Emma was horrified to discover that her eyes were brimming with tears. A single stray spilled over and slid down the side of her nose. She remembered the photographs of Mrs. Killen’s children decorating her desk, a son and daughter now mostly grown. It would be so easy to tell Mrs. Killen about Candi. A teacher with a daughter would understand. But, for some reason, the words refused to form in her mouth.
“I’ve got to go,” Emma blurted, brushing the tear away. “I’ll miss my bus.”
“Wait right here just a moment,” Mrs. Killen said, hurrying into her classroom. She returned in a moment with a yellow hall pass. Emma’s name was on it and it was signed but not dated. She pushed it into Emma’s hand.
“I’m off fifth period, and I’m nearly always in my classroom alone grading papers. The teasing may reach a point where you can’t tolerate it anymore. You shouldn’t have to tolerate it at all. It makes me furious when this kind of bullying goes on in school. Fill out the pass and come to see me. I’d really like to help, and no one needs to know that you talked to me.”
Emma nodded, but words were still stuck behind a huge lump in her throat.
“Now scoot, before you miss your bus.”
Emma took out that yellow pass and looked at it many times over the next few days, but could never quite work up the courage to use it.
* * *
At the end of two weeks, Gary called and spoke to Emma’s dad on the phone.
“He said he wants us to come and watch the mare work again,” Emma’s dad explained. “Then he has someone who wants to talk to us about her.”
“If someone wants to buy her, are you going to sell?” Emma asked on the way to Gary’s the following Saturday morning.
“We haven’t decided yet,” her dad replied. “We need to see how she’s doing first; and, of course, how much they offer is a big factor, too. We have quite a bit of money invested in her already what with feed and training.”
When they pulled up at the trainer’s barn, Miss Dellfene was in her usual place, tied to the trailer. Gary and a lanky man in a cowboy hat were standing nearby looking at her and talking. Emma thought the little mare looked better than she had before. Her coat was clean and shining, and her mane was freshly trimmed. She had gained some weight, but she looked strong rather than fat.
“This is John Brown,” Gary said waving in the direction of the man standing near Miss Dellfene. “John trains a few horses just down the road from here, and he’s watched your mare work a couple of times.” John nodded to them but kept his distance.
Then Gary saddled the mare and got on her next to the trailer. He rode her across the gravel to the arena gate, leaned over, unlatched it, and pushed it open. The mare walked calmly through and turned beside the gate so that Gary could reach down and latch it from the inside. Emma watched in surprised silence.
“She seems much more relaxed.” Emma’s dad said.
Gary walked and trotted her using a very loose rein. Then he loped her slowly across the arena and brought her to a sliding stop. He spun her to the right and back to the left, then lifted the reins and backed her up. Emma noticed that John Brown was leaning on the fence, watching intently. She wondered why he seemed so interested in a hardheaded little mare with crooked knees.
Gary rode over to the fence next to Emma and her parents.
“Once she started coming my way, she made a lot of progress,” he told them. “She has a tremendous amount of balance and athletic ability, but she also has something else...I guess you could call it toughness. I told John about her, and he came over to watch her work. John is a cutting horse trainer and he’s looking for a two-year-old to train for the 1977 National Cutting Horse Association Futurity next year. After he watched one of her training sessions he asked me if he could talk to you when you came to see her work.”
John walked toward them as Gary talked. He was a tall, thin, wiry-looking man who fit Emma’s mental picture of what a cowboy should look like and had an exaggerated Texas drawl that expanded his words into extra syllables.
“I think yer mare has a lot a talent and might make a helluva cutting horse,” he told them, casting an apologetic glance at Emma and her mother when he realized the cuss word had slipped out. “She sure oughta have the ability with a grandsire like Poco Dell.”
“Explain to me about the Futurity,” Emma’s dad said. “I don’t know very much about cutting horses.”
“Well,” John began, “the Futurity is the world championship fer three-year-old cutting horses. It’s a competition held by the National Cutting Horse Association or NCHA. They hold it every December in Ft. Worth. The prize money is good, but the recognition is a whole lot better. Horses that do well sell fer a lotta money. She has a long way to go and it’s less than a year away, but she has more natural ability than any other horse I’ve looked at this year.”
“How much would all this cost?” Emma’s mother inquired. “Isn’t the NCHA Futurity a rich man’s game?”
“It can be,” John replied, “but if she keeps doing well for another month, I’ll train her for half my usual fee.”
“Why would you be willing to do that?” she asked.
“Because I’ve won lots of cutting competitions, but I’ve never won the NCHA Futurity,” John answered. A grin spread across his craggy face. “This ain’t an entirely unselfish idea. I need a good horse that can get the job done to boost my reputation as a trainer, too.”
Emma’s parents looked at each other thoughtfully.
Finally her father said, “We’ll have to think about it for a few days. If you want, I can call you with our decision. We don’t have a lot of money to play around with. Can you get us some figures by then?”
“Yep,” John replied.
Chapter Six
Emma could barely sit still in the truck on the way home.
