Frey gave a second gentle nicker of comfort that instantly reassured me. No matter what happened in life, I knew there would always be this link between the two of us. I breathed in the smell of him. Others might have wrinkled their noses or let out an expression of disgust, but for me, the musky sweetness was a calming odor, one that spoke of many such years of shared hugs and kisses. I hardly heard the repeated low pitched humming that played a peaceful, drum-like vibration deep in his belly, but my shoulders relaxed, and my breath released the tension of a moment before.
Absorbing our moment of calm, I reflected on how difficult it would be to have to leave Tinkle Town. If I was genuinely truthful, it wasn’t just the boys I’d miss. My thoughts traveled to Mrs. Penn and her gentle eyes, and the way she listened and always wanted to understand my needs. She felt comforting, grandmotherly. And then there was the lovely house with a real bed that was soft, cuddly and so comfortable it was like sleeping inside a cloud of warmth. I couldn’t forget the bathtub either with all that lovely hot water that came out of a metal spigot with a mere turn of a hand crank. Luxuriating in those bubbles was worth giving up a bit of sleep in the middle of the night as the boys slept.
Frey had a place to stay at the yard in back of the house, and Mrs. Penn had made sure that he had fresh hay and grain. She’d even allowed me to get a curry comb and brush for him. It was true that the yard wasn’t the ideal place for him. Frey needed more space, but, at least we were safe there.
There had been a night a few months back when I’d been asleep in my lean-to, and Mr. Barner had tried to steal Frey. My stallion had bugled his distress while dodging away from the rope the man was twirling. When I woke and heard my stallion raging, his screams of defiance a clear warning of a some kind of attack, I’d come raging outside, too full of adrenaline to worry about my own safety. If fury was a weapon, I was fully loaded.
With my iron frying pan in hand, raised up, and ready to beat off the cougar I’d thought had pounced on Frey, I froze in place when I saw that it was Mr. Barner. I was so dumbfounded by the sight of him, still swinging his rope at Frey but missing every time, that I froze, mainly in disbelief.
“What are you doing?” I cried out, my anger subdued by my astonishment.
It was the middle of the night. The moon was perched in the sky like a one-eyed vulture. Because of it, I saw the man’s face clearly. His beard was askew, and I think there were chunks of tomato embedded in its stringy grayness. The man’s eyes in their sunken sockets of drunkenness glared at me. As ugly as he looked at that moment, I could have sworn he was no longer alive, but an apparition come to haunt me.
I assured myself that he wasn’t dead, but only juiced up on drink and completely deserted of his senses.