Riding Barranca Read Free Page B

he wanted, riling her up.
    It was only after a hard week’s work that he finally seemed utterly spent. Then he was ready to get down on the dark red carpet and let me ride his back, bouncing before the fire, giving me a good buck.

    Ready to Load
Back Wash
    Cynthia Carlisi is coming over to give Mom a massage today, but my horse trailer blocks Cynthia’s arrival, and Barranca is balking again, not wanting to load. I’m getting really tired of this. Cynthia gives her free advice—
Don’t use food or treats to entice a horse into a trailer.
I agree, but often opt for the easier way out—a handful of grain or a carrot, though neither is helping today.
    Barranca keeps veering off to the side, and I try backing him up, as Les Spath did when he came to train Barranca in Massachusetts. Les took his time and was clearly the boss. If Barranca wouldn’t load, he had to back up. Most horses soon learn that it is easier to go forward.
    But now there is way too much nervous energy all around and perhaps Barranca is picking up on that. Finally, with Cynthia clucking from behind, Barranca makes his move and loads. I close the divider and Tonka hops in, then Cia and I drive up the washboard-rough road and disembark in front of the Hale Ranch, with its graceful meadow slopes. It reminds me of some turn-of-the-century homestead with its old wood-and-tin outbuildings and mesquite stick corral.
    After warming the horses up, I suggest that we canter to the top of an incline. I go first, loping gently, but I hear a rustle in the bushes behind me and then a
yelp
from my sister. Barranca has shied, unusual for him. I can see that she has lost her stirrup and is unbalanced, but at least she stays in the saddle. “Did something spook him?” She doesn’t know, but I don’t want to see my sister take another fall, so I suggest that we take it easy.
    Tonka feels like quite a handful today. He keeps throwing his head up and down, acting competitive—he hates to have Barranca ahead of him, especially when we canter. Barranca, always the equine gentleman, allows the unruly Tonka to go before him. Sometimes when Tonka acts out like this, I am reminded of a misbehaving child, and how that reflects poorly on the parents. Most likely I only have myself to blame for Tonka’s faults.
    That night we set up a fire in the living room and turn the lights low. Our mother is in an excellent mood—so happy to be visiting, to be here with us both. The glowing hearth makes her feel at home, for she always had a passion for building a fire.
    Every night before dinner Mom would crush newspaper and stuff it beneath the logs in the living room. The fire flared up beneatha painted sea scene that hung above the mantel where waves were caught in an eternal crash—far from our Midwestern landscape.
    On occasion, we would set up those flimsy TV-dinner trays and watch the fire for entertainment. My older brother, George, and I would take turns throwing a special chemical powder onto the blaze, creating tongues of blue and green, while Cia and David, sprawled on the floor in their footsie pajamas. Chipper, our Boxer, lay asleep on the floor. I rubbed his floppy ears.
    Once in a while after dinner, if our father was in the mood, he would clap his hands together and ask if we’d like a story. In silent agreement we would huddle together on the dark red carpet and watch the fire as it transformed his kind, attractive face into something almost scary, grotesque. We didn’t have to ask what he was going to read. It was always the same story: “Bluebeard.”
    Our mother didn’t stay to listen to Popi’s favorite fairytale. She retreated to the kitchen to clean up the Formica-countered kitchen with its checkered floor, everything nice and orderly, the stay-a-bed stew put away in its Pyrex container, the budgie-bird tray swept clean. Our mother had a firm idea of what the perfect fifties family was supposed to