“Want to tell me why you had to go for a ride this morning when you should have been making me my breakfast? ”
“Jeb, I . . .”
“God knows I’ve been patient, but I’m hard at work on the ranch all day. All I ask is three meals a day, on time—and that the house be nice and clean, and my clothes washed and ironed—and that you’re nice to my buddies—and that when the kids start coming, you take good care of them. I’ll do the rest. Maybe we should just sell that filly—all the feed she takes.”
“Oh Jeb! No!”
“Hey, you promised to love, honor, and obey me, not that horse. A new pickup would be more useful—”
Jennie spoke quickly, out of a mixture of duty and fear. “Jeb, I saw the mustangs.”
It was a hollow victory to see Jeb forget about selling Firebird as he eagerly questioned her and she described for him where she had seen the horses. Jennie wondered miserably if she’d done the right thing. The echoing voices from the past—her parents, her girlfriends, her teachers—told her yes, but her heart said no.
That night, when she took Barb her broth, Jennie told Barb about the mustangs and what she had done. After a long moment, Barb spoke.
“You did the right thing, Jennie,” she said. “Jeb’s your husband. Anyway, somebody’s going to catch those mustangs sooner or later. Freedom like that can never last.”
Jennie felt a little better, until she went back to Barb’s room to fetch the bowl she’d forgotten. Barb was staring out the window at the distant hills, tears streaming down her face.
That night, Jennie dreamed again. Again she was in the forest, but this time she felt the cold steel of the rifle in her own hands as she made her way into the clearing. Behind her walked a phalanx of Girl Scouts, each with a rifle in her hands. As she entered the clearing, the mustangs were grazing peacefully. Jennie raised the rifle to her shoulder and fixed her sights on the center of the herd. Through the rifle sight, she watched as the herd parted and Firebird emerged. Jennie smiled. As she bent to lay down the rifle, she heard shots ring out from behind her and saw the horses fall.
Jennie awoke, sobbing, and ran to the window. She could just make out Jeb and the boys through the cloud of dust raised by their horses as they went off in search of the mustangs. Jennie sat all day by the window, while dinner slow-cooked in the crockpot. When Jeb returned that evening and reported that they’d had no luck, Jennie hoped her face did not betray the flood of relief she felt.
The next few days, when the men went in search of the herd, Jennie would ramble around the big ranch house, vacuuming the shag carpeting, sewing applique flowers on the curtains, trying desperately to find things to do to take her mind off the mustangs. Once, in her distraction, she let the dinner overcook. That night she felt a strange satisfaction when she put a lump of charred meat on Jeb’s plate—she would not fuel his search for the mustangs. The next night she made quiche. These small rebellions only brought momentary relief. Her nights were plagued by the same dream over and over—Jennie carrying the rifle, the mustangs, Firebird, and then the shots. She began to avoid sleeping altogether.
She longed for peace. One night, Jennie went out to the barn, hoping her old camp counselor could provide some measure of comfort, but when she looked down at the frail body under the horse blanket, she knew she could not bring more pain into Barb’s life. She was Barb’s protector now. Jennie looked at the steaming bowl of broth in her hands. She nourished Barb. She had saved Barb. If only she could save the mustangs.
That night, after Jeb had satisfied himself while Jennie lay passively beneath him, she struggled to stay awake, her thoughts in a turmoil. She had to do something—something more than burning dinner and making quiche—but what? Finally, she could fight off sleep no longer, and with sleep came the dream.
But this time it was different. Again Jennie led the army of Girl Scouts into the clearing. Again she aimed her rifle and the herd parted to reveal Firebird. But this time, when Jennie went to put down her rifle, she saw that it was not a rifle at all. Instead it was an earthenware bowl, filled with cool water. She set the bowl down and Firebird came and drank. Then there were bowls everywhere and the herd was drinking. The Girl Scouts slipped astride the horses, but when Jennie looked again, she saw that they were not girls, but women. Before Jennie’s eyes the women and horses became one, like some beautiful creatures out of Greek mythology.
