Don­ald and I walked through Maupin’s apple orchard at noon on a hot sun­ny day in 1963.

“I can catch fish with my hands,” I said.

“No one can catch fish with his hands.”

“I can.”

“Bull­crap.”

We were first cousins. Don­ald was 14, short with a spare tire of baby fat he would car­ry through­out his life. Skin­ny and a head taller than Don­ald, I was 16.

We climbed over the orchard fence, walked into the woods, and worked our way down a steep slope to Moorman’s Riv­er. At the Skunk Hole, a fish­ing spot named for an unfor­tu­nate inci­dent involv­ing our fam­i­ly dog, I took off my shirt, shoes, and socks and climbed up on a big rock.

“This is ridicu­lous,” Don­ald scoffed. “Quit fool­ing around.”

From five feet above the water, I can­non-balled into the deep­est part of the Skunk Hole. The cold water braced me. I dove to the river’s floor, grabbed a big bot­tom-feed­er, pushed upward, broke through the sur­face, and waved the wrig­gling fish above my head.

Donald’s eyes bugged out. “Holy Crap!!!”

Show­ing off, I let that fish go, caught anoth­er, released it, and caught a third.

My fam­i­ly had moved to White Hall, Vir­ginia, a cou­ple years ear­li­er. Coun­try boys had taught me a few tricks. One of them was hand-fishing.

Hand-fish­ing requires no skill. Moun­tain streams are bot­tomed with riv­er rocks. The cur­rent wash­es away sand and silt, cre­at­ing lit­tle open spaces between some of them. When you dive in, fish scur­ry to the lit­tle caves to hide from preda­tors. If you place one hand over any exit hole and reach inside with the oth­er, the fish has nowhere to go. You get a good grip and pull it out.

Don­ald was a city boy. My coun­try-boy trick fooled him good. He stared at me wor­ship­ful­ly as we climbed the hill back to the par­son­age. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

I strung him along for about an hour before I clued him in. He was a good sport, and we laughed about it.

When we were lit­tle boys, Donald’s dad, my mom’s big broth­er, Kei­th, drove his fam­i­ly the 600 miles from Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island, to Virginia’s tide­wa­ter area every sum­mer to vis­it my fam­i­ly for a few days.

Our way of life must have shocked Don­ald at first. His fam­i­ly lived in a sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hood with city water, sewage sys­tems, and paved streets. Their neigh­bors were office work­ers and shop­keep­ers. All the ani­mals in his com­mu­ni­ty were domes­ti­cat­ed pets.

We lived on a sandy road in a clear­ing cut out of a pine for­est. We drew our water from a hand-dug well and did our busi­ness in a wood­en out­house. Our neigh­bor was a guy who lived in a rust­ed-out school bus, its wheel hubs propped up on blocks in a soy­bean field. Deer raid­ed our veg­etable gar­den, and black snakes slith­ered through the grass in our backyard.

Despite our cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences and the short amount of time we spent togeth­er, Don­ald and I became great friends. We climbed trees, swam in the York and James Rivers, caught crabs in tide­pools with hand nets, and, thanks to me, went nuts over baseball.

I was 8 years old when I got hooked on the Boston Red Sox. The Wash­ing­ton Sen­a­tors were the clos­est team to my area, but they stank. Uncle Kei­th lived near Boston and was crazy about the Red Sox, so I adopt­ed them as my team and Ted Williams as my favorite player.

Mom bought me a cou­ple packs of base­ball cards short­ly after that. This turned out to be a cost­ly mis­take on her part. Obsessed with try­ing to score a Ted Williams card, I forced her to spend $30,000 on 600,000 Topps 5‑cent-bub­blegum packs over the next cou­ple years. It was a hope­less quest. Topps print­ed almost no cards of good play­ers so that kids would blow all their par­ents’ mon­ey chas­ing the superstars.

I’d rip open each pack excit­ed­ly only to be dis­ap­point­ed by yet anoth­er pile of .200 hit­ters and 10.00 ERA pitch­ers, nev­er the good play­ers, and nev­er ever Ted Williams.

