“You can’t train for riding a horse like Pink,” Beth said that day after I dismounted and shakily handed her the reins. As a middle-aged, suburban mother, I should have known better, but my friend Beth is the closest thing I know to a horse whisperer. And, at times, I don’t have a lot of sense, horse or otherwise. That probably explains why I rode a psychotic horse along the cactus-lined drop-off of the Mogollon Rim on an otherwise lovely fall day with Beth’s husband, their friend Brighty and my thirteen-year-old daughter.
The horse’s name was Pink. Pink Floyd—a spirited and skittish horse named for a British Rock band—was it the mad look in his eye? Or, the fact that he was white with lots of pink on his face? But I knew, watching the back of my daughter’s head as she bounced along ahead on a gentler horse that young girls weren’t so different from wild horses. They both could be strong-willed, reactive, unpredictable.
As I rode, or rather hung on, I tried not to think of Pink Floyd songs like: “Brain Damage,” “Waiting for the Worms,” “Goodbye Blue Sky.” You get the picture.
After a day wrangling the difficult horse, I asked Beth, “Why did you give me the wild one when Brighty’s such an accomplished rider?” Brighty (by-the-way, who names their kid for a Grand Canyon mule?) was lanky, gorgeous and a good storyteller. Like a lot of women of her background, she had years of English show jumping behind her.
Hoisting a sweaty saddle, Beth said, “Because, Floyd needs a strong, calm hand. Brighty has training, but her strength’s not in her core. For what you lack in training, you’ve got the presence to handle Floyd. You can’t train for that.”
You can’t train for that. Really?
She explained that Floyd was a roping horse traumatized by chute training. And, he didn’t like men. Her husband, Dan—in trying to establish dominance with Floyd—had tipped that balance too far, spooking him to the point where Dan couldn’t get near Floyd without making him nervous.
“So you gave him to me?” I asked, rubbing an aching shoulder. “I think I dislocated my shoulder
trying to hang on.” With a bad knee, I wasn’t able to hang on with legs the way most riders do. I had to cross hold with my left hand on the saddle and my right leg, saving my sore knee for signaling pressure. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.
“Dan and Brighty said you handled Floyd fine. You never got out of presence. That’s what animal work requires: using your weaknesses to your advantage— staying in charge.”
When I was a girl, my best friend, Allison and I used to pretend we were in charge. We’d sneak into her neighbor’s barn and ride his horses bareback.
We were warned to stay away by our mothers, but the horses were too much of a draw. I don’t know if it was the warnings or the general wariness all young girls should develop, but we were wary of the man to whom the horses belonged. But, we weren’t deterred.
We’d sneak into the barn with carrots, feeding the horses from our pale, extended hands. We studied books about how Indians rode bareback. We’d pet, brush, and rein the horses. And at dusk we’d lead them to a stack of hay bales. Stepping up from the bales, we’d slide onto the horses’ broad bare backs and glide through the trodden pasture, dreaming. We’d tell, years later, how getting bucked off into the hard dust never stopped us. Until the accident.
Allison worked in a stable after college. During a lightening storm, she was bringing horses back for stabling and hers spooked. Rearing back, the saddle horn caught in her mouth. I don’t need to describe the kind of destructive momentum a half a ton of thunder-spooked animal, a broken leather-bound steel horn, and a rock-strewn trail can wreak on a young woman’s body. Allison almost didn’t make it. Locked into a study program overseas, I sent letters, told her stories over the phone her mother held to her ear as she lay unconscious, her swollen head and face held together in a cocoon of bandaging. I tried not to cry. We’d always told each other cowgirls didn’t, anyway.
Allison recovered, for the most part. When I got married, she took off for the Grand Canyon instead of coming to my wedding. I remember feeling hollow, wondering, where did we grow apart? Was it when I didn’t know what to say when they removed the bandages? Was it the fiancé I had and she didn’t? Was it the time that had lapsed since our horse years? Perhaps Allison, like Pink, had just had enough. Perhaps what life asked of them wasn’t what they wanted.
Rubbing my shoulder on the drive home, I watched my daughter looking across the mesas and realized how little time we spent with horses, how few years we had left before she’d be grown. I shuddered to think how she’d never-so-much- as fallen from a bike, let alone a horse. “How’d you like the ride today?” I asked.
“Oh, mom. It’s so cool! If you only knew how much I want a horse.”
“I know. I know,” was all I could say.
As the highway descended through a mesa and grasslands rose behind us, I thought about what horses have given and taken from us. It’s not the kind of thing you can train for.
