I couldn’t sleep because the man to my left and the man above me in the bunk bed were snoring, even though both of them told me they never snored. (Never believe that when people say it. How would they know?) I never sleep the first night in a strange place. And I tossed and turned in Camp Ronora in the November forest frost, somewhere in Michigan.
So, I booted up and put on my jacket, the one with the banana I never ate that I’d brought from home, and I stepped outside into the cold and late night. Earlier, a swath of fluffed, silvering clouds hung in a long line over the near full moon. I always forget what you call those moons. But it shone clean and white. Now, the clouds passed over the moon. They looked like waves in a sea, filtering out its virgin light. Stars pierced the cover of the clouds’ gray surf. I could see well enough to walk, but the light somehow didn’t make it across the field, where a horse grazed.
I crossed the wet gravel road, tamped down like clay, and stood by the horse fence. I felt so alone in the company of humans and their cities, but when I was out by myself in the wild places, I wasn’t alone anymore. Tonight, that loneliness tracked me down somehow, over hundreds of miles, and found me here.
I leaned against the bleached post. The horse was a dark shape in the middle of the field. The sign near the edge of the road was unreadable in the night, but I could make out words about children riding him and him being Arabian. He peered out over the fence posts a field away, where two other horses mingled in the dark, one shimmering black, the other chalk white. I imagined the black horse was a racing stud and the white one his mare. But the one walking toward me was just a riding rent-a-horse.
My horse floated toward me in a slow gait, like a storm cloud. But he ambled almost purposefully. Like he’d planned it from the moment he’d seen me. I backed off as he nudged his ewer-shaped head over the fencepost. Remember that I, from the city, was afraid of anything that stood higher than my thigh. He was careful not to brush the barbed wire that kept him sentenced.
I remember seeing in the movies, a beautiful woman petting a horse between the nose, stroking it with the lie of its fine coat down to its nostrils. I reached out my fingers gently and touched his broad snout. He let me do that, with just my whorls reaching out from my fingerless gloves. You should have seen him, his eyes like dark mirrors reflecting tiny moons framed in metal clouds. He saw me. With those eyes, he saw me. And kept seeing.
“You’re a beautiful boy,” I whispered. “Yeah, that’s right, you’re beautiful. So strong, and gentle silence.”
I knew then why many of us are drawn to horses. It wasn’t just because they were big-shouldered. He was strength bred with silence, tranquility crossed with assurance.
Behind us, near the stables, a bat squeaked. The horse’s ears flicked back, just like my cat’s would. But his horse’s study stayed on me.
“You remind me of my cat, Horse.”
He stood still and deliberate, not a shiver of motion wasted.
He tilted his head toward the sky. I stroked his jaw below the mane.
He turned his head and I caressed his chin with my fingertips. “Yeahhhh,” I drew out the cutesy whisper. He was regal, and quiet, just like a cat. “And you don’t snore, do you?”
Once in a while, he’d flinch, startling me. When he drew back, I thought he’d turn and go away on me. That was just fine. All that pressure to love something perfectly, even for a moment, would drop off me. But he remained, and those still eyes with no irises fathomed something in mine.
Then I remembered the banana in my side pocket. I knew horses liked sweet things. Bananas have potassium? Can that kill a horse? Maybe, because I never see people giving horses bananas and bananas would be easy to feed them? I decided his body was big enough to detox a banana.
It’d gotten so cold and hard could barely get the damned thing peeled a third of the way.
“You like bananas, Horse?”
I offered it to him, and he took the third through his lips without showing his teeth. I peeled it the rest of the way and dropped the thing in the soft earth by his hoof. I was afraid to pick it up. What if I startled him? What if he kicked me?
“Yeah, you like this stuff, don’t you?”
He seemed distracted by something that I couldn’t see and couldn’t hear. Finally, I worked up the guts to snatch the banana from under the fence. I missed it the first time. I tried again. I came up with the naked fruit, marred now by field mud. I held it up to him and he engulfed it in his camel lips. Horses really love that which is sweet.
Well, by then my fingertips were sticky with banana, little chunks clinging to them. I didn’t want to stain his coat with that. I said goodbye and went back inside. I didn’t look back, so I don’t know if he walked away.
I knew then why I hadn’t eaten that banana. But I didn’t know until the next morning that that horse was God.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Four of his short stories have recently been published online:
Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)
The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October
Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within