Chancey of the Maury River (2 page)

Monique warned of the distinct possibility of Lynchville as she appealed to our neighbors to extend some small charity to her by taking me in temporarily. The stables around Rockbridge County had known me since I was a colt. This fact alone should have made it easier for me to find a home, for who would so easily turn away a longtime neighbor now in need? As we set out, I was hopeful that my breeding and years of experience were assets enough to offset my obvious liabilities.

Rockbridge County has never seen a shortage of young, healthy horses. When a horse half my years, and of impeccable health, could easily have been purchased at an attractive price, there seemed no economic benefit to using me as a school horse. Though athleticism and endurance run through my Appaloosa blood, though agility and strength flow into my Appaloosa muscles, though courage and loyalty live deep in my Appaloosa bones, my aches and difficulties defy all this.

My prior career as a school horse had been long and diversified. In my youth, I introduced dozens of girls to the artistry of dressage. I carried many a young man through the mechanics of learning to jump. School horses are rarely asked to jump much higher than three feet, for by the time our pupils grow strong and skilled enough to master an intricate course of twelve three-foot jumps, they are well on their way to competing on finer horses than I. Still, for twenty or so faithful years, I had schooled without complaint, nearly every day and often for many hours.

Monique tried desperately to convince each of the barns we visited that I would make a versatile and valuable addition to their stable, capable of teaching hunt seat, dressage, basic equitation, and jumping. We made the rounds to places I had shown before, all managed by trainers I had seen on and off throughout my life in the blue mountains. I concealed my flaws as best I could. We made no less than four trips to local barns, all of which held plenty of school horses and were not in need of another.

For some time now, my powerful hind had hurt on days when it was too hot or too cold. It hurt me to jump, as a school horse must. This pain was not all that hindered me. My other ailment, I did not like to think about, and for years, had tried to deny. Our neighbors had all heard Monique’s complaints about my refusal to jump. They were disinclined, each of them, to believe that I could be of value to their riding schools.

I felt certain that Monique would have accepted any offer made. Yet her pleading on my behalf resulted not in a purchase or even an offer. I feared that the Lynchville auction was my destiny. I resigned myself to never again seeing my blue mountains or feeling the Maury River swirl around my feet or hearing its roar after a heavy rainfall.

Long after Monique’s house, barn, and land had sold to new owners, I remained alone, standing in my field. Though the new owners were horse people themselves, their primary interest was in the breeding of fine Thoroughbreds for the track. They brought no horses with them, as they intended to start a breeding farm only after certain improvements had been made to the buildings and land. As I was not only gelded but also of the wrong breed, not to mention my age, lack of pigmentation, and chronic conditions, the new owners declined Monique’s offer of me as a gift. They did, however, agree to let me stay on if Monique would make arrangements for my care until a proper home could be found. I do not know what those arrangements might have entailed as no evidence of them ever presented itself to me.

I had been cared for well enough throughout my life. Like most school horses, I relied on structure and routine. Until this time, I had come to expect fresh hay and a rather healthy scoop of grain twice daily — once to be given just after sunrise and once again in the evening. Now I waited and waited for someone to come with hay, grain, and water, but no one arrived.

By nightfall of my first solitary day, I had eaten all of my grain and much of my hay, and drunk a good bit of water. I remained convinced that the morning sun would bring a caretaker with more rations. Morning came and brought with it a dense fog, but no caretaker. I was not alarmed, but assumed that once the fog lifted, provisions would arrive for me. The fog hung so thick that I could not see even the copper vane atop the barn. For the entire day, the mountains were but shadowy layers of themselves, for there was no sun to light up the trees or disperse the clouds.

I could see nothing of Saddle Mountain, which naturally rises and falls in precisely the shape of an English saddle. I strained to see the highest peak, what would be the saddle’s cantle, but it was lost to the sky. Even the lower peak, the pommel, was hostage to the grave clouds which had descended upon me. The unseasonable mix of moist pockets of heat and cold sealed in the fog until nearly nightfall. I finished the hay left in the ring and passed the time by searching for one spot in the field that would give me some glimpse at all of Saddle Mountain. For the entire day, I could not see beyond my own feet.

Long after the fog lifted, I waited there at the gate, sure that Monique herself would show up, or an attendant on her behalf. Only once did I see any activity near the barn. I made a dancing fuss of my displeasure at being kept alone and without suitable food for so long. No one responded to my pleas for help. The activity was not intended for me; workmen had come to survey the barn and surrounding property for the new owners, who had not yet arrived. There was nothing left in the hay ring — nor a fleck of grain in my bucket — and I had resorted to licking the muddy water in the tub at the back of my field. Had I foreseen that I would be standing alone in the back of the field for more than one season, even more than one day, naturally I would have conserved my first day’s rations.

During this time of uncertainty, I was consoled by the evidence around me that I was still home. Seeing my blue mountains and just knowing, from the sloping tree line, where I could find the Maury River provided my only solace. Though in my solitude I deeply felt the absence of my former life of comfort and routine, I realized that I remained, after all, in the very field in which I was born.

Upon taking full measure of this fact, that everything I had ever known was as near me as ever, I found it unnecessary to stand a moment longer pacing at the gate, filled with indignation and concern about my future. The new day did, indeed, feel new! With the fog chased off, my thoughts were as clear to me as the blue mountains now on display for as far as I could see in the golden light of morning. I must test my resourcefulness on this land I knew so well, or suffer greatly while waiting for a phantom custodian to arrive.

