Chapter Twelve

Twelve

“Radio says there’s a good chance of a tornado. There’s warnings all over the place,” Toto said as he strode past her, arms laden with empty feed buckets. “I’m not puttin’ anybody out till this passes.”

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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

by Washington Irving

“The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region and seems to be commander in chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon ball, in some nameless battle during the revolutionary war, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind.”

“Sleepy Hollow” was originally published as one of the serial installments of Irving’s work The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon in 1819 and 1820. It is perhaps his best known work, save for “Rip Van Winkle”. It is my absolute favorite work of fiction without question.

I love his language: there is something magical about the way he weaves words together in such a richly descriptive, folksy way. How could you not smile reading about Ichabod Crane who might have been mistaken for, “the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield”? (Favorite line!)

I love the legend: Brom Bones and Katrina Van Tassel, the poor superstitious pedagogue who falls victim to the local rumors of the Horseman. It’s simple: a tiny, rural town afflicted by dark fireside tales, populated by locals who fear a vengeful spirit.

I love the tone: this is a story in which modern day gore has no place. It’s colloquial and quiet, mysterious, and just spooky enough to give you a happy little chill. I love the sense of tradition and love the ambiguity at the end: we never know if Ichabod was chased away by the Horseman, or Brom Bones in costume.

My hokey love for ghost stories can be blamed on “Sleepy Hollow”. For me, it’s the consummate folk tale. The Tim Burton film version is fun, the Disney cartoon is extremely accurate (and cute and narrated by Bing Crosby). But nothing can touch the original, written word.

“[On] the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it, a shattered pumpkin.”

Chapter Eleven

Eleven

“Whatcha think, dude?” Mel reached up to scratch LT behind one red, silken ear. In the blue-white beam of the flashlight, his face seemed eerily long, the stripe on his face almost fluorescent. His wide, liquid eyes were the only sign that he was at all alarmed about the fact that she was sitting in the corner of his stall in the pitch black of the pre-dawn barn. He sniffed at the flashlight in her hands, then, deciding it was harmless, tried to figure out if it was edible too.

“No, no,” she laughed even though she didn’t feel like it, pulling the Maglite out of his reach. Her horses were magical like that: even when she felt absolutely hopeless, they inspired a smile, a warm thought. Reminded her that she couldn’t afford to swim in self-pity because she had creatures who depended on her for everything.

Sleep had mocked her until she’d finally given up and tugged on clean clothes, had moved through the barn as silent as a ghost and let herself into LT’s stall. She loved Roman, but if you were going to sit prone in anyone’s stall, it had to be LT’s.

Not in Kansas

It’s been three weeks since THIS happened to the barn.

It was a perfectly gorgeous, sunny Saturday…afflicted by a wind so fierce it nearly bent the trees double. Today has been wind-ravaged too: none of that gentle breeze stuff, but real, face-slapping, gale-force, roaring wind.

But compared to Friday’s storm outbreak across the Midwest and South, a little roof damage is nothing. My heart goes out to the families who’ve lost loved ones and homes, who are picking up the scattered pieces of their lives. It is nothing short of amazing to see that what took years to build can be obliterated in a matter of seconds.

My favorite fictional stories are ones that feel deeply-rooted in their settings. I want to have all my tactile senses engaged and for the moments that I’m between the pages of that book, I want to be there, whether there is Atlanta or London or some backwoods town in Montana. And you can’t set a scene without taking weather into account.

Nature’s wrath brings people together and pushes them apart. It strips away hubris, leaving behind only courage and determination. Storms are a universal source of fear and awe, of respect and even, at times, admiration.

In the South, the worst weather always seems to strike at night. When it’s dark and the lightning is highlighting eerie green patches in the sky, we huddle around our TVs and radios, and we pray for our homes, our families, our barns, our animals, and yes, ourselves. We pray that the tornadoes that dive down out of the clouds like dark tentacles won’t take too much this time. The destruction is random: untouched houses sit beside unrecognizable piles of rubble.

