by Andrews
“Are you actually shouting at me because I’m not a home owner?” I asked, bewildered.
But Madge was just shouting now to hear herself shout. I was convinced that’s what lack of sex had done to her; it had culminated in verbal orgasms.
*
It was a beautiful summer morning when Liz and I got word that Rune and Hlatur were loaded aboard the trailer in New York bound for their temporary home with us at Maynard Wilkie’s farm. I’d dismissed the idea of hiring an equine transport service once I saw their route. Instead, I’d hired Maynard Wilkie, a middle-aged rancher who had hauled horses all over the country for a living. Maynard had personally agreed to drive to New York with his six-horse trailer and bring our horses home.
Friday, I took the day off so I’d be on hand no matter what time the horses arrived; Liz came over to my place right after she finished doing the morning news, and together we waited for a report of their travels. Maynard phoned to say the stable boy had told him, as they were loading, that the horses had been off their feed and not drinking water, so Maynard was keeping a close eye on them, unsure the horses were healthy.
“Looks like for all this ole boy’s horse tradin’ he don’t take such good care of his stock,” Maynard said in that flat cowboy way he had. “I can turn this rig around and dump ’em back where I got ’em and cut yer losses.”
I told him to keep driving and just get them here as quickly as he could. If the horses weren’t being cared for, they’d have a better life with us than with Furtillo.
By late evening, the reports were dire. Rune and Hlatur weren’t eating or drinking. Maynard said he thought maybe it was the trailer movement, so he pulled into a rest area off the highway and tried to get them to eat or drink—no luck. He’d intended to get a few hours’ sleep on the road; however, the horses’ condition changed all that. They were stressed, he told us in his matter-of-fact way, so he was going to drive all night to get them back to his farm. Anything less and he might lose them. Thank God I didn’t use the trucking service, which would have traveled hundreds of miles out of the way to drop off other horses before finally getting to us.
Liz fretted, wanting to know how long a horse could go without water. I dodged her question, but finally admitted a day was pushing it. She wanted to know in detail what happened after a day, but I truly didn’t know. I suspected they colicked—a condition in which their intestines kinked or were obstructed.
“Horses die of colic,” Liz said, savvier than I anticipated. “I think they flush oil through their systems to save them, but how’s that going to happen on the highway going eighty miles an hour, and who’s going to even know the horse has colic? If I’ve bought Hlatur and then caused him to die, I won’t be able to stand it!”
“I may not be grace under pressure, but you are doom! Nothing is going to happen to these horses.” I held her forearms to keep her from fleeing like a frightened animal. “It’s going to be all right.” Do I know that or do I just want that to be the case, I thought. But I never changed my resolute expression.
Maynard called to say he was making good time and would be pulling in around 11:00 p.m. At 10:45 p.m. on that cool summer night, we pulled onto Maynard’s old, run-down farm. We saw no sign of him, but his horse trailer was parked out by the stable, the engine still running and the trailer doors open. Maynard suddenly stepped out of the small wooden farmhouse, and I strode toward him extending my hand.
“Thank you for bringing them here safely.”
“Well, they still haven’t taken a drink and they’ve got to, or they’re gonna be in real trouble. I’m inside cleaning up. You all go on over to the barn, you’ll spot ’em in the corral.”
Maynard went back into the house and we walked toward the barn. A few hundred feet away in a small pipe enclosure, beneath the moon’s celestial glow, stood two exquisite horses. Hlatur was unmistakable with his large head, massive mane, gorgeous big eyes, and beautifully formed body. He moved to the fence and nickered to Liz, she ran to him and put her cheek against his muzzle, and they cuddled together in the cool night air like long-lost lovers. I didn’t recognize the beautiful little golden horse next to him.
“That’s her.” Liz’s voice held a smile. “She’s the only mare here.”
