Dante of the Maury River

by Gigi Amateau

  Mind you, if you pay attention to what all’s going on around you, you’ll hear an assortment of interesting facts. For example, I once heard Marey and the other dams remarking on how the barn doors needed painting, how the mats in the stalls could use replacing, and how few barnhands were left working at Edensway. “Not like when we were fillies,” they said.

  The severity of money trouble meant that every hand available was needed. Even those of a child.

  I was grateful for the mischievous presence of Doctor Tom’s daughter, Melody, who befriended me for the while that I lived at Edensway.

  Melody resembled a miniature version of her father. Long and lean. Both of them redheaded. And with lots of it. Hair, that is. Doctor Tom had a bushy chin, and Melody, a choppy forelock that fell down past her eyes. Her father frequently brushed his hand across her face and teased, “You need a haircut.”

  She’d swat him away. “I can see fine, Daddy.” Then she’d add, “You need a shave.” She was fiery like me, I remember.

  I do believe the youngster liked hiding behind her hair. Same way as how I sometimes hid behind Marey or squeezed into the corner of our stall. Just to have a welcome minute to myself.

  At nine years old, little Melody was one of the best handlers I’ve ever known. She had collected a lifetime of horsemanship skills by then. Observation being chief among her talents and one that is often both sorely absent and undervalued by grown men and women.

  Now, if I sound harsh, just remember this: a horse is a prey animal. As such, we spend our entire lives observing. We’re not out there just eating grass, but always watching and wondering what’s next.

  My point here is that Melody was not a prey animal but a predator — as are all humans — yet she proved herself to be a true friend of the horse. Skills learned at the knee of her grandmother, a legendary figure in Thoroughbred racing, and her father, too, I suppose. He is well respected by many humans and horses — though admittedly, I was a latecomer to the Doctor Tom fan club, and more of a junior member, anyhow.

  One morning Melody plip-plopped herself onto the fence and started eating her apple, ignoring me like I was as natural a part of the landscape as the redbirds that liked to nest in the thick old clematis climbing up the back of the barn.

  Though small and relatively new to this earth — compared to, say, Mrs. Eden — Melody possessed a good pedigree for horsemanship. But she could only handle me because I let her, and she helped her cause aplenty by not once in the entire span of time I knew her ever approaching me with a needle in her hand or anyplace on her person.

  My first groom didn’t so much mind the switchover to Melody. Let’s just say that he and I were of opposing minds about how I should be treated. I observed that he was as scared of me as the field mouse is of the red-tailed hawk. No reason to get into all that, though. No sense in embarrassing a novice. I’m sure he went on to find success with a milder, calmer, slower Thoroughbred foal than myself at a different farm.

  Melody, of course, never met a colt or a filly that frightened her. “We should keep him,” she suggested to Doctor Tom one day.

  “There’s a lot more involved in that than what you might think,” he replied.

  “You’re talking about money,” she said.

  Wise child. Moolah and marigolds almost always drive these sorts of decisions.

  What I didn’t quite comprehend, despite Marey telling me over and over, was that to whom much is given, of him much is required. An important lesson right there. One I wasn’t keen on learning, either.

  Just when I was about ready to forgive Doctor Tom for inflicting every blasted procedure onto me, he outdid himself. I heard these frightful words resurrected from Red, one of the few remaining nonfamily employees: “Look how crooked them legs are, Tom.”

  Marey snapped her head up fast, like thunder chasing after lightning. Then she caught herself and looked over at me with droopy eyes, acting cool and standing calm, as if nothing were wrong. She was faking it.

  I thought the world had agreed that crooked legs were more about fashion than function, but apparently not.

  “Just try to be good,” Marey said, because she knew a nightmare surely was headed my way. A halter. A trailer. And a long ride, but not to Lexington.

  Sure enough, Doctor Tom had me carted away from Edensway without Marey and without Melody. All by my lonesome, I traveled to a clinic where I met dozens of colts and fillies, every last one of them with crooked-leg syndrome, like me. If it even really was a syndrome.

  The lot of us was there to have our little foal legs broken and reset straight. Or if not broken, then every last bit of the crookedness scraped off. Either way, I could see it coming: a world of hurt.

