Dante of the Maury River
Read Dante of the Maury River Online
Authors: Gigi Amateau
CHAPTER SIX
Watching and Wondering
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Time’s A-wasting
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Knowing Place
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Break in the River
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Best Laid Plans
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Seeing Both Sides
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tumble Down
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Face the Truth
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Straight Off the Track
CHAPTER THIRTY
A River and a Mountain
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Forever and a Day
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Shadows and Light
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Good Graces
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Old Friend from Far Away
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Call Me Sweet
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Fear the Night
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Racing the Sun
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Lift and Hurl
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Something New
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A Reckless Trip
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The Ugly Word
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Open, Natural, and Free
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
A Thoroughbred Revolution
“
C
ome on. Breathe.”
Those are the first words I heard in my life. I had been foaled just ahead of spring, in a deep freeze of winter. Arrived on a night when the world outside was encased in ice and the world inside was draped in dark.
Most Thoroughbreds are born in April or May, after the snow has melted and the ground has thawed. But the truth is, birthdays don’t mean all that much to most horses.
Oh, getting here early by a few months can give a racing colt or filly a boost during that first year. Early foals, like me, will likely be bigger, stronger, and faster than the later babies. After that, the actual date of birth matters not a hill of beans nor a field of hay. Nobody remembers, after a while, whether you were born in winter or spring or any other season, because once the New Year rolls in, we Thoroughbreds reset our birthdays to the first day of January.
For the record, I came into the world during February. February fourteenth to be exact. Way early for foaling season, but there’s always an early one.
I can still recall the pause between my first breath and the next. Quite a disruption, for sure. An entire universe of wonder and beauty between breathing in and breathing out. A full-on leave-it-all-on-the-dirt meeting between inspiration and expiration.
“Breathe, breathe,” the man yelled at the moment of my entry into this world. To be honest, I didn’t understand a lick of what he was saying or have any inkling what he meant for me to do.
I could feel his tired skin pressing against mine, and I felt his heavy breath hovering over me.
“Let’s get his heart going,” he said, but I couldn’t figure out to who-all he might be speaking. Everything was dark.
He kneaded my chest, then he jibbed and jabbed at my heart, and that hurt.
Up till then, I had only ever known the warmth and protection of my dam, but now I felt an icy wind through the shed’s thin walls and it chilled me to the bone.
I couldn’t figure out what was happening, but I got this much: something was going wrong.
“Come on,” the man begged again. He crouched low and massaged my chest with his palm. Pounded on me hard. That hurt, too, but I was helpless.
The man spoke directly to me. “Twenty-five years ago I attended a delivery on a night exactly like this one. A colt. Your grandfather, Dante’s Paradiso.”
Marey stirred in the corner, but I was far from her in body and moving on in spirit. She whickered. “Please. Your family needs you. Don’t give up. Breathe. Give me one breath.”
“Breathe” made sense when Marey said it.
I took exactly one, just like Marey asked me to do. Then instead of grabbing for another, I turned around back from where I had come, searching for that sweet, lush limbo where nobody had to tell me what to do because there everything was open and natural and free. And there, I was part of everything.
Though I had a powerful yearning to stay with Marey, I had an even stronger one to leave my body behind. Even before life was fully mine, I longed to go somewhere else.
“Try,” Marey whispered toward me, motionless.
I drifted away not because I didn’t love her but because I felt a stronger pull beckoning.
“You are destined to follow your grandfather. Please, just try, son. Please.”
She nickered softly.
Then, I expired. Let it all go.
I bounced between light and dark, cold and heat. A golden net lit up the barn and wrapped me in its folds. My spirit hovered above the foaling floor, watching the effort to revive my body below. Steam curled up from that new little black colt lying on the cold ground. Groping hands reached out to rub life into me. The man bent over my chest, but not even his sharp breath could pierce the cold pall around my heart.
T
he distant sound of hoofbeats lured me from the cold foaling shed. Along a broad, starlit pathway that stretched out at my feet, Thoroughbreds from my bloodlines across the ages surrounded me. Upon my word and honor, I testify that I knew each one by scent and sound even though we had never met. These ancestors warmed me with their own breaths and led me through land and water and sky.