December 16, 2011

By: Dr. Linda Tucker, SAU Faculty

When five of Southern Arkansas University’s rodeo team horses were stolen on November 2, 2011, Coach Rusty Hayes demonstrated that he is not one to stand back and let someone else figure out how to fix a problem. Instead, after the terrible discovery of the thefts that morning, Rusty immediately went into action.

Over the next month, he repeatedly went to bat for his rodeo team and the horses that had been stolen from five of its members. By now, most people know the story and have probably heard some of the gruesome details surrounding Credit Card’s death. The entire SAU family is devastated by a degree of wickedness that few can or want to comprehend.

But there is another part to the story of SAU’s stolen horses that needs to be remembered and shared. It is not my story to tell, really, but I will try to do justice to it, and to those who lived, or did not live, through it. Like all good stories, this one begins in the middle.

Shortly after the recovery of four of the five stolen horses, Rusty was asked to what he attributed the fact that he, Sheriff of McCurtain County, Johnny Tadlock, and Ashley Mills, owner of Badger, one of the stolen horses, were able to find the animals. He replied without hesitation “it was divine intervention.”

You see, acting on information received from Sheriff Tadlock, Rusty and Ashley had carefully orchestrated a plan for finding the horses. The plan involved hauling Ashley’s mare and a young gelding to the area where the search was focused. Once there, they intended to separate the two, knowing they would likely nicker back and forth. Rusty and Ashley hoped the nickering would, in turn, prompt any stolen horses that were in the woods to nicker also.

Rusty and Ashley met Sheriff Tadlock at the search location in the midst of a bad rainstorm. They backed their trailer down a muddy logging road, parked, tied the two horses to the trailer, and waited for a couple of hours. They waited until the two horses had grown attached to each other and accustomed to the strange place. Finally, it was time to put the plan into action.

As though on cue, the storm suddenly subsided. The sky cleared, the stars shone brightly, and the air grew perfectly still. These were the exact conditions necessary for the sound of nickering to be heard. According to plan, Rusty led the gelding away from the mare still tied to the trailer and tied him down the road. The gelding nickered to Ashley’s mare. She nickered back. The night held its breath. Then, as though on cue, a third horse nickered.

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