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Description
The Mana Farms story line frequently contains mature language, topics, and situations. The characters within are fictional beings with weaknesses and faults, and I cannot promise you that you will like them for what they believe, say and do.

Note: The character Re, or "Running Elk", as seen below, was first introduced in the Mana farms entry "Counting Coup" in case you've forgotten.

PREVIOUSLY ON:

The horse Fiveforfighting was a big tall gangly colt from a farm in West Virginia no one had ever really heard of. His sire was Big Bend of plebeian breeding, whose only claim to fame was some mediocre connection to the blood that had given the racing world John Henry. He was a lot bigger than he ought to be at his age; long and straight and pointy in a few places like a Norfolk pine, and then knobby and stringy everywhere else like a rubber tree. He walked like a tree too; his head bobbing this way and that way like a new hickory quivering in the wind and singing to himself “Ain’t a nothing gonna blow me down, me down, ain’t nothing gonna blow me down.” He was something like a twelve year old boy who got his growth spurt when he was nine, towering over the other students in his class and making all the other mothers whisper that maybe he was a less-than-stellar dope of a kid who had to repeat. His legs were so long, too long, that it made his tail seem mistakenly short, like his little sister had done the job of cutting it for him and had cut it all wrong. His mane would never lay straight and his feet weren’t either and sometimes he ate so slowly he fell asleep and the grooms would come by and see his big ugly mug propped in the bucket as he slept standing up. The colt didn’t have much of a face either. It was long and pointy at one end with two large brown whorls like uneven mismatched knots in the walnut grain of him at the top for eyes. The Mexican grooms called him “Maderuca” which meant “ugly, rotten wood”, but Maggie called him adorable and nicknamed him “Riley” instead. “Riley is a such a great sweet horse.” “Riley deserves an oatmeal cookie for being such a great sweet horse.” But as soon as her back was turned, all of the grooms and all of the riders called him “Mr. Maderuca” again, divided the oatmeal cookies between themselves, and joked about shoving the horse down an abandoned well.

It was no small wonder then that the bosses gave the ugly horse to Re.

Horses made of prized sandalwood like Subversive or agarwood like Thisismyboomstick, the dark rich metallic luster of koa wood like Xanthippus, or the curly fiddleback maple horse Altissima,...those horses, rare, exotic, quality animals went to master carpenters with rough blistered hands and sharp beady eyes that were designing and planning the moment they picked up the reins. The moment lumber like that came off of the boat, they were passed off to men who could shape and bend and hammer horseflesh into works of art to dazzle and stupefy patrons who eagerly sought a return on their investment.

But the pines and the spruce raised up in farms in some old man’s back yard went to apprentices, quiet inexperienced boys like Running Elk who stood in front of the cheap horses and stared.

Riley took a great deep breath that filled his barrel chest to the brim before he exhaled long and slow out both of his large wide nostrils and stared back. “Ain’t a nothing gonna blow me down, me down, ain’t nothing gonna blow me down,” he sang, "I may be brown but I ain't gonna frown, oh nobody's gonna blow me down, me down."

Running Elk took another deep breath and listened as the horse sang the old refrain again. It had a rich deep sound to it, like an old slave humming to himself as he walked the rows of sugarcane, but tongue-in-cheek, a bundle of raw cane tucked under his arm for the barbeque pit and some good cooking as soon as his day was done. "My life is hard, is hard, but I’ll take the scraps and still eat well, eat well, and if I die well then I'm free and the good lord he can come for me."

“I have heard that song before,” Re admitted. He hadn’t heard it before with the backcountry twang that the horse used when he sang it to Running Elk, the song he’d heard was softer and older, but it was still a song he’d heard all his life. It was in the rhythm of his mother hammering down the lumber and the tin to their broken down trailer on the reservation after a big storm had ripped the last one off or the way his stepfather worked at the well in the back that hadn’t run for weeks. He’d heard his little sister sing that song while playing with a doll the charities had left at the reservation the Christmas before with a box of oranges and some hand-me-down clothes. And he himself had sung it while walking to the bushtracks of Montana and Wyoming. “No well is going to leave my family dry today, no broken down well is going to leave me dry.” It was a song as bitter and strong as tea, and just as medicinal if you were willing to drink it.

“I know that song,” he repeated to the horse. He reached down into his pants pocket and the horse’s ears twitched forward reflexively.

“No, this is not the cookie you were promised but had taken from you when others discovered how valuable it is, this is a gift from brother to brother. Have you ever tasted thunder in your mouth?” he asked. His fingers curled around the loose sand in his pocket and he pulled it out. The horse saw nothing, not even the sand, but he smelled the salt and the minerals and he leaned forward a little closer. Re stood there rolling around a few large grey and orange granules between his thumb and forefinger before sliding his hand palm up underneath the horse’s mouth. A long pink tongue snaked out and licked it up. Re glanced over his shoulder; no one was near them.

“Today you will run faster than ever,” he whispered, “Lightning rock has a dangerous magic to it in the blood of cheap horses. Ain't nobody gonna blow you down.”

