Emma and the Cutting Horse

by Martha Deeringer

  “Is there something you want me to do to help?” she yelled above the hiccupping roar of the roto-tiller.

  Her mom let go of the clutch so the tines stopped turning and throttled it down to an idle.

  “Not right now, honey,” she said. “I need to get it all tilled up first and throw out some fertilizer, but this afternoon I’m going to the nursery and get tomato plants and some pretty, spring flowers, and I’d like you to come along to help me pick them out.”

  “Okay,” Emma answered. “Is it alright if I ride Ditto down to the front pasture while you’re finishing?”

  “Sure,” her mom said. “If you promise to be careful, and don’t stay too long!”

  Emma had always loved riding in the pastures by herself. From the top of a horse she saw things she didn’t see from the window of her dad’s pickup. Once, as she sat quietly under a shade tree on Ditto, a red fox had come within a few feet of them, its bottlebrush tail matted with burrs. Wild animals were used to seeing horses in the pasture. Several broodmares lived at the ranch and raised colts every year. When the colts were two years old, Emma’s father began training them, and moved them to the pens below the house. Camaro was the only two-year old this year, but there were two yearlings in the pasture, three older mares, and two new colts were expected to arrive in March. Thoroughbred breeders wanted their colts to arrive soon after January 1st, the official birthday of all registered horses, but Emma’s father didn’t want to have to deliver colts in winter weather and thought they did better if they didn’t arrive until the grass began to green up.

  Emma cleaned Ditto up and threw her saddle on him. He was in the mood for adventure, too, and started down the pickup trail to the front pasture, nodding his head in rhythm with his swinging walk. They crossed the long front pasture to the far tank and rode along the edge of the water, making the bullfrogs jump in with loud splashes. A few wild ducks had taken off from the water when they saw her coming, making her glad again that her parents had decided not to lease their ranch for hunting. She rode Ditto out into ankle-deep water and loosened the reins so he could suck the cold fresh water in around his bit. As she sat on his broad back, she imagined how exciting it would be if Miss Dellfene won the NCHA Futurity. It would make the front page of the paper in their small town. Candi Haynes and her carbon-copy friends couldn’t help noticing that Emma’s parents had won some serious money with one of their horses. Emma wouldn’t look like such a backwoods hillbilly then. She couldn’t help grinning at the prospect.

  On the way back, she rode up a dry wash. Ditto climbed the bank with powerful lunges and then settled into an easy trot heading for the house. The last half mile she pulled him back to a walk so he wouldn’t be too warm when they got back.

  Kyle was scooping out the shed where the weaned calves were kept. He came over to where Emma was unsaddling Ditto.

  “Hi, Marilyn. Did you have a nice ride?”

  “Sure did,” Emma replied.

  “I’ve got a question for you.”

  He took the saddle from Emma and tossed it across the top rail of the pipe fence, while she turned Ditto into his pen. As soon as she took off his halter, Ditto walked over to the middle of the pen where the dirt was soft and loose, lay down, and rolled over on his back, squirming back and forth to get a good scratch.

  “What’s the question?” Emma asked.

  For once in his life, Kyle seemed serious.

  “You said your dad was worried about paying to have the society horse trained, so what do you think he’d say about this idea? He pays me to work for a few hours four days a week. Do you think he’d be willing to keep the money he pays me and let you give me riding lessons instead? I’ve always wanted to learn to ride, but my parents have never been around horses and they won’t even discuss getting one. I’d promise to be a good student and do exactly what you tell me.”

  “I don’t know,” Emma said, an involuntary grin pulling at the corners of her mouth. “I think it would be fun to teach you to ride, but I’d have to talk to Mom and Dad about it. Do you want to go with me to ask them now?”

  “No, I want you to ask them when I’m not around. That way I won’t have to listen to the screamin’ if they get upset.”

  Chapter Seven

  Emma waited for just the right moment to ask her parents about the riding lessons. Secretly, she liked the idea of teaching Kyle to ride. He lived in a different school district, so Emma didn’t see him at school. Although he was older than Emma, he didn’t treat her like a lesser being as some of the other kids his age did. She wanted her parents to say “yes.”

  When she finally found the right moment, there wasn’t any screamin’. Her mom just said, “Oh, that’s sweet!”