The next morning, when Jennie awoke, she felt a sense of peace and purpose that she had not known since before her marriage. She managed to slip out of the house and onto Firebird before Jeb was even awake. Firebird seemed to know which direction to take before Jennie had touched the reins. With a skill almost uncanny, Firebird picked her way swiftly over roots and boulders, in and out of gullies, skirting patches of poison sumac, but always heading for the clearing. When they arrived, the clearing was empty, but both woman and horse detected a scent in the air which meant the herd had not been gone long. Senses quivering, they waited. Jennie realized she must have drifted off, because when she opened her eyes, they were there. The horses looked at her with the same unspoken trust they had the first time and it was like a knife through Jennie’s heart. She whispered brokenly, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“They know,” came a throaty whisper from behind Jennie. Jennie twisted in her saddle, and for an instant she thought she was looking at one of the woman-horses from her dream. It felt no less dreamlike when Jennie realized that this was the woman she had glimpsed that fateful day in the clearing. As she stared, open-mouthed, the woman seemed to shimmer and dissolve. The shock and sleeplessness caught up with her, and Jennie slid from her saddle in a dead faint.
Gradually Jennie returned to consciousness and became aware of the woman bending over her and the poultice of herbs the woman was applying to Jennie’s head. In her fevered state, Jennie made a convulsive effort to sit up.
“Wait.” The woman pressed her back into the cradle of the sun-baked earth with her large, capable hands. “You’ve been hurt. Rest. We will take care of you.”
Jennie sank back into the hillock as she remembered her wild ride with Firebird and her fall. She struggled up again, exclaiming, “Firebird! The mustangs!”
“They’re fine.” The woman smiled. Her warm brown eyes gleamed in her warm brown face. “And your horse is making friends.” With one muscular arm she hoisted Jennie up, like a mother bear with its cub. Jennie saw with relief that Firebird was cropping grass several yards away, in a small herd of horses. “The herd,” Jennie said drowsily. “Are they yours?”
“Ours?” Jennie could sense the indulgent amusement in the woman’s response. “We share the valley with them. Sometimes we ride them. They give us their dung for our herb garden. They are our friends.”
Who was this woman? And whom did she mean by “we”? Overcome by the bewildering events and the pungent scent from the poultice mixed with the pungent scent of the mysterious woman, Jennie fell asleep once more.
When she awoke, it was again in unfamiliar surroundings. She gingerly sat up on a woven straw pallet and saw she was on the porch of a ramshackle old farmhouse, in a valley she had never known existed. The yard in front of the farmhouse was covered with beds of greens of all descriptions, from lettuce and chard to cilantro and chives. From the windows of the farmhouse hung swaths of loosely woven cloth dyed turquoise and lavender. At the other end of the porch, a woman was intently molding the clay that spun before her on a potting wheel. The woman was surrounded by bowls, dishes, and mugs of all description. Hearing the rustle of the pallet, she looked up and smiled at Jennie.
“Hi!” she said cheerfully. “How are you feeling? Do you want a cup of tea, or water or something?” She reminded Jennie of the friendly Avon ladies, except that her blond hair was a bit unkempt, and she seemed to be wearing a burlap sack.
“How did I get here?” asked Jennie faintly.
“Lisa Moondaughter brought you—she said you’d had a fall from your horse. Gee, I hope you’re ok
ay. Does your head still hurt?” She sat beside Jennie on the straw pallet, looking at her with friendly concern.
“Who—who did you say brought me here?” asked Jennie.
“Lisa Moondaughter,” repeated the blond woman. “Well, that’s not exactly her real name—see, we keep our first names but discard our last names as a protest against the Patriarchy. We choose last names that really say something about who we are.”
“I see,” breathed Jennie, her eyes widening in astonished admiration at this bold move. She wondered what name she would take if she could discard Jeb’s last name. Windrider? Horsegroomer?
“For instance, I’m Kimberly Claysmoother,” the friendly blonde explained, “because I make most of the pottery. Look.” She handed Jennie a plate and Jennie stared open-mouthed, unconsciously running her fingers over the genitalia-inspired curves. “But what if there are two people who want to be Claysmoothers?” she asked.
