Hope Rising (6 page)

Now, two weeks later, tears blurred my own vision as I looked down at the gift I now held. The mangled helmet was shattered beyond recognition. The Styrofoam meant to protect the front of the head was completely broken away. I could easily see the impact of where Maci’s small head had recoiled and smashed out the back of the helmet. Some of the pieces were deeply embedded with rocks and cinders and smeared with blood. Trying to visualize the sheer force it would take to create this kind of damage,
while cradling a child’s head, made me want to vomit. I thanked the Lord again for the precious gift of the child who stood before me.

Sadly, though, I understood that physical trauma was not all that Maci had suffered. She had not only fractured her face and skull; her confidence and courage were severely damaged as well. In place of the barrel-racing fiend that I once knew, my little elfin was now afraid even to touch a rope that was connected to a horse.

Standing in my kitchen, I gently placed the shattered remains of her helmet aside and looked down past her jagged healing wounds to see her smile. “I have someone I would like you to meet,” I said.

A week earlier we’d had a call from the distraught owners of two draft horses that had been shipped to a “very respected trainer” to be started under saddle. Five months later, on a cold January day, the horses—one six years old, the other two—had finally been returned to their new owners.

Joyful anticipation quickly vanished. The owners watched in disbelief as their once gentle giants backed out of the trailer into the newly fallen snow. What stood quaking before them now were two giant, young horses that had been beaten so badly that they could scarcely be touched.

And so the call came to us. “If you can fix them, you can have them.”

“How could this happen?” I muttered under my breath as I went to look at the horses for the first time. I quietly entered their round pen and carefully approached Boonie, the older and larger of the two. I could see panic rising in his eyes as I gently stretched out the back of my
hand. “Hey, big boy,” I softly said. He shut his eyes and flung his head away from me, and his face twisted in a hard grimace as a visible shudder rolled over his body. Slowly I touched his shoulder with only the tip of my middle finger and witnessed a shock of pure terror. This giant of a horse collapsed in the hind end and literally sat down. In the face of perceived death, this was his docile response. His immense body shook as if it were in the grasp of a violent earthquake. His head jerked farther away from me, his eyes blinking rapidly before again closing tightly. It was painfully clear that he was expecting a rain of blows to his face. He thought I was going to kill him.

We moved the traumatized horses to our ranch the next day.

After a week of work, I was able to stand before my new giants and raise my hand over my head and gently return it to their heads, necks, and bodies without a significant reaction. Although still extremely wary, they were trying to trust again.

I took Maci’s tiny hand in mine and shared with her the background of my new giants as we made our way down the snowy hill to our quarantine paddock for newly arrived horses.

The big geldings quietly turned to face us. They stood side by side, like pillars, watching and measuring our every movement. While I closed the gate, Maci took a few steps away from my side toward the gigantic horses. I stood fast. Casually she took another step. I watched as for the first time Boonie, who was the more damaged of the two horses, did not back up. Rather than retreating to a safe distance, he instead arched his massive neck to get a better look at my little friend. She was the first person,
other than myself, that he had not moved away from. It was a huge breakthrough!

Other children had now arrived and were anxious to see our newest members of the herd. I put the giant boys out into the arena so that all could marvel at how the ground rumbled when they galloped by. They were completely magnificent! Bucking, biting, and playing, they cantered lap after jubilant lap until, exhausted, they folded their legs under them and toppled into the freshly turned sand for a lavish roll. Then lurching to their feet again, the behemoths shook mightily, throwing off clouds of sand from their steaming bodies. Both breathed heavy, contented sighs. Now they were ready to be returned to their paddock.

The children began jumping all around me in anticipation of helping put the big boys away. One child reached up and took my hand. I looked down to see Maci’s scared little face peering up into mine. “Can I help?” she asked, summoning up more courage than I might ever know.

“Sure!” I said, my glib answer belying how important this moment was.

What a sight we must have been. My left hand held the end of the lead rope, my right hand firmly held Maci’s left hand, and out of her right hand strung what seemed like half a mile of rope that finally led our quiet giant back to his corral.

I opened the gate and, to my surprise, Maci guided him in without me! Without looking back, she led him to the center of the corral and began reaching up to unfasten his halter. A caution rose in my throat but couldn’t find enough breath to escape. My heart stopped. This violently abused horse seemed to trust her.

He was too big; she was too small. In silence she tried over and over to reach the buckle on the halter. I watched as slowly, with the gentle magnificence of a setting sun, Boonie bent his crested neck toward the earth, lowering his massive head into her tiny arms.

Unaware of the significance of what had just transpired, Maci pulled off his halter and began marching toward me, obviously proud that she had done it by herself. Quietly, the gentle giant rotated around and began to follow the little waif! A wave of words jammed up in my throat. It took a moment before my tangled tongue broke loose. “Maci, stop!” I blurted. “Boonie is following you!”

She froze as his enormous head emerged beside hers. With the gentleness of a butterfly, his huge nostrils began sniffing her face and forehead. Tenderly he explored her wounds—every stitch and scrape. He knew. Of all the children who had been in this corral, this was the only one he didn’t shrink away from. This was the child he chose to trust. He seemed to understand that this child had suffered in the same ways that he had.

Without moving, her eyes rolled straight upward to look at him. She stood stiff as a wooden soldier. I could see she was afraid. His massive head was as big as her whole body. Then, seemingly satisfied, he allowed his lips to rest gently on her shoulder. Overwhelmed, I stood in silence with my hand over my mouth. Finally, my throat relaxed enough for me to speak.

“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s loving you. You are the first person that he has chosen to trust. Out of everyone who has come to visit him, you’re the one he has chosen. He must think that you’re very special.”

