The Horse Man

Vultures

Kiera had not had a riding lesson in several days. Whenever she approached Hyn about it, he told her brusquely that he was overly busy with more important things, and sent her home.
She sulked for a few days, but soon curiosity got the better of her and she made the short walk to Hyn's domain.
Silvara greeted her with horsy contentment, and then ambled off in search of grass. Hyn was nowhere to be seen. Kiera was about to go look for him in the house, when an unexpected noise from the back yard startled her. A trumpet introduced Clarke's Trumpet Voluntary, followed by an orchestra. Hyn had bought a sound system! She ran around to the back, and stopped short at the sight.
Mounted on Bellerephon, Hyn was dancing to the music, carefully performing the most beautiful steps. They were flanked by Ghazi and Goshawk, who were in turn followed by Aristides and two other Greek stallions with seal bay coats. Riderless, the following stallions nevertheless stayed in perfect synchronization with their leader, necks proudly arched and hooves lifting high.
They made their circuit around the yard with Haunches In, Shoulder In, and Passage, the floating trot. When the music cued them, they performed the levade, the Mezair where they reared straight up on their hind legs, once the Capriole, where they leapt into the air kicking out their hind feet before coming down, and ending by prancing forward in a straight line to finish with a proud stance of arched neck and cocked tails.
Hyn patted and praised them, and then turned his attention to Kiera.
"What did you think, Kiera?" he asked. "Was it something that you would travel to see, think you, or do you think you could simply watch videos of the stallions in the Hofreitschule?"
Kiera had no words for a very long moment. She tried to make her mouth work, but all that would come out was a squeak. Finally, she managed to say, "It was so amazing!!! I never saw anything like it!" She opened and shut her mouth a few times. "It was like they were dancing all on their own! It was like you were just there for show!" she gasped, then jumped up and down frantically. "Can I help too? I want to do that sort of thing! I wanna ride like that!"
Hyn did not make a reply. He turned to face Bellerephon, who nipped him gently on the arm in the manner of stallions, and caressed the stallion gently on the base of his dust colored ear. "You did very well, my friend." Hyn told the horse in a voice he never used with people.
"You have all made me very proud, my children." The stallions perked their ears up and did little dance steps in excitement.
"Yes, my children, we will show the world how handsome you are, and your mares will burst with pride!"
The stallions crowded around Hyn, giving him love bites and grooming him, and Hyn caressed them back.
"Yes, your mares will be so proud, but I shall be sad, my children, because I have no desire to share you with all those silly people who cannot appreciate what they see."