“World Championship,” she said reverently. “One of our horses at the World Championship! That is unbelievably, incredibly, astonishingly cool!”
“Don’t start imagining yourself in the winner’s circle yet,” her father advised. “I’m sure there will be lots of reasons why we can’t do this.”
Emma read everything she could find in her horse books and magazines about cutting horses and the NCHA Futurity. Then she searched the school library for more information. She learned that there would be over three hundred horses there from all over the United States and some from other countries. The Futurity was held in Ft. Worth, which was only a little over a hundred miles away. The books explained that cutting horse competitions began when bored cowboys would compete to see which horse could cut a single cow out of a herd and keep it separated from the others the longest, and that horses with certain ancestors seemed to have a special knack for it called “cow sense.”
Emma’s father was on the phone when she went into the kitchen for a glass of water one evening, and she heard him mention John Brown. When he hung up he recounted the conversation.
“That was Bill Johnson. We went to school together. He breeds cutting horses, and he tells me that John Brown has a lot of talent with horses. If he thinks Miss Dellfene has the potential to go to the Futurity, he’s probably right. That’s encouraging. I hate to put too much faith in a man we just met.”
Emma lay awake for hours that night imagining what it would be like to go to an event like the NCHA Futurity and watch your own horse compete. Could such a hardheaded little mare turn out to be a champion?
An idea percolated in Emma’s mind as she thought back on her disastrous first ride on Miss Dellfene. She had ridden young horses for her father for years, but had never trained one herself from the beginning. And Camaro was a two-year old and ready to begin training. She waited until an evening when her mom had prepared her father’s favorite dinner of pork chops and dressing, and then cleared her throat nervously over dessert.
“Would it be okay for me to start Camaro under saddle by myself?” she asked, toying with her lemon pie. “I know that I didn’t do so great wit
h Miss Dellfene, but I think I could do better with Camaro. I’ve worked with her all her life and she’s really gentle...”
Silence descended as her father caught her mother’s eye, and then sipped his coffee thoughtfully.
“The problems we’ve had with Miss Dellfene were not your fault,” he explained. “You had better luck working with her than I did. She’s just an unusually temperamental horse. I can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t start Camaro, as long as I’m there to watch the first time you saddle her and the first few times you get on her.”
A rush of relief swept over Emma. Secretly, she had worried that her father thought the problems with Miss Dellfene were at least partly her fault and that he wouldn’t trust her with young horses anymore.
“I thought I might be able to use some of the tricks I’ve seen Gary use on Miss Dellfene when I start Camaro.”
“Good idea,” her father said. “Be sure to turn her out in the arena to burn off energy before you work with her the first few times.”
“I will,” Emma promised.
* * *
Emma’s parents called her in to the den for a family conference after supper the following week.
“I called John Brown a few minutes ago to ask him what he charges for training a cutting horse, and he told me it was usually four hundred dollars a month plus expenses. Expenses would include feed and hay, veterinary care, shoeing and a goat or cattle charge for livestock to train her with. I told him that was impossible for us. Then he said that he has always wanted to win the NCHA Futurity, and Miss Dellfene was the only young horse he had looked at this year that had the potential to do it. He offered to ride her for two hundred dollars a month if we furnish the feed. If she does well, it will be good advertising for John as a trainer. We can bring our own feed over for her to help keep the cost down. She would need to be shod, and for now he would be starting her on his own goats. It’s not totally impossible, but it would sure suck the extra money out of our budget. So what do you think?”
Long seconds of silence passed before Emma’s mom spoke.
“I think we’ll probably never have an opportunity like this again, and if we don’t go for it, we’ll always wish we had. I could give up movies and getting my hair frosted for a year. I say let’s go for it!”
“What about you, Emma?” he asked. “Do you want to cut corners to give Miss Dellfene a chance? If we do this, she will never be a family horse, and you will probably never get a chance to ride her, at least not until the Futurity is over. With all that in mind, what do you think?”
“Would we be able to go to Ft. Worth and watch her at the Futurity?” Emma asked.
“Absolutely! We wouldn’t miss it. I guess we might even take you out of school for a day or two if she gets that far; but there’s still a good chance that she won’t turn out to be good enough.”
“Let’s do it!” Emma said. “I can’t think of anything more exciting than watching our own horse at the World Championships!”
“Okay,” her dad said. “I agree with both of you. I’ll call John back in the morning.”
That night Emma filled her diary pages with paragraphs of excited speculation about Miss Dellfene and the Futurity. All she had seen when they brought Miss Dellfene home from the sale was a hardheaded little mare with crooked knees. Now they might be in for the most exciting year of their lives. She knew that her father was secretly excited, too. What had he seen in that plain little mare that hinted at the ability Emma had not known was there? She couldn’t wait to tell Kyle.
* * *
At school, Emma told Hannah and Katie about Miss Dellfene and the man who wanted to train her to be a cutting horse. She was careful not to talk about it where other kids could overhear and looked over her shoulder often to be sure no one was listening. She was having enough trouble with Candi and her friends without giving them more to talk about. No more graffiti had appeared on the bathroom walls or drawings on her locker door, and Emma was beginning to hope that Candi’s interest in tormenting her was winding down. In whispers, other kids described their own harassment at the hands of Candi and her friends.
