Another Kind of Cowboy

by Susan Juby

  Alex felt his excitement rise. “That’s great. Can I meet him? Your horse?”

  “Sure,” she said distractedly. “I think he’s over there. In the barn. My barn girl is off today, so I suppose that’s where he is.”

  With the interview over, she moved to shut the door.

  “Bye, son,” said Mr. Ford as the door closed.

  The first thing Alex noticed was the unmistakeable smell of an uncleaned barn. The next thing was that the barn was in near-total darkness because no lights were on and the day outside was overcast.

  “Help me find the lights,” Alex said as he felt around one side of the doorway.

  Grace moved to search the other side. She must have found the switches and flipped them all at once because the lights above flickered and suddenly the entire barn was ablaze with bright fluorescents.

  “He must be in there,” said Grace, pointing toward a closed stall door with bars across the top. Alex was already on his way. When he reached the stall door and looked in, he found the horse facing the back wall, its backside toward him. It stood fetlock deep in its own filth.

  The barn was spacious and looked nearly new but the horse inside seemed to be almost an afterthought.

  “Hey, fella,” said Alex softly.

  The tall bay horse wore a nearly new blue rug but the blanket was smeared with manure. When the horse finally turned around, Alex could see its eyes blinking painfully as it tried to adjust to the light.

  “Grace, can you turn off the light in his stall?”

  Lights flicked on and off overhead as she tried to figure out which switch controlled the stall. Finally she hit the right one and the stall went dim again.

  Alex saw most of a flake of hay uneaten on the filthy floor and an automatic waterer in the corner. At least Ms. Reed hadn’t forgotten to feed her horse.

  “Come here, fella,” said Alex, pulling open the door a few inches, then reaching out a hand for the big bay horse to sniff. Slowly the horse’s head moved forward until Alex felt whiskers tickle his palm. He stroked the horse’s nose and cheek and saw that the animal’s eye, now that it had adjusted to the light, had a kind expression. Alex stepped out of the stall and grabbed the nylon halter hanging from a hook.

  “You sure?” asked Grace.

  Alex nodded. “He’ll be okay. He just needs to stretch his legs.”

  Seconds later Alex had the halter buckled onto the horse’s head and was sliding open the stall door. He braced himself in case the horse came charging out—after all, he’d been shut in for who knows how long. But the horse waited politely for Alex to lead him out of the stinking stall and put him in the cross ties.

  “He’s huge,” said Grace.

  The horse was big. Alex figured he had to be at least 16.3 hands. “Okay, big guy. How about we clean you up?”

  “If you’re going to brush him, I guess the right thing would be for me to clean his stall,” said Grace.

  “It’s okay,” said Alex. “I can do it.”

  “No, no,” said Grace. “It’s the honorable thing. You brush the big guy and I’ll take care of it.”

  Alex slipped off Detroit’s blanket, revealing a very well-built but out-of-shape dark bay horse. As he did so, he heard his aunt dig through her purse, open her cell phone, and punch in a number.

  “Hi, May? Yeah, we’re over here at Ms. Reed’s.”

  Pause.

  “Looking at her horse. For Alex to ride.”

  Another pause.

  “You don’t want to know. Anyway, I want you and Maggie to get ready. I’m coming to pick you up. Why? Well, Alex needs some help over here.”

  When she finished the call, Grace walked past the big gelding, who was stretching out his neck and wiggling his bottom lip with pleasure at being brushed.

  “Okay, so I’ll be back in ten minutes with your sisters. They’ll clean the stall while I hide from Ms. Reed. How does that sound?”

  Alex turned to his aunt and smiled. “Good. And Grace?”

  Grace turned around in the doorway.

  “Thanks.”

  It was her turn to smile. “De nada, my friend,” she said. Then added, “That’s Spanish, in case you were wondering.”

  Then she left Alex to the wonders of the new horse.

  NOVEMBER 26

  12

  Cleo

  IT WAS ALMOST the end of November when I came back from classes to discover I’d been assigned a roommate. She was lying on my bed in her riding boots.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Uh, hello?” I put a somewhat offended spin on it so she’d at least move her feet.

