A Horse of Her Own

by Annie Wedekind

  Jane and Beau were the last to join the group of riders gathered at the gate to the main pasture. Beau had given her trouble saddling up; he kept holding his breath, extending his stomach so that when Jane forced the last buckle of the girth through its hole, he relaxed his sides, and the girth bagged loosely again. She’d finally given him an annoyed poke and, looking at her reproachfully, he sighed, allowing her a few seconds to tighten the girth. “C’mon, you,” she said as she swung into the saddle and urged him into a trot. “The creek, the coop, jumping shrubbery—what’s not to like?”

  The fierce heat of the day had subsided, leaving a mellow amber glow over the farm. As Jane looked over the soft green slopes and ambling creek that framed Sunny Acres, she remembered her wish to ride Beau across the country, or at least across Kentucky, over miles and miles of the deep green that was both mysterious and comforting, an ocean of summer color, with that precarious happiness of summer—beauty that is so full, but contains its own ending, like a song.

  “Jane, are you listening?” Susan’s voice broke into her daydream. Jane nodded, blushing. “I was just saying that you’re up first.”

  “Okay, right, I wasn’t listening,” Jane said sheepishly, and Jessica laughed.

  “Let’s focus. I’m going to be timing you, but just as an exercise. Don’t race over this—take your time and ride a nice relaxed course, okay?”

  “Got it,” Jane said, and turned Beau to the gate. They walked past Thunder and Jennifer, who was involved in a whispered discussion with Alyssa that Jane caught snatches of as she looked out over the slopes of what would be her course: “I was like—” “Seriously, what did he—” Jessica was a little ways off, looking down the line of the fence, apparently lost in her own, and Jane was sure inscrutable, thoughts. No one seemed to care much that she was the first in what would be for all of them their first full cross-country course, and Jane was relieved. Normally she hated her invisibility, her irrelevance, but right now she didn’t want to feel their eyes on her, judging and appraising. She lined Beau up at the gate and glanced over at Susan, who was studying her watch. “Ready,” she called, “and go!”

  Jane squeezed Beau’s sides and he picked up a trot, then, with a sassy swish of his tail, a canter. Their route led them slightly downhill, and Jane scanned the field toward the copse of trees beyond the decrepit log that was their first jump. Beau took it casually, and Jane guided him to the right of the thicket of slender young birches, looking for the double rail. It came up suddenly around the bend, giving Jane little time to square her horse, but it was also low, and Beau managed it well. Jane decided to pick up the pace as they approached the shallow crossing of the creek, and Beau lashed his tail again as they cleared the water in a bound. This, Jane thought, was not bad at all.

  As they neared the far paddock, Beau pricked his ears and slowed his gait, obviously wondering why they were careening toward the gate of a small enclosure where there might be another horse. Jane muttered a low prayer that there wouldn’t be, and sure enough, the paddock appeared empty, the gate propped open, and the late-evening light pouring through the small, neatly kept shed. They trotted through, then Jane looked to the “shrubbery” that she was supposed to cross. It was enormous.

  “Whoa!” she yelped and, though it wasn’t what she’d meant, Beau halted. Could Susan really mean for them to jump this thing? The bushes, thickly gnarled and impenetrable, formed the western wall of the paddock. Jane had never sized them up for jumping—it had never occurred to her—and they looked at least four feet high, if not more, with thin shoots of new growth sticking up. Jane was sure it would be—if she made it—the highest jump she’d ever done.

  Jane looked over her shoulder toward the main gate, but the trees by the creek blocked her view of the other riders and the reassuring form of Susan. She’d never done anything like this without Susan’s watchful presence and encouragement. Then her heart gave an unpleasantly loud knock as she realized that she was letting the seconds tick by while she walked Beau in circles of indecision. Susan might have said that the timing was just an “exercise” but Jane still didn’t want to be the slowest rider of the course. Swallowing hard and tightening her reins, she turned Beau toward the menacing briars. “Okay, buddy,” she whispered, “let’s do this.”

