better get back to flyin’.”
I went back up front and settled into my seat. My legs
were shaking somewhat. I knew how close to disaster we had
just come and realized we didn’t have much control of these
horses. The stalls were starting to come apart at the seams
and I didn’t know if we would survive another such episode.
“That was a close one, Tom. We gotta be nuts to be
doing this. We don’t know anything about horses and those
stalls were a screwy idea. They’re coming apart.”
I had just lit a cigarette, letting Tom fly, when all
of a sudden the airplane started lurching fore and aft again.
The airplane shook with each thud of the horse’s kicks and I
could hear Gus screaming again, “Fox, bring your gun and
kill this son-of-a-bitch!!.”
I turned around and once again saw Gus being shook like
a ragdoll. As his upper body was being pulled one way, his
feet would swing up off the floor and be swinging out the
other way. I don’t know how he managed to hold on to that
horse’s halter, but he was holding on for dear life. He
knew that if he lost his hold, the horse would probably kick
out the boards behind him and force the smaller mares into
the tail and we’d all be goners.
Once again I ran to the back and put the gun up to the
horse’s head right between the eyes. I’ll be damned if he
didn’t calm right down again. Not even a whimper. It was as
if he could tell I was going to shoot him.
I looked at Gus and said, “What’s the deal with this
horse?.”
“I don’t know,” he replied, trying to catch his
breath. “Get the hypo and we’ll give him some more
tranquilizer.”
I got the hypodermic needle out of the gym bag we had
brought with us. It also had the bottle of tranquilizer in
it. I pushed the needle into the bottle and held it upside
down as I had seen it done before. I had never given a shot
before. I was only mimicking what I had seen others do.
“How much should I give him?,” I asked Gus.
“How the hell should I know? Fill the damn thing up!,”
he replied fiercely.
I filled the hypo up.
“Where should I stick him?,” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe in the neck,” he answered.
I didn’t know how to hold the needle, so I just held it
like a dagger with my thumb on the plunger.
“Hold him good, Gus. This is going to drive him nuts.”
I raised my arm and brought it down rather hard,
sticking the needle into the horse’s neck. Before I could
push the plunger, the horse reared up, shaking his head.
The needle came off of the syringe and, as I pushed the
plunger, the tranquilizer shot all over the horse’s neck.
Of course the horse reared back and began shaking his head
again, with Gus attached. I was frantically grabbing for
the needle which was still stuck in the horse’s neck. Trying
to keep my arm from getting crushed between the horse and the
stall wall, I felt along the horse’s neck as best I could.
Several times I felt the needle sticking out but was unable
to grab it. I’m sure the horse liked that. I finally was
able to grab the needle and pull it out and the horse calmed
right down. By this time Gus was exhausted. The stall
bracing above the horse was starting to fall apart. There
were two two-by-fours laying across his back, one end of
each still attached to the overhead section of the bracing.
“I guess we’d better not try that again, huh Gus,” I
said as I winced at his bleeding cuts.
“You got that right. See if you can get those boards
off this critter’s back. I don’t think he likes ’em there.
We’re lucky we aren’t having trouble with this other one,”
he said as he eyed him warily.
I moved around Gus to the side walk-space and pulled the
two-by-fours off the horse’s back and out of the bracing.
The whole thing was getting really shaky. As I came back to
the front, I saw two fifty pound bags of oats lying in the
corner.
“Why don’t we try to feed them some oats?,” I blurted
out. “Maybe that would calm them down.”
I pulled out my pocket knife and cut a big hole in the
top of the bag and grabbed a double handful of oats and
brought it up to the wild brown horse. He took a step
forward and once more stuck his head out of the stall,
diving into the offered grain, spilling most of it.
“I think you’re on to something, Fox,” Gus said in a
hopeful voice. He bent down and also got a double handful
and offered it to the brown horse. Now the black horse next
to him began stretching his head over to try to get some so I
got another handful and offered it to him to his delight.
For the next two and a half hours we stood there hand
feeding these two horses. It was not necessary to hold on to
them anymore because they were happily munching what must
have been their favorite food just as calm as could be.
