Rocket, El Caballo
Yali ran through the house strapped into his arm restraints, crying for cookies. I think he sort of likes this minor version of a baby straightjacket, as Carrie called it. He might even think he’s a bird. Oxbear already calls them “his wings”. They also sometimes make him resemble a paper doll.
“AH!”
“What, Puck?”
Puck stared into the dark recess of the Silverspoon’s basement. “I saw something move back there!”
“Maybe it was Snickers’ ghost,” I said, without really thinking.
Snickers was the ancient Silverspoon family cat who wandered off three months ago and never came back.
Next time I looked at Puck, he was holding back Yali from entering the darkness, plastering a stack of orange plastic cones at the entrance, proclaiming, “GHOST AREA! GHOST AREA!”
It was a mild afternoon, about seventy degrees, in St. Peters. While Gloria had a baby shower on her plate for the afternoon, the rest of us piled in Swanson’s big black pick-up lightly scented with cigar smoke – the Texan thing to do – and drove out to Winfield to visit Swanson’s recent purchase. A three year-old Quarter Horse named Rocket.
Swanson gently led him into the arena to demonstrate “Downunder Horsemanship”. Puck watched from a wary distance for awhile. I’m pretty sure he was afraid he’d get bit if he got too close.
The last time I went riding I busted up my right knee through the wind and sleet on the back of a purebred Viking horse. I can still sense rain coming in that knee sometimes. But this was the first time I’d been on a horse bareback, good old-fashioned Native American style.
Both boys wanted a turn, so I rode with them while Swanson led us around the arena. Puck seemed a little less cautious by the end. Yali wasn’t happy to see Rocket returned to his stall and beckoned him to come back with one little brown hand.
On the drive back, Puck looked for abandoned farm houses and barns in the fields and hills, asking me if I thought any of them were haunted. We talked for awhile about that.
“Well, you know, Mom, no one can be sure if ghosts aren’t really real,” was his conclusion.
I almost brought up King Saul and the Medium of Endor, but thought twice about that. Best not to spook the kid anymore that Snickers the Cat Ghost already had.