Keeping Barney

by Jessie Haas

  On the other hand, it would be hers, to know, to love, to train, to keep. She wouldn’t always know it loved someone else best, or have to keep in mind how someone else wanted it handled. And she would love it as much as Barney, someday, when she knew it as well.

  Well, life went on. She got up from the books, went downstairs to get a coat, and went out. Barney would be in the barnyard; he always came back at about this time.

  When Sarah came out, Goldy rose, with a small, sleepy grunt, from her resting place on the front step. She stretched, shook herself, and walked along with Sarah, her bell tinkling quietly. The moon was almost full, making it easy to see the path. A soft breeze blew on Sarah’s face. Her boots squelched pleasantly in the mud.

  Barney stood dozing in the far corner of the yard, his lip sagging till his teeth showed. He started at Sarah’s call, and looked around sleepily, his ears expressing mild curiosity. Unusual to have visitors this late. After considering for a moment or two, he turned lazily and ambled over. Lifting his muzzle to Sarah’s face, he blew his warm, sweet-smelling breath on her. He stayed that way a moment, then, with a sigh, began nosing her pockets.

  “Sorry, Barney-Bear. Nothing.” She rubbed his neck under the heavy mane. His hair was mostly shed out now, though his belly and hindquarters still looked shaggy. He nuzzled energetically at her shoulder, telling her he’d like a scratch, please. She scratched. So did he, tickling her with his whiskers. She had to keep reminding him not to nip, that she wasn’t another horse with a lot of cushioning hair. Goldy slipped through the wire and rubbed herself against his legs, grunting ecstatically.

  The front door opened, casting a yellow rectangle of light across the yard, and closed again. In a moment Star trotted down the path, sniffing out Sarah’s trail with an eagerly wagging tail. She didn’t dare come too near Barney, so she sat a few feet away, looking wistful.

  At last, Sarah began to get cold. She stepped back. “Well, g’night, Bear.” She couldn’t feel as sad as she wanted to. She’d pictured herself coming out here to cry brokenheartedly all night, but now she only felt a vague melancholy, and the new, rushing excitement of knowing she could have a horse of her own.

  “Sorry, Barney. I do love you.” She came back, put her arms around his nose, and kissed him. Barney flattened his ears and tossed his head, pretending to hate the fuss. But when she stepped away, his ears snapped forward, and he stretched out his muzzle. Sarah stroked it, velvet-soft and whiskery. “’Night, Bear.” Star jumped up, mouth open in a panting laugh. Sarah tugged one of her silky ears, and they went back to the house together.

  Since she didn’t have to go to school, nobody woke her the next morning. She came down to find Mom gone, and Dad busy typing. She fixed an egg and some toast, fed Star the crusts, and went out to bring Barney up from the pasture. She might as well have him ready when Missy came.

  Of course, he’d rolled in the night, and he was filthy. Sarah unpacked the curry comb and a brush and cleaned him up. By the time he was gleaming, she was filthy. She went inside to wash up, and when she came out, Missy was there.

  She was standing close to Barney, talking to him, and she seemed surprised to see Sarah. “Hi, I didn’t think anybody was home.”

  “Yeah … I stayed home to see him off.…” Her voice trailed away, and an awkward silence fell. Neither of them could think of what next to say. Sarah finally remembered something. “Um … Mom’ll bring the stuff over later this afternoon.”

  “OK.”

  There really wasn’t anything else that needed telling, though the silence seemed to demand something. Sarah turned to stroke Barney’s nose, and Missy patted his neck. In a moment she said, “The wound healed beautifully. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Sarah cleared her throat. “See, the little hairs are coming in already, and if you rub Vaseline on every day he might not even have a scar.”

  “You think so?” Missy bent to look again. Sarah absently began to scratch Barney’s neck, and he scrubbed his lip on Missy’s back, where her shirt had come up.

  “Hey, you brat!” She twisted out of reach. “Sarah, I’m really grateful for the care you’ve given him, and … well, I’m sorry I have to take him away from you, ’cause I know you love him, too.”

