Once more the butcher looked into her eyes and said he couldn't kill her. This time he gave the truck driver the advice to donate her to a riding school or a training stables. She was great with kids...
That is how she came into my life.

I was a twenty-seven year old snotnose then, who knew just about enough of life to be scared shitless. Enough to stay out of the way of poverty and violence for the time being, which was the main reason I hadn't left the Netherlands for nearly ten years at the time.
I had just lost a job after five years of hard work, and had switched to designing and producing leather-work in my living room. One of my regular customers asked me to make a bridle and introduced me to a training stables about six or seven miles from my house. I started taking riding lessons there and found out soon enough I wasn't the type of guy to pursue championship in western riding. I just wanted to ride out. And it didn't take long before they introduced me to this old mare. She was "only" seventeen then, but she looked grey and weary. She walked with her head bowed down, and once outside the gates of the stables she would lift it just enough to ensure some balance. But still, something happened on these rides.
I was so blind, I failed to notice however.

My leatherwork business was blooming and I stayed away from the riding stables for a few weeks. Indira became sick, wouldn't eat anymore. I got a phonecall. "Why aren't you riding anymore?" - Without any explanation about the horse I was told I had to come and talk, and I did.
The people of the stables told me that they were really worried about "old" Indira and found a way to make her raise her head up and eat: all they had to do was mention my name to her. But that only worked for a few days, so they decided to give me a call and get the two of us together. She looked at me with her dark eyes and sniffed my hands and my face. She stood in front of me and obviously tried to reach me, but I wasn't ready for this kind of communication. I just saw a horse. Something inside me was moved but that didn't seem to hurt or alarm me, so I didn't give it much thought...
Then the lady who owned most of the riding facility asked me to accept Indira as a gift, and to cut a long story very short, I did. We put her in a bigger stable immediately and I started to groom her.

The first time I came to her stable to take her for a ride was the next morning. I had never owned a horse before although I had been around them for many years. Beau, my alsatian, lay on the concrete floor watching me and Indira, we were all nervous and upset. We sweated. She must've thought I came to kill and eat her, she was shaking on her legs. But it went well for us that day, and by the end of that first ride there was at least some mutual appreciation.

The first year we did nothing else than ride out every morning, Indira and me, and Beau followed us with a big smile and growing confidence. She carried me, that's how I would describe our style of riding. Wet foliage, steep hills, anything, she would see us through. We walked an awfull lot, sometimes trotted for a few minutes and sometimes we even dared a comfortable canter. She had always been punished for anything close to a gallop, so it took most of that first year to make her confident in a 3-beat gait. But she got the hang of it.
I learned a lot about legs and horse-shoes. The damage to her hoofs from the time she was trained to race was largely controlled by a special make of supporting soles in her shoes. The first time we used rubber pads, but I had them replaced by a German leather that resembled and smelled like oak. It worked very well for many years. She never limped again.

I did another thing very well. Beau and I went to groom and ride her every day, seven days a week. Looking back I realise that Indira started to trust me after more than a year. She knew I would be there every day, summer or winter, rain or shine, in sickness and in health.
It took even longer for me to feel her friendship, and all her feelings for me and Beau that went way beyond that. It took a few years. Someone at the stables told me that every day when I went home to start my day of labour, Indira would be standing in front of that little window she had in her stable and watch me leave. I was told she would stand there for hours, sometimes making noises through her nose... "She hates to see you go," this person said. "It made me cry a few times to see her like that."
In spring, summer and fall I started to prepare my leatherwork in the evening, and take it along to the stables to do my sewing, embossing and lacing after our daily rides. Or I would ride her to the beach or into the forrest, and let her run free with Beau while I was working. They always stayed together, played with each other as well as a horse and dog can and checked back with me every fifteen to thirty minutes.

She changed a lot over the years. She started shining like there were little crystals on her skin. The grey in her face had turned to the colors of her youth. Her legs were firm and twice as muscular as the first year. She felt young and strong and when she was in a meadow with the other horses, she immediately imposed her leadership on them. She felt great.
Whenever we could we left town to ride in the few patches of ancient nature in northern Europe. The "Veluwe" were I had spent my younger years, the "Ardennes" in Belgium, and the "Schwarzwald" (the Black Forrest) in southern Germany, where we once roamed and rode an entire winter, the three of us in our best cowboy gear, Indira with all her silver, handmade leather, and colorful blankets, carrying a (strictly forbidden in Europe) 30.06 Winchester on her saddle. She used to stand over Beau and me at night, keeping us dry and warm. We walked for hundreds of miles together, Indira carrying all our gear and supplies, Beau and me just leading the way, each of us devoted to our own thoughts and feelings.

Indira and Beau were the most important beings in my life. I forgot my wife completely. Forgot her birthday, never took her out for dinner anymore, spent all my time with Beau and Indira. Until that final summer in 1989.
My wife demanded a holiday, and we would spend it together, without Indira. She wanted to see Yugoslavia, unaware of the threat of a civil war there. I asked my sister and her husband, who were considered to be professional horse-people, to watch over Indira while we were gone. "Keep her fit," I said, "walk her at least every second day." And they didn't.

Yugoslavia sucked. It was the world like I learned to know it on my travels. Hard, violent, indifferent, full of fear and anger. My wife didn't seem to notice, but Beau and I felt it and we wanted to leave. We didn't spend the full three weeks in Yugoslavia, but drove up north again to Austria. There in the beautiful mountains we met other western riders and were among horses again. It was hot and peaceful.
After a few days Indira started to appear to me in my dreams. She was worried and obviously missed me very much. I decided not to wait until the three weeks were over and started making my way home. When we arrived back it appeared that the last filling of her hoofs, the day before we left on vacation, had been the wrong material. She had been left standing there without the usual support in her shoes and she was hurting badly. I took her to a doctor immediately who said he couldn't help her anymore. She was twentyfour and crazy with pain. The doctor tried to come up with some sort of solution. I left her there over night, only to hear the next morning I had to hurry to see her one last time.

We drove up there and went to her stable at the clinic. She was dancing around me, sweating and in pain. Looking back it seems to me that I became fully aware of her communication that day. She looked deep into my eyes while dancing in front of me, and said: "I don't want to die. Please take me with you. Please let's leave this place. Let's ride into the forrest one more time."
I told her we couldn't. I left her to the doctor who had prepared her final injections. I got into my car and started to drive. The moment she was supposed to die her spirit followed me, dove into the car from the back window and went straight through me. It felt like an explosion. I hit the brakes and sat there, deeply wounded and shaking all over. She had gone right through me. And the next moment it was just me sitting there with this enormous whole in my chest, at least that is how it felt.

I went for a walk in the woods. Now that she was gone I started to become aware of her deep affection, her loyalty, her love for me and Beau, her love for life. It took another year before I was able to understand what I had learned from her.