Chapter 9

Chapter 9
Marvelous and strange things happened during that year. Even my little sister, got into the act.
She had decided that instead of eating her Easter eggs, she would save them, because they were so pretty. They were hardly pretty a month later. I reached up on the top shelf of our closet, to get something and this little box fell out. When it did, one of two eggs blew up, all over the closet. There’s nothing like the aroma of a rotten egg.



After the initial shock, I very carefully picked up the other egg. I gently cradled it in my open palms, while I slowly walked out to the burn barrel. Just as I was turning my hand to let the egg drop into the barrel, it blew up in my face. Oh, what a smell! Little sisters are such a delight.



Linda was a girl that lived on a small alfalfa farm, just beyond the irrigation ditch, behind my house. She was another one of the girls, making up a lasting memory in this chapter of my life. I will never forget this character, mostly because of her home.



I had never seen a home so cluttered, so piled up or with so much stuff in my life. I could have sworn that the boots, her dad wore out 20 years ago, were still there in the pile. How did these people live? Where was the dinner table? I didn’t know a couch could be so swayback that a body could disappear, just by sitting down. Saddles sat in the corner of the kitchen. Under the pile on the kitchen table, was another pile of saddle blankets.





Nothing made sense, in this house. Linda, for sure, was one unique girl. She wore cowboy boots and jeans, to school. Her long hair was tightly braided into pigtails. Both she and her horse were short runts. That was a match.



I don’t know what breed this horse was. He was not as small as a Welch and certainly not the size of a Quarter horse. He was something in between. Maybe that was the point.



His mane was roached (cut short) and pretty much matched his personality. Everywhere we rode together, we had to look down to talk to Linda.



One day, Willie and I rode over to Linda’s house to gather her up for a long ride. Linda asked if I wanted to ride her horse, just to see how he felt. I mounted that little horse and just as I was getting settled, Linda took the ends of the reigns and slapped the horse ears. All of a sudden, I was in a rodeo, as this little horse first raised his rump, then dove his head toward the ground, and then switched ends. His rump went down and his head came up so hard, he smacked me in the mouth, hard enough to draw blood. Before I could catch my breath, he went through the same routine. It’s called ‘fish tailing’ and this little horse was beating me up. His rump would hit the back of my head and then his head would pound my face.



To end the ride of my life, I simply gave up and slid off the side. Boy was I mad. Linda was laughing so hard, over her little joke, tears were pouring down her face. She thought that was funny! Then I learned that was a quirk with this little horse. He couldn’t stand to have his ears slapped. She had done that on purpose.



Needless to say, there was no riding that day. I had to go home and clean up, as there was blood, sweat and tears all over my face, hair and clothes.



As crazy as it sounds, the next morning, I mounted and rode that horse. It turned out, he was a great little jumper but I never rode him out on the street. I didn’t have much sense but I did have that much.



The summer wore on and we girls whiled away our time on horse back. Several times, we packed up the saddle bags with a can of Pork n Beans, a loaf of bread and water, and rode off for a day along the river.



Winnie was a strange bit of horseflesh. She would shy away from a tiny trickle of water but when it came to that river, she plunged in with pure delight. This is where I got into trouble, every time we ventured across that river. Winnie wanted to lie down in the water, with me on her, not to mention a loaf of bread. What a fight, to keep her on her feet. In desperation, I would slap her ears with the reigns and threaten her life, if she lay down. “Huh-uh…no, Winnie. No, Winnie.”
I lost that fight, a few times. Down we went. Winnie was in heaven but I was soaked to the bone and I sure didn’t appreciate what she was doing to my boots. The river was only about 2 feet deep, where we crossed. There was plenty of room to keep my feet high and dry. My vocabulary grew that summer. “Dammit, horse! Dammit, dammit, dammit, stop! Oh, you damn horse!”
Winnie was such a challenge to ride; one would have to ponder why this young girl was so determined to get along with her. At the very least, an hour’s ride took all my energy just to keep things under control.



It seemed to me, we two girls were always getting into some kind of trouble. We ventured out to ride across the plain, one day. We needed to cross the freeway, as we went. We decided that we could make it through one of those concrete tunnels that run under the highway. It was certainly high enough for the horses to pass through but not high enough with us on the horses. We got down and walked through the little tunnel.



Half the way through, Starlight began to get agitated. He was frightened by the closed in feeling. He pulled back on his haunches and we tugged to get him to finish walking through. Then he did the unthinkable. He reared up, knocking his head against the top of the tunnel, then down he went. He was knocked cold. “Oh, rats!” While he was still half stupefied by the blow, we managed to get him up on his feet. We scooted back out of that tunnel, as fast as we could make him move and decided never to try that one again.



Then there was the day Willie and I, riding double and bareback, took Starlight out for a stroll across some ranch land. When we came upon a cow, we decided to see what it was like to ride one. Since I was riding behind Willie, I tried it first. We trotted up along side of this cow and I jumped off the horse, landing on what felt something like the edge of a 2X4 board. Ouch!



The cow started to move and then panicked and began to run. I began screaming at Willie, “Get me off this thing!” After several attempts to come along side and help me change mounts, I just gave up and fell off. I had discovered something worse than Starlight’s spine.



Willie decided she just had to try this, for herself. She got behind me, on Starlight. We again, rode up along side that poor cow and she jumped off, landing on the cow’s back. “Ah, ha! See there? I told you!” as Willie slid off the right side of the cow, groaning in pain.



As she pulled herself up and dusted herself off, she said, “Ugh! Gees! You’re right! Oh man, I’ve never felt anything quite like that!” Ok, so we didn’t bother any more cows. Once was enough.
There was a huge field full of tall sunflowers that we passed each day, coming home from school. On one of our ventures, we road down that little side street, where the sunflowers grew.



A sudden, sideways jolt and Winnie was plunging into the sunflowers and ran the full length of the field, coming out on the other side. I happened to be wearing shorts and a sleeveless blouse. The plants stood as tall as my shoulders and prickly little spurs on the stems, clawed my skin nearly off. My skin was red and burning like fire.



You probably already know that as we disappeared into the sunflowers, my screams and curses could be heard a block away. I still don’t know why she did that. It must have been something I did. She was always giving me ‘what for’.