Rainyday stopped. He pawed at the water like he was trying to dig a hole. I kicked him to go on, but he ignored me. His knees began to buckle. He was going down. I got my feet out of the stirrups, and vaulted from his back as he sank into the water. “No, Rainyday! No!” I dragged on the reins. But he began to roll, with the new saddle and all. Back and forth. When I finally got him up, he shook mud and water all over me. We were both a slippery mess.
One of my instructors looked us over, and said, “There is no way you can ride on that. You’ll slide right off.” She lifted me onto her horse, Safety, a big, black, muscled guy easily twice the size of my pony. She got on Rainyday. And off we went again. For just a few minutes.
I don’t know what set him off. I know there were hunters in the woods. Was it a gun shot? I don’t remember, but I do remember Safety suddenly bolting forward. Dodging the other horses on the trail like a barrel racer, he took off for home. I held on to his mane and made myself low like a jockey. We had been riding for hours and were a good ways from the barn. We ran past a group of hunters who looked as shocked to see me as I was feeling. I tried to breathe. I tried to pull him in, but nothing worked. I was a mere passenger on an out-of-control black locomotive. I worked to stay on, but my legs began to weaken.
Images came to me – Safety breaking a leg on a hole in the ground as I fly into a tree. Or him running up to the barn, slamming on the breaks, and me flying into its side. Or him impaling himself and me on farm equipment. Or even him running into the barn at this speed and getting trapped and panicking, me crushed against walls. I was afraid that would happen. I began to look for soft places to land.
Finally, I saw a likely knoll of moss and small bushes. I took my feet out of the stirrups, put my hands on his withers, and pushed myself up and away. It worked. I landed and rolled. I couldn’t breathe for a few minutes, but I was ok. I got to my feet, and despite a sore shoulder, I was unhurt. The hunters I had passed ran up the trail toward me, their faces ashen. They must have been fathers, imagining their own small daughters streaking past them on huge horses. I became dizzy and started to fall. The one who scooped me up in his arms was shaking.
“Are you ok?”
“Durn, girl, do you know how fast you were going?”
“Are you out here a-lone?”
One of my riding instructors came around the corner at a more controlled run. She pulled her horse into a sliding stop. He was almost sitting down when she jumped off. She pulled off my helmet and ran her hands over my head, my arms, my legs. And then she smiled.
“You sure had a ride today, didn’t you?”
I think I may have nodded.
My mom made me get back on Rainyday that day. Gotta do it. You have to get right back on or you might never get back on. And I did it. But it was a long time before I would go outside a ring. Even longer before I would do anything but walk or trot. Eventually, I became less fearful. We bought our own farm, bought more horses, and I rode everywhere, all the time, in a big crowd of horse-owing neighborhood children. I didn’t get lessons any more. I simply rode. I rode on trails, on beaches, along highways, into rivers, to stores, to school, to friend’s houses. I was bucked off, kicked, thrown, run into fences, and nearly drowned, but nothing I experienced was close to Safety. Nothing seemed big compared to that.
Black horses haunted my dreams.
Image from http://www.carolynegearyart.co.uk/
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