Half Broke by Ginger Gaffney

Half Broke by Ginger Gaffney

Author:Ginger Gaffney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2019-12-18T16:00:00+00:00


November / 2013

Eliza swings up on Billy and tries to take her around the course. We’ve set up tires, barrels, logs, cones, and small jumps all over the twelve-acre pasture. Billy’s busy watching all the other horses run through the course, not thinking for one second about the person on her back. Billy’s never been able to pay attention to any one thing too long, and today she’s in good company. Because of trauma and the aftereffects of drug addiction, Eliza and many of the other residents on this ranch struggle with attention deficit disorder.

Billy trots twenty feet then stops, swings her head and neck off to the right to look at Tony and Hawk go through the tires. Hawk drops his head low to the ground as he puts one hoof at a time inside the tire wells. He looks like a bulky defensive lineman doing an agility test. Eliza kicks at Billy’s side and takes the extra length of her reins to slap Billy on the rump. Billy hops her lithe brown body into the air then takes off again at a trot. They head toward the barrels with the colored flags blowing out from their center. Billy takes one look at the flags, stops, spins, and heads back toward the barn. Eliza bends Billy’s neck around and points her again at the flags. Billy’s ears pin straight at the blustery menace. She halts again, crow hops, then rears up on her hind legs. When she comes down, Eliza bends her around and turns her in tight circles.

“Take her to the cones first,” I yell to Eliza.

Eliza turns to listen to me, then trots over. “She’s got a mind like a sieve. Everything just falls out. She knows better, too. Damn, she’s stubborn.”

Eliza has found her voice and her body. Working the horses has changed her. She no longer pulls out her eyebrows, no longer twirls her hair into knots. Her skin, her eyes, her mouth—everything has a different texture. It looks like she’s had cosmetic surgery. She has come back to life. The horses woke her up. Besides Luna, Billy is our most challenging horse. I decided a few months ago to give Billy to the ranch. She is athletic. She can be contrary. She gives away nothing for free.

“She’s getting to you,” I tell Eliza. “You can’t be the leader if you’re thinking like her.” I laugh a little, then send them toward the cones. If they ride a few series of figure eights, circles, and spirals around the cones, they’ll both have calmed down enough to face the flags.

Tony and Hawk have finished the course now. We’ve had it set up for a month, spread out wide in the pasture, to test the residents’ skills and give the horses something to focus on. Tony swings off Hawk and gives Randy the reins. Randy just finished riding Moo around the course a few times and has tied him back at my trailer. He recently graduated to riding Hawk.



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