by Caitlin Macy
“God, my boots feel tight.”
“Better get out there.” Mrs. Murray unwrapped Leigh’s coat from the dry cleaner’s plastic and unbuttoned the top button. She held out the coat and helped Leigh into it; Kim took care of herself, got herself ready—that was the routine. “Here now, all set, hah?”
“I guess so.”
“Sure you are.” Mrs. Murray crumpled up the plastic to throw it away. “Better step on it, Leigh. You want to make sure you give him a good look around. Lotta funny-looking stuff here. Gotta work out the kinks, honey.”
She untied the gray and led him out from the trailer.
“Here, honey, ten fingers.”
Leigh put her left foot in Mrs. Murray’s hands but Rye danced away, playing her up. “Hold still, Rye!”
“I can’t reach from here!” Leigh cried.
Mrs. Murray dropped Leigh’s foot and brought Rye up sharply. “Hold still, Rye!”
“He doesn’t respond well to being bullied, Mrs. Murray! He’s a sensitive horse!”
“You gettin’ on, Leigh, or you wanna make a production of this?” Mrs. Murray said, exasperated.
“I’ll lead him over to the fence and get on there.”
“Come awun!” She threw Leigh up into the saddle.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, Rye,” Leigh said theatrically, steadying the horse, fishing for her other stirrup.
“Boo!” said Mrs. Murray.
Leigh’s face went scared, then angry, as Rye shied. Before she could say anything, Mrs. Murray barked, “G’head! G’head! Ya late, Leigh!” and turned away in disgust toward the trailer. Leigh shortened her reins and called up to Kim to wait. The younger girl was ten yards ahead, rising in her stirrups above the bay’s fat rump and sausage tail. Classy, Mrs. Murray’s daughter looked, on a horse, with her short torso and long legs.
THEY HAD EQUITATION in the morning and children’s hunter in the afternoon. Between classes, Mrs. Murray spit on a rag and rubbed their boots. “Judge is a real bastard,” she said when Kim came away empty-handed after a couple of decent rounds. Kim shrugged, putting her head down on the bay’s neck, pretending to go to sleep.
“Ay, sit up, there!”
“But Mom, what’s the problem in between—”
“You heard me. Get your hair out of your face! Keep him walking! Don’t let him stand there steaming.”
On the far side of the warm-up ring, Leigh was circling Rye to calm him down—jog, walk, jog, walk—but she couldn’t keep him at a walk. Above her choker her face was turning pink.
“He’s working up a lather, Leigh,” Mrs. Murray rebuked her. “That’s no good. You’re leaning on his mouth.”
Leigh nodded, saying nothing. She waited until she was on the far side of the ring again. After making sure Mrs. Murray wasn’t looking, she pressed her left hand into the crest and with her right hand she wrenched Rye’s head around viciously. The horse stopped dead, his jaw flexed open against the bit, his nose twisted almost to her knee. “Just stop it!” she pleaded. “Give it a fucking rest!” When she loosened the reins and let him walk again, a girl riding by on a chestnut pony gave her a curious look. Leigh could have cried for shame. She leaned over Rye’s neck and gave him an ostentatious pat, as if she had been teaching him a lesson. “Good boy!” she exclaimed. “Good boy—you’re such a good boy, Rye! Sometimes you act up a little, but that’s okay, we all do.” On the short side of the ring, straining to sound natural, she said, “I think I’m going to skip the flat class, Mrs. Murray. He’s too wound up.”
“There’s the spirit that won the West!” Mrs. Murray got after Kim some more. “Keep his head up, Kim—you know better than that. Shouldn’t have to tell you.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Well, maybe I’ll just take a little break!”
“That’s pointless, Leigh,” Mrs. Murray said as Leigh came into the center of the ring and slid off. Rye pranced at the end of the reins. “That horse is high as a kite. He needs to be worked, he needs exercise—calm him down.”
“You see, that’s actually the funny thing, Mrs. Murray,” Leigh said, aware of how red her face was, how close to tears she was. “It’s not really exercise when he’s like this. It’s really more like expending manic energy, you know what I mean? It’s not really a workout—it’s not exercise per se—”
“You’re not making sense, Leigh!” Mrs. Murray said, not looking at her. “You’re talking too much! And nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about.”
