All the King's Horses

by Lauren Gallagher

  Just as well I’d only hired her as a farmhand. I never would have hired a trainer sight unseen anyhow, but she wouldn’t have lasted five minutes if she was trying to convince me to let her handle my horses beyond taking them to and from their pastures.

  Especially not Star and Blue, I thought. It would take a careful hand and a world of patience to bring that pair back to any semblance of sanity. Star wasn’t broke to ride yet, so at least she hadn’t been traumatized under saddle. Once I made it past whatever ghosts she had on the ground, riding her wouldn’t be as difficult as it was with some rescues.

  Like, say, Blue.

  And after everything that horse had been through, he needed cold, casual indifference like he needed a hole in the head.

  Which led me to wonder again what the hell someone who wasn’t remotely interested in horses was doing here.

  Amy was good-looking. She didn’t complain about her work.

  But I didn’t like her.

  Or at least, I didn’t want to like her. On one hand, her apathy toward the horses was seriously off-putting. On the other, though, something drew me toward her. And it wasn’t just her good looks.

  “So, what do you think?” Dad’s voice turned my head.

  “Of?”

  “The new hire.” He nodded toward the pasture.

  I watched Amy walking between the fences toward the gate. A yearling walked beside her, nudging her playfully, as curious about her as she apparently wasn’t about him.

  “She’s an interesting girl,” I said.

  “Yep, she is.”

  “Why did we hire her, again?”

  “Because Larry quit.”

  I scowled at Dad. “I mean why her?”

  “Dustin, she answered the ad.” Dad put up his hands. “She could start right away and didn’t argue about the price.”

  I looked out at the pasture again.

  “You want to keep her on the payroll?” Dad asked. “You don’t think she’s what we need, fire her and hire another one.”

  “No, she can still do her job.” I turned back toward him. “But leave the ad up. I doubt it’ll be long before she quits anyhow.”

  Dad laughed and gestured past me. “You seen her truck too, then?”

  “Yep.”

  “All right, I’ll leave it up. Hopefully we’ll get another response before this one gets tired of getting her hands dirty.”

  Or before I get tired of her.

  Later that afternoon, after the horses had eaten, I wandered back down to the barn to check on my new horses. Some of them had a more difficult time than others adapting to the new farm, so I was constantly making sure they were okay. That, and now that they’d had a chance to eat and all the boarders and clients were gone for the day, I wanted to try working with Star or Blue. Maybe both.

  Star was no worse for the wear. She came right up to the door to say hello when I came in, and though she was a little head shy, she didn’t mind me petting her. Well, at least until she finished chewing a mouthful of hay and pulled her head back so she could dive into her manger again. Since she was still eating, I let her be and walked across the aisle to Blue’s stall.

  He didn’t approach, but I didn’t expect him to. He was still nervous about me and everyone else, so I just folded my arms on the door and rested my chin on top of them as I watched him eat. If not for the cut on his shoulder and the wary looks he occasionally threw from side to side, it was hard to believe he was the same horse who’d panicked his way into and out of the trailer so recently. He was calm and quiet now, inspecting his shavings with his nose, probably searching for a few stray crumbs of hay.

  “What do you think, Blue?” I said as I picked up his halter off its hook. “Ready to come out and play for a bit?”

  He raised his head, and though he tensed, didn’t freak out as I slipped the halter on. He hesitated before letting me lead him out of the stall, managed to clip my boot with his hoof a couple of times, but settled down as I attached the cross ties to either side of his halter.

  Once the cross-ties were on, Blue stood in the middle of the aisle, and I just watched him for a moment. It always seemed so easy from this vantage point, when there was nothing to set off the horse and bring all the abuse to the surface. It was easy to imagine throwing a saddle on his back, getting on and riding off into the sunset when he was just standing here, eyes half-closed and a rear foot cocked, but I’d been down this trail too many times to believe that. Time and patience, that was the mantra of anyone in this line of work. With horses who’d been through the hell Blue, Star and Chip had been through, that mantra became a hell of a lot of time and an infinite well of patience.

  I stroked Blue’s face. Whatever it took, I’d get this horse back into riding condition. I couldn’t afford the time it would take, especially now that McBride had given me a bigger project than I’d expected, but there was no going back. Blue deserved better than to keep bouncing from place to place until he found someone with the time and energy to reverse everything his original trainer had done to him.

  This was going to be one long road, though. And truth be told, Blue needed someone who could spend a couple of hours a day with him. A couple of hours every day. As it was, thirty minutes every other day was the most I could commit to him or Star, and that was pushing it. It would also cut into what precious little time I had to work with Chip.

  And boy, did all three of these horses need work. All because some jackasses wanted to win. Much as I wanted to make a living in this business, I would go to my grave wondering what possessed people to hurt animals in the name of making a buck.

  Once I’d finished grooming him, I went into the tack room to get the weathered old surcingle and a long pair of ground-driving lines. I set the coiled lines on top of a tack box against the wall in the aisle and put the surcingle on his back. It rested behind his withers and buckled just like the girth on a saddle. When that was in place, I brought out a bridle with a snaffle bit.

