Dante of the Maury River

by Gigi Amateau

The woman, Mrs. Maiden, looked alarmed when she heard that. “Ashley, come back over here by me.”

  Everyone has a label, and, I suppose, I don’t really like labels. To me, a man is a man until he is a monster. And a horse is a horse until he’s not.

  The girl looked back over her shoulder at me, but I turned away.

  “Dante?” Ashley broke away from her trainer and ignored the previous warning.

  My eye met Ashley’s. A sure look of recognition came over her face as she read my nameplate.

  “Dante’s Inferno. I thought so!”

  Ashley tilted her head like she already knew me. I had the sensation of wanting to know her, too. The black curly hair and thick eyebrows and dark, lively eyes with a sparkle in them made me recall Filipia.

  Ashley ran back to where John, Miss Bet, and Mrs. Maiden were standing, across the aisle. He’s a grandson of Dante’s Paradiso, right?” Miss Bet nodded. “When I was little, I watched him race on TV,” Ashley said.

  “Did he win?” Mrs. Maiden asked.

  “No, he came in last. But, see, he had a new jockey who didn’t understand him.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because I watched him. I could tell that Dante wanted to stop and look at the track and all the horses, but his jockey whipped him to make him go on. Then Dante started bucking and rearing. He was so lathered by the time they got him to the gate, he didn’t have anything left. I felt sorry for him. I just have always thought that if they had only let him look around until he was ready . . . he would have won.”

  “He sounds like a bit of a handful!” Mrs. Maiden said.

  “But couldn’t we give him another chance? You’ve been saying that we need a fancy horse who could make it all the way to the A-shows someday.”

  “I thought you liked the chestnut.”

  “I do, a lot. But everybody has a chestnut. Dante is all black. He’s so gorgeous. I just know he’ll be great.”

  Mrs. Maiden returned to give me a closer look. At first, I backed up into the corner and pawed the ground, but then Mrs. Maiden spoke softly, like she meant no harm.

  Miss Bet helped me out. “He’s skittish. Not very trusting, at first. I hate to imagine why. But watch this.” Miss Bet unwrapped a peppermint — she always kept one or two in her pocket. Just a whiff soothed me.

  “See how daintily he takes the candy?”

  Ashley pressed her face to my stall. I lifted my nose to hers. “Oh, Dante! You can learn to be a riding horse, can’t you? A hunter or, maybe, one day a jumper? And we have trails, too! Well, Mrs. Maiden does. She’s my teacher.”

  Despite myself, truly, I nickered. That took Miss Bet by surprise and made John laugh. The girl giggled, which made me nicker again. And before I knew it, Ashley was standing in my stall, pressing her nose to mine asking was I happy. Then offering to trade breaths with me.

  “Let me scratch your ears,” she said in the kindest way.

  “He loves that,” John said. “You might just make a new friend if you keep it up.”

  When I didn’t drop my head straightaway, Ashley peered down into me and revived the one single human word that all at once could make me happy and sad and assured and relaxed.

  “Monkey,” she said, “you’re twitching your ears like crazy. Everything’s okay.” She combed her fingers through my forelock. “That’s what my mom always calls me, only she’s away right now.”

  Ashley called me Monkey. I dropped my head and leaned into her hands.

  “That’s a good sign,” Mrs. Maiden said.

  “Like I said, the issue with Dante is trust. With time, he could be incredible. I’ll be honest. He’s a big question mark, but he is a gorgeous mover, for sure. If you have the time, I’d love to show him to you.”

  Though I’m sure he was ready to leave prison behind, my good friend John didn’t let me down. Despite him being all cleaned up and dressed in street attire, he didn’t hesitate when Miss Bet pressed him into service one last time. He tacked me up and led me out to the small riding ring, then longed me first, as had become our routine and part of his cue for me to settle down.

  I snagged a peppermint from him, too, so that counted as a good day.

  With Mrs. Maiden and Ashley looking on, I devoted attention to John, adjusting my ears toward his voice, so that everybody would see how they were watching a talented horse.

