Ebony

by Dominica
(U.S.A.)

"Bye, Mom. I'll miss you." I said my final good-bye's and climbed into my truck.

A year or so ago I graduated college as an M.D. in Hematology Oncology. After that I continued to live with my parents as I saved up some extra money and looked for a house.

Finally I was moving in. But doing that was a bit more complicated than one would expect. You see, my parents live in Missouri. I found a house in northern California.

It took a couple days for me to reach my destination. The house was in perfect shape and looked exactly like it did on the website. Except...there was something that wasn't pictured on the website. It was a small wooden barn with four stalls in it. So that's why there was a fenced in corral in the backyard.

I walked around the back and actually found a few corrals and lots of open space and trails made from many horse hooves. I followed one of the trails for a bit and noticed it went far away. I think I forget to check exactly how much land I bought with this deal.

Anyway I paid for the house, got the deed and moved into the small house(compared to the amount of land). I went shopping for furniture and other things the next day. As I went from store to store I came upon a riding school.

"That might be fun to do sometime." I thought.
Then I saw him. He looked like a lonely horse but seemed very kind. He just looked at me and stood still. He was a reddish brown color with a long mane and tail. I walked over to him and he thrust his nose forward eagerly as if he was very excited to meet me.

"Do you want to buy the horse?" a trainer walked up.

"No."

"If you rode him I'm sure you'd want to."

"I don't know anything about this horse or horses in general."

"He's about 8. He's very kind and gentle and he loves meeting new people. Many have ridden him but no one's ever bought him."

The horse seemed to understand the man's words as it hung its head sadly and looked at me with big begging eyes.

"His name is Ebony."

I have no idea what happened but I found myself leading a horse home with no idea how to take care of it. I put him in the stable and headed into my house to look up horse care on the internet.
Ebony seemed to make his spot in the stable as comfortable as possible considering there was no food or anything else in it.

I had to go out later to buy him food, blankets and tack. Actually, the only thing I got with tack was a bareback saddle and a halter. I figure I'll buy more later.

After a few days things were going smoothly with Ebony as I learned to ride and care for him. But I noticed that he was trying really hard to hide a certain emotion: loneliness. You see, I had found a job and was away a lot and sometimes had no time to spare for him.

So I went back to the riding school and bought another horse that would be a perfect play companion for Ebony. Her name was Cake. She was white and was about 5 years old. The thing was, after I bought her I learned that she was supposed to be bred with a stallion who was around 6. So I had to buy that paint horse too(he was white and black and his name is Oreo).

Ebony was much happier with his new friends and always gave me a sort of horse kiss whenever I saw him.

After a little bit Cake became pregnant and the new colt I named Cookie. Now all the stalls were filled and I wasn't going to buy another horse.
Soon I was asked to rescue a horse on the way to slaughter. Somehow that brown horse, Sugar, ended up in the barn that I had enlarged.

Later I bought Candy who was an orphan filly. She became Cookie's playmate.

Soon Chocolate arrived who was a year younger than Ebony. She became his mate and Almond emerged.
Later a wild horse somehow found its way onto my property and joined the others with the name of Vanilla. Soon her mate and foal arrived and were adopted as well and were named Apple and Ruby.

"That's it! I'm not buying anymore horses!" I said one day.

I didn't count on finding a young, abandoned, injured horse by the side of the road one day. That horse soon grew healthy and stayed at my ranch by the name of Brownie.

As I was expecting more horses to arrive soon I saw Ebony in the pasture. He lifted his head and looked at me with happy eyes.

"It all started with you, Ebony."