1.

His father was a hard man, just as his grandfather had been. The boy knew the origins of his father’s bitterness and imagined his grandfather had a similar experience. To say that life was the culprit, that existence itself was to blame, seemed entirely unfair to anyone and everyone who went through life and remained unscathed.

They broke horses with a strange mix of cruelty and respect. Respect more because it was a livelihood and thus a necessity, not because the creatures were majestic and almost otherworldly.

The boy would take over the farm. There was no discussion on this matter. It was not so much heritage as it was hereditary. As with the farm, family tradition also dictated how to transform a horse from a wild beast into a subservient animal that wore a harness and carried its ruler on its back. Like the family name, he would inherit the ranch, a cruel fate, like a wild creature forced to wear a bridle.

From an early age, his actions and attitude indicated that this training methodology appalled him. However, the boy did not explain or even speak of his disgust at his father’s strict, sometimes barbaric ways, and his father didn’t admit that he thought his son was weak because of this.

2.

“... your son who is here, the one who is alive,” he heard his mother say one night when he entered the house late and passed by their room. It was only a snippet of the conversation, yet he couldn’t help spending the rest of the evening trying to decipher what she might have said before and after that statement.

3.

A horse had thrown his older brother. It wasn’t ready to carry a rider, or maybe his brother wasn’t prepared to embrace such raw fragility. Hoping to please his father, he tried to mount the creature too quickly, something his father had always warned him about. For a moment, he thought that he had succeeded. But rather than being in the moment with the horse, an instant that yields a crucial albeit strange symbiosis that changes both man and animal, unifying them in the holiest of bonds, he was in another world, thinking of the praise and approval his father would shower upon him. That is what he wanted most of all.

They found his body positioned awkwardly against one of the corral’s posts. Perhaps, if he had landed on the open ground, he might have suffered a few broken ribs or an arm at worst. The angle of his body, especially his neck, permitted no room for questions; he was dead. The screams from his mother as she ran across the pen’s open earth were wild, banshee-like. She held him, cradled him like a newborn, pressing him to her chest. The workers and stablehands stood silently or knelt beside the boy; some had known him since he was just a child. It was hard for them to see her in hysterics without knowing how to fully comfort a mother who had just lost her eldest son. With their sun-hardened faces, these gruff and boisterous men stood awkwardly around her with their heads bowed. A few gently touched his mother’s shoulders, hoping to calm the uncontrollable shaking.

The sound of the gunshot shattered the impromptu ceremony that was taking place. Turning, they saw his father standing over the body of the horse who had, in his eyes, slain his son. They looked on as his father reshot the horse. Then, finally, he turned, looked at the group of men, down at his wife holding the body of his eldest son, and walked away towards the stables.

The boy was watching this nightmare unfold from just outside the corral. He didn’t know who he should run to and comfort: his mother, who clutched her son to her chest, her heart forever fractured. Or his father, who had passed through the stables but was now in a place inaccessible even to himself. So, instead, he remained outside the corral, looking on, watching as everything unfolded, as his parents drifted into different realms.

He stayed there until dawn’s rays started crawling over the eastern sky. The workers had assisted his mother in returning to the house. The boy remained there while they laid a sheet over his brother and continued watching as the coroner arrived with several other people he didn’t know. Throughout all this, his eyes repeatedly fell on the horse's carcass as if, even in death, it also needed comfort. Finally, someone came and brought him to the house. It wasn’t his mother or his father.

Several years later, his father still viewed horses with bitterness that bordered on hatred.

Often, when he was amongst the herd, the boy would see his father’s hand drift to the butt of the revolver he wore in a holster on his hip. He no longer kept it in the house, where it had been until his brother’s death. Now, it rested securely on his father’s side, always at the ready. It was as though he were waiting for an excuse to put one of the horses down, to stand over them after the initial shot, and aim again to ensure they were dead.

4.

The boy rode out along the southern slopes with his father and half a dozen other stablehands. It was a several-day ride. He didn’t want to go, but his mother insisted. She was in one of her more lucid moments, having cried less and slept more the days and nights before.

“It will be good; you and your father need this.” But the older he got, the greater the feeling of isolation and distance between him and his father. With the other men, he was rambunctious and curious. He’d sit around the fire at night, sip their whiskey, and listen to their tales of adventure. But the boy slank away when his father was present. When he was younger, it was partially out of fear; his father was far too strict of a disciplinarian. The boy wasn’t sure when his gaze shifted, but he now witnessed his father’s actions as a cover-up.