Then one hot sum­mer day, Mom bought me five packs at a gas sta­tion in Lee Hall. Rid­ing shot­gun in our Hud­son on the way home, I stuffed all the gum in my kiss­er and flipped through a stack of the usu­al worth­less bums, but when I broke the seal on the last wrap­per, I almost faint­ed. Mick­ey Man­tle, Willy Mays, Hank Aaron, and TWO of TED WILLIAMS! The sadists at the Topps fac­to­ry dumped all the future Hall-of-Famers into one blessed pack, and I hit the lottery!

I swal­lowed my bub­blegum. The fist-sized wad got hung up behind my Adam’s apple. Stran­gling to death, I coughed and gagged while caress­ing the two Ted Williams cards to make sure they were real.

“You all right?” Mom asked.

Clutch­ing my throat and heav­ing for air, I held my twin dream cards up to her and flashed a pur­ple-faced smile. “Teh …Wims,” I croaked.

She fran­ti­cal­ly pulled off the road and pound­ed me on the back until I pro­jec­tile-puked the dead­ly pink gob of gum onto the floor­board. When we got home, she went to the kitchen cab­i­net and downed a half-bot­tle of Dad’s nerve med­i­cine. Obliv­i­ous to my near-death expe­ri­ence, I bliss­ful­ly retreat­ed to my bed­room to pore over Ted Williams’ career stats on the back of my thank-you-Jesus Ted­dy-Ball­game doubles.

Donald’s fam­i­ly came to vis­it the fol­low­ing week. When I laid out my Topps cards on the bed­room floor, it became clear Don­ald didn’t know any­thing about base­ball. I spent all day teach­ing him about the game, the Red Sox, and the Splen­did Splin­ter. I sank the hook deep. By the end of the day, he was a crazed addict.

The next morn­ing, Uncle Kei­th took me aside. “You’ve accom­plished a mir­a­cle,” he said, his voice quiv­er­ing. “I’ve tried every­thing to get Don­ald inter­est­ed in base­ball. Noth­ing worked, but you’ve turned him into a Red Sox fan overnight. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

I knew exact­ly how he could repay me. “Take me to a Red Sox game,” I said.

The fol­low­ing sum­mer Uncle Kei­th insist­ed my fam­i­ly dri­ve to Prov­i­dence for the annu­al vis­it instead of their com­ing to us. He sent me the Red Sox sched­ule and told me to pick a date. Fig­ur­ing I’d nev­er see anoth­er big-league base­ball game dur­ing my child­hood, I chose a dou­ble­head­er against the Wash­ing­ton Sen­a­tors. “I under­stand the dou­ble­head­er,” Uncle Kei­th said, “but why the Sen­a­tors? Don’t you want to see the Red Sox play a good team?”

“No! I want to see the Red Sox win.”

On a hot as hell day in July, Uncle Kei­th, my dad, Don­ald, and I took our seats on the ground lev­el way down the third base line across from deep left field. In the first inning, when Ted Williams trot­ted out to stand in the shad­ow of the Green Mon­ster, Fenway’s tow­er­ing left-field wall, I was struck dumb. Don­ald could still talk, but bare­ly. “Jesus,” he said softly.

If you weren’t a lit­tle kid whacked out of his mind about see­ing your favorite team and play­er, that dou­ble­head­er was a mis­er­able expe­ri­ence. There was no shade over our seats, and it was a mug­gy 95 degrees. At the end of the first game, which the Red Sox won, Dad want­ed to go home. “We’ll get sun­stroke,” he said.

“I don’t care,” I said. Don­ald backed me up. We stayed.

Halfway through the sec­ond game, the Red Sox pulled Ted Williams and subbed in Gene Stephens. Uncle Kei­th begged me and Don­ald to give it up. With my face broiled beet-red and my shirt drenched in sweat, I was on the verge of cav­ing, but Don­ald said no. Uncle Kei­th got angry. He grabbed Donald’s arm and stood. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Eight-year-old Don­ald pulled his arm free and shook his fin­ger at his dad. “This is Kenny’s big day!” he shout­ed. “We’re stay­ing till it’s over!”

Uncle Kei­th looked at me for a long moment, then sat down. Dad almost cried.

In the top of the ninth inning, Jim­my Pier­sall climbed the cen­ter field wall to make the most spec­tac­u­lar catch I would ever wit­ness, rob­bing Roy Siev­ers of a game-win­ning home run and secur­ing my dream of the Red Sox win­ning both ends of the doubleheader.

