A memoir: Evil Dwells.... part 2: when posted 12/6/2006 11:07:53 PM | 4 kudos what's this?     report abuse tagged: horses, riding, fears, associations

redtigr

Most rides began with us crossing the dirt road in front of my rented farmhouse to head north through an open field of orchard grass and red clover about a half mile across and on a slight incline. I used to canter Goose up this hillock, watching for woodchuck holes and hoping to avoid flushing quail, pheasant, or rabbits – any of which may cause a horse to shy violently. To gain entry to the next pasture, we had to pass through a set of gates set in a “dog-leg” on two sides of a small catchpen, a 16’ x 16’ enclosure for rounding up livestock. The pen was constructed so that cattle moving from one pasture to the next would have to slow down and turn in order to pass through the second gate. During a round-up, this lessoned the chance of stampeding animals entering an open gate on one side and crashing into a closed gate set directly across from the first. Bear with me, these details become important in the events to follow…

When cattle were pastured in either field, it was necessary for me to dismount, open and close one or both of the gates, and remount. If no cattle were present, I would slow from my canter to an easy trot or walk, make the turn, and continue – often at full gallop, across the second pasture. At the top of the hill, hidden in a hedgerow, was a “farmgate” – strands of barbed wire wrapped onto a post that was secured to the next in-ground post by loops of wire slipped over the top and bottom of each. Once I maneuvered through this last gate, (nearly a mile from my house), I would cut across a section of fallow land; a seemingly abandoned field of over a hundred acres. This field was surrounded on all sides by what appeared to be an impermeable wall of green: thick forest, tall hedgerows, dense honeysuckle and wild grapevine. Hidden in this blind were paths to new adventures; old timber roads into the State Park, abandoned farm tracks and mysterious trails leading to familiar roads or open countryside.

Though I could be oblivious to danger when it came to things like snakes or being thrown, I began to experience a vague uneasy feeling when I crossed that fallow field. At first, I put it down to a sense of being vulnerable - a sensation perhaps left over from having ridden during hunting season. (Thinking myself safe in a bright red coat, I had ventured out not considering that I might be accidentally shot until I heard guns going off around me.) No one knew where I was - out in the middle of that barren field, outlined against the horizon – if anything happened, I might lie there forever. But long after hunting season had passed, the uneasiness returned or remained, I’m not sure which. We would be trotting along, quite carefree and looking forward to whatever lay ahead when a pall would descend upon me. I could almost literally feel a heaviness press in around me as the sensation crept along my neck and back, weighing me down as if I were being held by something unseen. I began to think I was being watched.

“The feeling” didn’t happen every time – which is perhaps why I put it down to an overactive imagination; after all, when you’re out in a secluded area all by yourself for a long time, it’s not uncommon to get spooked. And it’s likely a protective instinct to be alert and aware of your surroundings. But it’s one thing to be alert and quite another to be apprehensive. Thinking of the last time I took that particular route still unnerves me – though it was more than twenty years ago. Still, I might have put it all out of my mind had it not been for what happened later, but I’ll get to that.

.... to be continued

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