Saige Paints the Sky

by Jessie Haas

“Mimi’s going to sell Georgia,” I said.

  We were all riding side by side up the dirt road. Luis, on the other side of Gabi, looked at me sharply. “Is she?” he asked. “What makes you think that?”

  I told him what Mimi had said. “She thinks Georgia needs someone who can give her more attention,” I said glumly.

  “I see,” Luis said. “Well, Georgia has certainly blossomed with attention from you. But don’t worry, Saige,” he added, a warm smile in his eyes. “It’s not so easy to sell horses these days. It takes time.”

  “That’s true,” Gabi said earnestly. “My uncle was just talking about that. He has all these good horses for sale, and no buyers. So it probably won’t happen, at least not anytime soon.”

  I gave Gabi a grateful smile. Her words made me feel better—but also kind of guilty, because if nobody did buy Georgia, that might be bad for her, and bad for Spanish Barbs. They’re so rare. They need people to love them, ride them, breed them, and spread the word about them. I could do the first two things—love Georgia and ride her. But I guess that wasn’t enough.

  As if she sensed my feelings, Georgia tossed her black mane and pricked her ears at the trail ahead, dancing a little under me. Cheer up! she seemed to say. We’re here today. Life is good. I patted her sleek neck and felt my spirits lift a little.

  After our ride, Luis invited us over to visit with Carmen. Their house is a small adobe, dark and cool inside like Mimi’s house. The walls are bright with Carmen’s quilts, and ornate tinwork sconces and chandeliers hang everywhere. I also spotted racks full of the earrings and bracelets Luis makes out of metal and horsehair. He and Carmen were getting ready for Balloon Fiesta, where they usually sell a lot of their artwork. The Fiesta and Christmas are every Albuquerque artist’s busy season.

  Gabi looked around, wide-eyed. “Tinwork is so cool!“ she said, waving her hand at the walls. “We have some at home that my great-grandfather made. I’d love to learn how to do it.”

  “Me, too!” I said. “Maybe you could teach us, Luis.”

  I had a feeling Luis would be a great teacher. Suddenly I flashed on my teacher Miss Fane, who had been helping with the painting afternoons at the rehab center. I pictured all the patients there who had been painting side by side with me over the last week. “They’d all love it,” I said aloud, and then had to explain to everyone what I was talking about.

  “Hmm,” Luis said. “I could probably go over there and teach a class or two. I’ll talk with Mimi about it.”

  Gabi and I shared an excited glance. If Mimi got involved, the tinwork class was sure to happen!

  It took Mimi only two days to get Luis scheduled to teach at the rehab center. Once Mimi was out of rehab, I’d have to put her to work on our after-school art class. Mimi knows how to get things done! And with any luck, trying to get the after-school class off the ground would distract her from selling Georgia.

  Luis decided to teach jewelry making first. Hurray! I love jewelry, but the best part is, so does Tessa. Her eyes lit up when I told her about it, and she decided to come with me to Luis’s class.

  Tuesday afternoon, Luis called the class to order, and all of us—twelve patients, Miss Fane, and we three girls—learned how to make rings and bracelets out of silverware. Luis buys old forks, knives, and spoons at yard sales, so he brought a plastic bag full, plus a small jewelry torch. He used the torch to heat the silver, and with pliers and a clamp, helped each person twist his or her piece into shape.

  When my turn came, I shaped a silver butter knife into a cool, wavy-shaped bracelet. Tessa made a ring using rough, unpolished turquoise chips that Luis had brought. “Turquoise is a charm for riders,” he told us. “The old people say a rider wearing turquoise will never be thrown and the horse will never tire.”

  “Oh!” Gabi and I said together. When Luis rode with us, he always wore turquoise on his hatband.

  “We should wear turquoise, then,” I said. But when I saw Luis packing up his materials, I knew there wasn’t time to start another project. I couldn’t believe how quickly class had flown by.

  “That was fun,” Tessa said, admiring her new ring. “When are they going to start our after-school art classes, do you know? I’ll probably come. I forgot how much I like art.”

  Wow! I thought. I hadn’t heard Tessa say a good word about art in weeks. It had become such an issue between us. This was big.

