Second day of hunting

Horses cause you to dream. Besids velvet coat, muscles as thick our whole bodies, horses magic is to compose dreams. Horses whisper in your ears. They nudge you in your sleep. In your dreams you learn to ride. You take the next step.
Second day of hunting season and I can no longer stomache riding in circles, bending to the right, bending to the left, a little leg yield on the way out. Instead I brush Kansas every inch. Mix water and peroxide, dab it on the neck bite. Spray with Schriners. Carefully tie her blue beads, her silver bells around her neck and roach clip to her gray mane. Saddle up and mount from the front porch. We are a long legged vison passing the bright red service berry bushes, the orange gooseberry leaves. Black dog Jenna does not listen and dips under the neighbors gate. His dog is not out. Black dog Scout backs us up.
Kansas and I crunch over the gravel. I move my sit bones like stilts and in a straight line. I pull up on my right side that will sag the second I let my mind wander. My hands, elbows and shoulders are bungies. We make our way as far as the pond. It is a mirage of hues sifting over its skin. There are horses on the other side. I see a black and a brown behind a far fence. Two old men dig at the bank of the road hunting for blue agates. Their shirts have pulled free, stripes of pale skin. I yell: Can you say hi? One man looks up. I yell again: Can you say hi to us? And he gets it. He yells hi back, says it is a beautiful day and then he asks if he is talking to the horse or the dogs. The horse I say. Beautiful horse he answers. Come down he waves. Oh, we're going to turn around here anyway. This is our first time to the pond. Really he asks. Too bad he says.
When we turn around, there are black angus far out in dry field. They are calling to each other. Kansas dances to turn her neck. Her good eye is wide open on the cows. She twists around. When I nudge her forward, she backs up.
I hum to keep my breath even. I tell myself to lean back. I turn her toward the barbed wire and she steps forward down the road. there is no weight on her front hooves. And then she twists around again to oggle the cows. Hum, lean back, turn to the fence. We head back down the road. I call out to the dogs. Jenna does not even flinch. Jenna is making her way back to the neighbors.
It's not until I get off at the mailbox, stuff my sweatshirt pocket with envelopes, that I start to daydream on the walk up the driveway. Kansas does not interrupt. She hangs her head and might as well be tiptoeing beside me. Her eye is bright. Clear as day I can see her with me riding, travel all the way up the road we just came down. We walk past the pond, the men are gone, and make the turn to the right where the road is rutted. There is no more gravel, just the dirt and we are climbing all the way toward the trees, the pines until we pass through the gap in the hills and dissappear from sight.