The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,45
and groom the horses. And they took turns riding with her on her horse, a gentle, jet-black gelding. The girl’s face would go soft when she rode double with Addie. I knew what she felt, Addie’s arms around her, that glow at her back.
But Addie talked, too. She honed her philosophy and developed the vocabulary she would take into decades of working with horses and people. “Make it true. True yourself and the horse will go with you,” she urged the rich girl. “Willingness, calm, and balance.” Addie waved her hand across the horse’s shoulders and down his spine. “For both of you.” She tapped the girl on the chest, then lightly pulled her shoulders back.
Gradually, the girl’s spine became more supple and she began to look like she belonged on a horse. The day before the girl’s father came back to Charlotte, Addie slid into the saddle behind her and tied a blindfold around the girl’s face. The girl dropped the reins in protest, and a shiver ran down her legs and into the horse, who whinnied and shook himself. Addie reached behind with one hand and touched the horse. With her other hand, she gently returned the girl’s hands to the reins. After a long moment, the horse and the girl were calm and waiting.
“Your final test. You know this farm well enough. Think of where you want to go and tell him from here.” She patted the girl’s thighs. “No words. I’m here with you.”
The girl’s brow furrowed, but she nodded, took a deep breath, and they took off. Later, I found the girl in the stable, brushing her horse down, singing softly to herself. I’m sure she got her money’s worth. Addie and Cole got that second hundred dollars.
I never fully understood what Addie did with the horses. She just seemed to be with them, to sweeten and socialize them with patience, contact, and good grooming. She never used any force. She just glanced at them and talked to them and soon they followed her like lovesick pups, nosing her shoulder. I know, when no one else was around, she soothed them with that strange voice of hers.
I watched Addie and Cole working together with an odd combination of emotions. I was glad that Cole was comfortable coming to our house. Though some awkwardness remained between us, he was a kind man. I regretted having hurt or disappointed him, and wanted him to understand that I hadn’t left him on a whim. I longed to tell him who and what she really was, to have him see what I saw, to know what I knew. I was also a little jealous of the attention they gave each other. He was, in his own way, as seduced by Addie as I was. But I could also see that he was smitten not by her touch or her voice, as I had been, but by her skill. He flat-out bragged about her horsemanship to anyone who would listen.
They both had an easy, apparently effortless grace on horseback, but my eyes always returned to Addie. On horseback, she was part of the horse. I’d never been interested in horses, but I began to admire them. I loved seeing her so engrossed in her work with Cole and the horses. I followed her hands as she groomed the horses, humming to them, her hands sliding over their shoulders and down their legs.
I loved how she took things into her hands, holding and touching everything—food, Hobo, horses, the stove handle, the ax, me—in a way that seemed more than mere contact or simple utility. There was gusto, intent, knowledge. At night, when she touched me, I felt the difference between her and others. The horses felt it, too. They turned toward her, sniffing her, licking her.
Addie’s hands made me look at the world anew, to study surfaces and textures I might otherwise have ignored. This was not simply a lover’s envy of objects touched by the loved one. My eyes lingered on after her touch, curious as to what she had just understood. I saw in her a lack of inhibition, a possible way of being that I could never have learned in my Baptist family. As she touched the world, her hands seemed to be inviting me to do the same. She, who had so recently needed my help crossing the floor, now gave the world back to me in subtle and profound ways.