Disclaimer: No, ze Black izn't myn, an neizer iz Oakwood Acrez. (If there iz an Oakwood Acrez…)
" No no no!" Sir Peppero interrupted me for the umpteenth that day. It was early morning, just after dawn, and we were standing by the fence; he was pointing things out to me and I had to name them.
"That's not a rope – that's a lead line." He seemed to have taken it unto himself to teach me and correct me of my unbelievably many errors and misconceptions about the human world – errors that, according to him, would put the entire horse breed to shame. " But it's still a rope." I protested. " If it's a rope, why can't we call it a rope?"
" Because the humans don't call it a rope." He sighed. We'd been over this many times already. "Now that–that thing. What do you call that thing?" he asked. He was testing me, to see if I'd absorbed any of my numerous past lessons. And he was also being very bossy. Which I hated.
" That's a van."
" No – how many times do I have to tell you – THAT IS A TRAILER!!!" He turned to me, exasperated. "You weren't really born in a farm even if you told me so. If you were, your dam would have taught you everything and you would have known that THAT IS A TRAILER!!!" He stomped off.
It was my turn to sigh. I'd told him that I was born on a breeding farm, to save him asking many questions that I didn't know the answers to, and to save the bother of explaining everything to him. And so far, it had worked fine, at least until I had began making my mistakes.
"Fine, it's a trailer." I mumbled. It didn't make any difference to me anyway whether it was a trailer or a van.
Sir Peppero was the human expert; he prided himself in knowing almost everything about them, and he intended to make me follow in his footsteps. Unfortunately for me, his unwilling, ignorant, philosophical student. He'd already told me at least a hundred thousand times that I was too *(see all of the listed above)* for my own good. Whatever philosophical means. And I had only been here for 2 moons.
Today began like any other. We were standing by the fence, waiting for the humans to arrive. At least, he was standing there waiting, while I was standing there keeping him company. All because he had insisted.
The humans had left me alone so far. If they came to get Sir Peppero, they treated me as if I wasn't there. They came for him almost every morning. He said that it was because he was a track horse, and needed at the track. Whatever a track was.
I had just begun to wonder if the humans had bought me for a lawn ornament when we heard the usual whistle that meant that the humans were calling him. I pricked up my ears and turned around.
Instead of the one human, there were two humans today. With two lead lines. One of them whistled again, and Sir Peppero trotted to the fence. I followed(wasn't it obvious that they wanted me to?) and allowed the line to be clipped to my halter.
"That's Chaya." Sir Peppero whickered as we were urged into a walk. "Which one?" I asked. " The one holding you," he answered. I glanced at the human from the corner of my eye.
Sir Peppero's human flicked his line and he broke into a trot. I trotted too.
" Why does he not walk at my left side like he does at yours and at all the other horses?"
" It's because they want us to walk beside each other. Now be quiet, I want to listen to them talking."
I sighed. Just another show of Sir-Peppero-bossiness.
After a moment, he turned his black and white head and said," You're being trained today. And for your information, Chaya is a female."
Oh. I turned my head and studied her again.
" How do you tell them apart?"
" Their manes, you idiot. The males have their manes short. The females have theirs long, at least longer than the males'."
A memory rose in my mind. "But what if they don't have any manes at all?" There had been a bald human at the auction.
Sir Peppero looked startled. I supposed that his previous students had never asked him any questions before. Especially questions like this one.
"Uh...erm…uh, they're neither." he said hurriedly. I wasn't fooled; he had just made that up. And whoever heard of the neither gender, a third gender for humans?
He listened some more. " Chaya's been assigned to breaking you. They need to go fast, so that you can catch up with the rest of the yearlings."
I got curious. " What do they want to do with me?"
Sir Peppero rolled his eyes. " They want to race you. This is as racing and breeding farm, just in case you haven't noticed."
"I'm off to the track," he added as his human led him away. My human led me into a unoccupied paddock and closed the gate behind us. I pulled a little at the line. She reached out. I could see her hand coming closer and closer to me. When she touched me, I flinched. I'd expected a sharp blow, because that was what I always got whenever I pulled at the line or bridle. Instead, she scratched my ears. Her hand slid down my head and she patted my neck.
The human turned and walked to the center faced me. She shook the line and took out a whip.
The painful memories that I had of the whip came rushing back into my mind.
