The Wagoner barn sat just off the road, a huge building with white metal siding and no discernible entrance. We parked the car and stepped into the biting cold wind. I pulled my sleeves down over my hands and my hat down over my ears as we walked the perimeter, looking for the door.

Inside, the sharp cutting odor of urine filled my nostrils. Jim and Donnette’s barn smelled different, it smelled of earth and hay and horses. Yet, the Wagoner’s barn was impeccably clean. Not a stray straw of hay or clod of dirt marred the concrete walkway, and the arena was freshly groomed. We walked through a giant feed room with hay bales stacked to the ceiling. Out the back door, wooden stairs led to a viewing deck above a round pen that was full of snow. The wind bit mercilessly at our faces until we went back inside. As we walked the length of the barn, I wondered which horse was Lady Briminic. I absentmindedly rubbed the nose of a giant grey gelding who had stuck his nose out of his stall.

“Why don’t the stalls at Sage Creek have these cutouts?” I asked Dallas. Sage Creek had solid bars.

“Actually, that’s one of the easiest ways to spread diseases between horses, is to pet them all as you walk by,” she replied. I removed my hand from the grey horse’s nose.

Kim arrived, then his brother Shane. Kim was unusually tall and thin, with extremely long legs that seemed equipped to wrap completely around a horse. After introductions and polite small talk, Shane led us to a stall. “Lady Briminic will be arriving in a bit, in the meantime, this horse is also for sale.” Shane slid open the stall door. “His name is Woody.”

My achievement-oriented, rational brain has always done battle with my intuitive, creative brain. My life-path seemed to reflect that incessant back and forth, like a ping pong game: Olympic hockey and undergraduate degree in neuroscience from Dartmouth (ping) to studying yoga and meditation in India (pong) to the MBA from Stanford (ping) to cello (pong) to finance job at Medtronic (ping) to life coaching (pong).

In the war between reason and intuition, the incident with the babies had tipped the scales dramatically in favor of instinct. Therefore, perhaps I was primed for what happened when I stepped into Woody’s stall and fell immediately, completely, and irrationally in love.

I was drawn to him as if I’d known him in a different life, as if we had known one other across multiple lifetimes. It was a feeling I’d had only twice before, once with my grandma, and once with Dan. I knew, knew, he was my horse. Though we had come to look for a horse for Dan, though I knew next to nothing about horses, though the last thing I needed was something else to love, I knew immediately that Woody was mine.

He was brown, a rich milk chocolate russet color, with a thick black mane and tail. Half way down Woody’s legs, his warm brown coat gave way to black, resolving itself into two pairs of black socks. A dark brown ridge ran the length of his back. His ears were brown but rimmed with black to match his black lips and nostrils. In the horse world, he was known as a buckskin. In my world, he was simply beautiful.

I watched quietly as Shane groomed, saddled, and bridled Woody. Woody never fussed. He simply stood still, then followed Shane into the arena where they walked, trotted, and loped in big circles, small circles, and figure eights. Then Shane spun Woody in a startling horse-human-turning-top-display such that I was sure Woody would trip on himself resulting in a mess of four hooves and rider all toppling to the dirt. Just as suddenly as they started, they stopped and spun in the other direction. As if that wasn’t fun enough, Shane then brought Woody to a full gallop around the arena before sliding to a stop. I laughed out loud. I’d never seen a horse spin or sit on its haunches and slide ten feet.

I could sense the excitement in Dallas and Donnette even before Donnette said, “That horse is a keeper.”

I watched with my elbows propped on the arena wall as Dallas rode him next, then Dan. “He’s taking care of him. Do you see that?” Donnette said. Her passion was contagious. “He’s taking care of him.”

I wasn’t sure who was taking care of whom, but Donnette kept repeating herself, until finally I ventured a guess. “Dan’s taking care of Woody?”

“No. Woody’s taking care of Dan. He’s filling in for him.”

Ah, that explains it. I nodded, feeling exactly zero clarity and wandered toward Dallas.

“What does that mean, he’s filling in?” I asked.

“Woody is really tolerant, he’s doing what he knows he should do.”

Still not clear.

But once I got on Woody, even in my novice-hood, I understood. Woody listened attentively to my correct signals and ignored my errant signals, almost as if he were saying, “I feel what you’re asking me to do but I know you don’t really mean that, so I’ll be patient with you and do what you really want.” Instead of stopping or bucking or pulling at the bit, Woody kept trying to interpret my gibberish.

