Horse Trainer

I pictured Suzanne Norton Jones
as a tall, stern, ranching woman
in her 50s – imagining someone like
Barbara Stanwyk of the Big Valley.

Our eyes met in the hallway
before a recent 4-H Hall of Fame ceremony.
"You look like you are looking
for mischief," she said.
Older and shorter than I thought,
her kind smile beamed
above her long, sunken chin,
a gleam in her eyes, soft-spoken words.
She compared people with horses.
She knew what a horse was thinking
by reading its eyes.

I said to her, "A horse laughed at me once."
A long time ago, a stable worker
set me up with a horse, fit
me in a saddle, and disappeared.
I wiggled the reins three times,
tap, tap, tap with my heels on the horse's flanks.
I said, "Come on! Come on!"
No response.
I yanked on the reins.
The horse swung his head around,
looked at me, twisted his lips
as a laughing chimp with bared teeth.
I deserved to feel like a fool.

Suzanne's body shook with laughter.
I knew she would love my story.