“Actually, that did come up,” Kimberly Claysmoother admitted. “Dolores wanted to be Clayspinner, but after we discussed it for a couple hours at our weekly community meeting, really talking out all the issues it brought up for everyone, she decided she’d be pretty happy with Potholder.” Kimberly Claysmoother’s eyes were dreamy as she remembered the womanly energy at the meeting, and the exhausted look on Dolores’s face as she exclaimed, “I really don’t give a shit anymore, just call me Potholder.”
“That sounds wonderful,” said Jennie enviously, thinking to herself, Jeb and I never bring up issues with each other. But her mind moved on, as more questions bubbled up to her eager lips. “How did you come here? How many of you are there? How do you survive, just eating greens?”
“I see you’re feeling better,” said a warm, husky voice. Jennie looked up and saw Lisa Moondaughter. Her brown eyes looked at Jennie with a gaze as liquid and warm as chocolate syrup, and Jennie’s heart was like ice cream, melting beneath it. Lisa Moondaughter had clothed her statuesque beauty in a loosely woven tuniclike garment dyed a rich loamy color, but Jennie remembered the shape and look of the womanly swells it concealed, and her breath quickened.
“Come. I will show you the farm,” Lisa Moondaughter beckoned.
“I’d like that,” said Jennie.
Lisa Moondaughter took Jennie’s hand and pulled her up off the straw pallet. Jennie felt a current of electricity flowing through her, but realized it was only Lisa Moondaughter’s womanly power dizzying her with its strength.
“First, we’ll stop by the garden and give you a new dressing,” said Lisa Moondaughter, leading the way into the sun-drenched yard. She stooped among the plants and her deft fingers plucked several different herbs, which she laid gently on Jennie’s bruised forehead with her strong hands.
“What kind of herbs are these?” Jennie asked, then laughing at herself, apologized, “I guess I’m full of questions right now.”
“Don’t apologize for your curiosity,” said Lisa Moondaughter as she deftly tied a piece of loosely woven purple fabric around Jennie’s head to hold the herbs in place. Every time her warm brown fingers brushed Jennie’s head, Jennie felt shivers run up and down her spine. “It’s only natural that all this should feel strange to you,” Lisa Moondaughter continued, “after living so long in the world of men.”
“That’s the funny thing, though,” Jennie said wonderingly. “It’s all so . . . so different, yet in a way, it feels more familiar than anyplace I’ve ever been.”
Lisa Moondaughter said nothing, but gave Jennie a slow smile of understanding. She led Jennie behind the farmhouse and Jennie caught her breath at the vista of women spread before her—women of all shapes, sizes, and colors, in all stages of dress and undress, engaged in plowing, weaving, firing pottery, or just sitting under trees doing yoga.
“It began when I was in law school,” said Lisa Moondaughter. “I became sickened by the justice created by men, for men. I saw all around me what men had made of the world—pollution, racism, poverty. And the rents in New York were skyrocketing . . .”
“New York!” exclaimed Jennie. “I’ve always wanted to see New York.”
“It’s a wasteland,” said Lisa Moondaughter simply. She put her hand briefly on the shoulder of a woman weaving. “One of our working-class sisters,” she murmured to Jennie, then continued her story. “I came here with my lover—this farm belonged to her family—and with us came a small band of women who wanted to return to Mother Earth and let her nurture them, away from men.”
“Then you’re all—” Jennie choked on the word, her cheeks reddening.
“We are all women-identified women,” said Lisa Moondaughter bluntly.
Jennie turned away for a moment, to hide the unexpected excitement this revelation caused, and surveyed the farm. “How idyllic this seems!” she exclaimed. With her back to Lisa Moondaughter, she was unable to see the tremor that shook the woman’s habitual impassiveness as she gazed at Jennie, whose body was outlined against the blue sky, and whose auburn curls were set aflame by the late afternoon sun. But when Jennie turned around, Lisa Moondaughter was again as serene and immobile as a Henry Moore sculpture.
“And you can support yourselves like this, living off the land?”
“Well, not quite,” Lisa Moondaughter admitted. “Perhaps in a few years we will live the dream of complete independence from the Patriarchy, but right now we earn money selling our pottery and weaving at women’s music festivals and peace fairs. This we use to buy necessities we can’t make, like sea salt, wheat germ, and tofu.”
