Childhood 3: Riding Dark Horses Bareback and Barefoot

The boy wants a horse.
The dad gets him a horse—
a bronco he was told 
which use to be a thoroughbred,
a black wind of a creature
who barely tolerates 
the old, cracked saddle
from the dad’s jockey days.

It takes two track hands 
to hold the reins, to 
keep the stallion still
when the dad addresses him .  

In the dad’s right hand is 
a milking stool, in the left,
the wriggling boy in his remorse.

The stallion whinnies and snorts,
releasing fury into the cold air.
Ice daggers settle and prick
the hands’ back palms.      
Hocks and tendons  twitch cyclones.  
Hooves paw the crying turf.

The dad waits.  The equine 
storm settles into its eye.
The dad rests the milking stool 
into the bleeding earth.
He lifts the boy onto it,
urging him to swing his 
leg up over the saddle and 
gently to the other side.

The child titters a little,
enough to settle himself,
but not enough to show 
the fear inside. 

The dad hands the child 
the reins.  The boy knows 
how to pull the horse
left and right, to steady him.
He imagined it in play a 
thousand times. 

But he wasn’t ready 
for the wild, breaking
rhythms of the real thing, 
a thing that wants nothing 
more than to buck him off, 
trample him from face to toe,
bloody him so that this 
pretend little man would 
never want to mount or 
ride him ever again.  

And so, the stallion kicks.
In a wild-eye fury he rears.
Not many could ride him 
for the eight seconds of glory.
Certainly not this little man.

And so, the child falls 
off in less than two.
Only his father saves him 
from avenging hooves.  

Bathed in mud, the child sees 
bloody knuckles, feels shame. 
In his muddy child, bloody son
the father feels hurt and pride,
yet an opportunity to teach the 
boy the value of second chances,
and the victories that come with  
persistence, persistence, persistence.

So, the father settles the stool
once more into the bruised turf
just starting to scar over.  
The hands corral the stallion 
from the far corners of the track  
and bring the creature to 
him for the boys second try.   
The father remembers that six
was the number it took for 
him to finally track a line. 
 
The hands find an old brown 
saddle towel drying on a stable 
post and bring it over. The father
gently wipes the mud off the boy’s 
face, shirt, pants and boots.

He lifts the boy one more time and 
places his feet gently on the stool.
The boy’s feet heavy and bruised 
cannot support his weight and 
he falls into his father’s arms.  

The father lifts him up, and 
with the help of the hands, 
guide the boy’s legs over the 
saddle, and position him
into a proper mount.

The stallion rears but the horse 
is panting from all the galloping.
He is thirsty and drinks greedily 
from the sopping sponge the hands
place loosely on a riding crop.  
He turns his head and notices
the stables with other horses,
the fragrant sweet and inviting 
scent of hay coming from the stalls.

He knows the small irritant 
on his back is still there.  He 
flicks his tail at it and misses.
He decides to let it be, exist 
on him for the short trot to food.
 
The kicks are manageable for the boy now.
The reins do not slack and remain easily 
in his control.   

He pulls right, towards 
the stables, towards home just a 
few miles beyond.  The stallion obeys.  

The hands step away.  The father removes 
the stool and steps away.  

The boy and the stallion track the line 
to the stables.  It’s a slow, steady 
and comfortable journey. 

And the dismount is an easy one. 
No need for a stool to step  down 
onto or for a father to help him 
down lest he fall.  Even his tired 
heavy feet gladly held him up.   

The boy removes his boots and 
his socks too.  

The father noticed 
his son’s bruised feet.  The father 
puts the stool down in front 
of the boy.   He places the boy’s 
feet on it.  He massages 
his son’s toes until the pain
has gone and the heaviness 
has evaporated into the cold.
  
The bruises would take longer 
to heal and finally go away.

For now,  they were comfortable
with each other.  For now, 
they would be fine in the 
tomorrows yet to be.

“He did it in two,“ the father 
notes inside to himself. 
He musses the boy’s hair 
in jealousy and a semi-pride.

“You’ll make a fine jockey,
someday,” he amusingly says.

Or even a Cowboy or 
a Bronco Buster,”
the son replies back.

“We will see. We will see,”
father’s last words to 
his boy that sweet hurting day.

The father turns his back to his son.
The boy gladly mounts him,
barebacked and barefooted,
for the short quarter-mile trot
to the ninety five horsepower machine
he would eventually be taught to drive.