IS

The farm is nestled in eastern Norway, a half-hour from the
border into Sweden. It's the closest thing you'll find to open
range in Norway, rolling green farms, woodlands, silence but
for the cry of a magpie, wind hissing in 80-foot-high poplars.
They used to have a variety of animals here, Magne tells me,
but it became a farm for breeding race horses. At one time
there were 18 to 20 of these majestic horses, but times changed,
and when I arrived there were just three horses left in the stable.

Magne and Kristine, his wife, had a farm hand, Lena, who lived
here and helped with the horses. But, right out of a Knut Hamsun
novel, Lena walked over to the next farm one day, met a farmer
named Tim and, before long, Lena moved in with Tim. The next
farm hand, Hedda, was a disaster, Magne says. So bad was she that
when I asked him her name, it took him an hour to remember
because, he said, "I had erased her from my memory." They got
rid of Hedda.

They'd had foster children, too, but the last one had gone on a
hunger strike and then tried to burn their farmhouse down in the
middle of the night, so they decided not to have farm hands or
foster kids anymore. By this time their own children, Markus,
Marius and Kaisa, were enough to handle. This all combined to
mean a reduction in the number of horses, to a more manageable
number which would afford Magne enough time outside the barn
to apply to more important pursuits, such as listening to his
favourite music - Dylan, Townes and Mickey Newbury. A man
has to have his priorities straight.

One of the three remaining horses was named Is, which means
"ice," though I liked the idea of it being called the opposite of isn't.
Is was not in good health when I arrived. Red-eyed, weeping, thin
and not in good temper, she was an eight year old horse who'd
begun to pass the point of enjoying life. This morning, early, Magne
and I drove into Sarpsborg with Is in the trailer behind the van.
He had made an appointment at the slakterfjøs. The vet came out
to inspect the horse, then a young man wearing earplugs came out.
Magne led Is toward the gate into the cement-floored stable. She
was stubborn, but once inside, the fellow with the earplugs tied her
tightly to a post while Magne stroked her to comfort her. I stood
back a little, knowing what was coming.

As I came from my bedroom in the barn this morning at first light
- the farmhand's old apartment with some of Mike Beck's horse
whisperer gear still hanging on nails on the wall - I saw Magne in
the stable grooming Is for her last long ride, brushing her to a shine,
daubing her crusted eyes clean, Magne's face creased in the brow.

I spent time on a farm as a boy, and I have seen some death, but
never a horse. One rifle shot, and this majestic creature collapsed,
dead in an instant, emptying itself. Last week, while fishing, I was
around death in a boat on the Atlantic. I had been fishing before,
and there is only a little blood and crap. With horses, there is a lot.
Magne and I walked back to the van in a few minutes, not talking,
the empty leather halter in his big hands.

When men are involved in such an action, it is difficult to bear the
seriousness of it without using a little humour as release before too
much time has passed. Black humour, typically. It was raining on
the drive back to Hemnes, the mists thickening, the empty trailer
bouncing as we got on to the unpaved section of road near Magne's
farm. It was light now, where before it was heavy. When we came
into the house, the kids had left the television on. There were music
videos playing.

I said to Magne, "I can just see Is arriving in horse heaven now. She
is shaking her head to the others, saying 'Jeez, this guy was so good
to me, fed me, groomed me, raced me, petted and comforted me, and
then today he drives me into town and has me shot...'"

Forgive us, we started laughing. In the background on the television,
ol' Possum himself, George Jones, was on the video track singing He
Stopped Loving Her Today. Just as I'd finished my vision of Is talking
to the other horses in heaven, George reached the crescendo, and I
sang over his voice, in the voice of Is, "He stopped loving me today..."

We both broke up.

We tried, but we couldn't stop. We laughed until we were buckled
over, on the floor, our bellies hurting, eyes red, tears rolling down
our cheeks.

It's a hard thing, having a horse put down. A hard, violent thing.
Magne loves his horses and I could tell, watching him prepare her
this morning that he was with his feelings, expressing tenderness
for Is. Having her slaughtered was a difficult judgment, an act of
mercy. My humour was the response of a friend, a way to get at
a few tears that we might not otherwise have cried.

DL