5.

“Papa,” he said one afternoon on the fourth day, “is this still the ranch?”

“It is. You need to know all these lands; you will be in charge one day. Tomorrow, we’ll return home.”

He didn’t reply. His father rode along ahead. Then, the world was silent after his father’s horse’s hooves were no longer audible. It was heavy, like humidity, almost oppressive. But it relieved something within him; it replaced a burden that he knew was there but couldn’t thoroughly label or define. It wasn’t as simple as taking charge of the ranch; that was merely the outer shell.

Time shattered then, and the abrupt rupture yanked him forcefully from his ponderings. The horse suddenly reared upward, its front legs flailing about. The sensation of this sudden and spastic movement made the boy’s stomach lurch. The horse brought its two front legs down upon its mighty hooves. The sound was like nothing he had ever heard. The jarring sensation from this thunderous impact shook him to his core. He was reminded again of how powerful this animal was.

The horse snorted and whipped its head furiously before rising again. When the horse’s hooves fell again, the boy lost his grip on the saddle’s horn, and he flew over the horse's shoulders, landing with a sickening thud upon the earth. The horse shook the reins free and set off.

The fall had knocked the wind out of him. He rolled over and heaved. Then, briefly between gasps, he heard the rhythmic sound, like buckshot falling against a small drum head. He understood; it was a rattlesnake that had spooked the horse.

He wanted to run, to feel safe, but the first image that came to his mind wasn’t the ranch; it wasn’t home. For a moment, the idea of safety and death was synonymous. He thought it would be easy to make a sudden movement, to feel the fangs enter the body and the poison follow shortly after. He could use the last of his strength to crawl out to where nothing obstructed the sky. Then, he could look up and get ready to see his brother.

The grains of sand fell around him as the snake shifted its body weight and slithered stealthily nearby. The boy didn’t move. He could feel the sweat from the day's heat drying on his body; it chilled him. A trickle of saliva from his heaving had run down his mouth, yet he did not reach to brush it away as it dangled and eventually fell from his chin. He was present but not entirely there. The fall to the ground left him slightly concussed or had jarred something loose in his mind; all he could think of was his brother.

“Go on, you fucking snake; either bite me or leave me!”

The boy choked up on the last word, and his voice trailed off before he could finish it.

He felt slightly light-headed and dizzy. The world twirled; for a moment, he thought he was with his brother on the swing set in the backyard, the strange feeling of glee and trepidation as they giggled and swung their legs back and forth, building momentum. “Are you ready?” his brother called out. They pumped their legs again, preparing to launch. They moved their arms and hands to the outside of the ropes; now, they were prepared to release themselves and let faith and gravity take hold. His brother reached out and took his hand. “You do the countdown. Here, hold my hand. I’m always here!” His hand was warm, sweaty, and rough from the stable work. “3… 2…”

6.

Then he was lying on his back, looking at the brilliant blue sky. The loud snorts from his horse startled him, but its gentle, almost maternal caresses with its large muzzle began to soothe him immediately.

The boy sat up, then rose stiffly to his legs. He playfully shoved the horse’s awkward head aside. “Are you back to make sure the snake didn’t kill me?” he asked.

He rubbed the horse's nose and chin, ran his hands to its ears, and began to murmur. It was almost like cooing, as one might do to a baby. His brother used to do this. He said it calmed them. The boy wasn’t sure if it did, but he liked the idea of having a language only he and his brother spoke.

As he checked the saddle and stirrups, he turned around and saw his father. He was sitting motionless; even his horse barely moved. The leather of his saddle didn’t creak; the horse's breathing was low and rhythmic, dissipating into the air, into nothingness. His father held his gaze for a long time. Then, with a swift and graceful shift of his torso and arms, he stirred the horse seemingly by the will of his mind and headed away.

7.

They rode back into the ranch late afternoon on the seventh day. The usual stillness that fell upon the farm in the evenings wasn’t present. Instead, it was pulsating with the sound of hooves and the calls of men.

“Go and bring your mother down to the eastern corral,” his father said.