“No, but Mrs. Murray, listen to what I’m actually saying.” Leigh was cut off by the loudspeaker’s crackling to life to announce the ribbons for their last class, open equitation over fences. Kim had gotten second. Mrs. Murray’s face went tight, trying not to look pleased. “Guy finally came to his goddamn senses!” she called across the ring to another woman instructor, a friend of hers. Then Leigh’s name came ripping across the warm-up ring: She had gotten sixth.
“Oh, my God,” Leigh blurted out.
Mrs. Murray whooped and hugged her, Leigh grinning madly into the woman’s collarbone, letting herself be half crushed—delirious with joy “What did I tell you, honey? What did I tell you?” Leigh stuck her foot in the stirrup and hopped around grabbing at the cantle, trying to get the purchase she needed to mount.
“I’ll give you a leg up, Leigh, Jesus Christ!” Mrs. Murray was coughing and laughing and coughing. Kim watched them curiously from where she had halted Piper along the rail, waiting for Leigh so they could go and collect their ribbons together. Mrs. Murray wiped the foam from Rye’s mouth. “Wait, wait!” She was giving Leigh’s boots a final flourish with the rag. “Don’t forget to thank the judge, now!”
Afterward, when they had reconvened at the trailer for lunch, Mrs. Murray said, “Kim, don’t you have something you want to say to Leigh?”
“Congratulations, Leigh,” Kim droned, her face already back in her comic book.
“Leigh?”
“Congratulations, Kim.” If there was one thing Mrs. Murray wouldn’t tolerate, it was a bad sport.
They sat on the Houghtons’ plaid wool blanket and ate their lunches. Leigh had peanut butter and orange marmalade on whole wheat and Kim had peanut butter and Fluff on Wonder Bread. “We’re not into health food,” Mrs. Murray would say. Leigh also had carrot sticks, for herself and Rye, and a bag of mint Milanos her mother had put in the cooler for her to share with the Murrays. Mrs. Murray didn’t eat much; she smoked. It was pleasant, sitting in the shade of the trailer, the horses munching hay, the red and green ribbons fluttering from the open window of the truck, the three of them united in the camaraderie of winning.
“Bastard finally came to his senses,” Mrs. Murray said, shaking her head. “They get these judges up from New York, they think they’re gonna come in, shake things up … It’s bullshit.”
“What’s this say,” Kim said, her finger on the page. “Ann-tag. Tag-GOAN—”
“Antagonist,” Leigh said automatically, her mouth full. Kim looked up at her mother.
“That’s right, Kim,” Mrs. Murray said sharply. “Listen to Leigh! She knows what she’s talking about.”
Embarrassed, Leigh reached for another cookie, but Mrs. Murray said, “You sure you want to keep eating those, Leigh? They’re pretty fattening.”
Leigh smiled wanly. “Maybe I won’t.”
“Probably a good idea.”
Leigh watched her wrap up the bag of Milanos. Mrs. Murray stretched out on her side, lighting a new cigarette. “I just had an idea, Leigh, since you’re going to skip the flat class. You want Kim to ride Rye this afternoon? You guys want to swap?”
Leigh hesitated. “Swap—horses, you mean?”
“No—dogs. Come on, Leigh. Use that noggin!” Mrs. Murray exhaled loudly. “Kim could take him in the junior jumpers.”
Leigh began to pick at a scab on her arm.
“Kim rides Rye in the jumpers and you take Piper in the children’s hunter—could be fun, Leigh. You might win.” She
cleared her throat. “I was even thinking we might buy him off your dad. Kim’s gotta graduate from Piper sometime. Think your dad would cut me a deal?” Mrs. Murray cackled at the idea of this.
Leigh pulled on her gloves, flexed her hands, and peeled them off. “But, I mean—Rye’s never done jumpers before. Wouldn’t it be kind of… I don’t know, sudden, you know?”
“He’d make a great jumper, Leigh, and you know it. The stuff you’ve got him in now? It’s a waste of his talent.” Abruptly Mrs. Murray stopped. Kim flipped a page of her comic book. She was sitting Indian-style, her back curved in a C, her elbows on her knees, chin in her hands. It looked uncomfortable to Leigh—she didn’t understand how Kim could hold the position. “Tell you what,” Mrs. Murray said, consulting the printed yellow show program. “You ride him in the children’s hunter and then Kim takes him in the jumpers—they don’t conflict. He could do both.” She studied the show program for another second. “The jumpers go first. Perfect, it’ll take the edge off. Calm him down.”