  Her dad asked a question.

  “Do you want to do it?”

  “Sure,” Emma answered casually. “Do you think I could start him out with Rosie?”

  “I think she’d be the best choice for a beginner,” her dad replied. “We didn’t breed her this year so you won’t have to worry about a colt following her around later this spring.”

  Rosie was an older bay mare that Emma had ridden before she got Ditto. Now she stood under the trees in the pasture most of the time, in semi-retirement. She was quiet and not too fast, and she was big enough for someone Kyle’s size.

  “Ask him if he can come to ride on days when he doesn’t usually work,” Emma’s dad said. “I like Kyle, and he gets along well with the animals. Teaching him to ride will probably make him even better at helping with the horses.”

  “Okay,” Emma said, strolling as casually as possible out of the room.

  Two days passed before Emma saw Kyle again. When she did see him, he was helping her dad spray weeds that were growing up around the pens. Taking a halter, she walked down into the back pasture to catch Rosie, who was napping in the shade of a tree with the other broodmares. Rosie was friendly and easy to catch, and when Emma shook out the halter and held it up, Rosie pushed her nose into it. Emma buckled it on and looped the long lead rope around the mare’s neck, tying it to the halter ring to make a rein. She led Rosie to a fallen tree and stepped up on it to hop on her bareback. Riding back to the house, she saw that her father and Kyle were finished spraying weeds and were hitching her dad’s pickup to a flatbed trailer. Her father got in and drove off down the lane. Kyle looked around, spotted Emma, and started in her direction. She rode Rosie up to one of the empty pens, slid off, and led her inside. Kyle turned on the hose and began to rinse and fill the water tub in the pen.

  “Is this Rosie?” he asked.

  “Yeah, she’s the one you’re going to learn to ride on. My parents said it would be fine for me to teach you to ride.”

  “I know,” Kyle replied. “Your dad told me.”

  “Then come on in and get acquainted,” Emma said.

  Kyle came into the pen and patted Rosie gently on the neck. She sniffed him curiously, but when she determined that he had no feed for her at the moment she rested one hind leg and enjoyed the attention as Kyle stroked her long, black mane.

  “So when do you want to start?” Emma asked him.

  “How’s tomorrow? I usually don’t work on Thursdays, so you tell me what time and I’ll be here!”

  “I guess you’d better come right after school. It will take a while, and I’ll have to feed and water the horses in the pens before it gets dark. Since you’ll be here, you can help.”

  “Deal!” Kyle said, taking her hand and shaking it with playful violence.

  * * *

  Kyle developed an instant rapport with Rosie when his riding lessons began. Emma took him into the pen and showed him how to fit the halter over her nose and around her jaw.

  “Be patient with me, Rosie,” he said rubbing her gently under her tangled mane. “I’m a beginner.”

  Although he teased Emma as usual, Kyle was kind and gentle with Rosie. As he carefully combed the tangles out of her mane, the mare’s eyelids drooped and she rested one hind leg, on t
he verge of falling asleep. After Emma’s demonstration, Kyle insisted on practicing putting the saddle and bridle on the mare over and over again until he was sure he had it right. He used Emma’s father’s saddle, which was big enough for him but a good bit heavier than Emma’s.

  “Don’t help me,” he warned Emma. “Just show me if something’s not right.”

  Emma demonstrated how to stand as close as possible to Rosie’s left side and mount quickly, swinging her weight up over the mare’s back without pulling the saddle sideways any more than necessary. When Kyle mounted, he climbed on awkwardly and sat slumped in the saddle. His weight had pulled the saddle off center.

  “Sit up straight and put your weight in the stirrups with your heels lower than your toes. Then you can scoot the saddle over in the middle of her back.”

  Cautiously, Kyle scooted the saddle over and sat up straighter, pushing his heels down.

  “Wow, I have always wanted to see the view from up here,” he said softly. He leaned over and patted Rosie fondly on the shoulder.

  Although it was getting dark, he practiced getting on and off a few more times. Rosie seemed confused by all the mounting and dismounting, but stood patiently waiting for a signal to move forward. Emma saw headlights coming up the lane and heard her mom calling her from the back porch. Her dad was coming home from work, and it was already dark.

