Mom's Sweet Peaches

I remember the day my life turned a new chapter— well, more like a whole new series— as though it were yesterday. I’d had what the old timers refer to as ‘a wreck.’ The little horse I’d borrowed for some years flipped over and broke my leg. Two weeks later, with my leg still in a cast, I began to pursue my goal to find a horse that would be as safe as a horse could ever be.

Peaches was the tenth — and final — horse I “test drove.”

“There ain’t no horse that’s “bomb-proof,” the horse trader cautioned when we returned to her stable after a four hour ride on this paint horse that was to become my partner for the next 18 years. The stubby-legged mare had just taken me through streams, down near-vertical inclines, and up steep, logged hillsides strewn with trees slain, then rejected by logging crews.

“She may not be completely ‘bomb-proof,” I said, “but she’s done a better job navigating terrain than I could have— even before I broke my leg. I’ll take her.”

While I appreciated Peaches’ excellent mind and sound temperament, we’d been together nearly two years before I could actually hear what she had to say.

We were exploring new territory in an area of third-growth forest where the last crop of trees had been harvested some twenty years before. It was a mixture of Doug fir and alder. The road was strewn with fist-and-foot-sized jagged rocks laid down to form the base of logging roads. Normally, those rocks would be top-dressed with gravel to make the road less rugged. The going was difficult, so I got off Peaches and walked for a few hundred feet until the surface was graveled again.

As I turned get to back on my horse, I found that her saddle had slipped. It hung under her belly. I almost always rode with a loose cinch, but I had not anticipated that, without me in the saddle keeping the weight distributed equally, it would slide to the more heavily weighted side.

“Oh Peaches!” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me your saddle slipped?”

“Wasn’t a big deal,” Peaches answered.

I had to be imagining what I just heard. Either that or she had suddenly morphed into Mr. Ed, the talking Palomino!

After stripping the saddle I tossed the saddle pad into position then slung the saddle onto her back. I cinched it up a little tighter than before.

I was about to mount when I noticed a black, soft-bound book in the ditch beside the road. I retrieved it and wiped the dirt from its textured cover. Claylike soil remained caked in the indentations between the little pebble like bumps making the faux leather cover look like grouted cobblestones.

All the pages, save one, stuck together. The words on this page, seemingly scribed by hand in calligraphy, read:

Those were the only words on the page.

“That’s a weird thing to read in a book,” I said, showing the book to Peaches.

“Pigs?” She said nervously and started sniffing the air.

There. She’d done it again. I had not imagined it. She really did speak.

“Not much chance of that up there, Peaches,” I assured her, wondering if the book was responsible for my horse’s newfound gift.

I stuffed the book into my saddle bags and mounted. As we rode into a clearing, I was still regretting my failure to anticipate my saddle rolling. And since I was beating myself up for being an idiot, I wasn’t paying attention to Peaches’ demeanor. She was stiffening.

I was about to learn just how much horses fear pigs.

It wasn’t until she snorted - one violent snort - that I saw them: a herd of pigs behind an electric fence.

They were rooting around in what looked to be a compost pile. And it seemed there must be good grub in there, because they were all vying for the same spot like a half-dozen rugby players in a scrimmage.

I anticipated her reaction barely in time to prepare for her explosive reaction.

“PIGS!” Peaches gasped, then bolted.

I managed to stop her.

“I thought we were goners!” She gasped.

“They’re penned, Peach. They couldn't get to us.”

“You don’t know pigs,” she snarled. “They’re monsters!”

The little black book’s astute observation rolled around in my head. Why would it make a comment about the primordial fear horses have of pigs— and why today of all days?

I mulled over the mystery throughout the remainder of that ride. We explored a loop that cut through the woods but, a few hours later, when it came time to pass by the pigs again, I got off and walked her past them.

The book remained in my saddle bags for the next few weeks. But it had more tips to share on our next long ride.

We had met our friend, Nancy and her horse, Toby, at a trailhead. We’d put in a full day in the saddle. When we were within a few miles of the trailhead we found ourselves lost in a maze of paths, each connecting to those we’d been on already. We must have circled around a dozen times. Long shadows were stretching before us, indicating we’d soon find ourselves navigating this terrain by the light of a waxing moon.

It was past dinner time and hunger was gnawing at me. “Do you want a candy bar, Nancy?” I asked.

“Sure,” said Nancy. “I am so turned around. And we keep ending up at this same place over and over.”

