The Horseshoe

It was 7 o’clock in the morning. The sun was peeking through the tall fir trees. The sky was painted purple, blue, and yellow streaks with the clouds passing by. A cool breeze touched Casey’s face as she got out of her car. Chills ran down her spine as she reached back inside for her coat. Being from California, she wasn’t used to the cold weather of Oregon.

“Oh my gosh!” Jamie exclaimed as he stepped out from the passenger side of the car. “We are not in Cali anymore that’s for sure!” He proceeds to put on a second coat over his sweater.

Casey smiles at him. It was a good thing they were only passing through. She didn’t think Jamie could ever handle different weather other than California weather. She looked around the area they had stopped. They had gone off the highway onto a dirt road. Casey questioned whether it was a private drive and if they would be trespassing. Jamie insisted it was fine and reminder her they were going on an adventure. The road came to an end at an empty field and an old barn off in the distance. It looked run down and abandoned with its only potential habitants' rats.

This fascinated Casey. Despite reading all about barns and farm life, she had never seen one in real life. When she thought about it, that applied to almost everything in her life. She could read about it but never experience it.

“Let’s go check it out,” Jamie said. He seemed just as interested as she was.

As the two of them got closer, the state of the barn became clearer. It was falling apart. The exterior had lost all its color. It was more of a faded dark brown. A branch from a nearby tree had fallen onto the roof. Up close the wood was rotting and breaking apart. It could collapse at any minute.

“Let’s go inside!” Jamie said with excitement. He always was the adventurous type. It didn’t surprise Casey at all when she asked him to join her on a spontaneous road trip. In fact, that was the reason she asked him.

“The structural integrity of this barn doesn’t look stable. It could collapse with us inside.” Casey said.

“Structural integrity? Did you read about that in a book?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. You see, it all starts with the foundation-”

Jamie interrupted her, “Okay okay! We’ll be careful when we go inside.”

Casey laughed and followed him inside.

The inside of the barn was just as bad as the outside. Rotting wood everywhere, holes in the walls, broken rusted tools, and trampled hay mixed in with the mud. The air was stale and smelled of mold. At one point, it could have been a horse stable, but even the rats didn’t find it to be a suitable home. Casey heard a few creaks here and there. It made her even more anxious. Jamie looked above the entryway. There near the top of the barn hung a horseshoe on a nail.

“I bet some kid threw that up there,” Jamie laughed to himself. “I bet I could grab it.”

“Oh, no-no. That’s too dangerous.” Casey warned but it was too late. Jamie was already climbing up a nearby ladder. It was surprising that it managed to hold his weight without breaking. The boards creaked underneath his feet with every step. At any given moment one of them could break.

Casey started biting her nails. As she watched she couldn’t help but remember her father’s accident when he fell from a tree. It baffled her that Jamie looked so calm like he had done this a thousand times before.

“My grandfather used to own a farm,” Jamie began. “Whenever he came to visit he would always tell stories about life on the farm to my siblings and me. He told us his morning routine: milk the cows, feed the pigs, gather the eggs from the chickens, and shear the sheep. It sounded amazing. I dreamed of someday visiting him at his farm… but he died. My parents told me he passed away while in a nursing home from natural causes. After his death, no one talked about the farm or who was going to inherit the property. It was as if it didn’t exist. I sometimes wonder if it was all made up.” Jamie grew quiet as he continued his climb.

“How about you just come back down? It’s just a horseshoe. It’s not worth risking your life.” Casey raised her voice. This situation was becoming all too familiar with her.

“Nah, I’m almost there. A few more steps and it’ll be within my reach.”

Casey began to pace around the barn. One of the boards broke under Jamie and crashed to the ground beside Casey which startled her. Jamie managed to grab a support pole to prevent himself from falling.

He let out a big sigh of relief. “That was a close one!”

“Just come down already! That horseshoe isn’t worth it. I don’t want to see you get hurt!” Tears began to well up in Casey’s eyes.

