I squinted an eye open against the lemon-tinged light that pierced my open window and landed squarely on my face. Throwing back the covers, I slipped from bed and put on the jeans and plaid shirt folded on the chair next to my bed. My parents didn't like me to go anywhere without telling them, but I was seven-years-old and could take care of myself. Besides, I was only going next door. Tiptoeing from the house, I closed the door quietly behind me.

Awakening birds chirped and rustled in their tree-beds and far away a dog barked. The cool, dew-speckled grass felt good on my bare feet and it was special to be the only one awake in the neighborhood. Crawling through a low tunnel in the yew hedge between my house and the neighbor's, I emerged in their back yard. And there was Candy, lying under the overhanging branches of a huge old lilac in the comer of the yard. "Ooh, good morning girl," I crooned as I advanced toward her, still on my hands and knees.

Candy was the pony that had been the grand prize of a raffle at our neighborhood gas station. My friend Janice's dad won her by stuffing a fishbowl with tickets every time he filled up. My father bought his gas at the same station, but he had refused to put his tickets in the bowl because he did not want to win a pony. "What the hell would we do with a pony," he would ask "put it in our backyard?" Every time we pulled into the station I gazed longingly at the pinto pony with the white mane and tail that I knew would never be mine. But now, miraculously, Candy lived right next door, a tiny, butterscotch-and-white dream-come-true.

"Hey girl," I whispered as I snuggled next to her under the lilac. My arms encircled her neck and I buried my nose in her mane, inhaling her pungent scenta mixture of hay, sweet pony breath and the faint aroma of manure. During those early morning hours while Janice still slept, Candy was all mine. "We'll have a horse farm some day," I told her, stroking her neck, "where you can come right in the house and watch TV with me. And we won't have any bossy parents to tell us what to do, and no boys either. Not even boy horses. It will be just us girls." Candy bobbed her head in what I thought was agreement, but which soon proved to be irritation.

Janice and I taught ourselves to ride guiding Candy around the back yard like a wobbly bicycle. She was an angel. At first. But then she started diving over to snatch a mouthful of hay each time we passed her feed bunk. That was fine. If she was willing to oblige us with rides around the yard, what would a few bites of hay hurt? Soon we could not yank her head out of the hay, no matter how we pulled on the reins. When I enlisted my mother's help, she chuckled and patted Candy, saying, "Well, she's such a sweet girl, and so patient to put up with you two, isn't she?" Candy, who minded perfectly when adults were near, stood next to the feeder and never even looked at the hay.

After a few weeks, with our riding fundamentals down pat, we started riding up and down the alley behind our houses. It was then that Candy's halo disappeared and her horns began to sprout. As our bravery grew, and we ventured farther and farther from home, she became more and more obnoxious. It was as though she knew when we were far enough away that our cries for help wouldn't be heard. She began to buck and rear and run away with us. Candy was the first real challenge of my life; and I decided to cowgirl-up. Janice decided it was safer to ride her bike. For a few days she pedaled along behind Candy and I as we lunged around the neighborhood, panting, "Wait up, wait up! I'm getting a charley horse. " But I couldn't have slowed Candy down if I'd wanted to, and Janice soon went back to playing Barbie dolls with the McLaughlin girls. I had Candy all to myself.

Every day Candy got a little meaner. One morning when I crawled through the hedge with her bridle in hand, she pinned her ears and ran and stuck her head in the comer of the board fence, pointing her rear end at me. "Easy girl," I cooed as I approached. When I got within range she fired at me with both hind feet, and barely missed kicking me square in the gut. Between kicks, I dodged in and grabbed her by the mane and she went tearing around the yard with me digging my heels in, yelling "Whoa! Whoa! " until she gave upsort ofand I put the bridle on her. "C'mon Candy," I said, stroking her spotted hide. "Let's go have a nice ride." As I grabbed a chunk of mane and vaulted aboard Indian-fashion, her head whipped around and she nipped me on the upper arm. "Ouch," I yelped, drumming her sides with my Keds, "now you're going to get it." And I wheeled her toward the wide-open spaces.

