Gee Whiz: Book Five of the Horses of Oak Valley Ranch

by Jane Smiley

  Danny nodded.

  We all stood there for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then Danny said, “Well, Abby, how’s that big guy today?”

  I said, “Sophia thinks he’s quite beautiful.”

  Danny said, “He is.” As we went out the back door, he continued, “And we are going to take it pretty slow. But we ought to be able to accomplish a little in the next two months.”

  All we did that morning was truly a little—the same things that we’d done on Friday, which took maybe half an hour. But I could see in Gee Whiz’s face that he understood what we were getting at—he was ready to step under, ready to change his pace, his direction, his gait. Ready to be played with and attended to. Maybe he thought that his prayers had been answered, that finally he wasn’t having to stand around in the pasture all day waiting for something interesting to happen. And maybe I felt the same way.

  On Monday afternoon, Barbie was there for a lesson when I got off the bus—on Tuesday she and Alexis were heading back to the Jackson School. I rode Oh My while she rode Blue, and I hardly had to tell her anything at all. If it hadn’t been so late, I would have taken her for that trail ride. When she got into her mom’s car to go, she said, “Please come and visit!” and kissed me on the cheek. She also gave me a box of brown sugar cubes from France that her mom had bought specially for Blue. I promised to write.

  On Tuesday, Danny came again and we worked with Gee Whiz again. He did a little better. He was a little more graceful. At the end, when Gee Whiz was walking around the arena looking for tufts of grass, Danny told me he wanted me to do the work for the next couple of days, just to see how I liked it. I did do it. I did like it. I liked having those dark eyes watching me, wondering what I might want. I liked having those mobile ears pricked in my direction. I liked that large presence near me. I liked the warmth of his silky coat when I brushed him. And I liked thinking about a race at Santa Anita, everyone screaming and jumping as Gee Whiz, by Hyperion, out of Tilla, by Birkhahn, crossed the finish line first.

  Thursday, Danny came out to the arena as we were finishing up. I was holding the flag and encouraging Gee Whiz to trot, encouraging him to lengthen his stride. Danny leaned on the railing and watched. All of a sudden, Gee Whiz came toward me and curved around me, trotting but attentive, making a circle without there being a rope between us. After one circuit, he flattened the circle, as if he was going to trot away again, but I stepped back half a step, and he curved toward me. He went around three times, then I stepped back two steps and dropped the arm that was holding the flag. He turned toward me and trotted right up to me. I stood absolutely still and he came to a halt.

  Danny said, “When did he start doing that?”

  “One minute ago.”

  “He is really hooked on.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means he accepts you. He’s looking to you for instructions.” He smiled. “He likes you.”

  “Mom said that.”

  “Well, haven’t you noticed?”

  “I did notice. But Dad says that it’s only carrots and sticks.”

  “He says that. But I think he knows better. Walk toward the other end of the arena.”

  I did so. Gee Whiz was two steps behind me all the way. When I stopped, he stopped. When I walked on, he walked on. I made a little loop, and he followed me back to Danny. Danny said, “I’m leaving him in good hands.”

  “We still haven’t ridden him.”

  “We will.”

  But at dinner, Dad said, “That horse going back to Vista del Canada Monday?” Monday was the sixteenth.

  I put down my fork.

  Danny said, “I don’t think so.”

  “Didn’t you say the other day that the racing season was beginning down south? That should open up a few stalls over there.”

  “I think he’s better here.”

  “Why is that?”

  Mom put down her fork.

  They were sitting across from one another. Their chairs shifted simultaneously, making a loud scraping noise that caused Rusty, on the back porch, to stand up and look in the window. Danny straightened his shoulders, then said, “He’s my horse, and I think he’s better off here.”

  “You bought that animal?”

  “He was given to me.”

  “Well, give him back. He’s useless as far as I can see. Much too big.”

  I said, “He can jump.”

  Dad looked at me, then at Danny, then back at me. He said, “How do you know that?”