When we got back to Donald’s house, I gave him one of my two Ted Williams cards. Over­whelmed with emo­tion, he hugged me.

My hand-fish­ing trick went down six years lat­er in 1963. That trip to White Hall was the last time Donald’s fam­i­ly came to vis­it us, and it was the last time Don­ald and I got together.

We grew up, mar­ried, set­tled on oppo­site coasts, and raised our own fam­i­lies. We didn’t keep in touch.

When Uncle Kei­th died in 2004, I called Don­ald. A forty-year estrange­ment, a big­ger wall than Fenway’s Green Mon­ster, stood between us. We had changed too much, and the new guys didn’t know each oth­er. Our con­ver­sa­tion was short and awk­ward. We nev­er spoke again.

Don­ald passed away in 2017.

Cindy and I have three chil­dren, two sons-in-law, a daugh­ter-in-law, and eight grand­chil­dren. Of that crew, about ten of us, includ­ing Cindy and me, have birth­days in June and July. This year we had one big birth­day cel­e­bra­tion last month for the Gemini/Cancer bunch, a cook-out and pool-par­ty at our house.

That Sun­day after­noon, I stood in the shal­low end of our pool, watch­ing four of our grand­chil­dren tak­ing turns can­non-balling off the jacuzzi wall into the deep end, about a five-foot jump. That long-ago day at the Skunk Hole came back to me. I thought about the Red Sox game and all the good times with Don­ald when we were kids.

Char­lotte, Riv­er, Logan, and Wyatt are first cousins. They live close to each oth­er and get togeth­er a lot. They have a spe­cial bond. It’s a great gift, I thought as I watched them. I hope they can keep it. I hope they don’t grow apart.

I got out of the pool and stood at the jacuzzi behind Wyatt. When he fin­ished his dive, I stepped up on the wall.

A 77-year-old loon leap­ing off a high wall into a pool is a shock­ing spec­ta­cle, I guess.

Char­lotte grabbed Riv­er. “Look! Papaw’s gonna jump!”

All eyes were on me.

I can­non-balled into the deep end. When I sur­faced, Char­lotte and the boys were laugh­ing and cheering.

I climbed out, got in line behind them, and wait­ed my turn.

I can­non-balled into the deep end three times. One for my grand­kids. One for me. And one for Donald.

The tele­phone rang. “Law offices. Oder.”

“Ken­ny, it’s Sue Ellen. You ain’t gonna believe what just hap­pened! Fred came to the break­fast table buck nekkid! Lar­ry and Grady were still in bed, thank you, Jesus! It’s a mir­a­cle they didn’t wake up and walk in the kitchen! Can you imag­ine the shock of my lit­tle boys seein’ their dad­dy nekkid as a jaybird?”

In her mid-twen­ties, short and slight with coal-black eyes and stringy brown hair, born-again Chris­t­ian, moth­er of two boys, and the unhap­py wife of a motor­cy­cle enthu­si­ast and ser­i­al sin­ner, Sue Ellen Defibaugh called me every day for three weeks. Each call went on for­ev­er; she rarely paused to take a breath; and I couldn’t jam a word in edgeways.

“Sue Ellen –”

“I told Fred to march right back in the bed­room and get dressed and he just sat at the table with his hands between his nekkid legs and his head hangin’ down and he start­ed cryin’ and he said Sue Ellen you gone crazy with Jesus and I can’t stand it and I want you to go back to the way you was and I said Jesus is my Lord and Sav­ior and you need to get straight with Him because I can’t live with a sin­ner who cuss­es and drinks whiskey and lis­tens to the devil’s music and comes to break­fast nekkid.”

Fred came to break­fast nekkid in the sum­mer of 1972. UVA had accept­ed my appli­ca­tion to law school the pre­vi­ous spring, and I gave notice to Albe­mar­le Coun­ty that I wouldn’t return in the fall for a fourth year of teach­ing high school. The news leaked out to my stu­dents. The father of one of them rec­om­mend­ed me to a Char­lottesville attor­ney, Richard Bell, who was look­ing for a sum­mer clerk. I sched­uled an interview.

