A History

The History of...

Birth of the Sun Stables

The origins of this stables is the same as many little horse farms across Canada. A man with a love of horses decided after long years of budgeting, scrimping and saving, to open his own facility, and work with the one animal he respected beyond all others.

Though, his hope and dream soon looked as though it was going to fail, as the people whom he hoped would rent his stalls soon moved closer to jobs, and by proxy, left the little village he called home.  It was with a heavy heart that Cameron Little would sell his stables...though he never expected who would buy them...

~

A cold, crisp winter morning, so like many in Canada, particularly Alberta, where the prairie winds wreak havoc upon that flat land, brushing flat the fur of the world, the wheat in the fall, golden and ready to harvest. Even in the depths of summer the frost can kill, bright shining light of day crackling the frost torn crops, a furious spat of snow in the middle of June.

He loved this crazy place, for the weather, and the creatures that roam the land in equal measure. He would stand upon his front porch, hazel eyes seeing nothing but tilled ground and dreaming of the facility that he had yearned to build, and now, that single building with its stall, was slipping from his grasp. Eight hundred acres...his family farm, soon to be chopped into pieces and sold to corporate cattle operations and thrown away.

It was April first when the true miracle began. A long distance...though perhaps a prairie man doesn't see distances in the same light as those from a city. Three hours drive is maybe enough to arrive at the far end of his lands. A trifle of movement, of time. It meant nothing when the world moved so slowly as you work with the land. The land is eternal, even if it's ownership is not.

In a city, three hours distant, a young woman, maybe thinking of her father and his habits, looks down at the little sign sitting on the counter, mentally ticking over the amount of money she has saved from her student loans, considering if she can afford the five dollar lottery ticket that she knows her father would never remember to buy.

A quiver of a lip, and she hands over her last five dollars...she wouldn't eat today, for making her father happy. She lived for that, if anything. He was the joy of her life since her mother had died, some ten years back, a sad memory in a book of tears and lost joys.

That thin slip of paper scrapes across the counter and she smiles, turning from the man, and moving out of the store, stomach twisting on itself. The university might have something...might. The older grandmotherly women in the cafeteria often gave her stale muffins, the old flakey pastries from the night before when the place was closed, and the food was set out back in the darkness. One could eat for a week on the slightly soggy rice crispy squares, or the muffin scented vaguely with Febreeze or cleaning products, dropped by accident while cleaning, but still edible. The life of a student had its brutal realities that those from wealthy families had no concept of. Living on the penny-pinching loans from the government, those that barely covered rent and tuition, often ran the route of starvation or insanity. She spent most of her time in the library, huddled in musty tomes for entertainment.

A week slides by, and that forgotten ticket sits at the bottom of an empty pocket, gathering lint, the edges worn smooth by the movement of keys. She had forgotten it existed..and with a sideways thought...the kind of thought that finds hilarity in death and injury, or fascination in the patterns of old bubblegum on the sidewalks makes a hand slide into that pocket, and bring out the piece of paper.

Hazel eyes, vaguely clouded with illness, blink at the paper dully. A pink tongue tip moistens her lips, and the creature that suffers so for education wanders idly to the nearest grocery store and uses the self lotto ticket checker to scan the bar-code on the piece of paper. A pause...she breaths, and sighs, like she does every time she checks the tickets, though a soft bleep echoes in her head and her eyes of their own accord look at the words sliding across the display.

"WINNER! WINNER! SEE CLERK FOR DETAILS!"

White teeth gnaw on her lip, and she frowns at the little ticket, before turning to the clerk. The man seems bored, clad in stained overalls and smelling like gasoline, obviously the gas jockey had been assigned to the till for today. Stained fingers take the ticket, and again, that same beep...and his pale eyes widen. A surprise tinged husky voice sounds from him, "You...won."

Another frown crinkles the skin at the corners of her eyes and she blurts, "How much?"

The young man seems frozen, finger starting to quiver on the little ticket as he looks back and forth between her and the display, seemingly in awe before whispering, "All of it."

She will never say just how much she won, though she told her father, the poor man's face bled all colour, and he looked to the sky as though in grateful happiness. They had the means to make his dream come true, and he sobbed with happiness and relief, his legacy would carry on, he wouldn't sell to a stranger, but to someone who carried his surname, his heart and soul, someone who knew the life and loved it as much as he did. He sold the farm. To his daughter.

For one dollar.

It seemed happiness has a way of creating its own sun, and for a time, they walked in joy and light, surveying the land as though it was the most amazing creation God had ever had the chance to make, watching over the fields, and the construction of the buildings that would make his true legacy fulfilled. They wouldn't need to lease out stalls any longer, nor battle with competing stables anymore. They were free.

Like life on the prairie, be it for the first settlers who took the sorrows with the joys, lives beaten into the soil by hail, tornadoes and blizzards, these modern prairie people could only wipe a tear from their eye and continue when sorrow lifted its pale head. It was with sad recognition that she found him, not a month after the final building had been completed, the final truckload of red rock dumped on the driveway, the final pat of dirt on the exercise track. Sitting astride his old horse Sunshadow, a radiantly chestnut quarter horse, on that hill overlooking his lands and farm. She thought him asleep on his mount, but under that old cowboy hat sat nothing but a smile and blank lifelessness, the old horses reins dangling from cold hands.

Sunshadow died two days later. Some say from sadness, others said that Cameron and that old gelding were tied in one soul, that when one died, the other would be fast to follow. Michelle couldn't decide which, but buried them together on the cairn. The horse laid on his side, as peaceful and relaxed as in sleep, with saddle, bridle and silver buckles neatly laid beside, her father, in his gear, hat pulled low over his eyes, arms crossed and leaning against the back of his horse as they had often done in life. It was the way he would have wanted to be buried, ready to go, in his boots with his hat and best horse beside him.

Every spring since, that cairn has blossomed with Indian paintbrushes, the plants making the  entire area red, holding themselves to the large hill, stopping some feet from the edge of the white fence she erected around it. They blossomed for him, she knew they were his favourite plant, though toxic to many animals, they held a special place. An emblem of his home, now they stood like red sentinels in remembrance of one of the true settlers, the true cowboys of this land, one again with the earth, a small change from his love of her for all his life.

From then on, the stable was named Birth of the Sun, commemorating the bright light of those red flowers, and the beautiful red Sunshadow that captured the heart of one man for twenty five years. In this, the life of the farm will live on, and Michelle will see it through.

Atop the tallest building on the farm, a little lighthouse her father insisted upon, though she knew nothing about it, only that his great grandfather loved the sea as he loved horses, sits a little statue, a young man leaning against a beautiful horse, dark brown copper faces both turned in the same direction, both looking to the east, the man with his hat tilted back, the horse with ears pricked, both seemingly intent upon some distant view, to watch the sun's birth every day.