In the remaining daylight, he and his mother arrived to see a dozen horses held in a partitioned-off area in the main corral area. The energy from the animals was extraordinary. Several men stood, forearms draped over the top of the fence, one leg up on the bottom rung, looking on. They were in awe. For many of them, it was not their first time in the presence of a feral herd. Some of these men had been on the ranch since his father was a boy. But each time a harem arrived, reverence overtook everyone.

Rather than watch the herd, the boy would study his father; he would watch his expression, namely his eyes. It was the only time they indicated that life was still behind them. Usually, he seemed caught somewhere, in some strange middle ground. One night, the boy dreamt that a horse threw his father. The image was so vivid, his father dangling in midair, like a puppet, suspended in this strange place as if he were swimming. In the dream, this image would fracture into a thousand pictures, like single 35mm movie frames. His father would stand over them, looking at each picture; he’d take and hold each one. There was a strange serenity in his father’s eyes when he gazed upon the images; seeing himself suspended in a place neither here nor there seemed to make him feel alive and finally at peace.

The only peace and serenity in his waking life arrived with the herd. The boy started to understand that his father believed he could fix one thing by breaking something else and mend one thing by weakening and bending another to his will. His father looked upon each mare as holding possible salvation, as potentially being able to bestow tranquility on his heart and mind.

8.

Feeling slightly overwhelmed by the energy, the boy stepped around the men and walked along the fence. There, on the far side of the pen. Snorting and prancing playfully, encouraged by the commotion of the horses, was a yearling.

“She’s about three years old,” his father said, standing just a few paces behind him. The boy didn’t turn around. He didn’t speak. He knew why his father was telling him this - it was supposed to be his first break. He heard his father’s bootheels in the gravel. Turning around, he saw his father joining the group of other men. They were all excited, all smiles. Training this new group of mares was not only their livelihood but a passion, too. Horsemanship was in their blood, and their energy pulsated like the mares. He wanted their tutelage and guidance when training the filly, but he knew it would take place under his father’s shadow.

9.

The boy stood watching the horse prance and buck in the sectioned-off corral for a long time. He kept thinking about the night his brother died, about how he felt frozen and didn’t go to either his mother or father, but stood for hours looking out into the corral at the scene, at the body of his brother and the carcass of the horse.

He remembered the sounds of joy his brother made when he placed both feet in the stirrups. He couldn’t imagine the bliss of melding with a horse you’d worked with. His brother waved to him as he trotted along. His smile was so big. The boy perched himself on the second rung of the fence, and from here, he could see the horse beginning to get jittery, nervous, and defiant. Its demeanor changed suddenly. He wanted to yell out, “Just jump off!” The horse began to move in a way the boy couldn’t understand; it defied his understanding. It was like a house cat who wasn’t sure which was up or down. One minute, its front legs were reaching for the sky, then the next, it seemed they were trying to dive to the center of the earth. His brother was holding on, trying with all his might to steady this serpentine-like creature underneath him that was defying gravity. But the two beings separated; the horse went one way and his brother the other. The boy watched this happen as if it were in slow motion. Then, there was the sickening sound of bone and muscle and life breaking.

10.

The yearling was growing tired. He was going to wait her out. He would stand on the opposite side of the fence until she took hold of his presence, understood him, knew his scent, and recognized him fully.

Like a defiant toddler, she was trying to do something similar. She would close in on his position, rise, snort, throw her head, and mane about. He wouldn’t move. The barrier of the fence made him feel secure in his position. This was an element the yearling didn’t understand; thus, she was unsure how to react. She only knew it prevented her from intimidating him. She repeated, but each time, the energy and intensity of her actions diminished slightly. Then, he began talking in barely audible tones, gentle murmuring, and cooing sounds. It was the secret language shared between him and his brother. Her ears flicked back and forth, and she snorted as if the words had a smell or taste.

He started to duck under the fence railing when his father called out.

“Not now. It’s too soon.”

He looked at him, crouched under the rail, and entered the pen anyway.

Immediately, the horse entered into a frenzy again. She seemed to understand that the fence acted as a wall and how having crossed it, he had removed a layer between them. After righting himself entirely, he took one step into the pen and stared at the animal. He didn’t murmur or coo; he didn’t step forward or reach out; he stood still. He could feel her intensity, uncertainty, excitement, and fear. She moved about him, snorting and stamping. Then, she stopped and stood on the far side of the pen, watching him with her large, all-seeing eyes.

