A Summer Without Horses

by Bonnie Bryant

  “I wish she weren’t so good,” I said, almost unaware that I was speaking.

  “Ah, you’ve met her!” Nigel said. Then he laughed.

  So did I. “I think they invented the word obnoxious just for Bea.”

  “Bea? Is that what you called her?”

  “Oh, no, of course not. I never would insult her directly, I promise. I just think of her as ‘Bea’ because I’m sure she would hate it.”

  “Exactly,” Nigel agreed. “And we’ll keep it between us.”

  “Can’t I even tell Dorothy?” I teased.

  “Of course you can, but she won’t be as amused as you and I are. She has her own stock of names for Ms. Benner and none of them are as flattering as ‘Bea.’ ”

  Southwood came pounding past the window then, drawing our attention back to the good side of Beatrice—her riding skills. Dorothy had set up a hunter jumping course and Beatrice and Southwood were going through the paces perfectly. In this kind of jumping, speed and height aren’t really important. What counts is style and Southwood had it. So, I’m sorry to have to report, did Bea. The two of them rode the course at a smooth and even pace, taking the jumps almost as if they weren’t there. The horse fairly floated over them, landing without missing a beat. It was a blue-ribbon performance, if I’d ever seen one.

  “Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” I asked Nigel.

  “Yes, it does. Both Beatrice and her horse are extremely promising. Beatrice has been in a number of shows and done very well, but she’s now training with her new horse where she expects to do even better. Southwood is still quite young. He’s only just ready for shows so none of the showing he’s going to do this year is going to be critical. Dorothy expects that Beatrice and Southwood will grow together and someday—well, who knows?”

  When Bea finished the course and was taking a brief rest, Dorothy looked in through the window and waved a greeting to me and Nigel. Then she signaled me to come on out.

  “Nah, she’s just being polite, isn’t she?” I asked Nigel. I wasn’t awfully eager to get within twenty yards of Bea again.

  “No, I think she actually wants your help. Can you give her a hand?”

  “Me? Help?”

  Nigel winked at me. “She’s not looking for professional pointers, Carole. I think she just needs a hand with something.”

  Of course, that was just what she had in mind. I went on out into the paddock and gave her a quick hug to return the greeting and to offer to help however she needed me.

  “Nice round on the jumps!” I said to Bea, unable to contain my excitement at her skill.

  Bea smiled weakly, insincerely. “I’m sure you know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  It was more than Dorothy could take. “Actually, Carole is a very accomplished rider, Beatrice. She was reserve champion at Briarwood.” Bea didn’t blink. I picked up the cue and continued.

  “I ride almost every day,” I said. “And when I can’t ride, I spend time with my friends and we talk about horses. We call ourselves The Saddle Club.”

  The minute I said the words, I was sorry. The look on Bea’s face told me she thought the club was childish. That’s how much she knows. I didn’t mind her poor opinion. I just wished I’d never invited it.

  “Carole’s been riding ever since she was a little girl,” Dorothy said. “She began riding on Marine Corps bases. You know the Marines have a long history of excellence in horsemanship.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” she said. She made it sound like she didn’t care.

  “Carole’s father is a colonel in the Marines,” Dorothy added. I realized then that she was doing the same thing I’d been doing before, trying to boast about me to make Bea think more of me. It hadn’t worked before and wasn’t working then.

  “Colonel? I met a general once. Isn’t that better than a colonel?”

  Can you imagine? But she really said it. And I really answered her, too. I said, “It depends on the colonel.”

  Later Dorothy told me that she thought I should go into the diplomatic corps if I could come up with an answer like that to a snobby question like Bea’s, but I don’t want to be anywhere near anyone who behaves like that, ever again.

  We stopped talking then (not a minute too soon) and Dorothy gave Bea a very difficult task. She took off Southwood’s bridle, put him on a lunge line (which I held in the center of the ring), and had him circle at a canter, going over three relatively low jumps. The idea was for her to be able to guide him with her feet alone and to work on her own balance. She had to rise in the saddle as she jumped, but she wasn’t allowed to touch Southwood with her hands. I have to give Bea credit. She did it. And I give Southwood credit, too. He took those jumps as well as he had the ones where Bea had control of the reins.

  The minute the lesson was over, Bea hopped down out of the saddle and headed for her mother’s car, which was waiting in Dorothy’s driveway. Since I was still holding the lunge line, that left me with the opportunity to take Southwood to his stall and groom him. Apparently Beatrice’s rule against touching Southwood did not extend to work involved in caring for him. I was good enough for that!

  It was a pleasure, too. First I walked him around the ring until he was completely cooled down. Then Southwood followed me obediently into the stable and showed me the way to his stall. I unclipped the lunge line and clipped on some lead ropes, cross-tying him where I could do the grooming. Since Dorothy had had all her early training with Max Regnery, it didn’t surprise me to find that everything I needed was in a totally logical place. I was busy with a curry comb when Dorothy arrived.

  She gave Southwood a welcoming pat and picked up her tools and joined me in the grooming. Like most horses, Southwood enjoyed the process and enjoyed it even more when he was keeping two people busy at once.

