This rain though, a bit more than I expected. Not really the trek I wanted to break in my boots with. In my head it wasn’t going to be much walking so it was the right choice, but the woods seem unprepared for what has come. Happy to have Red Spade leading the cart for this one, calmly we ride “their hooves like metronomes on ancient ground”.
Just ahead I see where the rain has done its worst, turned the familiar road into a suggestion, then erased even that. We slow to a stop where the water moves fast enough to lie about its depth, and we sit there listening to it, letting Red Spade breathe and the moment settles. I take a long exaggerated breath as I begin to take off my boots, only so much breaking in I am willing to do today. Roll the pants and jump down into the mud. Feet in the cold, I walk the edge of the stream first, tracing a path where the water hesitates instead of lunges. The flood wants to rush; I want to finish my delivery.
Red Spade already knows what I’m thinking and disapproves. I walk up to him, hand on his neck, steady and familiar. I tell him we’ll be quick, that I wouldn’t ask if I did not think it would work, that he is stronger than the noise and the water and remind him it is Felix’s fault we are out in the rain not mine. Then I have a better thought and I pull an apple from my bag as I promise him a snack if he powers through for me. I bite off a piece of apple and give it to him as a teaser. He chews, considers, flicks an ear like he might forgive me later. That’s enough. I jump back in, dry off my feet and put my boots back on. A confident grip on the reins and point us at the line I found with my own feet.
He goes when I ask, not eagerly, but honestly, which is better. Water climbs his legs, pushes at the wheels, shoves the cart sideways just enough to race my heart. I stay quiet. Red Spade does the work. Then suddenly the ground is solid again, the flood behind us, the road pretending it never tried to kill us. A fist pump and an exclamation as I hop down to give Red Spade the rest of the apple. Landing squarely in a puddle… Up to the knee…
