"Have You Seen Her On The Mountain?"

I put my shoulder against Catspaw’s flank and shove. There is, of course, no way my scrawny self could make a twelve-hundred-pound horse move over unless he wants to, but fortunately, like most horses, he has a tiny little brain that has never quite wrapped itself around the realization that I can’t still haul him around like I had when he was a spindly-legged baby.

I take a moment to just stand there, leaning against him for a moment in the dimness of the stable, breathing the sweet scent of hay and the pungent but pleasant scent of horse. If I close my eyes and run my hand along his rump, I can feel the pattern on his coat under my fingertips: the roughish white blanket spreading across his hips is thicker than the finer red dots scattered across it. I’ve always liked the snowflake patterns best, but Catspaw is a pretty horse, as well as a good one. I especially like the pattern on his right hip, that gave him his name; it looks just like some big old cat smacked him just once. Today, as I spread my fingers out over the "toe prints" I catch the thought wandering through my mind, this might be the last horse I ever own...

‘Stop that,’ I tell myself. ‘Maybe he will be, but there’s a good fifteen years left in him. Don’t be foolish.’ To distract myself, I begin currying him with real vigor, leaning into his ribs, pushing against him as he leans back. He loves that; if he were the cat who’d marked him he’d be purring. "Sweet boy, what say we go up the ridge today?" His neat, black-rimmed ears flick backward to catch my voice and he whickers. He’s such a people horse, this one. I start singing to him, brushing in time to the words of the old song.

"Have you seen her in the moonlight..."

Outside the barn the mountain rose toward Heaven, not steeply but surely, clad in pines and balsam firs and mountain laurel that spread like flame across the tops of the hills in spring. The farm lay mostly in the shadow of the ridge, and some folks might call it dark, but I’ve always called it sheltered. Safe. I was born in this house, and mama taught me my letters here, and as far as I cared, I’d live and die right here. Oh, there was always the chance that some day some boy might well come a’courting, but I never meant to leave for any boy born. Ever. After all, I had no brothers and the European War took both of my uncles before they could marry, so there were no cousins either. I always figured to stay right here. I never could imagine no boy would ever make my heart soar like the mountain does, anyway.

And anyway-I had begun to wonder if I wanted any boy to come along at all, even one who’d come and stay, babies or no.

That morning I stood a minute or so in the yard before I left, just looking upwards along the slopes, thinking about that, and then I give myself a shake. Ruby was standing, waiting on me, and he was starting to paw at the ground some. He was a good horse, or good enough, but he didn’t like just standing once he was saddled. I swung up on him and headed out of the yard, in among the evergreens.

"... silver rings upon her hand?"

Done with the brushing, I quit singing, tapping his hock and saying to him, "Foot." He never gives me any trouble, the good old boy; he shifts his weight off that leg and lifts it for me; when I rest it on my own thigh he still doesn’t lean. When I get around to the other side of him, he’s already got that foot lifted; cleaning his feet is always easy. After I’m done, he shoves his face into my chest, blowing into my shirtfront. I have to laugh at him; it’s a good thing I don’t care if I’m clean or dirty. I give him the carrot he’s waiting on, wipe my hands off on my butt-what’s a little more dirt?-and go for his tack.

He’s never been bridle shy his whole life; he just drops his head through the bridle, taking the bit without trouble. Unlike a few animals I’ve had, he also never has thought to blow himself up; I’ve never had to knee his stomach to make sure the saddle wouldn’t slip sideways after a few yards. Not that I ride him in a saddle most days; I like a ‘bareback pad’ so I can feel his muscles and reactions, but still have stirrups for going up and down the mountains easier. Of course, nowadays I can’t just swing up like I used to. "The worst thing about getting old," I say to him, leading him to the block, "you can’t jump like you used to be able to."

He flicks his ears at me. I know he’s just listening to my voice, but pretending he understands me doesn’t do either of us any real harm, and it lets me forget what a lie I just told him. That’s not the worst of getting old, not by a long shot. "I know," I say to him, stroking his nice thin Appaloosa mane, "you can still jump. It’s just me..." I shake my head and head him out of the barn, and up the hill, and I sing to him as usual, the old song.

