Barn Blind

by Jane Smiley

  “Oh, hi.” He hadn’t meant to bump her. “Sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  “Well, I didn’t see you.”

  “Not about that.”

  “What then?”

  “I hung around the barn last night. . . .”

  “My mother . . .”

  “Your mother!” she said it in a baby voice. “She’s not God, you know.”

  “We had to go out to dinner.”

  “I’ll bet.” She made a mocking face, then sauntered off. He did not follow.

  At eleven all riders turned out in tennis shoes to walk the cross-country. The first four jumps, which also served as the last four, were set into the side of a large natural amphitheater just below the main ring. Only one had a flat approach, and that was a post and rails hung with knotted ropes sure to fly up in any gust of wind. The other three were more conventional—an oxer and two chicken coops—but each of them demanded a choice between an odd angle of approach and unsure, hilly footing that would no doubt have turned to mud after the first five entries. The first jump in the woods was a rail and ditch, where decoy ducks were floating in two feet of water. After that there were two logpiles, a picket fence with an uphill approach, an in-and-out through a shallow creek (to filter out those horses suspicious of water), a low rail followed by an immediate steep slide followed by a sharp turn and another, higher rail, which meant that riders had to keep their pace up and their eyes open going down the slide.

  The end of the woods came suddenly, with a sharp turn into an open field, where the jumps, a Helsinki, a brush, and an Irish Bank, were set in apparently random order. The rider could not slow down, but had to be aware of the red and white flags and the correct course, as it appeared on the map, instantly. The first jump you saw was not the first you took. Then there was another brief stretch of woods, with a gate and another ditch and rail. The last jump out of the woods was a picnic table flanked by two large wagon wheels. “At Blowing Rock,” said Kate, “we had to take a kitchen table with chairs upside down on the top. It was four and a half feet high, four feet wide, and nothing but daylight underneath.” The children shuddered.

  Peter ate his lunch in MacDougal’s stall. The horse was acting aloof and excitable, and Peter felt, for the only time that he could remember, endangered. He had ridden more diabolical courses than this one: last year, when he was riding Herbie, there had been a downhill triple no-stride in-and-out of impregnable stone walls. One horse had barreled into the third of the fences after losing his rhythm over the second, somersaulted over it, and broken his shoulder, although the rider had been thrown free and remained unhurt. A course two years ago had specialized in downhill approaches as well. On more than two-thirds of the fences, the ground on the far side could not be seen until horse and rider were in the air. The risk had been more felt than real, but at least five riders had been eliminated, simply because they could not bear the sensation of being launched into unknown space.

  Those courses had excited him, though. Galloping and jumping, taking care at high speed, lent him advertence and agility that were usually a struggle to achieve. On a cross-country course, his eyes felt lidless, his neck stretched, his chin as light as a petal floating. On a cross-country course he was practically reckless. The designers of this almost pedestrian course had had to make up in silly jumps for what they lacked in interesting terrain. However, he hated to think of MacDougal over interesting terrain. He hated to think of MacDougal anywhere outside this stall, and himself responsible. As if psychic, the horse looked up from his bit of hay, and caught Peter’s eye. Peter sighed.

  “Huh?” said Henry, appearing in the doorway.

  “Nothing.”

  “Want another hotdog?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Nervous?”

  “About something. Don’t know what, though. It’s not a scary course.”

  “Just throw your heart over and the rest will follow.”

  “Just throw your head over, and your heels will follow.”

  “MacDougal unchained!”

  “Not a pleasant prospect.”

  “Well, you were hot to ride him. At Easter you begged . . .”

  “Hey, shut up and go get me a dandy brush, will you?”

  “Yes, massa.”

