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BACK IN THE SADDLE WITH THE PONY EXPRESS

The rider rounded the corner down the long wind of a dirt road, quirting his horse into a last showy burst of speed. I tightened my grip on Snip's reins, repressing a final nervous spasm of conviction that I had trailed my Western fantasies right to the iron-shod brink of a disaster. Too late now: Like it or not, I'd joined the Pony Express. Time to cinch down and ride it out.

I spurred Snip into motion as the rider came up alongside, dropping into a trot. He pulled the 30-pound bag of mail off his saddle horn and flung it toward me. I reached out and grabbed it. Unprepared for its weight, I lurched sideways in the saddle. Snip, feeling me weave, dropped to a walk. I muttered a small prayer of gratitude, happy to be perched atop a horse capable of pity.

Settling the mail sack atop my saddle horn, I nudged Snip in the ribs, anxious to appear competent but not ungrateful. Snip jumped into a gallop, eager to be about his business after waiting on the whims of greenhorns all day long.

Rocking back in my saddle, I convulsively clamped my knees together and pulled down on my borrowed cowboy hat a second before it almost became airborne. Confused by the mixed signals, Snip went back into a trot, nearly launching me out of theyears, helping the Jaycees raise money for a school for homeless children in Phoenix. Assorted tenderhearted tenderfeet sponsor each rider, which provides $4,000 a year for the Thomas J. Pappas School for Homeless Children. Ellen recalled that I'd written a story about a bunch of horse soldier wannabes who dressed in 1870-style cavalry garb and rode 30 miles along the Crook Trail, all at a sedate walk. So now she thought I'd enjoy riding a leg of the Pony Express.

years, helping the Jaycees raise money for a school for homeless children in Phoenix. Assorted tenderhearted tenderfeet sponsor each rider, which provides $4,000 a year for the Thomas J. Pappas School for Homeless Children. Ellen recalled that I'd written a story about a bunch of horse soldier wannabes who dressed in 1870-style cavalry garb and rode 30 miles along the Crook Trail, all at a sedate walk. So now she thought I'd enjoy riding a leg of the Pony Express.

At a gallop. Flat out. Full time. Right. Mind you, I don't own a horse. I can't even afford to rent horses. I actually ride only on stories like this one-sitting on an unfamiliar saddle atop a borrowed horse. Almost never at a gallop. But never mind: It's for a good cause. Not, of course, that our little 50-horse, 150-mile jaunt constitutes much of a re-creation.

In the first place, the Pony Express never About 80 men served as riders for the Pony Express, mostly scrawny teenagers. The Express preferred orphans weighing about 120 pounds. Mark Twain described the riders as usually a little bit of a man." They drew pay of $100 to $125 a month, for which they routinely accomplished heroic feats of endurance.

William Cody known to history as Buffalo Bill signed on as a Pony Express rider in 1860 at the ripe old age of 14. He'd already worked as an ox-team driver, a messenger boy, an assistant wagon master, and a prospector. He even managed to fit into his schedule a full month of schooling. He was one of the youngest Pony Express riders. He once rode 322 miles in 21 hours and 40 minutes, exhausting 20 horses.

Although the riders sprinted through territory held by hostile Indians, the Express never lost a horseman to Indian attacks.

IN THE FIRST PLACE, THE PONY EXPRESS NEVER ACTUALLY PASSED THROUGH ARIZONA. THAT SURPRISES A LOT OF PEOPLE.

I saddle like a clown out of a circus cannon. I grasped the saddle horn, gripped my composure, leaned forward, and shouted, "Let's go!" No doubt rolling his eyes, Snip again leaped forward, regaining his gallop and retaining his embarrassment of a rider. Bless him. The dear creature never neighed a reproach, nor whinnied a snicker.

Not a good start. But a start, nonetheless. After a day of saddling up, my feet were finally in the stirrups.

Blame Ellen Bilbrey, who offered me a chance to ride a leg of the Phoenix Junior Chamber of Commerce Pony Express, a relay ride across the 150 partly mountainous miles from Prescott to Phoenix. She and her husband have been riding this demanding, scenic, treacherous route for a couple of actually passed through Arizona. That surprises a lot of people. The now almost-mystical Pony Express ran (literally) from St. Joseph, Missouri, to San Francisco, California, a 2,000-mile marathon that followed the Oregon Trail through Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California. The riders changed horses every 10 or 20 miles and cut the normal 24-day mail delivery to about 10 days.

The Pony Express ran for only 19 months in 1860 and 1861 and initially charged an outlandish $10 an ounce. It helped bind California to the Union, carrying news of President Abraham Lincoln's inaugural speech in a record seven days and 17 hours. News of the shelling of Fort Sumter galloped West in eight days and 14 hours.

