The calves trot into the arena. A mosaic of shape, size and color—brown, dun, chestnut, rust, white and black—slowly fills out the back wall. Bruce’s stallion, Joker, flings his head as the two of them stand by the gate; he is getting the worst of the dust.

I am riding Three-sixty, a 2-year-old chestnut Quarter Horse mare, and Rhiannon is atop a young Quarter Horse gelding named Abra. The two of us will be turning back the calves for Bruce. I look over at the calves as they straggle in. The last few stumble into a canter and forget to stop before entering the herd; commotion and fear ripple out from the crash site.

Rhiannon takes her reins in two hands and looks over at me. “You ever do this before?” she asks.

“Nope.”

“In theory it’s pretty simple. The herd stays on the back wall. Bruce walks through them and separates a calf. Once that calf is isolated, Joker goes to work. His job is to keep the calf from getting back to the herd. Cutting. It’s pretty straightforward.”

Rhiannon takes up a position about 40 feet from the calves. I follow her lead and nudge my mare forward so we are facing the calves and are about 20 feet apart. Thus we are about a third of the way up the ring, with the herd on the back wall, and Bruce, mounted now, is between us and the herd.

“What do we do?” I ask.

“We stop the calf that Bruce is working from running to the other end of the arena. We turn it back. We’re the turn-backers.”

“Sounds easy enough,” I look over at her, squinting to keep the sun out of my eyes. Rhiannon looks right back at me. “It’s not,” she says. And then, “Get ready!”

I look back at the calves. Bruce is now in the middle of them; they bump and push their way away from him. Although Joker is small, I can see his shoulders above the herd. Bruce has picked out a calf that he thinks will work for him, and as he slowly drives it forward, the other calves move with it at first, but one at a time they separate and flock back together behind Bruce. 

The calf, brown with a white face, is now isolated from its herd and faces Bruce and Joker—the only thing separating it from the safety that numbers provide. The calf runs to the left, thinking it will skip around Bruce. Its eyes are wide and still unsuspecting.

And then Joker goes to work. He lowers his hindquarters; his back pushes the saddle up; his head goes down. He’s transformed from an obedient animal into a willing partner. The tempo doubles, and I find I cannot not watch as Joker tracks the cow. Bruce sits deep in the saddle, his legs slip momentarily forward as Joker pivots on his haunches. One canter stride and Joker is parallel to the calf, blocking his return. The calf, eyes larger now, and watery too, turns the other way. I hear the slap of hooves on sand as Joker turns again in time with the calf. Joker’s ears are pointed, his nostrils have picked up the scent; the game is on. In no other equestrian pursuit is the ability of the horse to think for itself so necessary and so apparent.

The calf finally turns tail on Bruce and Joker, looking for escape, looking for a way past Rhiannon.

“SLAP-SLAP-SLAP” goes Rhiannon’s hand on her thigh. “HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY,” she shouts at the calf, pushing it back towards Joker. The calf turns now and trots towards me, its knobby knees moving fast, and then it suddenly runs towards the fence. I ride parallel to it, trying to block its escape, but then it cuts in front of me and heads up the fence line, away from the herd, away from Bruce and Joker, and away from me.

I look back at Bruce, undecided. Do I go after the calf or turn back to the herd?

“Tik,” he shouts, “Go bring that one back. That’s a good calf.”

I take Three-sixty down the arena, past the calf, and turn her so we face it. Then we push the calf back down towards its herd, but Bruce is already scanning for a new cow, another good worker.

“Hey Rhiannon. A good calf. What’s that mean?” I ask as I stop near her and rein back a step.

“It means it knows how to work.”

“But it escaped.”

She continues watching Bruce and Joker and the calves, not even turning her head towards me.

“That’s because we screwed up.”

The sun is high in the sky, and the wind is picking up. I should have worn a sweater. I pull my hat down lower, trying to keep the wind and sun out of my eyes while Bruce walks through the herd, taking his time to find just the right calf.

