The Sable Movie Ranch

 
The shots were finished with
10 minutes of daylight to spare.
We broke down cameras, light stands
cut generators, coiled electric cables.
As we started loading the trucks
12 wild horses
came in through the pines,
shambling slowly and single file
through what had been our set.
The phones came out, the video,
the social media imperative.
The sun was low
shooting gold
through the tall pines.
I kept my phone in my pocket
and watched them in wonder.
They were healthy
unbridled
fearless
better than us.

Unconcerned with our attention
and technology,
they moved onto a dirt path
leading to a dry and peeling
old west ghost town
before disappearing.
We quickly loaded white cube trucks
with the rest of the grip and electric.
If we were lucky
we would make the studio
in an hour.

A year later
I watched a blazing wildfire from my couch
as I sipped beer and ate day-old pizza.
Fire crews desperately
tried to save new housing tracts in the hills.
Helicopters dropped water, to little effect.
A collapsing ghost town,
the star of a thousand cowboy movies
and western TV shows
was not a priority.
Roaring through the 450-acre ranch,
the flames consumed the saloon,
the jail, the hotel
the brothel
the black smith
the livery stable
and all the surrounding pines.
A reporter shoved a microphone
into the face of a tired, ash-covered caretaker,
“When we heard the trees crackling
behind the ridge, we knew it was over.”

I thought about the wild horses
and still I think about them,
hoping that somehow, they made it out,
that they are winding their way
through the hills of Santa Clarita
uninterested in human toil
handsome
fearless
better than any of us.

***

(Featured image from Wikimedia)