Branches snapped back so that it felt as though they were being spanked by nature. Beauvoir, instructed to keep his heels down and his hands steady, quickly lost both stirrups and clung to the gray mane. Regaining the stirrups he straightened up in time to catch another branch in the face. After that it was an inelegant, inglorious exercise in holding on. “Tabarnac, Merde. Duck.”
