When I teach my nine-year-old niece to ride, the daughter of my now ex's sister, a whole other lifetime ago, I hang back what seems like a quarter of a mile on my neighbor's aging Morgan gelding, the 25-year-old who's still too spry and full of himself to put a kid on, and I turn her loose.

My appaloosa mare Lacey trots down the sandy Pojoaque creek bed, her new shoes catching the sunshine, making me shade my eyes with one hand. My niece's blonde ponytail is bobbing beneath the white riding helmet that's been handed down almost one too many times, but not quite. The mare's salt and pepper tail is held aloft as she carries the little girl further away from me with each step. I know just how fast that spotted, raw-boned horse can run if she's of a mind to. But I also know she won't, not with that precious cargo holding the reins (and her own) just like I taught her to.

The girl has learned well.

Framed by the blood red barrancas, both niece and horse look very small to me, and I fight the temptation to ride up beside them, until they disappear around a bend of swaying cottonwood trees that are all heavy and summer heat stroked, nearly faint in their velvet greenery, way overdressed for the high desert afternoon, until I can't stand it any more.

I let the Morgan gentleman who's been dancing and chomping on the bit like a three-year-old render his always surprisingly big energy forward. (Ebony was A Very Big Dressage Deal in his younger days, and he will never let you forget it, not for a single minute.) The Morgan and I are sluicing down the creek bed like the frigid river water he's splashing up in style with his hooves, until we are both drenched, and the New Mexico sun is upon us like a pack of wolves.

We ride the current towards horse and girl, but we never quite catch up.

I haven't seen her in over a decade.