  She swung Beau around the shed, picking up a trot, then a canter. As they rounded the corner, she straightened him with her seat and hands and applied a strong leg; then, two beats before the bushes, having taken a good look at what Jane was asking him to do, Beau threw his head up and swerved sharply to the left, toward the open gate. Jane felt her right boot slip from its stirrup, and she grabbed hard onto Beau’s mane. Luckily, he stopped when he reached the gate, and Jane stayed on. Now, on top of her jackrabbit heart, her hands were shaking, and she felt a little sick. How was she going to convince Beau to go over this, when such an obvious exit was just to the left? She briefly considered closing the gate, but then she’d have to open it again, eating up more time. She didn’t stop long to think; her every impulse was toward getting in motion, getting this over with, and not allowing Beau, or herself, any time to really think about what was increasingly seeming like a bad idea.

  And then suddenly an odd memory, one that almost made her laugh in spite of her predicament, floated across her mind’s eye. Jane wondered … . Well, it was worth a shot, she decided quickly, before she could feel more foolish than she already did. She cleared her throat.

  “O SAY does that star-spangled ba-anner yet wa-ave … .” With an earful of off-key patriotism for encouragement, Beau cantered around the shed again. This time, as Jane felt him already starting to look and to shift to the left, she applied an even stronger left leg and a firm right rein and continued to sing, which seemed to give her courage. “O’er the la-a-and of the freeeee and the ho-ome …” She felt him swerve, veer back into line, slow slightly, then suddenly, and with a great bound that almost caught her unawares, he was off, launched up, and over, and Jane was thrown up on his neck, missing both stirrups, and gasping, “Triumphant poop, darn it, triumphant poop!” as she slowed him down, hugging and patting his neck, and fumbled for her stirrups. Her heart, still pounding, swelled within her, filling with emotion for this brave, so brave horse beneath her.

  “I love you, boy,” she told him. “I love you so much.”

  Then Jane heard a sound behind her—what was it? Clapping? In a blaze of confusion, she looked over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of a tall, slim figure in jeans and cowboy boots, his dark hair falling over his grinning face, emerging from the shadowed corner of the shed, clapping and giving a low whistle.

  “And the home of the bra-a-ave!” Ben’s husky tenor floated down the field, completing the song, as she galloped toward the trees. Where in the world had he come from, Jane wondered, and what was he doing there in the first place? She felt a quick burst of pleasure from his applause, then urged Beau forward once again.

  The rest of the course went in a flash. Beau, apparently swollen with pride over his heroic effort, tossed off the water jumps, the second log, and even the splash through the pond with aplomb. Jane’s heart was soaring as they rounded the last corner of the field and headed toward the coop. She could hardly restrain herself from whooping, or singing again, as they tore up the grass and charged toward the last jump. She could see the group now, and Beau picked up even more speed as they headed toward the other horses. Funnily enough, the coop didn’t look nearly as intimidating as it once did, and with some self-consciousness, Jane assumed a serious riderly attitude, determined to make the jump that Susan could see come off well. It did, and then they were back at the gate and done.

  “Eight minutes and forty-three seconds,” Susan called out. Eight minutes? Jane stared at her trainer in disbelief. It felt as if she’d been gone at least an hour.

  “Everything looked fine from here, Jane. How’d Beau do?”

  “He was great. But that paddock jump—” Jane stopped in confusion. Susan was frowning an
d gave her head a quick shake. Jane looked at her, then at the other girls, who were looking at her, not at Susan. “It was fine,” she finished lamely.

  “Good girl. Take Beau back to the barn and get him cooled down. And put your face under the hose—you’re bright red.” The curse of her complexion—Jane resembled a tomato after any strenuous ride in the heat. As she turned a jaunty and self-satisfied Beau toward home, Susan winked at her. She obviously didn’t want the other girls to hear about the shrubbery, and this gave Jane a measure of satisfaction. Unless they remembered the exact dimensions of the green giant, they were all in for the same surprise that she’d had.

