The Boy Who Loves Horses (Pegasus Equestrian Center Series)

by Diana Vincent

  “Don’t worry.”

  *****

  Tess helped ready the horses with their shipping boots and sheets, and then load them into the trailer. “Good riding today,” she congratulated Sierra, Katrina, and River. Then she left, leaving River to drive the rig back to the stable.

  “Anybody want something to drink for the ride? I’m going to the restroom and I can get them on the way back,” Sierra offered as she helped River secure the ramp and check all the doors of the trailer.

  “Diet coke,” Katrina called from where she was stowing gear in the back of the truck.

  “Regular coke,” River said, “and a sandwich if they have any left.”

  “I’ll just be a sec.” Sierra took off at a jog and after the restroom, got into line at the concession stand.

  “Congratulations,” said a voice behind her as someone tapped her on the shoulder. Sierra turned to look up into an attractive face and the deepest blue eyes she had ever seen. A tall, lean boy wearing riding clothes grinned at her.

  “I saw you in the victory lap,” he explained, noting the confused look on her face.

  “Thanks,” she replied with a smile. “But you didn’t see our refusal cross country.” She felt she had to admit to that.

  The boy laughed. “No, I missed that. But it happens to all of us.”

  “Did you ride?”

  “Yeah, I’m trying to qualify for preliminary, but we had a refusal also.” He made a face. “Actually, a few refusals.”

  Sierra laughed in sympathy. “Sorry to hear that, but it happens to all of us,” she repeated.

  He laughed with her and then said, “I’m Dean Clark.”

  “Oh…nice to meet you,” Sierra answered and suddenly felt herself blush. He was certainly very good looking. What’s he talking to me for?

  “So, what’s your name?”

  “Oh,” she said again awkwardly, “Sierra Landsing.”

  “Dean, come on, we already got the snacks,” a girl called to him.

  “See you around.” He looked deep into Sierra’s eyes and smiled a crooked smile that raised one side of his mouth, producing a dimple in that corner. He stepped out of line and Sierra watched him walk away, noting his purposeful stride and long legs that looked like they knew how to wrap around a horse. He held his shoulders and head high; a head crowned with thick, bronze-colored hair in a trim cut. Sierra thought he was probably the most attractive boy she had ever seen.

  *****

  “I’m so sorry,” Sierra said as River started the engine and moved the rig into the line of exiting trailers.

  “What for?” he asked.

  “You know, Crystal.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a short laugh, “what a pain in the ass.”

  “How could she possibly beat you?” Katrina asked from the back seat in a mournful tone.

  River glanced at both girls who watched him with looks of sympathy on their faces. He laughed out loud again. “I don’t think of it as Crystal beating me,” he stated. “Diva performed better than Moose in dressage. Diva will probably always do better than Moose. She has much better conformation for dressage than he has.”

  “But…” Sierra frowned.

  “Besides, who trains Diva?” he asked. “I’m very proud of how she did today, in spite of her rider. Did you notice how she was overbent a few times in her dressage test?”

  “No,” both Sierra and Katrina answered honestly.

  “Neither did the judge; there was no mention of overbent on her score sheet. I taught her to do that when she feels too much pressure on her mouth. It’s a way for her to defend herself when Crystal holds on too tight and a lot of judges don’t notice. It worked for her today.”

  Then Sierra laughed, thinking of the hours River spent schooling Diva and conditioning her on the trail. It was kind of ironic that River trained his own competition.

  *****

  18 Colic

  God forbid that I should go to any Heaven where there are no horses. – R. B. Cunningham-Graham

  *****

  Diva’s ears pointed forward and her eyes wide as River guided her toward the three-foot-seven oxer of red and white rails on the first bar and blue and white on the second. He felt her hesitate, a slight stiffening of her shoulders and lagging in her stride. He touched her neck with the fingers of his left hand and increased the pressure of his legs until he felt her respond with a surge of energy. “Buena chica,” he murmured to her and eased just a little of his leg pressure until two strides more and then, squeeze with his legs and forward into two-point. Diva leaped from her strong hind end muscles and cleared the two bars. She galloped on, grateful for the soft touch of the hands to her mouth – reassuring hands that talked to her gently, giving her confidence. She trusted this rider who always stayed in the right place on her back so that she didn’t lose her balance, and never gave her sudden jerks of pain to her mouth; none of the unpleasant things that so often happened with the other.

  River finished the course over a stone wall, and then sat quietly and allowed Diva to slow from gallop to canter to trot at her own will. Then he kept her at trot around the perimeter of the arena, giving her the reins so she could stretch her neck, and finally to walk.

  “Excellent!” Tess, who had been watching from the rail, exclaimed as River dismounted and led Diva from the arena.

  “If Crystal doesn’t get out here and ride more often, she should not move up to preliminary,” River said.

  “What are you talking about? Diva handled that course in excellent form.”

  “Yeah, Diva handled the course. Crystal hasn’t jumped these kinds of heights or spreads. She needs more experience than she gets in one jumping lesson a week.”

  Tess snorted a laugh. “Someone finally beat you and now you’re afraid of the competition,” she stated.

  “I don’t care who wins,” River answered in a cold tone. “I don’t want to see Diva get hurt because her rider doesn’t know how to handle the course.”

  Tess made a sound of derision. “You let me worry about what she can handle.” She was tired of River’s know-it-all attitude and she didn’t believe for a minute that he didn’t care about winning. Tess had grown up very competitive and it was inconceivable that others were not.

  They reached the crossties. As soon as River had secured Diva, he turned to face Tess with folded arms and tight shoulders. “Do not let her kill another horse.”

