The Georges and the Jewels

by Jane Smiley

  “I use curiosity.”

  I could see that.

  “A horse is a curious fellow. Even when he knows he shouldn’t go look at something, chances are his curiosity will get the best of him, and he will at least walk toward it. Hardest horse to train is a horse who isn’t interested in anything new or is always afraid, but this horse isn’t like that. He’s of two minds.”

  “Mom says curiosity killed the cat.”

  “When does she say that?”

  “When someone is asking too many questions.”

  “Someone like you?”

  “No. Someone like Danny.”

  Jem laughed again and said, “I can see that.”

  Then he said, “But horses aren’t cats. Horses in the wild have to keep an eye out and be ready to investigate and know what should be in their world and what shouldn’t be. They have to make up their minds. So they’re always looking, and that’s a sign of intelligence. Lots of people don’t give them much credit for intelligence, but I don’t agree with that. If your horse is curious about you, then the first step is made. When he satisfies his curiosity and finds something interesting and fun going on, then likely he’ll want to join the fun.”

  After softening George in the saddle and bridle in the way that he had previously done in just the halter, Jem squared him up and mounted. He mounted with no apparent effort—it was like he had springs in his heels. Just watching that, I knew that getting on and off a horse was as automatic for Jem Jarrow as walking. Then he didn’t ride off immediately. It was only after sitting there for a moment that he asked George to walk on.

  Stepping over, stepping over, stepping over, that little dance step—for a while, that was all they did. Finally, they trotted around in a circle. George had his head low and to the inside, and his inside back hoof went in the print of his outside front hoof. They went around a couple of times like that and then turned, step step step, the hind legs crossing, and went back the other way. Then they cantered. George was good for about halfway around the arena, and then he remembered who he was and started to put his head down. Just then, Jem used his inside rein to lift George’s head up and to the inside. George softened, turned, and cantered on, no longer thinking of bucking. This happened twice. Otherwise, they wove around the jumps and barrels in the arena, at the trot and then the canter and then back to the trot, always changing what they were doing, what direction they were going. Ornery George, I could see, had given up.

  When they were walking around, catching their breath, I said, “But a little girl can’t ride him.”

  Jem Jarrow smiled. He said, “Maybe not today. But soon.”

  I believed him. But I was glad that “soon” wasn’t “now.”

  We cooled George out, and brushed him down, and put him with the other geldings. Jem shook my hand and thanked me, got in his truck, and drove off. I didn’t know what the next step was, but I was sure Mom had a plan. I watered and hayed all the horses and gave Jack his rubdown. It was getting dark when Daddy and Mom drove in.

  We had to eat supper in a hurry because we had to get back to the church. Mom made pigs in a blanket and coleslaw. While we were eating, Daddy ran down the list: did I check the horses’ water?

  Yes.

  Did I give everyone their hay?

  Yes.

  Were the stalls clean from the weekend?

  Yes.

  Was all the tack put away?

  Yes.

  Were all the gates closed and locked?

  Yes.

  Did this fellow Jem Jarrow look like he was going to buy the horse?

  I glanced at Mom, who lifted one eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  I said, “He went nicely for him. He wasn’t ornery at all.”

  “Hmm,” said Daddy, smiling. But then he said, “He doesn’t look like he can pay much. Mr. Tacker—”

  But Mr. Tacker hadn’t called. I said, “We didn’t talk about that.”

  “I didn’t expect you would.”

  There was a silence, and then Daddy said, “Well, you can’t count on a thing. For every buyer, there are ten lookers. I wish I’d been here for the tryout, though.”

  “It went fine,” I said.

  For the rest of the week, Daddy didn’t say another thing about Jem Jarrow. I suppose he figured that Jem was just another buyer who’d gone elsewhere.

  Chapter 13

  ALL THAT WEEK, THERE WAS A LULL IN THE WAR AT SCHOOL. FOR one thing, lots of kids were out with a virus, including Brian Connelly and Mary A.

