Salter, Anna C by Fault lines

color and vividness that nothing but jumping or drugs can produce.
    I looked back as we cantered up the hill, and Joe had gotten his mare over the jump, although barely. She looked spooked and shaken, and Joe looked determined. To a new horse a crosscountry jump is a formidable thing.
    I laughed out loud as we cantered. All those snide male comments about women and horses miss the mark. All that junk about that "big thing between their legs." We don't confuse horses with men; we aren't making love to horses when we ride —we are the horse. It is like becoming a centaur and suddenly acquiring four powerful legs. Freight Train and I for this moment in time were a unit, a finely oiled machine, and we were leaping like gazelles over every obstacle in our path. Jesus, life was sweet.
    The second jump was a far simpler one: an upright made of logs with wings that went out at an angle and almost guided the horse to the jump. We were doing fine on the approach, when Freight Train suddenly veered to the left. Surprised — the jump ahead was nothing compared to the last one —I tried to recover my balance and press with my left leg to straighten him out. But Freight Train kept moving at an angle and looking at the trees. I glanced over —what was spooking him — and caught a glimpse of something yellow.
    Yellow. What's yellow? Deer aren't yellow. But I didn't have time to think about it. Freight Train was still coming in at an angle, and we were almost on top of the jump. He chipped it. Lucky it was a small one.
    I looked back. There was no way to warn Joe about whatever it was that was in the trees. But his mare was so nervous about the jumps she didn't seem to be paying attention to anything else, anyway.
    I made a long, slow curve to the right toward a stand of trees. To get to the third jump we had to canter down a lane through the trees, and it was close to my favorite part of the course.
    Freight Train and I were alone in the tunnel of trees —Joe and his mare were still pretty far behind —and I could hear birds on both sides. The trees were so close and so vivid I felt like I could reach out and touch them. It gave me time to think about the yellow something I saw —thought I saw —in the trees. I came up blank. It certainly wasn't hunting season, and the course wasn't close to any hiking trails.
    Whatever it was, it was gone. Freight Train seemed fine. My head was thoroughly in the zone by now so everything seemed in slow motion. The sound of Freight Train's hoofs drumming on the hard-packed dirt sounded like some kind of old, lost sound vaguely remembered, almost like a heartbeat.
    As we approached the end of the trees, fear broke through my endorphin-soaked brain. The next jump was a killer, loosely speaking. It started with a sharp turn to the right so that we'd be going downhill. It was fairly scary to canter downhill without jumping, but the jump itself made it worse. It was a drop jump. This meant you leaped over something on one side expecting to land at the same level you took off, only to find the ground was several feet lower on the other side. The jump hid the drop so an unsuspecting horse wouldn't see —until it was too late—that the small two-foot solid jump in front of him hid a three-foot drop straight down on the other side.
    There was also the problem that we had done a U-turn and were coming back to the same bunch of trees that had spooked Freight Train — although this time from the other side.
    I could feel Freight Train tense as we got closer to the end of the tunnel, and I took the time to put the reins in one hand and pat his neck. This time I was standing in the saddle and leaning forward. He wasn't going too fast now, and the point was just to keep him moving over the jump.
    I saw the jump ahead and squeezed my legs slightly. Freight Train's strides weren't coming in right, and this time I thought I'd lengthen to pick up a little speed; going downhill make horses cautious, and they tend to