“Everyone hates her,” Barbara Anderson told Emma. “Even her so-called friends hate her, but they’re afraid if they don’t go along, her poisonous tongue will turn on them.” Barbara was overweight and shy and had taken her share of abuse until Candi and her friends grew tired of her and selected another victim.
* * *
“Emma Dean...please come to the office,” a voice over the intercom announced just before school was out. Emma was just finishing a test over To Kill a Mockingbird, a book she had loved. The essay questions had been a breeze, and she quickly finished her conclusion and turned in her paper. On the way to the office she worried about the possible reasons for this summons. She was sure her mom wasn’t picking her up early for a dentist appointment, and the messages in the restroom flitted at the back of her mind.
“The counselor wants to see you,” the school secretary said when Emma arrived at the desk.
“Hi, Emma,” the counselor said. “Have a seat for a minute; I want to talk to you about something.” Her sculpted hair and stylish clothes made Emma uneasy. What could this perfect fashion-plate of a woman possibly want with her? She self-consciously straightened her faded jeans and slid her feet under the chair to hide her stained sneakers.
The counselor got up from her desk and closed the office door.
“I hear that some remarks about you have appeared in the girls’ restroom. You know, they say that in high school you’re nobody until your name has been immortalized on the restroom wall. Have you seen it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Emma answered.
“Do you know who’s doing it?”
Emma stared at her scuffed shoes for a minute. “I think so,” she said.
“Do you want to tell me who it is?”
“I...I...guess not,” Emma answered.
“Emma,” the counselor said. “I already know who did it. Someone else told me. Someone who thinks you’re getting some unfair treatment. This person saw Candi Haynes stick a drawing on your locker door. You’re not the first person Candi Haynes and her friends have tried to intimidate. She always picks on girls who are too nice to fight back, that way she’s sure to win. But you’re stronger than some of her other victims. If it continues and you decide you’ve had enough, please let me know. I’d love to make that girl wash the bathroom walls.”
“Okay,” Emma said, issuing a silent thank you to Mrs. Killen, who must have been determined to help even without Emma’s cooperation.
* * *
Emma cleared the table that night while her mom loaded the dishwasher.
“Mom...” she began, “Did you ever get teased by other kids in school?”
“Sure I did. Why?” her mom asked. “Is somebody teasing you?”
Emma told her about bumping Candi Haynes with her backpack and the messages on the wall in the bathroom. She felt tears stinging behind her eyes as she described the pictures on her locker door.
Emma’s mom put down the dishtowel and gave her a long hug.
“Girls like Candi have always been around, Emma,” she said. “It makes them feel important to ridicule somebody else in public. What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” Emma said. “I’m afraid if you get involved it will just make things worse. I’m too old to go running to my mama with every problem. That would give them one more thing to tease me about.”
“Sometimes girls like Candi lose interest if you can pretend not to care what they’re saying about you,” Emma’s mom said. “If you want me to help, you know I will; but I agree that it might just make things worse if I called her mother or went up to school to discuss it with the principal. And I’m absolutely sure that if we talk to your father about this, he’ll be at school that very day defending you against the injustices of the world.”
“Katie thought I should get Dad to drag Candi Haynes off to jail,”
Emma said, “but that would probably stir up a whole other set of problems.”
“You’re right about that,” Emma’s mom said. “I hope you’ll tell me if anything else happens though. If that’s the case, we’ll need to fill your father in. It stinks to be teased at school, and girls like Candi shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”
“Yeah,” Emma agreed.
“What did you say the girl’s last name is?”
“Haynes,” Emma said.
“Does she have a younger sister?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Well...it might be a coincidence, but the girl you found in the woods, Darla—I think her last name is Haynes.”
“Awww. They can’t be sisters,” Emma said. “No way could someone as mean as Candi be related to that sweet little girl.”
* * *
Climbing down the steps of the bus the next afternoon Emma could see that Kyle was already down at the horse pens filling water troughs. She dumped her backpack on the kitchen table and ran down to tell him the news about Miss Dellfene.
“Hi, Francine,” he called out cheerfully when he heard her coming. “Is there a fire or something? I’ve never seen you run so fast.”
Listen, Stinker,” Emma gasped. “I have to tell you a story about the society horse!”
When she had finished the story, Kyle dropped the hose, put his arms around Emma’s waist, and whirled her around
“That’s fantastic, Josephine,” he hooted. “Just think, I ran water in the celebrity’s trough! I’ll bet your dad is almost as excited as you are!”
“You got that right!” Emma answered. “Of course, he’s worried about how much it will cost. His favorite pastime is worrying about money.”
When the weekend finally arrived there was a hint of spring in the air and tiny blades of new grass were pushing up through the brown stubble in the pastures. Emma’s mom was in the garden wrestling with the roto-tiller, and Emma strolled reluctantly out to see if her mom had any chores for her to do.
Emma and the Cutting Horse Page 5