  “I built a little chute. He did it easily.”

  Dad pushed his chair and set his plate off to one side. He said, “Do I have any say in what goes on around here anymore?” He got up from the table and walked out the door. Rusty gave a bark. Maybe Rusty was saying no.

  A few moments later, I heard the truck start up and drive away.

  We all picked up our forks again and pretended to eat, but when Mom asked Danny if he wanted more chicken, he shook his head. He looked angry, and I didn’t want any more supper, either, not even the mashed potatoes, which were especially good. I had that feeling in my stomach that you get when you are getting closer and closer to the very thing that you were afraid of, except I didn’t know what it was that I was afraid of. I looked at Mom. She was poking at the last string bean on her plate, so probably she was imagining that, too.

  Of course, the bad thing would be saying good-bye to Gee Whiz, a horse that a month ago I had no knowledge of and no sense of, either—because that was what I would miss. Even though I’d never yet ridden him, I could, almost in spite of myself, feel that presence he had, large and thoughtful and promising, right outside the window behind me.

  Danny’s chair scraped. He stood and began clearing the table. If I’d ever seen him do this before, I couldn’t remember it. He picked up the plates and the silverware and carried everything to the sink, where he stacked it neatly to one side. He came back for the glasses, then the serving dishes. Pretty soon Mom and I were sitting at an empty table. We didn’t say anything, then Mom said, “Thanks, honey.”

  He kissed her on the cheek, poked me on the shoulder, and said, “See you Monday. Make sure that guy learns something tomorrow.” He went out through the living room and the front door. Mom shook her head a little, then said to me, “When your dad and I got married, he told me that he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes with his sons as his father had made with him and your uncles.”

  “Do you think he’s made mistakes?”

  “I think he’s discovered a few things.”

  “What?”

  “Well, the world is fallen. In a fallen world, you can’t do everything right, even if you are trying very hard.”

  “What else?”

  Now there was a long pause, and she was giving me this look that said, “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this,” but then I guess she decided that it would be a good lesson for me. She said, “When your child is so much like you, there are a lot of times that you end up arguing with yourself.” She sighed. “And when you argue with yourself, how do you decide who’s the winner?”

  I said, “Do you think that I’m like you?”

  “Sweetheart, I think you are exactly like yourself, just yourself.” We stood up and did the dishes.

  Friday afternoon, I made sure to do all my riding of Oh My, Nobby, and Morning Glory before I even looked at Gee Whiz, but he looked at me—I could see out of the corner of my eye that every time I took a mare out of the pasture or put one in, he would prick his ears and watch. At one point, he did go to his gate, and he did press his chest against it, and he did rattle the chain with his lips as if he knew that the chain was the key. After he did that, I led Morning Glory over to the gate and shooed him away. Yes, the clip was moist, as if he’d been working on it. I made sure it was secure and took Morning Glory to the barn.

  When I was finished with her, and everything was cleaned up and I didn’t have any more work for Dad to point out, I got Gee Whiz and led him t
o the arena. It was late in the afternoon—the shadows were long and clouds were gathering to the west. I let him go and went back to the barn to put on my rain jacket. I wasn’t sure what to do with him, so I decided to let him figure that out for himself. First, he checked under the railing for grass, but I followed him, and clucked. He could eat grass anytime. So he walked along with his big, limber strides, looking here and there. I followed him at a distance. Finally, he lay down in the wettest spot and rolled, then he got up and lay down and rolled on the other side, then he stood up, shook himself off, and blew out some air. Only then did he take off running. He was big and quick. I retreated to the center of the arena to watch him. He cantered out, but he didn’t gallop the way he’d done before. Every so often, he stretched his head down and kicked out with one leg, then tossed his head with pleasure. He broke to the trot, and trotted here and there, then he did what he’d done before, he looped around and trotted toward me with his ears pricked. I stood still. He trotted right up to me and stopped, his nose practically on my shoulder. I said, “No, you go away and do something,” and I waved my left arm toward the end of the arena. Sure enough, he turned to look where I was pointing, and trotted away. I went after him, and stood about halfway between the center and the end of the arena, in an open area. He looped back again, and trotted around me a couple of times, his eye on me. When I turned the right side of my body toward him and slightly raised my right arm, he bent his spine so that his body was conforming neatly to the shape of the circle he was making. I was impressed. He trotted away to the left, down the side of the arena.