“I’m almost there and then I’ll be right down.” Jamie inched forward with one hand on the pole and the other reaching out.

Another board breaks next to Jamie and falls to the ground. The one he was standing on was the only one left as it was bending with Jamie’s weight on it.

“Please!” Casey begged. “We are miles from the closest hospital. If you fall, there will be no one to help you. I can’t watch my best friend fall to his death. Please Jamie come down!”

Jamie stopped moving and looked down at Casey for the first time since entering the barn. Her face was red, her nose running, and her cheeks soaked with tears. He had never seen her cry before. She was always tough as nails and never showed her true emotions. This was serious. Looking down at his own feet he realized how much danger he was in. There was only one wooden board supporting him. If it broke it would be a 20-foot fall to the ground.

“Okay. I’ll come down.”

He was more mindful on his way down. With each step he took, he made sure not to break any more boards. Once he landed his feet on the ground he let out a sigh of relief. Though Casey’s eyes were still red, she had stopped crying. Instead, she was glaring at him.

“You shouldn’t have done that! I told you this building wasn’t safe, and you said we would be careful! You did the exact opposite of what you said!” Casey was shouting.

“It’s fine! I’m not hurt and the barn is still standing.” Jamie said.

“No, it’s not! It was reckless of you. I’m going back to the car.” Casey waved her hand and exited the barn.

Jamie looked up at the horseshoe one more time before chasing after Casey. With his long legs and her small stature, it didn’t take much to catch up to her. Before Jamie was able to apologize, there was a loud crack behind them. The two of them turned around to see the barn breaking apart and collapsing on itself. The roof was the first to go. It sank into the middle of the building with the walls following behind it. Dust and debris formed around the barn.

After everything had settled Jamie looked at Casey. “I’m sorry.”

A minute passed by before he heard a quiet thank you from her. He remembered what she told him at the beginning of their trip. She admitted that she could be herself around him. Not very many people took the time to get to know her, so she put on an exterior self that everyone could accept. Jamie was the exception. He never tried to put her in a box. He accepted her just the way she was. He felt guilty for making her cry.

“Why go for the horseshoe?” Casey asked. “While the barn was interesting to look at, it held no sentimental value to us, so why did you risk your life for it?”

Jamie shuffled the ground beneath him while looking down. “It’s not important.”

“Were you trying to prove something? Trying to prove your masculinity?”

“Yes and no… Yes, I was trying to prove something. No, I wasn’t proving my masculinity.” He shook his head and looked up at the sky. The Clouds began to form above them like it was going to rain. “My grandfather had a horseshoe with the name of his farm engraved on it. We are in the right location where his property should be. I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to prove that the horseshoe belonged to him. To prove that the farm was real.”

Casey looked back at the rubble. Not a single piece of the barn was standing. She walked back over to where the entrance used to be and moved around a few pieces of wood. It took only a few minutes to find the horseshoe. It was still attached to the nail. She picked it up and wiped the dirt off with her sleeve. It was rusted as expected but engraved on it were the words ‘McCormick’s Ranch’. That was Jamie’s last name. Unless there was another McCormick family who lived around here, this was the horseshoe Jamie was looking for. She walked back to him and placed it in his hands.

“You were right,” Casey said.

The farm really did exist. As Jamie held the horseshoe in his hands, he couldn’t believe it was real. He wiped his nose to prevent himself from crying. All those stories he heard from his grandfather were true. The names of his cattle, the mice infestation, the stallion with the broken leg, all of them happened.

“You okay Jamie?” Casey looked concerned since Jamie had been silent for well over five minutes.

He took a deep breath in and looked up at Casey. “Yeah, I’m fine. Umm, let’s go back to the car?”

“Okay.” Casey smiled.

The two friends walked back to the car. As Casey opened up the driver's side door she looked at Jamie and said, “It’s our first souvenir.”

Jamie smiled, “May it be the first of many.”