Three Horses, One Man

Three saddled horses stood against the sun for more than an hour.  Though not tied to any of the nearby scrub, the horses had learned to wait.  Just before the sun melted down onto the farthest reaches on the open plain behind them, a single figure appeared.

A man.

He seemed to emerge from the earth itself.  The quiet earth.  The man dragged one leg as he approached the horses.

One of the horses, the larger one, trusted the man and always had.  The horse allowed the man to lean hard against his flank; allowed the man to pull himself up into the saddle.

The man walked the horse near the other two horses and took up the reins of each.

The horses knew violence.  All of them did.  And they sometimes sensed it in the same way they sensed monsoon rains before the darkest clouds opened above them.  They also knew that men knew bigger violence.  Much bigger.

The violence was gone now.

The two horses did not in particular trust the man leading them, but they trusted the horse under the man and they liked feeling the open ground fall away under their hooves.

Nothing felt better than chasing the sun.

-- Mitchell Hegman