  Oh, I fought them. Yes, sir. Why, I had a reputation to uphold.

  I kicked and bit at the white coats coming toward me. Struck out, twisted up, and went buck wild. I never considered, not even once, Marey’s plea to surrender.

  Not a single man or woman succeeded in getting me down on their own. I gave them a wild and wondrous show of brawn and bravery, till a whole gang of them banded together.

  They surrounded me. Some I could see, and others tucked themselves away into my blind spots. I kicked out sideways with all my might and all four of my feet.

  No go. One of those rascals sprung out from nowhere and injected me with a tranquilizing serum as powerful as two bellies’ worth of milk.

  Yes, my archenemy, the needle, brought me to the ground.

  It packed a hullabaloo of a punch that right quickly taught me the whole, full, and true meaning of surrender. Down I went to my knees.

  Some hours later, I awoke feeling puny, with my front legs wrapped tight and throbbing. No idea what they’d done to me or even how they did it.

  Within a day, Doctor Tom reappeared and got me onto the trailer without any hassle. Of course, I was fuller of medication than I was of myself. That helped his cause, but only temporarily. I just hadn’t had a chance to reload. And the truth is I was glad to smell bluegrass hay in the trailer, same as the kind I loved at home. Home is where I wanted to go. Back to Marey and Melody.

  The ride ended at Edensway, where one of Doctor Tom’s interns walked on the trailer to lead me back into the foaling barn. She tugged on my halter. “Here we go. Let’s get you back with Mama.” We walked slowly to the stall I shared with Marey. I could hear her whinnying for me.

  A welcoming party of family and friends greeted me — Mrs. Eden, Melody, and the whole team, including Doctor Tom. I knew I needed to set Doctor Tom straight once and for all. Who knew what sinister plan he might concoct next?

  My back legs being the only good ones available to me at the moment meant I had to lure him in close but not too near my backside. I lowered my head and feigned the thing everybody wanted from me: surrender. Doctor Tom took half a step, and I walloped him hard in the shin. No lie, I would’ve nailed his other leg, too, but he jumped out of the way.

  “Holy crap,” he complained to the intern. “That really hurt. Here. Let me have him. This colt needs to learn his lesson.”

  He took my lead from an assistant. His anger zipped along the rope, but I wasn’t scared of him.

  “Dante!” Melody burst into my stall and threw her arms around my neck.

  Doctor Tom lightened his grip.

  “Poor colt,” she said, and stroked my neck, then nuzzled my face. “Oh, I missed you so much. I worried about you every day.” She looked up at Doctor Tom. “Will he be okay? When will the leg wraps come off?”

  “He’s going to be just fine, sweetheart. You know how I know that?”

  She nodded. “Because he’s happy to see me.”

  “You got it. He wasn’t happy to see me, though. He kicked me!” Doctor Tom said.

  Melody giggled.

  “Not funny!” Then Doctor Tom’s callused hand rubbed my cheek.

  “He sure likes you. And he trusts you. I think you can help this colt even more if you want to. Lord knows, if he’s going t
o have a good life, somebody has to help him figure it out.”

  Mrs. Eden spoke up. “Tom, don’t be so melodramatic. You’ve seen plenty of good horses with bad attitudes. The great ones are worth it.”

  Doctor Tom just nodded.

  “You’re not letting me off the hook, are you?” he said to me.

  He appeared to be waiting for something from me. I didn’t lower my head, but I didn’t go after him, either.

  “I know you want to be in charge, buddy. From here onward, every turn your life takes will be because of a choice you make.” Doctor Tom sighed.

  He ran his fingers down my front legs and lightly squeezed the wraps. “Looks like they did a real nice job,” he muttered.

  I was trying not to hold a grudge and, even harder, not to head-butt him. I will admit that I wanted revenge something fierce, but I loved Marey, and she had asked me to try to be a better foal.

  Doctor Tom released his hold, and I went straight to Marey, who nuzzled my poll. I thought she also might want to kick Doctor Tom, so I tucked under her hind. But she didn’t pin her ears or show him angry eyes. Of all the surprises in the paddock, she whickered at him. Like she was thanking him.