  “I started with Dante about a year ago,” said John. “He’s still got a lot to learn, but he’s a good thinker. Very willing and a heart of gold, once you get down in there and find it. He needs work every day, but if you’ve got the time to invest, there’s no limit to his abilities. He’ll be outstanding. Eventually.”

  “I see what you mean. His ground manners leave something to be desired, but the horse is a nice mover,” said Mrs. Maiden. “Bet, could Ashley try him?”

  “What do you think, John?” Miss Bet asked my friend.

  John must’ve had a good feeling about the match being made right there in his last few hours with me. “He’s focused and warmed up now. Should be fine.”

  So John dismounted, and Ashley strapped on her helmet and stepped onto the mounting block, then sat in the saddle.

  “Maybe just an easy walk to get a feel for him,” Mrs. Maiden suggested.

  Ashley was holding her breath, and her whole little body felt tense and wound up, as mine often did before I’d had a minute to collect myself.

  “I can tell he wants to go,” Ashley said. “I have no leg on him at all and he just wants to move. I can feel it.”

  “Well, he likes you. That’s obvious,” said Miss Bet. “John got bucked off on his first ride.”

  Ashley laughed nervously. “What would he be doing if he didn’t like me?”

  “Tossing his head. Trying to jerk the reins out of your hands.” Miss Bet turned to Mrs. Maiden. “I won’t lie to you. He’s very green, Isbell. He needs a lot of work. Years even.”

  Ashley let out a big sigh, then so did I. She loosened her tight grip on the reins, relaxed into her seat, and sighed again. When she started singing under her breath, I lowered my head and just enjoyed the moment. I had learned first from Filipia and then from John that a singing or storytelling rider is someone trying to find their courage and hoping to be my friend. Ashley stayed in the saddle just long enough for me to decide that being friends with her was something I’d like to try.

  Somewhere between the first and second peppermint, I had convinced myself that Mrs. Maiden and Ashley would adopt me, but they got in their empty trailer and left the prison with me standing there, wondering how I could have persuaded them to try. Just try me.

  Mrs. Maiden had promised to call Miss Bet if they changed their minds, but bereft and forlorn, I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong.

  I had been on my best behavior. No stomping. No tail flashing and no rearing. For the first time in a long time, since my winning days with Filipia, I actually wanted something.

  I gathered from the talk around me that Mrs. Maiden liked me, all right, and Ashley adored me. But Mrs. Maiden wanted a horse that could help her attract new students to the Maury River Stables and help students such as Ashley progress in their riding. I was too green. Too much of a project horse.

  On his way out the door for good, John himself delivered the bad news. “Sorry, boy,” he said. “I’m proud of you. You were a good horse today. Shoot, you are every day. I’m not one to wish away my life or throw away my freedom, but I almost wish I weren’t leaving here, because of you.”

  In gratitude for all he’d done for me, I lifted up my right leg, held it high in the air, and made a little pawing action. My way of telling him to come in closer. What’s so great about John is that he got me from the get-go.

  He laughed. “You’re about the best horse. You take some getting used to. Kind of like scotch, but not as bad for me.” He rubbed my mane and spoke into my ear. “I love ya, Dante. I hope we meet again.”

  Truly, I don’t expect a single living soul
in the paddock or the barn to believe me, but here’s the truth. Some few minutes after John left, I was still grieving over him being gone and still questioning what had happened with Mrs. Maiden and Ashley. I was just about to really give in to feeling sorry for myself, when what did I see but the Maury River Stables trailer come driving past the guardhouse, through the prison gate, and down the hill to the OTTB barn. The two of them pulled right back into the drive of my barn, and that’s a fact.

  I had pictured the both of them in my mind’s eye, and here they came back. Now, such a practice doesn’t always work. I am all the time picturing more grain or a few peppermints without producing the desired results.

  But this time, visualizing worked. I had been standing on the hill near the road behind the high barbed-wire fence, taking inventory of all the opportunities I’d been given in my life. Some I had taken and others I had not.

  Now, I know that not everybody likes their horses poetic and philosophical. Well, blame the bloodlines. If the whole line of us is named after a poet, you can expect we might wax poetic now and again.

