Occurrences

Occurrences

I have never been a strong believer in the supernatural but there have been a couple of what I will call, occurrences, in my life that have left me with more questions than answers. Since horses are a part of my life I don"t think it is too unusual that both of these instances have taken place while on horseback. Then again maybe that's part of the answer.

The first occurrence took place more then ten years ago. I was among a group of riders that were riding up in the high country to check on cattle. I was in the lead on a certain part of a trail that winds its way around trees and along a boulder-strewn stream. After going around a corner I was out of sight of the others. There I came across a young lady resting along the trail on one of the boulders. I said hello, she smiled and I continued on my way. A few minutes later the rest of the riders caught up to me in a clearing. I asked if anybody had talked with the girl by the trail. No one had even seen her. There had been nowhere for her to go. I've been here for nearly thirty-two years and I had never seen anybody on that part of the trail before then or since. I kept this incident stored away but never forgotten.

The second occurrence also makes me want to question the first. A few years ago a neighbor and I went for a ride. It was a bright sunny day and the air was crisp with ice crystals from the several inches of snow that had fallen the day before. We were riding parallel, but a short distance from a fence line. We looked toward the fence and there standing on the other side were two small children, watching us. Two things stood out. There were no tracks in the snow and the horses paid them no mind. Horses make great watchdogs. They see things that we usually don't. Nature's self defense mechanism for their wild ancestors was to enable them to see the danger soon enough so that they could flee to safety. Either they didn't perceive any danger or just plainly didn't see them. We never compared notes on what we had seen. Recently while visiting the subject of what we had seen came up. Almost simultaneously we were describing the scene as if it had been the day before instead of three years ago. The type of clothes they had worn, the look on their faces and the fact that there hadn't been any tracks in the snow. Major chills.

If it had been just me I don't know if I would or could have believed what I had seen. Now I wonder, did I see that young woman before along that trail? Both were equally as real to me at the time. How can one be sure that the stranger you pass on the sidewalk and nod politely to or smile at, is real?