Medusa

I have always said that, while I spend most days with animals, I don’t have any animals in my writing. I wrote a carriage horse named Benjamin into one story and a kitchen cat without a name into another.
Last week when I picked up an old story to rework I realized that I do have a recurring animal.
Iccaurs Norton, born near the end of the American Revolution, supports himself by going from New England town to town tutoring young men to prepare them for Harvard, helping old friends with their businesses and ghost writing for prominent citizens. Before he left for his first commission his father gave him a horse, Medusa. She isn’t pretty or fast but she is serviceable and she knows her job. She takes fine care of Iccarus, who returns the favor. She trudges through the snow while he sleeps in the saddle. She alerts him to danger on the road. She is a good listener. Once she found a not quite dead body. She never talks or solve mysteries.
I have never described her but I see her as a broad barreled bay the tiniest bit more refined than a plow horse.
Medusa has done pretty much everything a horse can do in the New Republic, but she has yet to find her way into print.