I told you we'd be seeing more of the "animal friend" motif, and here we are, reading the biography of a horse. Smoky is basically Black beauty's country cousin. He is born on the range, a wild horse. When he's four years old, he's corralled and "broken" by a cowboy who develops a deep affection and respect for him. He is then stolen and taken across the border to Mexico where he is mistreated and eventually becomes a bronco in a rodeo show. When the fight goes out of him, he's sold to a horse rental stable that works him to the bone, renting him out to over-enthusiastic boys from dawn until well after dusk. When his health fails him, he is sold as chicken meat, then to a vegetable deliverer who starves him and whips him. When he is all but dead, the cowboy who first fell in love with him discovers him, takes him back to his ranch, and restores him to health. Presumably Smoky is able to squeeze in a couple of years of retirement before his death.
I recognized two distinct issues relating to the motif of the "animal friend" in this novel. First, I noted throughout the book the idea that animals exist only to serve human beings. The second is more of a question, and that is whether we can rightly call a relationship a friendship if it involves an institutional imbalance of power.
When Smoky is young, he roams the range freely, facing dangers and occasional hardships. But then he catches the eye of Clint, the cowboy, and the narrator tells us that "his time for usefulness had come." When he was young, he "didn't know he was on this earth for the purpose of the human and that if he did throw one man another would climb him till finally he'd have to give in." Far from condemning this fact, the narrator seems sentimental about the process of breaking wild horses, calling the relationship a "friendship" and imagining the fond feelings the horse might have for his master.
If we knew only of Smoky's early years, we might be tempted to agree. Clint doesn't abuse him, after all, and it is the policy of the ranch to release the horses after several years of service, allowing them to enjoy a pleasant retirement on the range. But Smoky, as I mentioned, is stolen from Clint, and his new master is not nearly as beneficent toward his animals. This new master beats Smoky almost to the point of killing him, and when he's unable to break his spirit, he sells him to a rodeo where Smoky is driven mad several times a day for an audience of spectators. Likewise the owner of the rental stable, while not an evil man, places profit before the health of his animals, and the vegetable man is even worse - he buys horses who are on death's doorstep because it is cheaper to let them starve than to actually maintain healthy animals.
Smoky's story could easily serve as a parable for slavery; despite his noble qualities and his intelligence (which the author takes labors to emphasize) he is considered property, and is ultimately considered valuable based on his extrinsic value rather than his intrinsic value. That is, he is not worth anything for his own sake, but only for the sake of his usefulness to humanity. As in slavery, the problem is not how one particular master treats Smoky, but that the institution provides for an imbalance of power, leaving the treatment of horses up to personal taste. Clint treats Smoky kindly and with respect, but by the standards of the law, the next master is within his rights to drive Smoky until he is just a bag of bones. The cowboys who do believe in treating animals well are dependent on a member of the humane society to come by and chastise animal abusers. As in slavery, it seems to me that there is no such thing as a "good" master when there is the possibility of a cruel master.
I suppose I will continue this topic next week. For now, I will leave the question open: can the relationship between Smoky and his captor really be called "friendship" when Smoky is, by his master's standards, property?
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