  Kyle Gonzalez and I worked steadily on our model. There was going to be a big display of all the mission models in the cafeteria lasting for the rest of the school year. Ours was the only one made of clay. We finished the church and the walls around the courtyard and the bell tower. The art teacher gave me a piece of green cloth for the grass in the courtyard, and I cut trees out of cardboard and colored them on both sides. Kyle found some little Christmas bells somewhere and set them into the arches of the bell tower with bent pins. If you hit one of them with your pencil, it would ring. When we were finished on Friday afternoon, everything was painted a light color—not white, because Kyle didn’t think that white was the right color, but sort of a pinky-gray-cream that was the best we could do.

  The missions would be set up in the lunchroom in order, south to north, on a long map of California cut out of brown paper and laid across three tables. The first one was San Diego de Alcala, and the last one was San Francisco Solano. San Juan Bautista was number 15. I didn’t know a thing about saints or missions, but I thought all the models were pretty. I had thought all those places—San Jose, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco—were just cities, but they were people, too. In our family, we never talked about saints or missions or Catholics, really, so I hadn’t thought much about it.

  There was going to be a parents’ night during which everyone was supposed to come to look at our models of the missions, but that would be on Wednesday, so we wouldn’t be able to come, and so I didn’t tell Daddy and Mom about it at all. I wondered if, four years ago, Danny hadn’t done the exact same thing.

  In the meantime, at home, I rode all the horses other than Ornery George and I did my jobs and everything was quiet. On Friday night, the phone rang, and it was Miss Slater, inviting me to come to their barn. Melinda, she said, wanted to see me, and Miss Slater thought we might have fun—Gallant Man was in great shape. I would have a jumping lesson on him (there was a show in two and a half weeks) and then Melinda would have a little jumping lesson on him, too. She could watch me and then try it herself.

  Gloria was never opposed to going out there. When I called her, she said her mother would drive us. That way, we could stop for supper at her house, and they would bring me back about nine. Mom and Daddy agreed to all of this, as long as I rode Black George, Blue Jewel, Socks George, and Star Jewel first thing in the morning.

  Gloria and her mother showed up about eleven. They had on cowboy boots and cowboy hats, and bandannas around their necks. They wore matching shirts with bucking horses and lariats all over them. They waited while I changed into my English riding clothes, and we got into the car.

  It was a beautiful day. Even the pine forest around the stable was bright with sunshine. Gallant Man was all tacked up, and he looked really cute, so cute that after I was on him, Gloria’s mom took pictures of us (then she took pictures of everyone else, including Miss Slater, who sat sideways on the fence with a whip in her hand and her tall boots crossed at the ankles) and Melinda, who was perfectly turned out, as always.

  My part of the jumping lesson went fine. Miss Slater was in a good mood, and Gallant Man was very gallant. He trotted or cantered down to every jump with his ears pricked, and he came up under me each time in exactly the same way. The only bad thing he did was after the second and third jump, when he bucked a little bit and tossed his head. I knew it was from high spirits, so I just turned him and went on. He didn’t do it again.

  Once was enough. When I brought him
over to Melinda at the side of the arena, she shook her head. Miss Slater kept smiling and said, “Come on, now, Melinda. You rode him yesterday, and you said you liked it.”

  “He wasn’t bucking yesterday.”

  “He’s not really bucking today, is he, Abby?”

  “He was happy,” I said. “That’s all.”

  “I don’t want him to be happy.” Then she changed her mind. “I mean, I don’t want him to be extra happy.”

  Gloria said, “You’re a good rider, Melinda. I saw you. You’re way better than I am, and I would ride him. You don’t have to worry.”

  Melinda didn’t say anything.

