The Horses of Keshin: The Mystical Spirit of the Horses of Keshin

By Angela Susan Jackson

Jacob returns to Keshin Ranch to look after the horses while his father goes to Europe on vacation. The old colonial ranch hasn’t changed much over the years, but on Jacob’s return to the old homestead he begins to dream about this mysterious white horse Mash, and the cotton plantation before the civil war broke out in 1862.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: May 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643455136

Angela Susan Jackson

From childhood Angela has always enjoyed writing short stories and poems which have been written for children. Born in York, England and lived in South Africa, she currently resides in Australia where she has settled with her family. Over the years she has written a few manuscripts and illustrated the stories in pencil and water colour medium, which express the theme of the chapters and incorporates a visual dialogue for the content being expressed throughout the story. Since 1985, she began to write and illustrate a series of short stories and fables based on experience and observations which became a form of Artistic expression. The essence of expressing words to form a story is a concept which intrigues, and by utilizing ideas it develops a writing style which can form impressions by way of delving into experiences and thus deliver a sense of fulfilment. Angela writes from both research and inspiration where she has observed and participated in a situation, whereby the expression of language may be nurtured and procured through the Art of Writing. She writes for the purpose of Health and Wellbeing and wants to convey an expression of healing and conservation in expressing her ideas to a young audience.

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THE HORSES OF KESHIN

Copyright © 2019 Angela Susan Jackson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-64345-406-1

ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-64345-513-6

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

This story is dedicated to those who toiled in the fields and propagated the production of cotton in Louisiana.

May these seeds propagate and fill the earth with the splendour of cotton balls.

Chapter One

It was a wild and windy day over the Bluebonnet Swamp, and Jacob had just fed the horses and groomed them before taking each one into their stable. The moon was full and beamed a yellow glow in the burly grey clouds that loomed over the silhouetted hills. Not many visitors had passed through the quaint homestead as the weather was drawing into winter, and logs were being felled down in the valley, ready to float down the Mississippi where they were to be taken to the wood mills and stored in woodsheds.

Jacob had recently gone to live at Keshin Ranch after his father had given him the farm to look after while he was on vacation over in Europe, and his horses needed to be exercised each day, fed, and groomed.

Jacob had been at law school in New York and needed a vacation job, so he was delighted when his father asked him to manage the farm.

There were about 500 hectares of arable land and two hundred sheep roamed freely over the valley, also behind the ranch a shed full of chickens and cockerels roosted there in a wooden hen coop. There were four horses that his father kept and rode, as he harnessed two of them onto his cart that was handed down from the 1800s, a family heritage wagon.

The old homestead was built from myrtle timber that had been stained with varnish and sustained many a bleak winter in Keshin. The place was renowned for its vigour and antiquity that still looked like a colonial dwelling place, from the early 1800s. Many visitors had passed through and occasionally stayed there as his father and mother had once utilised Keshin Ranch as a hostel for passers-by particularly during the logging season. In the kitchen, old brass pots still hung on the wall, and there was a cabinet where some of the finest Doulton crockery was displayed.

The old woodstove still was in good working order, and a marble table stood in the centre of the kitchen where all the cooking was done, and on the wall an old clock ticked away silently and chimed on the hour. Jacob returned to the kitchen after grooming the horses and lit an oil lamp in the corner of the room. He filled the old rusty kettle that stood on the hob near the wood fire grate. He pulled out a wallet of tobacco and started to roll a handful then sat in the old rickety rocking chair, listening to the wind as it whistled around the rafters.

Through the paned