  I won’t lie and say that I ever missed Doctor Tom, Gary, or most of my jockeys. But there are a few folks I’ve met who really do believe what I believe. Simple as this: we’re all animals. Or maybe, we’re all commodities. At any rate, we’re all in this together.

  I hesitate to say equal. That’d cause a controversy in equine and human circles, both species being highly convinced that they’re God’s own gift.

  Few and far between were the humans I had met up to that point who would look me in the eye and swap the truth.

  Melody. Filipia. John.

  That’s it.

  All three of them gone. Moved on.

  That had got me to thinking about Mrs. Maiden and Ashley. Their visit tapped my heart in the same easy place. Ashley and I had connected. Or so I had thought, until she and Mrs. Maiden left. Without me.

  Now here they were, coming around the bend right at the very instant that I had imagined them.

  Had they left something valuable behind? What in the world could they want?

  Aside from Mrs. Maiden wanting to support her friend Miss Bet’s OTTB program at Riverside, I couldn’t guess what made her turn that trailer around. But I heard her say to Miss Bet, “It’s not every day you meet a horse with a pedigree like Dante’s,” and she adopted me and transported me to the Maury River Stables that afternoon. By suppertime, I was elated to find myself back in the blue mountains that reminded me of Filipia. Though not the same as my Kentucky home, the blue mountains were a good next best.

  The order of things at the Maury River Stables was pretty easy to figure out. Mrs. Maiden had put together a good-working setup for a family riding school: an outdoor ring as you entered the compound, a round pen for new arrivals or hot horses like me who needed longeing like they needed air. A big barn with stalls down both sides, with a small area for riding indoors when the weather was cold or wet or hot. Nothing fancy about the place. A wash stall, a feed room, a tack room, an office, and cross-ties for shoeing. That’s it.

  Well, not entirely. There was one thing on the outside of the barn that surprised me. A ramp. I confess, prior to my arrival at the Maury River Stables, I held the incorrect opinion that a human being must be able to walk in order to lead a horse. The facts before me required me to rethink that notion, and here’s what I learned. Legs don’t lead; intention leads. Confidence and energy, too. That ramp outside the barn was built for the express purpose of giving riders who are mobile with the aid of a wheeled chair access to the saddle.

  I’ve now seen this with my own eyes, many a time, and I am no longer amazed, as I was early on. Not that anybody has ever invited me to participate in this type of riding, which is called therapeutic, by the way.

  Not all riders in the therapeutic riding school use the ramp. Fact is, I know of blind horses, like the old App here now, and blind riders. No lie. And even though I am not a therapeutic teacher, I’ve learned a thing or two from the students and horses in the program.

  Well, I’m getting ahead of myself again. Back to the setup at Mrs. Maiden’s place.

  I discovered that she kept two front fields near the barn — one for mares and one for geldings — and a couple more around back. Mrs. Maiden used these primarily for separating us. And she maintained trails leading every which way. Up, down, and all around through the forest, past the pond, across the Maury River, and to the top of Saddle Mountain.

  Of everything about my new home, I was most grateful for that river and that mountain. Being a horse who had until then spent his whole life going fast — trying to be first, or fighting life every step of the way — I expect I needed the quenching of the river and the grounding of the mountain as much as I had ever needed anything in my life.

  But even with a good river and a strong mountain, being the new horse was lonely.

  I met a real mishmash of horses my first day at the Maury River Stables and not a Thoroughbred among them. None of them was too impressed with my bloodlines, and not a one of them even had a pedigree to speak of. I had my pedigree, all right, but not one friend. Shoot, as long as I had grain, hay, and Ashley, why would I need friends anyway?

  After completing the requisite one week with turnout only in the round pen — Mrs. Maiden’s attempt to quarantine off any bad germs a new horse might introduce to the barn — I settled in the gelding field. My new home was a ten-acre pasture full of boarded horses with common, untraceable names: Cowboy, Jake, Charlie. And one decidedly uncommon little fella. A purebred Shetland named Napoleon.

