The Horse

“You kids want to take Pash around the field a few times this morning?” asked Pa, his mouth full of Ma’s buttermilk pancakes, syrup dripping slowly from his uplifted fork.
“Yeah, yeah!” Care and I whooped, quickly scooting our spindle-backed chairs from the table. Our breakfast on the table forgotten, we raced to the door where Ma had neatly arranged our scuffed boots. With a flurry of movement, we were laced up and out the door, Ma’s sigh of vexation chasing us all the way to the barn.
When we got to the stables, Caroline began to run the horse over with a stiff brush while I pulled the saddle off the rack and readied the bridle. The leather left a musty residue in the air, mixing comfortably with the familiar horse smell that always encompasses a barn.
“Alright, she’s ready,” said Caroline, stepping back to survey the weak gleam that just barely reached the mare’s dull coat. With a heave, I threw the saddle onto her broad back, and proceeded to cinch her up.
“Hand me that bridle, Care.” Her hand barely encircling the coarse rope crownpiece, she attempted to pull it off the rack, her thin arms straining under the weight of the thick leather.
With a sigh of exasperation, I grabbed the bridle roughly from her hands, and gave her a well-practiced glare. Quickly, I threw the bridle over Pash’s rabbit-like ears and with a grating sigh, I forced the stall door back. I ushered Pash through the opening that led to a field in the back of our property, her hooves clopping noisily on the dirt packed ground. The reverberating beat of her feet broke the eerie silence that had enveloped the white world outside of the barn door.
“C’mon Care,” I said gruffly. She ambled over, and, ignoring my proffered hand, stepped up on the fence and vaulted easily into her customary seat on the saddle. I swung myself up behind her, took the reins, and made the old mare race to the field.
When we got home, I jumped off Pash and ran to get my gun. I trudged through the snow until I came to our makeshift shooting range. It was just bottles stacked up on decayed tree stumps, but I treasured it as my own private spot. With a sure hand, I pulled the trigger, and waited for the explosion of sound as the bottle shattered.
I shot a few more, and, feeling relaxed and loose, proceeded to clean out the barrel of the rifle. Suddenly, my eyes caught movement in the underbrush. Quick as a cat, my gun was aimed at the flickering shadow, my hands still, but my body shaking. I crept through to where the sound had originated, trying to keep my booted feet from crackling the dead leaves that littered the forest. I heard labored breathing, and felt something click in my brain. I stood up suddenly, recognizing the snort-like gasping as that of a horse. It was enough to send the animal bolting back through the forest. I caught a glimpse of black as the horse disappeared among the trees. I ran all the way home.

I rushed into the house.
“Pa!” I breathed, “Pa, you’ll never believe what I saw in the field!”
“Calm down, Tom. You’re exciting your sister.” Caroline was bouncing up and down, begging to hear.
“I saw…,” I was gulping for air, “I saw a horse! A wild horse!”
“Now, Tom. Don’t tell stories, you’ll upset your sister,” Ma said reprovingly.
“No, Ma, I really saw one. He was magnificent, and black and…”
“Alright Tom. We’ll go out tomorrow morning and see what’s going on.”
“Can I come? Can I?” Care pleaded, her face taking on that irresistible charm that avails itself specifically to girls.
“No,” my father answered, “Young ladies don’t need to be out in a field at five-thirty in the morning.” Caroline clammed up real fast.

The morning dawned bright and early, rays of sunlight dancing on my slatted floor, gently warming the blanket that cocooned me from the rest of the unborn world.
When I came down to the kitchen, Pa was loudly rustling around the cabinets, his rough hands caressing the wood he had hewn with just a hatchet and a pair of rawhide gloves. I gave him a look, my finger pressed up against my lips, warning him of how much noise he was making. A soft smile lit up his face as pulled out an old, moth bitten lasso. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

The determined sun had succeeded in melting the snow that had buried our farm in a cloud of white. Only the most stubborn patches of ice quilted the landscape, winking like diamonds in the light. My father and I trudged through several pastures, heading towards the field where I had last seen the horse.

There he was. The most magnificent animal I’d ever seen. He wasn’t so much black as he was the absence of color, the opposite hue of any shade ever portrayed in any painting. He was a sculpture, a masterpiece of some forgotten renaissance. His body rippled with that satiny sheen that only lends itself to angels, but his eyes breathed fire, and his nostrils flared blood red. His head was proud and wicked, his mane long and gnarled, as if Satan had blown an angry secret among it. He was the mortal form of the wind, of the snow, of the sun. How can you put a name to freedom? How can you tame the sea? How can one catch the fleeting image of heaven on earth with an old lasso, an old man, and a naïve child? It didn’t matter how. We’d done it.
The rope hissed through the air like a viper, encircling the arched neck of the horse. With a defiant scream, the animal reared, his hooves riding the air like hawks, circling ever closer to our bare heads. But with a sharp yank, Pa had the animal back on the ground, bucking and thrashing against the rope as if it burned his skin.
“Easy fella,” Pa crooned, his voice soft and soothing. The horse took no notice of the earthly language. I could tell only a higher being could master this horse, could speak his tongue. His eyes rolled around in his head and he whipped around the glen as though he was possessed. After five hours of this crazed battle with the lasso, the horse finally stopped running. He looked my haggard father square in the face, and promptly went up and nosed him in the chest, his eyes veiled over with a sinister emotion I couldn’t read. Then, the animal bared his teeth and began to attack Pa ferociously, his teeth snapping on empty air as my father neatly stepped out of the way.
“Let’s go home,” said Pa, his eyes alight with the joy of capturing the wild horse.

