Stories from the Amazon - End of the Rainbow

Foxy was a very thrilling horse to ride. You never know what to expect from a horseback ride on her. When I first got her she would never let me get on without tying her up to a post and doing a hop on one foot for a while until I could finally throw my leg over and get seated in the saddle. Then I'd have to make sure my feet were securely in the stirrups and a fist full of mane and then reach down with my other hand and untie the lead rope and hold on for dear life. She would take off at a full gallop in whatever direction I managed to get her pointed and usually I wouldn't be able to slow her down or steer her until she got the pent up energy that she was full of spent out a little. The adrenaline rush from that good gallop was intoxicating. One day we went through this silly dance and bolt and were galloping up a long hill near the school where the missionary kids studied. It was a wide open field and a good hill to run up no matter what legs you were using to run. At the top of the hill there was a sports court with a basketball hoop and we kids would play on that every day. It was the only bit of concrete in my life up till then, unless we drove to town, which was a rare thing when we were kids. We all tried to learn how to roller skate on that bit of concrete. Some learned better than others. I was one of the others. Past the sports court was a big tall Jambo tree with really low hanging branches. This particular day Foxy was galloping in her usual exhilerating manner and all of a sudden I realized that she was heading straight towards the Jambo tree and visions of Absalom from the Bible, being hanged to death by his hair, started rapidly flowing through my mind. I decided it was time to see if I could steer her at full gallop. Now the thing is, it had rained the night before because of course we were in the Amazon jungle and it rains every day when it's rainy season. I gently pulled the left rein to get her to swerve to the left. She took me seriously and turned. However all of a sudden her feet slipped out from under her on the slick grass and she started falling which of course made me start to fall. For a split second I was certain that she was going to land on top of me and crush me to death but somehow God spared me from dying that day and when I got up from the ground, she had already managed to get up as well and was starting to graze. My right wrist was hurting a lot and I felt pretty bruised. She let me catch her with no problems and I walked her home. On the way home we passed the local missionary doctor who examined my wrist and said it was fractured. A trip the the hospital in town and a cast for a few weeks was the result of that. However, when back at home and I took my shirt off, there, right smack in the middle of my back on the shirt was a perfect horse hoof print. And yet I had no bruise or scrape on my body except for the wrist. We all were thanking God for his protection during that tumble. I still have no idea how that hoof print ended up in the middle of the back of my shirt. The next day I was back to riding her even with a fractured wrist. Eventually she grew to trust me and I didn't have to go through the whole dance and bolt regime in order to ride her. She learned to read me and I her and we had an amazing bond of trust. She would do pretty much anything I asked of her and jump over anything I pointed her at. Fast forward a few years. We moved away from the mission base and bought the ranch and Foxy went to live there. One day I was riding her down to the creek for a swim. It was rainy season again and had rained that day. We had a gravel mountain halfway tot the creek. It was unique because it was this strange gravel mountain right in the middle of the jungle. I liked to go ride around it and explore all the edges and the hills and dips that the excavators had left from taking the gravel out before we purchased the land. This particular day I noticed there was a rainboww in the sky because it had just rained. I love rainbows because they are a promise of God so I was looking at it and admiring it, when all of a sudden it seemed like there was the end of the rainbow. We rode over to it and sure enough. I could ride Foxy right throught the end of the rainbow. I never even knew you could actually find the end of the rainbow but it ended about waist height from a horse's back. Back and forth we went a bunch of times because it was so fascinating. Unfortunately there was no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, but it sure felt like God pouring out His blessing on me for allowing me to see such a thing.