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            Manuel Montega's tanned fingers were as cracked and chapped as the strips of rawhide he steadily wove to form the bozal.  The taut strands creaked in futile protest as they were pulled with a confident tug over his callused fingers.   With every twisted slap of leather, his mind drifted off planning the work that would need to be done before the first rays of sun lit up the russet edges of the Mescalero Escarpment.   To the vaquero, there was contentment in his solitude and sometimes Manuel felt he did his best thinking while he wove.  A muted silence clung to the air, hovering around him like unseen specter and it was only far off in the moonlit distance that his ears could detect sporadic locust chirps and occasional coyote adagios as they punctured the desert night, echoing off the canyon walls.  As he worked inside the heavy plastered walls of the adobe, all was quiet. 
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         My horse, Sydney, and I had just finished a great round in the amateur division when we were accosted by Darby Kirst, who was in the middle of one of her fits. I recognized her immediately, but I was sure she didn’t know who I was.
         She was wearing one of her expensive, top-quality riding outfits, trying to look like an experienced, knowledgeable horse person.
         “Chuck, I swear that is my horse,” she said to her companion, and then pointed at me. “You, get off my horse. Bring Syndicate to me.”
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         I first met J. D. Guthrie a dozen years ago when he stopped by my place a week after he’d settled in at the neighboring ranch. He hauled his tall, wiry frame out of a battered Ford pickup and ambled into my stable, thumbs hooked in his pockets, Stetson dipped to his brow. First thing I noticed was the reluctant set of his jaw as though he’d rather be elsewhere.
         He scuffed a boot across the hay spread over the floor. “Wife said I needed to act neighborly and introduce myself,” he said. “So, here I am.” He stuck out a callused hand. “Name’s J. D. Guthrie. And you are . . .?”
         I chuckled and shook his hand. “Tom Coughlin. Good to meet you.”
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      I started having flying dreams about my neighbor’s white mare, Belladonna, when I was a girl. She infused my dreams like ether, and her whinny was electric. I drew and painted pictures of her, mysteriously bonding us beyond the seen world. I had never ridden her, nor did anyone else. Bella was a rescued horse, and she had run wild at one time.
      I loved to stroke Bella’s muzzle, feeling her warm breath. She ate our red roses, growing along our adjoining chain link fence. I fed her peaches and apples fresh from our trees. Out in her corral, I braided her mane and tail and brushed her coat with oil.
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Riding the Moon
by Lisa Vogel

This story was published in its original
form in Threshold's Quarterly (1996)   

            Tessie is surprised when she returns home one day and finds a pipe corral set up in her yard with a rangy looking animal stuck inside.  Her uncle has dumped a horse on her that he can no longer be bothered with.  The horse’s name is Moon.
            Hauling water out to him bucket by bucket, she wonders what the point is.  Letting him wander off would be so much easier.  Moon watches her from the far corners of dull eyes and tries to bite her when she gets within teeth’s reach. 
            And he refuses to eat.  “Die then, Tessie says, and she leaves him to it.  A trail leads up the side of a hill behind her cabin and she follows it up so at least she won’t be there when he falls over.
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