The Heart of a Lion, Part IV

Finally, part four.

Nine months after the colic surgery, Macho paces up and down in the little pasture he used to rest in. The dull roar of the Bobcat backhoe is the only thing breaking the routine serenity of another Mesa Ranch day. Cindy stands by the gate, her hat hiding her face. She's crying. Wes is beside her. Macho is only a scarecrow now. It's finally the end of the trail. His kind eyes still glitter with determination, but that is the only thing that is the same about him.

Immediately following his surgery, the incision became infected. Macho spent several more days at the clinic, and was given a high powered antibiotic to fight it. Less than a month after returning home, Macho was still weak and still losing weight. When Dr. Franklin examined him, the news was ominous. His kidneys were failing. Thorough research revealed that the kidney failure was caused by a reaction to the antibiotic.

His coat, once brilliant now looks like an old penny. The magnificent, sculpted body is now jagged and bony. His head, so keen and alert, barely clears the ground. He paces like a big cat, but it is taking all the strength left in him to keep from folding into a heap on the ground. This is goodbye to the horse whose destiny didn't wait for him. No amount of try could delay death.

Macho was put down and buried in the paddock that he always used be turned out to run in.
The pacing figure is now nowhere to be seen. The pasture is empty, except for Cindy and Wes, walking together away from a fresh mound of soil. Macho is gone.

Sherry Evans' heart sank when she learned Sadie was not carrying Macho's foal. Sherry had been given a free breeding to Macho as a birthday present. The colt out of her mare, Poco Peppy Concetta (Sadie) would have been able to do anything, be anything. Tears stream down her face as she stands with one hand resting on Sadie's pale, cream colored back. "I knew better than to hope for too much," she says slowly. "It was a great hope and dream to have a colt out of such a classy horse as Macho Little Lena, but it wasn't God's will at the time," Sherry says. "I felt like he had a heart that was out of the ordinary. If I had a colt out of him that had a heart like him, then I'd have a once in a lifetime horse."

"It's heartbreaking," says Walt Evans, Sherry's husband. "Macho was an exceptional cutting horse, exceptionally athletic, exceptionally talented at reading cattle. He had a future in front of him."

The loper stirs and reaches for his pocket where his cell phone is ringing. The nap's over, it's back to the whirlpool on another blue-blooded cowpony. The crackle of the microphone prepares its audience for the announcer's voice, "Thank you, boys. We're gonna pick up with Little Blue Tutu owned by Janet Keller, A Lil Tachita and Albert Rolwing Jr. be ready please."

There is a hush in the coliseum while the sounds of the warm up pen continue in a monotonous flow. The cutting world goes on spinning today just as it did when Macho was a rising star. New faces and new horses make the headlines now. But if you were to mention the name of the bright colored cowhorse, you can be sure someone would remember him. In Wes's words, "Macho, he goes down in the books. He'd been dealt a terrible hand. Sometimes things aren't fair. But he had the heart of a lion."