  Before I could respond, I saw Mom peek into the doorway of the art room. She pointed at the wall clock. That meant it was time to head out and take care of chores at the ranchita.

  I went to say good-bye to Mimi, who was chatting with Luis. “Oh, are you leaving?” she asked me. “Wait a minute and I’ll walk you to the front door.”

  That seemed like a long walk to me. “Wow! Is that okay, Mimi?” I asked. “Are you supposed to do that?”

  “As often as possible,” Mimi said. “And it feels—okay is a good way to put it. But a little more okay every day.” As we walked along together, I noticed that I was still faster than Mimi, but not that much faster. Time was passing. She was healing.

  “It was nice having Tessa here today,” Mimi said. “She seemed to be enjoying herself.”

  “She was,” I agreed. “She asked about the after-school classes, too. But we still don’t know when they’ll start. We need to find a few good art teachers, I guess.” I glanced down at my new silver bracelet. “Hey!” I said to Mimi. “How about Luis?”

  Mimi shook her head and smiled. “No, Saige,” she said quickly. “Luis has his hands full with the ranch, and he barely has enough time to do his own artwork, let alone teach it.” When Mimi saw the look on my face, she added, “There are teachers out there. It’ll all come together—you’ll see.”

  “When?” I asked. My voice was loud, surprising even me. “At this rate, by the time after-school art gets going, half the year will be over!” I hadn’t known all of those words were going to pour out. A nurse looked my way, startled.

  “You’re right,” Mimi said gently, giving the nurse a look that said, Don’t worry, I’ve got this. “You kids may need to remind everyone just how important art is to you.”

  You kids? I’d been hoping Mimi would swing into action herself. “But what can we do?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from rising again.

  “I’m not sure,” Mimi said. “Let’s both give it some thought.” We reached the front door. I held it open for Mimi, and she stepped out onto the front walk and looked across the parking lot, where Mom waited for me beside the car. The wind whisked up little dust devils. The shadows were long, and the sky was pale blue.

  “Wish I were going with you to the ranchita,” Mimi said. “If I could only go for a ride right now…” She sighed. “That’s where I’ve always gotten my best ideas—on the back of a horse.”

  She turned back toward the door. It was big and heavy, and I rushed to pull it open for her. You’ll be riding soon, I wanted to say, but there was a big difference between walking down a hallway and hopping on a horse’s back. I didn’t want to say anything too unrealistic. Mimi tends to get annoyed at that.

  Mom pulled up beside me and I got into the car, thinking back over what Mimi had just said. How were we kids going to remind people how much we cared about art? I wished an idea would drop out of the sky, but it didn’t. Maybe, like Mimi, I would need to spend some time on horseback to figure things out.

  The next morning before school, I met Gabi, Dylan, and Tessa at our table. I was wearing my bracelet, and Tessa was showing off the ring she’d made yesterday. “That was fun!” she told me again. “I can’t wait for the after-school class to start. I’ll definitely come.”

  “But when is it going to happen?” Dylan asked sharply. Of all of us, she was the only one who hadn’t had any art all year. It looked as if that was bothering her.

  “Mimi says we have to remind teachers and the principal how much we need art,” I answered. “Does anybody know how we can do that?”


  “Let’s go on strike!” Dylan suggested. “They don’t get homework till we get art.”

  “That’s kind of negative,” Gabi said, scrunching her brow. “I mean, we’re all on the same side, right? Our teachers probably want more art in school, too.”

  “And art is good for us academically,” I said, remembering what Miss Fane had told me. “If we have art, we’ll do better in middle school and high school—and that will make this school look even better. Everybody should want that. We could make some charts or graphs and write a report full of interesting facts—”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” said Dylan scornfully. “Sorry, but a few facts will never get people to do anything.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. Dylan was bugging me. She’s such a know-it-all!

  “My mom talks about this stuff all the time,” Dylan answered. “She’s a newspaper reporter. She always says, ‘Facts alone don’t make people do things. It takes a good story to give facts power.’ And a story is about somebody doing something. We have to do something!”

  “Okay. But what?” I asked.