Bell had con­vert­ed a two-sto­ry res­i­den­tial home on a tree-lined street near the cour­t­house into law offices. Five-feet-four with a round face, reced­ing chin, and lit­tle pot bel­ly, he sat at his desk in what was once a large par­lor and squint­ed at me through smudged, thick-lensed glasses.

“I haven’t even start­ed law school,” I told him. “I don’t know any­thing about the law.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “Your stu­dents say you’re a peo­ple per­son. I need a peo­ple per­son.” He hired me on the spot.

My first day on the job, Jody Sprouse, Bell’s office man­ag­er, a no-non­sense pit bull in her fifties with a bee-hive of blue hair, led me to a clos­et-sized win­dow­less room and plopped a stack of mani­la file fold­ers on a dusty desk jammed against the back wall. “Your job,” she said, “is to keep these peo­ple away from Mis­ter Bell.”

By the end of the day, I under­stood why Bell need­ed a peo­ple per­son. He made a small for­tune buy­ing run-down homes in dis­tressed neigh­bor­hoods and rent­ing them out to cov­er the mort­gage pay­ments. The bulk of his legal work involved these trans­ac­tions. While his acqui­si­tions cre­at­ed sub­stan­tial net worth, they didn’t gen­er­ate much cash flow, so he took on tra­di­tion­al legal work to pay the bills. And that was the rub. Social­ly inept, tac­i­turn, and sullen, he hat­ed client contact.

Bell’s three law clerks were no help to him on that score. They were each bril­liant UVA law stu­dents with the per­son­al­i­ty of a plas­tic bag. While they were great at legal research and doc­u­ment­ing com­plex trans­ac­tions, he couldn’t put them in a room with a client with­out los­ing the business.

That’s where I came in. The files Jody stacked on my desk spanned the spec­trum of a sole practitioner’s bread and but­ter – wills, trusts, con­tract dis­putes, debt col­lec­tion, divorce peti­tions. Each file con­tained Bell’s cryp­tic notes from an ini­tial client meet­ing and a list of infor­ma­tion he need­ed from them to com­plete their legal project.

My job was to meet with the clients, gath­er facts, fill in the blanks on form doc­u­ments, and hand them off to Bell for final revi­sion and court fil­ings. I made a hit with the clients right off the bat. Angry because they’d been neglect­ed, they imme­di­ate­ly warmed up when I told them their case was my top pri­or­i­ty. I was the peo­ple per­son; Bell was the lawyer; and every­thing went along smoothly.

Until one morn­ing in July. Jody buzzed me. “Sue Ellen Defibaugh on line 2.”

I dug out a thin file labeled Defibaugh v. Defibaugh, con­tain­ing a sin­gle page of pen­cil-scrib­bled phras­es. “Preg­nant at 16. Mar­ried 17. Sec­ond child 18. Hus­band won’t go to church.” Not much to go on, but by then I’d learned to dance with­out music. “Put her through,” I told Jody.

“Be care­ful. This woman’s crazy as a shit­house rat.”

When I intro­duced myself, Sue Ellen cheered. At a revival ser­vice my dad preached in Free Union, she’d answered his altar call to ded­i­cate her life to Christ. “Thank you, Jesus, for sendin’ me Rev­erend Oder’s son in my time of need!” She launched into a full-throat­ed con­dem­na­tion of Fred for pres­sur­ing her to stop play­ing “Jesus records.” The Black­wood Broth­ers, Jim­my Swag­gart, Jim­my Pat­ton, The Inspi­ra­tions. Even Elvis and Aretha Franklin got into the act. “I cry every time that girl sings Amazin’ Grace.” After an hour with­out a pause, she hung up because she had to go to the toilet.

For three weeks, Sue Ellen buried me in an avalanche of phone calls. Fred wouldn’t go to church, drank beer, took the Lord’s name in vain, blas­phemed, looked at dirty mag­a­zines, played pok­er with his bud­dies. Worst of all, he pestered Sue Ellen con­stant­ly about sex, but after my dad’s revival ser­vice, she’d refused to let him touch her. “It’s a sin to lie down with a man who don’t love our Lord and Savior!”

The nekkid break­fast came along in August, and it went bad in a hurry.

“When I told Fred to go back in the bed­room and pull on his pants, he stood up and said Sue Ellen I miss you so much and he just stood there cryin’ with big ole tears streamin’ down his face and he walked back in the bed­room real sad and I called you cause I want Mis­ter Bell to get him outa my life unless he stops his sin­nin’ ways–”

In the back­ground I heard shout­ing and glass breaking.

