Two Horses

You can only learn some lessons by experiencing them.

When I was younger, before my uncle was foreclosed on, he had two horses on a wonderful farm that jutted out over bells beach and sloped down and stumbled onto the great ocean road. It was impossible to miss: it was green and yellow with grass that came up to my shoulder, and surrounded by deep green trees planted by the previous owner, oaks and birches and tall pines - I think he had attempted to make the property look like a Scottish highland, but instead made it look like a painting of an Australian landscape by a painter who longed for England. When I was young, it was the most important place in my life.

 

He had two horses - one he had captured luckily, somehow, in northern Victoria  - a great chocolate brown, unruly stallion, and he named him Domino. He still had no idea how he managed to catch him, but he did. Domino used to run around constantly, without break, madly dashing from one end of the paddock to another. My uncle used to say he was exploring, but I could tell that he just wanted to escape, the confines of my uncles property wasn’t enough for him.

 

The other, Alastair, was given to him as a gift, it was much smaller, maybe a runt, it leant surreptitiously against the fence always looking toward the kitchen where my uncle would be working. He couldn’t run as far or as fast as my uncle’s other horse, but he was more affectionate and more patient. Alastair wouldn’t snatch cubes of sugar out of your hand, but almost ask permission before covering your hand in saliva - polite and sycophantic. Maybe it knew the only way it could be loved by anyone is by being kind, because, when compared to my uncle’s other stock, it would pale, literally, in comparison.

 

When my uncle would drink too much wine he would talk about his horses like they were his children, but I always thought about them as my equals, my companions. He would talk about how he worried about Domino’s wild nature - that such an impressive horse shouldn’t be confined to a paddock the size of a soccer field, and no matter what he did as Domino’s owner, he would always want more.

 

Domino was wild and untamed, and it would always be a risk, but for some reason, that made it all the more romantic for me. I knew eventually he would ask me which horse I wanted to take on my first solo ride, and categorically it would be Domino, the unknowable, untamed product of the outback. The fact that I might get hurt almost attracted me even more because he was unpredictable, because he clearly wanted more and had busy feet, there was a quality I couldn’t understand but couldn’t ignore.

 

Then he would talk about Alastair, always beginning the sentence with: “And as for Alastair”, like he was a disappointment " the child that was fearful and shy. Alastair would always take him around in a circle twice, and then drop him back next to the kitchen door " nothing more, nothing less. He was consistent, but, ultimately, didn’t make you think you were riding a horse, more like you were sitting on a merry-go-round, on a plastic horse with fake reigns. There was joy, and some excitement, but no fear. I thought for the longest time, before I took my first ride, that if we weren’t scared, if our heart wasn’t beating and we weren’t sweating, and examining each action, being viscerally and neurotically and painfully aware of everything that we do, then we weren’t riding properly. That if something didn’t put the fear in you, then it wasn’t worth doing, or it wasn’t important enough to attempt.

 

I watched him relentlessly, trying to understand and grapple with this unknowable horse. Armed with slices of apples and sugar cubes, I used to sit on the fence that he would run between the house and the meager stables my uncle had built to house them. He would come running out and gallop towards the farthest fence, double back for about twenty feet, and then come hurtling towards me, looking straight at me, and cut off just before we would collide, before he would collide with the house. Then, after he completed his circuit, he would come over and ask for reward for repeating this behaviour, and I would give him a slice of apple. I thought I understood him, and the more watched, and the more I thought I understood him, the more I studied and talked to him, the more insulated inside my presumption I became, and the further and further away I realized I was getting.  

 

Trying to understand yourself is hard enough, trying to understand anything else is impossible.

 

To get used to the track, I would sneak out of the house early in the morning, saddle up Alastair and try and get him to take the same route as Domino. But like always, despite my protest, Alastair would go around in circles, again and again, retracing the steps he did the day before, excited and in anticipation of completing, and having another successful trot around the farm.

 

It used to infuriate me, more than once I would wake my uncle up yelling at the top of my lungs to Alastair. “Don’t you want to run? Don’t you want more? Why would you want to wake up and do the exact same thing everyday of your life only to return to the same place " at least you should run like Domino, at lest he looks like he’s having fun, at least he looks like he enjoys getting out of his goddam cage!”

 

But Alastair wouldn’t notice, or would ignore me, I could never really tell, and would return me to my uncle’s window without protest, without hostility, eagerly awaiting my next command. He was satisfied with his box, he knew it, and didn’t burn to get out, not like Domino did.

 

The day before it was my birthday, my uncle approached me in the kitchen and told me tomorrow, because I had spent so much time trying to understand how to handle Domino, I would get to ride him.

 

“When I’m older, I’m going to have a horse just like Domino,” I said. “One that runs into a burning house without thinking about itself, one that will fall deep into a place they don’t recognise and come out the other side better, bolder and larger than life, like this”. Then I would stretch my hands out as far as they could go.

 

I was excited.

 

“Ok,” my uncle said. “But, you should think about how much Alastair has done for your riding, you should think about what a good horse he is.”

 

“He’s boring,” I said. “He only goes around in circles, again and again, he’s afraid or something.”

 

“I don’t think he’s afraid, I think he understands what’s out there, and likes his home. He’s the best horse I’ve ever had, even if he’s not as fast or strong, he’s my favourite.”

