Three Plastic Fingernails and a Horse

We went out together this afternoon, for some kind of bonding experience, I supposed. But I left as soon as an opening presented itself and just watched the old cowboy until he disappeared in the distance, wondering if we’d ever come to terms with one another.

I thought, at first, how it was his hair that bugged me. It was long and curly, the color and texture of Raphaelite angels my father, now deceased, had shown me at the Art Institute. No one had hair like that in Chicago. He always wore a cowboy hat to cover his bald spot. No one wore cowboy hats in Chicago either. When he lifted it, rarely, not even at the dinner table, you’d see red and grey strands pasted on sweaty pink. Now that’s something you might see in Chicago.

But now, as I think about it, it’s probably the plastic fingernails: three of them in the middle of his right hand. I recall how strange I thought it was when I met him, very strange, that a man, particularly one with hands as gnarly and rough as his from years of working out in these cold mountains, would take the time to keep three long nails filed and ready. “Ready for what?” I wondered. How would it feel to be scratched by plastic? Probably more like being scraped with a plastic spoon. I pictured how he’d rap them on the oak table and drive me to distraction. “Karmmmph ka rumppph ka rummppp. ka rummmph.” I shuddered as I let my thoughts wander. Wonder and wander, that’s what I spend most of my time doing here lately.

Those hands would haul and heave huge bales of hay -- 26 at a time, thrown from the truck to the area under the shed roof by the barn onto palettes. It was good hay, he assured me, half alfalfa, because he was quite particular about what he fed his horse, Raven’s Girl, whom he loved more than anything, including me, I do believe. But in all fairness, I admit it’s remarkable that a man as old as him, nearly sixty, could lift and heave like that. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the guy. So, in fact, he looked smaller than most men to me, even though he stood nearly six feet and I’m a lot shorter than that.

I waited for him now to reappear, gazing out from the picture window in the living room. I knelt on the floor with my hands resting on the pine boards of our window sill. It’s nearing the golden hour so the meadow grasses have taken on a special glow. Armies of pines cast deep shadows protected by these mountains, our mountains, which I see have taken a fresh dusting of snow. The white makes a pretty sparkling play to set off the shadows of autumn and the distant golden shimmers of aspen. It reminds me that winter is coming soon.

He could ski like a demon and showed me how. I had never even imagined mountains as high as these coming from the Midwest, certainly never thought of what it would take to maneuver around these pines and past the snowboarders and Texans. I remembered how I felt when this hotshot cowboy with the funny fingernails wanted to show me something. I didn’t want him to know how scared I was. “Don’t think!” he’d bark at me. “Just go!” Then he’d swish down the moguls making crisp even turns the whole way, leaving me at the top, passing tough teenage showoffs like they were just standing there. “Yeee-ikes, didja see that! Whoaaah cowboy!” He wore the hat, a filthy brown-grey felt one he bought in the Grand Canyon, even on the ski slopes. He said he hiked over 250 miles in the canyon wearing that hat and I don’t doubt it. Now that I’m around, we come to these mountains every weekend in the winter to master the powder, the moguls, the ice and the tree trails. Well the old geezers don’t care about tree trails, but I sure do. I can picture the two of us swishing down the mountain faster than everyone, even the ski patrol, leaving tall rooster tails spraying powder in their amazed faces. Yeehaw!

There is motion in the meadow. I watched them emerge from the edge of our mountain forest. I can already see that he’s got his hands full with that half-Arab Girl acting her part. No one else in the world can ride her. That’s how he got her so cheaply, even though her pedigree is linked to War Admiral and Seabiscuit. My brain buzzed back to the time we first got a look at her, how she stood out among a herd of cow ponies as something way different. She held her tail in that high funny position only Arabs can do, with her head and mane flying fiercely proud as they were now.

“She’s no good with children,” I remembered how the lady’s warning made my heart sink below sea level. Then her husband laughed, “Naw. S’more like she doesn’t much care for anybody.” They blamed it on the fact that she was born the day after 911, so no one paid enough attention to imprint her properly. I couldn’t believe it when the cowboy said she was exactly what he was looking for. Sure enough, once we had her home, no one could even get close enough to get the halter off. It must have been on her for at least a year, and she’d grown quite a bit since then. It was embedded so tightly to her face that it must have hurt. We all felt so sorry for her, but no one could get near her. That was, I believe, the last time the cowboy hired assistance from a trainer to help him. They wrestled with Girl for a while after that, then the cowboy dismissed the trainer and decided he’d have to come to terms with her himself. Broke her himself, too.

Now I watched as the cowboy made her dance. Backstep, backstep, backstep. Side, side, side. Backstep. She is a better dancer than anyone I know, especially me I do believe. I laughed as she threw her head every which way, her white mane flashing in the sun, her kicky pinto legs stepping high and fast -- with so much pure Attitude! I’d get a lecture that’d last over an hour if I ever showed a third of the attitude that Girl oozed every time he mounted her. She learned to dance like that because he wasn’t going to let her run as she loved to, until he had her fully under his control. So he makes her do lateral moves and backsteps, which she hates at first, until she quits snorting and prancing and starts licking her lips.

The lip licking is her signal of acceptance, after which, she often sighs. I imagine she’s done all this already because I can see her bow her sleek head in submission and walk under control after the dance. Now that she’s conceded, he’ll let her go. A quick pulse of the reins and she’s off full gallop, without even going into a trot first. Thundering and lightning, then clear out of sight. Our ten-year-old golden retriever, Millie, is frantically trying to catch up with them, her tail still wagging. It blows me away that this old city dog can keep up so well, even in the 12 mile long hikes where she meanders off trail. I knew they’d wait at the top of the hill for her.

I flopped on the couch and thought about how I still wasn’t sure about how I felt living in these mountains, so isolated from everything I had loved. It was too quick, too remote. The cowboy’s art hung behind me. He drew these meticulously detailed sketches of one of the men he most admired in the world after the guy had been killed in a plane crash. The world mourned him, I supposed. I didn’t. How can anyone get so wrapped up in a singer? The cowboy explained that John was the reason he moved to Colorado, to teach songwriting at a camp the singer had started near Aspen. Lots of influential people, like Buckminster Fuller, came to Windstar to try to change the world. I thought the part about Bucky was cool because I like patterns and structure and he invented the geodesic dome. Changing the world was a bit more than I could handle. Wander and wonder.

My thoughts were broken by a shuffling of footsteps and the thud of boots dropping onto the wooden floor. Without even a word or a nod, the cowboy made his way past me and over to a cabinet he had re-fashioned out of a stenciled Art Deco curio he bought from the Hudson Valley through E-bay. I watched as, ever so gently, he took out his guitar. His tough hard hands caressed his most prized possession. His chiseled leather face transformed as he held it. The face of the guitar bore a likeness of the John Denver memorial with an eagle in pearl relief across struts. When the cowboy strummed, the music came through with a harp-like quality, due to the fact that the guitar was made entirely of koa wood. He sat on an ottoman covered with a maroon and blue Indian pattern fabric and began to play.

My mother came in to join us. She sat next to me on the couch where I laid, so I leaned my head against her warm shoulder. Her hand came across my face to comb my hair with her fingers. I still loved it when she did that for me. I nuzzled in as closely as I could and she continued to stroke my scalp gently. The cowboy’s music filled the room, and I could feel her chest expand, then rise gently.

“Ooooooo uuhh, hmmmmmmmm. Ooooooooooo.” So sweetly, the voice of an angel accompanied the harp. I turned my face to watch the cowboy’s three middle fingers strum, pluck and change chords to the loving voice of my mother.