  I gave Gallant Man some pats. He snorted away a fly, which startled Melinda, but he was otherwise being good. What I really wanted to do was ask Melinda what had happened that had made her so scared, but I remembered Jem Jarrow saying that things that have happened don’t really matter to a horse, so I thought, well, maybe the same thing worked for people. I took Melinda’s hand and said, “Let’s walk around with the pony awhile.” Miss Slater caught my eye and smiled. I said to Melinda, “You go on the left side and I’ll go on the right, and the pony will walk between us.”

  We did this, both of us holding a rein, with Melinda also holding the end of the reins so that they wouldn’t drag on the ground. When we were at the far end of the ring, as far as we could get from Miss Slater, Melinda suddenly said, “It’s only when I get here that I get afraid. When I’m at home, I always think it’s going to be great. You can’t believe how many pictures I’ve drawn all over my notebooks of Gallant Man and how much I think about him, but the closer I come to him, it’s like I want to scream.”

  “That’s funny. Not funny ha ha.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you come out here every day?”

  “Every day they let me. That’s almost every day. My mom says I’m too grumpy if I don’t come out.”

  I said, “You’re weird, Melinda,” not as if I meant it, but as if I were just joking with her, and Melinda gave me a big grin. She said, “I know that.” We walked on. At the end of the arena, we turned and headed back toward Miss Slater and Gloria. Melinda said, “If I get on now, will you walk along with us? You don’t have to lead me.”

  I gave her a leg up. Once she had settled into the saddle and I had shortened the stirrups, she sat up and put her heels down. Her position was very good. We walked along. The pony behaved himself. Finally, I said, “Has the pony ever done anything bad?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you think he will?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t think he will. He never did anything bad with me, either. Some horses just don’t do anything bad. It’s like a habit that they don’t have.”

  “Like not sucking your thumb.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. Kids who don’t suck their thumbs just don’t suck their thumbs.” I stepped a little away from the pony and let her handle the reins. She turned him, and I followed. I thought that was a good sign. Then she turned him again. She was riding him, but it was like she didn’t even realize it. She said, “I’ve got pictures of him on the lid of my desk, so when I open it, there he is. And I wrote two stories about him for school.” She was smiling. A moment later, she trotted away, but then she stopped because I didn’t trot after her.

  I trotted after her. Then I got an idea.

  She was looking at me. When I trotted past her, she nudged the pony up into the trot again, and they followed me, about ten feet behind. I jogged down the long side of the arena, then rounded the corner. They were right behind me. I jogged diagonally across the arena. They were right behind me. I turned right. They turned right. I turned right again and trotted over a tiny cross-rail, not more than six inches off the ground. They were right behind me. I didn’t even look back, I just swung around and trotted over it again, then I turned right and trotted over another one. By this time, I was out of breath, so I stopped. Melinda and the pony came up to me. I thought of Jem Jarrow and how he gave George one pat but didn’t make a big deal. I said, “That was good!” but nothing more. It occurred to me that when you make a big deal rather than a little deal of someone doing something, maybe they think you’re also telling them that you never thought they could do it.

  I walked over to Gloria and Miss Slater and Gloria’s mom, where they were standing together watching us. Miss Slater was grinning, but as we approached, she calmed down, gave me a nod, and walked toward the center of the arena. Melinda and the pony followed her, and then they started having a regular lesson. Melinda did fine and seemed happy. It was like she had been under a spell, and now the spell was broken. Anyway, the lesson even included trotting back and forth over the two sets of cross-rails. We just watched. Melinda’s mom smiled but didn’t say anything. She must have thought it was very cold, because she had a black wool coat on, gloves, and a fur hat.

  Miss Slater was beaming. After the groom came out and led Melinda and the pony away to be untacked, she held out her hand to me and said, “Abby, my dear, you are a natural. I want to thank you.”

  I held out my hand. She shook it and put her other hand on my shoulder.

  It wasn’t until we were in the car that Gloria and her mom started talking about Melinda. I gathered that while I was riding the pony, they had learned a lot about Mr. and Mrs. Anniston. Melinda was an only child. Mr. Anniston was twenty years older than Mrs. Anniston, and he had children from his first marriage who were almost the same age as Mrs. Anniston.

