Dante of the Maury River Read Online Free PDF

and beg you to stop. Your lungs will burn; your heart will beat so fast you will think you’re going to collapse, and you might. Or you may make your name and future on the track and return here to live a long and good life, if you do everything right. Right now, that’s a very big IF.”
    In a most loving way, my dam continued, “Something needs to change, son. Please. For the family. For the bloodlines.”
    “But, Marey, I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me to do. You asked me to stand, and I stood. When you wanted me to walk and run, I did those things, too. When you tell me it’s time to sleep, I sleep.”
    She popped her front hoof hard at the ground. “Trust me, I know all about the burdens that a foal of your pedigree carries. I was one! The pressure on a broodmare is even higher. I’m tired of begging you: act right. Got it?”
    I looked away from Marey to far across our pasture. My own heart beat loud and strong in my ears. Out on the farthest hill, I imagined seeing my grandfather again. His head tilted and his eye gazing upon me. I imagined, also, how happy everyone would finally be when I was the next Triple Crown winner. I rubbed my face against Marey’s belly, then looked toward the horizon.
    “I will, Marey,” I promised. “I’ll make the bloodlines proud one day.”
    The next morning before turnout, Doctor Tom separated my dam and me. He came to get me himself and walked me down the yard to the weanling barn. And of all things, Marey let him. She bowed her head and closed her eyes, like she knew all along.

A whole bunch of us got moved up the hill: me and nine others, including my chestnut first cousin, Covert Agent, who got himself sent to the crooked-leg clinic not too terribly long after I did. Covert, by a different sire, out of Marey’s sister, Gemma, was also a grandson of Dante’s Paradiso. He was a little dusting of a fella with a lot of heart.
    The new place was a good bit larger than the foaling barn. All ten stalls aligned down a single lane. Each had its own door and a white column, all situated in an orderly fashion and connected along a finely masoned breezeway. Our rooms opened toward the Edens’ old, sprawling brick house, out of which came some sweet, sweet smells on Sunday mornings. Sugar, Honeycrisp apples, and I couldn’t tell you what all else. Trust me, I had no trouble learning to linger around my stall door on Mrs. Eden’s baking days.
    From the front, I gazed out over the life-size statue of Grandfather Dante. The driveway wound past our barn and down the hill to the foaling barn and the paddocks and the turnout pastures. There were other barns over that way, too, for stallions and retired mares. I never saw inside any of them.
    At the new place, each of our stalls shared a grated half wall with its neighbor, and we’d all get to cribby-crabbing at each other over any little piece of news: feed, hay, visitors.
    I lived right next to the feed room in a stall that had always been reserved for the best foal, like Grandfather Dante and Marey before me. Across time and history, the imprint of every prior top Edensway prospect permeated the walls, the air, and everything about the space, and that’s what gave my stall an aura unseen by human eyes. Wisdom, confidence, and knowledge emanated from the wooden walls surrounding me.
    Inside there, I enjoyed a welcome plenty of space to stand and turn and pace about if my supper ran late in arriving. Looking out the back window, I could gaze across the entire north acreage of Edensway.
    From there, I kept an eye on my old paddock, the broodmares, and the newest foals. Sometimes in the very early morning, I spied on Marey way down that hill, but when I whinnied, she never picked up her head or even called back to me.
    Despite the comforts afforded me, the move away from Marey and into the status-stall tested me greatly. I didn’t care a lick for all that change.

I n the new barn, it was just us colts and fillies.