He started murmuring again.

He could feel his father’s eyes upon him. But he shook off the sensation and brought himself back to the corral, to the horse, and began his soft murmuring again. Her breathing was steadier, and her demeanor and energy were less frantic now. He was confident she understood the words he gently released into the diminishing space between them.

The sky was milky pink when he staggered back to the house. He had remained in the pen all night, whispering and softly speaking to her as one might stay at the bedside of a frightening child who wakes from a bad dream.

11.

When he entered the house, his parents looked up from the table where they ate breakfast.

“I will train her,” he said before taking his first complete step into the house.

“You need instruction,” his father said, though he faltered slightly. His tone wasn’t stern, not as the boy had always known it to be.

But the boy didn’t reply. He knew the severity with which his father broke horses. Though tempted to argue, he knew his father wanted this. It would fuel something in him. He refrained.

Walking to the table where his parents were eating breakfast, he leaned down and kissed his mother on top of her head. “Good morning, momma,” he said. His mother, though affectionate in her own way, lost her maternal instinct with the death of her eldest son. He wasn’t expecting any sort of reciprocation; he had grown accustomed to assuming the parental role. He gently smoothed her hair where he had kissed her, then turned and started towards the stairs to climb to his room. His body and mind were pleading for rest.

12.

But he didn’t sleep; it would come to him. He fixed his eyes on the ceiling and let his mind wander about. In times like these, he wished his brother was with him, that he could share this experience with him. Rolling onto his side, he thought of his father. He felt anger rise in his gut. He wanted to protect the yearling, to shield her from his father’s brutal techniques. He would; he would do everything in his power to. But he couldn’t escape the worry that the hands that broke the other mares would try to pry their way into the relationship he was building with the colt. He didn’t trust his father, whether to love or create something. To break a horse, a term he still hated, was a mix of patience and trust, a realization that only fully dawned on him after spending the previous night in the corral with the filly. His father would push until a creature, be it a human or animal, had no choice but to surrender, and then he would congratulate himself on a job well done and pride himself on the accomplishment. But as he had witnessed with his father, that feeling of achievement only lasted until the next unimpaired thing, animal or human, presented itself - nothing satiated that hunger because the truly irreparable animal, the irredeemable beast, was within.

13.

The boy awoke with a start. He knew he had been dreaming and falling in and out of strange visions, but he couldn’t recall them. He could hear the birds' calls and the men's soft chatter from the yard. Their voices were tired; yesterday’s evening had left them worn. When he sat up, he noticed his body was stiff. Standing motionless in the pen with the horse had taken its toll. It was the first time he considered how not doing something, how remaining still, could lead the body and mind into a particular state.

14.

In the kitchen, he took a cup of coffee. He listened carefully as the sound often accompanying this time of day was that of his mother crying in the next room. When he was younger, he would go into his parent’s room, ask her what was wrong, and console her. She would simply say it had been a long night and that he needn’t worry. As he aged, he knew it was due to the passing of his brother. He left the house without a word and began the day silently, just as he often ended it.

He was glad when his father wasn’t working with the other men at the main corral and that he could pass to the smaller pen without so much as a nod or, as sometimes was the case, a question about the state of his mother.

His horse was much more acclimated than the previous night. It was more accustomed to the situation and, judging by how it stared at him when he approached, more accepting of the boy as a thing, one that wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Once again, the boy resumed his position outside the pen. He wanted to understand how the colt would react to his presence. But it merely looked at, a fixed gaze that the boy couldn’t quite figure out. It wasn’t defiance, as it had partially been the night before, and it wasn’t resigned acceptance of the situation she found herself in. It stood, holding the boy’s gaze, twitching and rotating its ears and taking in everything.

