Buckskin Bandit

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  I slipped on Nickers’ hackamore and led her away from the house before swinging onto her back. Light began breaking through the sky, swallowing up the star herds. I leaned on Nickers’ neck as she walked through the pasture toward Kaylee’s side of town. I didn’t have to think when I rode Nickers. We felt each other. We’d joined up a long time ago, and we’d stayed that way.

  God, I prayed, feeling guilty that I hadn’t talked to God much lately, I know you and I joined up too. But right now I don’t know where I belong or who I belong to.

  My mind flashed me a picture of Lizzy standing with Dad as the cameras flashed around her in the school gym. Lizzy’s smile took in her whole face. She was so happy.

  So why did I feel so sad? Pat’s magnetic verse popped into my head, along with the smiling picture of Lizzy: “When others are happy, be happy with them.”

  How do I do that, God? I prayed. When I see Lizzy and Dad smiling together, all I can do is wish I could be the one standing next to Dad. How can I be happy with them?

  Kaylee was waiting by the road when Nickers and I trotted up.

  “Winnie, thanks for coming! I couldn’t sleep all night. What’s the plan?”

  “We’ll ride to Happy Trails, and we won’t let them take Buckskin Bandit,” I promised. That was about as far as I’d gotten with the plan.

  But Kaylee grinned, as if I’d just offered the best solution in the world. Then she hopped up behind me, and we cantered most of the way to Happy Trails.

  In no time we were crossing the field to Bandit’s pasture. Bandit nickered, and Nickers answered.

  “Shh-h-h,” I told Nickers. “The last thing we want to do is wake Leonard.”

  We got off and walked to the fence. Bandit didn’t even wait for us to whistle. He trotted up, his tail high and nostrils wide.

  Kaylee dug out a carrot from her pocket, and Bandit chomped it, while I let Nickers graze. “Now what?” Kaylee asked.

  I didn’t have an answer. Now that we were here, I wasn’t sure what to do. If Leonard came for Bandit, how could Kaylee and I stop him?

  Kaylee was looking to me for our next move. “Winnie? How exactly are we going to keep them from taking Bandit away?”

  “We’re . . . we’re going to beat them to it!” I said. The idea had burst into my head, just like that.

  I ran to the gate. Kaylee and I hadn’t used it, but Bandit would need to. “We’re going to get Bandit away from Happy Trails,” I said, wishing I’d thought to bring a long leadrope.

  “Steal him?” Kaylee asked.

  “No! Rescue him,” I answered. “We’ll keep him at my barn until the animal inspector shows up. We can tell Ralph too.”

  I tried the latch, but it wouldn’t budge. Then I saw the padlock. “It’s locked!” I cried, glancing frantically around the tiny fence. There was no other way out.

  Bandit was trapped.

  “Kaylee! We’ll have to ride back and get hoof cutters. Maybe a wire cutter too.” I called Nickers and jumped on her bareback. “Stand on that log, and I’ll ride by for you.”

  Kaylee didn’t move. “I’m not leaving Bandit,” she said quietly.

  “Kaylee! I can’t leave you here!”

  She shook her head. “I’ll wait with Bandit, Winnie. Lazy Lenny won’t show up this early. Go!”

  I didn’t like leaving her. But she was right. I’d be back in plenty of time. “Okay. But if anybody comes, hide. Don’t be a hero.”

  She nodded.

  “And I’ll bring a bridle. Do you think you could ride Bandit to my barn?”

  “Bareback?” she asked, glancing at the buckskin, who stuck his head over the fence to be scratched. “I’ve never ridden without a saddle, except behind you. I’ve never even ridden anywhere except this trail.”

  “I’ll bring a saddle,” I said. “Back in a flash.”

  Nickers pivoted, rearing front legs a foot off the ground. Then she took off in a dead gallop. We flew back through the fields, across the pasture, all the way home. The truck was gone, just as I’d thought. Dad and Lizzy were probably halfway to Columbus by now.

  In the barn I gathered tools into an old saddlebag. I tossed a leadrope, a hackamore, and a snaffle bridle into another bag. Kaylee wouldn’t feel safe unless she rode with a saddle, so I pulled out my lightest saddle, the one Pat had given me when I’d started as Winnie the Horse Gentler.

