My daughter’s Andalusian horse Caprichosa has been thoroughly massaged.
The white horse is hanging her head, muzzle almost touching the ground, eyes shut, practically snoring. We’ve got four other horses peering over the fence at us into the three-sided barn, wondering where in the heck their massages are too. Like Anne over at Smells Horsey, we’ve also got Pet Horses.
At sixty-one degrees, it’s a surprisingly balmy afternoon in the middle of the deep freeze, and the world is melting into what would be ankle-deep mud if the temperature wasn't going to drop a good 40 degrees almost as soon as the sun sinks below the horizon. It's still too slick for riding Cap with her stiff leg. So we decide to go for a walk. Me, Jessie, Cole, Caprichosa, bob-tailed heeler dogs.
Jessie has the wild-eyed heeler sisters mesmerized with a trick she’s just learned in the guide dog program at school. If even one iota of a notion of chasing a horse starts percolating in the tenacious brains of the cattle dogs, she wields a single vowel which brings them into complete submission—
A.
Aye-Aye-Aye, Lila. Come back. Aye. At which point the too-smart-for-her-own-good blue heeler, who is more often than not, I hate to admit, too smart for me, snaps to like a four-legged soldier, eager to please the eleven-year-old girl with the magic vocabulary.
Yes, my daughter croons in approval. No Good Dog here. It's not what you say, Jessie explains. The guide dog folks taught her that, and I wonder at their knowledge.
Lila grins and wriggles at my daughter's feet.
Cole and I stare at each other in disbelief, certain we are witnessing a miracle--this taming of the blue hound. We both practice, saying it softly to ourselves. Aye. Aye. Aye. Fat Red Dawg, who is a much more malleable sort than her sister, looks at us suspiciously, as if we are casting evil spells.
I boost Cole onto Cap's back for the first mile. She doesn't seem to mind the large stick he's carrying. It's all wrapped up with baling twine. It's a bow, he tells me. The stick shoved through the belt loop on his jeans is an arrow. She's a heater, he exclaims, legs draped softly around the horse's sides, laying a cold cheek against her neck as she marches forward.
Snowflakes melt in Caprichosa's mane. Jessie says they are the shape of stars. And on closer inspection, indeed they are. We stand in the road, marveling. The heelers swirl.
Cap carries Jessie the second mile with Cole traipsing along behind us, keeping a close watch for any bad guys he can shoot with his bow and arrow. I am walking fast now, enjoying the length of my stride, the air in my lungs. From somewhere I hear Jessie say, Mom, but I trudge forward, thinking of snowflakes shaped like stars. She says again, more insistently, Mom!
I stop and look back around.
Caprichosa's nose is tucked to her chest, her speckled neck arched like a swan's, and she's dancing in place with my daughter clutching her mane, looking alarmed. The white mare is making deep huffa huffa huffa sounds way down in her chest. It is a growl. An exclamation. She's got that gleam in her eye. The one that means she's up to no good, this ornery and also gentle horse. But mostly ornery right now.
Quit! I tell her, laughing, although Jessie's not amused. And the big horse quits immediately, but gives me that look like I've spoiled her fun.
No Ayes here, I think with more than a little satisfaction at stopping a thousand pound creature in her tracks. Obviously, I am much better with horses than heelers.
Big spoilsport, Caprichosa snorts.
We head back for the barn, swept up in a curtain of stars.