Leigh nodded, as if she were in agreement. She got abruptly to her feet. Rye, tied to the trailer, turned his head inquisitively. Who, me?
Leigh ran a hand down the horse’s neck to between his legs, checking him for sweat. “But, I mean, wouldn’t that be too much? He’d get really tired, wouldn’t he? I mean, you’re talking about ten classes or something.”
“Tired?” Mrs. Murray cried. “You were telling me a minute ago he’s too crazy to ride!”
“No, but I mean, I don’t know—it just seems like a lot for one day.” She went and got her brush box out of the back of the truck.
“What do you have today,” Mrs. Murray said, looking intently up at Leigh. “Six classes?”
“Seven, actually.”
“Six! Seven! You’re a bleeding heart, Leigh!” Mrs. Murray dashed out her cigarette, half smoked. She closed up the cooler and stood up and stretched. “A bleeding heart.” Shaking her head and looking deep into Leigh’s eyes, she pinched her on the cheek. “Just like your mother, aren’t you?”
Leigh smiled uncertainly.
Laughing, Mrs. Murray brushed crumbs from her jeans and hoisted them up from the belt. “Oh, God—remember? Hiding in that trailer when you jumped. And what were you jumping? Two-six? Two-nine? I’ll never forget that.” She shook her head, as she went around to the far side of the rig, where Piper was tied. “Hiding in the trailer like you were doing grand prix.”
Her heart pounding, Leigh squatted down with a can of hoof polish to paint Rye’s feet.
“Kim, get over here. You gotta fix his tail.”
“In a minute.”
“Now, Kimmo!”
The cooler with the remains of their lunch was sitting on the ground against the back wheel of the truck. Leigh set the polish brush down crosswise on the can and reached over, fumbling slightly with the latch. Her hand seized the crumpled bag of cookies. She took out two of them. She didn’t have pockets in her breeches so she placed the cookies carefully into the brush box. Her lips puckered up to whistle as she took up the brush again.
“Caught ya!” Mrs. Murray was pointing gleefully. “Couldn’t wait, hah?”
“Oh, fuck you!” Leigh straightened up all at once, her face aflame.
Kim’s face shot up from the comic book.
“What did you say to me?” Mrs. Murray blinked at Leigh.
“Nothing.”
“No, Leigh: What did you say to me?”
“Nothing.”
“What the hell did you say to me?” There was something comic in Mrs. Murray’s outrage now that she was getting warmed up. Leigh bit her cheek so as not to laugh. “What did you say to me?”
“You’re scaring him!” Rye backed up to the end of his lead as Mrs. Murray muscled up into Leigh’s face.
Backed into the trailer, Leigh sat down on the wheel hub. She turned her head to the side. Unable to move farther away from Mrs. Murray, she tensed for the smack.
“You know, you’re a goddamned spoiled brat!” Mrs. Murray yelled.
“Well, you know what?” Leigh cried wildly. “You’re an abusive mother!”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you ever consider that it might be your fault Kim has dyslexia? You have to read to children, you know! You have to stimulate them, for Christ’s sake! I’ll bet Kim’s never been read to in her life!”
“Mom. Mom.”
The quick-release knot had slipped and Rye was loose.
“Where do you think you’re going, Leigh?” Mrs. Murray called. Seizing the opportunity to escape, Leigh had gone after the horse.
Up ahead, Rye had broken into a floating, uncertain trot, unsure what to do with his freedom.
“Want me to get some grain, Mom?”
“Leigh Houghton!”
“I’ll rattle it in the bucket!” Kim called.
Rye stopped to tear at a patch of grass and Leigh lunged for the lead line but the horse played her up, picking up his head and trotting off another few paces.
“Leigh, you get back here!”
With a dash and another lunge that wrenched her arms from their sockets, Leigh reached out and caught the end of the line. “Leigh, goddamnit!” As she was choking up on the lead, the loudspeaker crackled and Rye shied violently away from her, yanking the cotton through her hands. “Fuck!” Leigh screamed in pain, tripping and stumbling after him, her eyes smarting. People were watching them from the bank of trailers as she lunged again for the trailing lead. “Hold still!”
Mrs. Murray was coming up after her. “Hold it right there, Leigh!”