  “This your bed?” she asked, staring up at the ceiling, her legs crossed at the ankles.

  “Yes.” Going for extremely offended now.

  “Mind if we switch? I don’t like facing north.”

  “North is that way,” I said, pointing at the wall beside her.

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  A disorganized pile of what I presumed were her belongings lay in a heap in the middle of the room. Half of it was spilling out of designer luggage. The other half was hanging out of plastic orange garbage bags. She obviously wasn’t one of those organizational geniuses I keep hearing about. I could see from the insignia of the coat that lay on top of the pile that she was part of the senior jumping team. The team is a very big deal here at Stoneleigh. They compete all over western Canada and even in Washington and Oregon. Two girls who used to be on the Stoneleigh senior team are now on Canada’s national team. Another girl recently made the American equestrian team.

  Well, I wasn’t about to give this bed-lying boot-wearer all kinds of respect just because she had a team jacket.

  “Look, I think there’s been a mistake. I’m not supposed to have a roommate.”

  “You are now,” she said, smiling sleepily at me.

  “I don’t think so. My mom arranged it so…” That sounded too lame. “I mean, it’s part of my deal. Double room, no roommate.”

  “I’m Jenny,” she said. “I believe you have been assigned the job of keeping me on the straight and narrow for the rest of the school year.” She turned up the wattage on her smile. Her teeth were large and square and white. The rest of her was large and tanned.

  “I’m Cleo,” I said. “And I really think you’ve made a mistake.”

  There was no way they’d give me a roommate, especially not one from the jumping team. Those girls stick together, and they have a reputation for being wild. They are a completely different species from dressage riders. I think they’ve all got the low cortical arousal thing that extreme athletes suffer from. You know, they have to do dangerous stuff just to feel alive. Personally, I feel most alive when I’m watching TV or reading. Or sleeping.

  I noticed a yellow sheet of paper with the Stoneleigh logo sitting on my desk. It was a room transfer form assigning Jennifer Hillier to Room 132. My room.

  My disappointment was overshadowed by my interest. Why had Jenny been moved? Was this some kind of punishment? What had she done to get herself exiled to my boring room? Was I really supposed to be a calming influence?

  I cleared my throat. “So, what brings you to my room?” I asked and immediately felt like kicking myself, because it sounded like a lame pickup line.

  It didn’t matter, though, because Jenny had fallen asleep. I heard a faint, whistling snore.

  “Narcolepsy, huh,” I whispered to myself. Then I started making up my new bed.

  My situation at school isn’t the only part of my life that’s changing. Things at the barn are upside down, too. When I first moved Tandava to Limestone Farm, my riding got better immediately. Fergus was teaching us, and he’s one of those people who makes everything fun. It didn’t seem to bother him when I complained. It never bothered me when he nagged. I was happy. Tandava seemed happy. She was no longer threatening to blow up every time I got on her. In fact, she was starting to go pretty well because Fergus lunged me so much that my seat improved. That mea
nt that my horse didn’t have to worry so much about me accidentally jerking her in the mouth. She softened up and relaxed, and I had moments when I could feel why she cost as much as she did.

  But then Fergus decided Alex and I were both ready to take lessons from Ivan. That brought the fun to a screeching halt. Ivan doesn’t tease when you make a mistake. Au contraire! He says extremely rude things, which I don’t appreciate.

  The only thing that makes it tolerable is that Ivan really knows what he’s talking about. He’s gotten on Tandy a few times, and each time I’ve been amazed. She seems to grow five inches and every beautiful thing about her gets more beautiful when he rides her. She arches her neck and her steps get longer and her shoulders freer. Even her coat looks shinier. Ivan rides like he was born on a horse. He sits very still and quiet and Tandava listens intently when he whispers to her in Hungarian or Bulgarian or whatever it is he speaks. In some ways Ivan reminds me of Alex: Alex has that same presence on a horse, the same total focus that horses respond to.