  I took a deep breath and asked the question that had been on my mind since I’d first met Bea. “How can you stand her?”

  “It all has to do with money and reputation,” Dorothy explained. “I need the money, of course, but even more important, it’s clear she and Southwood are going to go places. If I’m known as her trainer, well, that’s good for me and will get me more students.”

  “Like her?”

  “In skill only, I hope. I mean there can’t be many more girls like that, can there?”

  “I hope not. On the other hand, I hope there are a lot more horses like Southwood.”

  “He is wonderful and he’s a fast learner. Did Nigel say how old he is?”

  “No, he didn’t, but let me see if I can tell.”

  You know the old saying about looking a gift horse in the mouth, right? Well the reason you should look a horse in the mouth—gift or otherwise—is to check his teeth and see how old he is. I got Southwood to open up. His adult teeth were barely worn at all. That meant he was very young, but he was old enough to be trained.

  “Hmmm. About four?”

  “Right on!” Dorothy said. “I can tell Max has been doing his job!”

  “And I can tell you’ve been doing yours,” I said. “Southwood is very obedient for a four-year-old.”

  Dorothy smiled proudly. “Actually, I think he’s been doing most of the work himself. He’s smart as can be, but both Beatrice and I have worked him very hard. Now, this weekend, he’s going to have his first show experience.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  “It’s a local show, not a rated one, but it’s enough that we’ll get to see how he performs under pressure. That’s important because Beatrice has registered for the Sussex County Classic later in the summer and his performance there will be important. If we can find out how he reacts to a competition now, we’ll be much better prepared for the Sussex. Frankly, I wish she hadn’t signed up for the Sussex. That may be too much pressure too soon, but when Beatrice makes up her mind …”

  Dorothy didn’t have to go on. It was clear that Dorothy might be the coach, but Beatrice was always going to be in charge.

  “Can I
go to the show on Saturday?”

  “Of course you can,” Dorothy said. “We’re counting on your being there. Who else can groom a horse as well as another student of Max Regnery? Will you do the hoof polish?”

  “With pleasure,” I promised. “And I’ll be in the cheering section, too. It may not be all that easy to cheer for Bea, but it’ll be a cinch to root for Southwood.”

  I gave him a hug then. I’m sure he hugged me back by snuggling up to me, but you’re going to have to take my word for it.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING I was up and into the stable by 6:30. I suppose it sounds awful to be working so early, but sometimes I think the early morning is the best time of day in the stable. There are a zillion chores to be done. All the horses need to be fed and watered. The ones who are going to have early workouts need to be tacked up. Most of them need at least some grooming. One horse was going out to the paddock for a day of freedom and sunshine. Another needed leg wraps. I’m good at leg wraps.

  There’s a special quality to the early morning that’s hard to describe. Some of it has to do with the Eastern sunlight slicing through the dust-filled air. Some of it is the dewy morning smell of hay. Some of it is the way the horses act, just waking up, waiting to be fed and exercised. Some of it is because only people who seriously love horses are at stables at 6:30. There’s a nice feeling among us at that hour.

  Dorothy and I worked side by side, barely talking because it was so early and there was so much to do.

  By 7:30, Bea arrived. She didn’t speak to me at all and that suited me fine. I’d fed Southwood and given him a brushing before I tacked him up for her. I led him out to the schooling ring and wordlessly handed Bea the reins. Wordlessly, she accepted them. I had the funny feeling she’d missed her early childhood lesson on “magic words.” It was okay. If she didn’t say thank you, I didn’t have to tell her she was welcome.

  While I held Southwood’s head, she mounted him. Southwood was tall, but not so tall that she should have had to pull herself up the way she did. It was a little thing, but I noticed it and it concerned me and as the day wore on, my concern grew.

  She and Dorothy had already decided they wouldn’t work Southwood too hard since the show was only two days away and he shouldn’t be exhausted from the lesson when he was in a competition. Dorothy stood in the middle of the ring.

  “Circle at a sitting trot.”

  Southwood trotted around the ring, but Bea was posting.

  “Sitting!” Dorothy said.

  Bea blew her nose. “What?” she asked, the annoyance apparent in her tone of voice.

  “Sitting trot,” Dorothy said clearly.

  Bea sat. Then when Dorothy gave the order to canter, Bea was coughing and couldn’t hear her. Dorothy had to say it again.

  I could just see this happening in the ring on Saturday. When Bea was good, she was really good. That morning, she was not really good. She was bad. It was as if she couldn’t pay attention.

  She wiped her nose with a tissue again and stuffed it in her pocket. Then she pushed her hard hat back a little and swept her arm across her forehead. All the motion and commotion in the saddle confused poor Southwood, who broke into a trot when he was supposed to be cantering. Bea hit him with her crop. That didn’t seem fair to me since I didn’t think it had been his fault in the first place, but it did make him try all the harder to please her.

  I leaned against the fence of the schooling ring, silently watching Bea have a dreadful lesson. I realized that a lot of good riders have bad days, including me. Maybe it was the pressure of the show only two days away, but I didn’t think so. I thought there was something else and the more I watched her, the more sure I was. She coughed, sniffled, and wiped for a full hour. I thought she was sick and didn’t want to admit it.