  Sarah hadn’t expected anything like this. Her eyes filled, and she looked away. “Yeah, I—I will miss him. But I’ll be getting a horse of my own in the fall.” She said it as much to cheer up Missy, who was looking regretful, as to remind herself.

  “Really? That’s wonderful!” Missy came completely alive, all awkwardness gone. “That’s great! Hey, I’ll keep an eye out for anything that looks like what you want. What do you want?”

  “Something as much like Barney as possible—ouch!” She rubbed her hip. “But with better manners and no teeth! Ow! He hasn’t done that in months.”

  “A parting gift. Barney, you beast. Just for that, you’re getting saddled.”

  Sarah watched, feeling slightly satisfied that Missy had to struggle with the girth, too. She bridled, slung the halter over her shoulder, and mounted. Once mounted, she seemed on the verge of leaving, but reluctantly. When she spoke, it was slowly, each word carefully considered as it came out. “You know what, Sarah—why don’t you come over one day a week this summer and I’ll give you a lesson on the monster? Who’s been in control most lately?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Sarah stammered. “We switch off, I guess.”

  “Well, I can make sure you’re on top more often, give you a little dressage training—do you jump?”

  “A little.”

  “I’ll teach you—oh!” Missy squealed suddenly, like Jill in a wilder mood. “Wonderful! I can’t ride in junior horse shows any more, but you could. Would you like to?”

  “Yes,” Sarah gasped.

  “Great! Oh, this’ll be so good for both of you, and it’ll be an excuse for me to go to shows, too.…” Missy was flushed with excitement.

  Barney caught some of it and began to fidget. “He wants to go,” said Missy, looking eager herself. “’Bye, Sarah, I’ll call you soon, OK? Thanks again.”

  Barney checked Sarah’s pockets once more, hopefully. Then Missy touched him with her heels, and he set out.

  Before he’d gone two steps, Goldy bounced around the barn into his path. Sarah ran to collar her, while he nuzzled her back absentmindedly. “Have to stay, Goldy,” Sarah told her. They watched their friend down the driveway. His neck arched proudly, and his short, springy stride seemed to bounce with happiness. His tail swished joyfully.

  Goldy cried after him. “Sorry, baby,” Sarah said. “You can come to my riding lessons and see him, and Herky’ll be here part of the time.” She swallowed to get rid of the stiffness in her throat. “And in the fall …”

  “Sarah, telephone.” She turned to see Dad’s red, abstracted face disappear from the doorway. When she got to the kitchen, Goldy at her heels, the typewriter was already clacking furiously.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Sarah, this is Jill. You didn’t come to school today and Alb and me were worried, so we decided we’d call at lunch and see if you’re OK. Are you? Is he gone? Is Goldy OK? Sarah, are you really all right?”

  A miraculous pause—no, Jill was actually waiting for an answer! “Yes, he’s gone.” Sarah cleared the huskiness out of her voice. “And I’m OK. Jill, guess what? My parents told me last night that I can get my own horse in the fall.”

  “What? Alb, she’s getting a horse in the fall! Get a dapple gray jumper like His Lordship in that book we read last week.…”

  Albert’s voice now—he must have pried the receiver away from Jill, and he was shouting over her chatter, “Get a trail horse and go on the Hundred Mile with me next year.”

  Jill had the phone again. “Or a huge black stallion, Sarah, you lucky duck! You’ll have a perfect black stallion, faster than the wind, and only you can ride him, and …”

  Sarah broke in. “No, I’d rather have a horse like Barney, that
doesn’t care who rides him as long as he gets his own way.” Jill rattled on, unhearing, but Sarah didn’t listen. In a corner of her mind, she was building another dream horse, a small, shaggy bay with an innocent face and an independent soul.

  “… wild and noble and perfectly obedient with you.…”

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Barney series

  1

  Waiting

  “August is almost fall,” Sarah said, “and you said we’d buy a horse in the fall. So shouldn’t we at least start looking?”

