Macadoo of the Maury River (7 page)

I
might have been content to run with ducks and butterflies through our paddock, but Molly and Poppa and Izzy started playing in the riding ring next to us. Job and I watched them there between the house and the field.

Poppa had urged Izzy to learn to ride and convinced him to try by telling him that the view of the trees and birds and the whole wide world appeared different from the saddle than from the ground. “Izzy, you are a curious boy. I’m surprised you’re not interested in seeing the world around you in a new way.”

“How so, Poppa?”

“Come see for yourself! I promise Molly and I will keep you safe.”

So, I watched Molly carry Izzy on her back and step carefully over poles set down on the ground in the shape of a wheel. After a few weeks of practice, and once Izzy loosened his grip on the reins and relaxed in the saddle, they took to the poles again, this time at the trot. Poppa showed Izzy how to let Molly bend in spirals and turn in serpentines. The mule kept one ear on Poppa and one on Izzy.

I paced up and down the fence line, calling to them. Even when I whinnied, Molly would not look away from her work. Izzy looked every time. “Hi, Mac! Watch closely, boy. Pretty soon, it’ll be you and me riding.”

I longed to run and spiral, too. When would it ever be time for me to carry Izzy? Trotting back and forth, I wore a hard path in the grass. Poppa, Molly, and Izzy paid no attention. I whinnied with an extra-long haw that sounded like Job, but only Job answered me. “Go on, chase away those sparrows! Go!”

Mostly, Job and the sparrows were my delight, until Poppa taught Izzy how to jump. Then, not even the song of a wren or meadowlark could deter me from watching the ring. I went back to my worn path and begged, “Let me try! Let me jump with you!”

I stomped the ground. I rammed the fence. Poppa kept me out. Even after they had finished and gone back into the barn, I waited by the ring for a long time, imagining that I was carrying Izzy over poles and fences.

Job came to get me, and, this time, he did not order me to go away. The mule swatted me with his tail — a tail so long it dragged on the ground and collected burrs and hay as he walked through the field.

“Come with me to the new grass at the top of our field,” he said. “I’ve saved it for us, just for today.”

I wanted to jump, so I ignored Job the way everyone else had ignored me. But Job was king of our field, and kings usually get what they want.

“Let’s race!” Job challenged me, and he tore away up the hill.

I had no time to say
I don’t feel like running;
no time to say
I feel more like jumping.
Job raced away without me. His hay belly swayed side to side as he moved from a trot to a canter. Job, the mule, was beating me to the top of our hill.

I knew what I had to do. I cantered by the three oaks, stirred up the ducks, galloped past the run-in, and beat him. I was still the fastest of the field!

“I’m Macadoo, King of the Ducks!” I said as I ran by him.

“Where are you going?” Job asked.

“I’m going to jump!”

And I did. I ran faster than I had ever run before, so fast that the white oaks blurred to my right as I passed them. When I reached the gate, I did just as I had seen Molly do. I sprang up off my hind legs, and looking straight out at the paper birch beyond the barn, I lifted myself up.

Can I reach the mountains? Will I hover in the air?
I flung my legs straight up and out.

I soared right into the hot metal that burned my belly. I scrambled to untangle myself from the gate, now bent and swinging by its bottom hinge. I stood up and shook myself out.

Job reached me first. Huffing, and out of breath, he said, “Go away. To the run-in. Now.”

“But — I.”

“Now.”

My guardian gave me an order, so I galloped off and hid there, peeking from behind the shelter. At the mangled gate, Job stood, hanging his head, as if
he
had tried, but failed, to clear it. He swished his tail pitifully in unison with gate’s creaky wobble. Job even gave his lip a quiver.

Poppa came out from the barn limping to the scene, without his cane, and laughing out loud. I left my hiding place. I could tell he wasn’t angry about the damaged fence.

Poppa nuzzled Job. “Well, you old fool. A tad jealous of Molly, are you? Or has Macadoo got you feeling young again, the way Izzy has me? I should have guessed as much.” He patted the mule on the neck; then Poppa rubbed his chin. “You sure you caused all this trouble?” He looked over at me; I ate some clover.

“Mac, you’re still a baby,” Poppa said. “But, you’re getting bigger. From the size of you, I’d guess you must be nearly two now. I don’t suppose a slow walk in the mountains would do you any harm. Tomorrow, we’ll teach you to pony beside Job. I believe both of you boys are feeling a bit frisky. And, who wouldn’t be, surrounded by this beauty?”

My heart raced at the thought of walking in the mountains. Job pushed his head into Poppa’s hand and got a scratch behind his ear.

“Soon we’ll go exploring,” Poppa promised.

P
oppa soon took us all up to the mountain, like he had promised. We left by way of the unfenced back meadow. Under a cloud cover that spanned the farm, we strode through an open field. Poppa and Job and I were in front, with Poppa on Job leading me beside them. Molly and Izzy brought up the tail.

As we entered the woods, a towhee called out, so I whinnied hello. Molly called back to me, and even Job whinnied along.

“Well, all right, then,” said Poppa. “Everyone accounted for? Off we go!” he said.

While Job did the work of guiding our party all through the forest, Poppa sat high in his saddle. He looked around at the sky and deep into the trees, and he sang to us of birds and flowers.

“Yellow warbler!” Poppa cried, and then a whir of wings and song flew past. “Just passing through, heading south, I imagine,” Poppa said over his shoulder to Izzy.