I sat up straight. “Sue Ellen?!!”

“Sweet Jesus! Fred threw a chair through the win­dow, jumped out, and drove off on his Harley. He ain’t wearin’ no shirt, but at least he put on his pants. I just don’t know what to do.” She broke down, sobbing.

Relieved Sue Ellen hadn’t been hurt, I let out a long breath.

“Oh no!” She gasped. “Lar­ry and Grady is up. Mer­ci­ful Jesus, please give me the brains to know what to tell my sweet babies.” The line clicked.

I placed the phone in its cra­dle and stared at it. Fred’s frus­tra­tion was build­ing. Some­thing bad could hap­pen any day now, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

As Jody and Bell had made abun­dant­ly clear, my job was to keep the clients away from him, espe­cial­ly the aggra­vat­ing ones, and Sue Ellen was among the most aggra­vat­ing clients God and my dad had ever called to the altar. But I was just a glad-hand­ing peo­ple guy. She need­ed a lawyer.

Know­ing I’d like­ly lose my job, I marched past a star­tled Jody into Bell’s office unannounced.

He looked up from a plat map and scowled. “What do you want?”

Jody stormed in behind me. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just barge in here—”

“I’m in over my head,” I said. “Sue Ellen Defibaugh’s safe­ty is at risk.” I recapped her 35 phone calls, con­clud­ing with the nekkid break­fast and the smashed-out window.

When I fin­ished, Bell stared at me silent­ly for a long time. I expect­ed the axe to fall at any moment.

Then Bell said, “Her hus­band called in here once. He told me he loved her. He cried. I felt sor­ry for him.” Bell put his hand to his reced­ing chin, looked out the win­dow, then looked at me. “The hus­band is unrep­re­sent­ed. Let’s call them in. I’ll meet with him while you meet with Mrs. Defibaugh. We’ll try to set­tle their differences.”

Her mouth hang­ing open, Jody looked like she might faint. I was shocked, too. The last thing either of us had expect­ed was for Bell to pro­pose meet­ing with a human being unre­lat­ed to his real estate business.

The next morn­ing, Jody led Fred, a tall, mus­cle-bound, skin­head in his 20’s, wear­ing a leather jack­et with a motor­cy­cle hel­met dan­gling from his hand, into Bell’s office.

I met with Sue Ellen in a con­fer­ence room down the hall. “Is there any way you and Fred can stay togeth­er?” I asked her.

Sweaty chest­nut-brown bangs stick­ing to her fore­head, dark cir­cles under her slight­ly crazed black eyes, she nod­ded eager­ly. “All I want is for Fred to give his life to Christ.”

“Sup­pose he won’t do that.”

“Then I want him gone.”

I tried to talk her off that hard line. She wouldn’t give an inch. I inter­rupt­ed Bell’s meet­ing with Fred and told them what she said. Fred asked to speak with Sue Ellen alone. She refused.

Bell met with Fred again while I wait­ed with Sue Ellen. Fred told Bell the nekkid break­fast was his des­per­ate attempt to res­ur­rect the wild sex­pot he’d fall­en in love with, and although it didn’t work, he still loved her. It took Bell more than an hour to con­vince him to let her go.

Fred agreed to move out that day before Sue Ellen got home. Sue Ellen and I watched him from the con­fer­ence room win­dow. Tears stream­ing down his stone-hard face, he put on his hel­met, strad­dled the Harley, and roared out of Bell’s park­ing lot.

“Good rid­dance,” Sue Ellen said, her eyes dry.

Lat­er that after­noon, Jody came to my office. “What did you do to Mis­ter Bell?” she said in a small voice.

“What do you mean?”

“When you were with Sue Ellen, he called me in his office to bring him a box a Kleenex. That big bald-head­ed boy was cryin’ like a baby and Mis­ter Bell was hug­gin’ him.” She took a deep breath. “And he had tears in his eyes. What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do any­thing. I don’t under­stand it either.”

Over the next few weeks, Bell and I worked out a sep­a­ra­tion agree­ment between Sue Ellen and Fred, divid­ing their prop­er­ty and giv­ing him vis­i­ta­tion rights. Their divorce peti­tion was grant­ed the fol­low­ing summer.