  After an hour, Dorothy suggested a fifteen-minute break. Bea rode Southwood right over to me so I could hold his head while she dismounted. That was when I got a close look at her. She was as pale as a ghost. I also noticed some bumps around her neck. They were like little teeny blisters.

  “Beatrice, are you all right?” I asked, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t worthy of her attention.

  “Of course I’m all right,” she snapped.

  “But those bumps—” I touched my neck to indicate where I’d noticed them.

  Her hand went to her neck reflexively, and the second she felt the bump, she glared at me and then at Dorothy.

  “Flea bites!” she said disgustedly. “You people can’t keep the stable free of pests for animals or people.”

  You people? It occurred to me to wonder who she had in mind, but her attitude was so rotten that I didn’t really care. It’s true that horses do sometimes attract pests that can annoy people as well, but I’d never seen a flea bite that looked like what was on her neck.

  By nine o’clock, Bea had had it. I was pretty sure she was too sick to continue; she mumbled something outrageous about having to rid herself of pests and announced that she was going home, presumably to take a bath in DDT. At that point, I didn’t care what she did as long as she didn’t do it here. I was glad to see her go. If Dorothy shared my enthusiasm, she didn’t tell me.

  “Too bad. If a rider has a bad lesson before a show, she’s more likely to lack confidence in the competition.”

  “Bea, lack confidence? I don’t think that’s her problem, Dorothy. I wouldn’t worry about that one.”

  “I guess I’m overreacting, huh? Well, Southwood still needs his exercise. Want to ride him?”

  I did, of course. I wanted to ride him about as much as I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life (except for owning Starlight, I’d wanted that more), but I couldn’t do it and I told Dorothy so.

  “What do you mean you can’t ride?”

  “It has to do with The Saddle Club. We made a promise to one another.”

  “To not ride?” Her surprise was to be expected. After all, it did sound kind of weird.

  “It has to do with Stevie, see.”

  Dorothy grinned. “I suspected as much. Everything truly strange about The Saddle Club has to do with her.”

  “And everything really wacky fun, too, remember.”

  “I remember, so what’s the story this time?”

  I told her about Stevie’s underside problem and the pledge we’d made.

  “You know, I haven’t ridden a horse, other than at a very stately walk, since my accident. I miss it more than I can possibly tell you. I can’t imagine choosing to be grounded. That’s a real act of friendship and loyalty on your part.”

  I knew Dorothy would understand.

  “But just because you can’t ride doesn’t mean you can’t work. So, take Southwood on a lead and run him around the ring a couple of times and then walk him until he’s cooled down. Then we’ll have lunch and after that, we’ll give his show grooming a trial run. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, I was up again at six and down in the stable by 6:30. I suppose it was sort of a trial run for me. How was I going to like the life of a trainer when I grew up, if it meant getting up at very early hours? I knew the answer: just fine!

  I began working on Southwood right away because I wanted him perfectly groomed by the time Bea arrived. I did a good job, too. His coat was gleaming when Dorothy came into the stable at 7:00. By 7:30 when Bea was to arrive, his hooves were clean as could be and coal black with hoof polish. He was ready.

  Unfortunately, Bea wasn’t. The phone rang at 7:30 and it was Bea’s mother. Bea was too sick to make the call herself. She had chicken pox.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. I never wished illness on anybody—at least not serious illness—and even though I didn’t like Beatrice one bit, I hadn’t been involved in her getting sick. She’d gotten chicken pox all by herself. Her mother told Dorothy that Beatrice was just miserable, itching, scratching, and sore. I can’t swear to you that it broke my heart.

  It meant, first of all, that I could spend the entire day around Sout
hwood without any fear of someone telling me to remove my hands from her horse.

  I turned to Dorothy. “You know Southwood is going to need a lot of exercise to keep limber for the show tomorrow, so I think I’ll work him on a lunge line. He almost doesn’t need a rider anyway, so it’ll be perfect!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Dorothy said.

  “I am?”

  “He does need a rider. He’s got to be in the show tomorrow. It’s really important for him to have the experience. It’s not that it’s an important show, but we want him to become familiar with the world of shows so that when he’s in an important one, he won’t freak out. You know the way some horses are the first time they’re away from home. They balk at the van, they balk at the temporary stalls, they balk at all the new horses they’ve never seen before, and they behave terribly in the ring. Southwood may have to get that stuff out of his system and I’d much rather have him do it at the local show tomorrow than the Sussex County Classic.”

  It made sense to me. “So is Bea going to be ready to ride tomorrow?”

  “Not if she’s itching and scratching, and besides, I think she’s still very contagious. Speaking of which, you’ve had chicken pox, haven’t you?”

  “When I was three. I’m glad I don’t remember any of it.”

  “Then at least we can be pretty sure you’ll be healthy tomorrow.”

  “Of course I will. I wouldn’t miss the show for anything. I can’t wait to watch Southwood perform.”

  “I wasn’t thinking in terms of watching,” Dorothy said. Then she gave me a meaningful look.