Spooking Midnight
I can't believe I'm telling a horse tale when I'm scared to death of horses. Anything wild really. Mice, snakes, birds, especially birds. Birds used to get into my bedroom through the chimney and I absolutely couldn't walk across the room to open the window for fear that one would come flying at my head. I always went across the farm to find Toy somewhere. He didn't mind birds a bit. Even wild ones that were penned up. He just walked across the room and waited until the bird flew itself into a frenzy and finally made its way to the open window.
Daddy was afraid of wild creatures, like me. He hated mice and snakes and bats and things that flew at your head, but he wasn't afraid of horses. He loved them and kept one all of his life. Even when he and Toy no longer rode them, they tended and cared for a horse. It must have been essential for them somehow to live near something wild that they could tame. Daddy would never let me ride any of his horses. I could pet them, and feed them, and tend them, but I could never ride them.
Daddy explained it to me in a way I didn't understand: "A horse is a wild creature. I've been riding them my whole life. You can never tell what one is going to do, no matter how tame it is. It's what a horse does when he's spooked that you need to worry about. And even ole Easy spooked. You can love them and pet them, but I don't want you to ever ride them. They are too dangerous."
My favorite everything for the years of my childhood was horses. I hung around the pasture and let the horse eat out of my hand. My favorite book was Black Beauty, favorite TV show was My Friend Flicka, favorite movie was National Velvet. I painted paint-by-number pictures of horses with my best friend, Donna Owens. We pretended every day to be riding horses. I can still whinny like one right now, if I need to to prove it. Donna finally got a pony named Danny. Danny was a little bit mean, but I wanted to ride him anyway. Donna did. Daddy was adamant and never budged. I think now that the reason may have had to do with Midnight.
Midnight was the most beautiful horse that ever lived in Clay County. That's what Daddy said. Midnight was tall and black and he held his head up high with great pride. His coat was pure silk, and he was as fast as a train, Daddy said. He was a race horse, born to race, but he was born in Clay County and there were no races there to run. Midnight's life would have to be that of an ordinary horse. He would be trained to carry a rider and that was that.
Who knows what was in Midnight's mind? Certainly not Daddy. When Daddy bought him, he thought he got a steal. He found out when he couldn't train Midnight why the price was so cheap. When a rider hit the saddle, no matter how easy he climbed on, Midnight began to buck. Daddy rode him, in spite of the resistance, but he couldn't tame him. One time Daddy rode Midnight to my grandmother's house. My mother's sister, Jeanette, begged to ride him. Daddy said she could, if she would only ride up the dirt road beside the house. She promised. Jeanette mounted the beautiful creature and he bolted.
"Midnight teed off for home and he didn't stop until he got there," Jeanette remembered. "All I could do was hang on. Daddy got mad at Everette about that. He shouldn't have let me ride him knowing what he knew. Everette would do things like that sometimes."
I hate to admit anything bad about Daddy, but I have to admit that there was a side to him I simply didn't know. I guess no one did. Not really. Or at least no one white. Black people knew. Toy knew and so did Alec Pruitt. It didn't bother Toy to know that side. He seemed to expect it, or at least he kept it in perspective. "Yeah," he smiled when I was complaining about all of Daddy's faults one day.
An old man from out in the country came to Daddy about buying Midnight. Daddy didn't really want to sell him. Maybe the price he was being offered was too good to pass up, but more likely it was too tempting to unload something that couldn't make itself useful in the world. Daddy warned the man about Midnight,
"You can't tame him," he said. "Midnight is wild. He can't be trained. He won't do you any good, I can promise you that."
The man said, "I've never seen the horse that I couldn't bring around. I have to have him. He's the most beautiful horse I've ever seen."
Twice after Midnight was taken to his new home he escaped and ran for home. He knew exactly which way home was and he traveled the road like he was running from a ghost. No one could catch him, but they always found him at the gate to the pasture where he had lived since he was a colt.
No news from Midnight for months after his last escape. Daddy began to think that he had been wrong. Maybe Midnight was trainable. If he was, he was a bargain, even at the price the man paid. Daddy regretted selling Midnight in spite of everything he knew about him.
One day Daddy heard the news. Midnight's owner had gone out to feed him. As the man dumped food in the trough, Midnight leaned forward as though he were going to eat. Instead, he went straight for the man's face. He bit half the man's face off.
"He recovered physically from that," Daddy said of the man who was then and is a vivid but nameless presence in my mind. The man with only half a face. That's how I think of him. Daddy said, "Midnight killed him. Not immediately. The man recovered from the bite, but something inside him died. He finally did die, and that happened not too many months later."
"What happened to Midnight, Daddy? Did they shoot him? How sad. I'll bet he wanted out. I'll bet he wanted to come home but couldn't and he took it out on the one keeping him there."
"Don't remember. Don't know if I ever knew. Don't you go feeling sorry for Midnight. He got what was coming to him and that's all there was to it. You've got to learn, girl, that wild creatures are just like the rest of us. They can't let what's in 'em take over. Not and live."
"But he wanted to race. He wanted to come home. He wanted a million things that he wasn't going to get."
"And he took it out on someone who wanted nothing more than to love him, and be loved by him. Like I said, don't you go about feeling sorry for him. He had it coming, whatever he got. He had his chance. He had it with me. He wouldn't give in and trust. He was stupid, but he looked smart. I'd have rather have had Easy any day. Easy wasn't as fast, but she was sure. She'd have probably beaten Midnight in a race because she knew who to trust. She was fast as lightning herself. Not as fast as Midnight, but she knew something Midnight could never figure out. She knew to trust. Her job was to run, and that's what she did. She let someone else decide the course. Midnight was a fool horse. He lived for himself, and he lived spooked. Now you forget about him, you hear. He couldn't be helped."
From "Spooking Midnight", 2002