  I turned and walked away, a little more toward the railing but still in a fairly open area. In moments, he had come back. Now he looped around and circled me again, this time to the right. I lifted my arm. He bent to carve his circle, though he wasn’t as loose to the right as he was to the left. He went around me two and a half times, then trotted off. I had no idea what he was thinking, but it was really quite flattering to have this free, energetic animal attending to me. Now he picked up the gallop, went around the end of the arena, and came back in my direction. I stood still the way I knew I was supposed to, but this time it was a little more frightening, because he was really galloping. He stopped again, even sliding a little. He ended up a couple of feet from me. I gave him a pat, then I stroked him down his neck and over his flanks, on both sides. He seemed to like that.

  The light was getting bluer. I walked over to the gate to get the lead rope, and he followed me, so I ended up not attaching the lead rope, only walking along, listening to him breathe and hearing his footfalls as he came along beside me. Every so often, I petted him on the cheek. By the time he was completely cool and back in the pasture, it was dark, and Dad was handing out the hay. Dad watched me put Gee Whiz away without saying anything.

  The next morning was Saturday. I wondered who Melinda and Ellen would be riding in their lessons. I hadn’t heard again from Jane. When I was lying in bed, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, I decided about six times that maybe I could just never mention Jane’s offer again, and pretend that she hadn’t said it, and then I wouldn’t have to be tempted in any direction, and I wouldn’t have to make up my mind. I was only in ninth grade, and I was much too young to be making up my mind, wasn’t I?

  Chapter 13

  IT HAD BEEN A WEEK AND A HALF SINCE BROTHER ABNER’S FUNERAL, and no one had said very much about him. There’d been a little talk the previous week about Dad and Mr. Hollingsworth and Sister Larrabee going over to his place and cleaning it out, but no one had done it yet. One reason to get it done was to see whether he had a landlord, and if so, who it might be. If it was someone from far away, then Dad or Mr. Hollingsworth would have to call that person. Dad said that it was not impossible that he owned the cabin and the patch of ground that it stood on, but papers would have to be found, and maybe distant relatives? It seemed like a big job; everyone was plenty busy. When we got to church the next day, I heard Sister Larrabee tell Sister Larkin that she’d driven over and looked around for half an hour, but then had lost heart. She said, “Well, it still seems like an invasion of his privacy. You ask me, that’s what relatives are for, not friends.” But then Mr. Hollingsworth said that someone he knew had suggested that all they had to do was figure out the address of the cabin, and go to the county courthouse. There would be a record there saying who owned it.

  Sister Larkin said, “It can’t be worth anything.”

  Sister Brooks said, “Well, you never can tell. But what in the world would we do with it?”

  Dad said, “The Lord will show the way,” and everyone nodded, and then Sister Larrabee said, “You know, he had a son. There might be something about that somewhere in his things.”

  Every head turned to look at her. She said, “Oh, he told me about it years ago. Sad story. I was hoping it would come out as he got into his last days, but I didn’t feel that I could bring it up, so I didn’t.”