I couldn’t believe this gorgeous mare was mine. Flashier even than Hlatur, Rune could not have been lovelier, so elegant. Both horses stood perfectly still in the moonlight. I walked up to Rune and slowly put my arms around her neck, hugging her close. She waited for me to let go, then turned and walked toward the horse waterers…and began to drink. Hlatur followed. They knew they had reached their destination; we were the people they had come to join.
For a moment, under the moonlight, I felt a bond forging among us—the gelding, the mare, Liz, and me—two women who didn’t know where this would all lead, but who were led by a force beyond understanding.
The moonlight reflected off my watch. 11:11 p.m.
Chapter Eleven
The horses awoke to an experience akin to being inducted into the army.
Dr. Brown countered suspected mild colic by pumping mineral oil down Hlatur’s nose and into his stomach, a highly unpleasant experience, judging from Hlatur’s attempted moonwalk out of the barn.
A large metal vise pried Rune’s mouth open so shards of her teeth could be ground off, and her eyes widened as if she’d just discovered her stall was on fire.
“Gotta get ’em off, or she won’t be able to chew or wear a bit,” Brown shouted over the roar of the drill. “Let’s give them all their shots, then have a look at Hlatur’s sheath.” An odd word implying Hlatur’s genitalia is his sword and the sheath its scabbard, I thought as Brown launched into a brisk description of how in the wild a horse kept himself clean by running through streams and rivers. In captivity, the horse developed a waxy buildup in his sheath—a condition that, prior to horse ownership, I thought only happened to kitchen floors.
“You’ll get so used to it, you’ll think nothing of doing this yourself,” Dr. Brown announced, working away with warm soap and water.
“I won’t be visiting that part of his anatomy unless I’ve lost my diamond up there,” Liz muttered.
*
At dusk the following day, I was brushing and grooming Rune, and Liz was combing Hlatur’s mane when Maynard stepped into the barn. “So have you ridden her yet?” he teased, knowing full well I had not.
“I think we should take your old quarter horse and the three of us ride out on a test drive,” I replied.
“No, I’m not going out in the dark in the rain, and you shouldn’t either,” Liz fretted.
“It’ll be fine. We won’t go far.”
East of the farmhouse and barn was a clearing that meandered into a thickly wooded area with trails that Maynard used to exercise his horses. I had never been back there, but I was more than willing to do it that night. I quickly saddled Rune, climbed on board—none too nimbly—and told Maynard I was ready. Liz reminded me to buckle the strap on my helmet and to take it easy. I could tell she didn’t feel good about this venture, but she didn’t want to send me off with any negative images. “Don’t be gone long. I’ll be right here,” she assured me.
Had I known my horse better, I would have been able to say that Rune didn’t feel too good about this either. I was still a strange woman taking her out into the dark of night through woods with wet, low-hanging tree branches, far from the little barn that contained Hlatur, her only comfort in this strange place. As Maynard and I started off into the woods, keeping our horses at a walk, I felt an immediate exhilaration. I was on board my smooth-tolting, incredibly intelligent, gentle, gorgeous Icelandic horse.
“How does she feel?” Maynard asked, obviously pleased with how things were going.
“Fabulous!”
I trailed behind him, feeling what could only be described as blissful, and after about an eighth of a mile I decided to tolt. I had dreamed of the tolt from the moment I had seen the pictures in the horse book; tolting was all
I wanted to do. I wanted a horse that was a tolting machine, a horse that would continue effortlessly in that magical gait that allowed its rider to drink a stein of beer without ever spilling a drop.
“Just pull her head up a little and sit back,” he said.
I obeyed awkwardly, but my mare responded like a well-tuned sports car, shifting right into gear. I experienced an absolutely phenomenal, all-time high and could have ridden forever just like that as we moved down the rough trail with celestial suspension, the wind in my hair, a broad smile on my face. Five minutes later when Maynard circled us back around to head home, I was still tolting, but at a much faster speed. I told myself to relax and just pull her in a little, but she didn’t seem to respond. I sat back and pulled on the reins, then released, but she didn’t slow down.
