My Horse and Her Duck

I have had eight horses over the span of many years. I got the first one when I was twelve and was learning to ride on the Thousand Hills State Park in Kirksville, Missouri. I was a cowgirl. My sister got another one which was with-foal, and we (my father and I) brought both of them to Mississippi in a horse trailer years ago. I had many adventures with my horses over the years – from overnight trail rides, riding lessons (both taken and given), horse shows, rodeos; to getting bucked off, kicked, and bitten; to braiding their manes and tails, bathing them with the hose, teaching a kitten to jump from my shoulder onto the horse’s back and sliding down the back side and sitting in their feed troughs and actually shelling their corn for them while we made friends. I’m a horse person. I like the way they think even if it’s very chaotic sometimes and quite calculated at other times. Makes them almost human.

They multiplied and divided as time went by. We never sold one or gave one away. We kept them for the length of their lives, most of which lived into their thirties - quite elderly for a horse. We had one die from the vaccination that the government enforced for Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis. One died of a twisted colon, and one died from the edges of her teeth becoming too sharp (we were supposed to file them with a large metal rasp but didn’t know) which caused so much pain when she chewed that she could no longer eat. The others dropped dead one by one of old age. Three times we had to have the vet come administer a shot to spare the suffering, and one just keeled over while we were there. A horse is a large pet (and they were all pets) to deal with when it dies.

I have one horse left, and she is a beauty - a lepoard/snowflake Appaloosa that is almost completely white with a few dark spots covering her body. I’ve always wanted to dip my hands in red paint and plant handprints on either side of her tail like the Nez Perce did, but I’m sure she would kick me over the barn because she is a wild horse. She was never broken to ride and retains the wild spirit of the Appaloosa which is just a few generations into domesticity. You can tell by their eyes.

She is special. She was born on the day that Ronald Reagan was shot. I had the job of telling my dad about this when I went out to the farm to see the new foal. Now I live on this farm which is more like a wilderness covered in woods and swamp. Annie (her name) has the run of many acres and a four-stalled barn for shelter. She is well-fed, well-tended, and has pedicures every three months to keep her hooves from splitting. She gets her vaccinations for encephalitis (the regular kind) and West Nile virus every year.

The only thing is that she is lonely. When her pasture-mate keeled over (thirty-plus years old) we had the county bring a backhoe out and bury him where he fell on the dam of the pond. It seemed like every time I went to the pasture by the pond that there she was standing on his grave. When I would feed her in the stall she would pace and whinny then go outside the barn and stare into the darkness as though seven ghosts haunt her (remembering the days when we would whistle and eight horses would thunder down the hill whinnying toward the barn and dinner). She is lonely. I worried about this way more than was necessary, I’m sure, but I kept thinking about being out in the woods and never seeing another member of my species again (okay, this is what Vietnam vets do in Alaska, isn’t it?).

So I started asking around if anyone knew of an older horse that needed a home. I would get her another pasture mate. Finally, a friend’s mother was willing to donate a registered thoroughbred mare (Miss Audrey) from her horse farm in Springfield, Missouri, and she would bring her to me. I was ecstatic. Then my dad talked to me. It seems Miss Audrey has problems with her hooves splitting and has to have special shoes and wouldn’t they just get continually pulled off in the Mississippi mud? She is a thoroughbred and spirited and what if she wanted to test the fences that were fast decaying and even falling down in some of the more grown-up parts of the acreage, those which Annie never thought to test because she has never been outside of them and knows not of other worlds. One time I decided to lead her down the country road to our house and let her graze in our front yard to give her some company and change of scenery – an adventure! Once we got outside her pasture fence she firmly planted herself and refused to go a foot further. I wondered if the tarred gravel road hurt her feet or if she just wasn’t going to leave her home… EVER! Then one other thought my dad offered was that mares don’t always get along and what if they quarrel and one of them gets hurt? Also, there will ALWAYS be a “last horse” syndrome and at some point there will inevitably be only one left.

Time has passed and she no longer seems so lonely but maybe has resigned herself to living with snakes and raccoons and deer. I try to hug her neck every day and talk to her and tell her how much she is appreciated (even if she almost killed me and the farrier one time when her wild horse ancestors must have paid an unexpected visit and whispered in her ear).

But now there is a new development! Out of nowhere a large, fat, domestic, black duck has started sharing her stall, and they appear to be inseparable. He quacks quietly (don’t you LOVE to hear ducks quack quietly) while she munches her food and spills a little out of the trough for him. They are always together and have formed an unusual alliance. Annie and the duck (Oranse Lamont).

I guess some things just take care of themselves.