Read Online Riding Barranca by Laura Chester - Free Book Online Page B

morning, we are riding down to the Sonoita Creek near Patagonia Lake. I am eager to see how the water is flowing after all the rain. The long desert slope down to the creek is covered with
ocotillo.
I tell Daphne how the tips of the long cactus wands will soon burst into a blazing red, but it might be another three weeks before the hillsides are painted with that sweep of color.
    From this distance, it looks like some of the cottonwoods along the creek have begun to bud out, but we are still a couple of weeks away from high spring. Daphne keeps saying how beautiful it is here—certainly the opposite of New York City, and I am glad that she can give her mind a good airing out. Tonka is going extremely well, especially after we cross the water and head down the well-maintained trail. For the most part, the mesquite branches are at a safe distance from our arms and legs, but I point out some
cholla,
and warn Daphne to give it a wide berth.
    I keep to the lead as it makes Tonka more relaxed. I am still having some difficulty with his choppy canter—if he gets in the wrong lead, it really feels scrambled, but if I start him off going up an ascent, he usually goes well, though he will never be as comfortable as Barranca.
    We follow the cairns, little towering piles of stacked rocks that mark the way. Moving downstream, we realize that we are the only ones here, not another hiker or rider in sight. It always feels exciting to have this place to ourselves, especially as we enter the area where large bluffs form on either side of the creek—we almost feel like Indian scouts. Finally reaching the long, narrow cave, we tie up both horses, and settle down on the sandy banks of the creek to eat our sandwiches in the sun.
    Heading home, Tonka gets into a beautiful fox trot. It’s a pleasure to feel him moving forward so nicely. As we climb back up the path toward the trailer, we talk about family. Daphne just spent a couple of nights with my mother in Scottsdale, and Mom’s Alzheimer’s is getting worse.
    Daphne reports that Mom’s caregiver, Wanda, described a recent hallucination where Mom thought my brother and I were playing in her fireplace. She kept yelling at Georgie to
Stop It!
He was shaking and choking me and she couldn’t get him to quit. This account sends a visceral shiver down through me. Could this be a memory of something that really happened, or was it simply a fabrication of her late-stage dementia?

    Laura and Georgie
    Certainly, growing up, I was not protected from my older brother. The message I received was that it was okay for him to attack me, that no one would look out for me, and that I had better learn how to run. If cries of complaint were taken to our mother-in-collusion, her only response was, “Don’t be a tattletale.”
    But my brother and I were also allies. When my parents were touring Europe, and our housekeeper, Margie, did something twisted, like make us eat raspberries crawling with ants, Georgie would jump up from the table and get on the antique, long-disconnected wall phone and pretend to call the operator, “Help, HELP!” At such moments I applauded him.
    If my brother was jealous of me, and cut off my fine, blond hair, trying to make me “be a boy,” I do not blame him now, for his behavior was not curtailed. Our mother gave him permission through her neglect.
    In retrospect, I think the only one Mom managed to protect from scrutiny was our darling father. She took the fall for him. She became “Mean Margaret,” the black hole in our seemingly perfect, extended family, which allowed my father to maintain his pose in his nearly spotless, infallible armor. With her well-used rag, she’d wipe away all telltale signs of his misbehavior and get the dark, oily stain on herself.
    For years, every summer, Mom threatened our father with divorce, telling him she would smear his name and misdeeds all over the paper. But then she tried to