The Day I found Him

I was mumbling in my sleep as I did most mornings. I was dreaming about a horse. Another thing I did most mornings but my dream, a good dream was interrupted by someone, my mom most likely but when you're in a dream you don’t always think about the obvious as I'm sure you know. The person was saying my name over and over

“Quinn, Quinn, Quinn, Quinn!” I woke up and opened my eyes but it wasn’t my mom it was my sister, my twin sister no less, so of course we are inseparable. She is an early riser all the way.

“Oh go away Lizz I’m sleeping”

“So I don’t care, and after you hear this you won’t care either.” I groaned but after hearing this she knew there was only one way to get me to get excited.

“It's about horses!” She said it like it was a magic word and with me it was.

“OK now I’m interested” I said immediately

“Pat just brought in a new load of horses! Six yearlings 5 girls and one boy”

“Really? Awesome, I call dibs on the colt!” A colt is a male and a filly is a female and a foal is just a baby. I always wanted a colt. I made my plan when I was about six. Now I'm eleven and ready to follow through.

“Ok you go out and pick one of the fillies. I'll stay up here and get dressed. I'll be out as soon as I can, I can’t wait to see him!”

“Pat or the horse?” Pat is our uncle. Well not by blood, but he is family just the same.

“Can it be both?” It was true I could decide but I was kind of leaning to the horse more than Pat. Well, I mean I see Pat almost once a month and that's plenty in my book and it isn’t personal with Pat. I just don’t like people.

“Sure, why not?” She said it like she understood and I suppose she did. We are twins after all.

It took me a bit to get outside but when I did I saw the horse immediately. I don’t know how. I guess a colt just has a certain glow that a filly doesn't have. The horse was gold with a white mane on the left side. They say that's good luck kind of like if a dogs mouth is black it means they're smart. He was a little darker than a palomino and had a little bit of a gray tint. A name came into my head right away.

“Smokey. That’s his name.” I had to say it out loud to make sure it sounded correct and it did.

I spent the whole day with my new horse Smokey. And my sister picked a blue roan filly that my mom liked too. But she settled for red roan. She liked them better and it seems like we never get to keep the red roans. But, the next night there was a bad storm. A tree fell on part of the fence making a gap big enough for horses to get out and they did. My colt and a couple of the older horses. The next morning when my sister told me I cried for days. We tried to find them but the tracks had been washed away by the storm. After we couldn’t find them mom promised she would get me another colt but I didn’t want one. I thought about it a lot and I figured that since he was only a yearling he didn’t know much. So when the other horse left he followed. All I know is that they went up the mountain never to be seen again. But that was 3 years ago and who knows what happened to them.

Now I’m 14 and going on a camping trip all by myself with my best horse Spur.

When I got there I set up camp but it didn’t take me very long. I didn’t have that much. You can’t carry that much stuff on a horse. I put my bed roll on the back of my saddle and tied it on with my saddle strings in my saddle packs and the fishing pole was small enough to fit behind my bed roll. I had some sandwiches, powerade, potatoes, a tackle box, my fold up fishing pole, a rifle, a cast iron skillet and a knife. I knew of a stream that had fish. I would cut up the potatoes fry them and then fry up the fish that I caught. After setting up camp I rode around a little and then I ate the sandwiches and went to bed.

The next day I spent the whole day riding. I found the stream and as much to my surprise I caught four fish! I really didn’t think I would catch more than one.I had a lunch box for the fish to keep them cool until I got back to camp. The next night Spur got loose and a wolf got in the camp and I lost my horse when I was trying to get my rifle out of the scabbard. I fired the gun and the wolf dropped dead and I had never been happier to have brought my gun.