I worked for Bell nights and week­ends through­out my law school days. Dur­ing that time, I came to under­stand him bet­ter. We were very dif­fer­ent peo­ple, but like-mind­ed in two ways: 1) after Defibaugh v. Defibaugh, we both vowed nev­er to come with­in a coun­try mile of anoth­er divorce case; and 2) although Bell worked hard to con­ceal it, he was a good peo­ple per­son. When it count­ed most, he lis­tened to his heart.

I first saw her in a pho­to­graph post­ed on a web­site about hors­es for sale in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. I had bought a lit­tle sor­rel mare, Marge, and I was in the mar­ket for a sta­ble­mate when my train­er and good friend, Janet, saw an adver­tise­ment on the inter­net and sent me the link.

“Gray Azteca mare. 8 years old. Ranch/trail horse. Sound. Takes her leads. Good with chil­dren. Loca­tion: Lan­cast­er.” In the pho­to­graph, she stared at the cam­era with big, soul­ful eyes, her ears pricked for­ward, a dark gray fore­lock falling over her face. 

Janet arranged a meet­ing with the sell­er. Lan­cast­er, pop­u­la­tion 170,000, sits sev­en­ty miles north of Los Ange­les at the hub of the Ante­lope Val­ley in the Cal­i­for­nia High Desert. On a hot dry Sun­day after­noon, I pulled off a paved street into a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood with sandy dirt roads and small Span­ish-style hous­es on wind-blown, dusty lots. 

I parked in front of a pale yel­low, tile-roofed home. A short guy in his late thir­ties wear­ing a cow­boy hat, jeans, and boots, stood on the front stoop. We talked while we wait­ed for Janet. His name was Miguel. He worked as a lead­man on an assem­bly line in one of the aero­space fac­to­ries that form the back­bone of Lancaster’s econ­o­my. He bought the horse from a friend when she was two years old. He didn’t have time to work with her any­more because he was busy coach­ing his sons’ Lit­tle League teams. He seemed like a nice guy, a good father try­ing to raise his kids right.

When Janet got there, we walked around behind the house. A sad­dled and bri­dled gray horse stood under a big shady ash tree next to a cor­ral. A chain hooked to her hal­ter and tied to a branch high above her head was pulled taut, forc­ing her to hold her head tilt­ed upward. Her big eyes watched us as we approached. The look in her eyes and the ten­sion in her stance made me uneasy. 

Miguel unhooked the chain and led the horse to the cor­ral. When he placed his foot in the stir­rup, she crow-hopped and pulled away. The nice guy I’d met on the front stoop dis­ap­peared to be replaced by a harsh tyrant, indif­fer­ent to the feel­ings of the horse. He yanked her reins bru­tal­ly and man­han­dled her to a stand­still to climb in the sad­dle. In the cor­ral, he forced her through short chop­py zig-zag pat­terns, jerk­ing her head rough­ly back and forth.

“You don’t need to do that!” Janet shout­ed. “We’re only look­ing for a trail horse.”

Pay­ing no heed to her, Miguel spurred the horse into a top-speed gal­lop to the corral’s far end, pulled back on her reins so sav­age­ly she sat down on her haunch­es and slid over the sand to come to a stop, then whipped her around, sprint­ed her back toward us, and vicious­ly mus­cled her into anoth­er sit-down stop, almost rip­ping her head off in the process.

It was hard to watch.

“You shouldn’t buy this horse,” Janet said to me while Miguel was still out of earshot. “He’s ruined her. She won’t be a safe ride.”

When Miguel dis­mount­ed and walked over to us, the nice guy returned. “So, what do you think?” he said, smil­ing amiably.

The split per­son­al­i­ty con­fused me at the time, but since then, I’ve met many horse­men like Miguel, nice peo­ple in most aspects of their lives, but with a blind spot about hors­es. They treat them like inan­i­mate tools with no thoughts, feel­ings, or emo­tions, like a trac­tor or some oth­er type of farm machin­ery. They expect hors­es to fol­low the dic­tates of their will with­out the slight­est devi­a­tion. When a horse resists, they beat her into sub­mis­sion, and when she can no longer per­form, they don’t hes­i­tate to put her down.

