Selah's Sweet Dream
By Susan Count
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On the first day of another horseless summer vacation, Selah rehearsed the “horse talk” she planned to have with Grandpa. She gave it her best shot every summer. A horse would be no trouble.
Grandpa had manicured pastures and a solid old barn.
For all of her twelve years, Selah had dreamed of a happily- ever-after life with a horse. She tucked her pale pink T-shirt into her jeans and stared at a poster-size canvas painting on her wall. In the painting, done by her grandmother, Selah was less than three feet tall and leading a brown and white paint horse in from the pasture. Even with only a rope around his neck, he followed
her like an obedient dog.
Selah flipped her fingers through her cream-colored hair
and bounced down the narrow, dark stairs of the farmhouse. The railing felt smooth with wear, and the boards groaned as if they’d prefer not to be disturbed. Finding no one in the house, she slipped out the screen door. Grandpa’s dog, Skunk, didn’t
crawl out from under the porch so the dog was somewhere with Grandpa. As Selah tugged on her cowboy boots, she spotted the black-and-white Aussie dog, nose to the ground sniffing in the brush. Skunk was never far from Grandpa, so Selah strode up the hill toward her. The long and lush pasture grass darkened her pink boots with dew. Easing up beside Grandpa, she stayed quiet since he was quiet and peered into the thicket.
He motioned for her to step back from the edge of the woods with him. “Skunk brought me baby rabbits this morning. She could only carry one at a time, so she ended up dribbling a trail of bunnies down the hill. She must have thought they were puppies, and she should mother them. I followed her and her bunny trail all the way up the hill. She was happy to show me right where it was, so I returned them to the nest.”
“What about their mother?” Selah tugged on his shirt.
“The doe will move them to a new nest when she finds they smell a little funny.”
“How many are there?”
“I found four. Let’s watch for more as we go back to the house.” Grandpa put his arm across her shoulder and walked her away from the nesting area.
Skunk trotted before them weaving back and forth across the trail, down the hill. She stopped in midstride, picked up another baby bunny, and marched home with it.
“Skunk,” Grandpa scolded.
With her head lowered, she marched on with a purpose. “Skunk!” He slapped his camo cap on his knee. “Skunk is as
determined to have her own way as you are, Selah.”
Skunk paused and turned to look at him. He knelt down.
“Come.”
Her dark eyes watched him for a moment before she moved sluggishly to him.
Cupping his hands underneath her mouth, he told her to “give”. In slow motion, Skunk released the bunny into his waiting hands.
“I understand, Skunk. Us girls need to stick together.” Selah rubbed the dog’s head. “Ahh... may I hold the baby, Grandpa?”
“Sure.” He slipped it into her hands. “Got it?”
“Oooow, its eyes aren’t even open yet.” She stroked its fur with one finger. “Soft as silk. Everything about the bunny is adorable. Look at its teeny, tiny nose. I thought its tail would be fluffy, but it’s bald.” Selah tilted her head to the side and flashed Grandpa her most irresistible smile. “May I keep it?” She cuddled the bunny near her cheek.
“That wouldn’t be the best thing for the baby, now would it?”
“No, I guess not, but I love bunnies.” The smile faded from her face. “Its mother can take better care of it than I could.”
“Good thinkin’.”
“But I would take such good care of a horse,” Selah blurted. He rotated to look at her as his face scrunched up. “Not again,
Selah. Don’t push me on that.”
“Grandpa! You’ve seen the walls in my room at home. Every
inch is covered in horse. Why can’t we just talk about getting a horse?”
“Because I said so.”
“The farm’s too quiet, Grandpa. A horse farm should be alive with horses.”
“I’m done with horses, Selah.”
“I need a horse of my own! You know Grandma would’ve wanted me to have a horse.”
His eyes darkened. He wagged a finger at her, and then shoved his hands in his pockets as he turned back toward the nest. “Selah, that’s enough. Bring the bunny and come on. Your summer vacation should not be torture for me. Do you want me to call your parents and have them come get you already?”
“No, sir. But, it’s your fault! You gave me Grandma’s horse library. Do I read anything except horse books?”