I went wild.
Neighing shrilly, I reared and bolted away. The line to my halter grew taut and I stopped, trembling.
The human came forward and raised the whip again. I yanked at the line in panic, my eyes fixed on her hands. The human stopped and lowered her whip.
She was staring at me, as if seeing me for the first time in a new light. Then, she carefully, slowly, laid the whip down on the ground, making sure that I could see everything clearly, and stepped away from it.
I relaxed a bit. If she was going to use the whip on me, there was no way she could close the distance between the whip and her, and pick it up without me noticing first and bolting.
I kept my eyes fixed on the whip. "It's ok boy," came her voice. Her voice sounded different from the human males', different from my previous trainer. It was soft and light, and full of reassurance. I relaxed some more.
The human who had trained me before had used a sharp, bored tone, as if I were a complete ninny and he wanted to get it over with, sometimes raising his voice if I made a mistake. This human sounded as if this were a perfectly ordinary day, we were going for a walk, and she was telling me where to met her.
The human girl continued talking. "No one's gonna hurt you. Go on, relax. It's alright… " I continued listening, even though I couldn't understand what she was saying. Her voice was gentle and coaxing, and I found myself calming down against my will. My tail went down, my lips closed down over my teeth, and my pinned back ears pricked up. But I was still wary and alert, and if she made any sudden movement, I would bolt again.
The human was pulling at the line, gathering it in, and I followed it closer, and still closer, until I was right next to her. She reached up again and scratched my ears with one hand, while the other crept down into her pocket and brought something up.
I sniffed the something. It was bright orange, and when the human pressed it against my muzzle, I opened my mouth and sank my teeth into it. The something broke into two pieces with a crunch.
It tasted nice, and I looked for more of it, attempting to poke my nose in her pocket. The human made a mouth-noise that sounded…different. I couldn't place where I had heard it before, until I remembered my mother making the same mouth-sound, only hers had sounded a lot different from the human's.
The human was laughing.
"That's a carrot," she said.
Ah, the sweet, bright orange stick now had a name.
The human fed me another piece of carrot, and then unclipped my line. I pranced away. For the first time since my capture, I made a peace treaty with a human, although I didn't think she knew it. If she would not use the whip on me, I would be obedient to her.
The human spread her arms and twirled around. She looked like an eagle, like the ones back home. Then, human dove toward me. I jumped out of the way. She turned and dove for me again. I fled.
I was running, but not running my fastest. Just fast enough to stay ahead of her, but close enough to almost let her catch me. It became a game. She chased, I ran. Then, I ran faster, spun on my heels and dove for her. It became the other way around.
For the first time in my life, I was playing with a human.
As the days went by, I began to look forward to the Chaya's visits. (I'd started calling her 'Chaya' after being soundly nipped and scolded by Sir Peppero for not calling her by her name. You can't keep on calling all the grooms 'humans'…call them by their names! The human who comes with Chaya is called Dick, and you have to learn the others'…its really impolite…If I ever catch you again, you watch out…) Every morning, I would stand with Sir Peppero at the fence and wait for her to come. When she came, I would be led into an empty paddock. She would usually ask me to trot, walk, or canter around and around her a few times, which at first I grudgingly, then later, willingly, did.
I began to trust her. I wasn't that wary or tense anymore whenever humans were around. And I'd learned to recognize her signal; a whistle, and would go to her if called.
At first, play time was longer than train-time. Then, she began to gradually increase the time I was worked at the longe line, and decrease the time we spent playing. I didn't mind. The whip was usually present, but it was lying at her feet or hanging on the fence. At first, whenever I passed it, I would jump or skitter, keeping as far away as possible from it. Then, I'd decided that as long as it was a good distance from me, I didn't mind it being there. And one day, finally, I'd gotten so used to it lying there that I didn't pay it any attention at all.
There came the time when we didn't play any more, but went straight to work the moment I was led into the paddock. And there was a lot of work to be done. I still wasn't sure of the commands 'walk', 'trot', and etc, and the human made sure that I understood them. We were still using a halter and a longe line. It was now 14 moons since I came.