  It was breakfast time, and the kitchen was already too warm. The hottest summer in forty years, according to the weather forecasters. Just drinking his coffee made him sweat, Dad said. He sat at arm’s length from it and then sneaked up on it and took a hasty sip. He was thinking ahead to his writing now, Sarah knew, and he gave no sign that he had heard her.

  But Mom closed her book with a sigh and looked up. “August is still very much summer,” she said. “Especially this August! And my class is taking a lot more time than I imagined. So bear with me, okay? When the class is over, we’ll go out and find you a horse.” Mom was normally a social studies teacher, but this summer she’d gotten a job tutoring some fifth graders in math.

  Sarah stirred her blueberry yogurt into a purple whirlpool. “Then school will start, and you still won’t have any time!”

  “We’ll go on the weekends.”

  “We could go on the weekends now,” Sarah muttered. She was on the edge of turning this into a fight, and she couldn’t seem to help it.

  “Sarah,” Mom said, “choosing you a horse is going to take more mental energy than I can muster right now. It’s very important that we make the right decision, and I don’t want to rush it. Okay?”

  It isn’t going to be your horse! This time Sarah managed to keep her thought silent.

  “I’m sorry it’s being such a dull summer,” Mom said after a minute. “But you do have your lessons, and you have Herky to ride. Remember?”

  Sarah didn’t answer. Back in the spring, when Albert asked her to help condition Herky for the Hundred Mile Trail Ride, it had seemed like a wonderful idea. She’d known she was facing a horseless summer, but here was a chance to ride every day. What she hadn’t known was how boring it could be, getting ready for the horse equivalent of the Boston Marathon. It was just like jogging, and Sarah hated jogging.

  Mom pushed back from the table and put her bowl in the sink. “Ask Jill to come over.”

  “I told you—she has to baby-sit every day!”

  “I could drop you off over there.”

  Sarah slumped deeper in the chair. She didn’t want to go to Jill’s house, and Jill didn’t want her there. Pete and Fred were twice as annoying when Sarah came over, because they could get Jill so much angrier. When Pete and Fred were quiet, the two little ones needed something.

  “Well, I can’t help you, Sarah, unless you’ll help yourself a little!” Mom said, running out of patience. But she gave Sarah’s braids a friendly tug in passing. “I’m sorry. Maybe we can go to a nice air-conditioned movie tonight.” She gathered up her book bag and lunch and went out the door. Dad had already disappeared into his study.

  Slowly Sarah got up from the table and washed the breakfast dishes. She swept the floor, and she fluffed Star’s cedar dog bed. She had wanted to have a job this summer, to earn some money for her horse. But Mom got a job first. She couldn’t drive Sarah back and forth, and there was nowhere to work that was close enough to bike to.

  So Sarah was supposed to be keeping house this summer, and her allowance was set aside for horse money. Only with Dad in his study all day and Mom gone, the house never got dirty at all. Fifteen minutes every morning put things in shape for the day, and then there was nothing to do again.

  When the kitchen was clean, Sarah went out to the barn. She filled Goldy’s water bucket and gave the fat young goat an armful of hay.

  Then she went up to her room. It felt warm and muggy, with no air stirring. She sat on the bed and looked at the photo on her wall: a round, shaggy bay horse, gazing back at the camera with a mischievous expression. Barney.

  Through the last school year Barney had been Sarah’s horse. Missy, his owner, was away at college, and Missy’s mother was having an operation and couldn’t take care of him. Sarah answered the ad: “Wanted—someone to board one horse through May. Hay and expenses provided, free use.” She met Barney, and she fell in love. Foolish, because Missy would never give him up, but inevitable. And it was just as inevitable that come spring, Missy would take him home again.

  Sarah still saw Barney every week; in fact, she was going to see him today. Missy was giving her riding lessons. But it wasn’t the same, just as riding Herky wasn’t the same. What Sarah really longed for was to set off on a trail ride in the cool woods, to stay out as long as she wanted, and go wherever she pleased. She wanted a stall to clean and a saddle to soap, and a friendly nicker when she walked into the barn.…

  Quickly Sarah turned from the picture. She packed The Black Stallion and two tattered horse magazines into her book bag, put in her radio, and, after a stop at the refrigerator for some iced tea, headed out to the hammock, where she’d spent most of the summer. Star wanted to follow, but Sarah shut her in the kitchen. She couldn’t stand looking at Star’s thick collie fur or listening to her pant. It just made the day seem that much hotter.