  The difference is that Ivan is a bitter, bitter man. Why else would he make me do all that backbreaking physical labor? Like cleaning stalls for horses that aren’t even mine, cleaning my tack after every single ride, and picking up crap in the fields and paddocks. You’d think I wasn’t a paying customer. And if I do the slightest thing wrong, Ivan loses it. Once I brought Tandy into a lesson and she had a few pieces of hay in her tail. He went all WMD on me. “This is disrespectful to your horse! To me!” he said. Then he kicked me out of my lesson.

  I worry that if Alex keeps up with his undercover, Mr.-Secretly-Gay-Guy-Who-Only-Hangs-Out-With-Horses routine, he’s going to end up just like Ivan, a bitter old man in a pirate shirt.

  Alex and I have been hanging out a lot lately. I think our friendship is really deepening, but he’s quite shut down. For instance, if I want to go over to his place, I have to invite myself because it would never even occur to him that he wanted company, even though I know he does. Also, he’s extremely humorless about his family situation. I know his dad lives in an RV and has a little drinking problem and a balding girlfriend, but as far as I’m concerned, that just adds color. I tried to tell Alex that but he just snorted. Like a horse would.

  He avoids his sisters and his aunt Grace, who are extremely entertaining. It’s like they’re too messy for him, even though their messiness is what makes them so great and funny. I worry about him, I really do. He’s missing out on life. One day, when we were at the barn, as usual, cleaning tack after our lessons, also as usual, I tried to talk to him about it.

  “Do you think that your secretiveness about your sexuality might be holding you back?” I asked.

  He looked at me like I’d suddenly kicked a small, defenseless animal across the room.

  “What?” he said.

  “You could be experiencing resistance in your riding and your personal life because you are resisting your own inner truth.” Actually, I knew he wasn’t experiencing much resistance with Ms. Reed’s horse, but it sounded good.

  Fortunately Alex didn’t call me on the weaker part of my argument.

  “My own inner truth,” he repeated in a flat voice.

  “Totally. Don’t you worry that your self-denial is affecting your riding and your development as a human being? I really think you’ve got to get past your fear and come out.”

  He gave me a sour look and went back to polishing the silver snaffle, which already gleamed like a piece of jewelry.

  “Don’t get defensive. I’m not telling you to wear assless chaps to school or anything. I just think your family—well, your aunt and sisters, anyway—would be cool with it. Then you could have a more open life. You need to let people in.”

  “First,” he muttered, “all chaps are assless. That’s how they’re made. And second, there’s more to my family than my aunt and my sisters.” He reached over to take the bridle I was supposed to be cleaning. I guess I was so busy helping him to sort out his issues, I forgot. I handed it to him.

  Before I could argue my point, which was strong, Fergus walked into the tack room.

  “You”—Fergus pointed at me—“are not to let him do your chores.”

  “But he doesn’t like the way I clean things.”

  “I’m sure he’ll cope.”

  “But he always redoes everything after I finish.”

  Fergus made a dismissive noise. “You, little minx, will clean up after yourself so Felix Unger here doesn’t need to fuss.” He took the tin of saddle soap from Alex’s hand and put it down beside me on the bench. “Here you go.”

  “Felix Unger?” said Alex, after Fergus had left.

  “I don’t know. Must be some classical reference, like from James Joyce or something,” I said. “Hey, what are you doing later? I thought I’d stop by your place.”

  NOVEMBER 28

  13

  Alex

  ALEX WAS, AS usual, worrying. He sat in the IROC waiting for Cleo to finish saying good-bye to his sisters and Grace and worrying that he was wasting valuable time. She always insisted on stopping at his house on the way home from the barn and it took hours to drag her away. He wished he’d never told her that he’d drive her home from Limestone Farm so she didn’t have to catch a ride with Mrs. Mudd.

  The other thing he was worried about was the news Fergus had dropped on them after their lesson that afternoon. Fergus announced that Alex and Cleo would be riding in a clinic with a trainer from Europe who was an old friend of Ivan’s. The clinic instructor had done his training at the Spanish Riding School.

  The Spanish Riding School! Just to be in the presence of someone trained at the finest and oldest dressage school in the world was an honor Alex could scarcely comprehend. Then his nerves and pessimism kicked in.