“She would have wanted you to have them.”
“And a horse!” Selah bit the inside of her lip. “When I was really little and your paint horse put his muzzle right in my face, and breathed his scent on me... it’s like he cast a spell over me that changed me forever.”
“I’m sorry, Selah. It’s not gonna happen. I let you get a cat, remember? And I ended up taking care of it. I don’t even like cats.”
“You love Pearl.” She eased the last baby in with its litter as she glared at Grandpa.
Some clouds moved in over the Canaan Grasslands of Texas. They looked a lot like flying, dark horses. She should get back to the house before Grandpa started to worry. A bee buzzed her shoulder. She whisked the little bother away, snapped another of her grandmother’s horse books shut, and tossed it into her pink backpack. Concentrating on reading was tough when she could hear Grandpa like he was standing right next to her saying “Do you want me to call your parents and have them come get you already?”
She clenched her fists and faced toward the farm. “I’m not giving up. We need to work on our plan for getting a horse, Skunk.”
Picking her way along the grassy path, she climbed to the top of the knoll. She fingered the top of Skunk’s head and stopped to look at the sun moving lower in the sky. Selah looked out over the expanse of the Grasslands behind Grandpa’s farm. She’d done a lot of growing up here and whiled away many hours exploring its woods and surrounding meadows.
“What’s that?”
Straining to see, she couldn’t quite make out anything except a dark shape. Selah slipped to a nearby tree, dropped her backpack, and used it like a stool to swing up on the lowest branch just like the monkey bars. She stood on the branch. “There’s something out there,” she whispered down to the dog. From her perch, she still couldn’t quite distinguish the dark shape until its head popped up from the grass.
“A horse?” Questions sprang into her mind in rapid fire. Where did it come from? How did it get here? As her foot slipped, she lunged for the branch overhead, gripping the rough bark. Some skin scraped away from her hands. Her body swung, and she smacked into the tree trunk, nearly losing her grip. Her feet scrambled for the branch below.
As her attention returned to the horse, its body snapped alert as if it heard something scary. In the next instant, it exploded into a run as if its life depended on speed. The galloping horse disappeared behind a stand of trees. Selah stretched as high as she could on the branch to catch one more glimpse.
“It can’t be. Or are you the sweetest dream I’ve ever had?” she questioned. “But you saw it, didn’t you, Skunk?”
Skunk sprawled in the grass with her head nestled on her paws. Her soft, glistening eyes watching her playmate in a tree.
Selah slithered down the tree and slung her pack onto her shoulder as she ran to the farm. Every stride pumped the phrase, “I saw my horse!”
As she burst through the farmhouse door, the door slammed against the wall and bounced back at her. Selah searched the kitchen and utility room. “Grandpa! Grandpa!”
His feet thudded on the wooden floors as he hurried to find her. “Selah?” he called back in alarm. “Are you all right?” Completely out of breath, she sputtered, “Yes.” She sucked in
air and panted. “I found a horse.”
He sank into the nearest chair. “For goodness sake, Selah, you
scared me to death. Was that really necessary?”
“I’m sorry, Grandpa, but I found a horse in the Grasslands.” “Well, that’s strange.” His fingers squeezed the skin on his chin.
“It can’t be a wild horse. There haven’t been wild horses around here in my lifetime. If you saw a horse, it must belong to someone.”
“I did. I did see a horse. But it was too far away to tell much about it except that it can run like the wind and it’s black.”
“You have an overactive imagination.” With a quick flip of his head toward the stairs, he sighed. “Go wash up. It’s time for dinner. Why is there blood on your hands?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I scraped my hands on some bark. I’m too excited to eat. Just think of it—a beautiful, beautiful horse out there somewhere.” Pressing her face against his soft denim shirt,
she gave him a quick hug, and then dashed up the stairs to her room where she twirled around and flopped on the bed. Dreams of horses swirled in her mind.
“God? Did you hear my prayer?” She clamped her hands over her eyes to shut out the other possibility. “Or is Grandpa right and it’s my imagination?”