  Missy arrived right after lunch, in her beat-up car, Old Paint. Old Paint was mostly blue, with a green fender, an orange door, and an all-over dappling of brown rust retardant.

  “God,” she said, switching off the radio as Sarah got in. “It’s so hot! I had the air conditioners on in all the rooms, and I almost wanted to stay there!” Missy cleaned bathrooms and changed beds at the economy motel down the road.

  Sarah settled cautiously into the seat. Old Paint’s upholstery had been chewed by a dog, and pieces of vinyl could stick into your back. “How was work?”

  Missy groaned.

  “Is it horrible?” Sarah asked.

  “No,” Missy said. “It’s just boring, and you have to get up every morning and do it. My parents brought me up wrong! When they should have been slave-driving and making me have a paper route, they let me just ride. How’m I ever going to work for my living, with a childhood like that?”

  “I wish I had a job.”

  “You do?” Missy had stopped at the end of the dirt road, and she looked at Sarah in astonishment. “How come?”

  Sarah looked away. “Urn, because all my friends are too busy and I don’t have anything to do.” She succeeded in controlling her voice. It came out light and bouncy, with never a quaver.

  “Yeah, and you don’t have a horse either,” Missy said.

  “Lots of people don’t have horses.” Sarah had listened to a lot of radio this summer. She knew what people didn’t have. You could start from the very bottom—enough food to keep you alive—and climb up the scale for a long, long time before you reached her level of need.

  “Lots of people don’t want horses.” Missy looked both ways and then swung out onto the main road.

  She was quiet for a few minutes, driving carefully. Owning a car was new for Missy, and behind the wheel she seemed younger, wide-eyed.

  After a little while she said, “So, when are you guys going to start looking?”

  Sarah opened her mouth to say something bright and meaningless, like “Soon!” But she knew her voice would sound exactly like Mom’s, and suddenly it was just too much.

  “Maybe in September, we can spend two hours every weekend on it! I hate being a kid! If I were a grown-up, I’d just go out and do it!”

  “I know,” said Missy. “When you have your own car—” She stopped. Sarah glanced over at her.

  Missy wore a surprised, considering expression. “Sarah,” she said after a moment, and her voice made Sarah sit up straighter. Something was about to happen.…

  “Sarah, I have a car!”

  “Yes.
” Sarah waited, but Missy just sat there, still wearing that awakened look. “And?”

  “I could drive you!” Missy said. “If you want to see some horses.”

  Sarah stared. If you want to see some horses …

  “Of course, we couldn’t buy a horse,” Missy said. “We’d just be looking, but you could get some ideas.” She glanced away from the road. “What d’you think?”

  Sarah felt too stunned to speak. But Missy was starting to look uncertain and maybe a little hurt. At last Sarah blurted out, “You’d want to? I mean, don’t you have other stuff you’d rather be doing?”

  Missy gave a sharp little laugh. “Well, yes, I could always can string beans or call up high school friends and hear about their love lives. That’s taking a lot of my time right now, but I could squeeze you in!”

  Sarah barely heard her. She was arriving at a stable with Missy, horse after horse was being brought out for them, but Sarah, led by an instinct she didn’t understand, was drawn toward a lonely corner stall. The horse inside was considered dangerous, he was neglected, but as soon as Sarah saw him, she knew …

  “But will your mother go for it?” Missy asked. “I mean, do you think she’d trust me not to let you fall in love with the wrong horse?”

  Sarah stared at her blankly for several seconds. Then her brain seemed to click on. “What a nice idea!” she could hear Mom saying. “Go ahead!”

  But she could also hear Mom say, “I’d rather you wait, Sarah, till I can take you. Such an important decision—I don’t want to rush it.” An important decision—no, Mom might not trust Missy to keep things under control.