Side Trail
29 palms
Maureen Gilmer
He wanted a beer but it was too early in the morning. He always craved it after a night lying awake in the silence that was too much like the hush that preceded a shit storm of body parts and blood mist. In the villages even the chickens ceased to cackle, people ducked inside their homes and the stray dogs huddled in doorways. He had a sixth sense about it, and silence just made him nervous as hell. He'd barely slept at all after returning from Iraq, so Warren was real punchy and reacted to even the smallest surprise as if it was a life or death event.
The black bands reminded him every day. He'd tattooed them on his arm to remember the ones he'd lost. An IED threw him off the top of the Hummer to land flat on his back in a dune. The rest of his unit were inside the vehicle.
Winds often blew in the desert around the 29 Palms Marine Base and they brought voices whispering as the curtains fluttered like ghosts above his bed. He could hear each one of them whimpering of pain and shock, then louder cries weaving in and out of the dry gusts as sand spattered the walls like buckshot.
The shrink had sent him out to a horse rescue in nowheresville, up on the Yucca Mesa not far from the base. It was a hell of a place that mesa, only a few Joshua trees here and there while the rest of it was blown clean by the persistent wind. He checked his map and then grumbled at missing road signs stolen by the crank cookers to make it hard for ATF to find them in the network of roads that had no landmarks. It was too much like Iraq for Warren, and that unnerved him. Just like the Middle East it was miles of nothing that seemed hardly worth fighting for, and definitely not worth getting ambushed by rag heads.
Warren parked his little truck outside a white gate to a huge paddock that enclosed about five acres. Amidst the yucca and creosote bushes, large shapes milled around mounds of loose hay. The shrink said he might like the horses, but how the hell would he know? He'd never been closer to one than his kiddy pony rides and pictures of the Marlboro Man. But if this was what he had to do to convince the shrink that everything was ok, that he was not a PTSD case, he'd get 'er done because all he wanted to do was get back over there and even the score for his buddies.
A door slammed and a dowdy middle aged woman came out of the house chewing the last bites of morning toast. Three rough looking dogs following her, all of them barking like crazy. He knew better than to step inside the gate and waited patiently for her.
"I'm Casandra" she said, holding out a hand. He took it and was instantly amazed at the rough texture and calluses, noticing the dark crescents under her fingernails and stains on her soiled T-shirt and jeans that could do with a washing. Her face bore the deep lines and winkles that he recognized from the Iraq desert, the sign of a life lived in the driest climate on earth. Her eyes pinned him from under graying hair with an intensity of insurgents. She opened the gate and ushered him in. "We are so glad you're willing to help."
He didn't see it as helping. It was just another mission, this one to convince Cassandra and then Doctor Elliot that he could sleep through the night, that the silence didn't put him on edge and that the winds never spoke to him in the voices of the dead. No, he was just going through the motions to get back to where he belonged, where the tension was familiar and each day had one simple goal: to stay alive.
"We take horses nobody wants," Cassie began as they walked toward the large pasture. "That's Lucky over there under that mare. He does all our shoeing and trimming and generally takes care of everything I don't have time for. That mare he's working on is one of our most important guests. They are the PMU mares. They've had a rough time of it because somebody thinks they're too fat and an injection of pregnant mare urine would somehow make them thin. And to get it they boxed these girls into tight stalls, installed a catheter and made them stand and deliver until they fell down dead. Horses are moving creatures. You put them in a box and they die. Finally they outlawed the practice, but the mares needed homes or they'd be sold to the slaughter house. So we took some."
Warren didn't know what to say. His mother was a city girl and into sports so he just didn't get very close to animals when he was a kid. He looked at most animals as foreigners, and in Iraq all the dogs were mangy and starving so he really had no desire to get close to them either.
Cassie picked up a box of brushes and led Warren into the big pasture. "These mares need to be brushed. They get cholla cactus spines in their skin when they roll. We have to pull them out with pliers because the spines are barbed. These girls haven't had much time with people and they really respond to human touch."
Warren looked off across the desert toward the long low hills to the east that separated the mesa from the base. He studied the way the colors changed in the morning as the sun rose, gliding from ridge to ridge and then he'd enjoy the same thing in reverse at dusk.