I took out my phone. It had a flashlight app on it. I turned it on and went looking for spur and I did find a horse but it wasn’t him. It was Smokey. He had a rope wrapped around his foot. When I fired the shot he must have ran and he wasn't paying attention to the rope that was on the ground. I had a halter in my hand so I walked up to him. No surprise he reared up and tried to strike at me. I ducked out of the way and used the lead rope to kind of neck rein him. I jerked him down. “Whoa,” I said sternly, not wanting him to forget it. He came down from his snorty rear and I got the halter on him quickly. When I took a closer look at the rope it was simple what needed to be done. I needed to back him up so that the rope had some slack then just walk him out of it. I took him back to camp and tied him up then I went to sleep.

In the morning I had to go find Spur and imagine that he was in a field eating his belly full of grass. He was a little harder to catch so I had to sacrifice my last apple. I rode him bareback to the camp and then saddled him, got on and tried to pony smokey. It was going ok until the rope got under Spur’s tail and he went bucking. Smokey didn’t get away and I didn’t fall off but it was kind of a train wreck. By the time I got home it was nearly dark and Smokey wasn’t being cooperative about a certain concept called a stall. When I got I into the house after putting Spur away. Of course I told my mom and my sister all about the trip.

“Cool, I'm so glad you found him!” my sister said with unmistakable joy.

The first thing I did the next day was to see if he would come to the grain. I showed it to him, let him have a bite and then took the grain to the middle of the pen and by coming to the grain he will be coming to me. When I caught the palomino I brushed him and combed his hair and took a scarf and rubbed him all over with it. Then the day was done. With a new horse you don't want to do too much. I wrote everything I did with my new horse down in my black notebook. My horse diary, that's what I call it, my sister had one too, hers was blue just like her horse. I always did love coincidences. Each day I did more with Smokey. He really started to come together. Especially after I started walking him around the yard she would get used to the weight of the saddle. I came out carrying empty water jugs to tie to the saddle. This would make him go around the pen and get the buck out and get him used to things flapping on the saddle. I rubbed a tarp all over him so he isn't afraid of anything. He was gentle, calm and after a month I sent him to Uncle Pat to put some rides on him for 30 days. I was so excited to get him back and so excited to ride him.

“There is a competition coming up in 6 months and I figure I can get him ready in that time, the top prize is $20,000.” It is a really big show.

“I can't wait.” I told my mom and my sister on our way to Pat’s. The 30 days were up and I really wanted to ride Smokey for the first time.

When we got there Smokey was already caught and brushed. My saddle was in the back seat of the pickup. When we stopped I got out and ran over to him. Lizz hopped out of the pickup right behind me and since she was a little taller she caught up to me.

"Hey could you wait to ride till after I saddle Blue?" Blue was what she named her filly.

"Okay I'll wait but, I don't have to wait for Mom do I?" I knew that Mom would take forever visiting with Uncle Pat. She always does.

"I'm not going to."

"Good, neither am I." I helped my sister saddle her horse. Then I took the halter off of Smokey and slid the bride on. I put my foot in the stirrup and hopped on, remembering not to land hard in the saddle. Sometimes It can scare a colt. My sister hopped on her horse right after I did and we trotted them to the pickup to tell mom that we were going to go ride out on the range

"Okay, but don’t get into any trouble!" We left as soon as she got the word “okay” out. We went out the pasture gate and up in the hills. It is so pretty here, I thought to myself as I looked around.

It was summer and everything was green and since Pat was closer to the mountain it was pretty cool, only about 80. That's cool for the summer. We went along the medium sized hills, over to the cows. Then we played a game that me and my sister had made up when we were 7. We always played when we were horseback and there were cows around. We would cut a cow out then we bounced the cow back and forth like he was a ball or something and whoever lost it had to do something a horseback the other wanted like stand up on the horse or hop off her walking. Or teach their horse a trick when they got home. Anything that the other person wanted but had to have something to do with the horse and it has to be with the horse you were riding when you played the game. I usually won but this time her little blue horse cut the cow faster than Smokey and I lost him

"I can't believe you lost, you usually win, anyway dare you to… teach him a trick with me when we get home."

"Okay, deal" we did our sister's handshake to shake on it just like we always did when one of us won the game.

In a few months I won the grand prize for the cutting competition. It was close. But, the 20,000 dollars are mine, for now.