  After sponging and scraping and walking Beau, Jane had just turned him out into the pasture when Alyssa, who’d ridden last, and Susan approached the barn. “Great,” Jane heard Alyssa mutter to Jennifer as she slid off Ariel, “so glad I get to be the last one out of the barn tonight.” It was true that all the other girls were done or nearly done caring for their horses. Alyssa so rarely was last in anything that Jane allowed herself a brief moment of gloating that she might actually get to be one of the first in line for the showers tonight.

  “You could always pull an Emily and just throw Ariel in her stall still hot,” Jennifer said with a small laugh.

  Jane glanced back from the field, where Beau sauntered off toward the salt lick. She had an idea what Jennifer meant—Jane, too, had noticed that Emily didn’t seem to take much interest in the care of her new horse. She looked worriedly to Ariel, tied to a hitching post at the barn door and obviously tired and flecked with sweat, but Alyssa, after searching fruitlessly for Gabriel or Ricky, finally fetched a full bucket of water and began sponging down the lovely Arab mare.

  Jane was thinking of finding Robin and getting something to eat when she heard Susan calling them to the front of the barn. When the worn-out group assembled, their trainer looked them over, smiling, but, Jane thought, with a hint of steel in her expression. There was a long pause while Susan seemed to be lost in thought, and Alyssa nudged Jennifer and rolled her eyes.

  “So,” Susan finally said, “what did you think of your first cross-country course?” A smattering of “Fine”s and “Okay”s came in response.

  “That’s interesting,” Susan said, the smile wiped from her face. “Because for two of you, it was more than fine, and for the other two, it was much less.” Jane looked at Susan in bewilderment, then saw to her great surprise that Jennifer had turned dark crimson—surely the first time Jane had ever seen her blush. She glanced at Alyssa, who looked haughty and bored, which was normal.

  “Here are your times,” Susan continued. “Alyssa was first, coming in at six minutes and five seconds. Jennifer was second, with six minutes twenty seconds. Jessica took seven minutes and thirteen seconds, and Jane finished at eight minutes forty-three seconds.”

  Jane stared at her boots, her mind echoing her trainer’s words: And for the other two, it was much less. How could she have felt so good about the course? How could she have been so happy after her ride, when she was last? She dared not look at the other girls and stood hot and miserable, her fists balled against her sides. She heard Jennifer, sounding back to her usual self, whisper to Alyssa, “Not a surprise.” Susan heard it as well.

  “It was a surprise to me, Jennifer,” she suddenly barked, “because you and Alyssa did not complete the course. Had this been a real event, you would have been disqualified. I am disappointed, to say the least, in both of you.” Jane’s head snapped up. “Neither of you,” the trainer continued, “jumped the hedge. You both circled the shed and left through the gate. Jane’s horse refused the first time but she made it the second time, and Jessica cleared it on her first attempt. You two should feel very good about the courses you rode. I’m proud of you.” And without another word, Susan turned on her heel and stalked away, striking her long crop against her boot with a loud crack.

  So this was why getting first in line for the showers was so fought over, Jane thought as she let the scalding-hot water pour over her sore shoulders and back. Usually by the time she said good-bye to Beau and reluctantly left the barn, the cabin’s water tanks, exhausted, only gave about five minutes of lukewarm water. She stood for a while more in a happy, exhausted daze, lazily watching the steam swirl off her freckled arms.

  Afterward, she joined Robin on the front porch, where her friend was leaning comfortably against a porch beam and reading Watership Down by the soft light filtering from the cabin window. Jane smiled—she had read it for class the previous fall, and, a voracious rereader and unrepentant book thief, she’d been swiping it from Robin’s bunk bed. This was probably the first time Robin had had the book to herself in days. But now she put it down quickly and looked up at Jane, her face bursting with questions.

  “Alyssa and Jennifer have been holed up in the room for an hour, not letting anyone in,” she said. “And Jessica, of course, isn’t saying anything at all. Liz and Shannon have been trying to get in to talk to them, but they won’t open up.”

  Jane wondered how they would handle being, for once, in the wrong. It was an interesting question, and after she explained to Robin what happened during that evening’s lesson, they discussed at length what, if anything, Alyssa and Jennifer would say about it. “Probably nothing,” Jane finally decided. “Somehow I get the feeling that they really don’t care.”

