Farewell to the Mule Barn
By Megan Wilde
Photographs by Allison V. Smith
“Is
there a statute of limitations
for burro stealing?” Tigie
Lancaster asked me once. She
disclosed a crime committed in her
youth, back in the 1950s. While walking
near Lajitas, she found a burro with a
load of stolen hubcaps. She decided he
was too good for a hubcap thief and invit-
ed him to hop in her truck bed. The
burro obliged. I suspect he recognized his
good fortune; admission to Tigie’s barn-
yard was better than winning the Triple
Crown.
During the 13 years I knew Tigie, her
barnyard was the center of her world.
The answering-machine greeting at her
house was “Mule barn! Bray at the
beep!” Her stunning 20-acre spread,
located on Marfa’s north edge, over-
looked grasslands and the Davis
Mountains. Populating it was a cast of
horses, donkeys, mules, dogs, an occa-
sional goat, a cat and once an itinerant
parakeet, along with jackrabbits and
other desert creatures that Tigie also
cherished. Many of her animals were res-
cues.
A few times a day, Tigie braved the dis-
comforts of arthritis, emphysema and
other health problems, as well as wicked
wind and ice storms, to care for her ani-
mals, relying on a golf cart for mobility.
The last time I saw her, the night before
she died in April, she was riding that golf
cart, oxygen tank beside her on the seat,
out to feed her donkeys some oranges.
Her barn chores were an hours-long,
22
Doc was the mule of Tigie’s dreams. He won two best-dressed mule competitions in
Fort Davis, once for his ballerina costume, which included an 82-inch-waist tutu and silk
ballet slippers.
constantly evolving ceremony. Each ani-
mal had a feeding station and received a
specific formulation of food, delivered
with specific tools in a specific order and
way. I was trained for months before she
trusted me to tend her herd while she left
town – for a day.
Sometimes we held equine beauty
parlors, during which we’d spend hours
admiring and grooming her animals.
During one beauty parlor, her mare,
Daisy Mae, became belligerent about
some small thing. My elderly friend –
barely 5 feet tall with a teetering arthritic
gait – flew at her and walloped her in the
jowl. Daisy Mae calmed down immedi-
ately.
Tigie’s devoted deputy in the barnyard
– and in life – was Taylor, an elegant,
saggy-eyed springer spaniel pound dog.
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2012
She grinned on command, as well as
when she felt genuinely happy. And while
she was prone to “grant writing” – as
Tigie called it when she begged – she
stopped when told to “cool it.” Taylor’s
big bed, topped with soft baby blankets,
was the centerpiece of Tigie’s kitchen.
Their health seemed to decline in uni-
son. When Tigie went away for cancer
treatment once, we took care of Taylor.
One night she began shaking and whim-
pering uncontrollably. I worried an emer-
gency vet trip was in order but called
Tigie first. “She’s fine. Just give her a little
shot of whiskey.” We obeyed, and Taylor
peacefully went to sleep.
When Taylor died two autumns ago, I
remember thinking Tigie might pass
away soon too, the way happy old couples
seem to exit life together. She seemed
naked without her canine shadow. The
night before Tigie died, I noted that
Taylor’s bed was still next to the kitchen
table, her baby blankets at the foot of
Tigie’s bed.
Her love for animals wasn’t limited to
her barnyard. Among her final projects
was a stray cat family. She fed them by a
neighborhood dumpster, changing her
methods to keep other critters from steal-
ing their food or harassing the kittens. She
even fashioned an old feed tub into a
house for them this winter.
Her other beneficiaries included a pair
of starving horses outside Grandfalls. We
noticed them once on our way to Odessa,
so we bought carrots to feed them on our
way home. “It’s not going to keep them
alive, but at least it’ll give them some
hope,” Tigie said. We spent an hour that
night driving around Grandfalls, so Tigie
could give an earful to everyone we ran
into – from the convenience-store clerk to
the sheriff – about those horses being
abused.
Tigie’s last two burros, Applejack and
Blackjack, had also been abused in a for-
mer life. So they could be particularly
cautious about cooperating, though that
was also because, being burros, they took
their sweet time. Tigie found this donkey
trait profoundly endearing. “Donkeys are
born thinking they’re racehorses,” she
said. “It takes them a while to figure out
that their job in life is to stand around and
ponder things.”
Luring Blackjack and Applejack in