Then, one day, my halter was taken off when we were in the paddock. I was puzzled, until I saw the bridle in her hands. Instinctively, I backed away. Images were flashing before my eyes, memories of the bridle being shoved into my mouth and the straps forced on my head, the reins being yanked right and left until the corners of my mouth bled, the heavy bit weighing on my tongue and my teeth until I couldn't swallow…
Chaya was still coming nearer. I tensed. My ears swept back, and I bared my teeth. She sat on the ground a few feet from me and started playing with the bridle. I pressed myself against the fence and watched the bridle carefully.
After a few minutes, it was obvious that it wasn't doing any harm to the human. But of course, I told myself. It was made by humans after all. Chaya got up and laid the bridle along with the whip at the fence. She clipped the line on me and urged me into a walk. I fixed my eyes on both whip and bridle. After a while, she let me loose and lifted the whip from the fence. I stiffened, ready to bolt if she came nearer. Chaya did come nearer. Somehow, I didn't bolt.
She held out the whip for me to sniff. I leaned backward as far away as I could without taking a step. The whip came closer, until it touched my muzzle. I flinched, remembering the lash of the whip biting onto my back. This whip, however, was different. It was soft and cool when I pressed my nose on it, and it didn't look like it was capable of harming anybody. It smelled of humans; my nostrils filled with their scent.
"See," she said, rubbing the whip on my face. "It won't hurt you. It's ok, its just a whip, and I won't ever use it on you…" I stood still. My mind was racing. The whip hurt when Jim used it, but it didn't hurt when Chaya used it. Then the question of whether the whip caused pain didn't really lie with the whip at all; it was the human who used the whip, who decided whether to cause pain or not….the humans were the ones… the whip was just a strip of leather and without someone holding it…on its own, it was nothing… I could step on it, trample it, bite it, and it won't do anything to me unless there was a human holding the other end…then that meant…
I swept my gaze to the bridle lying on the fence. That meant that the bridle wouldn't hurt me at all either, if it was just a bridle, like the whip was just a whip …
I didn't see her take the bridle from the fence, but I did feel it when she pressed the bit on my face. "This is a bridle," she said, "See, it jingles…it won't hurt you either…look, its nice and soft, …you don't have to be scared of it…"
A few minutes later, she was slipping it over my head, doing the straps, and I was standing still. This bit tasted different, felt different from the one I'd used before. It was very light, and seemed to be made of two pieces linked together. I mouthed the bit, listening to it jingle, as Chaya clipped on the line and backed away.
She raised the whip in one hand, holding the line in her other. I tensed. The whip went up and I flinched. Instead of coming down on my hocks, however, it just touched the ground before she flicked it again. "Trot," she said.
I began to trot, keeping an eye out for the whip. All in all, even though my fear had all but disappeared, I still didn't like it too close to me." Walk." I slowed down and walked. " Whoa." I stopped. Simple as that. I had learned to recognize the mouth sounds before.
Chaya now took off the line and was now teaching me to obey the reins. She walked beside me, and gently pulled the reins right and left, saying the voice command as she did.
We went fast, because this was just a review; I'd already learned some of the commands, if not all, at the farm before I was sold here.
Soon, she didn't need to say anything, and I would obey the reins.
The lesson ended with her showing me the saddle and letting me sniff it, though she took it away before I could decide to see what it tasted like.
Later, when I'd been groomed, I was led back to the paddocks, but instead of being put in mine, I was put in with the other yearlings. Chaya smiled and waved and walked away before I could run after her and tell her that she had made a mistake.
Someone nipped me and I turned. The yearlings milled around, looking at me closely. They gave way to the large black colt who had bitten me before. "So," he said, " the half-blood part-breed arrives." He was staring at me, sizing me up. I glared back. My mother was right. Thoroughbreds were proud after all.
"Call me Steele," he tossed back over his shoulder as he trotted away. The other yearlings sidled nearer. "Don't mind him," one of the fillies whispered, casting an anxious look over her shoulder. "He's a loudmouth; always acting the boss just because he's the fastest. Or at least he thinks so…" She shook her head and moved away. The others drifted off, except for a caramel bay colt who came to walk beside me. He told me his name: Sandstorm and asked mine. I gave him my real name, the one my mother gave me, not the one that was written in my papers or what the humans used.
"Is it true that you're a half-blood?" he asked. "Sorry," he added quickly when I turned to glare at him.
