After my porridge I take my coffee out onto the veranda, leaving Sal to tend to the dishes and uneaten toast. It is a still, bleak day. There is a calm that suggests a storm but my arthritis would usually have flared by now if that was the case. Arthritis and bad weather are the calling cards of the mining business. The West has a reputation to keep and short of the possibility of a flooded shaft you can’t shut down the operation every time there’s a sputter of rain. I can also take comfort in my arthritis; it is constant evidence of and testament to the punishing work of a lifetime.
I take a few sips of the strong black coffee, another reminder of the camps. I gaze over the surrounding land, ornamental gardens in the foreground extending towards my private, personal golf course. Eighteen holes.
I hate that game.
Beyond the course is the - Wait. No, it couldn’t be. I squint into the distance, but no, there’s nothing there. For a moment, a cruel trick by a degenerating brain, I could have sworn my old horse, Hector, trotted over the crest of that hill.
I look down into my coffee and shake my head, laughing softly out loud to myself.
I place myself on one of the cast iron chairs that sit along the veranda like God’s own waiting room and further sip my sharp, smoky beverage. Pete appears from within the house and, despite my futile protestations, lays a tartan blanket over me and sets down the newspapers on the table by my side. I thumb through these with little interest in the tapestry of corruption and fiscal stumbling that they weave before me. More an exercise in keeping the faculties alert than a lust for current affairs, as we are hearing ‘the news’ more and more referred to, as if we should be thankful they aren’t still flogging the corpse of things past.
Despite the bite of the weather that prevents my reaching a state of comfort I drift in and out of consciousness, battling with my own dreams and the stories from the newspapers, weaving together unlikely scenarios involving golfing with the President in the wilder parts of California. This state of being persists and I battle internally also between the shame of sleeping pre-noon and the stubbornness of not wanting to retreat indoors.
I am awake to the abrupt clatter of china hitting the slate surface of the veranda; a broken handle. I lean forwards to pick it up again, newspapers slide off of my lap, but then my eye is caught in the distance… the horse again. I squint towards the hill, my eyes have held up well, and there is the unmistakable figure of a horse mulling around up there.
Surely it’s just a runaway from a neighbouring farm? But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like Hector. I toss aside the blanket and rise to my feet, walking to edge of the platform again; the horse seems almost to stare at me from the hill. I walk along to the steps that lead down into the ornamental garden and I come through the pristine hedges to the lawns, the horse still a couple of hundred yards away, I trek over to it through the moist grass and cautiously make my approach.
I’ve handled horses for as long as I can remember but this one has to be the calmest, confident even, animal I have ever encountered. I move closer towards it and stroke its muzzle gently to avoid spooking it–him, actually.
Uncanny: the same uneven diamond between the eyes as Hector. I softly whisper that name close to his ear whilst stroking the underside of his muzzle. Now I’ve never believed that horses are like dogs and have the capacity to recognise the sounds of names but I’d struggle to say that those huge, glassy eyes didn’t flicker with understanding just then. Wishful thinking of an old fool.
As I pat him more firmly, reassuringly, to cement our trust, the storm I had sensed earlier breaks with an alarming, for both of us, almost tangible flash accompanied scant seconds later with a chorus of thunder that shakes me to my core. Hector II is clearly more substantially affected as before I can offer an ‘Easy boy’ he bucks and tosses me clean off of my feet with an immensely strong limb.
As I am knocked back through the air, during these seconds that seem stretched to minutes, I am first aware of the lack of ground beneath my feet; secondly aware of the sharp dull pain that now pierces through my upper body, perhaps even head; thirdly aware that gravity is working its magic to bring me back down and, finally, the heavy thump when it does which precipitates a further blow, this time to the back of my head, and a wholly unwelcome landing on my spine.
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