  Of all those I had met at my new home, Napoleon fascinated me most of all. He was the smallest horse I had ever met and, in a way, the biggest. He used his size to his every advantage, especially when it came to getting out of tricky places. And his confidence was, well, let’s just agree that his ego was mountain-size, not miniature. What I liked about the Shetland was that he called me “Mister Dante” from the get-go. A respectful little pony, for sure.

  But the very instant I turned out with those other geldings, I met trouble. At Gary’s, I never spent much time with horses, nor did I at Riverside. Not in the same field, anyway. Mostly I was kept in a small paddock by myself.

  Here, the boarders crowded around me, sniffing my flank and generally being bothersome. Blocking my way. Whinnying right up in my face.

  Did I care to have them that close and all up in my business? No, I did not. They cramped my space and wouldn’t relent, so I pinned my ears back. That message was clearly received by not a one of them. The boarders kept on bothering me till I had a decision to make, and I decided to throw a conniption fit of squealing, kicking, and, I’m not ashamed, even growling.

  I’ll be honest. My relations with the other geldings went from sorry to downright catastrophic.

  The boarders kept on with their constant picking at me and racing around and around, taunting me about my pedigree, and speculating that I must not be very fast if I was grazing in a field at the foot of Saddle Mountain. Got me so overloaded with stress that I will freely admit to going on the offensive. If Cowboy even looked my way, I’d flash my teeth. Jake really crossed my line when he violated the invisible circle of my personal space while I tried to graze. No lie, I left a furious hoofprint on his haunch that is somewhat visible to this very day.

  You’d think Charlie might have learned his lesson from observing his compatriots, but no. He had to go and show everybody all about being a daredevil. He snatched some hay right out from under me, and I bit the fool right out of his neck. Nah, I take that back. Wiping the fool off Charlie is one impossible thing, for sure.

  Here’s the surprise. Mrs. Maiden cut me no slack. None at all. In her estimation, the problem resided with one horse and one horse only. Yours truly, Dante’s Inferno.

  “Dante doesn’t know how to befriend horses,” she explained to her students. “He only knows how to compete with them.”

  Maybe she was right, too. I resented the riffraff
, and they me. I was fast learning that living in a herd of horses of all sizes and breeds was about as difficult an endeavor as I had ever attempted.

  At that point in time, I wasn’t in training for anything. My main job was to eat grass, Mrs. Maiden having been advised by the Thoroughbred retirement program that some benefit might be gained from letting me stand around in a pasture for another few months. Even though John had been training me in the basic aids at Riverside, the conventional wisdom said that what I needed most was to work on my ground manners and get accustomed to my new life as a regular-old, nothing-special horse.

  If the geldings presented a challenge for me, well, so did the people. Not including Ashley, Mrs. Maiden’s students complained, up and down, right and left, that I bullied and bossed every horse and human who stepped into the field.

  I didn’t see my actions early on exactly as bullying. When a horse has a known and understandable fear of sharp edges, pokers, pointers, sticks, and the like, it seems downright foolish, if not mean, to enter his stall with a pitchfork in your hand, angled directly at him.

  Yes, such a travesty happened once, maybe twice, and, yes, I reared up, showed my whites, and stomped a fierce beat until the little pitchfork-carrying culprit left me alone. And that turned into me scaring Mrs. Maiden’s students? An injustice.

  My saving grace was Ashley. She came out to visit every day. During her school week, we’d have an hour or two of dwindling daylight. On the days without school, she’d spend the sun with me.

  I can honestly say I had never met a soul as kind to me as Ashley. Not to take a thing away from Filipia. My jockey was as good as grain, on all occasions, but she had a bit of a temper and was predisposed toward getting frustrated with herself. And when that little gal got annoyed with Gary, she could kick a wall with the best of them. More than once, we kicked the tarnation out of a wall together.

  At the Maury River Stables, nobody else seemed all that interested in kicking walls, but what other means of communication did I have for letting Mrs. Maiden know when grain was running late, the hay tasted dry, or my bedding needed changing?