  We all looked at one another, and after a moment, we all shrugged. Great! We were right back where we had started.

  “Well, let’s think,” I said. “We should all try to come up with ideas tonight—”

  “I know, I know!” Gabi broke in. “Before we go to sleep, we should ask ourselves what we can do. Maybe we’ll dream the answer.”

  “Does that ever work?” Tessa asked, and then we all started interrupting one another to tell about interesting dreams we’d had.

  But at the end of the day, I reminded my friends: “Think!”

  Gabi couldn’t come riding with me in the afternoon. Her mother had to take the little kids to a doctor’s appointment, and she needed Gabi’s help managing them. Gabi would be great at that, I thought. She’d probably have Roberto completely clicker-trained before the appointment was over.

  When I got to the ranchita, I asked Luis, “Do you think I could ride Georgia by myself? I need to think, and she might help me do that.”

  Luis hesitated and then said, “How about this? I need to ride fence for Mimi—”

  “Ride fence?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

  Luis laughed. “That’s cowboy talk,” he said. “It means to ride around the fence line and make repairs. So let’s do this. I’ll ride out on Picasso and do what I need to do. You come with me and ride Georgia near us. It’s a big pasture. I’ll be able to see you, but you’ll be able to ride Georgia and get some good thinking time, too.” He winked at me.

  “Okay!” I agreed. Mimi’s horse pasture is huge. It seemed like a big adventure, riding Georgia without Luis right by my side.

  We caught Picasso and Georgia and locked the other horses into the corral. Then we saddled up. Luis strapped a saddlebag full of tools behind his saddle. He buckled a leather scabbard onto the saddle, too. That was meant to hold a rifle, for hunting, but Luis filled it up with fiberglass fence posts, white poles about as thick around as a pencil. He started to mount up, and then laughed and stepped back down to unplug the electric fence. “That would have been a big mistake!” he said, making a face at me. Then we both mounted and rode through the gate into the open pasture.

  I felt like a cowboy, riding along the fence line with Luis. His attention was on the fence, and so was mine. We were working.

  A little way out, the fence sagged. Luis dismounted to tighten it. He dropped Picasso’s reins, and Picasso stood there, ground-tied. He wouldn’t move until Luis came back to him.

  “I’ll go on ahead,” I said.

  Luis nodded. “If she gets nervous, just circle back toward us, okay?” he said.

  I nodded and then urged Georgia on. A lot of horses don’t like to leave their friends, but Georgia didn’t hesitate. I rode her along the eastern fence line, farthest from the Bosque. Georgia’s stride was swift and smooth. When I looked back, Luis and Picasso were small in the distance. I felt as if I was riding alone. Riding Georgia alone. For the first time ever. It was a big deal, but it also seemed simple and natural somehow.

  After a few minutes, I asked Georgia to jog. A jog is the slow trot cowboys use when they’re going to be riding all day. Georgia wanted to go faster. I said no with the reins, and she agreed. Her hooves drummed—one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two. It reminded me of the rhythm of some of the cowboy songs Luis and I sing.

  That reminded me that I had a cowboy job to do. I started paying attention to the fence as I rode. Mimi uses electric tape fencing, the wide kind that looks like construction zone tape. It was old and had knots tied in it, but it seemed to be holding up. Luis wouldn’t have to do anything here.

  The world glided slowly past. I felt part of it, loose and free. Riding alone, I didn’t have to talk. I could think my own thoughts, or not think at all. But I wasn’t alone. I had Georgia.

  For how much longer? I sensed Georgia thinking hard, too, and being careful, like a little girl trying hard to be responsible. She was so good and beautiful, she was bound to sell easily, no matter what Luis thought. If I knew as much about animal training as Gabi, I could teach her to be bad, and maybe she’d never sell—but I couldn’t do that to her, and I couldn’t do that to Mimi.

  “I love you, Georgia,” I said aloud. A dark ear tipped back at me.

  Then both ears suddenly sharpened on something ahead—a gray-brown coyote trotting across the pasture.

  Georgia stared after the coyote, tugging on the reins. She wanted to chase him. “No. Sorry, brave girl,” I said, patting her neck. Mr. Coyote glanced over his shoulder and took off like a shot. I laughed out loud.