“Tofu?” said Jennie wonderingly.
Lisa Moondaughter led her to a barrel by the barn and, after removing the cover, stepped aside to let Jennie peer in. Jennie gazed at the bloated white blocks that looked like rotting cheese, floating in the water. As she exclaimed at the sight, a sullen-faced woman, her hair cropped short, approached, carrying a loosely woven straw basket.
“Excuse me,” she grunted. “I’m on tofu-gathering duty.”
“Jennie, this is Heather,” Lisa Moondaughter introduced them as the woman began to scoop up the chunks of tofu.
“Heather . . . ?” Jennie questioned.
“Just Heather,” said Heather shortly. “Isn’t it enough to be named after a plant? How much more natural do I have to be?”
“Heather,” said Lisa Moondaughter gently, “hadn’t you better see Judy Leafdripper for some moonforce tea?”
Heather’s shoulders slumped in resignation. “I guess I could try it,” she muttered as she hurried away. “What I wouldn’t give for a Midol.”
“You all get along so well!” marveled Jennie. She stage-whispered, “Heather has cramps, huh?”
“It is her time of the month.” Lisa Moondaughter smiled. For a moment they stood by the tofu barrel, sharing the eternal bond of womanly experience.
The women were slowly drifting toward the house now, talking among themselves, wiping dirt from their hands, smiling and calling greetings to each other. It made Jennie feel she had returned to Girl Scout camp—a woman-centered world, where nature was important. It was hard to believe that the joy she had experienced there was again hers—yet not hers. With a sigh she turned to Lisa Moondaughter.
“You have to go,” Lisa Moondaughter said, voicing Jennie’s reluctant thoughts.
“I don’t want to, but Jeb—that’s my husband—he’ll be waiting for me.” Lisa Moondaughter stared mutely as Jennie tried to find the words to explain why this had to be. “My place is with him . . .” Jennie began, but found herself trailing off, wondering where those words had come from. “We can’t all live in this utopia!” she finally said in desperation.
“You can. Join with us.” Lisa Moondaughter moved almost imperceptibly toward Jennie. “With me.”
Jennie gasped as she gazed at Lisa Moondaughter in the growing twilight. “I’ve watched you,” Lisa Moondaughter continued. “I’ve seen the way you ride your horse, so wildly through the forest. Since my lover died . . .”
“Your lover died?” interrupt
ed Jennie curiously.
“Yes. Of E. coli she caught at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival on a selling expedition.” Jennie watched helplessly as a dark cloud of sadness passed over Lisa Moondaughter’s face, like a shadow over the sea. “Bad hummus,” she continued after a moment. “After her death I felt as though I’d turned to stone. I spent hours riding the wild horses, traveling with the herd. I thought nothing could ever stir me again—until I saw you.”
The magnetic force that had been building between them reached its peak at the end of Lisa Moondaughter’s speech. Jennie and Lisa Moondaughter gazed at each other, each finding what she was looking for in the other’s eyes. They fell to the soft green grass by the tofu barrel, their bodies intertwined in the timeless dance of woman love. The earth shifted and mountains came together. Oceans of salty nectar flowed. As one, the women were shaken by tremors, as if the herd of wild horses were thundering through them.
“You can share my straw pallet,” Lisa Moondaughter planned, as they lay curled together sometime later. “I will teach you how to weave, and we will ride with the herd—”
“I want you to teach me everything,” said Jennie, stretching luxuriously. Even the ecstasy she had felt astride Firebird paled in comparison to the fulfillment that she and Lisa Moondaughter had just shared.
“We will grow old together,” Lisa Moondaughter whispered in her ear. “When you are sick, I will care for you. And I will never, never let you eat the hummus.”
Sick old women! Jennie sat up as if she’d heard a rifle shot. How could she have forgotten about Barb? What would Barb do without her? And what about her vows to Jeb? Did they mean nothing? The chorus of voices, which had been silenced for this blissful interlude, were back with a vengeance. All the rest of her life could not be washed away in the blink of an eye, not even by Lisa Moondaughter’s womanly juices.
Big Book Of Lesbian Horse Stories Page 18