"Sorry guys," I said to them, "I’m going to run into Taneytown and will be back in half an hour, then you can come in." A half hour more outside would make all the difference in how much work I would have to do later that afternoon in cleaning their stalls.

The drive to Taneytown along the back roads was uneventful. I dropped by the post office and refilled the paper’s news box with more copies of the paper, dropped off two invoices, and then headed back to go to Harney where I had another paper box I had yet to fill with the October edition of the paper. No sooner had I turned onto the Harney Road, I saw a car with its four-way flashers on and a woman standing next to it. I slowed to ask if she was OK, and as I pulled up next to her car, she waved at me frantically.

"The police told me to stand here and not let anyone by. There are horses loose on the road ahead," she said.

Her car was parked just at a point where Harney Road makes a gradual decline down to the bridge over Piney Creek. Sure enough in the distance, there were five horses meandering down the road, followed by a car which appeared to be herding the horses northward. As I looked further down the road, I saw two police cars on the northern side of the Piney Creek bridge. The police had positioned their cars in such a way as to block the passage of the horses over the bridge.

On paper, it was a good idea, but having dealt with horses for over 50 years, I knew the plan would fail; for on either side of the bridge were fields, it was only a matter of which directions the horses would take. I told the woman blocking traffic I was a horse person, and thanked her for blocking traffic, and then headed down towards the bridge in hopes of getting to the horses before they took another route. If I could get close to one of them, I was sure I could persuade it to come to me, and once I had one, I would have them all. – or so it works with good boys like mine.

… They’re Mules

Unfortunately, as I got closer, I saw that the ‘horses’ were not ‘horses’, but ‘mules’, and intuitively knew we were in trouble. Mules don’t have a reputation for being stubborn for no reason, and these mules were on a walkabout and clearly didn’t have any intention of having their walkabout cut short. Sure enough, when the mules hit the police blockade, they simply turned around and headed back towards Taneytown, and me, at a leisurely pace.

Having had to corral a horse who didn’t want to work more times than I care to admit, I knew this was going to be tricky, so I cast about for a treat or a bucket of grain.

I shouted to one of the neighbors near the bridge – asking her if she had any apples or carrots. She disappeared in a flash, and in a flash was back with a whole bucket of apples.

"Good," I thought. Now all I needed was to get close enough to the stupid lead mule, who I found myself calling "Sampson", who the others were following, and get him to see what I had in my hand. I would then grab him and lead him and his crew back home… wherever home was.

Fortunately, Sampson had a halter on him. As I approached him, I simultaneously took off my belt, with the intent of using it as a lead rope, while I bit into the apple, making as much of a crunching sound as I could. A sound my horses found irresistible and always resulted in them coming to me – Sampson, however, was unimpressed, and simply trotted away. He was having way too much fun.

As I watched Sampson and his crew trot by me and up into an adjoining yard, I realized that simply approaching them was out of the question. Rounding them up was going to take some planning, so I hopped into my car and drove back in the direction of route 140, and turned right, headed towards Emmitsburg. An Amish family had recently purchased a farm along the road, and I suspected that the mules belonged to them. When I got to the farm, no one was around. When I knocked on the door, a woman, clearly not Amish, answered.

"Did your mules get lose?" I asked quickly.

"Yes, they did," she replied.

"OK, they are on Harney Road. Where are the owners?"

"The husband is at an auction, but the wife is out looking for them." She replied.

"Great" I thought. The one person who really knew these mules was gone. It was then and there that I realized I was probably the only knowledgeable horse person involved in the case, and as such, by default, I was in charge.

As I headed back towards Harney Road, I saw three people standing. I stopped and asked them if they were looking for the mules, to which they said yes. One was holding a 25-foot nylon rope, which made little sense to me as it couldn’t be used as a lasso, not that he even knew how to lasso as I learned. I told him nevertheless to get into the car. I was going to need all the help I could get.

By the time I got back to the mules, traffic in both ways was backing up. As I passed down the line of cars to get to the mules, other cars not wishing to wait any longer attempted to follow me. I stop the car and told my ‘lasso’ welding passenger to get out and block the cars coming behind me. The drivers were pissed, but by this stage, I didn’t really care.

By the time I got to the mules, Sampson had decided that he had had enough of the lawn he was munching on and began to move his herd. With the road by now full of cars, Sampson opted to use the unfenced back yards as his getaway.

