The Tail Of A Horse

Chapter 13

✈️James' P.O.V✈️

My house is empty. My heart is broken and empty. I am empty.
Without all of Tally's special grooming products and his extra boots and tack not here, my little town house seems empty to me.
I grab the name plate out of my coat pocket. The sort of thick waterproof black coat kept me warm when galloping on Tally through the heavy forest and up the hills. The plate says Tally's name on it. My heart sinks to the floor and out my feet.
After changing into my pj's I look through a photo album of pictures of Tally, me and memories. As I turn page after page, photo after photo, I soak all the memories in like a sponge.

🕊Memory Flashback🕊

The first memory. It was my 15th birthday and at long last my parents bought me a horse of my own. He was tall and clean, groomed well. The picture was taken by my friend, Alec who was at the stables at the time. He died too young.... A couple of weeks after I got Tally, Alec had a bad fall and was put into a coma. He died about 4 weeks later. I bet his horse, Smokey, still misses him. Tally was originally called Cowboy but Tally suited him better as his hindquarters looked like it had a tally on it. Since then Tally and I were pretty much always together and I raced home from school to get changed ready to go and see him. At the weekends I used to ride Tally down to the river in the forest and jump over the fallen logs and the rocks. Most of the time me and Tally, Sasha on Pumpkin, Hillary on Ned and William on Ginger would all go to the fields about a mile away and jump the cross country course, race each other and generally have a good time. We all had our own horses.
I remember the feeling of when I saw Tally with ribbons on him and his saddle on his back. My eyes watered and I gasped with my mouth wide open. I fastened my chin strap on my hat as I stepped up the block ready to mount Tally. Alec led him over and kept him still as I lifted my right leg up and over my horse's thin body. My instructor came over and told me that she would come to the arena with me. As we went inside the big indoor arena, Tally's head lifted up suddenly. His ears went forwards as he looked around his new surroundings.
We jumped a fee jumps and did some flatwork exercises to help Tally to extend his stride. The day ended with Joe and Beth showing me where Tally's stable was and were his tack and equipment would be kept.