  By the time I finished gathering everything, I couldn’t carry it. I’d taken too long. I had to get back to Kaylee and Bandit.

  “Winnie? What are you doing here?”

  I dropped the saddle and turned to see none other than Madeline Edison.

  Madeline towered over me in the dim light of the barn. “Winnie Willis, what are you doing here? You should be in Columbus!”

  “I-I . . . Columbus,” I stammered.

  “Does your father know where you are?” she asked.

  “Well, kind of.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “Jack is probably worried about you.”

  “Wait, Madeline!” I pleaded.

  She kept the phone poised but didn’t dial. “What’s going on, Winnie? Where are you going with all that stuff?”

  “This stuff?”

  Madeline stepped closer, and I saw Mason behind her.

  “Hey, Mason!” I called, hoping he could distract his mother until I could think of a good explanation for her.

  Mason was staring up at the barn ceiling so intently, I could imagine him boring holes through the roof.

  “Winnie, I’m waiting for an answer.” Her finger moved toward the phone buttons.

  “I know,” I said. “Just give me a minute to say hey to Mason. Okay?” I knelt down, Mason-height, and tried to think. “Did you come to see Buddy?” I asked him.

  He didn’t move. His body looked as stiff as a three-gaited show horse. Mason was in one of his zones. He’d escaped to a place where nobody could reach him.

  Madeline put her hand on her son’s head. “He was fine yesterday, until nighttime. I don’t think he shut his eyes the whole night. I thought if I brought him over here, maybe Buddy could snap him out of it again.”

  I stared into Mason’s eyes. They were deep pools, with nobody there. “Buddy’s been missing you, Mason. Want to go see her?” I put my hand on Mason’s shoulder.

  He jerked away. Then he let out a scream that didn’t sound human. It froze my spine. He kept it up so long I thought he’d faint from not breathing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said when the scream finally died out. I put my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking.

  “It’s not your fault,” Madeline said. “He’ll be all right. We’ll just let him have time. Isn’t that right, Mason?”

  Mason didn’t answer.

  She turned to me. “Now, Winnie, I think you better tell me what exactly is going on.”

  Time was running out. Kaylee was back at Happy Trails, guarding Bandit from Leonard and who knew what else. Madeline had her phone in dialing position again. I had no choice. I had to tell her.

  As quickly as I could, I told Madeline everything. About Kaylee. About Bandit. About Leonard.

  “We couldn’t just let Leonard get rid of Bandit!” I pleaded. “He hurt that buckskin, Madeline. And Bandit’s just starting to get over it, to trust people again.”

  Please, God! Please make her understand!

  “And Kaylee’s there at Happy Trails right now?” Madeline asked.

  I nodded. I stared at the phone, still clutched in her fist. “Are you going to call Dad?”

  Madeline looked back at Mason, who hadn’t budged during my whole account. Then she shook her head slowly. “I’m not saying that I won’t tell him later, Winnie. And actually, you should be the one to do that. But right now I think you better get back to that horse.”

  “You do?” I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t even like horses.

  Madeline nodded. “Abuse is a terrible, terrible thing.” Her eyes got watery. It was the close
st I’d ever seen her to tears. “Well, don’t just stand there! Go! Hurry!”

  I threw the saddlebag over my shoulder and grabbed the bag of tools. Then I tried to pick up the saddle.

  Madeline snatched it out of my hands. “Come on! I’ll drive.”

  “You?”

  She grinned. “Consider it a happy-birthday gift.”

  She’d remembered.

  She scooped Mason onto her shoulders and jogged all the way to her van.

  We were barely off our street when Mason fell asleep in his car seat. He’s seven, but he’s so small that his car seat is toddler-sized.

  I watched Madeline as she leaned over the steering wheel and drove faster than Dad would have. I couldn’t figure her out. “Why are you being so nice, Madeline?” Then I realized how it sounded. “I mean, not that you’re not always nice. It’s just . . . why are you helping me?”