  Some of the sisters started clucking. Finally, Sister Larrabee sighed, and said, “Well, it could be there’s a lesson to be learned here, and I’m sure it’s one Brother Abner would have wanted us all to learn, so …” But it took her a long time to begin. She patted her Bible in her lap, and then she said, “Did you know he was once married? My goodness. So long ago now. Seems like that was a different world in those days. He came back from one of those trips when he was a young man, and settled down in Cincinnati, I think it was. Married a nice girl from a large family, and everything went fine. They had a boy, a healthy strapping boy, he told me, and it seems to me that Brother Abner was running a shop those people owned there in a beautiful neighborhood called Over-the-Rhine. I’ve been there—such lovely streets! Everything was going well, and then his wife contracted something—it wasn’t the influenza, that was later, but perhaps the yellow fever? Whatever it was, it looked like she’d gotten over it, and then she took a turn for the worse, and died. Well, that boy was not even two years old, and the wife’s family was a big one, several sisters all about the same age, and they wanted that boy, and Abner let them take him, for the child’s own good, because how was he going to care for such a young one? But then they all had a falling-out over something a few months later, and isn’t that what happens? Such a deep pain and unexpected tragedy, and then you have some little thing go wrong, and words that shouldn’t get said do get said, and there you are. Well, he left Cincinnati and went all over the world again, and sometimes he wrote a letter or two to the boy, but when he went back to find him twenty years later, that boy wouldn’t say a word to him, and they never made it up.”

  There was clucking and head shaking.

  Sister Larkin said, “Seems to me that sort of thing was more the way of it in those days, but maybe I’m wrong.”

  Sister Larrabee said, “Well, he never figured out a way to cross back over that river, and he regretted that bitterly, he told me.”

  I said, “What river?”

  “Oh my goodness,” said Sister Larrabee with a smile. “Not the Ohio. Not a real river. It’s just that when you are young … Well, it’s the river of things that you do in your life. When you’re young, it’s a narrow stream, but when you’re old, my girl, it’s a flood, and the other bank seems far, far away.”

  Mom, who was sitting beside me, took my hand.

  Dad said, “But he took up the way of the Lord, and he is saved now, and that’s the greatest thing any of us can hope for.” Everyone agreed to this, and then we sang “Blessed Assurance.” Church was pretty quiet, and at the end, Mom and I waited while Mr. Hollingsworth and Dad made a date to go to the courthouse, and then to Brother Abner’s cabin.

  When I got off the school bus on Monday, there was a nice car parked by the front porch—a red Thunderbird with lots of chrome all over it that Kyle Gonzalez would have known all about. It was bright enough to scare the horses, I thought, and then I went around the house and saw Dad talking to the exact sort of guy who would be driving such a car. He was short, and wearing a gray sui
t with beautifully tooled black cowboy boots, and smoking a cigar, which he kept in one corner of his mouth while he talked. Dad was kind of standing back, but he was smiling. When I got near them, I heard the man say, “Well, now, why don’t you let me window-shop a little bit? See what I can see. Those are the equines over there, are they not? Let me take a look,” and before Dad could say anything, the man churned across the grass toward the two pastures. Dad followed him, and I put my books down on the step and followed them, too.

  At one point, Dad tried, “Now, this gelding, we call him Lincoln—”

  But the man interrupted him, and said, “Pardon me for a moment, but I just like to give them a good look. I’m easily confused, so let me look in peace, if you don’t mind, just for a bit.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and stood on his heels, kind of rocking back and forth. He stared first at the mares, and then he turned and stared at the geldings. It was boring. Dad cocked his head at me, so I took the hint and went inside.

  Mom was looking out the kitchen window. I said, “Who’s that?”

  “That is Sterling McGee, from Las Vegas, Nevada.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “It might be that he’s buying a horse.”

  “Why did he come here?”

  “I guess he met the Carmichaels, and they sent him.”

  “What kind of horse does he want?”

  “He said he’ll know the one when he sees it.”

  I stared out the window with her, until it got boring again, then I went up and put on my work clothes.

  But Sterling McGee did not go away for a long time. After I came down, I sat in the kitchen doing homework, because there was nothing else to do. Finally, at almost five, when Mom was rummaging in the refrigerator for the ingredients of the stew she was making for supper, we saw Dad open the gate to the mare pasture, go in with a halter, and walk around among the mares for a moment. It was impossible to tell which one he was getting, and then he emerged with Morning Glory.