Joyce Reynolds-Ward, The Equine Phantom (1844-1939)

Born to Ambrose Gilman Ward and Willa Eulalia Reynolds, Joyce Reynolds-Ward was affectionately known as “the Equine Phantom” due to her reputation as a mercenary and bounty hunter during the height of the Old West period of the United States.

Little is known of her early life except for probable apocrypha found in extent collections of folktales written between 1873 and 1905. She was born in the now-abandoned mining town of Oldrat Falls, Missouri and likely attended school at the disreputable Sewell’s Academy for Proper Womanhood, from which she was supposedly expelled after setting fire to Principal Enoch Sewell’s office over a dispute about the role of women in modern American society. Though technically an illegal act, locals were reported to have been unbothered by her decision; five years later, Enoch Sewell would be found guilty of defrauding taxpayers and illegally owning a distillery for fermented sucker fish.

Sometime in 1859, Joyce left her family home in Oldrat Falls and headed west on a wagon train bound for the New Mexico Territory. Historians suspect this was a response to the increased tensions between northern and southern states, though some conspiracy theorists contend that she had joined the Sororum Perpetuae Spiritus to help spread its matriarchal occultism in the western settlements. Regardless, she arrived in Santa Fe in the summer of 1859 and came under the employ of Ferdinand Barstool, an itinerant horse whisperer (or “flooster”) who spent half of his time convincing horses to willingly follow their human masters and the other half arguing with cacti – though it remains unclear whether either of these acts were literal or merely folkloric exaggerations. Under Barstool’s tutelage, Joyce became an exceptional flooster, successfully training famous horses such as Miss Fortuitous, Alby Lollygagging, Phil, and The Horse With No Name (though everyone called him Waffles).

In February 1862, Joyce and Barstool were forced to flee Santa Fe when General Henry Hopkins Sibley marched into the New Mexico Territory with a Confederate force of over 2,000 men. Though eventually repelled by Union forces from California, the threat of a Confederate takeover propelled Joyce and Barstool to create a posse made primarily of women (see The Wiccan Covens of the 1860s) and Mexican farmers whose goal would be to terrorize Confederate lines, fulfil bounties on behalf of the union, and free slaves through a combination of horse-related trickery and confusing lightshows. Over the course of the Civil War, the posse successfully captured twelve Confederate officers, brought Griffin Dolbey Surbeck and Lorne “Split Nickels” Thimble to justice, successfully completed the Burnt Plantation campaign, and convinced over three dozen Confederate horses to abandon their masters (see Joycian Horses of New Mexico). These feats eventually earned her the nickname, The Equine Phantom.

Following the conclusion of the Civil War, Joyce continued to fulfill bounties for the U.S. government, both as a member of a posse and as a duo with Barstool. They were successful in capturing Philadelphia Sal, Mr. Santos’ Illustrious Brotherhood, and the notorious Tiffany “Ugly Toes” Spandau. In 1888, Barstool passed away either from dysentery or an altercation with a Carnegiea gigantea (see Old Granddaddy). Distraught, Joyce chose to honor her fallen friend by immersing herself in a herd of wild horses in the hills outside the relatively new city of Silver Springs.

For twenty-five years, it was believed the Joyce had died among the herd sometime in the 1890s. The Santa Fe New Mexican, Borderer, Lincoln County Leader, Carlsbad Current, and Raton Independent all recorded her death between 1893 and 1895, with some locals claiming to have seen her grave in the Fairview Cemetery (see the Cemetery Hoaxes of the 1890s). However, in 1913, Joyce was found alive in Washington working on the Long Lake Dam and living with a pair of horses in a barn in the semi-mythical town of Asymptote.

Joyce is now believed to have passed away in 1939, though proponents of the Sororum Perpetuae Spiritus theory of her life believe that she may have disassembled her spirit to merge with a herd of horses.