THREE-LEGGED WORKHORSE

Dawn to dusk, now, in the sweet grass.

My neighbor owned a three-legged workhorse. He berated it often, his profanity shaking the crows from the trees. Still, that horse pulled.

My neighbor was a tinkerer; he fabricated a harness and attached a wheel where the right front leg wasn't. A bit of oil would have helped quiet the toil for man and beast, but lubricant is a luxury only city folk would consider or require, so the squeaking stayed put, and that horse pulled still.

I watched the horse plow the never-ending soybean fields from when I was a child to a man. I would sneak into the unheated barn and feed the horse big, juicy apples, oats, and sugar cubes. I robbed our kitchen for them. I think my Mom knew. Sumbitch, Janey, we out of sugar again, my Dad would query, his morning tea not sweet. She never said a word. The light would pierce the rafters of that drafty old barn, and in any light, moon, or sun, that horse was magnificent, asking nothing, getting less, the field his penance for a negligent owner and poor luck at an auction.

I would read to the horse, mainly Hemingway, and stroke his nose. He perked up when I entered his stall, careful not to trip on the long-toothed rake. I could be a little clumsy at times. I told myself he recognized me as I pedaled by the field, even as he labored, head down, mouth foaming in the heat, barbed wire separating us. I rang the small bell on my bike just in case as I rolled by, huffing and puffing. I was there even if I was not, and it would end someday. I would hope that he understood that, that I understood persistence.

I was industrious, had a paper route and a lemonade stand, and did odd jobs a-plenty. There was scratch to be had if you wanted to work and put one foot in front of the other, even if it hurt. So I saved my pennies and dimes and dollars, and I sold my bike, and on my eighteenth birthday, I bought that horse. I left the harness and the wheel in the weeds.

Ain’t going to need it, I said. Anything else was not worth my time saying it. The farmer and I shook hands, and that was a new chapter for everyone, a better book for my new friend.

I chatted all the way home with My Boy; that's what I named him on the way. I did most of the talking that day and after. The horse, I would discover, was tight-lipped, which is why I told him most of my secrets—one I kept for myself. My Boy would do just fine with three good legs for years afterward. I watched him from the kitchen window in our new place. In a silkier field, doing nothing, pulling nothing, retired and tranquil, he would flick flies with his glistening tail. That was it: his labor, his time in the sun.

As days stretched to years, hay bales aligned as dominoes, I moved on from Hemingway to Faulkner and then to Twain, Poe, Lardner, and a splash of Shakespeare. I must have read him Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade a hundred times. My Boy was an excellent listener, chomping carrots and me with my coffee, lightly sugared. On my way to his tidy barn, I would ring the bell from my bike, a keepsake I kept, and he would shake his big head and whinny. I guess he saw me after all in our before days.

The farmer bought a tractor after selling me his horse. But, unlike the horse, the tractor broke down often, new-fangled and finicky. I would add a sugar cube or two from time to time to the gas tank to make sure it acted up. I would always wave as I drove by—or honk my car horn, and the farmer, head down, brow dripping, with his hands on his hips, stared, and I imagined him wishing for a three-legged workhorse and bygone days. I was his sociable antagonist, and my memory was long, and only My Boy and I knew my hands chafed being idle, and per usual, my horse was not talking.

Yesterday begat many tomorrows, so it made me happy, seeing the farmer, his profanity shaking the crows from the trees. My Boy would outlive that farmer. In all our years together, he never asked me how I lost my leg, and I never asked him neither. Kindred spirits do not need to explain they-selves to they-selves.

When can their glory fade?

O, the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade…