Mort, Summer and Sixteen

“Terrible!”
“Terrible Tyrant!” I shouted.
“Terrible Tyrant Tumba!” My friend Karen joined in at the top of her lungs.
“Terrible Tyrant Tumba trots!”
Mort lengthened his stride even further and I leaned back, arms flopping, legs swinging, barely balanced as we trotted down the narrow trail in Palmer Park.
“Terrible Tyrant Tumba trots and tramples tiny toddling tots!”
Karen and I screamed our laughter to the trees.
“Now do Bonnie!” Karen yelled.
We were playing one of our favorite games and trotting the long loop, the trail that wrapped the perimeter of the park. We had miles of rocky climbs, broad open fields and twisty trails weaving their way through the pines.
Our horses were mighty war elephants, Mort a.k.a. Tumba the Terrible and Karen’s mare Bonnie, otherwise known as Big Bertha.
The only rules were, as big an extend trot as we could get, no hands, no legs and no breaking gait. Of course we were bareback.
“Big!”
“Big Bonny!”
“Big Bonny Bertha Butt!”
“Big Bonny Bertha Butt’s Belly Bump Bruise!”
We called our silly poems War Chants and shouted them out in sync with the rhythm of the horses’ strong trot.
“Whoop whoop!” Karen yelled and we swept past a dude string of hot dusty riders and plodding horses.
We smiled and flashed some leg at the bored trail guide, when he winked and raised his hat we shrieked and set our bare heels into Mort and Bonny’s sides.
Our war chants forgotten we raced the rest of the way into the stables, Mort easily out-running pleasure-bred Bonny.
We sat in the shade by the arena, waiting for the horses to cool off enough to get a drink. Our dogs lay sprawled in the dust with no energy left for anything but grinning up at us like a couple of idiots.
I flipped one leg over Mort’s withers and sat on him sideways. I picked at the horse hair sweat stuck to my leg and wiped it off on my cut-offs.
“Do you think we should go?” Karen asked.
“I don’t, know. Mom says it’s weird the way the nuns ship us off to the Air Force Academy dances. It’s like they’re trying to marry us off as soon as we’re out of high school,” I answered.
“I suppose,” Karen said.
We sat in silence, pondering our eternal dateless state.
“I don’t know any other way we can meet boys,” Karen tried again.
“Our parents didn’t shove us into an all girls school so we could meet boys,” I answered.
“Since when did you care what they want?” Karen gave an exasperated shake of her head, “You’re just chicken.”
I thrummed my heels against Mort’s side and he raised his head. He stepped around a bit, threatening to go. I stroked his neck in apology and flipped my leg back over, just in case.
“I’ll just go up with Lisa if you don’t want to go.” Karen said.
She’d thrown out the glove.
“Fine, I’ll go. God I hate this.”
“Cadets aren’t so bad, I mean they have cars.”
“They don’t have horses, you mutant,” I reached over and shoved her.
We left the deep shade of the scrub oaks and walked the horse over to the water fountain in front of the restrooms.
I slid down and turned the handle on the drinking fountain.
Mort daintily slurped his fill. Bonnie came and drank deep and the dogs stood on their hind legs to lap at the overflow.
I gathered my reins and a handful of mane and got ready to vault up. As soon as I was airborne Mort ducked his head, I flew over his neck and splatted flat in the grass.
I lay on my back with the wind knocked out of me. Mort stood over me and dribbled his backwash on my head and neck. My good dog Jud snuffled my face, his deep brown eyes crinkled at the joke.
I rolled from side to side in the long wet grass, holding my sides and laughing.