Rattler. Barry Andrew Chambers

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СКАЧАТЬ and I shot through it. I caught the slow loping Pandora by the reins. “Give me that hat!”

      She nickered and turned away.

      I grabbed the brim, but she held it tight in her teeth. “Let go! Give it to me Pandora!” I pulled. The straw stretched and the hat went from round to oblong. I let go and it sprang back into shape. “Okay! Fine! Keep it!” I yelled.

      I started to walk away. As I did so, a shadow followed. I felt the hat drop onto my head. “Well that’s more like it.”

      Rather than return to the beer garden, I decided to go to a saloon. I lashed Pandora to the hitching post and went inside. I ordered a beer, sat at a table, and watched her. For a full two minutes, she didn’t move. Then she drew her face close to the reins around the post. Her head bobbed. She moved away from the post with the leather in her mouth. She flipped the reins in a reverse order from how they were wound.

      “Impossible,” I whispered.

      She moved back to the post, ducking under it and catching the reins with her teeth. It looked like she was blowing with her mouth as the reins flipped back up over the post, toward her. After repeating these actions three more times, she was loose.

      “Impossible,” I said once more. Then, I laughed. I laughed so hard, people began staring at me. “Impossible!” I yelled, laughing and slapping the table.

      After that, I was asked to leave.

      I took a circuitous route to Clearview. My plan was to approach the area as if I were coming from Colorado. It would be on the edge of Comanche territory, but I wanted no witness seeing me approach the town from the east. My story was that I was from Tenbone, Colorado and it had to look true.

      About thirty miles out, I camped in a clearing amid gently rolling hills. I shared some beef jerky with Pandora who proved to have a taste that ranged from old leather to sweet potato pie. She was acting a little edgy that night as I lay by the fire. She neighed quietly.

      “What?”

      She neighed and nodded.

      “No. I don’t feel like singing. I sang for you last night.”

      Pandora turned her head to the right. I followed her gaze to a thick, dark, pine tree.

      “What is it you want?”

      She pranced over to the tree and gave a hop. Both her front hooves landed on the trunk. She was standing on her hind legs. It was such a strange sight, I almost rolled into the fire, laughing. Then she took one hind leg and shook it. She put it down and shook the other hind leg.

      “What in blazes are you doing?”

      She pushed away from the tree and landed on all fours, then reared up on her hind legs. That smile was on her face again. So I clapped for her.

      “Good girl! Good trick, Pandora.” On the word “trick”, she stood still, looking at me soberly. Then she keeled over.

      “Pandora!” I crept up to her and patted her shoulder. “Pandora? Are you okay?”

      She jumped up and pranced around the campfire, neighing. No, not neighing. She was laughing.

      I clapped some more.

      Before I knew it, she trotted over to my stuff, grabbed the saddle by the horn and flipped it over her head. It landed square on her back.

      I stood there in the glow of the fire, my mouth agape. “You want to go for a ride?”

      She nodded.

      I secured the saddle and mounted her. “Let’s go girl.”

      She pranced around the fire at a leisurely pace. Then, with one front leg forward and the other bending, she bowed to some unseen monarch.

      “Good girl.” I dismounted and stood there looking at her with awe. Just how many tricks did she have? “Can you count?” I asked. “How many is four?”

      I was really expecting her to toe the ground and give it four strokes. Instead, she just stared at me.

      “Four. How many is four, Pandora?”

      She shook her head.

      “What, you don’t know how to add?”

      She pranced back over to the pine tree with a jaunty gait. She picked up a pine cone with her teeth and faced me. Then she jutted her head up, letting go of the pine cone. It flew right at me. I lost it in the dark and the pine cone struck me in the chest. She nodded, smiling.

      “You want me to throw it back?”

      She whinnied. I lobbed the pine cone underhanded. It flew to her right. She stepped into the throw and caught the pine cone in her mouth.

      “Incredible,” I whispered.

      We played catch for a few moments, then she lowered her head.

      “Are you tired girl?”

      She slowly waddled over to the fire and peered into the flames.

      For some crazy reason, I thought that maybe she had psychic powers. Maybe staring into the fire, she could tell the future. She stood there for a long time.

      “What is it girl? Do you see the future? Do you see happy days and fields of grass?” I was babbling, but at least I was babbling out in the middle of nowhere with just a horse as a witness. “Do you see the future girl?”

      She turned her head, looking at me. Did I see wet in her eyes? Do horses have tear ducts? Then she did a strange thing. That is, if you could say the other things she had done were normal. She walked over to me and put her head next to mine. And she stood there, touching me. And for a brief moment, I felt touched.

      The next day, Pandora, the wonder horse, and I broke camp and headed toward Clearview. With luck, we’d be there in the early morning hours of the next day. I was singing a bawdy sailor’s song to entertain Pandora when I caught a glimpse of white on a hill top. The lyrics, “She sailed the ocean blue with sailors two by two” stuck in my throat when I recognized the white as war feathers of the Comanche.

      There were seven of them. All braves. Without making a big move, I bucked my legs, spurring Pandora into a solemn canter. The Comanche’s were to my left, about a quarter mile away, and moving toward me. A flat prairie lay ahead, dotted with sagebrush.

      “Come on girl. You’re going to have to run like you never ran before! Eeyaa!”

      I kicked her and Pandora went into that slow, familiar gallop.

      “Come on! Come on girl! Go!”

      I kicked her again. She didn’t speed up. I looked back and saw The Comanche’s headed my way.

      “Pandora! Eeyaa!”

      With mounting hope, the wind picked up. She was running a tad bit faster. The Comanche’s were whooping. It was a chilling sound, mixed with anger, triumph, and blood lust.

      “Pandora! СКАЧАТЬ