“Hold still!” Leigh yanked the horse to a standstill again. He kept fussing, dancing away from her as if he didn’t know that he ought to be on her side, as if he were enjoying making a fool of her. She took the end of the line and snapped it at the horse’s barrel as hard as she could. She’d teach him a lesson. Rye’s head was thrown up, his ears flat back as she raised the line again and brought it down across his flank. “Hold still! Hold still! Hold still!” she sobbed. “Hold still, you fucking piece of shit horse!”
A sickening awareness came to Leigh, like the long second in the air after you’d been thrown but before you hit the ground. Mrs. Murray had tackled her. She lay crumpled in a fetal position, her mouth open against the dirt, the wind knocked out of her. “I want my mother,” she whimpered. “I want my mother!” She struggled to prop herself up on her elbows, to look around.
Rye had trotted off a few yards and put his head down to graze. Kim was walking up behind him, shaking a bucket of grain.
Then Leigh’s view was blocked as Mrs. Murray straddled her. “You touch that horse again,” she said, panting—she shoved Leigh to the ground with a hand on her collarbone. The other, Leigh saw, brandished a jumping bat. “And I’ll take this crop and beat the crap out of you.”
IN THE PORTA-JOHN, where Leigh had fled, the toilet paper was gone and the air was hot and fetid. Leigh repeated the words, laughing to herself. “Beat the crap out of you! Beat the fucking crap out of you!”
She looked wryly at the lucky underwear—hearts—she had put on that morning. The fleshy white thighs spread out beneath her did not seem to be her own but those of a forty-year-old woman.
When she emerged, Leigh saw a girl waiting whom she recognized from the circuit of shows. She made a point of going over to the younger girl, who was standing with her mother, and saying hello. “I hope I don’t mess up the children’s hunter too badly,” she said self-deprecatingly “Rye’s been going fairly well but you never know, do you? That in-and-out has been a bear for us today. Well, good luck, Katie! I hope you win! Nice to see you, Mrs. Ferris. See you again sometime.”
She lingered at the edge of the field where the vans and trailers were parked, excited, but unable to make herself return, wondering with a shiver what she would say. She took a meandering approach, imagining them watching her—watching her all the way, imagining the punishment Mrs. Murray would have in store for her, how severe it would be. S
he might tell Leigh she had to clean out the trailer and muck stalls for her for a week if she wanted to ride at all this afternoon. Or she might tell her she was going to tell her father everything that had happened—or threaten her with having to find her own ride home. She had threatened her before.
No one stirred from the Murrays’ trailer, however. At first Leigh thought it was deserted but then she heard Rye munching hay. Leigh hadn’t seen him at first because he was tied on the far side of the trailer. They had moved him there because it was the shady side now. The horse turned indifferently when she appeared. “There you are, boy!” She came up to him, masking her surprise, even in front of the horse, that no one was waiting for her. “We’d better hurry,” Leigh said. “They’re going to start calling numbers soon.” But instead of hurrying she sat dawdling against the wheel hub of the trailer, taking her own sweet time, thinking of unrelated things—the letter she had received from her roommate-to-be in September, who said she lived on “Park Avenue in Manhattan” and was “ranked in tennis.”
Leigh let several minutes go by before she stood up and said brightly, “You know what, boy? I think we’re done for today. We wouldn’t want you to get too tired, would we?” She took her grooming kit from the pickup truck, dug out the seam ripper, and began to rip out the horse’s braids, tearing through each thread with a sharp jerk. When the announcement for her next class, the first in the children’s hunter division, came over the loudspeaker, Leigh paused for a second, listening with an ironic yet understanding smile, like that of someone who, through her good grace and maturity, has learned to swallow disappointment. Then she went back to taking out Rye’s braids, humming a little tune as she worked. She ripped through the remaining threads and loosened the braids themselves until the steel-colored mane was crimped and fluffy, like a woman’s after a permanent.
In the distance the man on the loudspeaker congratulated someone on a clear round in the children’s hunter over fences.
Leigh got a bucket of water and sponged Rye off. She walked him dry, letting him stop here and there to graze. She rubbed his legs and carefully bandaged them for the ride home. She sprayed him and put on his fly sheet so he could be comfortable. She refilled his water bucket and made sure he had enough hay. At one point she thought she heard Mrs. Murray coming back and she immediately struck an insouciant pose, banging the curry comb against her boot, just waiting, waiting, for Mrs. Murray to confront her. But it was another mother looking for her daughter—she laughed and apologized for getting the wrong trailer. “Oh, please!” said Leigh, ever courteous. “Please don’t worry about it!”
