Native Horse Back Story

Akiywa The Rescued Wild Horse!

One of the Biggest Stars of Native Horse is Akiywa my rescued wild horse. If you pay close attention to many of the scenes in Native Horse you will notice that Adam Joaquin Gonzalez, Rebekah Rogers Coulter & James Anaquad are riding Akiywa. Akiywa was rounded up and removed out of the Battle Mountain Heard Management area in Northern Nevada, he was roughly five years of age when I received him. He was by far our most reliable solid horse in the filming of Native Horse. Below is a excerpt from my book, No Country For Truth Tellers:

CHAPTER 24 - AKIYWA I was saddened to witness the carnage upon our public lands, and starting to feel the strain of the uphill battle producing this film was turning out to be. But in the midst of all of the chaos, a light appeared. My phone rang; it was Roeliff. “Hey, I found your mustang. Do you want him?” I smiled an irrepressible grin into the phone. “Hell yeah!” “Come on down to the ranch in two months, I’ll have him green broke for you and you can take over.” That grin stayed with me all day after we hung up. ~~~ Exactly two months later I arrived at Roeliff’s ranch to meet Austin; the BLM had abducted him from the Battle Mountain herd management area in northern Nevada. “He seemed like yours as soon as I saw him,” Roeliff filled me in as we walked to the barn. “He’s big and strong, like you. Stubborn, but he learns quick and takes direction well. I think you’ll get along just fine.” I quickened my pace. Austin raised his head and looked right at me as I approached, ears forward, alert. He stood alone in the barn, somewhat bored and dejected. “Go be with him,” Roeliff urged me forward. I slowly approached the beautiful, wild animal. His nostrils flared in curiosity as he sniffed my hand. “Hey, bro,” I said. He heaved a relaxed sigh and I patted his neck. He was a handsome and well-built Appaloosa mix, the prized breed of the Nez Perce warriors. Each hair in his sorrel coat was a different color of desert red - sand, stone, bone, the purple-ish red of mountain dusk - and the white speckles that covered his rear formed a pair of eagle’s wings. His wild hooves had never seen iron shoes, and he had thick, strong cannon bones that easily carried him over hundreds of miles of rough terrain. He gazed at me with keen, almond eyes, and I saw that the whites were permanently bloodshot – an effect of the vaccinations the BLM had dosed him with. On the left side of his thick neck, under his painted-desert mane, was the white scar of the BLM freeze-brand. He lifted his lip to me in a wild horsey smile, and I hugged his neck, my heart swelling with love. “I know what you’ve been through,” I murmured to him. “It’s been tough, but you’ll be happy again. I’ll give you a good home.” He shook his head as if he understood, and stomped the ground with his rough hooves. He wanted to run.

The next morning Roeliff and I saddled up and rode out to a dry riverbed where the sand would work the horses, and I could get a good feel of how Austin and I rode together. Roeliff showed me the leg and reining commands he’d been teaching him. Austin was patient with me, but underneath his calm I could feel the fire of a wild animal tolerating the smolder of walking with a human on his back. His slight tugging on the reins told me that he was itching to run, and if I gave him his head, I wouldn’t be able to slow him down. We came to an uphill stretch where Roeliff instructed me. “Start him in a walk, then up to a trot, then gallop him and bring him down slowly. He can really get up and go,” he warned me. “Don’t let him get away from you, or you’re in big trouble.” I nudged Austin forward, slowly at first and then trotting up the hill. He sensed that we were about to speed up, and crow-hopped in anticipation, but I kept him with me, only when we reached a flat stretch did I urge him into a gallop. In an instant we were flying at full speed, rocketing across the sand, his power and strength becoming more obvious to me with each thundering step. He would only stop if I asked him to. This mustang was a creature of light and sound, born to thrive in wild places with speed, trust and stamina; he was exactly the horse for me. I let out a war whoop, Austin tossed his head and we accelerated with the power of a gathering storm. I let him run for several minutes, and then slowly milked the reins and brought him down to a walk. He was breathing heavily, victoriously, and as we walked back I was sure Roeliff could see my grin from a quarter mile away, where he sat waiting on his horse with a smile. “You two are going to be just fine,” he said as we approached. “But remember, he will run right through that bit in his mouth if you let him. Always stay vigilant with Austin.” “He’s not an Austin”, I told Roeliff as I patted my horse’s thick neck. “You got a new name for him?” “Akiywa.” Thunder Being. ~~~ I trailered Akiywa up to Wilson Mesa, where my friend Rancher Jim had a gorgeous property at the base of Shandoka (Mount Wilson one of Colorado’s 14,000 Foot Peaks) where he’d allow me to keep Akiywa. I was eager to get acquainted as I trained him, but soon realized what an independent spirit he was. With Roeliff out of the picture, Akiywa tested me with everything. I tried to direct him over a water crossing and he deliberately veered off course into the scrub oak, trying to brush me off so he could take off at full speed. Over the next eight weeks he learned that I was his new caregiver, and gradually we bonded as we realized how much we needed each other. He’d been torn from his family; I was isolated due to the harsh nature of my work. Alone, we were lost warriors adrift; together, we were man and horse, the Centaur, stewards of the land we loved. We became deeply connected as we rode together that season. He loved my attention and spurned me when I returned from long trips away from him. Our relationship would rebuild when we flew across the mesa, our bond deepening with each thundering hoof beat.