They each carried a knife and two pistols although they relied mostly on their speed to elude pursuit. The Pony Express made 308 runs and covered 616,000 miles, carrying 34,753 pieces of mail. Riders lost only one mochila, a two-sided oil-skin-covered bag on which the riders sat after throwing it across specially designed stripped-down saddles.

Of course the Pony Express was simply the most famed of the mail runs that linked the scattered settlements of the wilderness West. Arizona boasted some of the most dangerous mail routes. One of the most infamous was the run operated by Thomas Jeffords, which passed through Apache territory in southeast Arizona. Jeffords reportedly lost some 14 riders to attacks by Apache warriors, part of the Chiricahua band led by the famed Cochise. This prompted Jeffords' famous journey into the Dragoon Mountains where he so impressed Cochise with his courage that the two men developed a life-long friendship. The history of the mail route running from Prescott to Phoenix is somewhat less dramatic. A postman on a mule made the trip in about four days each way. The Jaycees planned to improve considerably on that schedule using about 50 riders.

Sunday morning in the predawn chill, the Pony Express trail boss had suggested I ride in the back of a monster truck he was using as a sort of pony pace car up over the snowlocked heights of the Bradshaw Mountains. We watched the first rider pull out of Prescott Jack Fisher, a rough-talking, squint-eyed, gray-haired Pony Express veteran kicking and cussing and slapping along atop a tall skeptical mule. He clattered

PONY EXPRESS

I wedged myself against one wall of the truck as I watched the riders spur past the deepening snowdrifts. Up on top, the road disappeared beneath the snow, and we moved along at a more sedate pace, except for the occasional timeless moments when we slid on ice toward one edge or another. The horses and their determined riders never faltered. We finally broke through the snow at the top of the mountain, eased down the other side, left the pine trees behind, and jolted, jounced, and jiggled down into the junipers, ocotillos, and finally saguaros, the tireless relay of riders still galloping behind. There they pried my convulsed hands off the side of the truck, loaded me into another car, and hurried me ahead so I could be in place for my leg of the increasingly epic journey. So off we had galloped Snip and I Express" banner across the dirt road that runs past the only business in town: a bar. All 10 or 12 residents, it seemed, had seized upon the arrival of the Pony Express as good and sufficient reason to party. Snip galloped toward the banner and the spectators, while I focused on the next rider, awaiting my handoff. Just as he passed beneath the banner, Snip stumbled, distracted by the well-wishers. I grabbed the saddle horn as he staggered halfway to his knees, recovered like a champion, and rushed into the center of attention. I yelled like an idiot, relieved not to have broken my neck in front of so many people. I handed the mail bag to the next rider, who grinned, threw it across his saddle horn, and galloped on out of Cleator. We basked in the cheers, Snip and I. Well, actually, I basked. Snip took it in savoring our allotted 15 minutes of fame. The wind whistled past my ears, the bushes flashed past at the edge of vision, the road rose up to meet us. I screwed my hat down as tightly as I could, put my weight into the stirrups, and fell into Snip's graceful rhythm. We flew down the road. Admittedly I thumped against the saddle like a 200pound sack of potatoes, but Snip imparted to me a rising, thrilling, jarring sense of power and speed. Dirt spurted from beneath his flashing hooves, my duster flapped in the wind, and I could almost imagine myself a wind-burned, sun-seared, rough-hewn man fit for Westerns and the rush to the horizon. We rounded the corner into Cleator, a hardscrabble scrap of a mining town. The denizens had stretched a "Welcome Pony I clambered up onto the wheel of the truck, heaved my gear into the truck bed, and struggled up after it, wondering whether I'd develop altitude sickness before I actually got into the vehicle. We bounced on down the highway, got ahead of the riders, and soon veered off the paved road into the snow of the gullied dirt-road splendor of the Bradshaw Mountains. I quickly discovered several things: Dirt roads through mountains can be very rough. The shocks on a monster truck provide a lot of bounce. You have to drive really fast to stay ahead of a galloping horse.

stride. Granted, it weren't no 322 miles in 21 hours, and I ain't no Buffalo Bill. But then hey I didn't fall off. Author's Note: If you're interested in sponsoring a Pony Express Rider, or purchasing a hand-stamped commemorative envelope to be carried by the "Pony Express" in support of the Thomas J. Pappas School for Homeless Children in Phoenix, call the 1998 Phoenix Jaycees trail boss, Ben Fisher, at (602) 566-1520.