  She was quiet for so long that I was afraid she was mad at me for saying she wasn’t nice all the time. Then she whispered, “Winnie, I think you’re old enough to hear what I have to say. I know that you love Mason and would never say anything that would upset him.”

  She waited for me to nod. I did.

  “Have you ever wondered about Mason?” she began. “Why he is the way he is?”

  I’d thought about it a lot. I’d even asked Dad. All he’d ever tell me was that something had happened to Mason, something that left him with nerve damage in his brain. “Yes.”

  Madeline gripped the steering wheel so hard her long fingers went white. “You know I was married before. I married young and unwisely. Then we had a baby. Mason was the cutest baby in the world.” She smiled, as if she had a photographic memory too, and was seeing Mason as a little baby right now.

  “I’ll bet he was a cute baby,” I agreed.

  She smiled at me. It was funny. She hardly looked like Madeline. Her nose didn’t seem so long, and there was nothing odd-looking about her.

  “Well, as cute he was,” she continued, “our little Mason was a handful. He fussed and cried a lot, but not that much more than other babies. I don’t suppose either Miles or I knew much about raising an infant.”

  Madeline’s back stiffened, and she bit her lip and squinted at the road ahead. “Mason’s father had a very short fuse. One night, after I’d been up with the baby for hours until he dropped off to sleep, I went back to bed. In the middle of the night I awoke to a thump.”

  She stopped, and I was afraid she wouldn’t finish. I wanted to know. I had to know.

  “I ran into the nursery. And there was Mason, lying on the floor next to the wall. He wasn’t moving.”

  My chest burned. I could see Mason as a baby, lying there, and Madeline running to him. I could see it as clearly as if I’d been there.

  “Mason’s father had thrown his son against the wall to make him stop crying.”

  I turned around to see Mason. He was asleep, his head leaning back. I could see the dimple on his cheek, and he looked like an angel. How could anybody do that?

  “Madeline, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t say anything else.

  “Me too,” she said. “It was the last time either of us saw or spoke to his father. For the first year after the divorce, I blamed myself for not seeing it coming. I should have known Miles had violence in him. But I didn’t, Winnie. Or maybe I did, but I didn’t want to admit it.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said, wishing somebody else were in the car with us. Somebody who’d know what to say, like Dad or Lizzy.

  “After I was finished blaming myself, I suppose I blamed God, although I wouldn’t have said that. I’d look at other boys Mason’s age, and I’d get angry all over again. Why should they live normal, happy lives while Mason disappeared into himself almost every day? It wasn’t fair.”

  It wasn’t fair. How many times had I said or thought those exact words in the last couple of weeks?

  She was crying softly now and driving so slowly that three cars zoomed past us. “Your dad asks me every week if I’ll go to church with him. And every week I turn him down. I guess I haven’t finished blaming God yet, have I?”

  I knew how she was feeling. I’d blamed myself for Mom’s accident. And then I’d blamed God. “Madeline, you didn’t hurt Mason. And neither did God. Mason’s dad did it.” My voice was so raspy that I didn’t know if she could understand me.

  I glanced back at Mason again. “Look at him, Madeline.”

  She looked in her rearview mirror and almost ran off the side of the road. But the sight of Mason made her stop crying. Her eyes softened. There was joy written all over her face—in the crinkles under her eyes, in the way her mouth grew soft.

  I prayed that I could find the right words. “Madeline, even with all his problems, Mason Edison is the most totally joyful person I’ve ever met. He makes everyone around him smile. He gets excited about colts. And have you ever seen anybody get so much happiness out of an Appaloosa spot or a smudge on the ceiling?”

  She laughed softly, then stopped. “I know you’re right, Winnie. But when I see other children playing together . . . I just can’t get past that moment when everything changed, when I found Mason on the floor and knew what his father had done to him. That’s what I keep seeing, even now.”

  Madeline didn’t have a photographic memory, but she didn’t need one. That picture of Mason was burned into her mind as deeply as the picture of Mom’s accident was carved into mine. As deeply as the memory of Leonard’s cruelty had been stamped into Bandit’s brain.

  “We’re all leaf-blocked.” I wasn’t sure if I’d said it out loud or not.

  Madeline frowned over at me. “What?”