“It appears we have found the center of the Universe, and it does not want to let us go,” I answered pulling on the candy bag. It snagged the black book flipping it out of the saddle bag onto the ground. I picked it up and there, scrawled on this new open page, was another cryptic message:

I handed Nancy her candy bar and pondered the message. The book had drawn my attention to the attitude horses held about pigs. My mind replayed Peaches’ reaction. Not even she — my level-headed, “bomb-proof” partner — could override the primordial fear that pegged her panic-meter well into the red zone labeled “flight!”

Was this entry about Peaches too?

Nancy and I had been seeking the trail for hours. Neither of us were doing very well as “Who best recalls” category mentioned in the book. There were only four of us that could be the “who” that “best recalls.” With all the miles trails she’d traveled, it just had to mean Peaches.

Didn’t it?

She’d grumbled a few times when I’d directed us down a trail she clearly had not chosen. I thought I knew best, so I’d paid her no mind.

How could the book know what Peaches knew?

“Nancy, let’s have Peaches take the lead. I’m thinking she might know where we parked our rigs.”

I slipped the book into the saddlebag and mounted. We set off down one of the trails we’d been on a half-dozen times already.

The book’s hint was accurate. Peaches did indeed select a trail we had not yet taken. Within a mile or so she delivered us to our rigs.

As if that wasn’t enough, that little book had one more fantastical observation to deliver.

Peaches and I were on a mission: hunting morel mushrooms. It was spring and the sap in the trees was finally running again. Buds were bursting with energy, ready for a new year’s growth. We were riding on a logging road when we found ourselves in a grove of cottonwoods.

“Hold on, Peach!” I said, grabbing my plastic bags. “I’m going into the bushes to see if I can find morels.” I left her on the road with her reins over the saddle horn, and ducked into the woods.

I stumbled around in the cottonwood grove, my feet sinking into the soft duff created from years of decaying leaves. I finally found one of those little gems with its dark brown cone, riddled with honeycomb-like caverns, perched atop a white stalk. Once I’d spotted the first one, I found another, and another and more. When my search seemed exhausted, I returned to the logging road and opened my bag.

“Look, Peaches! Look what I found! Morels!”

“That’s what we’re doing up here?” Peaches asked wrinkling her nose.

“Yes! They're delicious!”

As I gently placed my prized quarry into the saddle bag, my hand brushed against the book. Lead by some strange instinct or curiosity, I took it out. It opened to a new page:

It had not occurred to me to solicit Peaches’ partnership in this venture — other than having her provide me conveyance and help carry our loot should we have that much to pack out.

“Get on,” Peaches said as though she too had received the mandate from the book.

“Can you find mushrooms, Peach?”

“Get on,” she repeated.

I obeyed. She marched up the trail a hundred yards or so, then stopped, looked into the forest and said, “Go in over there. You’ll find what you are looking for.”

I dismounted and clambered into the forest. Again, Peaches walked along the logging road matching my pace.

“Peaches!” I called. “You were right! There’s a patch of them right here!”

“Ah-huh,” Peaches said sounding like an old sage — one who had seen everything and had the experience and wisdom of a thousand wise elders combined.

I hunted until I could find no more morels, then made my way back to the road. 
“Look! You did it, Peaches. How did you know where to look?”

“Get on,” she said, deflecting the compliment and ignoring the question.

That night I brought the little black book inside and considered all that had transpired since it came into my life.

I was beginning to feel my own intuition growing louder and bolder. I should have predicted the pigs would unnerve her. And it was now obvious that with all her years as a trail horse, Peaches would know how to get back to a trailhead.

I’d heard my horse voice her thoughts and opinions, in spoken words no less!

I was enjoying a partnership with an animal I’d never known possible.

Were these the book’s doing or a coincidence?

As though reading my mind, it presented its second-to-last message. It opened to a page that read,

The book slipped out of my hand and fell to the floor, opened to yet another page that provided the name and address for its rightful owner.

The little black book had gifted me new insights that were mine to hold forever. I owed it to the owner of this book to restore it to her and her to it. I packaged it carefully and mailed it that day.

A month later I received a card written in the book’s chosen calligraphy style:

Inside the card was a cashier’s check in the amount of twenty thousand dollars!

I was shocked. It was a gift on top of the priceless, lifetime wisdom that little black book engendered in me: knowing how to access my personal power of intuition and how to listen to others.

Had it just added the value of integrity?

Was this a test?

Would the generous owner “lose” it again and you, dear reader, be its finder?

If so, what will gifts will it bring you?