  Now there would be the business of getting ready, a kind of bed of activity for one to fall into. First the sinking into neatness and hurry and self-importance, as well as consultation with mother about time, tactics, and stupid mistakes (“Now, don’t cross your own line,” she would say, “and this time, don’t forget, red flags to the right and white to the left,” although he hadn’t forgotten that rule in five years), then the waking into the movement itself. Eventually one would be galloping forward, fences would be looming and disappearing, and the possibility of a voluntary surcease would not exist. Long ago an aunt had taken him, along with Margaret and two of the cousins, to an amusement park that advertised the highest roller-coaster in the East. He had promoted the trip as much as anyone else, had agitated with nine-year-old impatience to have done with the Parachute, the Octopus, the Tilt-a-Whirl, and the RoundUp, and get on to the main attraction. He had demanded, over the wishes of the girls, seats in the very front, and they had given in easily to his presumed nonchalance. A tattooed man locked them in, stepped back, released a lever. The clean terror of the ride, the astonishing impossibility of his own presence in that wild car still occasionally made him shiver. He had begun shouting almost instantly and had not paused, “Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” He had cried and cried, had nearly leaped out of the car in his yearning for cessation. Afterward, while the other children were taken for refreshments, he was led back to the aunt’s station wagon. He had never been ashamed, even in retrospect, of his girlish reaction. It still seemed to him the only possible one. This cross-country ride on MacDougal had the same feeling.

  Mother appeared over the door of the stall with the impersonal air of the tattooed man. “Now, you’re last in the prelims,” she said, “and it might be sort of muddy. What are you doing here? You should be saddled by now. Margaret’s already mounted up. Where are your boots? You’ve had lunch at least, I hope?”

  Bam, bam, bam. Even as they did it, it was interesting to note how the questions fixed his intentions and moved him around the stall. Here was the saddle, here the bridle, here the horse. “There’s nothing he’s afraid of,” she continued, “though you could convince him if you let him look too long at the table jump. He’ll no doubt prefer a fairly fast pace, but the woman in front of you can be a slow boat in China if she’s not right with it. I swear she’s so barn blind she thinks that ewe-necked mare is Team material. Anyway, listen, he’s going to pull you right out of the saddle if he catches a glimpse of her and starts thinking it’s a race, so remember that; and don’t cross your line, especially in that crazy field they’ve got set up between fourteen and seventeen. Be the boss for once, and for the Lord’s sake, pay attention!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he repeated, “yes, ma’am,” whipping around the stall, doing up buckles, handling Mac with vigor and assurance, delighted after all to nod and agree, to be the creature of her voice and her self-confidence. Outside the stall there were other distractions—shouts of good luck, the retying of his tie, the further checking of tack and course, warming up (five rounds of walk, three of trot, three of trot in the other direction, watch out, look where you’re going, MacDougal in exuberance bucking and kicking out, beautiful horse, no need for a practice jump). And, of course, the worst was true, MacDougal was not his, manifested no recognition of his hands, his seat, the tact of his lower leg. MacDougal was all eyes and ears. He cleaved entirely to the horses and children and other distractions around him, aware of Peter only as an inconvenience to his exploration of the area and his establishment of dominance over all the other male horses. There was a single rider Peter envied, a tall girl on a brown Anglo-Arab, probably level one, from what he could remember. She was slouching in her saddle Henr
y-like under the only tree. She was eating an apple and her horse’s eyes were practically closed. But then he was in the starting gate and on the course.

  There was not the expected lunge forward. MacDougal trotted out of the gate, his ears pricked, his neck arched, his whole posture demanding admiration. “Let’s go,” said Peter, though hesitant to apply his whip. MacDougal trotted forward, pretending to be skittish, green. “Canter, you dope,” murmured Peter. MacDougal broke into a slow canter, really more of a saunter. It brought them to the first jump. The wind had stilled, the ropes hung down. MacDougal popped over the fence, and Peter settled more deeply into his seat. They approached the chicken coop as frivolously, the horse’s body cockeyed, his steps mincing, but three strides in front of it he changed his mind. Peter’s knowledge of this was pure sensation. Everything about the horse and himself seemed to drop and lengthen, as if falling into a groove. The horse did not so much capitulate to him as gather him up—take hold of his hands, fill the space between his knees, center himself under Peter’s own center. His strides before the chicken coop were enormous, voluntary; the jump itself was big but rapid, as if effortless. Almost immediately they were over the oxer, nearing the second coop, this one truncated and crenelated with flowerpots. There was a humming of stop stop stop somewhere in his thoughts, but overlying it was ample and growing curiosity. There were the ducks, the flash of the jump judge’s red shirt, and they were on the path through the woods. They galloped and galloped.

