It was glorious madness. I dumped out my purse, change clattered all over my car seats, but I didn't care. I grabbed my camera, my phone, two apples and shoved them into my bag. Julia pulled up and I giddily burst out, tell her how Margrith and I had decided, spur of the moment, to ride out to meet each other. She laughed, and then offered to pick us up if we became to exhausted.
She didn't think we would make it, and I didn't think we would either.
I grabbed my helmet snapped it securely under my chin, laughed at my foolishness, and took Twilight onto the trail.
I couldn't bare the slowness of a walk I urged Twilight into a trot, the fastest we'd ever gone by ourselves on the trail since the day she'd bucked me off.
Her breath was loud and harsh, excited. Each of her perfectly paced steps took us farther and farther along the trail, into a fresh wind. When I pulled her to a stop she danced anxiously beneath me pawing and snorting.
Twilight could feel the tingle of excitement, the smile on my mouth was electric and shot down to my hands which she could feel on the reins.
We got to the first gate, and I swung down quickly. Some large bird of prey had left its last meal baking on the horizontal metal pole, dark red and dry with small yellow bones jutting out. I felt like it was a warning, but brushed it quickly away.
We went through the gates, and I reasoned with Twilight to stand still as I climbed back onto her back. We resumed our brisk trot. I watched for the badger that we'd seen two times previously along this trail but he was no where in sight. I also kept a lookout for coyotes. Women at the barn had been talking about seeing at least four different packs at once on the trail.
I didn't think a coyote would take on Twilight, but Twilight didn't know that.
I was pleased that I could remember the trails Margrith and I rode on so long ago. My destination was the rock quarry a large pale scar in the rolling saffron hills. The ranchers have let their cattle loose, and we could see the round small shapes in the distance, specks of brown and black slowly rolling through the shimmering long stems of grass.
Up-down-up-down, breathing, breathing, up-down, clip-clop-clip-clop. Frantic rhythm, but a rhythm never the less kept us moving over the red dust road. The flash of metal caught my eye, an old Chevy truck white and blue moved over the plains. I didn't want to be seen, but it was impossible not to, on the open golden plain Twilight would appear like a looming shadow magnificent and eye catching.
We left the trail and proceeded cross country through the thick tangled cheat grass, at a rolling walk. Twilight's head bobbing with ever step her ears and eyes swiveling attentively. The truck moved away, never slowing but I could feel eyes on me.
I kept waiting for some old ranch had to climb out with a shot gun and threaten us, but the truck shuffled back towards a ranch house. I wished we could go back to a time without cars, who ever was in that truck would of approached me on horseback. Neither of us would have been hidden from view, instead I was out in the open and the driver was behind the safety of a glass windshield, four wheel drive and air conditioning.
The cows watched us approach, some swaying as they climbed up from laying on the ground to look at us. Twilight became nervous, and I dismounted and led her around them. My stiff boots felt unsteady on the hard ground, but we continued onwards.
We reached a black asphalt road, one that Twilight, Rosie, Margrith, and I had ridden on summers before, our horse's shoes clanging against the hard surface and crowds of sunflowers bowing and flirting with the breeze on either side.
Now its edges don't hold pockets of flowers but abstract rusty pieces of metal, glass bottles, wrinkled wrappers, and pounds of grey mundane gravel.
We reached the quarry and I swung back into the saddle.