Cassie led Warren to a massive dark mare, taller than he was. "She's a draft horse, for pulling wagons. You can tell by those big feet. I call her Miss. Kitty because one morning I found her lying down to get out of the wind. Our barn cat was curled up against her chest. They were both snoozing away. She really needs loving, and I think she's the best place for you to start."
Warren watched as Isabel picked up a brush and began a long slow swipe down the mare's neck and he could see her eyes soften and then half close, clearly loving the way it felt. That horse wanted somebody to touch her, and he figured he'd work her over and be out of there in an hour.
Cassie said she had work to do and left him beside the giant black horse slowly gathering hay with her lips. Miss Kitty, he thought, and smiled. Not the most suitable name. Warren grasped the brush and stepped toward the mare and let his hand wander through her fur to check for spines. It was far warmer than he'd anticipated, the hair silky, like velvet but long, and he could feel rough spots underneath where spines were lodged in her skin.
The wind kicked up and the mare's long winter coat rippled. The voices came to Warren upon each gust, though they were farther away than usual. He began stroking the horse with the brush, noting the direction her hair lay and he ran with that angle instead of against the grain like he always did things.
He gazed around at the other horses, a couple dozen at least, some standing half cocked with heads down asleep, others wandering or eating. They didn't make a sound except an occasional snort. The more he observed them the more he caught subtle distinctions that were more than just color and size. Some appeared to be skin and bones, their ribs clearly defined, hips angled differently from the more well rounded group. These caught his attention because they seemed more like ghost horses, barely there with empty eyes on the verge of death.
"We brought them in from an SPCA call." Cassie said, startling Warren out of his daze. "Their owners had gone back to Mexico and left them to starve. It's a miracle they were still alive when we got there."
Warren felt his chest tighten as she explained how the rescue operation helped various organizations that needed someplace for abused or abandoned animals to stay. But he was not really listening to that, he sensed these ghost horses shared the same sense of surrender he saw in the eyes of many Iraqi children, particularly the girls who were kept indoors most of the time. They'd been imprisoned in those mud brick boxes and when food was short they were the last to be fed. Their eyes grew big in their faces, arms stick-like as the families put the boys on a pedestal. The fate of those little girls always stuck with him after they raided a stronghold because he knew there was no hope for them ever. As Muslims they were supposed to be so valuable they weren't allowed to go out, but yet they were treated worse than those starving horses. At least there were rescues for them, but those girls over there, they existed to breed and work. The penalty for failing to go with the program was an honor killing.
When his time at the rescue was up, Warren had worked over the mare like he would anything else in spit and polish Marine style. He'd pulled the burrs out of her mane and extracted a half dozen spines from her feathery legs. All the time he was with her she continued to eat as if he wasn't there at all, but the moment he stopped to light a smoke she'd quit chewing and stood there still as a stone, waiting. As the brush came back down on that dark coat she began chewing again. Warren figured he had to watch the little things with this horse because they really didn't communicate with you much, just as he and his Marine brothers came to know each other so well that just a slight tip of the head, a look in the eyes, a movement of the finger spoke volumes.
As he was finishing up the knots in her tail he realized that the wind had become stronger out of the west, and gusty, but with each movement of his comb the voices trailed off. He hadn't noticed it at first, but now his head was becoming quiet until Cassandra came to walk him back to his car.
"They're very subtle creatures, you know. They speak with body language. It's quite predictable, but it takes a while to learn what it all means. You can't be quick around them. Move slow and deliberate because that's how they are with each other."
That's how we were, he thought, slow and deliberate with every move. Failing to note the details got you killed. And he knew that even the most abandoned looking buildings could hold a sniper or insurgents with a cell phone just waiting to blow the next army vehicle to kingdom come.
"Miss kitty has never looked so good and I'm sure she's quite pleased with all your attention."
"She doesn't do much."
"No, horses are basically lazy and that's ok with us. These are older girls and very settled. But they can hurt you if they don't like you. Take that little appaloosa over there," she said, pointing to one horse standing alone with a pile of hay, his ears laid flat back, the eyes slits that registered anger in a big way. Three mares stood facing him clearly interested in the food but the angry horse lunged at them and they scattered, snorting in frustration.
