The High Chaparral Episode: The Stallion

"The High Chaparral" was a western television series originally broadcast on NBC from 1967 until 1971. It was created by David Dortort.

Cast:

Big John Cannon, the owner of the High Chaparral: Leif Erickson
Buck Cannon, Big John's brother and therefore, naturally, Blue's uncle: Cameron Mitchell
Blue Cannon, Big John's son: Mark Slade
Victoria Cannon, Big John's wife and daughter of a wealthy Mexican landowner: Linda Cristal
Manolito "Mano" Montoya, Victoria's brother: Henry Darrow
Chatto, son of Natchez: Clive Clerk*
Natchez, Apache chief: Michael Keep

This was a great episode of "The High Chaparral." The story is fictional, but it uses the historical Apache chief Natchez as one of the main characters, even though the real Natchez would have been a young man in the 1870s, the general time frame setting of "The High Chaparral."

Blue Cannon (aka, Billy Blue or Blue Boy) pursues a magnificent wild black stallion, but before he can rope the horse, Chatto, the son of Apache chief Natchez, gets a rope around the great horse, only to have the rope break. Blue chases and ropes the horse. Chatto is not far behind and he feels the horse is his. Blue and Chatto fight and Blue pulls his gun, but just then, Natchez and several of his men ride up. From the opposite direction comes Blue's father, Big John Cannon, and ranch hands from the High Chaparral. Big John and Natchez have an earlier agreement to try to keep the peace, but this incident is about to put that agreement to the test. Blue tells his father what happened, and Big John has Manolito tell Natchez that Chatto lost the stallion and that Blue caught it, so it is his. Chatto does not want to give up the horse, but his father does not want an incident that could lead to war. Chatto angrily dashes away to his own horse.** Natchez and his men ride off, but Buck says he doesn't think they have heard the last about the possession of this stallion.

When Blue takes the horse back to the High Chaparral, he prepares to train the horse for riding, but Buck brings him a set of hobbles, which restrain a horse's legs, and thus, its movement, to allow a person to put a saddle on them, and then begin to get the horse to accept a rider. At first Blue decides to call the horse "Windy," but later when Big John talks to his son, he proposes a new name, "Sirocco," a word meaning, "a hot, dry wind from the Sahara Desert." *** Big John also tells Blue that a horse such as "Sirocco" should be won over and not be broken in the usual manner. Blue takes his father's advice and spends days working with the stallion to win him over, which he finally does. One day as Blue and the ranch hands eat and Sirocco is tied up nearby, Chatto sneaks in and takes the stallion. Blue chases after him, but Sirocco is too fast and eventually Blue has to temporarily abandon the pursuit. In the meantime, Chatto names the stallion "Santana" and treats the horse well, developing a good relationship with him, just as Blue did.

Big John goes to see Natchez and neither wants an incident that will provoke war, but John tells him that Blue is willing to kill to get the horse back. Natchez and his men show up where Chatto has been keeping the stallion. Natchez wants to keep the peace, but his son will not give up the horse, and the young Apache men choose to side with Chatto. War may be approaching. Blue returns to the ranch and Buck prepares to have the ranch hands ride out with Blue to find Chatto and the stallion and to provide support for Blue if things turn ugly. Blue takes off without Buck and the ranch hands, but they soon follow after Blue. Natchez goes to the High Chaparral alone and tells Big John about his men siding with Chatto, which could mean war. Big John and Natchez go out together to try to resolve the situation and to keep the peace.

Blue finally spots Chatto on the stallion and a chase begins. Buck and the men are also not far behind, and the young Apache men leave their camp to find Chatto, as Big John and Natchez race to intervene. Chatto draws his knife and waits for Blue above the trail on a large rock. He leaps down at Blue and the fight is on as Buck and the men continue to close in. Chatto is able to hop on the horse to try to get away, but Blue hops on the stallion too. Their fight continues until they both fall off the horse and fight on the ground. The Apache men appear on the ridge above where the two men are fighting, and Buck and the ranch hands appear nearby. Buck wants to let the two men fight it out, but the Apache men begin to slowly descend from the high ground. Buck and his men also begin to move in. Natchez and Big John ride up and Natchez grabs his son and Big John grabs his son. Big John comes to a decision to see if the two young men will let the horse decide which man it wants to go with. Blue and Chatto agree to the plan and both are confident the horse will choose them. The horse is released and both men call to him, Blue using "Sirocco," and Chatto using "Santana." The horse turns and moves one way, and then the other. Up on the high ground the stallion's former herd appears.... the stallion runs to the herd! Blue and Chatto are stunned. Blue takes his father's horse and begins to chase after the stallion, but John tells him, "Some things are just naturally born to run free." Blue agrees and Natchez looks at Chatto. Blue rides over to Chatto and tells him to get on. He reaches out and Chatto reaches out and Blue pulls him up onto the horse; there will be no war. The stallion appears on the high ground.   

* Clive Clerk was a young actor in the 1960s and early 1970s who was in several episodes of NBC's daytime soap opera "Days of Our Lives," as well as in episodes of other shows. In the 1970s, he chose to concentrate more on interior design and art. He met actor and writer Tom Tryon when he did the interior design and decorating of Tryon's New York City residence. The two became romantically involved for a time.     

** In an error made during filming, we see Chatto run toward his horse, which is facing him, but then the view changes to Chatto jumping onto the horse (probably a stunt man was used), which is turned around. They had to clearly see this when editing, if not before, but they likely felt it wasn't worth the time and effort to shoot the scene again.

*** "Sirocco" is a word from Arabic, but its borrowing by English in the early part of the 1600s is from either French or Italian. The story in "the High Chaparral" episode has Big John say it's a French word, but from what I found in just a brief review, is that a number of histories say English took the word from Italian, and they also say French got the word from Italian. The thing is, it looks as if many of the southern European languages (Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and others) borrowed the word from North African sources, which is not terribly surprising, because this dry, hot wind blows across the Mediterranean Sea into southern Europe, sometimes powerfully so.

Photo is of the 2018 Shout Factory High Chaparral, Season Two DVD set

WORD HISTORY:
Stallion-This word for a "strong male horse," often with the additional notion of, "strong male horse used to sire offspring," is related to "stall" (a place for animals, later also, a small enclosed area for merchants to sell things), a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "stel," which had the notion, "to place, to put, to set." This gave Old Germanic "stallaz," meaning, "place, place for standing;" thus also, "place for an animal to stand." This gave Frankish, a Germanic language/dialect, "stal(l)," with the same meanings. This was taken into Old French to form "estalon," meaning, "a male horse kept in a stall for breeding purposes." This became "estaloun" in the Norman dialect in England. It was borrowed by English in the early 1300s as "staloun," before the change to "stallion" in the 1400s. (I inadvertently left this out: "Stallion" replaced the original English word for such a horse, "hengist." German still has "Hengst," meaning "stallion," and the figurative, "stud.")