Ma and Caroline stared at us in awe as we lead the horse to the farm. They followed Pa and I into the barn, and it suddenly seemed overcrowded, and the horse began to wheel around, causing eddies of dust to whirl in the air, blinding me. When my eyes had finally rid themselves of the gritty sand, the horse was in the stall next to Pash, who seemed unperturbed at her new neighbor.
“I’m going to call him Blanco,” said Caroline, “Like one of those Indian horses.”
“Caroline, ‘blanco’ means white.”
“I don’t care.”


The next morning, I woke up before the sun. The gloom hid me as I crept down the stairs and out to the barn. The biting cold did not seem to faze me as I entered the barn, two horses nickering good morning as I pushed open the doors. I looked in on Pash to make sure her water hadn’t frozen over, and then quickly ran to the next stall. It was utterly dark; my eyes took several seconds to adjust. As figures were just taking on a shadowy shape, I could feel the horse dart at the door, lunging for me. His shriek of anger and resentment pierced the sky, deflating the darkness and allowing light to pour down. Somewhere, a rooster crowed to the dawn.
Scared out of my wits, I ran back to the house, the sudden sunlight blinding me. Ma and Pa had come down, bleary-eyed, and awakened by the horse’s call.
I went back upstairs to change. When I came back down, Pa was dressed and held the battered lasso in his hand.
“Let’s go break ourselves a horse, Tommy,” he said, a wry grin creasing his face. I could only nod, an indescribable fear gripping my body. That horse was too much for any man to handle.
Pa had succeeded in haltering the horse, flimsy leather on a massive being of muscle and spirit. The horse pranced out of the stall, light and airy next to Pa. My father led the horse out to a small field, and hooked him to a lounge line. The horse went around meekly for about two circles, and then, with hells hounds at his heels, shied and whirled and bucked around the line, his back leg lashing out viciously towards Pa. Stunned, Pa recoiled from the deadly kick, and fell heavily on the slick ground. Sensing a kill, the horse raced to the prostrate man, trumpeting his death cry to the empty air and pounding the ground with his front feet.
Yelling and screaming, I ran at the horse, heedless of my own safety, only intent on thwarting his advances on my father. Startled, the horse stopped abruptly, and gazed at me intently. His stare was too powerful; I couldn’t even meet his eyes. Knowing he’d won the battle, the horse snorted and began to graze. I helped Pa up from the ground.
“That’s enough work for today,” he said. His eyes were hard and full of apprehension as he glanced at the horse.
When we arrived back at the farm, Care was there to meet us.
“Hey Blanco,” she said, going straight up to the horse’s nose.
“No!” Pa yelled, but Caroline took no notice and petted the beast’s muzzle. Surprisingly, the horse remained docile as Caroline whispered in his lowered ear. She barely even came up to his knees, but the horse stood like a lamb while she walked under his belly and ran her hands all over him.
After her inspection was over, Caroline called him “her good Blanco” and went back into the house. Pa and I exchanged a look and glanced at the horse with a mixture of awe and abhorrence. He was the most beautiful and the most terrible creature we’d ever laid eyes on.

“I’m going to go see him,” Caroline announced after lunch, pushing her chair back from the table. Pa gave me a look.
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
Caroline ran ahead of me, and I could hear the grinding of a stall door. I quickened my pace, and was into a full-fledged sprint when a scream of agony ripped the pregnant air. When I reached the stall, I found Care crouching in the hay, her screams now magnified to bloodcurdling shrieks. Rearing and whistling with ferocity, the horse swerved towards me as I crept towards the stall door, his rage intensifying. With a quick dart, I grabbed Caroline by the leg, and dragged her out of the stall, the razor-sharp hooves crashing down a hairs-breadth away from us. With a roar of determination, I slammed the stall door locked, and turned my attention to Caroline.
Her right arm had been bent completely backwards, the elbow joint the closest part to her body. She was whimpering softly, and I gently picked her up, running to the house through blurred eyes.

Morning dawned blood red. We were all up early. It was as if some indescribable force had drawn us from our sleep, like the moon pulling the tide upon a desolate beach. No one spoke about the accident. No one talked about anything.
“Come with me, Tom.” Pa had entered the kitchen, his deep voice disturbing the silence like a pebble thrown into stagnant water. I obediently followed him outside, sensing that Ma and Caroline weren’t far behind. The horse was tied up to one of the fence posts, and the stillness of his body belied the wrath that was building up in his eyes.
Pa had a shotgun resting easily in his hands. I heard an intake of breath from behind me as he aimed the gun at the horse’s head, and the sigh of release my father uttered as he pulled the trigger. But the horse had already exploded, snapping the detested rope that chained him to the post, and took the bullet in his back leg. Fury made him fly at my father, and I heard a sickening crunch as the knife-like hooves slashed into his leg. Pa sank with a groan, and the horse backed away, standing about five feet from my family, his body shaking with the hatred that seemed to consume him. My father handed me the gun.
“Shoot the damn thing.”
I took the gun from my father’s clammy hands. The horse snorted and began to paw the ground, blood dripping from his leg. I glanced quickly into his eyes and then dropped my gaze. Even dying, I couldn’t meet the power and wisdom that rested in that animal’s heavy stare. It was more than I could handle. The look in that horse’s glare branded itself into my mind; the horse’s eyes echoed an emotion more powerful than hatred, more powerful than fear. It was acceptance. An acceptance of slavery, of death, of fear, of pain. I realized the hatred of this horse had stemmed from the struggle to keep his freedom, his innocence. I recognized it as the same battle that waged in my own breast. This horse and I were one. By killing him, I was murdering a part of myself.
I looked evenly at my sister, tears streaming down her face, and pulled the trigger. I’m a sure shot. I never miss.