Outthinking A Mule

Knowing it was impossible to stop Sampson once he got moving with a purpose, I jumped back into my car and drove in reverse back to the last house in the line, which just so happened to be across the street from the entrance to Sewell’s Christmas Tree Farm, and once again I positioned my car to block their path down the road. Sure enough Sampson appeared around the corner of the last yard, and when he saw the opening provided by the Christmas tree farm’s driveway, he took it, and he and his buddies trotted down it, away from the road, followed by the dozen or so volunteers who had joined in on the effort to ‘hurd’ the mules.

"Good," I thought. They were off the road, but then I realized I had traded one problem for another. While along the road, they could have potentially been corralled, but once on the expansive farm, corralling was out of the question. The only way to get them now was to get Sampson to want to come to me.

When I got to the Sewell’s farmhouse, I saw Mr. Sewell’s daughter and asked her for a bucket and some cat food. She gave me an inquisitive look. Having been a long-time advertiser of this paper, I knew that Mr. Sewell was an avid cat lover, and the sound that cat food would make in a bucket would sound like grain, the temptation of which I hoped even Sampson could not resist.

By the time I got the bucket and cat food, Sampson had already moved onto the back 40. I muttered a few choice profanities under my breath. I drove a farm lane down to one of the police cars, which had stopped at the lane’s end. The policeman was clearly befuddled as to what to do next. As I got out of my car, he pointed in the direction the mules had went. By the time I got to the end of the field, Sampson had moved onto the next ‘back 40’.

"Stupid mules," I muttered to myself.

As I walked through a field of soybeans, one of the ‘herders’ yelled to me that the Mules were in the field across Piney Creek. I looked. Had Sampson and his buddies in fact crossed the creek, we were in a whole new ball game. But he had not. "Those are cows," I said.

"Are you sure," she asked.

"Yes," I replied, probably too curtly, and continued on my way. I then spied Sampson and his team of runaways headed Southwest, and knew if they continued in that direction, they would soon reach Route 140. With three people behind them, one for some ungodly reason beating a metal bucket with a hammer, I returned to my car, determined to meet them when they emerged from the woods along Route 140.

I have a favorite expression when I’m dealing with a troublesome horse – "I’m a much better rider than you are horse."

I muttered that phrase, substituting ‘mule’ for ‘horse’, in the direction of Sampson. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but it was my way of telling him I intended to beat him at his game.

As I got to my car, I came across the Amish wife and told her to join me, as Sampson would be coming out onto the road near her farm. I didn’t have to ask her twice. Like me, she had been \chasing Sampson and his buddies for close to an hour, and she was winded.

"Do you have any water," she asked.

"Sorry, no. But I will drop you off at your house and you can get some while I talk to the police about blocking Route 140".

Taking Charge Of The Chase

By this time, it seemed every spare police officer in the area had joined in the effort. They clearly understood the gravity of the situation of Sampson appearing out of nowhere on a heavily traveled road.

I pulled up next to them and explained to them what I knew for sure was going to happen. One of the officers looked at me and simply said, "You're in charge, where do you want us to go."

"Head to the bottom of the hill, near Whippoorwill Drive – they will come out somewhere near there. When they do, drive them back up this way and hopefully when they see home, they will go back to their field" I said. Within seconds, two officers were on the move.

As I watched them go, it occurred to me that even though I had a cell phone on me, I hadn’t taken the time to see if the three ‘hurders’ had a phone on them, had I done so, I could have called them to get an update on Sampson’s movement. I kicked myself for being stupid. But still, I had a pretty good idea where he was headed. He hadn’t crossed the stream in the back 40, so he wasn’t going to cross where it crossed Route 140. All I needed to do was turn him East on Route 140, back in the direction of his home.

But just when I was sure I had the situation under control, a car stopped in front of me. "Are you looking for horses?" They asked.

"Yes," I replied. Normally I would have corrected them and told them they where mules, but opted not to – at least they had the decency to alert us.

"They just crossed 140 and are trotting down Whippoorwill Drive."

I sighed. "Damn the mule was good," I thought.

Sampson was always one step ahead of me and I was getting tired of it. "I’m a damn nuclear engineer; how am I being beaten by a stupid mule?" I muttered to no one in particular.

Before I jumped into my car, I grabbed a proper feed bucket, and some real grain, some nice woman had somehow procured.