Fortunately, the winter had been milder than average. I judged by the duration of sunlight during the day that winter had surpassed its halfway point. During Monique’s prosperity, the field had held twenty horses comfortably, so I knew I could survive for some time on grass. I also knew that should I awaken to find no grass, I could subsist for a short while on the lichen that covered the protruding boulders in my field. I had seen deer graze in this way, on lichen and moss. With no snowfall, except for a light dusting that had occurred nearer the darkest time of winter, my field was, if not lush, at least sporadically green.

While the absence of a snow cover on the ground gave me grass to graze, it left me without a ready source of water. Because of my extensive experience as a trail mount, access to the Maury River was as familiar as my own skin. On a trail ride of eight or ten miles, I would often lead riders across the Maury River. At certain points, the Maury runs narrow like a brook — narrow enough that, on a good day, I could jump clear across its banks. At least, in my youth I could. I knew every sycamore tree along its banks and each stark-white river birch, too.

I was even more familiar with the fence line than the river. I knew its vulnerabilities and where it was in need of repair. The front fence line, the side best seen from the road, was made of handsomely maintained white-painted wood. The back fence line consisted of cedar posts strung with barbed wire. A cedar-post fence, if properly constructed, makes smart use of wood planks secured diagonally across the barbed wire between every few vertical cedar posts. The purpose of these diagonal posts is to reinforce the barbed wire, keeping it taut and stable down the line.

Though not ideal for the containment of horses, the barbed-wire fence proved a blessing in my quest for water. I knew exactly where the fence line was weak. I trotted to the place in the fence where the cedar reinforcements had long ago rotted away and used this to my advantage, for I was determined to forge a path to the Maury. It took some work, but I managed to widen a hole enough to give me mostly clear access to the unfenced portion of the farm, which in turn opened the Maury River to me. In pushing open the fence, I sustained numerous cuts and gashes, but none were life-threatening. I grazed on new grass and drank freely from the water. It was in this way that I kept myself fed and hydrated during Monique’s absence.

Though I missed the regimen of two good meals served daily, and the warmth of my private room in the barn, I also felt satisfied. I survived, in fact quite well. Near the river, I discovered a lush patch of sarsaparilla, growing just for me it seemed. Though, if truth be told, I prefer the taste of peppermint to sarsaparilla, I found that the pain in my hocks and hips eased considerably when I cabbaged this plant routinely from the forest. A dense thicket of old, proud cedar trees in the middle of my field provided suitable cover, protecting me well from rain and even from wind. And though the winter sunlight cannot be considered harsh, there were times I found that the sun proved too strong for my eyes. The respite of the cedar stand gave me needed relief. I even found warmth there after sunset. I have always been partial to cedar trees, perhaps because of their abundance and familiarity to me. During this time, they proved essential.

As soon as I had secured my basic needs of food, fresh water, and very adequate shelter, my thoughts turned to my owner, Monique. Alone with the blue mountains and the Maury River, I reflected on all that had passed between Monique and myself since my birth. I had known her my entire life. Since I could remember, it was her voice that called me in from the field and her hand that filled my grain box. To my knowledge, I had received acceptable medical treatment, when needed, for both prevention and cure. I had remained active and working. My most basic needs were never neglected. I now pondered as I had never done before the questions of why I had so long remained in her care and why we had grown into such adversaries over the course of my life.

In the many years that had passed between us, horses had been born; horses had been put down for illness or injury. Ponies had been bought for pleasure, then sold for not bringing enough pleasure or not quite measuring up. I knew that I had been spared sale because some part of Monique could never part with her last remaining connection to Starry Night, the stunning snowflake Appaloosa who was my dam.

Monique was so entirely devoted to my dam that she wanted to replicate her in me. Her dejection at my albinism never waned from the moment she discovered me nursing from Dam in the field. She realized right away that she had miscalculated. Not only was my appeareance abhorrent, but to Monique and others like her, my albinism was evidence that I was a weaker, flawed specimen.

As constant was her love for Dam, Monique was as uniformly constant in her indifference toward me. Because of Dam’s great attachment to me and her sense of purpose in raising me, Monique tolerated me, I believe. After my dam’s death, which came sooner than it should have, Monique and I did not replace her with each other, for too much resentment had built up between us. We avoided each other, at best.

As I grazed in solitary confinement, with no horses or people to distract me from my thoughts, I realized I had never before considered the possibility that my dam’s death had hardened me, too, as much as it had hardened Monique. Standing alone in my field, the very field where Dam and I were torn apart, I found that what I longed for most was the belonging that I had with Dam and the mares of my field when I was a colt — a belonging that I had not found since. Yet it seemed a prayer that I petitioned too late.

Perhaps I would have been content to stay alone in the field until the new owners completed their work and dispensed with me. Or perhaps I would have gambled all and fled to the blue mountains to start over on my own. The thought of innumerable seasons of fallen leaves whirling under me as I cantered higher and higher up the mountainside was luring me to set out for the forest. Granted, though I had only run through the mountains under saddle, I had always been reliable and resourceful on the trail. The terrain of the blue mountains can be challenging, but I had never lost my footing, even down the narrowest, rockiest cliffs. It would have been a different life to be sure, but I had begun to consider the idea of forging a feral, solitary existence in the blue mountains.

The doorway I had made in the fence line stood open and waiting for me to decide. Though I had spent plenty of time trying desperately to remove my halter, for it cut deeply into my face and I wished it to be off completely, I now began to take heart that the halter had, indeed, been left fastened to me. Halters serve but one purpose — to catch and lead a horse. I had first wondered for what purpose Monique had abandoned me; now I wondered for what purpose she had left me haltered.