preserve his baby teeth for as long as possible, then when they rotted
out, he’d be given posts. But they never rotted out. They stayed,
stubborn relics of a misplaced childhood, reminding anyone who
witnessed his pointless, endless, feckless belligerence, that this man
was once a boy.
—IT WAS A HAZY summer evening, a month before I turned fifteen. The sun
had dipped below Buck’s Peak but the sky still held a few hours of
light. Shawn and I were in the corral. After breaking Bud that spring,
Shawn had taken up horses in a serious way. All summer he’d been
buying horses, Thoroughbreds and Paso Finos, most of them unbroken
because he could pick them up cheap. We were still working with Bud.
We’d taken him on a dozen rides through the open pasture, but he was
inexperienced, skittish, unpredictable.
That evening, Shawn saddled a new horse, a copper-coated mare, for
the first time. She was ready for a short ride, Shawn said, so we
mounted, him on the mare, me on Bud. We made it about half a mile
up the mountain, moving deliberately so as not to frighten the horses,
winding our way through the wheat fields. Then I did something
foolish. I got too close to the mare. She didn’t like having the gelding
behind her, and with no warning she leapt forward, thrusting her
weight onto her front legs, and with her hind legs kicked Bud full in the
chest.
Bud went berserk.
I’d been tying a knot in my reins to make them more secure and
didn’t have a firm hold. Bud gave a tremendous jolt, then began to
buck, throwing his body in tight circles. The reins flew over his head. I
gripped the saddle horn and squeezed my thighs together, curving my
legs around his bulging belly. Before I could get my bearings, Bud took
off at a dead run straight up a ravine, bucking now and then but
running, always running. My foot slipped through a stirrup up to my
calf.
All those summers breaking horses with Grandpa, and the only
advice I remembered him giving was, “Whate’er you do, don’t git your
foot caught in the stirrup.” I didn’t need him to explain. I knew that as
long as I came off clean, I’d likely be fine. At least I’d be on the ground.
But if my foot got caught, I’d be dragged until my head split on a rock.