  As soon as I tried to put the bit in his mouth, Blue clamped his teeth shut. Big shock. I slipped my thumb into the corner of his mouth to the flat spot on his gums, that wide gap between his teeth where the bit would rest once he finally took it.

  “Come on, Blue,” I said quietly. “Don’t argue about it. Just take it.”

  Nope. Forget it. He wasn’t having it.

  Time for Plan B.

  Blue was hardly the first horse I’d worked with who wouldn’t take a bit, and there were some before him who were so stubborn I’d probably still be standing there to this day trying to get them to open their mouths if I hadn’t had a few tricks up my sleeve. I went into the tack room and pulled a small, lidded coffee can out of the cabinet. The outside of the can was dark and sticky, and as soon as I took off the lid, the rich, sweet scent filled my nostrils.

  Out in the aisle, Blue sniffed. I grinned. Oh yes, this would work.

  The bit was a snaffle, which meant it was jointed in the middle, and thus could bend in half with ease. This way, it fit without any trouble into the coffee can. I dipped it, then pulled it out and took it back out to Blue, keeping my hand under it so it didn’t drip all over the tack room.

  I offered him the molasses-covered bit, letting him sniff it first. His ears perked up, and he reached for the bit with his upper lip. By the time he had half a clue what the molasses was on, the bit was in his mouth and across his tongue where it belonged.

  Chomping away, he glared at me, and I chuckled to myself.

  “I know, I know,” I said, patting his shoulder. “I tricked you.”

  He snorted, then chewed on the bit while I cleaned off my hand. Hopefully, he wasn’t the type who’d only fall for this trick once. Some would buy it every single time until the day they died. Others would buy it once and then clamp their jaws shut at the first whiff of molasses from then on.

  But this time, it had worked, so I’d take that and run with it.

  Blue kept chomping while I fastened all the straps on his bridl
e. Then he watched uncertainly while I picked up the coiled lines off the tack box. I laced them through the rings on top of the surcingle, one on the left and one on the right, and then clipped them to the rings on his bit. He wasn’t sure about all of this but didn’t seem too alarmed, which was a good sign.

  Once he was ready, I took him to the outside arena. There, I held the lines like an extra-long set of driving reins, though I walked rather than riding in a cart. Instead of walking behind Blue, I stayed off to the side, making a smaller circle while he walked the outermost track beside the rail.

  Blue nervously chomped the bit and danced a little. He shied away from the traffic cones stacked in the corner. From the mounting block in the other corner. From a butterfly. The cones. The mounting block. The place where the butterfly had been a moment ago. I just kept him walking, letting him get accustomed to his surroundings. As he calmed down, I steered him into a half figure eight, walking him across the diagonal of the arena until he reached the opposite corner and continued counterclockwise instead of clockwise. Naturally, he spooked at the butterfly’s landing place, the mounting block and the cones.

  As every horse eventually did, he got bored with spooking at the same things over and over again and started looking for new things to be scared of. Once he did that—A leaf? Really, Blue?—I casually switched from walking him in circles to steering him in smaller circles. Serpentines. Figure eights. Halt. Walk. Halt again.

  I tried to back him up, but that erupted into disaster in no time flat. At first, I thought he was going to do it: he’d tucked his head and leaned back like he was supposed to. One step backward, and he jerked his head up so hard he nearly pulled the lines from my hands before he reared all the way up.

  As soon as his front feet were on the ground again, I put him into a walk, and we were back to spooking—cones, mounting block, leaf—and he snorted and blew as he chomped the bit and danced sideways. Okay, so walking and turning were fine, but backing was a problem. Good to know.

  More circles. More serpentines. More walking the track around and around the arena until the place that butterfly had landed wasn’t so terrifying after all. Once he’d calmed down, I urged him on to see if he’d trot or go into a running walk. Or lose his shit. Anything was possible.

  To my surprise, after a moment of dancing and hesitating and chomping at the bit, he transitioned effortlessly into a beautiful, smooth running walk. He bobbed his head in time with his smooth, even gaits, gliding around the arena like he’d never been shod within an inch of his life or mistreated in the name of being flashy in the show ring.

  And I was floored. Simply floored. Yeah, I’d seen him do this at McBride’s, but that could have been a fluke. Yet here he was, doing it again. With a horse like Blue, every small victory was worth celebrating, and this was no small victory. Even if Blue wasn’t yet rideable, his gaits had come a long way since his show days. A long way. Watching him now, you’d never know he’d ever had a reason to associate his running walk with pain, fear and a ridiculous amount of effort just to move his feet. I could say a lot about McBride, especially for getting me to take two horses who couldn’t yet be ridden, but I had to give him credit for this. He must have put in a lot of hours to get this horse to work so well on the ground and without any problems in his gaits.

  Just watching him was breathtaking. It mystified me that anyone would want to ruin such a smooth, beautiful gait—and such a beautiful, sweet horse—in the name of show and flash.

