The Painted Horse

For days when my mind is restless, and for days when I’m feeling low, I know well my tonic. I know a wonderful world of dirt and sweat and manure, of fresh pine shavings and huge, soft brown eyes. It’s medicinal, this place, and what lives here.

When he sees me his head pops up from grazing and he eagerly starts in my direction, ears forward and eyes bright. As we walk briskly to each other, meeting mid-pasture, it is impossible not to smile. I don’t know why my horse is always so happy to see me; I suppose he loves me and I suppose you don’t question a gift like that.
As we prepare to ride I often stop what I’m doing to stroke his silk fur. He likes that, especially when I scratch under his mane.
Before I mount, Spirit presses his velvet nose to my chest; he loves to cuddle. I kiss the bridge of his bony face. With one hand I caress his cheek, and with the other my fingers trace the edges of his spots; the curve of the brown around his ears, the shape of the white wishbone on his jaw.

Spirit’s markings are special, you know. In long-ago days, Native Americans held the Painted Horse to be sacred, and ones with Spirit’s particular pattern more sacred still. Spirit is what they would have called a Medicine Cap Paint, and only a chief or a medicine man would have been allowed to ride him. Large brown blotches cover both ears, throat, chest, and back: a medicinal headdress (or war bonnet), a shield over neck and breast, and a spot of safety and protection where the rider sits. It was said that these horses would protect their riders, even block the path of arrows and bullets. Painted horses were spirits, it was believed, and Medicine Cap Paints were the most powerful of them. When I was a young girl part of me believed in that magic, though the rest of me knew it was silly. I would play at legends and lore, pretending that Spirit and I were the reincarnated souls of horse and rider from those Before days. Maybe we had died in battle; perhaps we perished together on some long, lone journey. But all these years later the Creator had reunited our spirits and we could rest together, safe and happy.

Don’t make fun. I am nothing if not a romantic, and all the more so when I was twelve years old.

Nearly eleven years later our bond is second-nature, and he feels like home to me. He and the atmosphere in which he lives. There’s a satisfaction in the grit and grime, the fine coating of dust on my skin and the dirt under my fingernails. There’s something in the use of the whole body, the labor-induced physical exhaustion. The silent communication between me and this powerful creature that man one day decided to partner with.

Untamed to the last, Spirit tosses his head hops with his front legs. No, I tell him with a bump of the rein and some pressure from my outer heel. He settles and we go on. My thighs squeeze tight against the shifting muscles of his back. He is warm, and I can feel his fur rubbing against my jeans. My hips sway to the rhythm of his movement and we are in sync. For a moment as we move together we are one being. Those are my hooves striking the earth, thundering over the ground. My artfully-jointed legs, fluidly bending and straightening and bending again. For a moment that is my muscled neck, curved in a rebellious yet graceful arch, my mane whipping back in the wind. For a moment we are fused and I feel like we could do anything; go anywhere and conquer everything. Why not, as I sit astride my charger with no saddle to separate us, looming large and all the world before me? Why might I not rise up from this subdued posture and say what needs to be said, with Spirit’s striking hoof to punctuate my words? We are the Centaur, human and horse as one, and we go forth to conquer the terrain before us. Beyond the moor is a road and beyond that road there are endless pastures, rolling forward for miles to be devoured by the horizon. Why should we not follow? I want to see what lies down the horizon’s sunset throat. Why should we be confined to any certain space? Spirit trumpets a defiant snort. We are the Centaur, and we roam free.

I lose myself in my dramatic flare for a few more moments before slowing Spirit to a walk. As we crest a soft hill I feel him move and bump and tilt beneath me. Absently I twist my fingers into his mane and feel it pull a bit with each step. I am tired now, my body exhausted from the jarring and the muscles in my thighs sore from the grip. We are the Centaur no more, for now. For now we are the horse and his girl, and he carries me gently back to the barn.


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