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Today a true story from the
vaults of my memory. I was about sixteen or seventeen, and my best friend had
taken me to one of his friend’s houses on a holiday, I don’t recall which
holiday it was. I knew the people in the distant sort of way that small towns
have, but had never been over to their house. It was a nice cozy brick house,
with a freshly-painted barn and stables, nice wooden fences and horses aplenty
roaming the pastures close to the yard. The Alpha of this little scene of
tranquility was the father of my friend’s friend, a man we’ll call Dick Lawson
for the purposes of this story. He was somewhere in his early 50’s, and had a
good reputation around the small town that I was raised in. His boy was a ****
of the highest order, but that’s a different kind of story. Today we speak of
his dad.
Now, to say that Dick Lawson was a big man is to say that the rivers have
water. He only stood six-two or six-three, but he had arms on him from fifty
years of farming that would make a bodybuilder cringe, and was in general built
like an oak tree. Were it not for his normally genteel nature and a finely
trimmed beard, he surely would have been mistaken for a sasquatch at some point
and darted for further study.
We pulled up later than the rest of my friend’s family, and a lot of Dick’s
family was hanging around for the holiday as well, all of them roaming around
the yard in the way of Southern gathering. All of them are horse people, and
friends, so it was a cozy, comfortable little gathering, lots of laughing and
cutting up. It should be stated that most of them were heavy drinkers as well
as horse people. Dick Lawson was in the middle of it all, not cutting up because
it simply wasn’t in his nature, but certainly sharing the beer and cracking a
smile here and there. He was leading a horse that was his equal in size around
the yard, a Clydesdale-dimensioned stallion that looked absolutely normal
behind him. I stand 6’0” tall, and I couldn’t see across the back of this
horse. It was huge. It wasn’t saddled, but Dick had bridled him and was leading
him around the yard the way that other people might have a dog on a leash.
Not knowing Dick, or his wife, I stuck closer to the people that I knew and was
standing off to the side of the crowd when it happened. Everyone saw it. You
couldn’t help but see it. I close my eyes and I can see it still.
Dick Lawson, still holding the reigns in his left hand, reached down and
scooped up one of his granddaughters as she went scurrying by and slung her up
on top of the horse. Giggling, she scooted her butt around until she got her
seat and leaned down, hugging the horse as good as her little five or six
year-old arms would let her. Dick still had the reigns wrapped loosely in his
left hand. It was a Norman Rockwell moment, a pretty blond child in a pretty
blue dress having a very cool moment with her beloved Granddad.
Something about the little girl spooked the horse. It began to fidget, and Dick
tightened his grip on the reigns. The horse nickered, which is when those who
weren’t already watching the little scene joined the rest of us who were. Dick
turned to the horse, his face sombre.
“Settle down.” he snapped, giving the reigns a stout tug to remind the horse
what the pecking order was.
The horse tossed his head, trying to jerk the reigns out of Dick’s hands. The
little girl astride him was becoming scared by now, and the horse began dancing
on his forelegs, back and forth, growing more and more agitated. When Dick
reached back to scoop the granddaughter back off the animal, the momentary
slack in the reigns was just enough to encourage the horse further. With the
granddaughter still astride, the horse reared with a whinny that would have
made any western movie proud.
Dick watched his granddaughter rise in the air. There were gasps from the
crowd, and people close to the horse began to scatter. When the horse reared,
Dick’s hand, firmly gripping the reigns, shot above his head, and when his
granddaughter finally got it into her head to scream in fear, Dick lost his
mind.
He leaned back, snatching the horse back down to the ground with just his left
hand that he had wrapped in the reigns, then rolled the reigns up tight in his
hand while the horse stood there stunned for a moment, so that he was holding
the reigns tight underneath the chin of the horse. When the horse tried to pull
away, he rolled his right fist, about the size of a canned ham, all the way
around to his six ‘o clock position, and came around with a haymaker that would
have killed a Dodge truck. His fist hit the animal right on it’s temple with a
sound like a board snapping in two.
The horse gave a short, startled whinny and fell to it’s foreknees, before
falling into a pile at Dick’s feet. I plainly remember hearing someone close to
me saying “Oh, my God!”, but for the most part the party had lapsed into a
stunned silence. Dick dropped the reigns and ran to grab up his granddaughter,
checking her quickly to make sure she was okay, then he kicked the hell out of
the horse with her cradled in his arms. In spite of it’s discombobulated state
the horse managed a pained grunt. He then stomped into the house ranting about
that "no good bleeping animal gonna hurt his baby". His wife took off
running to the doorwith a look that was equal measure shock and determination,
and as she got about half-way there you heard the unmistakable sound of a pump
shotgun action being worked inside the house, snick-snick. Dick came out the door
with the shotgun cradled in both hands, and his wife met him at the door.
“Oh, NO." she said. "You are NOT shooting that horse.”
“Yeah, hell, I am.” said Dick. “That son of a ***** almost killed my baby, I’m
gonna put him down.”
“Oh, no you’re NOT!” She said resolutely. “That is a $2,500 horse, and you will
shoot ME before you shoot him.” She barely stood up to his chest, and had to
reach up above her head to shake her finger in his face the way that she did.
That arguement got much quieter after that exchange, but both their faces were
pinched and furious.
Eventually Dick calmed down and let the horse live, but the mood had been
pretty well spoiled and most of us cleared out.
The horse was still passed out in the driveway when I left. I'm sure that by
the time it stood up, they just gave it some whiskey and told it better luck
next fight. It is the Southern way.
Copyright 2008 JS Brown
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