“The woman recovering from abuse or other stressful life situations may feel she's in no way in charge of anything, least of all her own world. She faces the horse with trepidation. The horse senses the fear and becomes tense and concerned. The wise instructor starts small. The woman is handed a soft brush and sent to fuss over the horse. It's pointed out that if she stands close to the animal, she will be out of range of a well-aimed kick. She is warned to watch for tell-tale signs of fear in herself and the horse. She's warned to keep her feet out from under the horse's stomping hoof. They're both allowed to back away and regroup and try again until they reach an accord regarding personal space. Calm prevails, and within a few minutes, hours or sessions, interaction becomes friendship. It happens almost every time a woman is allowed enough time and space to work through the situation.So a woman whose daily life is overwhelming her learns to step back. Is this a cure for her endless problems? Of course not. Simple is not simplistic.”

“And woman is the same as horses: two wills act in opposition inside her. With one will she wants to subject herself utterly. With the other she wants to bolt, and pitch her rider to perdition.”

“With his back to us, Sean tugs the halter from the mare's head. She kicks out, but he steps out of the way as if it were nothing at all. With a shake of her mane, she leaps mightily into the water. For a moment she struggles over the waves, and then she is swimming. Just a wild black horse in a deep blue sea full of the ashes of other dead boys.”

“Whenever she steps out into the world, that woman often becomes an invisible being she gets shoved around and stepped on… and when she gets mixed amongst the crowd… I don’t thin she is visible to other people that’s why that woman hides in her room, her small room feels cozy to her like a cage feels cozy to a bird with a broken wing. And in that room … she can breathe freely. She’s never dreamed of the world outside, or missed the world out there. at least until now… at least until now…”

“She had beaten the horse and the horse had kicked her in the tits, where it hurt.”

“Too anxious to sit still, she stood in the stirrups to stretch her legs, then moved her bottom back and forth in the saddle until she found a comfortable spot to settle. She dallied her reins loosely around the saddle horn and reached up to unbutton the top two buttons of her blouse, then leaned over and shook the cotton cloth back and forth to cool herself. Her Stetson hat came off next. She settled it on the saddle horn, so what little breeze there was could reach the sweat on her nape.“What the hell kind of strip show are you putting on?”Bay nearly fell out of the saddle at Owen’s angry outburst. She jerked upright, knocking her hat off the horn and onto the ground. Her horse saw the shadow when it fell, figured it for a dangerous, horse-eating jackrabbit, and shied violently toward Owen’s mount.His horse took exception to being bumped and kicked out with both hooves, striking Bay’s horse in the rump, which grabbed for the reins, but they fell loose from the horn, and she was helpless to restrain her mount when he began to run helter-skelter down the canyon, sunfishing and crowhopping. Bay was thrown up onto her mount’s neck, where she held on for dear life. She heard Owen galloping behind her and knew it was only a matter of time before he caught up to her. But a narrow passage was coming up, and there wasn’t room for both her and her horse. She was going to be scraped off. Unless she jumped first.From her precious perch, Bay stared down at the rocky soil racing past her nose and thought of all the movies she’d seen where cowboys leaped from their horses and got up and walked away. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult.In a moment, when they reached that narrow passage, the choice was going to be taken from her. Bay closed her eyes and launched herself as far as she could from her horse’s flashing hooves.And landed like a sack of wet cement.She skidded for maybe two feet along the rocky bed of the canyon. On her face. And her right hip. And her left hand.When she stopped, she lay there stunned for a moment, then gave a shaky laugh. “Oh, that was not at all like it is in the movies.”