I often took my camera out with us to capture the magic of our rides. ~~~ A year later, I recorded an interview with Scott N. Momaday, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Indian author. Scott told me the story of the “Gift of A Horse”. “It’s a fascinating story, I heard it when I was a young professor at U.C. Santa Barbara. One of my colleagues had come from Oregon and he told me about a man who lived in Portland who, when he was a boy, had lived with chief Joseph for two summers. The boy was the son of a Lieutenant in the cavalry who served on the Nez Perce retreat, and he developed such an admiration for Joseph that when the war was over he went to Joseph, who was then at Fort Leavenworth, and he said in effect, ‘I admire you, I saw how you treated your wounded and how you refused to leave them and the women and children, and I would like to be your friend’. So the two men became great friends and Lieutenant Erskine sent his son to live with Joseph when the boy was about twelve years old. He spent two summers there, and then his father wrote him a letter through the agent and said ‘the time has come for you to go away to school, so tell Joseph you will not be coming back to live with him, but tell him that I cherish our friendship and I would like to make him a gift as a token of our friendship, ask him what he would like as a gift’. So the boy and Joseph went out on horseback to the bluffs of the Columbia River where the boy was going to get on a horse to go back to Portland, and along the way the boy says, ‘my father says I will not be returning, he would like to make you a gift and he asked me to ask you what you would like’. They rode for a silent mile before Joseph answered; he said, ‘tell your father to give me a horse’. The boy was so appalled that this great man should ask for something so paltry as a horse that he was embarrassed, and he never told his father. So the two men passed on, and I met the boy when he was a man in his 80s, and as he told me that story he cried and said ‘it is the one regret I have in my life, I did not know what the gift of a horse was’. I told that story when I was featured on Ken Burns’ The West, and the descendants of Lieutenant Erskine Wood heard the program and they got on the phone to each other, ‘did you hear that, did you hear that? That is our grandfather they are talking about!’ And they decided that they would make good the gift after one hundred years or more and so they arranged to meet in the Walla Walla Valley. I was there, and they presented chief Red Thunder of the Nez Perce with a marvelous Appaloosa stallion, so the gift was made good. It’s a great story; I intend to write about that. Having ridden horses as a boy and connected with them, I realize the profound gift that a horse is, it’s an amazing connection and relationship.” Scott was moved to tears when he told me this story, as was I. My dear friend Roeliff told me that I was taking on the beast exposing the BLM’s corruption, and I would need the friendship of a horse to stay strong on my path. Akiywa - Thunder Being - was the greatest gift, and the dearest friend, the living manifestation of thunder and lightning, man’s connection between Sky and Earth.

Kleinert is the author of No Country For Truth Tellers - available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Country-Truth-Tellers-globalization-storyteller/dp/173374097X

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Mitakuye Oyasin,

James.