Ah, the merry, merry month of May. It makes me think of the Fort Smith rodeo, horses, summer…and bees.

From the ages of 11 to 16, I used to ride my brown and white pinto, Amigo, in the rodeo parade and grand entry — and everywhere else I could. That little cow pony was my preferred form of transportation.

But Amigo was like the Nursery Rhyme about the little girl who “when she was good she was very, very, good, and when she was bad she was horrid!” He was gentle around kids and didn’t bite or kick. He could run like the wind and turn and stop on a dime. But he was also impossible to catch, until he was ready to be caught. And, the fence had not been invented that could keep him in a pen, pasture or paddock when he wanted to go exploring.

It was this Houdini-like trait of Amigo’s that always got him, and me, in the most trouble. One summer, it almost killed me.

By that time, my dad and I had spent some of the best days, and nights, of our lives chasing down Amigo during his many great escapes. Mother would take the phone calls — many of our neighbors on the southside of Fort Smith were like weather spotters and would call to alert us which direction Amigo was headed if they saw him gallop by. Then dad would drive me around to search for my errant steed. That horse caused us so much trouble it’s a miracle he never made my Methodist minister dad lose his religion.

When I was 14, just a few days after school had ended for the summer, the phone rang at 8 a.m. A friend of my mom’s who lived a several blocks away from our Knoxville Street neighborhood reported that she had just seen Amigo gallop past her house with two other horses. My mother could hardly believe this news, since we had just recently moved Amigo from a pasture near Mrs. Ritchey’s house to a new, “more secure” location.

My dad had found a new, escape-proof stable surrounded by an escape-proof, 6-foot high fence, west of Towson Avenue, and that’s where my horse was supposed to be. But Mrs. Ritchey had seen Amigo on the lam enough times there was no way she could be mistaken about his identity. So I rounded up my little brother and a few of his friends and set off to try to round up my delinquent steed.

When we finally tracked him down, with the two horses he had apparently talked into making a break with him, they were goofing around at the far end of a fenced field across the street from the home of Bert and Thelma Hendrix. Bert had sold us Amigo and Thelma was a member of our church, so I was relieved to find the horses on “friendly” property.

The wire gate to the pasture was open and on the ground, so, my plan was to get the gate latched and have the boys help me corner Amigo at the end of the pasture. Then I’d slip the rope I had in my pocket around his neck and lead him back to his stable.

Before I could get the gate up, though, all three horses started acting crazy and running straight toward us. As they got closer to the gate we could see why — there was a swarm of bees chasing them.

Until then, I hadn’t noticed the three, white, honey bee boxes at the end of the field where the horses had been running around. But they had apparently knocked one over and upset the bees, which were now beginning to zero in on us, too. As the horses thundered through the open gate, with the boys close behind them, only I remained. Now the bees had only one “enemy” left to attack — me.

Almost instantly the bees covered my head, hands and eyes. I could barely see my way across the street to the Hendrix house but finally made it to the back door. I pounded on it but got no response. My head felt like it was literally on fire so I finally just opened the door and burst into Mrs. Hendrix’ kitchen croaking, "Water, Water.”

Mrs. Hendrix was sick in bed that morning when she heard the commotion and found me delirious at her kitchen sink, where I had the faucet running full force over my burning head. She helped me calm down and call my mother, but by the time mother got me to the doctors at Holt Krock Clinic, my eyes were swollen shut, my fingers were like sausages and my head was like a fat balloon. My internal organs were swollen, too, the doctors said, and it was lucky I got there for treatment when I did.

My mom picked nearly 130 bee stingers out of my head, but after taking pills and staying in a dark room several days, I recovered. I still loved my horse, bad though I certainly now knew him to be. My dad moved him to yet another pasture we hoped would hold him. Of course, it didn’t. Amigo continued to lead us on many other wild chases before we moved to the north side of town my junior year of high school and I had to sell him. But sometimes in my dreams, I still chase that ornery pinto.

 

Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.

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