Moonrise

The man gathered up his equipment at twilight. He pulled on his riding boots with the tarnished brass buckles over his dusty blue jeans with the white worn spots on the thighs. He knew it would be cold so he pulled a black wool sweater over his holey cotton knit shirt. He felt the black stiff palms of his father’s smooth leather gloves, the ones with the silly but practical cavalry cuffs. He gathered up the smooth rope he used with newborn colts and turned it in his hands, making expert loops that faced each other so as not to twist the rope when throwing it. He bound it with leather ties to the side of his western saddle. He tacked up Mist, his warrior cold blood. He checked her shoes and cleaned her frogs. He patted the side of her rump when moving around to her left side, checked the girth of the saddle, patted her neck and tousled her forelock before mounting and trotting off into the darkening woods.

Up the windward side of the mountain they rode, higher and higher as the fog rose and the sun descended behind them. In front of him, the tallest peak swelled like an ocean wave. Nearing the top, they halted. He untied the lasso and took it into his right hand, the loops in his left. They waited. The ride wasn’t hard, but steam rose from Mist’s muscled neck. Night descended quickly and a chill penetrated his neckerchief. He looked at the sky and then the ground and Mist stomped absently at the chalky trail.

Just then, the moon reached for the sky. It’s blue yellow curve floated with urgency and curled into the sky revealing her crescent arch. Drunken hoots and a yellow glow emanated from the leeward side of the mountain in the valley below. The glow separated into a dozen individual torches that spread out and raced for the base of the mountain. A dozen lassos looped into the air reaching for the crescent moon and one by one they hit their zenith and fell. The moon continued to fly fast across the night sky passing the crest of the mountain where the man waited with Mist.

With a double kick, Mist surged forward lunging back down into the wind. She built up speed and grunted with the rhythm of the gallop. The man spun his lasso flipping rings of dust into his wake like smoke signals. He watched as the moon quickly crossed the sky racing for the horizon. The man measured, aimed and threw the lasso into the sky and watched hopefully as it just caught the corner of the moon, right at the bottom of the crescent. He pushed back into his heels wrapping the rope around his creaking gloved hand and around each arm. He pulled and wrapped but his feet felt light in the stirrups. Mist whinnied after him as his toes dropped free and his spurs scratched into the leather of the saddle. He was carried aloft into the sky by the runaway moon. He sailed high up and he pulled and wrapped the rope around each elbow, pulling and wrapping for his life depended on getting ever closer. The darkness of the night sky began to mix with milk and the moon stretching for the horizon began to fade. He closes his eyes and felt the rope give way as gravity reclaimed him and his boots caught the sage brush and the rocks. He still felt as if he were gliding until the ground met his face and dirt and branches filled his mouth and eyes. The rope slapped his back as it fell to the ground around him.

Every night he had tried, and every night he had gotten as far as this, holding on for as long as he could until the sun rose or the moon reached the horizon or it disappeared in the rising blue daylight. He rolled onto his back and watched the fading moon disappear. But for a moment it seemed to pause before going and waited there looking back at him. Squinting the dust from his eyes, and with two fingers he gave a respectful salute from his right eyebrow as the moon vanished. Mist walked up to him head down sniffing the ground and the rope and his boots and his gloves. The man rose to his feet and brushed himself off. He licked the dist from his lips, patted Mist on the neck and gathered up his rope. He pulled down the reins and walked next to Mist and together the two of them whistled and nickered their way back to the barn.