“Pull a little more firmly,” Maynard said.
She was picking up more speed. I pulled on the reins again, my response reactionary. She leaned into the bit, and her tolt got faster.
“Sit back in the saddle,” Maynard shouted.
My horse was no longer tolting, but had slipped a gear right past the canter and moved into a full, dead-out, panic-stricken run, as if she carried Ichabod Crane and we were being pursued by the Headless Horseman. The wet tree branches slapped against my face and body, and I squinted to avoid damaging my eyes as we careened into the darkness. I heard Maynard shouting, “Turn her head!” Then his voice fell away and I was alone on the back of my wild mare.
As Rune put distance between us and Maynard, I struggled to keep my balance and not fall over onto her neck. My upper body was rigid from fear, and my legs were weak and shaking in sheer terror; controlling this horse was impossible.
My mind projected vivid images: a friend who had broken her pelvis riding a runaway horse, her legs floating up into the air unconfined by any pelvic structure; a coworker who’d broken her pelvis when her horse completed its run by making an abrupt ninety-degree turn, sending her flying out of the saddle with bone-breaking centrifugal force. My entire thought process suddenly centered on my pelvic bone.
In an absurd inner conversation, I analyzed whether to jump from my horse. My inner voice said, “Jump or break your pelvis!” Another voice inside my head warred with it: “Jump and break your neck!” These mental images were obviously being transmitted to Rune, who must have been horrified by them and picked up speed to escape a graveyard of breaking bones.
My mind focused on the next immediate dilemma: if Rune could go this fast in the dark, slippery, tree-strewn forest, how fast would she go once we hit the clearing between the woods and the barn? Would she run full tilt up to the barn, then cut left at a tight ninety-degree angle, smashing my face up against the barn wall like a Garfield suction cup to a car window?
I could glimpse the clearing up ahead through the tree branches; time was up for decision making. Throwing the reins up in the air, I used the motion of my arms to lift myself up and out of the saddle, then flung myself off the left side of the horse away from her thundering hooves and into Rattlesnake Creek. My head hit the ground before my body, and Christopher Reeve flashed through my mind as my helmet withstood the force of the impact that could have killed or maimed me.
For a fleeting second I wondered if I could move my arms and legs, then, dazed and bruised, I staggered to my feet and listed toward the barn. Maynard circled back to ask if I was all right as I tried to put the best possible face on my embarrassing accident.
“I wouldn’t want to do it again,” I said, dragging myself along for a few yards, trying to decide if I had a concussion, when suddenly I looked up to see my mare standing in my path, the reins dangling to the ground in front of her. She had come back for me.
As Maynard rode on ahead to warn Liz of the vision she would see emerging from the woods, I staggered over to my horse and looked into her calm eyes. “Mare,” I addressed her, stroking her beautiful face and whispering to her as she stood silent, head hanging down, “this can’t happen again. You could kill me.”
Rune and I walked back to the barn. In the side mirror of my parked car, I caught sight of myself, a large clump of green turf attached to the front of my helmet. I was about to pull it out when Liz spotted me trudging along.
“Oh, my God, are you okay?” Liz ran to me. “Maynard said you fell into Rattlesnake Creek. You could have been bitten by snakes!”
“At the speed I was traveling, when I hit the creek bed, I would have pulverized any snake in my way.”
Maynard grinned as men in these parts did, men who figured that if I was still breathing when I got off the ground, everything was fine. “I think we’d better get you set up with a trainer and install some brakes on that mare. Green horse, green rider makes for black-and-blue.”
“Let’s get you home,” Liz said, handing my horse over to Maynard to unsaddle and guiding me toward the car.
I sank into the car seat, in pain, thinking I had ruined my first ride with Rune; we had gotten off to a rotten start.