"Yeah," I sighed. "What's the big deal about it anyway? I mean, if I'm half-half, so what? I'm still a horse, not a three-headed monster from space…"
" Steele doesn't take it that way." Sandstorm whickered. " He thinks that all half-breeds, and even other pure blooded breeds, are inferior to Thoroughbreds. The rest of us don't. There're only a few of them pure-blood fanatics left today anyway. There used to be a lot of them a long time ago, but they changed their mind when a Thoroughbred with Arabian blood started winning and became famous."
Thoroughbred with Arabian blood… I'd heard that phrase before. "What was her name?" I asked.
Sandstorm stared. " How did you know that it was a she?"
I shook my head." Just guessing. What was her name?"
"Bella."
I froze.
"Why?" the colt asked.
" She was my mother."
It was his turn to stand stock-still.
"What?! Are you serious?!"
"Yeah, I am." I swished my tail in annoyance. What was the big deal anyway?
" We-ell,…" he hesitated. " Well, she won every single race she ran in, and was defeated only once, by a nose, when she ran in the Distaff. So, if you're her son, you must be pretty fast yourself…I mean, with those bloodlines…that was why the boss bought you, you know, because of your bloodlines…he'd heard somewhere that a son of Bella existed, and so he bought you…he was play down your mustang blood, hoping to breed from you if you didn't make it at the track… "
Oh.
" So then, she ran away and nobody knew where she was anymore. That was years and years ago," he added to my questioning look. "And then, she had you, and you were caught, and now you're here."
I sifted through what my mother had told me about herself. "Do you know anything about the Black? My mother mentioned him a couple of times and…well, we might be related…"
He thought for a moment. "I guess so. Everybody here does, because even though some of the horses died long ago, the stories are passed down from dam to foal, and they're very accurate.
The Black was an Arabian stallion who got in a shipwreck and was rescued by a kid, or rather, he rescued the kid …and….um… its something like that anyway. To make a long story short, he was very fast and very famous, and he had lots and lots of foals, but that was a long, long time ago, and well, all of those horses are dead now, because that was a really long time ago…and your mother was the descendant, his last descendant, the last horse through whom his blood runs…until you…"
He glanced at me. "What about your father?"
" He was a mustang stallion, the fastest and the best of all the wild stallions in the open ranges."
That was all that I told him that night, even though he stuck by my side and kept on asking me.
I told him more in the afternoons when we were standing head to tails swishing our tails in each other's faces to keep the flies away. I told him almost everything about the wonderful life with the herd.
In exchange, he told me everything about the yearlings that he knew. There were five colts, including him and me, and three fillies.
Steele was the boss, the mean one who usually got his own way and bullied the others around at the water trough.
The two Phoenixes–Golden Phoenix and Fire Phoenix–both chestnuts– were half brothers, with the same sire but different dams. They always ran together, and were almost twins.
Then, there was him, Sandstorm. He was a caramel bay, the only caramel bay. And he was also a loner. Until I came, or so he told me. We'd hit it right off the moment I came. He was so much like Thunder, except that Thunder was dapple-gray.
The smallest filly, Rapunzel, had a rich, dark, seal brown coat. She was quiet, and was always tailing Steele. She usually had a blank look in her eyes, and gave one-worded answers to your questions that weren't really answers at all.
Marionette was a tall, bay filly with a wide blaze. She usually ran with Moon, the creamy filly.
Moon was her nickname–her real name was Moon Dancer. She was descended from Native Dancer – that was why she was called her name. 'Moon', because her creamy coat and shining silver mane and tail glowed and shined like moonlight, and 'Dancer' because of her blood and because of the way she galloped, running so gracefully that her hooves didn't seem to touch the grass. Or at least, that was the explanation Sandstorm gave me anyway.
And finally, there was me.
All of the yearlings were already broken to the saddle, and I could sense a wall of scorn between us because I still wasn't. That partially changed my resolution of doing everything against the humans. That was what I'd first planned. The other half that helped me realize my situation and seal my determination…I found that out a few days later.
Instead of going to the paddock that day, which was today, I was put in one of the box stalls in the stable.
"So, did you like your week with the yearlings?" Chaya asked, letting herself in and sitting down on the floor. I could hardly believe it. Chaya was talking to me, a horse, as if I were a human! "That wasn't a mistake; Mr. Sims has been watching you and he figures that after two weeks, you can go in among the yearlings without doing them any damage. You'll be staying with them now, and then you'll be moved to the barn when winter comes and when we start training you on the track.
