Keilah and the Bear
A tale from a stormy morning 56 years ago.
One early morning on Pine Mountain, 20 miles east of the Sespe, dark rolling clouds greeted Jesse Kahle, Jack Huyler, and a motley assortment of rumpled young cowboys. They broke camp after yet another wet night on the cold hardpan. Lightning cracked somewhere over the Piru as they packed the skittish burros—one of which had already plummeted to her death off the cliff near Red Reef. (“Shady” had fallen onto the steep shale slope and Bob Cooley had clambered down to the braying beast and cut her free from the sapling that snagged her pack harness—just shy of the abyss’s edge. Brave lad, Bob. Shady’s silence—as she had hurtled to her demise—was as unsettling as Huyler’s observation, “There go the eggs and grain.”
The rider’s denim jackets did little to shield them from the wind on the trail, and the billowing ponchos only spooked their mounts. Even the seasoned white mare, Keilah, nervously danced and sidestepped most of the eight miles to the lunch stop under the towering pines at Skunk Creek.
Arriving, Skip Porter CdeP 1962 dismounted, reached for the halter, and was startled to grab air. “What the…?” he blurted out. “Oh no! Three more days and no halter? Mr. Kahle? Mr. Kahle? Any suggestions?” Kahle replied, “Well, Skip, you could ride back for it or…” Mr. Huyler interrupted, “Yes, or you could hold on to Keilah all night, every night...Don’t forget to take your lunch with you.”
The ride back to the morning’s camp was startlingly beautiful and even exhilarating. Freedom and adventure on the open road! Porter shouted to Keilah, “We’ll be back before you know it,” as she galloped along the high valley trail. “Easy for you to say, punk, I’m the one running,” she answered in her native Arabian.
Skidding into the camp’s clearing, Porter quickly scanned the scene for the familiar green rope. He failed to notice the cleverly camouflaged and startled bear rearing up on its hind legs. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” Porter muttered hopefully... “It’s right HERE!” Keilah screeched, as she reared and peed directly on the halter. With adrenaline-aided levitation, the rider miraculously dismounted, grabbed the sopping rope, and swung back up on Keilah just as she wheeled, dug in, and—whinnying a bugler’s retreat—kicked dirt at the roaring bear. The ride back to the remuda at Skunk Creek was pretty swift. “Did you get some lunch?” asked Kahle. “Not sure,” Porter replied, “might have given it to a bear.”
This story originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of Thacher Magazine.
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