From where I lived on the outskirts of Great Falls, Montana, the buckskin-colored plains flowed off for hundreds of miles, dotted by an occasional tree, old fence or dilapidated building. I had yearned to explore what lay out there, and at last had the means to do so. Duded up in my fringed calfskin jacket, pretending to be a legendary Montana cowgirl, I headed out. The joy of being mounted on a fine, prancing pony overcame me and I sang, "I'm ridin' Old Paint, I'm leadin' Old Dan," over and over again as we galloped across the land.

Candy waited until civilization was a speck on the horizon behind us before she came undone. She usually pulled something just as I was thinking to myself that I had her trained at last. She rarely failed to get rid of me on a ride, but varied the way she did it, to catch me unprepared. Cantering primly along, she waited until I relaxed, and thenbamher head was down between her feet and she was bucking like a trout on the end of a fly fishing line. Or sometimes she veered into a tree without warning, bashing my knee against it and knocking me to the ground. Or she would careen down an old barbed-wire fence, shredding my pants leg until I bailed off in terror.

My mother was often curious about my many scrapes and bruises. "What's this funny-shaped bruise on your back?" she asked one night as she scrubbed my back while I sat in the tub. "I fell off Kayla's rope swing and landed on a rock," I lied, not wanting to tell her that Candy had knocked me down from behind and then run over me. I didn't want to admit anything that might cause my mother to forbid me to ride. But she never made the association between my injuries and something as small and adorable as Candy. Being ignorant of all things equine, she didn't know enough to worry when Candy and I were off together, and I wisely avoided telling her the gruesome details of our rides.

I was gaining skill in staying on when Candy bucked or bolted, so she added some new tricks to her repertoire. One of her favorites required compliance on my part. I had to provide her with access to water for it to work. I did so by searching out and riding through every mud puddle or stagnant water hole I could find. One day as I guided Candy through a mud puddle near a construction site, she stopped and began pawing the dirty water up over her back. "No," I screeched, kicking her viciously in an attempt to force her out of the puddle. Ignoring my kicks, she threw herself over on her side and rolled on me. I couldn't stop her. While I sputtered and thrashed in the murky water she jumped up, shook herself like a wet dog, and bolted. I pretended I didn't see the carpenters who stopped their hammering and stared at me as I stalked off after my runaway pony.

Every once-in-a-while I was too alert for her tricks, and she had to resort to her last-ditch method. She waited until we were going along at a fast gallop and before I realized it, snaked her head around, grabbed my shoe lace with her teeth, jerked me off her back and tossed me to the ground without missing a stride. As I lay gasping with the wind knocked out of me, she tore away across the prairie, tossing her head up-and-down in victory.

Instead of running directly home, she would carome off in the opposite direction for what seemed like miles. It never occurred to me to simply go home and wait for her. Instead, I got up, dusted myself off, and went plodding after her, bawling and ranting. "I hate you, Candy," I wailed, snot running down my lip. "When I catch you I'm going to ... pull your eyelids off, and feed you poisoned hay, and then ... I'll kill you."

Candy ran full-out for a while, and then began stopping to graze a bit here and there, watching me out of the comer of an eye, pretending she didn't see me sneaking up on her. I also pretended I didn't see her, that I was out investigating gopher holes or looking for something on the ground at my feet. Just as I sidled up where I could step on a dragging rein, she let out a squeal and took off like a racehorse, flipping her heels at me for good measure. This was repeated many times as she scribed a wide arc across the countryside, before finally heading home, where she dozed head down, hind leg cocked, at the back gate. She jerked her head up and nickered happily when she saw me come trudging down the alley. Worn out from chasing after her, I returned her to the back yard, vowing to win the next go-round. I spent that summer engaged in a battle of wits for which I was unarmed. I was dealing with a professional pony and I, alas, was a greenhorn. What amazes me most is not that I lived to tell this, but that I kept going back for more. Candy never came to regard me as her master, but then again, she didn't cripple or kill me either, so I guess we arrived at a good compromise.

One brilliant morning in late summer I went to catch Candy for a ride. She was lying in her customary spot under the lilac. I stopped and stared, dumbfounded. There, curled up next to her side, was the most beautiful little chocolate-brown filly I had ever seen. Delighted by this totally unexpected surprise, my thoughts raced ahead to the future. I couldn't wait to start training Candy's new baby.