Dante of the Maury River (10 page)

Let me confirm right here and now: horses do dream.

We dream in the daytime, while we’re awake, and at night, while we sleep. Sometimes, a dream is nothing more than a strong or subtle memory ushered in on a smell. Like how the scent of rubbing alcohol always makes a replay of Doctor Tom and his needles.

Sometimes a so-called dream is like a visit. A visit with a friend or, in my case, an ancestor.

Right when I needed him most, Grandfather Dante visited me in such a dream. Now, whether this was a waking or sleeping dream, a visit or a mirage, I can’t say for sure. Whatever it was felt as real as the raindrops plinking and plunking overhead.

A visitation, let’s call it.

Gary had gone on home; he lived in a cabin up at the top of the property. On his way out, he had turned off the radio and shut off all the lights, except for the one hanging from the ceiling outside his office. The air was as still and thick as a board, the usual way summer handles itself in Virginia. All the feed buckets had been licked clean, and all the horses had finally bored themselves into slumber. Nothing but cicadas and hoot owls tending to the night.

What happened next, I expect, is that I nodded off, because there I stood at the edge of a starlit path. A return invitation I had been anticipating since the night I was born.

I stepped out, this time more certain of where I was headed. Sure enough, I followed the starry trail to the bloodlines through the salty call of the sea and into a foggy wall of the hills. I grazed there until Grandfather Dante came up beside me.

Here’s what the great Thoroughbred champion Dante’s Paradiso told me: “Go toward the water.”

That stallion liked to keep an air of mystery about him, for sure. I hadn’t an inkling or a notion of what he meant.

I whickered, but Grandfather Dante left me standing right back in my stall. Or, I woke up.

No more stars. No more fog. Just a barn full of dozing fillies and colts and Gary’s hanging lamp, squeaking and swaying back and forth in the breeze now blowing through the barn. By that time, a hard rain pelted in through my window. I most surely did not want to go toward the water.

T
urns out, Grandfather Dante knew exactly what he was talking about. Going toward the water was the essential part of Filipia’s plan. Heck, the water was pretty much the entire plan.

If I’ve failed to mention there was a small river called the Willis that ran right behind Gary’s training compound, well, that’s because I didn’t know a thing about a body of water being back there. Had no reason to until time came for Filipia to show her stuff to Gary, who protested her technique mightily.

“What in the devil’s hills are you doing coming up here in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops?” he demanded.

“And a towel.” She waved the rag in his face.

He didn’t take to folks getting too comfortable or too familiar with him too soon. By too soon, I mean ever.

On seeing Filipia, I, for one, felt something on the order of relief scurry along my spine and escape my muzzle as a whicker.

“Monkey! Come on. Let’s go for a swim.”

As puzzling as the whole situation was to me, I went along with the girl. Gary remained as predictable as ever by blowing a big fuse and throwing a tantrum that would have put any one of mine to shame.

Filipia didn’t waiver. “Sir, Gary, looks like you could use a cooling-off swim, too. Want to come with us to the river?”

“You bet your boots I’m coming with you. This is not what we agreed to. You’ve got about another inch before I shut this ridiculous scam down. This is not how you break a Thoroughbred.”

She went on as if she hadn’t heard a word. I lowered my head. She slipped on my halter, then I followed her out of the barn down a narrow grassy path. Gary, an inquisition of one, came with us.

“You’ll love being surrounded by water. The Willis is the closest thing I could find to the ocean, Dante’s Inferno,” Filipia said.

Her calling me by my real name, not by her nickname for me, told me that she meant business. She kept on talking while we walked, and when a rabbit tore across the path in front of us, she laughed and pointed toward the cottontail vanishing in the brush. Nothing could spook her. “So, that’s all we’re doing today, Monkey. Going for a swim.”

The path disappeared over a low rise in the land, and for the first time, I heard the soft tinkling of the Willis River. Filipia slung her towel over a low-hanging sycamore branch. She said to Gary, “You can wait here, if you want. Or we can meet you back at the barn.”

“Are you nuts? You’re not leaving my sight.”

“If you’re sure. We’ll be a couple of hours, probably more.”

Gary held up his camera. “That’s okay. I’ll take pictures. So no funny business.”

“You should take pictures. And video, too, because no one will believe you. You won’t even believe you.”

Through all this yimmer-yammering back and forth, I stood quivering at all the strange sights and sounds bombarding me from every direction: the white bark of the sycamore, the dark opening at the end of the path, the field of sunflowers, and the
chip-chip-chip
of the goldfinches.

Filipia patted my neck to reassure me. She didn’t seem scared at all. “Ready to go for a dip?” She held my lead lightly, and we waded into the Willis. Having been enlightened by Grandfather Dante that this was the course I was to follow, I went with her.

She gave not a hint of concern that I might not follow. Hey, a horse can pop a stop on almost any movement just by deciding he ain’t going forward or backward. But I wanted Filipia to succeed. Heck, I wanted her to prove Gary wrong. So, step-for-step I followed her.