Kiera's riding lessons did not, surprisingly, grow less frequent as Hyn took time to practice dances with his favored stallions. Hyn was as meticulous as ever, making her do the basic steps carefully even when she grew impatient with them after watching his performances with the studs and younger stallions.
Gradually, she learned how to sit in the saddle without simply being a passenger, and how to help her mount move by always having her weight distributed perfectly. It was harder than Hyn made it look. But as Hyn snapped when she complained about the endless practice, "What, are you so selfish that you cannot try to make this something which Silvara looks forward to as much as you?"
She had been riding carefully in figure eights for about fifteen minutes one fine morning, when she noticed one of the stallions dancing around Hyn. Only this struck her as different; the stallion seemed to be trying to tell him something with little bobs of his head and flicks of his ears and tail. Stranger yet, Hyn seemed to understand perfectly, and seemed to reply with nods and motions of his own. Abruptly, he turned away from the stallion and walked out to the front yard, to lean against the fence and look down the road as if waiting for something to come. Kiera could have told him that the only time anyone used the road was during hunting season.
But against all precedent, a swirl of dust far down the road heralded an approaching vehicle.
"They are here again," Hyn announced, sourly.
"Who?" Kiera asked. She had not seen anyone come here since Hyn moved in.
"The greedy people who want to ride to their pitiful version of success on the backs of my dear ones."
Kiera rode to the fence line and watched as a car drove up into the gated drive. It was odd to see a car this far back on a dirt road, and odder yet for it to be a new Mercedes Benz. As the car rolled past the gate, Bellerephon laid back his ears and lowered his head in a snaking motion, hurrying to his mares and herding them away behind the barn down the coulee that ran there. Ghazi followed him, trailed by the young studs Hyn had been working with, but Aristides bared his teeth and postured at the car, obviously intent on guarding Hyn.
Hyn did not laugh at the stallion's behavior, but instead smiled at him fondly before walking out to confront the driver of the car.
An elegantly dressed young woman stepped out and walked purposefully towards him, her posture indicating that she was taking charge.
"Mr. Horseman?" she asked brusquely, striding up to Hyn.
Hyn studied her for a few moments before deigning to make a reply. He had had thousands of years to perfect the art of superiority, and he knew that even the slightest touch of lofty amusement could be exquisitely painful to the average ego.
Was she worth squashing?
Hyn looked her up and down.
"No." he replied, very briefly.
"I'm sorry, what?" The woman was obviously baffled.
"No, my name is not Mr. Horseman." Hyn replied briskly. Aristides stalked up to them and wrinkling his nose, tipped his head back in the air, posturing as stallions will to indicate their superiority and their willingness to fight. Hyn did not stop him.
"This is the O'Niell ranch, isn't it? And you're the man with the horses?"
Hyn looked at the woman pityingly. "My dear lady, there are very few people in this area who do not own horses, and you just drove under a plaque which stated the name O'Niell quite distinctly. It also stated most distinctly that this is a private residence and that business should be taken to the office, which is also clearly marked."
The woman was silenced, but not for long. Gathering her dented composure around her, she tried another tack.
"I am Mae Darling with the Montana Archaeological Research Center and I am currently working on a project to discern the origins of our so called indigenous horses. I will be happy to reimburse you for any inconveniences, but I will need unrestricted access to your herd for certain tests involving DNA research."
Hyn looked at her for another moment before replying.
"I do not care for your project, and am disinclined to help you. I do not care for your attitude, and am inclined to go into my house and leave you here to be mauled by my stallion. I do not care for research and the idiocy of people who believe that because something is found under many layers of dirt, that it is older than the age of the Earth. Still, I will be kind enough to throw you a bone. My horses are indeed older than the feral horses currently roaming the government lands. They are not related to what you call indigenous horses. Your indigenous horses were never indigenous, simply brought here from Egypt in ancient times by a people who eventually called themselves Mayan. This stallion here is of Greek origins and would be only very loosely related to the mounts of the ancient Phoenicians. I cannot be of any assistance to you in this regard, and I wouldn't be if I could."
With that, Hyn turned around and walked back to the yard where he had been working with the stallions, dismissing the gasping, outraged woman as if she no longer were there.
Hyn had cast down a gauntlet, and Mae Darling most certainly would pick it up.
"Don't think you can push me around, Smarty!" She yelled at Hyn's retreating back. "I have a lot of influence, and you're nothing but a hick rancher! I'll eat you alive!"
Hyn paused in his walk towards the horses.
"I have lived much, much longer than you, and you are less than a mote of dust on my horizon. I will have no need to push you. I can easily have your superiors do that for me. I will demonstrate how in a few days. You are unutterably insignificant, a woman who has castrated herself in an attempt to be equal to men, not realizing that as a female, you are superior to men. If you try to expand yourself at my expense, then you will be more than a dust mote; you will be a pile of mud which must be scraped from my doorway. Do not become a pile of mud." Hyn's voice was not raised, it was calm and even, but it carried the razor keen edge of a sword hidden in a gentleman's walking stick.
Mae's angry retorts went unnoticed and unanswered as he returned to the back yard, trailed by his seal brown stallion. Hyn Horseman had said his say.

Thanks for reading this!
Writer's block has been killing me, along with endless spring chores, and I can hardly believe I even finished this chapter.