Lost Dream

Lost Dream

Julie Lynn

Julie's cowboy boots crunched in the loose alfalfa hay in the narrow storage area of the barn behind the stalls. She looked down at the brown suede toes and realized that she felt funny wearing boots with her yellow "baby doll" pajamas on that hot, late August night. However, she could hear her mother's panicky voice in her mind: "Jim! Kill that thing!" and she knew she had to wear those boots. Just last week, stable hand, Jim, had killed a long, black and yellow King snake with the edge of a shovel when it had emerged from the hay unexpectedly.

As she shuffled toward the stalls, Julie heard a rumbling whinny. She stepped up on the bottom edge of the whitewashed stall and whispered to her stocky, brown mare, Bubbles, "It's ok, girl. I'm here with you tonight." She had said it, in reality, to reassure herself more than the horse. Bubbles put her muzzle up to Julie's chin and blew a warm, horsey breath in the girl's face. Then, the spunky horse with the bubble-like, white spots on her butt turned and paced in the stall. The mare seemed to know this was no ordinary night.

The shadows of the pine trees covered the corral that was just beyond the six stalls. Julie looked in the stall to the left at her sister's horse - a handsome, black quarter horse named Judd. His short black mane stood on edge like spikes. In the hay barn behind the stalls, her sister's face hid behind a heavy, brown, cotton sleeping bag that was spilling out of her arms. Julie hopped down to help her younger sister, Leslie, arrange the sleeping bags and pillows on the metal cots that were set in the barn just for this night.

"Hey, Julie, can you believe that we really get to sleep here tonight?" Leslie asked.

"Yeah, only I wish we could live here forever." Julie sighed.

"Me too!" Leslie said.

After smoothing out the sleeping bags and making sure the flashlight was at the top of her cot, Leslie moved over to the stall that held Judd. She watched his shiny, sleek, black form slither like a wet seal in a tank in the zoo, trapped in a frustratingly small space. She had spent hours this afternoon giving him a cold hose-down bath in the warm sunlight, combing his mane, and endlessly brushing his coat.

"Guess what?" Leslie said suddenly.

"What?" Julie moaned.

"I snuck the radio down here!" she whispered. "It's over there," and she pointed behind the few stacks of hay that were still left.

"Good!" Julie replied as she looked toward the direction of the hay and then climbed up on the stall where Bubbles stood stomping the ground for no particular reason. Julie leaned over and grabbed the horse by the neck for a long hug.

Then their Mom appeared in the doorway. "Ok, girls. Let's get you settled. We have to get up early to go shopping for school clothes." A heavy burning feeling began in Julie's eyes and her throat. As Julie hopped down from the edge of the stall and climbed onto the cot, she couldn't quite comprehend that, after three years of a dream-come-true of having her own horse, it had to end. The only thing that Julie had been told by her Mom was that running the summer camp, Secret Forest, had put their family in terrible debt. Even though she and her family had painted and raked, and cleaned and scrubbed for three years, it was not enough. Her step-dad's dreams of a magical forest of adventure for kids had simply been crushed by the overwhelming financial requirements of maintaining a 30-year-old, often-neglected, 30-acre property in the Malibu mountains. Rusty plumbing, rickety stairs, a business partner who defaulted on a promise, and greedy landlords didn't help the situation.

Mom leaned over little Leslie first and gave her a kiss and said "Good-night". Then Mom sat on the cot with Julie and patted her pig-tailed hair away from her face. "You know, Julie, you'll always have your necklace." Mom touched the small gold horseshoe-shaped charm with the small, pale green stone in the middle. Tiny indentations for nails in the gold horseshoe made it look like a real horseshoe. The necklace gleamed slightly in the reflection of the spotlight over the corrals. Julie remembered her 12th birthday celebration for a moment when she had been so wonderfully surprised when she opened the small present. Peridot. Her birthstone. Her Mom patted her hair one more time and tiptoed out of the barn.

The creaking sounds of the night and the restlessness of the horses made Julie's mind wander to memories of the past few years of her time with Bubbles.

In the spring of 1966, when Bubbles first arrived at Secret Forest with eight other stable horses, Bubbles' irritation at both the horse world and the human world was evident. She kicked out at other horses that tried to steal her hay or nip her from across the fence. She restlessly stomped her hooves in order to hopelessly shake flies off her withers and shoulders. She put her ears back when the heavy brown western saddle landed on her back and the cinch squeezed her belly. However, under the fa�ade of grouchiness, Julie could see in her petite, round features and soft, brown eyes, a gentleness deep within. Bubbles' smaller-than-average size appealed to Julie who lived with the mortifying fact that she was the tallest 12-year-old in her whole school! Julie patiently rode Bubbles with a soft hold on the reins, a calming voice, and a solid seat when Bubbles tried to buck and rear at the beginning of a trail ride like a two-year old throwing a tantrum upon being told it was naptime. Within a few weeks time into Bubbles' stay at Secret Forest, the hired wrangler knew that Bubbles' behavior was untrustworthy and unsafe for the camp kids, so Bubbles became Julie's horse.