  “Son, you look well,” my dam said. “I’m glad to have you home.”

  “Marey, I hardly remember a thing, and what I do recollect is the worst pain.”

  “Oh, you’ll know worse, believe me.” She whinnied right in my face.

  “What’s funny about that? And what do you mean?” I asked.

  “Little Dante, Kentucky is your birthplace. Mine, too. And your father’s and grandfather’s. There is no finer place to claim, but you won’t stay here forever. You’ll travel the land, training and racing. Such a life is not for the weak. Some days every ounce of your body will long to lie down. Every cell will ache and throb and beg you to stop. Your lungs will burn; your heart will beat so fast you will think you’re going to collapse, and you might. Or you may make your name and future on the track and return here to live a long and good life, if you do everything right. Right now, that’s a very big IF.”

  In a most loving way, my dam continued, “Something needs to change, son. Please. For the family. For the bloodlines.”

  “But, Marey, I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me to do. You asked me to stand, and I stood. When you wanted me to walk and run, I did those things, too. When you tell me it’s time to sleep, I sleep.”

  She popped her front hoof hard at the ground. “Trust me, I know all about the burdens that a foal of your pedigree carries. I was one! The pressure on a broodmare is even higher. I’m tired of begging you: act right. Got it?”

  I looked away from Marey to far across our pasture. My own heart beat loud and strong in my ears. Out on the farthest hill, I imagined seeing my grandfather again. His head tilted and his eye gazing upon me. I imagined, also, how happy everyone would finally be when I was the next Triple Crown winner. I rubbed my face against Marey’s belly, then looked toward the horizon.

  “I will, Marey,” I promised. “I’ll make the bloodlines proud one day.”

  The next morning before turnout, Doctor Tom separated my dam and me. He came to get me himself and walked me down the yard to the weanling barn. And of all things, Marey let him. She bowed her head and closed her eyes, like she knew all along.

  A whole bunch of us got moved up the hill: me and nine others, including my chestnut first cousin, Covert Agent, who got himself sent to the crooked-leg clinic not too terribly long after I did. Covert, by a different sire, out of Marey’s sister, Gemma, was also a grandson of Dante’s Paradiso. He was a little dusting of a fella with a lot of heart.

  The new place was a good bit larger than the foaling barn. All ten stalls aligned down a single lane. Each had its own door and a white column, all situated in an orderly fashion and connected along a finely masoned breezeway. Our rooms opened toward the Edens’ old, sprawling brick house, out of which came some sweet, sweet smells on Sunday mornings. Sugar, Honeycrisp apples, and I couldn’t tell you what all else. Trust me, I had no trouble learning to linger around my stall door on Mrs. Eden’s baking days.

  From the front, I gazed out over the life-size statue of Grandfather Dante. The driveway wound past our barn and down the hill to the foaling barn and the paddocks and the turnout pastures. There were other barns over that way, too, for stallions and retired mares. I never saw inside any of them.

  At the new place, each of our stalls shared a grated half wall with its neighbor, and we’d all get to cribby-crabbing at each other over any little piece of news: feed, hay, visitors.

  I lived right next to the feed room in a stall that had always been reserved for the best foal, like Grandfather Dante and Marey before me. Across time and history, the imprint of every prior top Edensway prospect permeated the walls, the air, and everything about the space, and that’s what gave my stall an aura unseen by human eyes. Wisdom, confidence, and knowledge emanated from the wooden walls surrounding me.

  Inside there, I enjoyed a welcome plenty of space to stand and turn and pace about if my supper ran late in arriving. Looking out the back window, I could gaze across the entire north acreage of Edensway.

  From there, I kept an eye on my old paddock, the broodmares, and the newest foals. Sometimes in the very early morning, I spied on Marey way down that hill, but when I whinnied, she never picked up her head or even called back to me.

  Despite the comforts afforded me, the move away from Marey and into the status-stall tested me greatly. I didn’t care a lick for all that change.

  In the new barn, it was just us colts and fillies. Nothing but a bunch of young wild things figuring it out for ourselves. Heck, by then I must’ve weighed five hundred pounds, easy peasy. Maybe more. And, shoot, I stood taller than more than a few ponies. So I sure didn’t look that much like a baby anymore.

