Trail Horses

The Trail Horses enter the story chiefly through Ben, Lizzy Enders’s saddle pony, whose importance exceeds his practical use on the road. He carries her through parts of her journey and later helps her move through Santa Fe, but he is also bound to memories of home, Mama, and the family life Lizzy has lost. His familiar presence gives her a relationship of care and continuity when human attachments have been broken by bereavement and separation.

Identity and Place in Lizzy’s Life

Ben is the most clearly individualized horse in the narrative. Before the journey, Lizzy is permitted to bring him because he will be useful on the Santa Fe Trail. She rides beside the wagon, until Elinora’s jealousy and crying lead Lizzy to sit inside with her or let Elinora ride. After Elinora falls and nearly injures herself, Mama forbids her from riding Ben. The horse is therefore part of the family’s everyday arrangements, but also a point around which the girls’ competing needs become visible.

Ben’s place in Lizzy’s life is not reducible to transport. She tends him herself, stays with him in the evening, and gives him sugar. After Mama’s death, she believes he recognizes her grief: as Mama had taught her, horses and animals know. That belief is grounded in their ordinary closeness—feeding, grooming, riding, and attention—rather than in any claim that Ben can speak. The narrative lets Lizzy interpret his behavior as a form of companionship while leaving that interpretation within her perspective.

The Trail and the Memory of Home

The journey gives Ben a practical role and a deeply personal one. Lizzy rides him beside the wagon on the way west, while the caravan carries cargo and supplies toward Santa Fe. The trip has already lasted fifty days by the time Mama dies, and it is not yet finished. In her grief, Lizzy tells Ben that they are going on to Colorado to find gold and that someday they will return to find Mama and take her home for a proper burial. The promise makes the horse a witness to a future Lizzy still imagines, even as her immediate journey carries her away from her mother.

Later, when Lizzy finds Ben in a stable, his neigh reaches her before she sees him. She throws her arms around his neck and remembers riding in the fields outside Independence, Missouri, riding with Uncle William when he was home, riding with Mr. Enders, and spending time with Ben on the Trail. She also recalls Mama’s special treats for him and the ribbons Mama taught her to weave into his mane. These memories make Ben a living connection to people and places that are now absent; they also show how Mama’s care for the horse was part of the domestic world Lizzy has lost.

Reunion and Flight

The reunion turns affection into action. Lizzy weeps while holding Ben, and he nuzzles her. She understands that familiar gesture as comfort and as a promise of his continued presence. Once she decides to leave, she feeds him oats, gives him water, and notices his blanket, saddle, and bridle. She dresses him for a ride, and he becomes anxious at the touch of the blanket on his flanks, as though anticipating their departure. The sequence gives Ben responsiveness within the scene: his reactions register the preparations before they are on their way.

Lizzy leads him out of the barn as if doing something ordinary, then mounts while a morning star is still in the sky. The gate to the street is open as a delivery wagon leaves, and she walks Ben through the garden and past the fountain toward it. Ramona emerges from the shadows before Lizzy can make her escape. Ben has not determined Lizzy’s decision, but his presence makes the attempted departure possible; feeding and preparing him are the concrete steps through which her plan takes shape.

A Companion in Santa Fe

Ben remains part of Lizzy’s later routine with Mrs. Lacey. When they go down a hill together, Lizzy walks him rather than riding, because riding would not be seemly, and holds Mrs. Lacey’s arm firmly. On their daily walks through town, Lizzy again leads Ben. The school uniform and heavy shawl mark her as a pupil, while the horse accompanies her into the streets where Mrs. Lacey is widely known and greeted by residents. Their slow progress through town reflects Mrs. Lacey’s many conversations and acts of generosity; Ben is present within this shared passage through the community.

Across these different settings, Ben connects travel with belonging. On the Trail he is useful to the caravan; after Mama’s death, he becomes a focus for Lizzy’s memories and grief; in Santa Fe, he accompanies her through a new and public life. The story does not give him a human voice or separate interior account. Instead, it gives weight to the care between horse and girl: tending, feeding, riding, and the nuzzle Lizzy receives when she needs comfort. Ben’s significance lies in that recurring, embodied companionship, which remains available to Lizzy even as her life changes around him.