  “It’s what Catman and M taught me, what they did on our trail ride. They held up a leaf and blocked out the sun.” I turned in my seat belt so I could see her better. “Did you know that you can block out a whole sun or moon if you hold a tiny leaf in front of your face?”

  Madeline nodded slowly.

  “That’s what I do—hold the wrong things in front of my face. I’m leaf-blocked, Madeline. I can’t see past the leaf.” Thoughts were coming fast. I could hardly piece them together for myself. How could I ever make her understand?

  “Go on, Winnie,” Madeline said. “What are you holding in front of your face?”

  “Mom’s accident.” But I knew there was more. God, help me get this, I prayed. “And maybe Lizzy. Lizzy and Dad.”

  “You mean because Lizzy won at the science fair and you didn’t?”

  “That, and other stuff. Lizzy’s pretty easy to envy.”

  We both laughed a little. It helped. Maybe I’d been leaf-blocked about Madeline too.

  I made myself go on. “When Lizzy won, Dad seemed to forget about me, except when it came to assigning me Lizzy’s chores. It felt so unfair.”

  “But didn’t she do your chores when Jack was working on your invention?”

  Madeline was right. Totally right. And I hadn’t noticed it at all, not even once. Lizzy had cleaned stalls for me while I went off to ride with Kaylee. She’d done her chores and mine for a week. And I’d never once thought of that as unfair. “Guess that’s what I mean about not seeing things when you’re leaf-blocked.”

  Madeline glanced at Mason again. “Leaf-blocked. Hmmm. No one else has a more loving son than I do. He’s full of surprises, most of them great ones. The little I know about joy, I’ve learned from Mason.”

  Her fingers drummed the dashboard. “Leaf-blocked,” she repeated. Suddenly she smacked the steering wheel. The car swerved, then straightened out. “Winnie, you may be right about that leaf! I think I’m starting to see the sun.”

  “I want Buddy,” Mason mumbled. He yawned and stretched out his little arms. When he smiled at us, his dimple shone like the sun, filling Madeline’s van.

  We were almost to Happy Trails. “Madeline, you better stop here,” I said.

  She pulled the van over to the side of the road, letting one wheel slide into the ditch.

  “Than
ks for driving me, Madeline,” I said, lugging the saddle out of the van and dumping it on the ground. “You don’t have to wait or anything. I can come back for the saddle.”

  “Oh, we’re not going to wait, are we, Mason? We’re coming with you.” She hopped out and started unbuckling Mason’s seat belt.

  “You shouldn’t come, Madeline. We might get in really big trouble. I’m going to have to break the padlock to get Bandit away from here.”

  “Then it seems to me you’re going to need all the help you can get. Now toss me that saddle.”

  Nobody who saw Madeline Edison for the first time would ever guess how strong she is. With Mason tucked under one arm like a football, she hoisted the saddle under her other arm and took off at a trot toward the back pasture.

  I grabbed both bags and ran after her. “That way!” I shouted.

  Kaylee and Bandit were waiting at the far end of the pasture. Bandit trailed behind her, as if Kaylee were the herd’s dominant mare.

  “Looks like a friendly horse,” Madeline commented as we got closer.

  “You should have seen him a week ago,” I said. I thought about how much Bandit had changed. His leaf had come down, and the world looked brighter to him. He was a happy horse again. We couldn’t let Leonard ruin that.

  Kaylee waved, then dropped her arm and frowned when she saw Madeline.

  “She’s okay!” I called out. “Madeline’s helping!”

  “Mason helping too!” he cried.

  I reached over and ruffled his hair. “Mason is helping big-time,” I agreed.

  Madeline set him down and walked up to the pasture fence. “The horse is so skinny. Poor thing.”

  Kaylee pointed out the scars on Bandit’s rump and chest. “Spur marks here. And these have to be whip marks.”

  Madeline’s face got bright red, and her eyes bugged out. “If I get my hands on this . . . this Leonard, he’s going to wish he’d never seen a horse!”

  I dug out the tools and started to work on the padlock. I tried banging it with the heavy hoof cutters. Then I tried to pry open the lock. Using the wire cutters, I tried cutting the thing off. Nothing worked.