The boy crouched low and entered the small corral through the fence rails. The horse shifted her weight on her feet and stamped her hooves slightly to let him know he was now in her terrain. He began the gentle talking in the soft, low, cooing sounds - the secret babbling language only he and his brother knew. Stepping forward, he held out his hands, palms up, at waist level. In his right hand was a coiled length of rope. It was only a few feet long, and the boy prayed it didn't appear too much like a snake. He also hoped that their connection remained from the previous night, that the trust they were working on was still at the forefront of the horse's mind; in his left palm held a small cube of sugar. Naturally, these two items were more products of curiosity than alarm, and thus the horse approached. The horse's large muzzle cautiously moved towards the rope. The boy continued his gentle babble, and cooing sounds to which the horse had grown accustomed the entire time. The rope didn't frighten the horse, nor did it interest her. She swiveled her head; the muscles in her neck, still awaiting full development, displayed their magnificence. She found the sugar which the boy held on his flat palm. Her muzzle remained long after she had greedily consumed it. He remained motionless as she gathered his scent. He could only imagine what was going on within her mind, what she was trying to process and understand, what new world had just exposed itself to her. He slowly reached down and extracted another cube from his pocket. Initially, she reared her head up but didn't move to step backward, a sign that told him her trust in him was growing stronger by the minute. Again, she consumed the sugar with so much gusto, like a kid eating ice cream for the first time. He withheld a chuckle as he knew this would undoubtedly frighten her. He repeated this process until she barely moved as he extracted each cube. Her trust was so great that she began following his hand down to his pocket as if demanding he hurry the process up. During one of those times when she was urging him to hurry, he gently reached over her mane with his right hand and draped rope over her neck. They both paused; she knew there had been a significant change but couldn't fully understand what had occurred. The tantalizing sugar cube was too great; the boy extracted another and continued the process as if nothing had changed. He did this twice more; there were now two loops around the horse's neck. As such, two ends dangled by her side. With these, and the help of sugar cubes and his cooing speech, he created a figure eight-like pattern with the two ends. The horse now wore what appeared to be a necklace. There were no dangling loose ends that might frighten her, and, for the most part, she would grow accustomed to the feel because of the proximity to her mane.

“Is this your method?” his father said, his tone thick with sarcasm.

He could feel his father’s eyes upon his back, watching him with ferocious intensity and bitterness. He was angry and jealous that his son was working the filly alone.

When the boy turned slightly to his father, the horse startled somewhat. Its large head, its oblong nasal bone, inadvertently pushed the boy and sent him tumbling backward because of his awkward stance. The boy’s father flew into a rage. He immediately ducked under the fence post and approached the horse. With one fluid motion, he struck it with a right hook on the muzzle. Having heard the commotion, the yard hands gathered about the coral. His father jabbed him directly on the snout when the horse returned his head to the center. Having scrambled to his feet, the boy rushed the two, trying to stand between the madness, but the father’s rage made him unstoppable. He backed the horse into the corner, and with each backstep, she whined. The situation was beyond her understanding. Now, trapped in the corner, she could not rear up, and she was too young to understand the defensive tactics an older mare would. The boy rushed his father again and managed to catch him around the midsection and haul him to the ground. The two scrambled apart like feral cats, preparing to line up again for another round. He stood before the horse, between the colt and the wildman that was his father. He could hear her breathing behind him, taking in quick gasps through her large nostrils. When the father righted himself, he drew his pistol.

“Why are you here and not him?” He spat as if those words had been waiting to breach his mouth for years. He panted hard. “Out of the way.”

The boy stood defiantly, blocking the horse, protecting her. “You’ll have to take us both!” He yelled, his voice stern, holding no hint of fear.

The father walked toward the son, his eyes filled with that same fury the boy had seen when he shot the horse that threw his brother years ago. It was madness, a sickness. It had been consuming him for years.

He stood before his son and began to raise the barrel.

“Paul! Paul!”

The boy heard his mother's voice yelling out his father's name. He couldn't help but wonder if his father would have shot them both. That look in his eyes, which spoke of things he knew his father would never understand nor even try to, told him he would. A single tear rolled down the boy's cheek; he could feel it make a line through the dust that had gathered during their scrambling. One of the yard hands must have run to the house and relayed what was happening. His mother, who never ventured to the corals after her son's death, came running. She was screaming his name. His father didn't break eye contact with the boy. He held his father's gaze. The boy noticed how distant his father's eyes seemed, so far away, so very far away.

Holstering his gun, his father turned around and noticed the men gathered around. "Get the fuck back to work!"

When he exited the coral, his mother linked her arm through his father's arm as if supporting him, trying to take the weight off a bad ankle. She looked back and gave her son a look that said, 'he's trying, he really is. Don't forget, he does love you.' She was blind to so much, and he knew that with the death of her eldest son and his older brother, she had lost her ability to see the damage being caused, the pain and anger that was allowed to run rampant. He looked back and held his mother's gaze.