"Have you seen her in the moonlight, silver rings upon her hand?"

It was an hour or more to the top of the ridge but it never seemed to take that long. Or maybe it did, I’d thought once, but what’s an hour when you have eternity? Do the mountains notice a single day?

Up on the crest was a bald, no trees at all, just a scattering of laurel and grey boulders and grass that was green in spring and gold in fall. Coming out of the pines into the open was always a wonder to me, whether it was in blazing sunlight, or a blanket of the smoky low lying clouds or a starlit night. That day was no different: the riotous scarlet of the laurel was no more joyful than the lift of my spirit at the sight of it-and the lift of my heart at the sight of the dark, arrow-straight girl sitting on a rock, waiting for me.

For me.

I was raised to take care of the beasts first, and before I forgot about him I loosened Ruby’s girth, running up a stirrup to remind me later and save me falling on my head, and unbuckled the bit, rebuckling it to hang under his chin while he grazed. And then I ran to her where she’d climbed down to meet me, and then I wrapped her tight in my arms. What I felt in that moment was a fierce desire for something I couldn’t quite put a name to, beyond her name. Beyond just ‘Julie’. I’d worried about it a while, but I’d quit worrying. Now all I worried about was her, her and that man her folks had as good as sold her to. After a moment holding her I pulled away, just enough to look up into her soft, mourning-dove eyes.

Rage surged through me, fiercer than anything I’d ever felt before, when I saw the purpling bruise on Julie’s cheek. I reached to touch it but realized how that would hurt her, so I didn’t, leaving my fingers in the air just above it. "I’ll kill him," I managed to say, meaning it absolutely. "I’ll kill him."

"No," Julie said. "No." She was shaking her dark head, and her beloved hands reached to hold onto me, pulling me back. I went back, of course, but reluctantly.

"I will."

"No," she said again. "No, don’t, you’ll get in trouble, it doesn’t matter."

She was always saying that. "Of course it does."

"No," she shook her head, touching my face. I looked at her; something was different but I wasn’t sure what it was. "No, it doesn’t. Don’t you see: I’ve left. I’m not going back, not ever, that’s why. That’s why it doesn’t matter."

I caught her hands in mine. His gold ring was gone, and in its place was my mother’s silver one I’d given her. It was old and not valuable, and yet right then it was the most precious thing in the world. "Do you mean it?"

"I mean it." Her eyes were radiant, and I believed her.

I hadn’t cried since Mama died, but I cried that day. Julie cried too, and we held each other and then we laughed and cried at the same time, and then for a long time we just sat on the grass, holding each other, listening to the chime of Ruby’s bit as he grazed. Finally, though, we got up and caught him, and then we rode down the ridge together. Her dark head was nestled against my throat, and as we rode she sang, softly, that old sad song she loved so much.

"Have you seen her in the moonlight, silver rings upon her hand?"

Catspaw grazes quietly near the cairn on the top of the ridge, the way he always does. He’s used to it: this isn’t the first time we’ve come here, nor will it be the last. He flicks his ears towards me when I talk, but he knows I’m not talking to him. He doesn’t come until I stand up, dusting off my butt, and that’s not until the dusk starts creeping over the bald.

After I fix his bridle, I stand there for a couple of minutes, holding his reins and just looking out over the mountains. Today had been a pretty good day for the view. Still, you can’t see near as far as you once could; I’ve heard it’s only about forty miles or so most days instead of upwards of a hundred. Before we leave, I turn around and look at Julie’s cairn again.

"I don’t know, boy," I say after I mount. "I reckon if you can see to eternity, you can see bout as far as a body needs to."

He snorts and pulls at his bit, wanting his stall and his grain. It makes me laugh. Horses don’t think much, I find; it makes them restful sometimes.

"All right, then," I give in to him. "Let’s go on down."

And as we enter the forest, I find myself singing.

"Have you seen her in the moonlight, silver rings upon her hand? Now she wears a crown of sorrow, and her name is Julie Ann."

Look here for the first version

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