My Encounters With a Talking Horse

I am currently reading perhaps the best book you have never heard of.  I normally do not read westerns, but I happened to stumble upon this one when my friend gave it to me.  He knows that I am in the habit of collecting rare, sparsely read books by no name authors.  Books by classic underground authors such as Steele, Blume, Pike and Christie.  You've never heard of them, but if you throw their names around in literary circles in obscure coffee houses, you might get some credibility.  The book that was given to me is a little novella (Italian for novel) called Lonesome Dove.  If you have taken an advanced English Lit class, you would know this book is what is referred to as a Spaghetti Western. 

Reading this book has been like taking a lope (cowboy talk) down memory lane.  You see, back in the summer of aught aught, I too was a cowboy.  I worked as a horse wrangler at a camp in North Carolina.  I learned a lot of things that summer, how to break a horse, how to safely fall from a horse, and how to check a horse for polyps.  One lesson learned, came in really handy just the other night.

Flashback sequence... It was another hot summers eve.  We were all tired from working since sunrise.  We had sick horse named Rosco.  He was physically sick, not sick, like into weird stuff "sick", or really cool "sick".  He was a shaggy horse, I had never before seen one like and haven't seen one since.  He probably stood 5 hands tall.  Rosco was the kind of horse that you could take out for good hard run, or just a stroll.  He was pretty cool like that, I never asked him, but I bet he would have let me ride him bareback. 

Well, like I said before.  One day Rosco got sick.  He was in obvious discomfort and was not himself on the daily rides.  Normally he would point out oddities on the trail, or make passing comments about weather patterns, but he had become unusually quiet.  The vet came and checked him out and put him on a strict anti biotic regimen.  Well, Rosco hated to take pills.  It would have been one thing if they were normal pills, but these were horse pills.  The vet could understand this, because it is seldom that any horse can stomach a horse pill.  So he gave Ole Roscoe injections to take every night and being that horses have hooves they could not possibly give themselves injections, the task was left to us.

Now if you have ever had to take medicine, or been a heroin junky, you know that it is imperative that you do not have any air bubbles in the syringe when you make the injection.  I won't get too bogged down on the medical reasons for this, but what happens is when air gets into your blood stream it causes a chemical reaction where your blood actually freezes.  Once it starts, it can't be stopped.  That my friend is what a pulmonary embolism is.  Any who, I had to shoot up Rosco.  Well, Rosco didn't like needles, almost as much as he didn't like horse pills.  So every night, we went through a whole song and dance.  I had to say out loud everything that I was doing and than check everything twice.  After we went through the checklist a second time, I would have to hold the syringe up to his eye so he could look at it himself. 

However on the last night of his treatment something went horribly wrong.  I filled up his syringe with 45cc's like I always did.  We went through the check list twice, I showed him the syringe and than gave him a surprise sugar cube as a present for making it through the treatment.  We had a good laugh, and I did what I always did to help distract him before I stabbed him with the needle, I asked him to describe his favorite Philly.  He started to talk about Jim Thome's batting stance and didn't even stop once the needle pierced. 

And than it happened.  During the injection, the needle came apart from the syringe.  There was a splash and his medicine was all over both of us.  He looked at me and said very calmly "well JB Ole buddy, I think that is it.  I think this ole bronc has had his last run in the grass.  I want to tell you something, put your ear down low so you can hear me.  I've lived a good life, I've gotten to do a lot of things most horses would never dream of.."  He had in fact.  And than what he did next was amazing.  He got a little quieter and whispered into my ear truths about my future.  At the time, I thought it was the pulmonary embolism that was making him say crazy things, so I just pretended to believe him.  This went on for about fifteen minutes at which point he said now get closer, I was already about 6 inches from his mouth.  Well, I got so close that I could feel his cold breath, and spittle on my ear when he said "this is for killing me" and  he promptly bit my ear. 

 I jumped back with a shocked smile on my face, looked at him for two solid seconds and said "you bit me in the ephing ear". 

He laughed, nodded and said matter of factly "I'm cold", and dropped dead.  If I'm lying, I'm dying, the things that horse said to me on that warm summer's eve have come true to the t.  

Fast forward ten and a half years.  It is time for Misty's monthly injection of vitamin B.  And wouldn't you know I just repeated the Rosco debacle while injecting Misty with Vitamin B.  Misty is certain that I gave her a pulmonary embolism.  So I tell her "you're not going to die." 

She responds as she does when ever I make a factual statement "you don't know that."

And all that I could say was "actually I do" I rubbed my ear, and for a second I could feel Rosco's cold breath and spittle on my ear as he told me 'you will marry a Blu Berry and live happily together into your old age until one day, the two of you will die in each others' arms as you are ironically eaten by a pack of wild dogs that you attempt to bring in your home.