Chapter 1 - The Vision.

Kuma thought he heard the sound of horses’ hooves in the distance and he listened intently to know if it was just his imagination or if he had actually heard something and if he had heard horses were they approaching him? He decided he really had heard hooves beating and the horses were in fact approaching him. He quickly lay prone on the moist ground, concealing himself from anybody who would pass on the bridle path below. Kuma had been searching for mushrooms in a thick grove of tropical foliage growing on the side of a hill. As luck would have it, he had just come upon a good patch and was in the process of busily filling his burlap sack with choice mushrooms when he heard the approaching team and carriage. Kuma had good reason to avoid being seen because he was trespassing on the Van Cleef estate and it was common knowledge among the people who lived in the neighboring villages that trespassing on the property could cause unpleasant consequences. Nevertheless, young boys of Kuma’s age occasionally thought it worth taking the risk in order to poach the estate’s abundant small game or to pilfer the various types of luscious berries (which seemed to grow everywhere). Or, as in Kuma’s case, to hunt for mushrooms, highly prized by his people as an edible delicacy and also valued by local doctors as a potent medicine capable of curing fevers, as well as helping to rejuvenate old men.

Kuma’s vantage point afforded him an unobstructed view of the bridle path which ran slightly below him about fifteen feet away. It was on this path that the approaching team of horses were travelling. He lay on his stomach perfectly prone, about five feet above the path. His location was part way up a stiff east to west grade which any traffic on the path which was moving in that direction must climb. A curve in the bridle path existed about one hundred feet downgrade from his position and this prevented him from seeing the oncoming traffic below the curve, but he could hear whatever was coming. The team and carriage were on the path just below the curve when the vibrant voice of a woman carried over the sound of the hooves pounding on the dirt path.

"Yah! Boots, Penney, yah! Move your lazy butts!"

This, followed by the meaty cracks of a whip contacting taut flesh. He was curious to see the oncoming team, but was totally unprepared for the sight which greeted him as the ensemble rounded the curve and drove into view. Two tall young women wearing black leather boots laced to mid-thigh were trotting ahead of a shiny, black, two-wheeled carriage. He observed that the two almost nude women were harnessed to outwardly curved wooden shafts projecting forward from underneath the carriage. Seated in the carriage were two elegantly dressed young women. They wore silk blouses with short sleeves, suede skirts to well above the knees and soft doeskin riding boots. Silk scarves covered their hair and cream colored, gloves with pearl buttons ran up their arms to above their elbows. One of the women held a pretty pink parasol above her head. Her companion held the reins to the "horses" in her left hand and her right arm expertly wielded a black buggy whip.

"Look at these lazy ponies, Anse," the woman holding the reins said to her companion. "There is simply no excuse for this."

"Simply not enough discipline, Gretchen," replied Anse. "When we get home I’ll have them hitched to the hot walker for a few hours to cool them off and this afternoon they’ll pull the log."

As they drew closer, Kuma saw that the reins were attached to bits in the ponies’ mouths, just as he had seen with real horses in his village. Their flaxen hair was braided into pigtails, which were looped decoratively above their heads. As the carriage passed directly in front of Kuma, the ponies’ muscular legs were pumping up and down in perfect synchronism. They were covered with sweat, their flanks exhibiting numerous welts inflicted by the lash. Miraculously, at the moment the team came opposite Kuma, the pony on his side turned her head in his direction and seemed to gaze directly into his brown eyes. He never forgot the unearthly expression of her face, bitted and crossed with leather straps, and the piteous anguish he saw in her big, blue eyes. She was suffering, no doubt of it. And yet, it seemed to Kuma that somehow she was happy in her awful state. Years later, when he was a mature man, he realized that the expression he saw that day on the face of the beautiful pony girl, bitted and harnessed, pulling a carriage, lashed with the unforgiving whip of a cruel mistress, was one of tortured ecstasy.

The team was quickly moving past him. Then he saw the ponies’ large buttocks from behind for the first time. He realized that this view was the perspective enjoyed by those fortunate enough to be riding in the carriage. The expansive hips of the ponies slid saucily from side-to-side as their creamy buttock cheeks bounced tick tock, tick tock, up and down, up and down. And then they were out of sight. But as they receded into the distance Kuma could hear Gretchen calling to her ponies and hear the meaty crack of her long whip.