Two Miles from Echo Ridge

Two miles from Echo Ridge
A horse walks

Alone, within the quiet
She walks

The next two miles aren't hard

Most of the terrain is rocky
But untraveled
Which is good for the horse
Because any man with decent eyes
Could see that she's a beauty

She's not young
But she's strong
And the way she moves
Lets you know
That she's got plenty of good years in her

She's walking to Echo Ridge
Because that's where they buried him

He had a heart attack
Outside of his daughter's house

Collapsed, right in front of her
And in front of the horse

The horse went back home
Without much fuss

Nobody was foolish enough
To try and ride her back

His daughter was very clear
That the horse was to be taken back
To her father's home
And sold along with everything else on the property

She was going to bury her father
In the Echo Ridge cemetery
And erase everything else about him

When the hired men got the horse back home
They tied her to the hitch in the front yard
Not knowing that she knows
How to drag the rope along
To the spot where the rope comes up
And out, without much trouble

She pulled that a few times on the man
And he'd just laugh
When he'd find her waiting for him
Right outside the door

Now she was a mile away
While the men inside were still putting price tags
On all the furniture

Two miles from Echo Ridge
The horse slows down to a walk

What's waiting in town is not her rider
And she knows this

But she won't be sold to someone else

She won't be auctioned off
Like a chair or a table

She'll be with him
Even if it means standing at his gravestone
Until she falls down in front of it

The cemetery is on the outskirts of Echo Ridge
And because the town was founded ten years ago
There are only twenty or so plots in it

The horse knows immediately which one she's looking for

It's the one his daughter is standing on

She's just put down fresh flowers
And she's dressed in black

No husband, no children
A businesswoman
A rare breed
Just like the horse

She runs a store in town
And the horse remembers her trying to ride
Like her father
Until the first time she was thrown
And then her father forbid her
From that moment on

He told her he was the only one
Who could ride his horse
And that was just the way it was

When the daughter saw the horse
She stood straight and tall
In a way, summoning
As if she had expected this
All along

The horse walked up to her
And the two stood for a moment
In front of the gravestone
Bearing the name
Of the man they knew

'Well,' said the daughter, 'Come along.'

She started walking
Back into town
And the horse followed alongside her

Neither looked at the other
Until they reached the spot
Where he had died

That was when the daughter
Put her hand lightly on the horse's side
And bowed her head

She knew the daughter was wondering
If one day she'd be allowed to ride
Her father's horse

And the horse thought that one day
That would be fine

One day

It would be all right