Mr. Sims has promised to promote me to exercise rider if I can train you to bear a rider. He doesn't like me," she made a face, " and he knows that being part mustang and all, and being so wild, the chances of you being ridden was pretty close to zero. So there goes my chance of becoming an exercise rider and getting my apprentice license, unless I find work in another farm, which I don't want to do, or unless," she glanced at me from the corner of her eyes, " unless you behave and cooperate."
She pointed to another human standing outside. "This is Dick," she said. "He's the other groom in charge of the yearlings."
I studied him. From the length of his mane, this must be a male.
Dick reached up and scratched my ears. I sniffed his hand. He came into the stall and handed Chaya a blanket. I kept a good distance away from him, eying him warily. I did not trust strangers.
Chaya let me smell the blanket and rubbed it on my face and neck. The blanket was soft, like a foal's coat. She moved around and to my side, behind me. I shifted uneasily; I didn't like any one, stranger or friend going behind my back, where I couldn't see them. Dick reached out and took hold of my halter. Chaya put the blanket on me. I stepped away and it slid off. Chaya picked it up, talking all the time. " See, I'm going to put this blanket on your back… its just a blanket…its ok…" I sidestepped. "Whoa! Whoa…..that's it…nice and easy…" The blanket stayed on for a couple of seconds longer than last time.
The sensation was strange. It felt like I was being dressed in some kind of human clothing. The strangeness went away after a while, and I relaxed and let the blanket stay on.
Chaya put her hands on my back. She put a little of her weight on me. I turned my head and tried to see what she was doing. Chaya continued talking in a low voice. " Its just me boy…I'm here…just getting on your back…" She put more weight on me. I shifted my weight again. Dick tightened his hold. I was getting nervous. What was Chaya doing up there, on my back?
I skittered sideways, and Chaya fell. I lipped her hair in apology as she scrambled up. Strange. She didn't seem angry. Dick led me around the stall a few times, then pulled the blanket on me again.
This time, when Chaya leaned into me heavily, I braced my feet. Soon, she was on her stomach again, on my back. Dick clucked me into a walk. I could feel Chaya's fingers on my mane.
I was fighting two battles. I had the instinctive urge to buck her right off. But at the same time, I didn't want to hurt her. I threw up my head. Chaya wobbled. Her fingers tightened on my mane and she swung her leg hard. Before I knew what had happened, she was sitting on my back.
Before I could decide to buck her off, she slid to the ground, panting. "Good," she said, and slapped my neck hard. Maybe a bit too hard, because I jumped and crashed into Dick.
It went on for the next several moons, until I was letting Chaya stay on my back for a longer time. At least, longer than one second, which was usually how long it took before I bucked.
Then, one day, instead of going into the stable, I was led past it–and into the paddock again. And there, on the fence, was a saddle.
I snorted in surprise and became suspicious again. I fixed my eyes on the saddle, and didn't take them off even when Chaya worked me a couple of times at a trot.
I continued eying the saddle even when Chaya got on my back again and Dick led me around and around the paddock at the walk and trot. I didn't really notice it when Chaya slipped off, because Dick was feeding me a carrot stick, but I did notice it when I felt the cool leather touch my back.
I jumped sideways. Chaya caught the saddle before it hit the ground and approached me again. She let me sniff it, rubbed it up and down my neck, and put it on my back again. My hindquarters flew up; the saddle flew up too.
Chaya spent the next fifteen minutes getting the saddle from the ground again and again. Because it kept flying off. Because I kept bucking it off.
By the end of the morning, the saddle was on me, and the girth around my stomach – only because they'd finally managed to get it on my back. But I was determined, though, that even though they had triumphed this once, the next victory would be mine. I would not let them ride me with the saddle.
Fine. They had expected me to go berserk from wearing the saddle. Fine. I would prove the opposite by wearing it, behaving nicely(definition: no kicks or bites)and being calm and acting normal. Except for the catch that the saddle was going to take the worst of what I planned to do…
You may ask why I was doing this, why I was intentionally going against the humans' wishes when I could have easily obeyed them.
I was doing it; I had to do it or feel like a complete puppet. "Wind do this." "Wind do that." I was sick of it.
I was a wild horse, and I would remind them of that until the day I left, which I promised myself, wouldn't be too far off.