Miguel was such a per­son. I looked at the horse stand­ing behind him, her head down, trem­bling, blow­ing hard. I felt bad for her. “I’d like you to test ride her,” I said to Janet.

Janet gave me a dou­ble-take, but she did as I asked, and after­ward, when she inspect­ed the horse for sound­ness, she found that Miguel had bri­dled her with a spade bit. A spade bit has a wide flat plate that goes over the horse’s tongue and pro­trudes way up inside its mouth. A skilled rid­er can use it for max­i­mum con­trol with­out inflict­ing pain, but in Miguel’s hands it was an instru­ment of torture.

Janet explod­ed and bawled Miguel out. I thought he’d get mad, but his blind spot about hors­es left him puz­zled, rather than offend­ed. He shrugged off her anger and turned to me. “So how about it? Do you want to buy the horse?”

Janet took me aside. She feels even more strong­ly about hors­es than I do, but her job is to pro­tect me and my inter­ests. “He’s abused this horse,” she said. “She may have old injuries we can’t see that didn’t heal prop­er­ly, and she’s so fear­ful she won’t be a safe ride for you or your grandchildren.”

I looked over at the horse. Her soul­ful eyes stared back at me. Some­thing stirred inside my chest. I agreed with Janet’s assess­ment, but I couldn’t leave her there. “I’d pay dou­ble the ask­ing price,” I said, “just to get her away from this guy.”

I bought her. 

We named her Lily.

Janet was right about old injuries. There are deep scars on her legs. She favors her left shoul­der and walks with an incon­sis­tent gait. Janet thinks Miguel showed her in a char­rea­da, or Mex­i­can Rodeo. It’s com­prised of nine events, includ­ing the man­ganas, or horse trip­ping, where a rid­er on horse­back chas­es a horse around an are­na, las­soes her legs, and makes her trip and fall. 

Lily’s psy­cho­log­i­cal scars run deep, too. When she arrived in Hid­den Hills, she was afraid of me. She shrank from my raised hand and wouldn’t let me touch her. I kept try­ing, and after a few days, she calmed down enough to let me stroke her neck and rub her back.

On one of my vis­its with her, I found a small hard knot low on her shoul­der and anoth­er one high­er up. The vet found more of them under her tail. “She has melanoma,” he said. Melanoma tumors are com­mon among gray hors­es, he told me. Many of them live nor­mal lives with­out adverse effects, but the tumors can some­times be fatal, spread­ing to vital organs, swelling up, and burst­ing open. “There’s no cure,” he said, “but there’s a vac­cine that can slow the tumors’ growth. It’s expen­sive, and it often doesn’t work. Most peo­ple just ignore the con­di­tion and hope the horse out­lives it.”

We start­ed Lily on the vac­cine and sched­uled her for injec­tions every six months. 

Mean­while, Janet trained Lily in Hid­den Hills’ are­nas and on its trails to ease her fears and smooth out her skit­tish­ness. Six months passed before she gave me the green light to climb on Lily’s back, and even then, we had to be ponied off a calm, steady geld­ing for three more months before I could ride her independently.

After all the train­ing, she still gave me some good scares on solo rides. She calmed down over time and I feel safe now when I ride her, but I know fear was burned into her soul with a hot brand­ing iron leav­ing a scar that can’t ever heal entire­ly. So, I ride her with vig­i­lance and care, and I’ll nev­er put my grand­chil­dren on her back. 

Lily’s four­teen now. She’s been with me for six years. The vac­cine seems to have helped. Her tumors have grown, but not much, and they haven’t affect­ed her over­all health. Psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, she’s much bet­ter. She accepts affec­tion and gives it in return. 

I love my hors­es and a lot of hors­es that aren’t mine. They all tug at my heart, but some­times Lily tugs a lit­tle hard­er. She still star­tles when I approach her too quick­ly or raise my hand too sud­den­ly. In those moments, she looks at me the way she did that first time I saw her tied to the tree in Miguel’s back­yard, and I know she still remem­bers Miguel, the char­rea­da, and the magnanas.

I wish I could purge the night­mares of Lily’s past from her mind, but I can not. All I can do is keep her safe. And when I see that fear­ful look in her eyes, I stay longer with her and touch her more gen­tly and try hard­er to make her feel what’s in my heart.