Inspired by Untamed by Johne Richardson
Kathi Guler
Solitude
As darkness falls, I listen for the wild horses. The same every night. The late afternoon light has heated the house. I lie here, waiting for it to cool. No stir in the air. The fields have quieted: birds gone to roost, pronghorn resting. Only crickets skritching and the occasional coyote howl. I am no rancher. Just an old woman who needs the solace and solitude of wideopen spaces. A simple house seated on summer’s green and gold rolling rangeland of the Divide’s Great Basin. A sky sometimes a blue that’s bluer than bluebirds, other times a ferocious thunderhead with dark grey skirts full of rain and spikes of lightning. All the creatures who belong here. This makes me happy. Drifting, my mind latches onto my memories of the horses. Hundreds, roaming free, unfettered. The land needs them as much as they need the land. Inseparable. As it should be. Over the years one paint mare often wandered to me when she saw me. A few other horses would trail after her, curious but staying back, letting her greet me with a soft whicker, her deep brown eyes wary but kind. Like a mother. Never knew my mother—died when I was a young child. Only a single grey-toned photograph left behind, cracked and faded, a stiff figure in a frumpy dress. The memories flow, dreamlike. I see the day when one of those fierce thunderstorms comes, blowing up before I make it home. I try to run but can’t see through the heavy rain. Slide 16 | EKPHRASIS 2022
on the grass. Fall in sluicing mud. Trapped in wild brambles. Stunned. Soaked. Try to regain footing, keep sliding. The brambles cover a slight decline towards a stream. I hear it rush, harder, faster. The air so thick with water, I can barely breathe. Crawling up the slope, I break free of the brambles, but rivulets have joined into a wide sheet of liquid mud racing to the crumbling embankment and into the rising creek. I drag a leg up, press a knee into the soft ground. My head aches from difficulty to breathe. Drive another knee forward. Water pulses off the brim of my hat and I shiver as weakness and cold seep into my bones. Sound, muffled in the downpour, is indistinct. A neigh? Hoofbeats? I shake my head. Delusional. But it comes again, closer, louder. Another neigh. The mare walks towards me, whickering a soft rumble in her throat. She dips her head, looks me in the face, whickers again, her eyes calm, patient. My hands tremble. I reach for her. My knees slip. Fall flat in the mud once more. She steps closer, dips again. On hands and knees, I reach, grasp a handful of long, dripping mane. Mud races away from under me. I fall once more. Exhausted, afraid to try again. A move too fast and I’ll be swept down into the stream. The mare whinnies. The rain is slowing, but the water on the ground still runs too swift, digs deeper. Can’t wait longer. To lie still means death. She dips her head once more and I grab her
