She was singing with such fervor and fury that it made my tail swish as she bumped along on my back in a canter. I envied my friends who didn’t have to put up with such nonsense and could just ride out and when they hit the big fields could break into a gallop across the great table of the Southwest. I could see their riders, with their hats flying off into the wind. And not far away was my friend, a handsome black stallion with a white diamond on his forehead who was the envy of the stable. He was a winner! Everyone bet on him, but for him, winning was a piece of cake. I was thrilled when he sidled up to me, an ordinary dapple gray, one day and whinnied into my neck.
I felt we were soul-mates. We meshed in such a way that you could feel we came out of the same ray. I could be adventurous with him, because no matter what either of us did, we were always together in our hearts. Even the little marmalade kitten with orange fur that played in our stalls knew it. She would carry messages from him and come and purr at my feet, even climb up the rails and hop on my back to whisper messages from him in my ear. I didn’t need a mailbox with her around! Once I found a dime under my hoof and I pushed it over to her and she picked it up in her teeth and took it to him as a love token. Was science operating here? No, it was inner knowing and inner awareness that we shared.
I felt my heart would burst the day I saw them leading him out of the stable and into a van. Would I ever see him again? In my inner being I cherished an image of my black stallion. His beauty was indelible and I would never forget him. I mourned his departure, his loss from my life.
Then one day I too, was sent away in a van—a “vacation,” they said—to a country farm. To me it felt as though I had been put out to pasture in a senior residence. I stomped the ground in protest but it did not change anything. Soon I was surrounded by such beauty that my depression faded. There was a cottage where a little girl lived who came out to ride me every day. Sometimes she brought me a present of an apple. I could see deer in the woods, and hunters all around. One day when we were out riding together, over rose hedges surrounded by lush green grass, we came to a beautiful pool in a glade of trees. I looked down and saw my own reflection … and next to it I saw a black face with a white diamond. Then I knew we were still together, that even time couldn’t separate us. I knew I would see him again one day.
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