By the time I got halfway down Whippoorwill Drive, which was a very long, single width driveway, I came to the police contingent who now had a bemused look on their faces as they watched Sampson off in the distance, trotting down the drive. I stopped and handed one of the officers the bucket with the cat food in it and told him that if the mules came back this way, to shake the bucket, and if possible, to grab a hold of the mule with the halter.

I’m not sure if police are used to people telling them what to do, but these officers, God love them, simply nodded okay, and I headed on my way.

Just Samson And Me

Now nothing stood between me and Sampson with the exception of 4,000 acres of open land – and one farmhouse and its barn at the end of the drive. As I came up on the herd, my jaw dropped. Sampson was headed for the farm’s barn!

He and his crew trotted past the entranceway of the barn area and then directly into an opening of the barn. I couldn’t believe my luck. The entranceway had no gate, so I had no way to block them into its courtyard, so I headed to the barn’s opening, hoping against hope that I could find something to pen them in there. I did. I spied an old gate leaning against the barn and positioned it in the entrance to the barn.

The chase was over.

Unfortunately, Sampson and his crew were in a room full of grain bags and were in the process of thoroughly trashing them to get at their contents. If that wasn’t bad enough, the rightful owners of the barn, a heard of goats, decided to make their appearance.

"Oh. No! No! No!" I said to the lead goat. I had no idea how Sampson and his crew were going to react to 50 goats descending upon them and I had no interest in finding out.

Thankfully, the lead goat didn’t need a fourth ‘No!’ to turn around, and as he headed off, I blocked off their ability to get in the barn. Now all I had to do was move Sampson into the large goat pen next to the feed room pen and I could declare victory.

Having been around horses for 50+ years, I had no hesitation with entering the area where Sampson was, but Sampson clearly had a problem with me entering his space. He turned and looked directly at me … and there we stood for what seemed like an eternity – but in reality, it was only a few minutes.

I could see the gears working in his mind: "I can run over this puny human who is standing in front of me shaking a grain bucket, eat the grain, make quick use of the broken-down gate, and be on my way again …"

While I was thinking: "This mule is big, really big … and he’s not a horse. I know horses, but I don’t know mules. He doesn’t know me, and I don’t know him. There is nothing stopping him from running over me then him not being sure I know what I’m doing … damn he’s big."

We stood there, looking into each other eyes, waiting to see which one would blink first.

And we waited, and waited, and waited.

Sampson blinked.

I cautiously closed the 10 feet between us. As I did, Sampson turned around, I retreated back, having no desire to discover firsthand how hard he could kick. When he turned to face me again, I approached again, and he turned around again, and once again I retreated.

When he turned back to me for the third time, he stood and allowed me to approach him and attached the led line to his halter. I reached up and gave Sampson’s neck a pet and offered him an apple, which he took in one bite, and led him and his crew into the adjoining pen.

As I undid the lead shank, I petted him again. "You were a worthy opponent." I whispered to him. "But let's not do this again, ok?"

The great Taneytown Mule Chase was over.

As I left the barn, I was greeted by the phalanx of police cars all coming up the drive. "It’s over." I told the first officer as he got out of his patrol car. A broad smile filled his face.

While I’m sure they would have rather been doing something else that day, I’m also sure that that evening they would be recounting the events of the chase to their friends and family. Much like I did and am doing now. I would love to be a fly on the wall to hear Sampson’s recounting of the chase to a new member of his herd years from now. I’m sure he’ll say I blinked!

Epilogue

I don’t know who the officers where that were involved in the two-hour chase, but I thank them. I’m sure they will tell the story from their perspective, but one thing will be consistent between the stories, because of their efforts, Sampson and his buddies made it home alive, and no one was injured. That is an accomplishment to be proud of. And that is all that matters.

Oh, least I forget, thanks to the owner of the barn I penned Sampson up in. The man was a gentleman when he came out of his home to discover what I had done. The world could use more like him.

And for the people who helped follow Sampson on his and his pals ‘lark’ about the country, thank you as well. I wish you could have been there at the end, but you were there at the beginning, and that was the most critical part. God bless you for caring about them.

By the time I got home, my thoroughly pissed off horses were not interested in hearing this tale. All they wanted was ‘in’ and away from the flies. Like the good boys they are, they all walked quickly into their stalls as they have done for years, and will continue to do for years.

And yes, they know how lucky they are.

Read other humor stories by Michael Hillman