By the time we were approaching Belize City, we were on
our second bag of oats. Most of it had ended up on the
floor, but the horses had been eating continuously. Our
legs and arms were very tired but we weren’t about to stop
feeding them.
Tom yelled from the flight deck, “Fox, we’re getting
close to the airport. Let’s try to land this thing in one
piece.”
Gus said, “I’ll keep feeding them. You go on up. And
for Christ’s sake make a smooth landing!”
I returned to flight deck. A DC-3 is a two-man
airplane. To lower the landing gear the copilot must lean
almost to the floor and release the lever which puts the gear
down. I suppose one person could do it, but it wouldn’t be
a smooth maneuver, having to let go of the airplane while
you were doing it.
I called Belize City approach and advised them of our
position and intentions for landing. As we approached the
airport to enter a downwind leg, approach control passed me
on to the tower. A British Harrier jet had just landed on
the runway when we were cleared to land.
As we were turning our base leg, the tower advised us
that the Harrier jet was still on the runway, taxiing all
the way to the end where there was a turnoff for his parking
area. “Be prepared to go around,” the tower operator told
us.
“Belize tower, Douglas 42 Victor, we cannot go around.
I repeat, we cannot go around. We’ve got some jumpy horses
on board this airplane and we’ve got to land!,” I told him
forcefully.
On short final, the Harrier was still on the runway
although he was almost to the end about to turn off. The
tower had not cleared us to land, but I was landing. I kept
a little extra speed so the nose wouldn’t come up so far in
my flare and I set her down real easy. Gus was feeding both
horses at the same time with one hand of oats apiece. They
didn’t even notice my landing.
When I gently lowered the tail to the runway, the
horses shifted back a little, but they adjusted quickly so
as not to miss any oats. They weren’t concerned about
anything so long as they could eat.
We parked the airplane, shut it down and climbed out
the back door, glad just to be on the ground in one piece.
Gus looked a sight. His shirt was torn, he had dried blood
all over him. We were met by Belize custom agents who we
gave the import paperwork and we went into the terminal
looking for a first aid kit. We found some bandages, rolls
of gauze and methiolate at a nurse’s station and I bandaged
Gus up as best I could. He had bandages and gauze wrapped
around most of each arm and hands when we went back out to
the airplane to get the horses unloaded.
It was late afternoon in Belize City and quite hot and
humid. We were concerned that the horses would get
overheated if we didn’t get them off the plane quickly. The
customs agents told us we didn’t have enough veterinarian
certification on several equine diseases and that we would
have to take the horses back to the United States.
Gus got quite upset. “We ain’t taking these horses back
anywhere!,” he bellowed. “I’ll shoot ’em where they stand
and roll them out of the airplane right onto the ramp before
we take ’em outta here!”
They asked where the owner was, and we told them we
didn’t know. We told them he was supposed to meet us here.
We had to wait almost an hour before the owner showed
up. The customs agents wouldn’t let us unload the horses in
the meantime and they were getting antsy. When the owner
finally arrived, he peeled off several large denomination
bills of money and gave each of the agents several.
Suddenly we had permission to unload the horses.
The owner pulled a ramp up to the aircraft and, one by
one unloaded the horses. Before he loaded the big brown one,
Gus went up to him and stared him in the face. What a
picture. Gus with himself all cut up, facing the horse
which also had small cuts on his face and neck.
The owner paid Gus the balance he still owed, and we
paid for our return gas. Then we went into town and got a
room at the best hotel in the center of town. We got cleaned
up and went to a nearby restaurant and ate dinner.
Throughout our meal we laughed at our recently passed
predicament, wondering how we survived. This flight was
scarier than any smuggling trip I had taken. We could have
been thrown out of control at any minute, and it went on for
hours. The owner had told us we should have simply grabbed
the horse’s lower lip between our forefinger and thumb and
twisted it hard to calm him down. We didn’t know that. What
we did learn was that if you’re going to haul horses in an
airplane, you’d better tie them down with three thousand
pound test chain and have steel bars firmly attached to the
airframe to separate them. Oats would be a good idea, too.
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