It was a strange kind of love bond that had existed between them. In fact, Franklin Barker felt sure that in some mysterious way it was still existing.
He was not a spiritualist. On the contrary, he was a very practical man. That was why he allowed his wife's talents to emerge free of his charges.
But that mysterious aura that surrounded her death still plagued him. To this day he still could not figure out what the fuck had happened.
All of a sudden one day he came home and found her dead. Doctors had diagnosed it as a cerebral hemorrhage.
It had struck her from out of the blue. There would have been no way, they had assured him, to have known that something was wrong with her.
The problem could have existed within her from birth. Things like this were impossible to detect.
And then one day the bubble burst inside her brain and it was all over. It had broken his heart. It made him philosophical.
He expected nothing. Yet with this kind of guiding attitude toward life one's senses were much sharper and alert.
Franklin Barker's mind often flew off into flights of spiritual vigor that left him more spent when it was over than any physical orgasm he had ever experienced.
He accepted everything around him as perfect and symbolic of the life he had led and built for himself.
That was how he could tell there was something terribly wrong with his lovely daughter. He could see his mistakes in her.
She was very much a part of him, he knew that. Like all children she had learned to look at life from the cues she picked up from her parents.
And like all parents they had tried to supply the best model of love that they were capable of expressing. But with one crucial difference: unlike most people, Franklin and Nora Barker had achieved a powerful bond in their relationship.
It carried him through depressing moments even to this day. The fact that her physical presence had ceased to exist had not dulled his sense of her. The things that they had experienced, strangely enough, was not what he thought about the most.
Being a practical man and a successful rancher and businessman who had succeeded in amassing a small fortune, he had learned never to look over one's shoulder.
The present was a result of past actions, of that there was no doubt, but it had little to do with the future.
The future, by way of association, is a function of the present, and that is a new moment every time and never dependent on the past.
The only part of the past that remained inside the psyche of Franklin Barker, was not his memories, but the effects of his experiences.
By allowing his wife to grow he was able to imitate her unique powers. Most men's egos could not endure such a blow.
Few men allow a woman to teach them anything. Their pride will not accept the fact that they must give of themselves to receive.
Franklin Barker feared for his daughter. There was something he had missed along the way that just didn't make any sense.
There was a connection between the way Melanie's mother had died and the strange way she was acting now.
If he could only retrace the events that led to her mother's death he might still be able to save Melanie.
But how does one decipher the symbolic nature of a cerebral hemorrhage? The very thought itself was a contradiction in terms.
To try and understand the why behind a person's death was tantamount to playing God. But the future of his daughter was at stake.
He watched her walk from the porch where he sat eating his breakfast and make her way over to the stables.
The farm hands were waving to her and in general giving her a warm greeting. But Melanie only gave the merest hint of a smile.
Her loose fitting blouse and jeans waved in the cool breeze that swept over a busy farm that was beginning to heat up with the days activities.
Men were working hard mending fences and hauling stacks of hay across the dusty red clay swirling up from the cool breeze.
His foreman, Mullady Mistler, was helping her to saddle up her Lightning and pack her leather pouch with carrots.
He watched her fine figure mount the charcoal-gray stallion and then nuzzle herself around the soft saddle atop the horse's back.
She bent over its long blond mane and he could see the wisps of her own dirty blond hair intermingle with the horse's. She whispered something in its ear. Then there was a momentary delay after she gave her order and she straightened herself up on the saddle. The birds stopped their chirping song. All the men's eyes were glued on the scene of the girl and horse poised for action.
Then like a crack of thunder. Lightning took off and bolted in the direction of the scenic hills that framed the horizon.
It was an inspiring spectacle to watch them fleeing into the sun-drenched valley at such a fierce and charging velocity.
Her movements gracefully complemented the steed's thunderous muscular vibrations from the rhythm of his headlong, furious pace.
He'd never seen anything like it. They way she could handle that horse was a miracle to behold. He had never seen anyone ride as fast as that.
Their bodies merged into one figure as the sped their way toward the horizon. It gave Franklin Barker the illusion of a chimera, those ancient half-person, half-horse beings with human heads and the body of a horse.
He kept his gaze fixed upon the speeding figure until his eyes burned from the strain of searching out the receding form.
He breathed a sigh and stood up.
CHAPTER TWO
Melanie bent lower over Lightning's beautiful mane while whispering sweet songs of inducement into its ear.
She told it that it was the fastest thing alive, that its power was tribute to the strength nature blessed it with.
The feeling of speeding like a bullet, complete with the thrill of that initial blast from the barrel, pulsed through her.
Lightning was in a feverish mood today. It was rare when the horse was doing anything she wanted to please her.
She loved when he started up like that. The first thing she always said to the horse upon mounting it was, "Go, Lightning, go as fast as you can like a crack of thunder."
And they bolted from a standing position like a shot out of a cannon. It thrilled her to the marrow when she experienced it.
She always said that to the horse as soon as she was comfortable in the saddle but it was not all the time that Lightning granted her wish.
The horse could be cantankerous when it wanted to be. Some days it would obey her initial command, but only halfheartedly.
Other times he wouldn't listen at all. It was often after a period of time when they were separated.
Her father forced her into going into town with him and introducing her around. There was no doubt that he was very proud of her.
Sometimes he took her away for a weekend. Lightning was very surly and hard to handle when she came back.
Sometimes it felt like the horse had a will that kept drawing her to it. Sometimes it did the smartest things.
Like today Lightning knew that everyone was watching them. And as long as they were he was going to impress them.
If they were wondering why the both of them spent so much time together, bolting away from them like that at top speed gave them an inkling as to why.
Lightning could thrill her like no other being on earth. He was showing off his strength in front of the husky men.
Top that, the horse was trying to say as they sped from the ranch at top speed, I dare you to do better than this.
Her imagination often dwelled on her love for the animal. She also knew that perhaps she was imagining a bit too much.
Perhaps the horse was just feeling particularly vigorous today, for whatever reason. She remembered the dream. When she had wakened from the dream, she had heard Lightning call to her in a high-pitched whinny. Had she imagined that too?