  Anyway, the really important thing that they had learned from Miss Slater, who obviously was “talking out of school” as Mom would say because she didn’t like gossip, was that the Annistons were “estranged.”

  I couldn’t imagine what this meant. Certainly Melinda was strange, or “weird,” but she seemed proud to be weird. As I listened, I learned that one symptom of being estranged was that one parent lived in the “vacation home” and one parent lived in the “primary residence,” but according to Miss Slater, with the Annistons, you couldn’t tell the difference between the two—one was in Los Angeles and the other one was here, and both were very splendid.

  “One of them has to be sold, though,” said Gloria’s mother, “to pay for the divorce. Martha Slater says that Melinda doesn’t know a thing about it yet.”

  “I won’t tell.”

  “I didn’t think you would, dear, but a word to the wise is always the best policy.”

  After that, we didn’t talk about it.

  But neither did we talk about school. I thought we would. In fact, I thought that Gloria had set up this whole invitation so that we could figure out what to do about how awful everything was. Instead, she worked on her model of her mission (San Juan Capistrano), which she was making with Debbie and a couple of the boys. The only thing she had left to do was make little origami birds to represent the swallows. I made a couple for her, but they weren’t very good, so she said she would glue them in the back. “Debbie isn’t very good at that, either,” she said. “But she wrote out the history in fancy writing with red capital letters. That looks nice.” We played records on her new hi-fi set. When you folded the turntable up into the box and unplugged the cords, it looked sort of like a suitcase with a handle, so you could take it with you places if you wanted to. Her grandfather had sent it to her for no reason at all, just because he saw it in a store, and he had also sent her two albums, Beatles ’65, by The Beatles, and another record by a group called The Searchers. I was kind of amazed that a grandfather would do something like that. When my grand parents gave us things, they were old—pictures of what Oklahoma looked like in the early days or a silver belt buckle that had been passed down in the family.

  We had fried chicken for dinner, which was very good, a special recipe including cornflakes. It came to me maybe three times to tell Gloria about Stella and the ink cartridge, but in the end I never did. It felt too much like tattling, and anyway, it was possible that Gloria knew all about it and wasn’t tellin
g me.

  Nor did I tell Mom when she came into my room at bedtime that night. When I told her about Melinda, she said that maybe Melinda was afraid because her family was keeping things from her, so she suspected that there was a lot going on that she didn’t know anything about. She said, “Children always know more than you think.”

  I didn’t know if this was true, because I didn’t know what Mom and Daddy thought I knew.

  I told her about the fried chicken and the origami birds and the new record player.

  Just when I thought she was going to leave, she said, “Jem Jarrow had stopped by while you were gone.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes, and your daddy was all set to sell him a horse, but he said that he was never in the market for a horse, and he thought maybe he should clear things up.”

  “What did he have to clear up?”

  “Well, Abby, Danny and Jake sent him over, and I knew about that. It was me who told Jake that you were afraid to ride the horse.”

  “I told Danny that, too.”

  “I know. The thing is, Danny has been working with Jem. Jake has known Jem Jarrow for forty years, working around at one ranch or another, and Jake always thought he was the best hand with a horse in the area, but Jem wasn’t hiring himself out before. He and his brother had a big ranch, but now they’ve sold some of the land and some of the cattle, so he thought he would go out and see if there was a living to be made training horses.”

  “What did Daddy say?”

  “He said, ‘Not much of one.’”

  I sighed. I said, “Daddy never did ask me what happened.”

  “I think he thought you just stood there while Jem tried the horse. He didn’t know that Jem actually did anything with the horse.”

  “Does he want to know now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I tell him tomorrow?” I was really tired.

  “Tomorrow is Sunday. What I came up here to tell you, Abby, is that if you would like Jem Jarrow to come back, I think you’d better make your case tonight, before your father has his own thoughts about it and they get set, if you know what I mean.”