  “Did he recognize you, Georgia?” I asked. “You probably see coyotes all the time out here. Have you chased him before?” I thought she probably had, by the way that gray skulker got himself out of there. Georgia felt bigger beneath me now, puffed up and proud of herself.

  We turned the corner and rode toward the Bosque, which borders the western edge of Mimi’s pasture. We crossed a stretch of tall, dun-colored grasses, heading toward the trees. They looked green-gold against the blue sky. The sun was low, and the trees cast long shadows into the pasture. I rode toward them. Even in late September, the afternoon was hot enough that shade seemed like a good idea.

  Something moved in the grass a few hundred yards away. Georgia hesitated, pointing her ears at it. My fingers tightened around the saddle horn. Another coyote, I thought. But a small mule deer, the same color as the grasses, jumped up and bolted away from us. I felt Georgia swell up, like Picasso doing his parade gait. She took an eager step after the deer.

  “No,” I said, shortening the reins. “You’re with me.”

  That had worked with the coyote, but not now. The deer soared over the far fence. Georgia snorted loudly, prancing and sidling. She even took a few cantering steps.

  My heart raced as I tried to turn Georgia away from the deer. I made her do a figure eight, looping around first in one direction and then in the other. I gripped the reins and held my breath. Please work, please work, please work, I prayed.

  By the second loop, Georgia’s neck relaxed a bit. We did another loop. In the middle of it, Georgia heaved a huge sigh—and so did I.

  “Good girl,” I told her, letting my breath out in one big rush. “You’re a good girl, Georgia.”

  When I looked up, I was relieved to see Luis jogging toward us on Picasso. I rode to meet him, still hearing my heart pounding in my ears.

  “You handled that just right,” he said. “You stayed in control and distracted her. I was hightailing over to the rescue, but that wasn’t necessary.”

  I nodded and gave Luis a shaky smile. If he noticed how anxious I was, he didn’t say. He turned Picasso in beside me, and we rode along the edge of the Bosque, gliding under golden cottonwoods and poplars.

  When Luis stopped to straighten a post in the fence line, Georgia and I went on a few steps ahead. I couldn’t
stop thinking about the mule deer—how it had caught Georgia and me by surprise because of how it had blended in with the grass. As an artist, I’d always been drawn to bold colors. But beige and brown are useful colors, too, I thought, if you don’t want to be seen—or if you want to stand up suddenly and get someone’s attention.

  I remembered the beige hallways at school, the ones we’d been trying to fill with colorful artwork, and suddenly I had an idea.

  “That’s it!” I said out loud.

  Georgia’s slender ears tilted back toward me.

  “We’ll dress in beige,” I announced. “Get it, Georgia? A Day of Beige. We’ll blend into the school walls and hold the most boring protest in the history of protests. We’ll go invisible, like your deer! Then we’ll stand up and show everyone how bland and boring life is for us without art. Get it?”

  Georgia simply tossed her head.

  Horses can be great friends, but sometimes you really need a human being. I couldn’t wait to talk to Gabi and Tessa—even to Dylan, because going invisible was kind of like going on strike. She might even like this idea.

  The next morning, Gabi and I met Tessa and Dylan at the classroom door. After coming up with my Day of Beige idea, I saw color popping out at me from every direction. Dylan wore an orange jersey. Tessa had on a blue-green shirt that looked great on her. I wore my red and black Navajo jacket, and Gabi wore a gauzy pink scarf. All the other kids wore bright colors, too. There was hardly any beige as far as the eye could see, except on the school walls and floor.

  Good! If we pulled this off, it would be really noticeable.

  As we hung up our jackets, I saw Dylan check out my outfit and raise her eyebrows a bit. I’d borrowed a tan T-shirt from Mom and tied a knot in the bottom so that it wouldn’t be too big. I was hoping the boring shirt would help my friends understand my Day of Beige idea. So far, so good.

  We huddled at our table. “Okay,” I said. “Who had an idea?”

  Gabi looked guilty. “I completely forgot,” she admitted. Big surprise! All she had on her mind these days was dogs.