Now, a river is a beast of many manifestations. Never the same from one moment to the next. Like horses. Like people.

Where we entered that day, the water was smooth and deep. A horse’s feet get tired of standing. Sure, we lay down now and again, but try lifting this body up off the ground. Awkward, at best.

But moving my weight around in the water? Light as a blessing. And even better was having Filipia there, holding on to my lead rope, swimming nearby. I filled up and overflowed with joy and relief. All the lonesomeness and misunderstandings of my life surged out. I felt strong beside her and let the Willis quench all my fire away.

Somehow, I knew what to do. Same way I knew Filipia had my best interests at heart. Same way I knew Melody wasn’t going to stick me with a needle. Like how on the first day I was born, I could stand up, then walk.

Before too long, Filipia scooted up alongside me. And it hardly registered that we were, in fact, floating together — as in, she was sitting on my back and holding on to my mane. “Don’t let me fall,” she said. “Okay, Monkey?”

How could I let her down? When she put it that way, that I was, at least in part, responsible for her safety and her well-being? I don’t know how to explain it except to say that I didn’t feel like I was being broke at all. More like I was being wholed and healed and lifted.

So, there we were in the river. No saddle. No bridle. Floating or flying, and definitely both of us trusting. She asked me to walk out of the river and carry her back to the barn. Of course, I obliged.

Gary got it all on that camera of his.

F
ilipia turned all of Gary’s notions about horse training inside out and then some. We went back to the Willis more after that first day. Each time, Filipia hopped up on my back earlier than the time before. Each time, I didn’t mind. Hard to believe, but I trusted her. Harder to believe, she trusted me.

The water soothed me. Not only did I feel an utter relief from the weight of my body off my feet, but my mind took comfort in the river, too.

Sure enough, when her two days were up, there I stood, shiny, tacked, and ready to go. Gary gave her a leg up, Filipia nudged me forward, and we walked on, easy as you please.

Gary jumped around like a colt in a field on a crisp autumn morning.

Gone were the days of the hot walker and longeing. Hello, track! Albeit, the track at Gary’s wasn’t but a big dirt oval surrounding a field of grass and encircled by a mountain skyline. Something about the little track against the horizon, though, felt right. From all directions, I was embraced by the bluest, prettiest mountains of all time — blue mountains given their color by the sky surrounding them and the trees covering them.

I liked breezing around and around the track with Filipia so much that when it came time to teach me how to walk into and spring out of a starting gate, I’m proud to say that we had a total of zero serious mishaps.

Sure, I had to be convinced. For that part of my training, Grandfather Dante didn’t show up in any of my dreams with any cryptic messages to help me out. I guess he figured that I knew what I needed to do. After a while I got the hang of the gate, and pretty soon, I was loading nicely, breaking well, and beating all the two-year-olds at Gary’s. But those weren’t really races, were they?

With all of Gary’s filming and picture taking, Filipia and I became a sensation in
Kentucky Bloodlines
. Letters from racing fans all the world over started arriving. Everybody wrote in with questions.

When will he run? Where will he run? Will you let the girl race him?

One morning, while I was finishing breakfast and Filipia was tidying up my stall, Gary strolled by. Whistling. Pretty nearly skipping, even.

“Young lady,” he said to Filipia. “I’m going to give you an opportunity. I’ve entered Dante here in a baby race in Charleston next month. You’ll take him; no big deal. Can you handle that?”

Now, listen, she was standing in my back blind spot when he said it, but the gleam of that smile of hers liked to knock me down.

“Then, let’s get to work,” Gary said. “We’ll apply for your jockey license when we get there, so get ahold of your birth certificate and whatnot.”

For a few blessed weeks, all three of us were in our elements. Gary with his clipboard, recording splits. Filipia in the saddle, singing me songs from her home. And me sailing through workouts like I had been born to float. We never did convince Gary to join us for a swim in the Willis, but he never tired from following us around with that video camera.

Our fans grew. More letters came and carrots and apples and peppermints, too. Those divine morsels never arrived in my bucket, sadly.

A few days before the race, we all three piled in the trailer and headed over to West Virginia. I was about to break my maiden race, and the world was watching.

E
arly on race day morning, Filipia slipped into my track stall. All quiet and forlorn. Not bouncing and happy like usual. For once, I greeted her first. I nickered in her ear and nudged her chin.

“Monkey, I’m scared like crazy,” she confessed.

Now, in all the days and nights and long, hot afternoons of our training, that girl had never shown a hair of fear. Not a whisker.

Something wasn’t right.

She paced around, nervous and suspicious, same way I had acted for most of my life before she showed up to save me.

“Monkey, I have something to tell you. You might be mad at me. What I need to say is . . . well, do you ever feel like you’re pretending to be somebody you’re not?”