And when it’s all over, and the sun is shining again, we tell stories about the time we sat huddled in a basement with a motorcycle helmet on our heads, hoping the piano upstairs would get sucked out of the house rather than come tumbling through the floor. We talk about watching the funnel descend on the other side of the barn and running hell bent for leather, breathless, dragging a mare along beside us and hoping the three-day-old filly at her side kept up. You laugh at the memory of stubborn husbands, fathers and sons who aren’t “scared of a tornado” and who waited until the last possible moment before ducking for cover.

There are funny stories about kissing dirt at the bottom of a roadside ditch while a whole bunch of nothing went on around you. Then there are harrowing tales of bravery and near misses. Tragedies and seeming miracles. Sometimes real life is more exciting and more terrifying than fiction, and we pass the tales down to one another, proving that in this day of technology, oral storytelling tradition is still very much alive.

Whether the weather is transporting you to Oz, or forcing you to spend a few hours killing black widows with wasp spray in your underground tornado bunker, Mother Nature has a way of forcing herself into all of our stories.

Chapter Ten

Ten

“Am I doing it?”

Can’t you tell? Mel wanted to ask. Instead, she bit back a chuckle and watched Eli attempt to guide his horse Red through a movement she called a “leg yield” that he kept referring to as a “side pass”. Like the time before, Red was trotting straight down the center of the arena, his spine rigid, not yielding in any way.

“Not quite,” she softened the blow. “You might try practicing on a circle before you attempt the straightaway.”

He pulled his solid chestnut gelding to a halt and gave her a bewildered look over his shoulder.

Chapter Nine

Nine

“I still can’t wrap my brain around that.”

Mel released a soft sigh that was part exhaustion, part frustration: frustration at her inability to make any more sense of the crazy turn her life had taken.

She sat in the grass, one leg folded beneath her, the other extended because she had a cramp in her calf, drawing aimless patterns in a sandy patch of earth with the end of a stick. The sun was hanging low in the sky, nightfall a mere hour away. From her seat behind the barn, she could hear the hungry whickers of horses as Toto and the Danville brothers poured the evening feed.

“I know,” she relented.

Her friend Elyse made a tsk-ing sound from the other end of the cell phone Mel held against her ear. “You are not working at some dude ranch, Mel. This is insane.”

Mom's Birthday

Today is my mom's birthday and, like every year, I am reminded that I don't take the proper time throughout the year to really express my gratitude. "Thank you"s are exchanged routinely, but I wonder if she knows how much I appreciate her.

This picture was taken a few (maybe eight) years ago at the Olympic Horse Park, my stomach in its usual tangle of knots as Mom and I watched my competitor complete her ride and Cosmo watched...something, sweetly of course because he never did anything that wasn't done sweetly. That day, like all the other horse show days, Mom was my caddy and my groom: camera and test schedule in hand, a brush and a towel in her back pockets. She wiped the green slobber off Cosmo's mouth and gave his sweaty neck a quick brush down before we went into the show ring. Wiped the dust off my boots - because you do NOT go into the show ring with dust on your boots. She knew when I rode, in which arena, how long it would take to walk from the barn, reminded me during my warm-up that it was almost time. I was constantly amazed how much she learned about my sport, how in-the-know she was. She was not a parent who showed up ten minutes until my test in clean clothes, took her seat in the bleachers and clapped politely. No, she drove the truck, checked me in at the office (usually while I was having nervous dry heaves in the bathroom), went behind me and touched up the horse when I failed to get all the dirt from behind his ears.

She was dirty and sweaty and exhausted and choking down horse show concession stand French fries alongside me. Lugging saddles and bridles and reminding me not to get freaked out because that horse and rider ahead of us had executed a flawless test.

I could never have reached for my horse dreams without my mom. And she still supports me in everything I do. Whether it's my writing or my riding, whether it's something as simple as swinging by the feed store when I'm sick, or holding my hand when one of my horses is sick. She reminds me not to let what other people say get under my skin, tells me to keep going when I doubt myself. And for that, and so many things, I'm always grateful.

Love you, Mom! I don't say it enough, but I really, really do THANK YOU.

Happy Birthday.