Treading Gently
Ned the Bombproof
Ned ambles over to our corner of the paddock in the early summer evenings, the twilight sky glowing copper over his bobbing head. His tender ankle is swathed in blue gauze, and he treads gently around the ragweed and high mustard to the rye grass at our fence line. For the next few months, he will be chewing grains left under the canvas tarp that shields him from the sunblast of Santa Ynez summer, but in these first nights of June he indulges in the last of the rye grass, his chocolate brush tail bouncing cheerfully.
We know Ned is there when through our screen door we can hear the gentle tearing of the grass. His name isn’t really Ned. I have never bothered to ask our landlord what he is called, because horse people don’t give their animals ordinary names, even if they are pretty ordinary horses. His given name is probably something like Equinox or Double Cappuccino or Sir Rupert Higginbottom. But here on this farm for horses that have been put out to pasture, Ned is more of a retired nag or dude ranch trail trotter, and he definitely drinks decaf. I believe he is what is called “bombproof” - meaning, that if a bomb went off behind him, he might chew his rye grass a little slower for a beat.
Some nights I lean over the weathered wooden fence to greet Ned when he arrives. He comes and stands by my side, waiting for soft neck pats. He doesn’t stick his nose into my closed hand or try to rummage into my pockets searching for food, as the other horses on the farm usually do. He just seems to enjoy the companionship. Sometimes we stand together and watch the last amber light give way to the deep blue dusk, the first stars winking high above.
I don’t know much about the temperaments of horses, but I do know the beast in the pen next to Ned would register differently on a personality quiz. That horse is a chestnut and white pinto that I call Ghost, because his color patterns appear to me as a white skeleton wrapped in a brown coat. Ghost stomps and snorts behind his wooden gate like he’s ready to run the Preakness, and he regularly startles us awake in the country-dark nights by crashing into his aluminum feeding trough.
I prefer Ned’s gentle ways, if for no other reason that he lets me sleep through the night. And he makes me wonder about living gently in a world full of Ghosts.