When we were done, I hopped off Woody and whispered in his ear, “It’s so nice to meet you,” as if I’d been waiting for him my whole life. Then I walked over to Dan. “I love him.”

Dan’s expression was nothing short of pure joy. I had only shown fear and then tentative acceptance of horses until then.

Meanwhile, Shane had taken off Woody’s bridle and was riding him with only a halter.

“There’s a flying lead change,” Dallas said. “He’s going to slide him. And there’s a spin.”

I had never seen a horse ridden without a bridle. I was mesmerized.

“Another lead change, and there’s a half halt, all with just legs and body,” she said.

“What’s a half halter?” I asked, envisioning a halter with only the neck loop.

Dallas laughed out loud, but it was a patient, good-natured laugh. “Half halt, not half halter. It’s when we ask a horse to rebalance by gathering itself in a bit and shortening his frame. To do that, he has to tuck his bum up underneath himself to carry more weight on his hind quarters.”

I wondered how I could simultaneously be learning and still know less. Somehow, every tidbit learned made the encyclopedia of horse knowledge bigger. So on a relative basis, I was in fact, dumber. And that was okay.

After Shane led Woody out of the arena, it was time to meet Lady Briminc. She was a sweet little black mare, but right away, I could tell something was off in how Dallas and Donnette were reacting.

Lady Briminic’s trainer rode her around the ring. After a few minutes, Dallas joined me at the rail. “Don’t fall in love.” Perhaps she had witnessed my complete adoration of Woody. “There’s something wrong with her left hock.”

“Hock?”

“The joint in the back legs, like an elbow. See how she’s limping, taking a shorter stride.”

I looked closely. I saw only the slightest inequality in stride length.

“She’s not bringing it up beneath her like she is on the right.”

Then I could see it. The horse didn’t seem to be bending her left hind leg as much as her right.

“Dallas, you want to ride?” Kim asked.

Dallas nodded and walked into the arena. She took Lady Briminc in circles, through lead changes and then spins. As Dallas rode, either the limp got worse or I became more attuned to the injury. It was less of a limp than a lack of full extension. Still, it was there, and Dallas wasn’t smiling as she hopped off and joined me on the rail. “She’s a nervous horse. She’s afraid of doing something wrong.”

“Because someone was unkind?” I asked.

Dallas raised her eyebrows, tilted her head, and a sad expression crossed her face that was answer enough. “Someone may have ridden her with an injury, someone may have pushed her too hard. She’s just nervous.”

I was already a stone-cold goner over Woody, and I didn’t want to get attached to Minc, as I’d already taken to referring to her, but my heart broke just the same for that little horse. She was afraid of someone or something, and yet, she was still trying to do well. As she was led back to her trailer, I felt terrible and said a tiny prayer that she’d find a good home. Then I went to Woody’s stall to pet him one more time.

“Hi buddy, we’ll see you soon, okay?”

He sniffed my hand in response and lowered his head into my chest. Woody was mine and I was his.

*

A week and a vet check later, Dallas drove to Idaho and brought Woody home. He arrived on the same night as the annual barn Christmas party. Inside, white lights adorned the fence around the arena, dozens of candles cast a soft glow over red and white table cloths, and a joyful buzz accompanied the Christmas music piped throughout the barn. I looked decidedly out of place in my pink down jacket and brown clogs, carrying my Patagonia-clad baby as people began to arrive in cowboy hats, starched shirts and bolo ties, long wranglers, big belt buckles, and cowboy boots. It wasn’t long before the barn girls usurped Grace, and I was free to leave the crowd and walk down the concrete hallway to Woody’s new stall.

Woody looked small under his navy blue blanket. It had come with him and was two sizes too big. “Hi good boy,” I sang as I opened the stall door and stepped inside. “How was your day? You had a big day. This is your new home, and these are your new friends.”

Woody sniffed my hands and jacket. I kissed him on the nose and then hugged his neck. I knew next to nothing about etiquette around horses, I just wanted to be with him. I sat down in his stall, leaned back against the metal wall, and watched Woody. The sounds of laughter and Christmas music drifted down the corridor, but I was lost in Woody’s world. I don’t know how long I sat there before Dan joined me. “The barn girls are fighting over holding the babies,” he said as he stepped into the stall and rubbed Woody’s nose.

“I really love him.” I wanted Dan to understand, to feel what I felt.

“I know you do,” Dan smiled. After a few minutes, he stepped out of the stall. “You coming?”

“Yep, in just a minute.” I stood up, petting Woody in the low light. Then I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Merry Christmas, good boy,” I whispered. “Merry Christmas.”