Journey West back to Yamsi after the war (1945). Sugarfoot having dinner. Still thin, she had actually picked up weight from when he purchased her.
“Assigned to Patton’s Third Army, my outfit fought through France, Belgium, and Germany. We survived the Battle of the Bulge, the Ruhr Pocket, and the Rhineland campaign, helping set up signal communications for our fast-moving troops.
...Eventually I shipped out of Marseilles on a troop ship bound for New Guinea, but the bomb dropped on Japan before we went through the Panama Canal, and we were rerouted to Norfolk, Virginia.
I was a long time getting back to the ranch. Stationed at Camp Polk near Leesville Louisiana, I paid a fine on a scrawny mare the sheriff had impounded and hid her in the empty barracks next to mine. Every night, I would slip out and lead the poor animal out to graze on orderly-room lawns, until finally she put some meat on her bones and began to prosper.
When at last I was discharged, I bought an army surplus truck, loaded my mare in the back end, and struck out for Oregon. I had spent all my money on the truck and needed gas money, so I ran a gambling ship, picking up hitchhiking GIs and running crap games in the back of the truck. By the time I reached Winnemucca, Nevada, I had just enough money to buy some hay for the horse and enough gasoline to head cross-country across the Black Rock Desert to Alturas, California, and Oregon. I was coming home at last to horses I hadn’t seen in over two years.”– Dayton O. Hyde, The Pastures of Beyond
Sugarfoot was the mare’s name and she wasn’t just any horse, she was a plantation walking horse. These horses are smooth as silk to ride and can walk as fast as a regular horse can trot while not spilling a drop from a cup in your hand. Sugarfoot was the mother of many fine Yamsi cow horses including Matador, a huge pitch black gelding with forelock hair clear down his nose. Matador was an old buckaroo-style horse....you had to be really careful how you moved on him.......but he could cover ground and he was a snorting, blowing show-stopper to look at!
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