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.  At the top, she gazes over the empty valley.  Cold winds chill her and nighthawks glide by too close when dusk descends.  “I’m not going back down,” she yells, “until he’s gone.”  Silence responds, and in darkness she begins to cry.  Only then does she see the suggestion of light, off in the distance, and she watches as it grows stronger and begins to take over the sky even before peaking over the horizon.  The full moon.  And when it reaches center sky, the light points Tessie back down the path, directs her straight to the horse.
            But where to begin?  Tessie trailers Moon to a trainer.  He’s not impressed.  “Get that butt ugly dog meat out of my ring,” he tells her.  “The little what ain’t wrong with him ain’t worth the trouble to begin with.”
            It’s true.  His gaits are rough and choppy, his manners foul.  Still she rides him, best she can.  Guides him through the meadows, around the sharp bends.  And she discovers that he will, after all, respond to her commands.
            So Tessie shows him the coyote lair behind the split boulder and the wildflowers blooming by the old well.  She begins to whisper all her secrets to him, knowing he will never divulge them.  Knowing she is safe with the Moon.
            It’s not long before she realizes he can really cover ground, and she starts him on a program, making it up as she goes.  Lots of heavy hill work.  Hell bent fast runs.  Day long meandering crawlers.  Working Moon’s outer edge.  Working her own.  Buys him not the best but the toughest.  Saddle’d have to be run over by a tank or used forever.
            Moon transforms, begins to want it more.  Brushing him down, she feels the muscles growing along his natural born scrawny conformation, giving him a raw look.
            Out of a spin, Moon covers twenty-five miles on the plateau like it was nothing, trotting most of the way, cantering out on the flats.  All out gallop where it can’t be helped.  At every creek bed she stops him for refreshment, but Moon wants to keep going.  She had to fight him to make him head home.
            One night Tessie is awakened by the horse neighing loudly.  Moon is walking stiffly, legs cramping and sore.  She gets out the liniment and massages.  Out there in the cold two hours, deep on the other side of midnight.  When he feels better he nuzzles her gently, giving her permission to return to bed.  She dreams solely of the Moon.
            After that he wakes her every night.  There is nothing she won’t do for that horse.
            Finally he demands to be taken out at night and, though there are dark clouds making the path difficult to see, Tessie senses the horse’s confidence.  She spurs him into a fast trot.  The wind gusts and Moon cuts through.  Miles pass in the space of seconds and then in nothing at all.
            Once in town, she thinks of slowing him down.  But, late like it is, with only the streetlights on, Moon insists on cantering through.  The town, set up against a hillside, funnels into a long tunnel connecting to the world at large.  Tessie turns him that way.
            A few fat raindrops begin to fall, splotching along the saddle, moistening the ground below.  They’re almost to the tunnel when a bolt of lightning breaks sky, trying to lasso Moon’s back leg, but he jumps, clearing the danger.
            Once inside the tunnel the thunder roars, and out go the tunnel lights.  Tessie’s sight disappears, and thus she misses seeing the horse’s ears pointing straight forward, straining for direction.  Enthralled with the sound of Moon’s shoes striking the pavement in the three beat pattern and echoing against the tunnel walls, she also misses the sound from his belly as his motor changes gear.
            But she can feel.  She feels Moon’s muscles working through the saddle into the muscles of her own legs.  She feels him as a young child playing, a young colt prancing, a hungry woman eating, a hungry stallion breeding, all at once.
            Moon breaks gait, thrusting into a full-bore gallop.  Down the tunnel they go.  They could be flying.  And just when Tessie thinks the tunnel will never release them, she feels a touch of cool fresh breeze on her forehead.  She smells the luxuriance of wet mushrooming soil.  Her lungs fill with the promise of the world before her, and she whoops in delight. They ascend as they leave the tunnel, rising above the roadway, and into the blossoming night.
            Steeply they climb, upwards and still higher, his legs kicking wildly and her heart steady and sure.  And fading from the back of Tessie’s mind is the question of location.  Disappearing before she can even consider it is her knowledge of the terrain.  There’s no mountain here.  No hill or bridge.  But the cool night air blows her thoughts away even before they can make themselves known.
            The clouds, having partially cleared, expose open sections of Milky Way.  There are huge bunches of stars, bright and glistening, hanging deep down and low.  And getting closer.  Tessie holds out her hand and reaches.  A star tip prickles her fingertip, drawing droplets of blood.
            Tessie rides the Moon.  She doesn’t know where she is.  Or she knows and isn’t telling.  Riding in time that doesn’t happen, in places that can’t be seen, she and the horse are free. 

The End.

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