CHAD THE MYSTERY ANIMAL

     Chad the mystery animal didn't mind being ridden. He just didn't like being ridden hard and put away wet.

     That's why he had a sense of trepidation when he first saw Ursula walk into the mystery stable. She looked like a woman who enjoyed a long, hard ride. Perhaps it was the studded riding crop she carried or the leopard-skin jodhpurs she wore or the crazed look in her eyes. Whatever it was, he prayed she would choose one of the other mystery animals to ride that day.

     No such luck. Ursula picked Chad over Betty the mystery animal, Barth the mystery animal, Lucinda the mystery animal and even Dwight, the most mysterious of all the mystery animals.

     Jasper the unstable stable boy saddled up Chad and Ursula mounted him from behind in a running jump. Chad had only seen that done in old Hopalong Cassidy movies. He was startled, but impressed.

     With considerable hauteur, she rode him at full gallup out past the north forty and back again. She rode him hard and didn't spare the whip. Or the spurs. And she whispered inappropriate things in his ear which left him confused.

     Chad was exhausted when they arrived back at the mystery stable, but in a good way, somehow.

     Ursula told Jasper she would be back the next morning and to have Chad ready to ride. Hard. Being unstable, Jasper put Chad away sweaty.

     Yet Chad didn't mind. He was in new, unfamiliar territory. He thought he knew himself, but now he wondered if he ever really did. All he knew was that he would dream of Ursula that night.

     Unfortunately, he awoke the next morning with a bad case of pneumonia and was too sick to go riding. By the time he recovered Ursula had formed a tempestuous, borderline-sick relationship with Dwight the mystery animal.

     Intellectually, Chad realized it was probably for the best. But thoughts of what might have been eventually drove him to madness.

     It was a short drive.