The horse nudged him gently, pulling him for his thoughts. He turned and rested his forehead against hers, gently stroking her delicate ears and scratching underneath her forceful jawbone. He could hear her steady breathing and tried to match his inhalations and exhalations with hers. This calmed him. He held his forehead against hers for some time and periodically rubbed her ears and muzzle.

He began to coo in his secret language, then broke into English, hoping that saying it in both languages would solidify his decision. “We have to leave here,” he said. The horse made a gruff snort and a grumbling sound as if, in her language, she was saying she agreed.

15.

He did not leave the coral the entire day. In the dusky light of early evening, he went to the barn. Javi, the stable master, happened upon him rummaging through some shelves in the tack closet. Javi nodded to the boy, his head bobbing awkwardly on his large frame, then departed without a word. The boy worried he would say something. Javi had been working at the ranch alongside his father before he was born, but there was something in the way he nodded, an understanding. The boy dared not move; it was as if staying still, he might hold everything together and will Javi to keep quiet, to just let him be. He heard boot heels upon the floorboards, and to his surprise, Javi’s large frame entered carrying a rucksack. He held it out and then set it down on a workbench.

"It has some jerky, oats, and a canteen of water."

The boy studied him.

"It's deer jerky. My son and I rode up along Stillman’s Pass last year. It was his first buck. I…" he tried to say something but kept looking away, unable to meet the boy's gaze. "I just didn't," he started again but faltered. It was evident he didn’t know what to say and was making small talk to fill the time before he could find an excuse to leave.

"Javi," the boy said, "thank you."

Javi nodded. The boy noticed his hands were shaking. He was shocked to see this large, sun-hardened man with a voice that could command a yard of stablehands, groomers, and even vets when they visited tremble.

"Javi," the boy said again, "I need to leave. I can't stay here."

Javi looked at him; his eyes were understanding and compassionate but undeniably sad. When he stood, he held the boy's gaze, then, after a pause, he said, "I know." The boy held out his hand, and Javi took it in his; the skin on his was as leathery and hardened as the saddles in the tack room in which they stood.

They shook.

"Thank you, Javi."

Javi nodded and opened his mouth as if to say something but stopped as if he didn't trust his voice to continue talking. Then he stepped out of the room. His boots fell heavily onto the old planks of the barn floors as he made his way outside.

Once again, the boy was alone.

16.

In the silence of the tack room, amidst the smell of leather and the rows of neatly organized saddles, bridles, stirrups, and other necessary equestrian things, the boy realized how unsure he felt about leading the horse. He decided to take a length of rope as this was all he had trained her with. He adorned a dusty old field jacket two sizes too big, but its well-worn material comforted him in some small way.

Then, he left the tack room but didn’t leave the barn.

He paced the wooden floors with the cylindrical blanket over his shoulder, letting his boots fall lightly on them. He knew that the moment he stepped outside, he would never return to here, this place, its history, and the lineage that was supposed to be his. He let his gaze drift about the massive framed structure. He was so small within the belly of this creature, this animal that was holding him there. The structure creaked, a wind from outside had stirred, and the frame, though able to withstand another century of biblical rains and winds, seemed to growl. He looked defiantly into the rafters, into the ever-darkening beams that lurked far above. He held his arms out to his sides. He was standing within the monster, in the gut, in the blood of it. He stood erect in the filth of his grandfather's harshness, and his father's pain turned to cruelty and anger. The fear he had held that the villain would one day, without reason and understanding, reach down from the darkness to crush him vanished.

