Indy wasn’t at Mandrodage Meadows when we moved there. As soon as the barn, corrals, and stables were built, we had cows and pigs, chickens and turkeys. The horses didn’t arrive until much later.
It was the day after Christmas the year I turned eight. I can still remember the animal trailers coming up the road and how our usual distrust of Outsider vehicles was absent for once. All of us kids were waiting at the front gate. It seemed barely capable of holding us we were so excited. We were downright bouncy.
You can’t exactly ride a pig or a cow, at least you’re not supposed to. But a horse … a horse can take you just about anywhere you want to go. They’re special. Different.
I’d drawn horses for years by then, always secretly hoping that somehow the adults would decide to let us have them. I had dozens of sketches of Arabians, mustangs, and palominos papering my bedroom walls. In my dreams I was always riding, hair whipping in the wind, arms flung open wide.
The others were excited too, but I knew that Pioneer had agreed to purchase the horses because of me. He’d whispered it in my ear Christmas morning just after I opened a book on how to sketch them. I knew about them before he made the announcement to the rest of the Community. It was the best present I’d ever received, probably will ever receive.
Once they were unloaded and led to the barn, the other kids scattered to play in the snow, but I lingered by the horse stalls. Indy caught my attention right away. He was the smallest and his bottom lip constantly hung open just a little. He seemed aware of it and would suck it in toward his teeth, but inevitably it would flop back out again like some middle-aged guy’s oversized belly, all loose and lazy. It was comical, as if he was constantly gaping at something. I couldn’t look at him and not smile.
I spent all of my free time for weeks beside Indy’s stall. I’d feed him carrots or apples. The other kids were over their initial excitement by then, especially once they’d spent a day or two mucking out the stalls, but I would have brought my pillow down and slept alongside Indy if I could have. He felt like family from the start.
“Happy, Little Owl?” Pioneer asked after the first week.
“Yes, thank you.” I smiled at him.
“You know I love you, right?”
I nodded.
“No one will ever take care of you better than me, will they?”
Pioneer watched as I painted Indy—literally painted him. I had spread out my paint pots along the side of the stall and made blue flowers on Indy’s flanks. I was just beginning a garland of ivy around his neck. Indy was happily munching on the sugar cubes I’d brought him, choosing to tolerate my decorations in return. He held his head high and peered over the stall at the other horses as if to let them know that he was special.
Pioneer came inside the stall and picked up some purple paint. He ran a line of it down Indy’s nose. “I love you like you were my own daughter, Little Owl. I love you like you love this horse, you know that? All of you are my family. My children. There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for you, no lengths I wouldn’t go to to keep us together. When something speaks to your heart like this here horse does to yours, I take great pleasure in giving it to you. And all I ask in return is that you put your trust in me. Can you do that?”
I nodded and threw my arms around his waist. I wanted to tell him how much Indy meant to me, how much more he himself meant to me because he’d given me Indy, but I couldn’t think of the right words. I just knew that he’d managed to give me my whole world, everything that mattered. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing he could ask of me that I wouldn’t give him wholeheartedly.