*
Figuring I was in enough pain without someone in a white coat adding to it, I refused to go to the ER, whereupon Liz refused to let me stay home alone with my injuries, insisting someone should watch me overnight to make sure I didn’t have a concussion. She left only long enough to grab her clothes for work, returning a half hour later to check on me. Tears in my eyes, I was standing where she’d left me, trying to get out of my shirt.
Hurrying to help me, she asked, “How hard did you hit your head?”
“Hard.”
“What in hell were you trying to prove?”
“If you’re staying to help me, fine—if it’s to abuse me, leave.”
“I don’t work for you, so hush,” she said gently, and I chose not to answer.
She undressed me, threw my clothes in the laundry, and heated some soup. When she came back, she ordered me into bed, but I was once again standing where she’d left me, unable to bend at the waist.
“Tried to get into bed. Can’t do it. My back won’t bend. Do you have pain pills?” I asked, moving only my lips.
“Do you have a doctor? Maybe we should go to the hospital.”
“No. What have you got?”
“Darvocet, from when I pulled my back out a few months ago.”
“Bring me one,” I said as she tried to help me into bed, guiding me as I yelped. I had my arms around her and was in so much pain that I had no thought of the pleasure of being close to her, only that she was strong and smelled good. “You can’t stay with me. You have to get up at dawn and go to the station,” I said, every word evoking pain.
“Don’t tell me what I can do! You know, while I’ve got you down, I think you should contemplate why you want to run. Your horse wants to run away, you want to run away. What does that mean?”
“Please don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“Horses get mental images, vibrations, feelings…odd that the first thing she did in your relationship is run away.”
I saw a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
*
At dawn, it took me thirty minutes to get myself upright so I could go to the bathroom. I rolled onto my stomach and slid off the bed onto my knees, then grabbed the bedside dresser with both hands and bench-pressed my body up, trying not to spill the glass of water or knock the lamp off the table. As I hoisted myself to a full vertical stance, I yelled in response to the excruciating pain and tried to think how I would get in and out of my desk chair at the office.
I shuffled to the shower and let hot water stream across my back, feeling it loosen my muscles, counting on the “loosening” to last just long enough for me to pull on a suit for work. It took some maneuvering and a great deal of swearing to get into my socks and dress pants and slip on a pair of shoes, so I took a break before trying the bra and shirt and took geisha-girl steps to the coffee machine.
Liz had left a note propped up on a china coffee mug. “Punch button, dial office, say you can’t come in, and go back to bed.”
Really sweet, I thought, and picked up the remote, turning on KBUU, Liz’s station.
There she stood looking elegantly perfect: big gold sculpted earrings flat against her beautifully made-up face, not a hair out of place, not an inappropriate remark on any topic, lightly laughing at just the right moment at just the right news story, so sophisticated and sexy. Turning left and right to lead into the weather or traffic, then flashing her beautiful wide smile to the camera and telling us there would be more after the break. I speed-dialed her cell phone at the two-minute break, hoping she had turned it on. She picked up immediately.
“How are you?” she asked with genuine concern.
“As you’re smiling for the entire city, they would never know that you have a temporarily busted lesbian rodeo star at home in your care.”
“Gotta go.” She laughed and hung up. Seconds later there she was again, talking into my TV screen.
“I would love to hold you, Liz Chase,” I said out loud. “I would love to make love to you—but I can’t.” I paused to contemplate what had just crossed my lips. And what’s stopping me? I wondered, then let myself off the hook. Because I can’t even get my own pants off, much less yours! And just for the record, I like you better in safari pants and a white shirt.
*
Once inside my office, I took small steps. My head hurt and my eyesight seemed a little strange, since I’d landed on the left side of my head when I hit the creek bank. People in the hallway noticed I was walking slowly to my office rather than striding along at my usual brisk pace.
Jane greeted me with a smirk and two ibuprofen. “I heard you had a rough night.”
“Hmm,” I grunted, knowing that within an hour of my arrival at the office, half of the top floor would know that I’d had a horse accident.
“So Liz is phoning in and telling me to take care of you. Is she…?” Jane let it hang.