Black Sand Cowboys

“Easy. I’m not afraid of a volcano. And I’m good with ponies, anyhow.”

“They’re not ponies, they’re —”

“Look, I get that you’re all touchy about it, but, come on, this ain’t a horse.” The cowboy touched the brim of his baseball cap like a sombrero — the European rolled his eyes — and squeezed the horse with his shins, steering him to the right.

“Callum don’t leave a dare,” said the other cowboy with a sly smile. He ran a hand through his bleached curls and turned his horse to follow Callum. The European was left to wonder disdainfully how Americans could seemingly make themselves at home anywhere by disregarding everything around them. Even in these black volcanic dunes, these two acted as though they were crossing familiar Texas plains and fields of wheat. He wasn’t quite sure what Texas was like, but he had seen Oklahoma! at the West End in London once, and those songs had painted such a pretty landscape in his mind’s eye that he saw them vividly anytime America was mentioned as if he had visited the state himself. This path, as he had said, was not zoned for tourists. Especially not tourists on horseback. Maybe, he thought bitterly, Americans didn’t have the word 'trespass.’ He was sorry to be judgmental, but his guests were such… unapologetic cliches. And they kept breaking the rules.

Regretfully, the European — called Aron — followed suit and pulled his horse to turn down the hill after Callum and Cowboy Number 2, as Aron had silently nicknamed him, called Ethan.

“Woah!” Callum let out a low whistle. “Ethan, you gotta come see this.” He had pulled up by a smoking spring, buried in the black sand.

“Just like Yellowstone.” Ethan nodded.

“Yep. ‘Cept all of Rake-ee-yah-vik is powered by ‘em. Right Aron?”

“Yes.” Aron blushed lightly with the realization that he had not expected Callum to have known this.

“‘S why the shower smells disgusting.” Callum cracked a little smile, waiting for Aron to register the joke. After a long beat, and another fluctuation of Aron’s complexion, they both doubled over in laughter, each deciding the other might be alright. Ethan looked between the two, apathetically unamused and perhaps resisting the urge to roll his eyes a bit in front of Cowboy Number 1.

Laughter dying down, Callum beckoned with a wide flip of his arm, and tugged on his horse’s reins in his other hand, “Come on.” Aron’s smile disappeared. “Mr. Danes,” he said. “I am sorry, but we really are not allowed on this path.”

“You’ve never been here before?” was all Callum replied, although he had stopped and turned the horse back around to face the others.

“No, I have, certainly, but —”

“So, you really mean I am not allowed on this path.” Callum challenged with a calm, nonchalant air. Meanwhile, Ethan felt increasingly as though his name really was Cowboy Number 2.

“Well,” — Aron did not like confrontation — “yes. Mr. Danes, you do not have proper trai—”

“Well, there you’re wrong,” Callum interrupted again. “I have twenty plus years of training.”

“Mr. Danes —” Aron was officially back to being frustrated.

“Yes, yes, not Icelandic training.” Callum removed his cap and ran his fingers through his hairline. “But —”

“No buts,” said Aron, finding his voice. “We have rules here. And there is no reason not to follow those rules when we have so many other lovely, legal trails…”

“But none of those trails have volcanoes!” Ethan gasped triumphantly, having finally found a place to butt in.

“Hence the legality.” Aron frowned at Ethan.

“Hence our disinterest.” Callum returned. “Besides, Mr. Jonsson, Ethan and I made a dare.” He said this with jovial sincerity, as though he knew how childish it sounded, but that simply in knowing so, his behavior was justified. And before Aron could make another protest, the two cowboys began again down the pathless path, horse tails swishing.

It was later, when the midday sun became the afternoon one, piercing straight into their eyes from the horizon, that karma came a-biting.

“What the fuck? Hey! Hey! Wooaaah!” Ethan’s horse was suddenly bucking. It made itself tall, standing on its hind legs, and made itself small, crashing low to the ground. Ethan tried yelling, shushing, pulling the reins, using his spurs — all to no avail. The horse was now going in circles and kicking up the black sand — Aron and Callum waved their arms trying to shield their faces, all while trying to observe the horse for signs of injury or any other clues as to the cause of it’s behavior.

Callum spotted it. “It stepped in lava! Back right hoof.” Aron scanned the ground around them. There, just a few meters away from where his horse stood ran a little crack of exposed volcanic flow. Aron knew they had been getting near an active zone, but they were too close — he supposed he misremembered the distance. Perhaps, he thought not without a bit of spite, this was because he hadn’t been here himself in a while. He rode most often with tours, and, though he felt it would be useless to repeat it out loud, tours did not come here.

“What’s wrong with your horse?” shouted Ethan, having missed Callum’s discovery. “I thought they were well-trained!”

“Of course they are well-trained!” yelled Aron over the horse’s anguished whinnies.

“You have lava on your hoof!” Callum repeated, cupping his hands like a megaphone about his mouth.

“What the —? Well, get it off!”

Ignoring Cowboy Number 2, Aron dismounted off his own horse and carefully made his way to the bridle of Ethan’s, positioning himself on the horse’s right. “Shhhh, shhhhh,” he murmured, stroking the animal’s nose with one hand as he quickly dumped the entire contents of his water bottle over the back right hoof with the other. This stopped the horse bucking enough for Aron to use a spare sweat rag to quickly wipe the hoof clean. Aron looked up from his place knelt on the sand with dark eyes.

“Mr. Danes —”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. We’d better get back.” Callum sighed. “Ethan, I owe you twenty bucks.”

With the volcano mission reluctantly surrendered, and everyone back safely on their horses — Ethan’s sustaining a slight limp — Callum turned to Aron. “And what d’ we owe you? Better to ask now and get over it before we gotta pull out our wallets.”

“You already paid upfront, Mr. Danes,” said Aron a little coldly.

“No, no — for the medical fees, I mean,” Callum gestured with his thumb to Ethan lagging behind on his limping ride.

Aron stared at him. “No, I don’t think — we don’t charge medical fees, Mr. Danes.” He turned back to the horizon ahead, again processing Callum’s request. He shook his head a little and, despite himself, broke into a bemused smirk. “Then again, this has never really happened before because, well… ” He trailed off.

“Tours don’t usually come here,” finished Callum.

Aron shrugged. “They don’t!”

Having adjusted somewhat to Callum’s unorthodox sense of humor, Aron was not wholly unsurprised when Callum laughed at this and said, “No, no, I guess you’re right.” 

And as the afternoon sun became the early evening one, the two cowboys and the European became three long shadows — one limping — against the black sand.