Stu's email address is stumail@earthlink.net.

If you happen to see a bearded man lurking in the trees along the road between Grand Hotel and the French Outpost, do not panic.
Do not call the police.

It's probably just Dick Rulison, the horse traffic director for Mackinac Island Carriage Tours. If this is news to you, then you don't know Dick. He can often be seen wearing a ball cap, glasses and carrying a radio; his bike parked nearby. He is the eyes and ears of Carriage Tours. He keeps watch on the carriages, making sure they go where they are needed. He works closely with the Carriage Tours office, where visitors are loaded for their tours.

Many people don't realize it, but there is at any given time during business hours any number of tour carriages in a holding pattern, strategically placed for maximum exposure at specific stopping points, sometimes backed-up all the way down main street, around the corner past the library. One-by-one, they advance, are loaded and begin their tours.

You have to look for Dick to notice him. He wears a Carriage Tours hat, a T-shirt and blue jeans, but if you didn't know who he was you may not even notice him. He blends in with crowd. Sometimes he is stationery and sometimes he is cruising the holding pattern, making notes of which carriages are where, etc.

Part of his job is to be a presence, so Carriage Tour drivers are not tempted to "hot lunch," i.e., pick up walkers and make some cash under the table. Dick says this is not a big problem, but his presence just helps keep everyone honest.

Perhaps more than anything, Dick is a guardian angel. I know--nice visual--an angel wearing a ball cap and sporting a beard. He would never call himself one, but he is one. It is his job to spot problems with horses, carriages and people before they happen. As each team passes by he, from a distance examines the harnesses and horses, to make sure they are as they should be. From his perspective, he can notice things the driver cannot. If he notices something wrong, he stops the carriage and fixes it. If he need to replace a harness, he has extras close by stashed along the route.

Dick knows the horses and the drivers. He knows who is experienced and who is learning. He knows the capabilities of the individual horses, for instance, which can climb a certain hills, which can back up and which can work well with others. He is always on the lookout for a horse behaving unusually or maybe not feeling well. Problems are then nipped in the bud before they become problems. And with more than 400 horses on the Island in the summer, it is a busy job.

One of Dick's greatest concerns is for runaway horses. I'm not talking about a horse who is not getting along with its parents and packs a bag. A runaway horse is like no other event in nature. It's like a runaway locomotive, except it's moving, powerful, inertia-filled, flesh, blood and bones, scared, sprinting, adrenalin coursing through its veins, blind with fear. The sound of a runaway is unmistakable; the pounding of the hooves in rapid succession, gaining speed with every stride until it runs into something or someone, trips and crashes, or if you're lucky runs a long way, gets tired and stops on its own.

Runaways while posing ominous danger, are not common on the Island, but they occasionally do occur. When they do, the horse or horses involved are banished from the Island. They can no longer be trusted because once they experience that loss of control. They know that is an option for them, thus making them a safety hazard.

What should you do if you see a runaway? Get out of the way and try to warn others to do the same. There is little time to react; they happen exponentially fast and out of nowhere. A spooked horse can do 0 to 60 in 2.3 seconds, or so it seems. And unless you know what you are doing, don't try to be a hero and stop the horse: "Gee, maybe I should put my waffle cone down and try to stop Seattle Slew..." Wrong.

The ever-present potential for a runaway is why people who are used to being around horses don't make quick moves or loud noises around horses. They also know that any number of things may spook a horse. Something as seemingly innocuous as a plastic grocery bag blowing down the street can spook a horse. This is also why you don't see any helium balloons on Mackinac and why drivers discourage horse petting. Petting inside the carriage is OK.

This is also why there is such strict rules prohibiting kite flying, rollerblading and skateboarding downtown. The city council has determined that just about anything on Mackinac has the potential to spook a horse, including other horses, but the idea of banning them is on hold until they can get more information.

So next time you see Dick, give him a wave and know he is at least one of Mackinac's guardian angels.