  Colette Reed’s gelding had turned out to be a very well-schooled midlevel dressage horse. Fergus and Ivan estimated that he was probably trained to at least third or fourth level. He had his flying changes down and was able to do beautiful, floating extensions and solid collected work. Luckily Ms. Reed had barely ridden the horse, so she hadn’t ruined his paces or his willingness.

  Detroit had been living at the Fords’ for a few weeks. Alex suspected that Ms. Reed had allowed him to take her horse home because the move had given her an excuse to drop in unexpectedly on his father.

  Detroit’s main problem was that he was out of shape and starved for attention, so Alex spent hours gradually building his stamina and reintroducing him to the world. Soon after Alex moved Detroit to his place, he began using Turnip to lead Detroit to and from his lessons at Limestone Farm. He knew he was a strange sight riding along in Turnip’s Western saddle in his breeches and tall boots. In rainy weather he wore his Australian outback oil slicker coat and covered both horses in brightly colored rain sheets. Cleo said it looked like Crocodile Dundee had gone on a rampage in a J.Crew outlet store. Fergus said it was a miracle the spectacle hadn’t caused an accident on the road between Cedar and Yellow Point, but so far Detroit had been calm and steady and willing to follow Turnip’s lead.

  Perhaps because of the lack of stimulation at Ms. Reed’s, the big gelding had a habit of staring long and hard at new objects. In each new setting he went into a kind of reverie, gazing around and moving very carefully. He reminded Alex of a man who’d just regained his sight. The thing Alex found most amazing was that the horse was at least as good-natured as Turnip.

  “Perhaps it has something to do with the handler,” said Fergus.

  Even Ivan was impressed at how well Alex and the new horse were working together. “You’re patient. You give the horses confidence in themselves. This is good.” Alex hoped his coaches were right, that he did help his horses believe in themselves, because he wasn’t at all sure he believed in himself.

  Fergus must have seen the doubt on Alex’s face at the announcement because he said, “Don’t worry, lad. You’ll be just fine. And you too, lass, provided you focus and don’t mess around.”

  Alex wished he could
believe Fergus. He sometimes wondered if his coaches were just nice to him because they felt sorry for him. He worried that he was talentless and they were afraid to tell him because they knew dressage was all he had.

  On the drive to his house, Cleo had tried to cheer him up.

  “God, don’t be such a dark cloud! It’s going to be great. The Spanish riding guy will love you. And me, obviously. I’ve been in lots of clinics with these big-time trainers and they’re nothing to worry about. Some of them are kind of cranky, but who cares, right? It’s just a lesson. It’s not the Olympics or anything.”

  It was easy for Cleo. She didn’t have to worry about anything. As Alex sat in the IROC waiting for Cleo, he arranged everything in the glove box and carefully wiped down the dashboard and stick shift and fretted that he could be doing something useful like reading Dressage Today or memorizing a new dressage test or watching dressage videos.

  Alex argued with himself constantly about Cleo. He liked her but she was just so spoiled and opinionated. He knew she meant well with her advice, but what did she know about anything? All the girls who attended Stoneleigh had money, but Cleo was rich even by their standards. Her parents produced movies and her father was some famous director who, according to Cleo, specialized in making very boring movies set in foreign countries.

  Cleo had once casually mentioned that her house in Los Angeles had eight bedrooms, even though only she and her parents lived there. She’d grown up with a nanny and a live-in housekeeper, each of whom had their own suites overlooking the pool house. Cleo came from an effortless world.

  Not long ago he’d asked Cleo about being rich and she quickly dismissed it. “Oh, we’re not rich rich. I know lots of people who have way more money than we do. Anyway, money’s not that important,” she said.

  It is to me, thought Alex as he looked around his yard. The trampoline was broken from when one of the twins had jumped onto it from the roof. The umbrella she’d been holding at the time hadn’t slowed her down any. The speedboat cover was half off, and the boat was littered with leaves and streaked with mold. The lawn hadn’t been cut before winter had come, so it was yellow and scraggly.