That night Warren slept for the first time in weeks, and he dreamed of that fateful day that they hit the IED. He woke up in the dune sand and found himself miraculously able to stand and walk. He went back to the remains of the truck sitting on its hood upside down in a cloud of smoke and dust next to the road. He leaned up against it and suddenly grew weak, sliding down to sit on the ground at eye level with the men still in the front seats. Their faces were bloody, eyes empty in death, but he seemed to feel peaceful there so long as he remained with them. Semper Fi. That's how he was trained. Never leave your men behind.
When the recovery vehicles finally reached him Warren knew he was the only survivor but fought the horrible reality. He struggled against the men dragging him to the ambulance as they tried to explain that he'd had a head injury from the impact and he had to go back to the field hospital to make sure he didn't have a concussion. It was in the hospital that the voices began, and in the middle of the night when the ward was silent he became hyper vigilant, his entire body tense, his psyche waiting for the next explosion. He couldn't relax. He couldn't rest. There was no peace.
Warren returned to the horse rescue a few days later according to the schedule his shrink had laid out for therapy. He found her out on the road hitching her horse trailer behind a pick up truck. "So good to see you again, Warren. I'm heading up north to pick up some horses and I may be gone as long as a week. Lucky will be managing things. If you have any questions he can help you."
Warren went back to the same mare and gave her the once over, then eyed that same spotted horse that had been so angry. He had left the hay pile and was standing beside a horse lying down. It was one of the starved abandoned horses sleeping in the morning sun. Warren noticed the angry horse bore unusual flecks of white all over its hips that petered out midway to the neck. He stood with his head low to the ground, hovering close to the sleeping horse's ears. Though he seemed relaxed Warren could sense a vigilance, almost as though it was standing guard over the sleeping one. A group of horses worked their way closer until the angry horse reared up, barred his teeth and lunged at them, then it spun around and double kicked into the air making it clear that sleeping horse was his.
As Warren began picking spines out of another PMU mare he watched the spotted horse nudge the sleeping one. There was no response. He did it again and still nothing. Warren focused closely on its ribs and realized then than they were not rising and falling as they should. The downed horse was dead.
"We're waiting for the truck," Lucky said, startling the soldier who had not heard him approach. The man looked to be in his fifties with a week's growth of silver beard and clothing that had seen better days. "The appy is protecting him."
"How do you know that?"
"You just get a sense about it after awhile. That appy came to us from the Border Patrol down by Mexicali. They told me he belonged to an agent who was ambushed by drug smugglers out in the desert. They shot him right off that horse's back. At least that's what the sheriff said. The smugglers left him there to die and it took awhile according to the report. That horse stayed right there for days, fighting off the carrion eaters. Poor thing nearly died of dehydration and any other breed of horse would have, but he's an appaloosa and they're mighty tough. By the time they found the Agent's body that horse was plum loco and they had to blindfold it to get it away from the remains. That's why he ended up with us. Nobody could manage him. So ever since he's been here he just wants to have something to guard and he's hostile toward anyone and everything else. See, he's confused because he misses the man. Now he's repeating it all over again with that dead horse. But that's how appy's are."
"How's that? Why are they different?"
"That's right. You're new to horses. See, appaloosas are more than just spotted horses. They were Nez Perce Indian war ponies. The Indians built up their herds and rode them into battle without a bridle or saddle. They're known for the spots and they have white sclera around their eyes just like people do. Appaloosas were good ranch horses because they walk out fast with a special gait. Some call it the Indian shuffle. Only the pure bloods do it though - that's how you can be sure you're getting an authentic appaloosa. The more cross bred they are the less they have the gait."
"But why does he keep doing that guarding thing?"
"My grandmother married into a Nez Perce family. She told me that appaloosas descended from a Wind Horse, which is supposed to be able to share the feelings of people - some kind of special sixth sense. It made them really sensitive to their rider's emotions and they would bond with them completely. It's why they were so successful in battle. That appy there, he'd bonded with the border agent and that's why it's having a hard time detaching from that incident."
