Traveling North..
The sky is a bright blue like a balloon from a kid’s birthday party. The road in front of us is winding down, sloping around endless acres of raw wilderness. There isn’t a tree or an animal in sight, not even a cactus. Olivier’s pale red mop of hair is flying lazily across his temples in the breeze from the air blower. His eyes almost look gray in the bright sunlight flooding through the windshield with the unabashed intensity of a brazen uninvited guest, making itself at home in our car. Olivier reaches for the control to push down the temperature gauge to sixty-two Fahrenheit. A shiver runs through my limbs and I lean forward to adjust my side to seventy Fahrenheit. He gives me a side-glance and makes a grimace. I sigh and shrug.
My eyes are glued to the window. My thoughts drift as the landscape speeds past us. Gentle rolling elevations followed by deeper valleys bottoming out into a flat area surrounded by mountains as if we were ants crawling inside in a bowl of soup. To our right a side road splits off to somewhere deep in the high desert. We glance at each other and remembrance bubbles up, showing on our faces with a mirrored grin. About three years ago we picked up a scrawny little bay pony with a matted mane and tail and perceptive, intelligent eyes that glanced at us imposingly without a trace of fear on his way down the shoot and into our trailer. Kai means warrior, a fitting name for our mustang. And a fitting addition to us. Warriors, fighters for the love of life, for the right to be alive, really live, not just exist until the slow decline towards death’s door.
I’ve always felt as if I was fighting a war. All my life I’ve been matched up with opponents twice my size. Spiritual bullies, mental ninjas, manipulators and liars. Kai had so many scars when he came to us, it took a year for them to grow over with a new layer of coat. He knew how to fight bullies too. Bullies twice his size, bullies twice his weight and age. Kai didn’t back down easily and he wasn’t easily impressed by my training devices. Just like the Shetland Pony genes that run in his DNA, Kai can be stubborn and strong-willed, not easily scared or coerced. Fiercely loyal, kind and cuddly he trusted me right away. I never had to convince him to let me touch him. He jumped off the trailer into his corral, walked along the edge of the fence, took a look at our other horses and came back to where I was to eat the carrot I held out for him.
I think I loved him from the moment he stepped onto the trailer. His wild, untamed heart and honest spirit touched some note inside of me that recognized a familiar soul.
Olivier looks over at me and points to the sign for an exit with a fork and a knife painted on it. I nod. We roll up to a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere. It is so quiet out here. Nothing but a few houses that look abandoned, a gas station that has seen better days, and open land as far as the eye can see. We order and sit down outside, waiting for our food. The dogs are lounging at our feet, their tongues lolling about as they lazily scan their unfamiliar surroundings.
A guy in an old Chevy drives up. The car’s engine rattles like a tiger fighting a terrible cold. The car’s shape is boxy, wide, yet elegant and with an certain expression, it says ‘here I am, look at me’. It must be a classic, maybe a 1960s model. Not like today’s cars, the paint is all but gone, but it still maintains a certain charm in its appearance, just like its owner. A bit scuffed up, with a slight limp, hair whitening, but still got it, that old-timey swagger, embodying that joie-de-vivre. I look over to my left and a brand new Honda rolls up next to the Chevy. The old timer’s driver scoffs and spits and walks away, his spine straight as an arrow, his eyes hold a dignity he exhibits with pride and humility at the same time.
We eat our food. OIivier eats a burger. I nibble on my fries with chicken tenders, but most of my food ends up in the dogs’ bellies. The higher altitude is curbing my appetite. Or perhaps I am satisfied with the impressions and view of our changing surroundings. We drive on. I fall asleep and dream of a herd of mustangs pulling an old stagecoach up a dirt road at full speed while being chased by a band of masked robbers on horseback. I sit at the back of the stagecoach and throw darts at the robbers.
Olivier holds the reins and turns, shakes his head and then laughs at me hysterically. Then he hands me a gun, an old Smith and Wesson. I aim at the robber closest to me, pull the trigger but instead of a bullet a cuckoo comes out, scaring me half to death. I wake up and open my eyes drowsily.
The landscape drifts past us. Olivier’s red hair flows in the breeze of the air conditioner. The dogs snore in the backseat. I take a sigh of relief and shiver. Olivier’s side is at maximum cooling. I push up my side to seventy-four Fahrenheit. Olivier laughs, but it sounds like a scoff. I ignore him and stare out my window. There’s a tree. A lonely fir tree as tall as, well, a tree. A red tailed hawk is perched among the crown. It flaps its wings as if it was about to take off. A crow sits on a branch just beneath, looking up, cackling at the hawk like they were involved in a swap-meet haggle. The hawk takes off, the branch bounces and pitches the crow in the face and it staggers back and nearly falls, it flutters wildly, and then flies away, going after the hawk.
I wonder what the two of them are doing, but they fly out of my view and disappear into the darkening Prussian blue evening sky.