  “I’m sure they care,” Robin said quietly. “But I’m not sure if I can really blame them for what they did.”

  “What?” Jane exclaimed, and Robin put out a placating hand.

  “All I meant is that I can understand why they’d be scared to jump that thing. I don’t think I’d want to try it.”

  “But Robin, when have you ever known either of them to be scared?” Jane asked skeptically. “Remember the coop? And the race we had last summer? And that hayride when Gabriel told us those horrible stories about the house down the road that’s supposed to be haunted?”

  “You’re right,” Robin sighed. “I guess that was my last attempt not to think the worst of them.” They laughed softly. After several years of trying, and failing, to ingratiate herself with the clique, Jane was more apt than good-natured Robin to view them with a jaundiced (and jealous, a small interior voice whispered) eye. Lily had once told her that you often end up disliking people with whom you’ve acted your worst, and Jane sometimes thought back to her earlier years of trying obsequiously to fit in, to flatter, to make herself popular, though they were dismally unsuccessful efforts, as the times she acted her absolute worst. If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em, she thought now, but didn’t say it aloud to Robin, as she had a feeling that that wasn’t quite a noble sentiment, either.

  “I wonder if they planned it,” Robin said thoughtfully. “I mean, they both circled the shed, right?” Jane nodded.

  “Yep, they planned it,” came a voice from the doorway, and Jane and Robin turned to see Jessica’s lean silhouette framed against the light in the hall, toweling her hair. “God, Jane, the water’s cold when you shower last. Do you like that or something? I still feel dirty.” She swung open the door and sank down on the steps next to them, rubbing the ends of her long blond hair. There was another creak of the door.

  “Jessica, what are you doing out here?” came Alyssa’s voice. “C’mon, we want to talk to you.” This silhouette had a hand on a cocked hip and was waving the fingers of the other impatiently.

  “Why didn’t you jump the shrubbery?” The sentence hung in the air, blurted out and unretractable, along with the stupid British word, and Jane couldn’t even remember forming the thought to say it. Nevertheless, heart thumping, she waited for the answer. Robin coughed.

  “Because it was completely irresponsible for Susan to include the shrubbery in the course,” Alyssa answered disdainfully. “Especially when she wouldn’t be there to watch us or to help us if we had trouble.”

  “But Ben was there … .” Jane found herself arguing.

  “And that’s another thing, actually,�
� Alyssa said. “It was totally wrong for her to have him spying on us. He sure wasn’t there to help—what’s some Mexican kid who probably doesn’t even know how to ride going to do? But I suppose he’s useful to her as a snitch.”

  Jane was stunned into silence. Jessica growled, “Oh, please, Alyssa.”

  But Alyssa ignored her and swung back on Jane. “Listen, Miss Goody-Goody, maybe you’ve forgotten that some of us have valuable horses that we don’t want to risk on a meaningless course during camp. Some of us have much bigger competitions to think about. I’m sure this meant a lot to you, but it didn’t mean anything to anybody else. Okay? Come on, Jessica!” But Jessica didn’t move, and Alyssa turned away in disgust, slamming the door behind her.

  She left a long, pregnant silence in her wake. “Well,” Jessica finally sighed, “I guess they’ve got their story straight. Susan was irresponsible, Ariel and Thunder are too good to waste on camp, and Ben’s a spy. It’s perfect.”

  Jane and Robin nodded slowly: It actually was. The situation could be twisted so that Alyssa and Jennifer’s actions seemed mature and rational, and Jane and Jessica were the foolish ones for taking the course seriously. She couldn’t stand it.

  “Do you think they’re right?” she asked Jessica.

  “Of course not,” Jessica retorted. “They got caught and now they’re lying. Don’t tell me you fell for it, Jane?” Jane didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Robin said. “But she shouldn’t have said those awful things about Jose’s grandson. I haven’t talked to him, but he seems nice.”

  “No, she shouldn’t have,” Jessica said shortly, and rose from the steps. “And if you want to know what I think, here it is. Jane rode great today and Alyssa and Jennifer cheated. Period.”