The miniature leather saddle that Chris gifts young Vanessa for her birthday symbolizes her innocence. Chris handcrafts the saddle and includes a brand that he explains is from his ranch, the Criss Cross, back home in Shallow Creek. The ranch is part of the romantic version of Shallow Creek he paints for Vanessa that includes a house made of trees, a marvelous lake, and beautiful horses. The toy saddle belongs to this fantasy, and while Vanessa is a child, the saddle stands for her innocent, awed belief in Chris’s stories. Once Chris leaves Manawaka and Vanessa starts to grow up, both Chris and the saddle fade from her mind, showing that her childish innocence is waning, too. Increasingly, she sees the unreality of Chris’s fantasies and his naïve optimism. When Vanessa, home from college, rediscovers the long-forgotten saddle in a box in her parents’ attic, it’s no longer a talisman of fantasy. Instead, having grown up and shed her innocent view of both Chris and the world, it’s a painful reminder of her cousin and his sad fate. When she puts the saddle back in its box, the saddle symbolizes Vanessa’s choice to set aside innocence and its childlike fantasies for good.
The Miniature Leather Saddle Symbol Timeline in Horses of the Night
