Carriage-ous men
Good deed heralded as heroic
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News travels fast in small towns, sometimes turning hometown people into local legends in a matter of days.
Dustin Burckhard and Timothy Ranel learned this first-hand after a quick, and maybe foolish decision, that's being heralded as heroic.
On Jan. 9, around 5 p.m., Burckhard, 29, was at work at his parent’s business in St. Ignatius, the Old Timer Café, where he is an assistant manager. Fifteen-year-old Ranel, a co-worker, had just started his dishwashing shift when he noticed an agitated horse out back pulling on the chain link fence it was tied to. The horse was attached to a black buggy, and Burckhard and Ranel were concerned because the animal had been fighting its confinement for some time.
The two decided to check on the mare, to make sure she didn’t get loose, and that’s when Midnight finally broke free and took off with a black buggy bouncing behind.
“I didn’t want the horse to get hurt, and you never know what would have happened if I let it go,” Burckhard said of his split-second decision to chase down the horse in his vehicle with Ranel manning the wheel.
After all, Midnight and buggy had already sideswiped two or three vehicles before they were able to calm her to a trot.
Ironically, earlier that day, Ranel had received his brand new driver’s license in the mail.
Little did the high-schooler know that his first test on the road as a licensed driver would be keeping a steady hand as Burckhard hung from the outside of the SUV, trying to control a runaway horse.
Like a scene from a movie, Burckhard stood suspended between steed and machine.
As they trotted down Airport Road, Ranel noticed a semi truck approaching. Instead of letting go of the horse, Burckhard bid his driver farewell and hopped into the buggy and eventually onto the back of the horse before being thrown. The fall bruised his ribs, injured his knee and might have fractured his ankle. Burckhard isn’t sure if it’s broken but he has had X-rays.
“It was kind of stupid,” Burckhard said sheepishly of his decision to jump. “Unfortunately, I would do it again.”
With Midnight calm, the two rescuers returned to the Old Timer Café, where they found the owners, two Amish girls in town shopping, wondering where their horse went. The girls were grateful, and Burckhard and Ranel went back to their jobs and all was as it was before the night of the Midnight ride at dusk.
Or so they thought.
The next day, local media was calling, and Burckhard and Ranel’s good deed was being dubbed “daring”. Any high-speed chase involving a runaway horse in Montana would no doubt attract attention, becoming the fodder of small town talk and big city headlines.
“I honestly thought it would never get this big,” Burckhard said in awe after a few days of hosting media requests for interviews.
“It’s unexpected,” Ranel said of being on the front page of the Missoulian and on Missoula’s KPAX news station. He even heard rumors of the story airing on the news stations in Billings.
“When I walked into school this morning, I got called ‘famous,’” Ranel said with a shy smile, recounting how teachers held up the front page of the Missoulian newspaper telling his and Burckhard’s tale as he walked down the hallway.
“People trust me a lot more than they should,” Ranel joked about his previously untested driving experience.
Ranel’s mother, Hope, doesn’t mind the attention her son is receiving, because she said around here, often bad news travels faster than good.
“I think it’s great … It’s good publicity for the town and the Old Timer,” Hope said. “We are good people here (in St. Ignatius).”
But on the same note and breath, Hope thinks about how dangerous the young men’s 15 seconds of fame could have been and is grateful something good came out of it instead.
“I also think ‘what fools,’” Hope said with a laugh.