Next on:

Description
The Mana Farms story line frequently contains mature language, topics, and situations. The characters within are fictional beings with weaknesses and faults, and I cannot promise you that you will like them for what they believe, say and do.

Note: The character Re, or "Running Elk", as seen below, was first introduced in the Mana farms entry "Counting Coup" in case you've forgotten.

PREVIOUSLY ON:

The horse Fiveforfighting was a big tall gangly colt from a farm in West Virginia no one had ever really heard of. His sire was Big Bend of plebeian breeding, whose only claim to fame was some mediocre connection to the blood that had given the racing world John Henry. He was a lot bigger than he ought to be at his age; long and straight and pointy in a few places like a Norfolk pine, and then knobby and stringy everywhere else like a rubber tree. He walked like a tree too; his head bobbing this way and that way like a new hickory quivering in the wind and singing to himself “Ain’t a nothing gonna blow me down, me down, ain’t nothing gonna blow me down.” He was something like a twelve year old boy who got his growth spurt when he was nine, towering over the other students in his class and making all the other mothers whisper that maybe he was a less-than-stellar dope of a kid who had to repeat. His legs were so long, too long, that it made his tail seem mistakenly short, like his little sister had done the job of cutting it for him and had cut it all wrong. His mane would never lay straight and his feet weren’t either and sometimes he ate so slowly he fell asleep and the grooms would come by and see his big ugly mug propped in the bucket as he slept standing up. The colt didn’t have much of a face either. It was long and pointy at one end with two large brown whorls like uneven mismatched knots in the walnut grain of him at the top for eyes. The Mexican grooms called him “Maderuca” which meant “ugly, rotten wood”, but Maggie called him adorable and nicknamed him “Riley” instead. “Riley is a such a great sweet horse.” “Riley deserves an oatmeal cookie for being such a great sweet horse.” But as soon as her back was turned, all of the grooms and all of the riders called him “Mr. Maderuca” again, divided the oatmeal cookies between themselves, and joked about shoving the horse down an abandoned well.

It was no small wonder then that the bosses gave the ugly horse to Re.

Horses made of prized sandalwood like Subversive or agarwood like Thisismyboomstick, the dark rich metallic luster of koa wood like Xanthippus, or the curly fiddleback maple horse Altissima,...those horses, rare, exotic, quality animals went to master carpenters with rough blistered hands and sharp beady eyes that were designing and planning the moment they picked up the reins. The moment lumber like that came off of the boat, they were passed off to men who could shape and bend and hammer horseflesh into works of art to dazzle and stupefy patrons who eagerly sought a return on their investment.

But the pines and the spruce raised up in farms in some old man’s back yard went to apprentices, quiet inexperienced boys like Running Elk who stood in front of the cheap horses and stared.

Riley took a great deep breath that filled his barrel chest to the brim before he exhaled long and slow out both of his large wide nostrils and stared back. “Ain’t a nothing gonna blow me down, me down, ain’t nothing gonna blow me down,” he sang, "I may be brown but I ain't gonna frown, oh nobody's gonna blow me down, me down."

Running Elk took another deep breath and listened as the horse sang the old refrain again. It had a rich deep sound to it, like an old slave humming to himself as he walked the rows of sugarcane, but tongue-in-cheek, a bundle of raw cane tucked under his arm for the barbeque pit and some good cooking as soon as his day was done. "My life is hard, is hard, but I’ll take the scraps and still eat well, eat well, and if I die well then I'm free and the good lord he can come for me."

“I have heard that song before,” Re admitted. He hadn’t heard it before with the backcountry twang that the horse used when he sang it to Running Elk, the song he’d heard was softer and older, but it was still a song he’d heard all his life. It was in the rhythm of his mother hammering down the lumber and the tin to their broken down trailer on the reservation after a big storm had ripped the last one off or the way his stepfather worked at the well in the back that hadn’t run for weeks. He’d heard his little sister sing that song while playing with a doll the charities had left at the reservation the Christmas before with a box of oranges and some hand-me-down clothes. And he himself had sung it while walking to the bushtracks of Montana and Wyoming. “No well is going to leave my family dry today, no broken down well is going to leave me dry.” It was a song as bitter and strong as tea, and just as medicinal if you were willing to drink it.

“I know that song,” he repeated to the horse. He reached down into his pants pocket and the horse’s ears twitched forward reflexively.

“No, this is not the cookie you were promised but had taken from you when others discovered how valuable it is, this is a gift from brother to brother. Have you ever tasted thunder in your mouth?” he asked. His fingers curled around the loose sand in his pocket and he pulled it out. The horse saw nothing, not even the sand, but he smelled the salt and the minerals and he leaned forward a little closer. Re stood there rolling around a few large grey and orange granules between his thumb and forefinger before sliding his hand palm up underneath the horse’s mouth. A long pink tongue snaked out and licked it up. Re glanced over his shoulder; no one was near them.

“Today you will run faster than ever,” he whispered, “Lightning rock has a dangerous magic to it in the blood of cheap horses. Ain't nobody gonna blow you down.”

Next on: