I refused to drive The Canyon before we moved to Cook Peak. Its 20 miles of windy road churned my stomach, especially late at night. The road is narrow. People drive too fast. They cut corners, tailgate, pass unsafely, and flash their high beams and middle finger. My worst fear, crashing head-on and plunging hundreds of feet to my death, made the road a terrifying experience as a passenger. The idea of driving the artery myself was out of the question.

A week before moving to the Kern River Valley, David suggested a Sunday drive. Our destination was an apparent surprise, but I knew. We drove toward the east side of Bakersfield, past Mesa Marin Raceway, down the long hill, and through the orange groves in our shiny green mini-van. We were going to drive by Cook Peak for the last time. During escrow, we made the journey often. We imagined our van parked in their gravel driveway. We re-landscaped their front yard and debated a horse or two in their pasture. Soon, Cook Peak would be ours.

David pulled off onto the side of the road by the old Merle Haggard place and turned off the ignition.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Do you trust me?” he said.

I did. We’d been married for decades. With two daughters and a perfectly manicured Schnauzer, I had proved my resolve. We were going on an adventure that would change our trajectory, even though friends thought we’d lost our minds. We were trading our safe cul-de-sac life in the city for country living. I wanted it as much as he did. We all did. Of course, I trusted him.

“Don’t say anything. I just want you to listen,” David said.

My hands began to tremble.

“Today, you’re going to drive the canyon.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. I wanted to go home.

“I’m serious, Ann. You can’t live in the Kern River Valley if you can’t drive in or out of it. I know you can do it. Take your time. Don’t worry about the other drivers. We have all day.”

I sat straight and drove slow, pulling off at every turn-out. I even pulled out when there wasn’t a turnout and caused a ruckus. In the narrowest sections, I gripped the steering wheel, squinted my eyes and aimed for the middle of my lane like a boat in a canal. One wrong move and I’d lose a side mirror, clip an oncoming car, or scrape my paint job on a rock face. A drive that should have taken 20 minutes took me well over an hour, but I did it. And on that particular day, I began my love affair with a dangerous road.

When my daughters learned to drive, I taught them The Canyon. We practiced at night when headlights were easy to spot, and traffic was light. Their driver’s education final required chauffeuring their instructor to the Starbucks on the east side of Bakersfield. Passing that test was a rite of passage. It was freedom. It meant they could go to Bakersfield College and commute with confidence. It did not take long for them to boast driving The Canyon in less than 20 minutes and cause me to worry.

Delays in The Canyon are common, accidents, fatalities, construction, a gas tanker explosion, mudslides, earthquakes, a plane crash, drownings, search and rescue practice, falling cows, and all the summer slowpokes with a mile of cars trailing behind them. For closures that can last for days, we detour south through Havilah, over Lion’s Trail. That road terrifies me! The most unsettling delays are the ones late at night, stopped behind a string of cars for hours, waiting for the coroner to arrive.

I’ve driven The Canyon for 15 years, now. I know the road by heart and feel its rhythm in my bones. I think of it like an hour’s worth of therapy after enduring Bakersfield traffic, especially on a midsummer’s night with Paul McCartney. We sing together, sashaying through moon shadows and in and out of curves. And when my hour is over, and I pass under the green bridge on the outskirts of town; I roll down my windows and fill my lungs with mountain air. I’m home where I belong.

 

The Cook Peak Review, June 2009 – Edited February 2018

In the last issue of The Cook Peak Review, Elizabeth described her personal experience with the death of her free horse, Silverado. Shortly after publication, a generous reader gave her another free horse, an Arabian mare named Amber to join Tulsa, our free gelding. They were a happy senior pair.

Tulsa began limping after a ride and was diagnosed with ringbone. His leg bone had pushed down through the inside of his hoof. Barely able to walk, he dragged his leg behind him, trying to keep up with Amber. Tulsa began losing weight, and his health declined fast. We needed help.

The vet made a ranch call. It was 100 degrees that day, and Tulsa was laying in the full sun, unable to get up and move to the shade. The vet listened to his heart, shook his head and said the humane thing to do was euthanasia. Coldly, he climbed into his truck and said to hire a backhoe and call when the hole was ready.

After everyone left, I sat next to Tulsa and cried. I told him I loved him and how awful I felt for what had happened. Stroking the side of his head, I searched his eyes and asked if he was ready to go, something I had always done when an animal faced death. Tulsa seemed to impress upon me that it wasn’t his time, not yet. At that moment, I promised to do everything I could to save his life even though I knew going against the vet’s advice would mean going ahead alone.

