Dad was plowing a fifteen-acre field when he signaled me to his tractor. The horse I had mounted responded to the bump of my boot heels and started a gallop.
Dad was plowing a fifteen-acre field when he signaled me to his tractor. The horse I had mounted responded to the bump of my boot heels and started a gallop. Dad assigned me a small errand back at the house.
In TV Westerns, famous cowboys labeled their horses creative names, like Trigger and Silver and Scout. When Dad first brought our fifteen-year-old gelding to the farm, we had little choice but to stick with the horse’s original name. Bill.
Bare minutes after leaving my father I crashed to the earth and then lay writhing, half-delirious, in our barnyard lot. I called out in distress. And pain. My leg felt on fire.
Bill had gathered himself from the fall he’d just taken and stood bulge-eyed nearby. He was perhaps reviewing in some horse-like way the scary experience of a moment ago. A temporary quiet settled over me, my fourteen-year-old mind barely in touch with the surroundings.
In a way that was oddly comforting, my nose took in the sharp, raw smell of a nearby cow patty, a sign I was likely still living. Another burning pain shot through my leg. My renewed cries broke the intermission of calm. Moments later I was hauled into a pair of rescuing arms.
My brother-in-law, ten years older than I, had luckily dropped by the farm. Running the direction of my screams, Bob spotted me. After a quick inspection, ruling out any broken bones, he gathered me up. Soon my grubby frame, smelling of horse sweat and trampled hay, lay on the green couch in our living room. I had survived.
Whether the length of rope my dad sent me to fetch managed to reach him, I never found out. But I drew comfort from the thought that simply surviving could, on this day, count for something. It wasn’t my first run-in with drama. Nor my last.
©2018 Jerry Lout
Writer-Speaker Jerry Lout schooled at Okmulgee’s Wilson Elementary, Preston High and O.S.U. Okmulgee. Jerry authored “Living With A Limp”, from which this piece is edited ( Amazon.com ). Additional narratives are posted on his blog at www.jerrylout.com. He may be reached at jerrylout@gmail.com