*~*~*
"When are they ever going to take it off? When are you going to get it off?" Marionette asked. She came over, Moon at her side, sank her teeth into the saddle leather, and tugged hard.
" I don't know," I sighed. It had been 3 moons since I came back to the paddock with the saddle on my back. And so far, I'd rolled on it(and heard it break with a snap too,), gotten it coated with mud when it had rained, convince the others to take a bite out of it and see how it tasted, and took bites out of it myself. I'd also managed to somehow dunk it in the water trough.
Unfortunately, dunking hadn't been that good idea after all, as I soon found out, because it had somehow loosened the girth so that instead of the saddle being on my back, it now hung upside down, on my stomach, with the girth on my back.
However, it had managed to do more good than bad than I'd first thought; for one, I had now grown used to wearing it, and for another, it helped break the ice between me and the other yearlings.
They were now much friendlier, and were on speaking terms with me. The animosity had almost vanished.
The moment they had seen me, they had trotted over to me, asking why I had it on, and in the case of Rapunzel, why I was wearing it here and why it was not returned back to the tack room in the first place.
The tack room, it seems, contains all the tack. I'd learned to call it 'tack' because I'd been threatened by a kick from Sir P if I called it 'stuff' one more time. As in, "the stuff humans put on us…" I'd also gotten a nip for calling Chaya 'the human' again.
Sir P. I'd begun calling Sir Peppero that, under influence of the yearlings, particularly Moon, who explained to me(to my conscience, actually) that, even though Sir P asked us not to call him that, and was stern and gruff when we did, he really didn't mind it at all .
When I was first moved into the yearlings' paddock, I'd worried that he'd mind being all alone again. But, as he reassured me, "All foals need to grow up sometime. They become independent sooner or later and have to be separated from their elders." My reaction had been, What!?! He still thinks of me as a foal!?!!?! And doesn't he think that I already know that all foals grow up? What, am I brainless or something?"
But, he'd also told me that he was quite glad that I was out from under his care; he didn't have to keep on correcting my mistakes.
We sometimes talked over the fence; it was him who was usually calling me over to give me advice about how to behave; "I saw you today; you bucked Chaya off…"; or berating me on the latest thing that I had done to the saddle; "What do you think you're doing?! Rolling on it like that, thank goodness it was an old saddle or Chaya would have your neck for breaking it; it had been used for breaking me, and I'm more than fourteen years old…" ; and all the works.
This whole saddle business was like a game–a game of stubbornness. Chaya had once told me that she was very stubborn; I would prove that I was more stubborn than her. And so, every morning, I would prance up to meet her at the fence, letting her see that the saddle wasn't bothering me at all, and watch her surprised expression with satisfaction.
One morning, however, Chaya's expression had been unusually worried and her voice tense and stiff. Her nervousness and tenseness had transferred to me too. And that day, there was a new human at the fence with Dick – a strange human who I remembered vaguely as the one who had caught me when I was still a wild little weanling. I heard her call him Mr. Sims.
Sims ran his hands up and down my legs, and sent Chaya to get another saddle, and Dick to get Sir Peppero. He began running his fingers up and down on my face, checking my teeth, feeling my mouth.
Up close, he had slanting eyes and looked like a snake who was watching me, waiting for the right moment to pounce on me and devour me in one gulp.
I shuddered and stepped away. He followed me and started talking. "I know you, boy. I've watched you when you were a foal, and I've watched you when you were being worked. You were a lot like her."
He paused and his hand went up the scar on my neck. "You see, I watched you dam as a foal too. I've watched her when she was just a newborn standing on spindly legs, and later on the track, when she blazed right through other horses and won almost every single race she ran in. You see, I was her trainer." I snorted, startled.
" I was there too, when she ran away. Her owners had threatened to fire me if I didn't get her back; she was one of the most valuable horses in their stable.
I didn't get her back. For that, I was fired, and my name, my reputation that I worked so hard to build, was dissolved and I was disgraced. For the next ten years, I traveled all over the country, a ruined man, looking for jobs as a trainer. There were plenty, but then, what owners would want to trust their horses in my care after what happened?" He was now running his hands all over my body. Why was he telling me this?
"I was reduced to going around the West, looking for jobs in stables rounding up mustangs. Imagine me, trainer of Triple Crown winners, rounding up useless wild horses? But I knew that I wasn't wasting my time. I vowed to get your mother back." I had an ominous feeling that something was going to happen. Something not good.
