OCR Text |
Show 9<? not curry her or even pat her behind her white saddle. Sitting on her, if I turned around and rested my hand on her croup she would go up in the air like she'd been stung, higher than six inches too. Sometine s*as a great privilege I let Ricky or Duaine ride her, they touched her wrong and she threw them off, not a long fall but an instructive one. So I reached an agreement with her: I could go just as far as she allowed, not a half-inch further. It became second nature for me to avoid her rear, for she could kick me so fast she would be back on four feet eating hay before I even felt it. But otherwise she loved to be courted. On a quiet summer afternoon I would find her under a tree down by the creek, and while she delicately nibbled the oats I'd brought her I would very gently, very carefully caress her ears. I would comb her forelock and curry her, going back as far as she allowed, like a girl with necking limits, and I would run my hand down the slope of her shoulder to her chest, over her chest and down her forearm to her knee, over the sun-warmed beautiful hide and beneath it the contours of her strong, hard, glossy muscles. She grew sensual as a cat. One summer I taught her to shake hands, snapping my fingers and if necessary giving her a rap with my knuckles until she lifted a front foot. That summer too, slowly and caressingly, going at it stage by stage, leaning over her withers and snapping my fingers so that she would lift one foot, then holding her nose to i turn her head back, I found that I could take her down to the ground the way my father had. But I was too mindful of what Dad had said about horses, that if they lie down too long they die, and I was^uneasy just from the fact of her stretched out beneath me, and I backed away from that trick. Then winter would blow in with its cold weatjer and she would be out j/on pasture and maybe we wouldn't see each other for a month or two. I would be in school preparing for the future, dreaming my dreams, while she, neglected, got as uppity as she got shaggy. And so every spring was a renewal, sending |