  “You go!” Kyle told her. “I’ll put everything away and feed and water the horses. Hurry, so they don’t get worried!”

  When she was halfway to the house, she heard Kyle calling. Turning for a moment, she could barely make out his shape in the near dark.

  “Hey, Emma. Thanks!” he called after her.

  She was going in the back door before she realized that he had called her Emma.

  * * *

  The next Saturday dawned clear with a bright blue sky and southerly breeze that hinted of spring. Emma fed the horses and then turned Camaro into the arena to play. She bucked and slid in the soft sand, and then lay down and rolled from side to side to scratch her back, getting up with a coating of sand and mud that obscured the golden patches showing beneath her loose winter coat. In spring, Camaro turned a rich dark gold, and her black mane sprouted a row of white hairs that lay atop the black, an unusual color pattern for a buckskin. Within a couple of months the summer sun would bleach her gold coat to a much lighter shade.

  “Color is a complicated thing in horses,” her father had explained. Taffy, Camaro’s dam, was a dark, smutty palomino whose rump shone with chocolate dapples in the early spring. But Camaro’s sire was bay. From him she got her black mane and tail.

  Emma got the shedding blade and a halter and went into the arena with Camaro, who hurried over in search of attention. How different, Emma thought, from Miss Dellfene’s reaction when someone entered her space. Pale gold winter hair flew by the fistful beneath the blade, finding its way into Emma’s eyes and mouth and sticking to her black hoodie until she looked like she’d grown a coat of hair herself. Camaro loved grooming. If Emma stopped for a moment the mare stepped closer to remind her to start again.

  When her right arm ached from wielding the grooming tools, she snapped a lunge line onto the halter and led Camaro to the center of the arena. Then she stepped back away from her, positioning herself opposite the mare’s hindquarters and flipped the end of the lunge line at her.

  “Get up!” she said, using her most authoritative voice.

  Camaro turned her head and gazed at her with questioning eyes. Emma flipped the line again and clicked her tongue and Camaro took a few hesitant steps forward, but then turned to face Emma. It occurred to Emma that teaching Camaro to lunge might be a bigger challenge than she’d thought. The filly was so gentle from years of handling, all she really wanted to do was stand close to people and be petted. It took nearly an hour and lots of patience on Emma’s part to get three or four full circles accomplished going in each direction.

  * * *

  Kyle progressed quickly from saddling and mounting to riding Rosie in slow circles in the arena. The first time he loped her, his face broke out in a huge grin. He still didn’t seem very relaxed, and sometimes he forgot to push his heels down and put his weight of the balls of his feet, but Emma was sure she was seeing progress. He rarely reached for the saddle horn anymore as he had in the beginning.

  “You’ve got Kyle looking pretty good in the saddle,” her father remarked one evening. “He has refused to accept any money from me since you started the riding lessons.”

  “Well, that was the deal,” Emma said.

  * * *

  When school let out for Spring Break, Emma began taking Kyle for rides in the pasture. They crossed the creek and rode through the big oak trees around the spring in the far back corner of the ranch. They talked about horses and school and movies, but sometimes they just rode together in comfortable silence.

  During one of these rides, Emma told Kyle about Candi Haynes and the messages on the bathroom wall.

  “When I pass her or one of her hotshot friends in the hall, they say, ‘Howdy, hayseed’ or ‘Hey, farm girl,’ or some other put-down.”

  “What do you say?” Kyle asked.

  “I usually don’t say anything; I just keep on walking and act like I didn’t hear it. Then I’m mad at myself for being such a coward.”

  “It doesn’t make you a coward just because you refuse to be as nasty as she is,” Kyle said.

  One late afternoon Emma and Kyle walked the horses slowly through the cattle that were scattered across the back pasture searching out the new growth that pushed up through the dry, dead grass of winter. The cattle were used to horses and looked up for a moment from their grazing, then went back to eating. In a small grove of trees, they stopped to watch a newborn calf trying to get to its feet. The cow was worried about the nearness of the horses and moved between them and her new baby. Emma and Kyle sat in silence, watching as the calf finally got his feet under him and staggered around for a minute or two, his legs splayed wide for balance. Then, as though drawn by a magnet, he made his way to the cow’s udder and began to suck. His tail waggled as the first drops of milk filled his mouth. It was getting late, but Emma didn’t want to break the spell cast by the setting sun and the quiet moment. The pinkish sunlight streamed through the trees, dappling the horses and the cow and calf. Emma noticed that a bank of clouds was building to the north. Rosie’s head drooped, and she looked like she might be dozing, but Ditto was impatient to be moving again. He had an internal clock that knew when it was suppertime.