Warren pondered what Lucky said after the man wandered off to call about the truck that would haul away the carcass. Something about the appy's story struck him in an odd way. He never thought of horses so bonded with people that they'd protect a fallen rider like that. Lucky seemed to think it wasn't very common, so Warren wondered if maybe that horse was just looking for the man and maybe he could help.
He set down the brushes and slowly walked toward the appy keeping a wide space between them. One thing Iraq had taught him was how to be silent, to sit or stand for hours on end waiting for the first sign of insurgents in buildings or the open desert. He approached slowly and paused. When he was sure the appy saw him he came closer and stopped again and stood. He wondered if this appy had the Wind Horse in his blood, so Warren devised an experiment to find out. He let himself remember the explosion and the wrecked bodies of his friends and comrades inside the ruined Hummer.
There in the thin cool air of the open desert he visualized himself in the dirt wiping the blood off the driver's ruined face, and revisited the fear that insurgents would return to destroy him before the rest of their battalion came through. The mesa breeze brought their voices back clear and strong, the men who had become nothing more than wisps of memories and black bands across his bicep. Warren recognized the voice of the black kid from New Orleans with the drawl and a wicked sense of humor. There was his sergeant's New Jersey accent tinged with Yiddish expressions and deep resentments for Islam. The one he missed the most was his best buddy, the stocky California surfer who joined up rather than do time. He let their voices enter his head and he remembered them so clearly that the ache made it hard to breathe. He looked up at the thin striped clouds to hold back tears by studying contrails from the bombing runs beyond the base.
And then he felt the presence behind him, a pressure on his back so light he spun around, vigilance kicking into high gear. There before him stood the appy, its peculiar eyes focused on him in a eerily human gaze. Warren stepped back suddenly, almost as though he was afraid, but stopped when the apply held its ground beside him. The horse twisted its head to reach around to Warren's arm where the black bands were, and it nuzzled him there, tongue gently lapping at the ink.
Warren didn't dare believe that the horse could read his thoughts, but his experiment had certainly lured the appy to him. When he thought of those guys that didn't make it home, the horse somehow knew that they remained with him in the black ink.
Warren went back to pick up his brushes and was amazed to find the appy following every step with its own footfalls matching his in the sand. Testing, Warren walked this way and that, the appy following every move with one of its own.
When the truck came to take away the dead horse Warren stood next to Lucky watching them winch the body onto the truck bed. Behind him the appy stood watching too. "That's a curious thing you know, that horse - he's feeling you."
Warren thought for a moment recalling the hours they spent together that morning. Every time Warren heard a voice in the wind, the appy would perk up as though he heard them too. In between gusts when it was calm that crazy horse would walk around him in a circle as though it wanted his attention. It forced him to let go of the vigilance and the memories he had not been able to leave behind in the field of battle.
"You might be right. What should I do about it?"
"When a horse like that comes to you it means that there is a common ground you both feel equally. Sometimes it's fear, or maybe it's grief. This horse is hard wired into your brain, my friend. He's a fine gelding. Perhaps you should ride him. My grandmother told me that a Wind Horses can draw darkness out of your soul. It's like all of the ugliness, sadness and hurt travels from you through that horse and down into the Earth."
Warren couldn't argue with Lucky. He had already felt the voices were fading when he came to the rescue, and there he welcomed moments of silence for the first time. Perhaps he should think a bit more about Special Forces. Maybe he could find a way to carve a life around the psychological baggage he brought home from Iraq.
After the truck left, Lucky showed Warren how to halter the appy, then they tacked him up. In the round pen Lucky showed Warren how to climb aboard. After they'd circled a half dozen times the appy suddenly sped up but didn't trot. He moved easily into the Indian shuffle, his head bobbing with each step as the ground moved along beneath them. With each foot fall Warren felt the grief drain away, his mind clearing, his body relaxing to move with the horse as if they were one being. Even though Warren had never ridden before he felt as though his body understood what it was all about, perhaps it was muscle memory from a former life, or just that the appy could feel him so deeply they were almost like a man and woman making love.
Cassandra returned a week later, her trailer full of new horses to be released into the pasture. After she watched them process into existing herd she stopped short and turned to Lucky. "Where's the appy?"
Lucky pointed out into the open desert. "That one is a Wind Horse. He could feel the solider.
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