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What Would Gus Say? A Police Escort Across the Canadian River

Published September 12, 2004

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

Crossing rivers with a horse and mule pose a different challenges after Gus McCrae and Captain Call did it in Lonesome Dove.

All kinds of things went wrong back then. They drowned the chickens that were cooped under the wagons. Newt lost his favorite mount Mouse to a ball of water moccasins. So yes, I tightened up a bit when I saw “Canadian River” on my road map.

Not long after, I came to a two-lane bridge across the Canadian. Woody and Maggie looked at it as the cars streamed by. I looked over the side to see if I could ford it. The banks were too steep. Plus, it looked too deep.

That narrowed down the options to one: ride Woody and Maggie across the bridge.

Well, there was another option: call the cops for a police escort.

Wimp.

I walked to the nearest payphone in Lexington and called the cops. I know. Very uncowboy-like. Ten minutes later, a policeman, Officer Sevier, rolled up, pointed his cruiser toward the bridge and waved me to follow him. “Just get behind me,” he said, turned on his blue lights and we headed out onto the bridge.

View from Woody's back of the Canadian River bridge with police escort blue lights ahead, Lexington, Oklahoma, 2004 — Police escort. What would Gus say about the blue light between Woody’s ears?

I rode out onto the bridge and, way up ahead, I saw a stop light. Traffic was moving smoothly…until the light turned red.

Damn.

The cars slowly backed up, with Woody, Maggie and me sandwiched in there. The light turned green. We inched ahead. It turned red. We stopped.

View from Magnolia's back of police cruiser escort on the Canadian River bridge, Lexington, Oklahoma, 2004 — “Woody! Bernie! Hurry up! There’s a cop on my tail…!”

On one of the red lights, as traffic backed up, Woody and Maggie came to a stop right next to the guardrail. I snapped a photo.

Woody the mule looking over the guardrail into the Canadian River from the bridge in Lexington, Oklahoma, 2004 — Woody looking over the side into the Canadian River.

View from Woody's back of stop and go traffic on the Canadian River bridge, Lexington, Oklahoma, 2004 — It’s cars, not water moccasins, that snarl up rivers these days.

In the end, we crossed the mighty Canadian in stop and go traffic without wetting a hoof.

Thanks Officer Sevier and the Lexington, OK police department for the slow-speed escort.

More adventures by horse and mule: Travel by Horse and Mule.

More on the Atlantic to Pacific mule ride.

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