Horse Goes West

Photo by Avi Theret on Unsplash

Once, in younger times, a horse went west. West was the only way to go– he had heard it all his life from the two-legged creatures with stars on their heels, and he knew it in his bones.

He set out early one morning when the dew was still damp on the clumps of grasses and the dust wasn’t yet able to rise under his hooves.

He set out early, so his mother wouldn’t stop him, and he set out young so he wouldn’t have to feel that hard heavy shell of leather set on his back. Just as he knew he wanted West, he knew he did not want a rider upon him. He was a horse who wanted to steer himself and never have another creature reign him in.

He wasn’t afraid to go alone, because he wasn’t alone, not at first. His shadow stretched long in front of him and led the way. Any time the young horse doubted his path, he only had to look at Shadow leaning, leaping forward. Shadow rippled and skipped over the brush and bushes. Shadow flowed across the rocks and down into valleys, disappearing and merging with the soft, dim pocket of earth before hurdling up over the ridge on the other side. And Horse followed, in good company and at ease.

But as the day wore on, Shadow hesitated. Horse didn’t notice it at first, so free was he, so full of new grasses and cool stream water and light and hope. But then he began to wonder, was Shadow creeping closer? Was Shadow hanging back? Yes, yes, there was no doubt. But why? Horse watched out for snakes, but saw none near. Horse lifted his head high and looked for gopher holes and sticks and stones, but still his feet found safe passage. Yet Shadow grew smaller and smaller, as if afraid, afraid, afraid, of the great, expansive West.

When Horse was nearly tripping over Shadow, who was now all underfoot at the hottest part of the day, he stopped. Horse whinnied and shook his mane, but Shadow still crouched beneath him. Horse said, West, and Shadow came, but Shadow followed, Shadow lagged. Shadow hung back and Horse, with all the looking over his own shoulder, began to wonder if Shadow wanted to go home. If Horse wanted to go home.

Yes, there were the men with the sharp stars, there were the leather and steel– but didn’t they show you where to go? Shadow or not, you knew what was expected of you with a rider on your back. 

The land was mostly flat now, in every direction. The mountains were a blue smudge in the distance. Up ahead was a lone tree, and Horse longed for the shade, so he coaxed Shadow along, and they cropped the grass and found a trickle of water to drink, and then Horse and Shadow lay down to rest and to think. Horse’s ears went East, West, East, West. Shadow lay still, a part of the earth and the tree and the open plain. East, West, East, West. Here in the middle, it all looked the same to Horse. What if West was no different? What if it was only that he would be alone, alone, alone?

Horse thought and worried and felt the breeze on his back and shivered his coat to get the flies off, and, since he had traveled a long, long way already, in time he slept. When he woke, it was dark. There was no moon but the stars were brilliant. They were the same stars as over his field at home, and for a moment he forgot where he was; he wondered if he had really gone anywhere at all, or if he was in the middle of a dream. But in the darkness, he felt Shadow wake. He felt Shadow unfold, shake, as if to toss the stars higher off his hide. Horse had never known Shadow to be this big. Nowhere was there a campfire to shy from, or a whinny from the herd calling him back to sleep. Horse was more awake than he had been before in his young life, and Shadow was large– as large as the Night! 

The dew was forming. Horse could feel it drawing together on the grasses and on each hair of his mane and coat. The night insects hummed and whistled and called, and something like wingbeats struck the air. Horse felt it all! And suddenly he felt how Shadow was West! How Shadow reached to the edge of the world. How Shadow was already there! Horse leapt to his feet; he had to be there, too.

Never had Horse run at night. Never had he galloped with his eyes on the sky instead of on the ground. Never had he been completely engulfed by Shadow. Shadow, who had seemed to shrink so small! What a trick of the light– Shadow was like a mother to him now, like a whole herd, like the whole world.

Horse ran and ran. The cool night air made his mane stand out like a flag behind him. His hooves turned the earth. He ran without tiring and the land moved beneath him. He ran without time passing, beyond time existing, and his heart echoed and thundered with every step. West, West!

When Day returned, Horse was not so young as he had been the day before. He felt the light before he saw it, felt the newness spreading like a blanket, like a wish behind him, across his broad back, beneath his galloping hooves and out, and out, West.

There was Shadow, long, and long, and sure. And there, ahead, always ahead, but nearer and nearer every moment, were purpling mountains, the silver-and-gold-flecked sea, the trees reaching to the last fading stars, and Shadow rippling dusk across it all. Here was Horse, running and running and running. Here, as big as Forever: West, West, West.

Thanks for reading this original folktale.