By the winter of that year, when the camp kids had long since gone home, only four horses remained: Bubbles, Champagne, Judd, and Boots. (Two mares and two geldings.) On dark winter mornings, before getting ready for school, the girls rushed out of their chilly bunk beds and ran down the hill in their pajamas, robes, and cowboy boots to throw hay to their four four-legged friends. On most afternoons, Julie would walk the 1/2 mile home from the school bus stop, hop on Bubbles immediately, with no saddle. She trotted back up the gravel road to "pick up" Leslie who was on another bus for younger kids. They would ride "double" back home, giggling and singing the whole way. Strength of body and soul, along with a somewhat inexplicable joy, came to Julie from her daily chore of raking the horse manure, shoveling it into a wheelbarrow, and dumping the pile at the edge of the corral. Just being a part of this simple horse world enveloped Julie (and her little sister) in an unconditional love that could not be matched in her otherwise every-other-weekend, divorce-torn life.

More beautiful memories of her precious horse, Bubbles, swirled in her mind creating a half-dream like state as Julie lay still on the cot that heartbreaking night before the horses were to be sold and taken away.

* * *

With her mane braided with daisies,
And her withers steady and strong,
She calmly allowed the girl to kneel and
Stand on her back for a moment too long.

She was a bareback rider leading the circus parade
A feeling as sweet as a summer's glass of lemonade.

Pink leotards, pink tights, and pink ribbons a-flowing.
From the tightly wound bun, more daisies a-growing
Atop her pretty head which was held so high --
You never would have known she was so shy.

* * *

With an innocent smile
She trotted awhile.
The rhythm of her horse's moves
Finely tuned to her body's grooves.

She picked up her 2nd place
Red ribbon of pride
That was earned with
A magnificent ride.

No matter, it seemed
Her face still beamed.
It was just as she had always dreamed.

* * *

In that next moment, Julie closed her eyes. She reflected: Life Without Bubbles. She could hardly stand the thought. Suddenly, Julie heard Bubbles snort and whinny as she gave a quick snip to Judd's furry rear end. Judd swirled around and, in mock anger, kicked the side of the stall. Bubbles spun around, but then calmly went back to chewing on the mounds of special molasses covered grain in her feeding bin.

"Hey, Leslie", Julie spit out. "Come on. It's ok to get up now."

The girls climbed out of the sleeping bags, and bare-footed, crept a few feet away up to the edges of the stalls to watch the horses eat their treats noisily and contentedly. They stretched their arms over the wooden gates to pet the ears and noses of their horses.

"They're going to a rental stables tomorrow. . . in the city!" Julie said to her sister.

"How could they do that to our horses, Julie?"

"I dunno. That's the worst thing that could have happened!" Julie replied.

"If only they could just let us keep Bubbles and Judd and sell the other four horses." Leslie whined sadly.

"Yeah, I know. But they get more money if they sell them all together," Julie told her little sister as if she knew all about that complicated world of finance.

The girls each kissed their horse on the nose and snuck back onto their cots on top of the sleeping bags. Leslie reached for the radio and turned it on. The Rolling Stones droned on "I Can't Get No Satisfaction". But the music filled the empty, dark night. They talked about their new rental house in the suburbs, the one with the kidney-shaped pool that took up the entire back yard. But the ache in their hearts stirred as they fell asleep hearing the soft chewing of hay on the other side of the stalls.

Morning came quickly. The hot sun beamed through the empty stalls. The loud truck engine that pulled a 6-horse trailer roared incessantly as it waited on the edge of the road just south of the corral.

Mom entered the barn with shorts, t-shirts and red rubber flip-flop sandals in her hands.

"Let's go, girls." "Before they load the truck," she said impatiently.

Julie and Leslie wiped the sleep from their eyes as they sat up on the cots. Thunderous pounding of hooves echoed in the barn. "Where were the horses?" they wondered. They climbed on the edge of the stalls as they had done the night before and saw all the horses were out in the corral circling each other with great nervousness. The girls slipped on their clothes obediently. Mom hurried them into the station wagon with the faded wood siding. Mom zoomed up the winding, mountain road as the girls looked back at the huge truck getting smaller on the road. They hadn't really had a chance to say good-bye to their horses.

Later that morning, in the freezer of a dressing room in the Sears store at the new Topanga Canyon Mall, Julie looked in the mirror and noticed that she seemed taller in the new hot pink and orange flowered sundress. As she reached up to tie the straps of the dress, she noticed her necklace and then flopped down on the carpet and cried. Sitting alone, the tears turned to sobs. The faded gold chain hung limply around her neck, but the horseshoe charm with the pale green stone was gone.