"And I did. Not only did I get your mother, but I caught her foal too. You. I called a racing farm, any farm that would listen to me talk. This farm was the only one that believed my story of having an old, famous racehorse mare and her promising young colt. I arranged to have you and your mother sold to this farm through the auction. But then, just weeks after I caught her, your mother slipped through my fingers yet again. Now my plan of getting my revenge was denied. Revenge had been very simple; the denial of the very thing your mother prized most–her freedom. I planned to keep her hobbled and tied and let her watch the other horses gallop free in their paddocks, let her suffer for what she had done to me. I would cut her hamstring, prevent her from ever running again, and watch her hobbling and limping around for the rest of her days, a cripple.
When she escaped again, I would have gone after her. But I realized, that would have been a waste of time. Because you see, I now have you. There would be no need to go looking for your mother while I have you. Think of the irony; the mother knows no master but her son is a slave. Let her run free; no matter; I have her colt with me. Let her stay wild and worry about what happens to her colt. Let her heart break when she sees you proudly wearing a saddle and a bridle, proudly carrying a rider on your back. Let her wish she was never born when I ride you and together, we catch her.
I will train you; train your mind to become a tame horse. Then let her see what her own son has become like; the very image, the symbol of the life she had hated.
Do you understand?" He had me by the halter. We were face to face, and I could see something in his eyes, something that was disgusting, something that was disturbing. It was definitely creepy. Oh yes, I understand, I wanted to tell him. I understand very well. He was going to tame me, break me to tack, then use me to catch my mother.
From that moment on, I would grow to hate and dislike him for the rest of my life. It would be a slow hate, not like the rages when I was with Jim, but a slow resentment, a slow determination, a slow rebellion. I was uneasy when I was with him, and back at the stall or the paddock, I smoldered.
" Other people may think me crazy, but I know what I'm doing. Horses aren't stupid like most humans make them out to be. They are intelligent, and they too, have feelings. I won't take out my revenge on her. I will do it on you. It hurts more this way, don't you think? And I want her to get hurt for what she did to me. Oh yes, I want her to get hurt, very hurt, so hurt that she'll wish that she's dead…" He smirked, released my halter, and stepped away. I stepped away too, dazed. This man is crazy.
Sims smiled. I felt like throwing up when he fixed his gaze on me.
From that moment, I resolved to do anything that would go against him.
I heard him telling Chaya, who had returned, that this was her last chance of breaking me. Dick was there with Sir Peppero too, though I didn't know why.
This was my chance of getting back. Sims had obviously expected me to go wild the moment the saddle was taken off and a new one was put on. He expected me to buck off anyone riding me too. He expected that he would be the one to break me, not Chaya. Then, he would get the credit. I would prove him wrong.
When Chaya slipped on the bridle, undid the buckle and slid the old, broken saddle off, I held my breath and stayed in place. When she slid on the other, intact saddle, I stood still. I glanced at Sims and Dick from the corner of my eye and could see that they were surprised.
When Chaya leapt lightly onto my back, I waited calmly for her to get settled. She reached for the reins and told me to walk. I walked. She asked for a trot. I trotted. She pulled back a little and said 'whoa'. I stopped.
I felt jubilant. I was defying Sims under his very own nose, and he couldn't do anything to stop me.
That was all we did that day at training. Doing those commands over and over again, while Sims watched and fumed and made sure that I was ready to learn the next phase, the changing of leads and direction.
From that time on, even though Sims wasn't present in our sessions, I learned quickly and progressed rapidly. Soon, I was turning right and left, and going into a trot or a canter at the merest pressure from Chaya's legs.
She didn't need to tell me orally anymore what to do; she only had to cluck or press her heels against my side and I would go into whatever gait she asked.
I was soon transferred, together with the other yearlings, into the stable, where we were given our own stalls. Roomy though these stalls were, I would always miss the paddock.
I was the nearest to the door, with Moon across the aisle from me, Sandstorm at the stall beside me, and the others spread out for the rest of the stable.
We were moved from the paddock and into the wide, yearling ring where Sims oversaw all the training of the yearlings. I was to join them too, and there, we would be galloped around and around, with a track horse, usually Sir Peppero, developing our strength and our muscles.