 

“What?!” I protested. “He’s so boring!”

 

“Yes, he is, but you have to understand, that horses like Domino, even though they’re strong, and fast, they’re the ones that you end up getting hurt riding, but that’s important. If you stay with for long enough, you’ll get kicked in the chest, and you’ll never be quite the same again, but you’ll be stronger, it’ll hurt, but you’ll be stronger.”

 

“I know Domino, he would never do that to me,” I said.

 

“I hope so,” my uncle said.

 

The next day I woke up early and went through the kitchen to the stables. Domino was already awake but wouldn’t look me in the eye, and when I went over to pat him he would reciprocate for a second, and then immediately recoil. I thought that maybe something was wrong, and I couldn’t really tell what, he kept on looking down, only occasionally looking up to check that I was still there, and was constantly sitting in the back of the stable, fearful like I hadn’t seen him before.

 

My uncle came out and asked if I was ready to go, and because I was excited I said yes, but I shouldn’t have, because I knew Domino, well I thought I knew Domino, and he was never like this. He was never shy. I put the saddle on him and he winced as it touched his skin. I reached out and patted his main to calm him down and he looked guilty. I hadn’t seen guilt before, but now that I look back, I know what guilt looks like, and his eyes told me that something was wrong, I wasn’t to blame, but I certainly was going to be the one punished.

 

My uncle picked me up and put me on his back, which seemed fine, for the first few seconds. I thought maybe all of my feelings were the products of fear, and the fact that I fixated on his nerves was that he was just mirroring my own. His left eye was watering.

 

I took the reigns and my uncle pushed him off, and he began slowly trudging around the pen. I carefully restricted his reigns; I wasn’t going to give him an excuse to run wildly around the pen like I had seen him do so many times by himself, I knew what it looked like, I knew the symptoms of those wild runs, and I wasn’t about to let it happen. He followed Alastair’s track, gradually increasing his speed, slowly getting more and more comfortable with me being on his back, but there was still something wrong. He was afraid. He was definitely afraid, and his left eye was watering.

 

We were about to complete our third turn, we were tracing the side of my uncle house, and Domino slowed down to a trot, eventually to a walk and finally to a surreptitious creep along the path.

 

“Kick him!” my uncle yelled. “Give him a bit of incentive.” So I jabbed my heals gently into his side, but he didn’t react. I did it again, and he didn’t react. By this time he had come to nearly a complete stop, his eyes focused on a small hole in the ground next to a fence post. The hole was small, about the size of a tennis ball, and deep, shrouded in the shadow of the post and protruding out from under the fence. In the afternoon, it would get direct sunlight, but now, in the morning, it would be covered in a thin film of due, and would go deep in the ground to avoid the cold of the night.

 

“What is it, Domino? What are you looking at, huh?” His left eye was staring at the hole intensely, and it was watering.

 

“What is it, boy? What’ve you got there?”

 

Domino came to a complete stop. “What the hell is going on mate? Give him a kick” my uncle said, but I ignored him, just like Domino did. We both sat there, gazing at the hole that had disrupted the ride I had prepared for all summer " my birthday ride. Domino sharply took in air, and let out on, long, exasperated sigh. He knew what was coming. I didn’t know, and he knew, and his eyes were watering because he was nervous, and he didn’t want to get hurt.

 

The snake erupted out of the hole and Domino ran back to the stable, and nothing was the same. When he ran I lost control of the reigns and fell off the back. I felt my arm break and saw Domino bound towards the stable. He was running from a snake that had already retreated back into it’s hole " he was running from something he shouldn’t fear. He was running from a ghost.

 

He bounded into the stable, and my uncle tried to calm him down. For a moment, it looked like Domino was ok, and was going to calm down, but as soon as my uncle took his saddle off, he writhed and jumped and kicked and screamed. You don’t think horses can scream " well they can. His eye were read with tears and he was sweating and he didn’t know what to do so he just jumped and kicked and screamed and writhed. He kicked my uncle in the chest and my uncle never rode him again.

 

When I saw my uncle in the hospital, he said that he hoped I understood why he loved Alastair, but even with his rib broken, I could tell he was devastated that Domino had run away. I knew he was devastated that he would never see Domino again, even though it was probably for the best.

 

I realized that I would never make a safe choice, even though I longed to, even though I craved it and wanted to so badly make a choice that I could rely on, one that would keep me safe and one that I could sleep next to and not spend the night in a hot, desperate neurosis. But I wouldn’t make that choice, and years later, when I should have seen the snake coming, she left, and my chest hurt, just like my uncle said it would.

Reviews

[Jack Isaac]

Hey! My sister had a horse named Domino... lol... It's the 3rd story I've read about horses tonight so I'm on a roll. This story is on a roll too. It invites and holds the reader's attention... even if you're not into horses... because it's not so much about the animals as it is about getting carried away with mistakes.
Best line is:...

‘I thought for the longest time, before I took my first ride, that if we weren’t scared, if our heart wasn’t beating and we weren’t sweating, and examining each action, being viscerally and neurotically and painfully aware of everything that we do, then we weren’t riding properly.’

...even if this a run-on, it seems to work well. Also excellent images and word choice throughout this write. Well done!