  After a few laps around one half of the arena, I brought Blue down to a walk, steered him the other direction and tried my luck again. Sure enough, right back into that lovely running walk. Goddamn, I couldn’t wait until this horse was okay under saddle.

  I slowed him to a walk again, took him around the ring a few more times to make sure he was good and cooled down. Then I brought him to a halt, praised him and led him back to the barn. First ground-driving lesson down and with only minor problems. The rearing while backing could be resolved with some work. He’d just have to learn to live with the butterflies.

  But that running walk. My God. That alone could make all the headaches worth it.

  As I untacked him and groomed him again, my mother came down the aisle.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, I just saw you bringing the new boy in from outside,” she said. “Thought I’d come down and see how things went.” She approached slowly, holding out her hand. “My goodness, you are a pretty one, aren’t you?”

  “You should see him move.”

  “Is that right?”

  “He’s amazing.” I patted his neck. “Can’t wait to ride him. Someday, anyway.”

  “So how bad is he?” Mom asked.

  “He’s a mess,” I said. “McBride’s kid’s got his arm in a cast from trying to ride him.”

  “Oh Lord.” Mom sighed sharply. “Why in the world did he tell you the horse was ready, then?”

  “Probably just wanted to get rid of him. He’s had him for over a year now.”

  “Is he at least sound?”

  “He’s definitely sound.” I absently tapped my fingers on my elbow. “And his gaits are beautiful. God, Mom, his running walk…” I clicked my tongue and shook my head. “I would kill to ride that, let me tell you.”

  “Yes, well.” Mom eyed Blue. “Sounds like he might kill someone before that happens.”

  “No,” I said. “It’ll just take some time. He’ll get there.”

  She released an, impatient sigh. “Son—”

  “Mom, I can handle him.”

  “I know you can,” she said. “It’s him, the other two, and all the other horses I’m concerned about. You keep this up, you’re gonna have to bring in an assistant trainer—which you cannot afford—just to make sure all your paid clients are taken care of while you’re messing around with these rescues.”

  “I’ll figure something out.” I patted Blue’s neck and smiled. “I can handle it.”

  “Mm-hmm. How much time do you think he’ll need?”

  I shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  “Are there any others from that farm?” Mom asked.

  I glanced at her. “Do you mean am I going to be bringing any more up from McBride’s?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” she said dryly.

  Watching my fingers run through Blue’s black mane, I said, “This is it from that farm.”

  “From that farm,” she said. “Are there others?”

  “Don’t know yet.” I threw her another, briefer glance. “There’s some talk about taking some off one of the big rescue facilities’ hands. They’re badly overloaded, but…I don’t know yet.”

  She sighed. “Dustin—”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not taking any more in as long as I still have Chip, Star and Blue.”

  “Good.”

  As I unclipped Blue’s cross-ties so I could put him back in his stall, my mother asked, “What about Amy?”

  I eyed Mom. “What about her?”

  “Maybe she could work with—”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Why not?” She shrugged. “From what she told me, she’s got some experience riding. I don’t know how much, but she knows her way around horses.”

  I scowled. “Have you seen the way she looks at them, though?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mom, she looks right through them.” I shook my head and turned toward Blue again. “That’s the last thing these horses need.”

  “Then maybe for your more experienced horses. The ones who just need a little bit of—”

  “Absolutely not. I’m not putting someone on a horse if she’s the equestrian equivalent of a sociopath.”

  Mom laughed humorlessly. “Oh, come on now. She isn’t that bad.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  She sighed. “Look, I’m just saying, you need some help here. You’re liable to get in way over your head, Dad and I can’t work with them anymore,
and you’ve got someone right here on the property who may be able to help. Okay, maybe she’s not assistant trainer material, but I think it’s a safe bet this isn’t her first rodeo.”

  I threw my Mom a glare.

  She grimaced. “Sorry. I mean, this isn’t her first…” Mom waved a hand. “Look, you know what I mean.”

  “I do, and quite honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass if she’s got experience.” I glanced down the aisle, checking to make sure Amy hadn’t come back in for some reason. She hadn’t, but I lowered my voice anyway. “Even if I do bring in someone to help me, it sure as hell isn’t going to be someone who looks at a horse no differently than she does a bucket or a tractor.”

  Mom watched me for a moment, probably debating whether or not to argue. Finally, she just sighed and shook her head. “It’s your decision. Just don’t burn out or bankrupt yourself.”

  “I won’t.” I clipped Blue’s lead to his halter. “But I’ll pass on having Amy work with them.”

  “You really don’t like her, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to make of her,” I said over my shoulder on the way to Blue’s stall. “I really don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve talked to her, right?”

  “Some,” Mom said. “Why?”

  “Give me a second.” I put Blue back in his stall and took off his halter. As I came out and slipped the halter on its hook, I said, “She’s just…” My eyes darted down the aisle, making doubly sure Amy wasn’t within earshot. “I can’t figure her out. The way she interacts with the horses. Or doesn’t, I should say.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t even know.” I shook my head. “I don’t get it. It’s like, she just moves them around like farm equipment, and absolutely nothing registers. She connects with them like I connect with your garden gnomes.”