DEAD HORSE CROSSING

(Surf has been quite good, btw, but I digress...)

Boppin´ through the coco grove after a playful swirl on wild boogie waves, and dismounting  to wade the low-flow river (bike under one arm sorta), I wondered at the small talkative gathering, just across the river.  Ohhhh.....  I could understand the conversation....  So, Nacho´s horse is dead.....  I looked around, and yup, there was Nacho a short distance away, standing beside a swollen horse with legs sticking straight out sideways.  In a little while, he just shrugged and went home.  He wasn´t going to do anything about it.

My personal thoughts ran more along the lines of -- are they all gonna just LEAVE it there, and let it rot?  Oh, lordylordy.  That´s gonna be some foul stench for the rest of our visit -- right there at one of the most beautiful places of respite.  I love to come to the river and watch the graceful waterbirds, to listen to their various calls, and to amuse myself with the loud chorus of frogs, and gawk at their size...I love the multiple shades of green, the white feather'flashes from startled birds with resultant splashes all along the rivercourse...and the tranquil sunset colors as I make my way to the sea for sunset...  Damn.

Silly me. 

The next day, here is what I saw:  a large gathering of somber funeral guests, all in black, pressed together in silence,  huddled in the stones along the bank of the shallow river.  They stood a respectful distance from the bloating corpse. Vultures, of course. They were all facing towards where lay the corpse, up on the bank and hidden from my eyes by trees. They did not approach the corpse.  The most they did was flutter straight up in the air a moment and instantly resettle upon a fierce command.

And who commanded them? The dogs, of course!  Such ferocious growls, quite menacing.  I moved to where I could see better.  I saw just their backs, all  hunched over every part of that horse.

The next day, the dogs were gone and the somber funeral guests had moved in.  Now, all I could see was THEIR backs, with an occasional vulture hopping straight up in the air and landing again.

There was no stench.  The dogs had eaten the innards and muscle, and now the buzzards were removing any remaining particles.  No doubt the insects were right in there among them and it would be they who finish the feast.

The third day -- just bones, scattered widely.  I need not have worried.  I know that Nacho didn´t.