  It was not that Peter was unmindful of his mother’s instructions; in fact, he grew increasingly to feel that he was entirely mindful of everything. Through a break in the trees he saw flickering canary and chestnut, and he knew without reflection that the woman in front of him was making reasonable time, but that he ought to check slightly. He did so. The slide came, horse and rider tilted backward without slowing down, and the slide was gone. Suddenly in the open field, he brought MacDougal back to a canter, reconnoitered the order of the jumps and the position of the flags, then galloped on, making no mistakes. Being mindful, however, was nothing, simply life itself. The roller-coaster fear continued. Certainly he was out of control, although the position of his legs and seat, the feel of the reins in his fingers, were all manifest symptoms of being in control. And Mac was acting more amenable than he ever had before. Left here, right here, slow down, big jump. Nobody was in control, except perhaps the course itself, the time itself. They were over the table jump without realizing it. No one was in control, and it was fine, perfect. Coop, oxer, coop, ropes, this time flapping in a breeze. There were the flags. And now it was over. Peter dismounted, took off the saddle, and MacDougal rolled in the grass. Peter wanted to embrace something enormous: the horse, the land itself, anything unembraceable.

  Certainly not Kate, who was approaching with a smile. Suddenly, having done well embarrassed him. He pretended his returning smile was merely a squint into the sun. But her attitude was perfect. “Decent time,” she said. “You didn’t have any refusals, did you? Now, tell me exactly how you went around the jumps in that field.” He did so. “Cross your own line at all?”

  “Never.”

  “Excellent. That should put you first in the cross-country, at any rate, though after this morning it won’t make much difference. John was eliminated at the decoy ducks. He fell off. Don’t laugh at him. He looks like he got into a street fight. Margaret had one refusal at the last jump. Big gust of wind. I could see it coming before she’d even looked for the jump. Herbie knew what was going on, though your sister didn’t. Take that horse in and wash him off good before the stadium jumping. You might do a little rebraiding too. And don’t lose track of the time! You’ll no doubt go first or second, and you should do fine if you’ve memorized the course like I told you.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Yes ma’am.”

  “Well, get going.”

  “It was terrific.”

  “Yes, well, I expect so. Go on.”

  John had a gash across his cheek and a bruise under his eye that was just beginning to swell. “Well?” he said.

  “Fine. Clean.”

  “Great.” He was trying to be enthusiastic. “Teddy . . .”

  “Mother told me.”

  “Margaret did O.K.”

  “Yeah.” Peter carried his bucket of warm water over to where MacDougal was tethered to the fence and began squeezing spongefuls over the horse’s withers. MacDougal grunted and closed his eyes. “Mmmmm,” said Peter. “Huh? what?”

  “I said, ‘What was it like?’ ”

  “I don’t know. Clean. Pretty fast, I guess.”

  “Yeah, but what was it like?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t say. It was fun. Anyway, you did it yourself.”

  “On Teddy!”

  “Well, you don’t have to shout.”

  “I just wanted to know what it was like! I mean, you got to ride the horse. You always have and everybody knows he’s one of the best horses around, and I just wanted to know what it was like.”

  “Well, it’s like itself. What can I say?”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

  John fell silent while Peter scraped the excess water out of MacDougal’s coat, then untied the horse without looking at his younger brother. “I . . .” he began, then shrugged, and led the horse away.

  “You’re crazy!” John called after him. Peter shrugged again, then was hidden from view.

  Teddy had decided that, as far as arena jumping went, he would not. John hadn’t decided firmly enough that he must, so Teddy took the wrong lead for his warming-up circle, knocked the top rail off the first jump, refused the second, took the third, tried to veer off course before the fourth, then refused that one twice. He took the fifth and sixth calmly enough, then knocked the top rail off the eighth, bucked twice before the ninth but took it, then refused the final jump once before sailing over it. “Damn you!” shouted John, still in the ring under Mrs. Elliot-Frobisher’s eye. Their time was as abysmal as the other aspects of their performance, and there was not even polite applause as they left the ring. Peter’s round had been slow but clean, Margaret had suffered one refusal, but lost no time points. Mother did not speak to John when he appeared in the cooling ring, but he understood that she would later. “It’s your fault!” he shouted.

