LUCKY HADN’T BEEN WORKED with at all before he came to us. Dad didn’t have much time to train him, but I had nothing but time. I had a knack, everyone said I did. So I spent a few hours with him every morning getting him used to me, making sure I was the one who fed him, I was the one who he saw, day in and day out. He would run when I drew near, deliver a skittish two-step when I cut off his desired direction, and generally get very irritated with me. The day I got a rope around his head and he let me lead him around was a month in the making. It took me another two weeks before we were in a bridle and he let me draw his head back toward me as I stood at his side.
“That’s it, baby. You gonna let me have your head?” I smiled as I talked, trying not to gloat. You train a horse with pressure. Not pain. Pressure. A horse doesn’t want to get in the trailer? You don’t force him. You just run him in circles, round and round the trailer until he’s breathing hard. Then you try to take him up the ramp again. He doesn’t want to go? You keep running him. Eventually, he’ll figure out that the pressure lets up when he’s in the trailer. He gets to rest in the trailer. So he’ll climb that ramp eagerly every time.
I got a little impatient. My dad always said when you’re working with people or with animals, impatience is the worst mistake you can make. But I’d grown a little cocky. He was giving me his head, and I wanted the rest of him. I fisted my hands in his mane and drew my body up so that my belly brushed his side. He went still, quivering, and I felt that quiver echo in my stomach, anticipation zinging down my legs and arms, making me stupid.
“We’re friends aren’t we, Lucky?” I whispered. “Let’s go for a little run. Just an easy little run.”
He didn’t pull away, and I took the hesitation for consent. In one quick move I hoisted myself up and over, and as my butt hit his back we were off, and I knew with a terrible twist in my gut that he wasn’t ready. But it was too damn late. I was on his back, hands in his hair, committed. I would have been fine if he’d just decided to shake me loose. I knew how to fall. But he bolted instead, flying across the field with me clinging to his back. We cleared the fence separating our property from Gene Powell’s and I did my best to meld my body with his, but it’s incredibly hard to stay on a horse without a saddle. They are smooth, slick, and powerful, and my thighs were screaming with the effort to keep him between them. We cleared another fence and I stayed seated, but my arms were trembling, and I was terrified that Lucky was going to hurt himself. Horses break their legs and it’s not just an easy trip to the ER and a big cast and crutches. It’s over. I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was thinking of my mistake in judgment, how I’d pushed him too far. And I didn’t know how to fix it.
On the third fence, Lucky landed hard and I started to slide to the side. I cursed a streak of the bluest words I’d ever said, yanking with all my might on Lucky’s mane, and trying to right myself. But there was no stopping my descent, and I hit the ground hard, my shoulder and hip getting the worst of it as I rolled and found myself staring up at a sky that was far too blue for dying.
If I hadn’t been trying to pull air back into my lungs and life back into my limbs, I might have noticed where I was, but it wasn’t until Moses squatted down beside me and peered into my face that I realized where Lucky had thrown me.
He didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t say anything for a moment. We just stared at each other, and I saw that his breaths were as labored as my own. It pleased me to think he’d run to make sure I wasn’t mortally wounded.
“Well, shit.” I sighed, trying to sit up.
Moses sat back and watched as I brushed the dirt from my right side, wincing as I swept my hand over my shoulder. I had a long scrape that stretched almost to my elbow, but other than that, I was fine. I would hurt like hell tomorrow, but nothing was broken. I was on my feet brushing off my rear end and scanning the horizon without any help from Moses.
“Did you see which way he went?” I asked, casting my eyes across the field.
“No,” he answered finally. “I was too busy watching you fall.”
“I rode for a while before that,” I answered defensively. “We cleared two fences.”
“Is that normal for you?”
“What?”
“Riding without a saddle, full out, on a horse that obviously doesn’t want to be ridden?”
“He gave me his head . . . I thought he was ready. I was wrong.”
“He gave you his head?”
“Yeah . . . never mind. It’s horse speak. When a horse lets you control his head, pull it all the way back along his body, move it this way and that, he’s yours. But Lucky’s never been ridden. I needed to court him a little more.”
Moses’s lips were pursed and his eyebrows quirked and I thought for a minute he was going to laugh. I seemed to have that effect on him.
“Shut up,” I said.
He laughed, just as I predicted. “I didn’t say anything!”
“But you’re thinking it.”
“What am I thinking?”
“Something dirty. I can see it all over your face.”
“Nah. That’s not dirt. I’m just black.”
“Har, har.”
“You’ve never been thrown, huh?” He rose to his feet beside me.
“I’ve been thrown plenty,” I clipped, turning away. I started to walk in the direction I’d come. No use wandering around looking for Lucky. I’d go back for the truck and drive around until I found him.
“So is that what you’re trying to do with me? You want me to give you my head, just like the horse?” he called after me.
I stopped. Moses never gave me much. I’d been pushing him day after day, week after week, since he’d painted my room, just like I’d been pushing Lucky. Lucky had come around. But Moses hadn’t.
“I don’t want a damn thing from you,” I lied.
“That’s why you bring me my lunch every day and spy on me and drop by my grandma’s house every night.”
I felt like I’d fallen all over again, and this time it wasn’t my shoulder that hurt. My heart ached like I’d taken one of Lucky’s feet to my chest.
“I don’t want your head, Moses. I just thought you might need a friend.”
“I won’t let you in my head, Georgia. You don’t want to see what’s in my head.”“Okay. Fine. Then I’ll give you mine,” I said, turning on him. I don’t know where my pride was. I should spit on him and tell him to go to hell. Instead I was bowing at his feet.
“I’m kind of thinking there isn’t anything in your head. I’ve seen you get kicked and thrown, and I’m guessing you’ll be right back at it as soon as you find your horse.”