The boy picked up the blanket roll and strode through the barn. The stalls were empty; the horses were out in the pastures. Upon reaching the far end of the barn floor, he turned. Without hesitation, he all but ran back to the tack room. Once there, he rummaged through the saddlebags until he found a box of matches left by one of the stablehands. He looked at them briefly, stood, and entered the first stall to the right of the barn’s entrance. Extracting one match from the box, he struck it swiftly with one fluid motion. It illuminated the interior of the enclosure. He knelt, piled some strands of hay together, and placed the match underneath the brittle straw. They ignited almost instantaneously. He accumulated more, waited, and then arranged more upon that until the flames began to stand tall and robust without much smoke. He stood for a few minutes watching the fire jump from the original pile, its gnarled fingers reaching for anything to give it more life. Soon, it leaped onto the stall dividers; the ancient wood, protected from the elements for decades, ignited instantly. He turned and raised his eyes to the rafters. The dance of the flames was hypnotic. He made his way to the center of the barn and looked upward. The pyre he had set ablaze was strong enough now to shed light into the depths of the rafters. They were exposed; the once robust cross-sections and fittings now appeared skeletal and frail and seemed to quake in the light of the inferno crawling rapidly towards it. The boy could feel the bite of heat on his skin. He desperately wanted to watch the barn topple, to be there jeering, fist raised as it came down, even if it came down directly on him. For it was he that started the fire; it was he that ignited the flame and scorched the lineage. The boy knew this was madness; he had to leave the barn and walk away from what would eventually be smoldering ruins. The boy turned his eyes again to the rafters above. He then quickly pivoted on his bootheels and made for the large rolling side doors leading him back to the small pen enclosure and back to his horse.

17.

He stepped gingerly through the large sliding doors. The last strips of daylight were a dull pink in the western sky. Looking up to trace the darkness, he noticed smoke billowing out of the massive doors. There was no real point in closing them. Luckily, being the time of year, many farmhands slept outside. There were numerous bonfires throughout the areas where the bunkhouses were. The smell of smoke wouldn't draw attention at the moment.

Before getting too close to the pen, the boy began talking in the soft babbling and cooing language he had been doing all along. The horse seemed to come alert and approached him without hesitation. He reached out slowly for her muzzle. There was no fear or uncertainty in her response. He was concerned that the colt might become spooked because of his heightened emotional state. He had witnessed firsthand what happens when nervous farmhands approach newly acquired or only partially readied horses too quickly. The horse's sixth sense would alert them to the yardhand's apprehension and incite fear about the unknown. This once resulted in a broken jaw when an agitated worker reached for the bridles too quickly, and the horse rose up on her hind legs. If anything, however, his young filly seemed to become more sensitive to him, more eager to be in his presence. She stepped into his touch when he gently touched her muzzle and forehead as he had in the past. It was then he realized he was shaking. He remained there, leaning against her, breathing deeply for some time. Then, as he had, he withdrew a small lump of sugar and held it under the horse's muzzle. While she was preoccupied and content, he swiftly tucked a short section of the rope up and over her mane. He had the majority of the lead neatly coiled in his right hand. He withdrew another lump of sugar and placed it before her while speaking to her in soft cooing sounds. When she finished consuming it, he rubbed her muzzle and made long, even strokes along her forehead.

"We have to go," he said. He extracted the last cube he had. As she ate it, he used his right hand to reach under her neck and snag the dangling end of the lead. He slowly pulled it towards himself. Shifting slightly, he braced her head against his chest at such an angle that would allow both his hands to be free. With a fluidity that surprised him, he twisted the short end of the lead twice around the longer section and back through. He had a knot that wouldn't tighten if hauled but could be pulled easily over the horse's head. In his right hand, he held the remaining several feet of rope.

The boy knew he had no choice but to start walking and hoped that the gentle pull of the rope would prompt the horse to follow. More so, he hoped that his movement would encourage her to do so. He would not force her. The boy had unconsciously decided this, but the realization only occurred then; he would not drag or demand that she follow by force. Should she not wish to follow, he would cut the lasso-like hitch where he formed the knot and walk off into the dark. He also knew that he had no more time. Soon, the fire within the barn would be evident; the flames must already be ravaging the frame timbers, and it would be a matter of minutes before the entire building was a raging inferno. He had to go.

The boy turned and opened the enclosure. He held the lead low by his waist and began making soft, deliberate steps. Behind him, he heard the horse's snorts. He could imagine how skeptical she was, how suddenly everything the colt had known didn't make sense, how the world she thought she knew was beginning to lose its definition. The boy wanted to protect her, to explain that life is a series of redefining moments, the majority of which are frightening and painful. But he only understood this evolutionary process when he lit the straw in the barn and stood watching the fire stretch into the rafters.

The boy exited the corral and continued slowly. When he could feel the lead becoming taut, he gave it a delicate, barely perceptible tug. He heard the unmistakable sounds of hooves treading the earth.

He began to coo and softly babble. It was the language he and his brother shared, the dialect they taught the horses. And then he broke off and said, "We'll make it, girl."

The filly was soon walking beside him. Now and then, he rested his hand upon her to let her know he was there.