Horses & The Witches' Cat (For Betsy)

What is it they call the witch’s cat? Her “Familiar”?

Well, my familiar is not a cat, but a horse. A mischievous, one eyed, hell bitch that I adore more than any horse I have ever known… Which is saying a lot since I’ve been horse crazy all my life.

Like so many little girls my love affair with horses began shortly after… well… birth probably.

My mom tells a story of holding me up to a fence, when just a toddler, to pet a horse that I saw from the car and insisted being taken to (I was bossy even back then.) The horse bit me taking a small chunk out of my arm. Mom was afraid it would put me off horses forever. No such luck. Can’t even remember it myself.
 

Every sentence I wrote in English class, even as a senior in high school, was about a horse. Seriously.

 I was officially horse crazy.

My mom was also quite the cowgirl in my youth, showing horses for other people. She was even kicked out of a horse show once when they found out the horse she was showing was stallion. See women weren’t allowed to show stallions everywhere back then, but she did. My mama ran with the big dogs, or ah, big horses, even back then.

Mom on stallion Chan's Champ, aka "Calhoun".

 To all the feminists, who find my continued search for "true love" a disappointing affront on feminism, know that I WAS raised right....

Needless to say, I rode every chance I got until I graduated from high school, and moved to the south to go to Bible school. I know, the Bible school part is shocking to those who know me now. How did I turn out so…well.. like me? Topic for another post..

Anyway, even down south I found people that needed someone to ride their horses for them, so I still got to ride.

Then I moved to Alaska and ended up without a horse for the next 10 years.

When I moved back to the Prairie and married The Ex, we lived on his family’s large, remote, ranch with 1000 acres of farmland, and 300 head of cows. I finally got another horse… Briga…Little did I know this horse would become not only the best horse I ever had, but a reflection of my very spirit…

Briga

Okay, skipping ahead about 7 years, I was pregnant with my second child, a girl. My OB had told me the day before that the baby was head down but that my cervix was nowhere near favorable and that she’d probably have to induce me the following week. It wasn’t surprising since my first child had been way too comfy, and might not have come out at all without induction almost 2 years before.

On this day I woke feeling kind of “fluish” and had begun to have a pain in the lower part of my abdomen. For the previous 2 weeks I’d been having a severe pain on the top part of my belly, under my right rib cage, accompanied by a hard knot that felt like someone was trying to rip the muscle from the bone. This new pain was in a totally different place and not unbearable; I figured it was just the muscles tuning up for labor.

I was home alone with my son since his dad was working in another state. He’d decided to take off since it seemed that I wasn’t going to be “doing anything” for a week. My mom was also getting ready to leave town to visit her boyfriend the next day, but luckily hadn’t left yet.

Tanner, and I went outside so he could ride his Big Wheel. As we were heading toward the creek my saddle horse Briga saw us and came over to see if we were doing anything that might get her some grain.

When I got Briga she was almost 2 yrs old. She’d been born up in the mountains, and hadn’t been handled a day in her life before coming to live with me over at the farm.

It took time and effort but we developed a trust for one another. In an unfortunate twist of fate, before she was old enough to be broke, she went blind in her left eye. A fact that makes her, to this day, edgy and a little wild.

The men on the farm said I should take her to the killers and get another horse that wasn’t “a cripple.” Of course, I didn’t listen….. I’m sure this part does NOT surprise anyone who knows me…

You see, I believe that neither true beauty, or worth, is determined by the exterior of either man or beast, but instead, by their heart. I was in love with Briga’s heart, so she stayed. I would later be vindicated when our horse trainer informed me that if it weren’t for her blind eye he’d be hounding me to sell her to him. He said she was one of the eagerest, hardest working horses he’d ever ridden.

I tell you all this so you will understand why Briga's behavior on that day with Tanner was so strange.

Briga spent an hour following Tanner and I around, which was unheard of. She LET me pet her, and didn't even spook when Tanner was backing into her front feet with his bike. Notable since she has no use for children or their pesky toys. Finally I chased her off.

All this time I was having the “new” pains. I had NO clue they were contractions because I’d never had natural labor before.

As I became more physically uncomfortable, I told Tanner we had to start heading back to the house. I went about 30 feet ahead and sat on a pile of lumber while he stopped to play on one of his dad’s trailers.

Briga came back. First she came and stood over me, and then she went to him. At one point she even put her mouth on the handle bar of his trike. This is so NOT a horse that voluntarily has anything to do with children, yet she sniffed his hair, his jeans. Up to that point he had ignored her, but she finally made him uncomfortable enough that every time she came his way he would jump on his little plastic bike as if for protection.

I finally went and got him by the hand, and started toward the house. Briga came along too, sometimes walking in front of us, and stopping, so we would have to go around her to continue walking.

When we got to the house I went in and called my mom. I told her I thought I was loosing my mind, or else that Briga had lost hers.

While I was in the house Briga almost came up the steps onto the deck whinnying. Mom assured me that she was “just a pet” and was just being friendly.

So, I went back out. She continued walking around Tanner, then me, then she would go and walk around our van pressing her nose on all the windows. She repeated this pattern over and over until I finally couldn’t stand it and made Tanner go in the house.

Once inside, and after having several more “pains,” I had to admit that of all the horses on the place Briga is the least likely to be called a pet. Something was up with me and she knew it. What an idiot I was.. I was in labor and my horse knew it before I did.

Baby Tehya came that night by C-section because she was breech. Apparently she had completely flipped since the day before.

I found out later that the ripping pain I’d felt for the previous 2 weeks had been her head pushing up against my ribcage. Like she was trying to reach up and grab me by the chin and say “mom, I talking to you” the way she so loves to do today.

Briga came and checked me out after I got home from the hospital, then went on her merry way. She has never shown any interest in me, or anyone else, since…Unless, of course, they have something for her to eat.

This summer, more than 6 years later, she let kids ride her a bit without scaring the pee-waddens out of them. At 14 she may be finally starting to mellow a bit… but just a bit.

She is still the first horse on the place that will get into trouble. If ANYONE is going to jump the cattle guard, crawl through the barbed wire fence, or find an opening where there is none, it will be her. She’s pure trouble… just like her owner… the reflection of my spirit… my “familiar”… Oh, I love her so.

As always, thank you for taking the time to pull this note off a tumbleweed. If you feel like sending one back telling me of your animal angels I’d love to hear them.

Here’s wishing you many angelic friends… whether they be human or covered in fur.

Prairie Girl and her “Familiar”