“Really?!” Her eyes widened.

“You’re the chosen one,” I said, my voice breaking.

In a single quiet motion, Maci turned around and slid her arms up under Boonie’s double-sided mane. It was a childlike effort to hug his towering neck. In response, he bowed his head around her in an equine embrace. All that remained visible of her were her slender legs, tucked between his. My eyes dropped to see his enormous, plated feet positioned like guardians around her small, worn boots—a giant, broken horse protecting a tiny, broken child.

Even though the late afternoon light of winter had begun to fade, the child and horse shimmered like the first brilliant rays of a sunrise after a long, long storm. Somehow amid their own raging tempests, they had found each other. The impact of their embrace chiseled a permanent imprint on my heart. Tears slid down my face and silently disappeared into my fleece collar.

Maci, after contorting into a near backbend, moved her head around Boonie’s neck to look at me. Her elfin face was partially concealed by the deep winter coat of his neck. She was still hugging him tightly when she asked, thoughtfully, “Do you think that I could be the one to help him get better?” I managed a nod and a smile. She contemplated that for a while before asking with the sheepishness of a nine-year-old, “When I come to the ranch, do you think that I could pretend he is my own horse?”

“I think,” I said softly, “that he has already chosen you to be his special girl. I think he would like nothing better than to believe that he is your chosen boy.”

Through the ebbing violet light, two broken hearts combined to form a healing flame. They seemed to warm
each other from the inside out. They fit together like the mirrored halves of a bridge with their paralleled fear, pain, and hope—a horse nearly destroyed by a human, a little human nearly destroyed by a horse. No one could have understood them better than they understood each other. Each one became to the other, the chosen one.

Unchained
 

L
OST IN THEIR
beauty, I gazed upon jagged white peaks holding up a lapis-colored sky. The Cascade mountains always made me feel stronger for simply having looked at them. Drawing a deep breath, the sweet sage fragrance of the high desert filled my senses.

My attention was jolted into the coming day by sounds of the school bus turning the corner into our long driveway and grinding its way up the hill toward the ranch. The bus exhaled a seeming sigh of relief as the driver pulled on the emergency brake and the children bounded happily off the bus. I watched their faces intently, looking for the telltale signs of a needy spirit. Excited chatter rose all around as the kids began to take in the ranch. Before welcoming the group, I quickly scanned the bus to make sure it was empty. Surprisingly, it wasn’t.

Two boys were hanging in the very back, still seated, lazily pushing each other in a you-go-first manner. “Oh,
that’s
Chad and Mason,” a young informant said with rolling eyes.

Slowly they sauntered down the bus steps, taking their time, perfectly aware that I was waiting just for them. When they finally emerged, I was saddened by what I saw. Chad waited for Mason to step down and shoulder beside
him.
For courage?
I wondered. Side by side, their posture screamed defiance as they crossed their arms over their small chests in a unified display of power.

Slouching as if there weren’t a bone in their bodies, they sized me up with a meant-to-be-heard snicker. Both were dressed head to toe in baggy, black clothes. Dog chains hung from their necks and wrists. Chad had colored his fingernails with what looked like black permanent marker. Mason’s hair showed the evidence of a self-inflicted haircut and black dye job—various lengths and shades of brown into black hung straight down his face, purposefully covering his eyes like symbolic bars between him and the world.

All the young teenagers were participants in an incentive program, run by a special group committed to helping kids who are failing in school—and life. These were kids who, without intervention, would not make it. This was the group that life would not wait long enough to understand. Without help they would be left behind.

For the most part they were a happy bunch, greeting me with high fives and silly handshakes as they spread out across the ranch’s common area—all except Chad and Mason. They jutted out their sharp chins at me in a silent voice that shouted, “You can’t control me!” The effect was diminished by the newly sprouted peach fuzz on their smooth young skin, but the message to the world was clear. “I don’t need you or anyone else! Get out of my way!”

But I saw something different. My heart sank as I looked at the two hopelessly insecure boys. They were so afraid of being rejected again that they pushed everyone away first. If they could reject everyone, no one could
reject them … ever again. The costumes, the postures, their attitudes all screamed it. Like a vicious dog that secretly wags its tail, they snarled, “Stay AWAY! Leave me ALONE!” But between the lines a good listener might hear their nearly inaudible whimpers, “Please, please, I don’t want to be hurt anymore.”

Together the boys mocked me with disparaging looks and impatient sighs. Mason relaxed his arms only to shove his hands defiantly into his baggy pockets, as if to say, “You can’t make me!” Then, for the first time, he leveled his eyes on mine and taunted, “Horses are so GAY!”

It was a direct challenge of my authority. He might as well have pushed my chest and said, “What’re ya gonna do about that, lady?!”
He’s checking his boundaries
, I thought.
He wants me to push back. He’s testing his level of power against mine to find out who the boss will be
.

Lord, I need your help now!
I prayed. Wisdom is something I rarely possess. I’m sure that by now, the good Lord is used to my SOS prayers. This emergency flare went straight to heaven.

Two weeks earlier a new mare had been brought to the ranch. At twenty-three years old, she had still been in a so-called breeding program, but her low body weight, and the even lower standard of care she’d received, made carrying a foal to term impossible.

In the darkness of a cold, quiet morning her baby was lost. No one knew and no one cared. She was left to grieve alone for her stillborn infant, with nothing to comfort her but a blanket of stars overhead. The grief of her loss was overwhelming, but made incomprehensibly worse by the fact that she was left to step over her tiny lifeless foal’s body for nearly two months before the stench of it finally
drove someone to drag it away.