Job was on duty so he mostly kept quiet but offered advice, now and again. “Mind your step,” he warned. “Lots of holes and rocks.”

“Job? Will we go to the top?” I asked.

“Shhh . . . I’m working,” he said.

A redbud branch, clinging to the last of its leaves, snapped back in my face. Izzy had taught me to recognize its heart-shaped leaves.
Are redbuds all over the mountain?
I wondered. “Job, I want to see Cedarmont from the top!”

“Not yet. You’re too young to make the crest.”

I trotted up beside him. “Then, can we race?”

Job kicked out. “Stay behind me, now. Let me lead you.”

I heard a blue jay call from way up ahead and couldn’t help but break into a jog.

“You wanted to see the mountain. Slow down and look around!” Job bossed me.

“At what?” I asked him.

“See the lace ferns around your feet? See the Queen Anne lining your path? See how the goldenrod is still in bloom? Take notice of everything, Macadoo; that’s your job today. Stay back, now.”

When we reached the river, Poppa said to Izzy, “Now, untack Molly. We’ll stay here awhile. Let her drink from the Maury River with us.” He filled his hat with water and emptied it over his head.

Izzy led Molly upriver to join us. I nickered and gave her a breath.

Molly swatted at me with her tail. “I hope you learned something today, Macadoo. One day when you are old enough and strong enough, you will carry Izzy on your own. He’s going to rely on you to keep him safe, to help him find his way.”

I blew across the Maury River to make it ripple, and Molly did, too. Poppa unpacked his lunch and sat down on the sunny bank in the moss. Molly and Job waded upstream, under the old, tall sycamore.

I stood next to Izzy with only wind and water between us. I could have run, but did not because I was right where I was meant to be.

I
had everything I needed and all that I wanted at Cedarmont. Autumn passed, each day cooler than the one before; each day darker, too. As the days turned shorter, my coat grew longer. The hair covering my cannon bone grew long and feathery. My winter coat kept me warm and mostly dry.

The sound of the school bus rolling to a squeaky stop told me that when Izzy was home, so I was always waiting for him by the gate in our field.

Every afternoon Poppa and Izzy would come with a grain bucket and a lead rope.

As winter inched closer and the air turned colder, I looked forward to the warmth of the barn each night.

“What is Christmas, Molly?” I asked across the lane between our stalls one especially nippy morning. A hard frost covered our field; Poppa had set out extra hay.

“Christmas is a time when people sing.”

“Poppa sings every day,” I reminded her, and it was true. He started each morning with a song and left us each evening with one, too. I understood that people sang when they were happy, but I still did not understand Christmas.

Job explained it a different way. “People seem to enjoy one another more at Christmas. They remember all those that they love and have loved.”

I hung my head out over my door and jimmied the latch loose with my nose until the handle turned freely; just how Molly had shown me. Then I pushed the door free with my head and walked over to her stall.

“Izzy promised something special for us at Christmas. How will I know when it’s coming?” I wondered aloud.

“You will be patient and wait. And, you will go back to your stall right now,” said Molly.

Job explained it differently. “Christmas isn’t something you can see, though you can see signs of its arrival. The sky foretells Christmas at the beginning of winter, very near the darkest day.”

The hardwood trees soon dropped all their leaves, and I could see through the forest. One day, Job sniffed and said, “Smell the air, Belgian, and taste it. Is it not frosty and wet?”

That night, Poppa added a fine blanket to my coat and it kept me warm like summer inside, warm enough to nudge open my window and bathe in moonlight, while I waited for Christmas to come.

“The night smells like Alberta,” I said to Job as the wind whisked a paper birch leaf past my face. “Could this wind have come from where I was born, where I lived with Mamere? Just now, I thought it smelled like our old field for a minute.”

“Snow is coming,” Job said. “Christmas is surely near.”

“I wish you had known my dam. Cedarmont is everything she wished for me.”

Job placed a mouthful grain for me in our space. “I know you miss her. I know you do.”

I ate the grain without saving even a speck, then told Job, “I like to be near Izzy because when I am it feels like Mamere never left. I leans against him, and when he talks about the forest, the field, the sky, I think I feel her with me. If only I could see her again. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember my dam. Sometimes, Mamere hardly seems real anymore.”

Molly heard me from across the aisle. “Nonsense. Of course she is real and still with you. Macadoo, can you see the wind?”

“No, ma’am. I see where it goes, but I cannot see the wind itself, no.”

“You can’t feel it either, I suppose?”

“Molly, I can feel the wind! I can even smell the wind!”

“Then you’re very, very sure the wind exists?”

I sniffed my hay. Izzy had started giving us alfalfa now that the grass was gone.
Mules ask odd questions,
I thought. “Yes, I am sure. I know the wind, Molly,” I answered.

Molly held her head out into the night and told me, “Put your head outside, child. Do you feel a breeze now?”

“The night is still. There is no wind,” I told her.

Job whickered now. “What if the wind never returns?” he asked.

I pulled back into my stall. My chest tightened.
No more wind? No more wind?
The very thought swirled a gust into my stall, lifted some pine shavings, and swished out into the night.

No more wind!
These two mules couldn’t trick me. “Even if I cannot see the wind; even if I cannot feel it in every second. The wind will come back,” I said.

“That’s right,” Molly agreed. “Remember that, always.”

Throughout the night, I shared memories of Mamere with Job and Molly. Job told stories about his dam, too, who loved to walk in the Maury River. And Molly told us about a girl named Charlotte who used to live at Cedarmont a long time ago.