  And then it turned out that Peter had won, in spite of the poor dressage round. Of the preliminary-level riders, only he and Margaret had fully understood the open field of jumps in the middle of the cross-country, and only the two of them had not got off course. One badly placed set of flags had been entirely bypassed by every other rider, causing wholesale elimination. Kate couldn’t believe it. “How smart of you!” she said, though only once. She also said, “The horse could have performed at level two or three, you know.” But she smiled. For Peter, that was embarrassing enough.

  Margaret noticed the man again, the man with the all-encompassing smile, as they were preparing to leave the showgrounds. Mother, as usual, could not give up her conversation and information gathering and advising until all her closer friends were themselves departed. While the children loaded the tack and the horses, cleaned the stalls they had used, and found every piece of gear that seemed to have been lost, mother waved away at least a half dozen of the people she had latched onto during the show, making herself, with her fond smiles and “God bless you’s!” and hints about the best routes home, the hostess and proprietress of the whole enterprise. She was extremely well known. By the time they were finally leading the horses up the ramp and securing them in their little stalls, it was deep twilight.

  Margaret was pitching water out of the washing buckets when he came up behind her, leading the gray Thoroughbred. She straightened, wiping her hands on her jeans, and saw that it was he, and that he was looking at her as he had in the restaurant, as if about to speak. His steps even slowed. He was a very nice-looking man; Margaret suddenly panicked and looked away busily, as if she hadn’t noticed him. His steps quickened and he walked on. When they were dr
iving out of the gate, they passed his car. It had Virginia license plates.

  In the back seat, John and Henry fell asleep. Peter’s dark figure at the wheel of the van could be made out in the rear-view mirror. Kate drove silently, and Margaret stared out the windshield in utter blank comfort, idly conjuring up the man’s face, trying, though not too hard, to remember what it reminded her of. Other than the faces of her family, it was the only one she had ever seen that actually interested her. She did not have a wide acquaintanceship, and was too shy to look very much at strangers, so she didn’t know why this one face stood out so completely from all the others. It probably was not handsome, but who could say? Suddenly she felt very inexperienced, inexperienced and more. She thought of the expression “born yesterday” and smiled, so perfectly did it seem to suit her. She broke the silence. “I think I’m going to name my next horse Born Yesterday.” Kate did not reply, and they tunneled on in the wake of their headlights, sometimes between road cuts, sometimes through trees, sometimes merely into the night. It seemed very late, but when Margaret looked at the dashboard clock, it was only nine-ten.

  She made up a story about the man with the smile. She made him wealthy and horsy, but also kind and socially conscious, the sort whose contacts with poor people were not merely charitable. He could work with brain-damaged children, or lobby for the deaf in Congress, or do free legal work for folks who couldn’t afford to pay. She put him on the board of trustees for the Fresh Air Fund. She gave him an early, very happy marriage, though sadly with no children, then killed off his wife. Widowers, she thought, were far more interesting than confirmed bachelors.

  Kate asked her to drive. After they had turned off the exit ramp and stopped for gas, after the boys had awakened and demanded to know how much further, then, after Cokes, switched around so that she was sitting up front with Peter, and mother and Henry were in the van, when she drove onto the highway again, still pulled along by those headlights, her contemplation escaped her, or rather, the simple pleasure of it did. She could still call up the face of the man, but somehow the cozy quality of her thoughts was gone. She remembered that as a child she had loved to lie on the sofa with her nose in the space of the corner, and imagine that she was looking into a dark little room that only she could see. If once she glanced away, the privacy was lost, and she became merely a kid on the sofa in the living room. Now, as she drove, the headlights lost their tunnel nature and turned again into beams of light, and she said to Peter, “I’ll really be glad to get home this time.” Tired from driving the van, he nodded sleepily.