This morning, I realized it’s been exactly one year since I left Hinnemann’s. Should I do something to mark the occasion? But it’s hard to get a drink in a dry county, and what do I have to celebrate anyway?

Time has given me perspective on my stay there, but I still have more questions than answers. Why did I stay when I was unhappy? Herr Hinnemann is a Great Success, true, but I wonder if it’s not more important to learn from a Great Man—for that is what I would rather become. Would I have had the courage to leave his stable if I hadn’t been fired?

It’s a curious thing: It takes more guts to quit a job, no matter how unsatisfying it is, than to stick with it.

And then, three months ago I found myself in the same situation: out of a job, back at home again, and with no plan. I started looking around for a job and an apartment to rent. “Maybe it’s time to get a real job. Maybe a career,” I thought. That same day Eiren Crawford sent me this message from Germany, a plea to finish what I started:

“You have to finish this, Tik, or it will forever haunt your soul. Forever. Go back and re-read your articles. There will always be time to be at home and not be sure what you’re doing. You can do that anytime. When you’re 30, 35 and even 40, I’m sure you can do this. But it gets harder and harder to go take adventures.”

“Tik?” Rhiannon’s voice cuts into my thoughts.

I look up. Joker is rating a new calf, all black, as it walks—ambles even—across the width of the arena. It’s a strange looking baby—its withers are bony and its legs slightly longer than normal. It trots lazily in front of Bruce, a look of calmness in its eye, and then stops and pees. It stands there facing Joker as it finishes its business. One might think this calf stupid, for it makes up its own mind about things and isn’t in any hurry at all, but perhaps the opposite is true. Bruce quickly leaves it to return to the herd and look for a new calf to work.

This time Bruce makes a shallow cut and isolates a milk-chocolate brown calf, with white legs and face. This is a calf that works. Really works. It’s desperate in its attempts to get away from Joker, and within a half a minute it is looking to get past Rhiannon and me. It runs along parallel to Rhiannon and then cuts in between us.

Behind Rhiannon, I see Bruce shaking his head. “Go get it! I want to work him again,” he calls out, and I trot off down the arena. I hear him say to Rhiannon as I’m leaving: “Every time a calf gets away like that he learns something, and that’s a good calf.”

In my original article, my plan was to train with the most renowned trainer and to ride the most athletic horses in the world for a year. But now, more than a year later, I’m still here, still on the road, still learning. Still not home. I told my dad that I want to get away, that I want to do something different. Well, Dad, I am. The measure of the adventure is not reflected in the success that comes from it, or even in the amount I learn. The measure of the adventure is defined by the fact that this adventure still exists at all.    

The next calf Bruce cuts looks right to me. It’s a light dun with a mottled face. I spur Three-sixty forward, looking right back at it. This time I’m ready. The calf gallops a semi-circle around the herd, and Bruce has to take Joker all the way to the fence to keep it clear. I can feel, more than hear, the drum roll of Joker’s hooves beating out a rhythm. A crisp, clear rhythm that carries, the way thunder carries, through the air and into your bones.

Eventually, of course, the calf escapes past me again. I canter after it, one hand holding the reins, the other relaxed at my side. As I drive it back Bruce looks at me.

“I know,” I say, “Sorry.”

I look over at Rhiannon, and she’s grinning. I shrug and mouth the words: That’s a good calf.

She laughs, and we look back towards the herd. Bruce is preparing to make a deep cut this time, his stallion steps lightly in anticipation, and I pick up my reins, ready for anything.

In the summer of 2008 Tik Maynard came up with a grand plan. He decided to spend a year working for some of the greatest horsemen he could find in different disciplines and writing about his experiences. So far, he has worked for Johann Hinnemann, Ingrid Klimke and David and Karen O’Connor. Although he spent the summer of 2009 at home in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, he’s still working on expanding his equestrian education.