Over the next few months, we nursed Tulsa. We researched equine health and first aid. We applied topical treatments, wraps, and tried various supplements. We talked with horse rescuers in Los Angeles. We changed his diet, spiking his senior feed with corn oil to help pack on weight and used aspirin to manage his pain. During the worst of it, his hair fell out in chunks from his skeletal frame.

Our Ferrier examined Tulsa and recommended euthanasia. A neighbor walking their dog stopped to reprimand me for my lack of horse experience and my stupidity, and I agreed, but despite all the negativity, we fought for Tulsa’s life. It didn’t matter to any of us that he would never ride again. After all, Cook Peak was his retirement home, a safe place where he could live out the rest of his life with no expectations.

A year later, Tulsa’s progress was remarkable. He whinnied in the mornings when he saw me and trotted to his bin for breakfast. His limp had disappeared, and the ringbone was in remission. And finally, his brown coat was full and shiny.

I believe there are three reasons why Tulsa survived his injury: 1) We refused to give up; 2) We listened to the patient; 3) We relied on father time and mother nature to heal.

Tulsa lived a happy retirement at Cook Peak. It was colic in his old age that ended his life on yet another scalding summer afternoon. We borrowed a horse trailer and drove him to the emergency vet hospital in Bakersfield where they immediately pumped him full of morphine. It was strange to see Tulsa so relaxed and peaceful after witnessing the grueling dance of colic. There was nothing anyone could do.

Saying goodbye to Tulsa was heart-wrenching. I looked into his eyes and asked if he was ready to go. We both knew the answer. Bawling, I hugged him for the last time and went inside to sign the paper.

We drove away with an empty horse trailer as big as the void in my heart. Tulsa and the vet stood on the lawn and watched us leave. Once we were out of sight, Tulsa was laid to rest in the shade of the Mulberry tree.

There is no such thing as a free horse. Every horse costs money in feed and care. I know what “free” means. It means you’re the one who gets to love the older horse to the last day of its life, and you do it freely.

 

I slept alone in my room as a child, hidden beneath the covers with a hole small enough to breathe. I wasn’t afraid of darkness; I felt terrified of the dangers that accompanied darkness, the monsters, the intruders, and lightning on stormy nights. Hidden beneath the covers, I felt safe in my cocoon.

Boarding school helped calm my fear of darkness. I was never alone in a room full of bunk beds. Although I continued to hide when I slept, I did so out of necessity. Himalayan winters were brutal. In high school, while visiting my parents in the jungles of southern Thailand, I hid for a good reason. The communist guerrillas had threatened to kidnap an American. I was American.

When I returned to the United States for college and later married, my fear of darkness disappeared. I pulled the covers up under my chin every night, stuck out a foot and fell asleep effortlessly. There was nothing to be afraid of. We lived on a cul-de-sac in suburbia where the night glowed from the nearby Walmart and helicopter searchlights patrolled the murky sky. Darkness wasn’t dark at all.

On our first night at Cook Peak, David asked the girls and me to join him by the pool to see at the stars. Surrounded by a wood fence and a wall of Juniper trees, the pool area was a private mountain oasis. I switched off the porch light and felt my way up the steps and through the gate, directed by a Marco Polo routine. Once night blindness subsided, I looked up to the heavens and marveled. I saw the Milky Way for the first time in many years, a broad stroke that filled the sky from horizon to horizon. It was an orchestra of stars and Orion was the first chair violin.

While David named the constellations and explained star clusters and red dwarfs, the girls and I suddenly realized wild beasts lived beyond the pool fence, watching us. Earlier in the day, the previous owner had told us about a black bear in the pine tree. She said raccoons frequented the upstairs balcony after midnight, which happened to be right off my bedroom. She also reassured us not to worry when coyotes screamed like colicky babies. We’d get used to it. They were just flushing out the cats. Huddled as one, the girls and I shuffled toward the house, trying not to be rude until David was left explaining black holes to a Schnauzer.

I am not afraid of the dark, but I do have respect for darkness and all of its inhabitants. I know what’s out there. We rarely turn on the porch light, and I can’t remember the last time we used a flashlight or if we own one anymore. We have grown accustomed to the darkness and cannot imagine living in a city that never sleeps. And now when the coyotes scream in the middle of the night, or the bear ransacks our trashcans, it’s easy to fall back to sleep, safe in our cocoon.

The English name their houses. I’ve always admired their tradition, mostly because I grew up in Pakistan where hill station bungalows were named Robin House, Hillside Manor, and Rose Cottage. It’s familiar to me. When we purchased our home in the Kern River Valley, located on Cook Peak Road at the base of Cook Peak mountain, plus our surname was Cook; it seemed only natural to name our house Cook Peak.

Cook Peak is a collection of old and new stories about a life, a family and a house called Cook Peak.