A Simple Plan
June! The hallway into summer. The season for strong happenings, the season for living. Giorgio's mind was on tip-toe. Looking at his calendar one morning he thought, in a flash, of the ski slide on Mount Amiata, saw the skiers toiling up and up for one breathless whoosh into space. Now he knew how they felt. For months he and Gaudenzia had been toiling up and up for the wild two minutes of glory that was the Palio.
The days of June neither dragged nor flew. They were as alike as echoes. Walk Gaudenzia one kilometer, jog her three, gallop her three and a half. Bandage her hind legs, bandage her forelegs. Grain her, a handful more each day. Cut down her hay. And always, the inner command pounding through him: Don't let her reach the peak until July. Climb, climb, climb. Bring her right up to it.
In the last week of June, the long-awaited message from the Chief-of-the-Guards reached Giorgio. "Come to Siena! At once!" was all it said.
By cockcrow on the morning after, boy and mare were on their way, trotting along gay-spirited, as if the wheatfields spattered with wild red poppies, and the hills high-rising to the sky, and all the creatures in it were theirs. Gaudenzia wanted to race every moving thing—a rabbit skirting the edge of the road, a hound streaking for a bird—the bird, too. Her friskiness, her eagerness to go filled him with a pride so strong he had to whistle to let the steam of his happiness escape. Nine months ago, with a bandage on her heel, she had slow-footed her way over this same road. Now, like Mercury with wings, she was returning.
A solitary shepherd, hungry for human company, ran out on the road and invited Giorgio to share the meal he was preparing over an open fire. He pointed his crook at Gaudenzia.
"Magnifico!" he exclaimed, with a smile so wide it showed the dark hole where two of his teeth were missing.
"Magnifica!" Giorgio laughingly corrected him. "She is a mare!" He joined the herdsman in a meal of goat cheese and grilled eel. And while the mare grazed, her eyes ranging with the cloud of sheep, the lonely herder questioned Giorgio about his plans. Then he poured out his own heart. He too had a dream. He would teach a young boy to herd, teach him just where to noon the sheep, and which ones to watch in a storm. Then he would be free for a little while, and he would walk to Siena, and there, before he died, he would witness with his own eyes the manifestation of the Palio!
