The morning after Thanksgiving, I was at the horse rescue dragging 200 feet of water hose to one of the troughs. A day of hard rain on the holiday, followed by a night of temperatures in the twenties, had frozen the heavy-duty hose as stiff as a cable.
I reached the fence to the pasture where fifteen horses stood eating hay. I ran the hose through the fence and into the trough, then walked over to the black metal gate that keeps the horses in the pasture.
I saw him sixty yards away, eating hay. “B,” I yelled across the wet, muddy field. “Come here, B.”
My Appaloosa lifted his head and started at me, his ears up tall and straight as a German Shepherd’s. Then he lowered his nose back into the hay on the ground. He heard me, but the hay must have tasted sweet. I could wait.
“Ok, B,” I said to myself. “Now we’ll do it my way.”
I looked straight up into the clear blue sky, then lowered my eyes, closing them slightly. I brought my arms straight down and faced the palms flat toward him. Breathing in once, I gathered energy from the sun and brought it in. Then I began, never saying a word aloud.
“B, it’s Dad. I’m here at the gate. I have cut up apples for you. I want you to be with me. Come now, and I’ll open the gate.”
Then I sent two waves of blue energy from my hands across the open field, cross-crossing each other, dancing, playing along the way. The waves of energy wrapped around his chest and shoulders and went straight into his heart, connecting us both. “I’m here now, B,” I said silently.
I looked up. He didn’t move. Must not be working this time, I thought to myself. I moved over to the water trough to make sure the hose would stay in it before I walked back to the barn. As I turned to leave I saw him twenty yards away and closing.
“B,” I yelled to him, “can’t you walk any faster than that!” My heart filled with joy. I opened the gate and he walked through, shoving his nose straight into my chest. He wanted those apples.
I spent most of the morning hauling hoses across fields, and he followed me everywhere. Wanting his apples, of course. And me just wanting to be with him.
When I finished my chores we walked together on the gravel road that runs through the property. He stayed with me, never leaving.
No one taught me how to call him this way. We both must have remembered it from before, when we were together in Nevada a long, long time ago.
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