The essence of vanilla and sweet scent of home.

Tonight when I got off work, it was late. The sun had ceased being echoed in the shades of the clouds. The herd had eaten, what scraps of food had missed their sharp eyes had been discovered and devoured by the waiting doves. Even Mama cow had given up lowing plaintively for seconds and wandered off to chew her cud. Down the field, a few pairs of long ears waved about the remnants of a round bale but otherwise all signs of equine activity had stilled into that momentary postprandial hush the end of an autumn day brings around here.

I pulled a box of vanilla wafers out of the truck and shaking it, stood and waited. Appearing out of the color faded approaching night came a huge white ghost of a horse. Lady had sensed my presence (or perhaps smelled cookies through the box) and came. She eased on up to the fence and offered me that low “Mama” nicker she bestows on me alone. I opened the box, leaned against the fence, and shared the sweet, mouth roof sticking texture of the cookies with her. A cookie for me, a handful for her. We shared the box in companionable silence. I breathed in the essence of sweet horse life as we shared our breath and our thoughts. She sighed, I sighed, and the fence creaked. For a fragment of time, we were alone together.

When the cookies were done, Lady carefully turned her head askew and stuck her nose through the fence rail. She reached out with her lips and rubbed my cheek, embedding the smell of horses onto my parched emotions and smearing my face with cookie threaded wet kisses. I put my hand out to her and she tenderly and thoroughly cleansed it of any cookie scent, laving it with kisses and tickling my palm with the long hairs under her chin. The darkness was almost complete by then, closing us into our own personal world scented with horse and vanilla cookies.

With one last gentle tug for my braid, and a last exhalation of Mama nicker, Lady turned and disappeared into the field. As I turned to go in, the aroma of horse wrapped me in its warmth. I may not wash my face until tomorrow.

© Carol Chapman