We were put into pairs, with Sandstorm and Marionette, Rapunzel and Steele, the two Phoenix brothers together, and me and Moon, the idea being that the calmer, quieter horses would spread their influence on the more temperamental ones, thereby achieving a balance of tempers.
It worked well with the others, but unfortunately, it didn't work much on Moon and me.
I'd grown to like her; I'd grown to like everyone, but somehow, this was different. In the paddock, I would sometimes go into a daze, my eyes fixed on her, not knowing that I had my eyes fixed on her, watching her prance and run, her mane and tail flashing, until Sandstorm nudged me back into reality. I would sometimes catch her staring at me too.
Now, however, when we had to run side by side in the training circle, I couldn't help my playful spirit rubbing off on her. Normally quiet, she would prance up to Chaya and nip her ponytail from behind, or aim a kick at the fence when she thought no one was looking. Then, she would turn, catch my eye, and grin.
Steele, I found, had grown slightly jealous. We were, or at least, had been on speaking terms, but he started being nasty in the paddock, glaring and pointedly leaving me out when we were planning new antics. At first, I didn't know why, until Sandstorm pulled me aside after a session when we were waiting for the humans, and whispered in my ear that until I came, Steele had been the fastest yearling around. No one could beat him, or even come close to matching him when it came to speed.
"And then, you turned up." Sandstorm's nose tickled my ear. "You were as fast as he is, and you showed signs of having the potential to beat him. He's scared of you; he doesn't want anyone to be faster than he is. He can get dangerous. You may think that he's a bully and all that, but deep down inside, he quakes. And there's this thing with Moon." Sandstorm paused. "Everyone knows that he likes Moon, and Moon likes you."
I pulled away, stunned and surprised. "She what?"
Sandstorm nodded. "You should know, the way she sometimes can't keep her eyes off you."
I shook my head and went into a trot. Chaya and Dick were at the gate calling us to our evening feed. Sandstorm fell in beside me.
So Moon liked me after all.
"That's impossible."
Sandstorm shook his head. "No it isn't."
We were now being galloped with the humans sitting high up on our backs. And not long after that, Chaya let herself into my stall early one morning to groom me, grinning.
"I've been promoted," she smiled, took out her brushes and started to brush my coat. "Mr. Sims keeps his word. I'm now exercise riding; I'll be getting my apprentice license sometime next year. Then, after 35 wins, I'll be a jockey!" she slapped my neck good-naturedly. I threw up my head, startled.
She led me out, hooked me to crossties in the aisle, tacked me up, swung up into the saddle, and rode me outside and into the ring.
By now, I wasn't that terrified of anything anymore. I 'd gotten used to the sights and sounds of the stable, and wasn't shying and starting at every single shadow.
As Sims had said, I was becoming tame.
In that sense only.
In the ring, I was as wild as I had been the first day I was brought into the human world. When I was being tacked up, I sidestepped and wouldn't stand still. Then we were being warmed up at the track, for we were being ran at the track now, I bucked and snorted and gave Chaya a hard time. In the stable, the grooms had to watch out for my gifts to them: my nips.
It got to the point where Chaya glared at me and told me that I'd better watch out or I would get shipped off to another farm.
I didn't listen to her, of course.
But somehow, as the winter passed, I found myself getting bored with my antics. By the time January came and I became a two-year-old, I was almost as well behaved as the rest of the yearlings. The side-stepping ended, the prances and nips and bucks nearly vanished. They did not entirely vanish; I just said that they nearly vanished. As in, they were few and far between.
I remembered overhearing Chaya telling Sims that I'd finally become tame. I wanted to laugh and tell her that I may have looked tame, I may have acted tame, but I would never, ever, ever, be tame.
As I'd remember Golden saying to my mother, I had grown out of it.
Golden. Thunder. Mother. Northlight. …. The list went on and on. How could I tell them how much I missed them? Now, more than ever, I wanted to go back home. But I had to wait…my mother had told me to, and she was very wise, wiser than I'd thought…and so I would wait, and wait, until I was four… I dreamed of the day when I would make my escape. And maybe, just maybe, I would bring Moon back home with me.
A/N: Thanks to all reviewers!
Mystery008 – Wow, a foal. That's great! Thanks for sharing the news. What's the colt's name? What is he going to be when he grows up? If you could, do you want to train him?