  “We’d better start back before it rains,” Emma said

  “All right, Madeline, if you insist,” Kyle said, reining Rosie toward the house.

  The sky had darkened, the wind picked up, and a few raindrops were starting to fall before they made it home.

  Emma’s dad waved at them from the front porch as they rode past.

  “Come in for a minute when you’re finished with the horses, Kyle,” he called out.

  “Uh, oh,” Kyle grimaced. “Do you think he’s upset with me for keeping you out too long?”

  “You didn’t keep me out. I wanted to watch that calf as much as you did. Anyway, he didn’t look upset to me. When he gets upset, you’ll know it!”

  Emma’s dad had removed his gun belt and was searching the bowels of the refrigerator for the mustard when they came in.

  “Want to stay and have a hamburger, Kyle?” he asked. The glorious scent of frying hamburgers filled the kitchen.

  “I’d better not. My mom will be expecting me for supper. But thanks.”

  “I asked you to come in because we’re going over to watch Miss Dellfene work tomorrow, and I thought you might like to come along.”

  “Sure. I’d love to!” Kyle answered.

  “Be here by one o’clock then,” he said, and turned back to the refrigerator to continue his search.

  Chapter Eight

  Emma hurried through a light fog the next morning to put in some time with
Camaro before they went to watch Miss Dellfene’s workout. As usual, her father had already been to the horse pens and fed the horses. Camaro searched her feed tub for any stray oats she might have missed while Emma got a currycomb and brush and went to work on her coat. Despite their similar ages, Camaro was already considerably taller than Miss Dellfene, probably close to 15 hands. Her sire was over 16 hands, so she likely wasn’t through growing yet. Emma made a mental note to bring a tape measure down and measure her from the top of her withers to the ground. Four inches was a hand in horse measurement.

  Beneath her glowing spring coat, muscles bulged in Camaro’s forearms, chest and hindquarters. She was descended from the old “bulldog” quarter horses with their square, muscular bodies and explosive speed. Her ancestors had carried the Texas cattle industry on their broad backs through early Texas history and into the modern age, and they were still the fastest horses on four legs for a quarter of a mile.

  “Think she’s ready for the saddle yet?” Emma’s father asked when he passed by Camaro’s pen. “I’ve watched you drive her on the lunge line and she seems to have that down pat.”

  “I think she’s ready,” Emma said. “She knows her voice commands, but she sure doesn’t get in a hurry when she’s lunging. When I say ‘trot’ she slows down in the trot until she’s just barely moving.”

  “That’s an asset as far as I’m concerned,” Emma’s father said. “I like my horses to take their time unless I ask for speed. Can’t stand to ride a horse that jigs and jumps around all the time.”

  Emma brought her saddle and blanket from the tack room in the hay barn and threw it onto the top rail of the fence. Her father leaned on the rail thoughtfully.

  “I’ll let you handle this unless I see that you need some help,” he said.

  Inside the pen, Emma put a halter on Camaro and tied her to the fence with a horseman’s knot, pleased that her father thought she was up to the challenge after what happened with Miss Dellfene. If a horse got in a storm, she knew to pull the tail of the knot to instantly release it. But, there was no storm with Camaro. She sniffed the blanket and stood calmly as Emma rubbed it over her back and neck and along her haunches. Then she centered it on the mare’s back and picked up her saddle. With the right stirrup hooked over the saddle horn she showed it to the mare and then lifted it gently onto her back. Camaro turned her head to look but stood quietly. Walking behind her to the opposite side, Emma straightened the cinch and stirrup and went back to the left side to fasten the cinch. She pulled the latigo slowly to tighten it, watching the mare’s ears. Camaro raised her head a bit when it tightened around her belly. All through this procedure, Emma talked softly to Camaro, explaining what she was doing. The mare turned one ear to listen, but her eyes looked soft and relaxed.