  At first, I figured I’d enjoy not having any mares nearby to boss me around. I learned pretty quickly, though, that also meant no Marey nearby to explain how things worked, to nuzzle me when I got confused, or to show me how to act brave.

  One saving grace was that Doctor Tom brought Melody to visit straightaway. She herself was like a filly, in some ways. Long gangly legs, a branchy neck, and a full mane that fell well down her back.

  I was standing in a paddock, turned out with Covert, when the two of them came over to check on how I was settling. Doctor Tom placed a hand on Melody’s shoulder. My halter and lead rope were looped over her other one.

  Next thing I knew, Melody tucked both her hands in her pockets and giggled. That’s trouble, I thought. I sniffed the air and caught a sharp, crisp scent. Something familiar to the nose but foreign to the tongue. Not rich like early morning grass. Not savory dam’s milk.

  She held her hand out flat. I walked over to check it out. “Peppermint. For you!”

  Then she popped the treat into her own mouth. “Or, for me!”

  Melody always was a little old prankster of a girl. The confounding thing was that neither Doctor Tom nor the child made any sort of move to catch me. No harping or chirruping. No kissing the air. No staring me in the face.

  I would almost say that neither flashed any interest in haltering me at all. Except here Melody came again, and wafting through the air was the intriguing smell of peppermint.

  I casually wandered over and grazed near the girl. She turned her back to me, all the while tinkering with that spiffy-sniffy morsel in her hands. Unable to help myself, I snuck up behind her and very lightly touched the back of her arm with my lip. Doctor Tom stepped in close by me, too. Naturally, I moved a step back. He spoke softly. “How about a fresh start between us? For real this time.”

  Well, I about froze.

  Was Doctor Tom calling a truce?

  On instinct, and from having formed a habit of rearing up and kicking out at Doctor Tom, I shifted my weight. Just to collect some power at the ready.

  The girl extended her hand again. Perched in the middle of her tiny palm: one rou
nd candy about the size of my nostril. I pondered over whether to smell it or to eat it. The promise of sugar and mint and potential goodness dissolving in my mouth? Mmmm . . . mmmm. I closed my eyes and breathed it in.

  “For you,” she said, a second time. “Really truly.” The faintest quiver ran across her open palm; her stretched-out fingers nudged the scent toward me. “Go on. Take it.”

  So I did.

  In a soft wave, she folded her hand along my neck, right where Doctor Tom and his students preferred to draw blood and stick needles. I tensed but didn’t bolt because next she scratched my mane at the instant of its itch.

  Besides, Melody wasn’t armed. She had no weapons on her; not a needle or syringe or thermometer in sight.

  The girl rubbed my neck and chest and muzzle in the way Marey often had. That memory triggered a wistful sigh. I am no longer Marey’s foal, I realized.

  I stood still for a very long time, till my eyelids felt so heavy that I could hardly keep ’em open.

  “Look at that,” Doctor Tom said. “You’ve ’bout got him to sleep, Melody.”

  “Daddy,” she said. “He’s my favorite colt I’ve ever met. Why don’t you like him?”

  I knew it! I perked my ears. This I had to hear straight from the doctor’s mouth.

  “Oh, who says I dislike this wild fella? He’s strong. He’s handsome. He’s got that large heart from his mama. You know she’s my favorite. As colts go, I actually like him very much. Maybe Dante doesn’t like me.”

  “Well, I like you, Daddy.” Melody cocked her head and scratched my cheek in another itchy place. I leaned into her hands. “You and L.D. should be friends now. Look at him. He’s so friendly,” she said. And quite convincingly, too.

  “I don’t know that I’d use that exact word: friendly,” Doctor Tom said. “Little Dante — L.D.— doesn’t know it, but what he wants is to win enough to position himself to stand at stud for most of his life. That’s the goal. I’m beginning to worry that his antics and his attitude might overshadow whatever standout assets run in his blood. The last thing he wants is to have to make his name by racing. That’s a life, all right. A tough one. Besides, whether or not we’re friends is not up to me. Everything from here on is up to him.”