  Tess stepped back, her own shoulders tightening in defense. “What happened to Magic was a freak acci…”

  “No,” River almost shouted, the word sharp with anger. He dropped his arms and lowered his voice when he sensed Diva jerk her head up behind him. “He was too green and she didn’t have the experience to…”

  “You weren’t even there,” Tess spat back.

  “I didn’t need to be.” He turned his back to Tess and stepped over to Diva, stroking her neck to reassure her.

  Tess stormed away.

  *****

  After his argument with Tess, River’s mood improved as he rode Cory and then his other assigned mounts. As he concentrated on each horse, he had been able to push his worry over Diva away. Crystal wouldn’t move up to preliminary until next year, and a lot could happen between now and then.

  He had hoped Sierra might invite him to dinner. He could talk to Sierra about his concerns for Diva and knew she would totally agree and sympathize with him. He didn’t understand how that helped; he just knew it did.

  But Sierra did not invite him, even though he had fished as best he could for an invitation. He asked about her mom and Charlie, but Sierra didn’t take the bait. She had been sort of complaining lately to both him and Katrina about some man interested in her mother and hanging around many evenings. Maybe that was why she didn’t invite him. Or maybe she had other plans or had invited someone else over…that Luke guy, the boy always hanging around her? He didn’t like that thought.

  Ill humor returned to waft into his being and end up as a bur
n in his stomach. Walking home, he kicked at a stick in his path, thinking about last summer, where it seemed Sierra and he spent all their time together until she got fired. Then after he introduced her to João, she began inviting him over for dinner. But now it seemed like Katrina was always around, claiming Sierra’s friendship and attention. Why does that even bother me? He couldn’t remember the last time he had been to her house; sometime before he had spent his nights outside of Diva’s stall.

  I need to see Laila. He hadn’t seen her for awhile either. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and pressed her number, hearing her voice mail…as usual. Most of the time he just hung up, but he decided to take a chance and left a message. “Laila, please, I really want to see you.”

  After graduation and since she was over eighteen, Laila had moved into an apartment with two roommates, leaving foster care forever. She worked full time at a metal rock fashion shop in the mall, and went to school at the community college at night. She told him she had a partial scholarship for the university in the fall, and she wanted to get a few classes out of the way that would transfer from the community college. She planned to major in psychology and become a counselor. He had never realized she was so ambitious.

  “You’re kidding,” he had said when she described her plans.

  She had made a face at him. “I want to do something useful with my life. You should go see that new counselor at school, Ms. Montoya. She’s awesome.”

  “Right,” he had answered, rolling his eyes. “They’ve made me go to counseling sessions a few times. What a waste.”

  “Most of them are,” Laila had agreed. “Ms. Montoya is different. You haven’t met her?”

  “No, what’s so great about her?”

  She didn’t answer right away, taking time to think. “She’s…well, she understands things…she doesn’t judge. I like her. I still call her sometimes for advice.”

  “Good for you,” he had answered in a smart voice.

  Then she had punched him playfully, the way she liked to do, and had laughed. “No, really,” she had shifted to a serious tone. “I’ve hated all the other counselors. They’re all so phony.”

  “For sure,” he had agreed. “How is she any different?”

  “Well…for example, the first time I went to see that other counselor, Mr…, whatever, I can’t even remember his name. He made all these complements about my piercings and my tattoos, to show me how cool he was or to prove that he could accept me. But he couldn’t get past my appearance. He would lecture me on how others perceived me and that it affected my ability to adjust, or whatever. He did a lot of talking and gave me a lot of inane, useless advice. He never listened to me. But Ms. Montoya has never said one thing about my appearance. I get the impression she really doesn’t care how I look. She mostly just listened to me. And the way she listened and would ask me questions, kind of helped me work things out for myself.”

  “Good for you,” he had repeated, annoyed.

  “That’s right, it was good for me. I mean it; you should go see her when school starts.”

  He remembered lying on his side next to her on his mattress, running his fingers along the contours of her clavicle bones, over her breasts, and down to her slightly rounded stomach. He had only half listened, his attention drawn to the marvelous design of a woman’s body. Great conformation, he had thought bemusedly to himself. He had rolled on top of her and between kisses had asked, “You think I’m messed up?”

  “Totally,” she had laughed and tried to wriggle away. They had play-wrestled, laughing and kissing and touching each other.

  She had come to see him only one other time since then. She refused to bring him to her apartment. “I don’t want to get in trouble for messing around with an underage kid,” she teased him. But he felt like she wanted to keep her real life separate from him. Things had never quite been the same between them since all the nights he had stayed at the stable to be near Diva. She had called him a few times, and he just never returned the calls since he didn’t know how to explain he was staying with a horse. And even though she had said it didn’t matter and always insisted she was not his girlfriend, he wondered if perhaps it might have hurt her feelings just a little.

  Or, the truth simply was she no longer wanted to mess around with a stupid kid. She was so smart and ambitious, and their last time together she had left him abruptly and in anger when he had mentioned the college fund that João had left him.

  “You have enough money to go to college and you’re only thinking about going?” she had asked incredulously.

  They had talked on the phone since then, and she assured him she was not angry, yet she never came over.

  River arrived at the intersection to his driveway, and as he turned off the road he as usual looked around for Cray’s truck; always wary as to when his father might decide to come home for a few days. He appreciated that Tess had somehow intervened for him, and had convinced Cray that River had to work one more season for her; to pay off the debt he owed for his horse. Otherwise, he imagined he would have been dragged off to the track as soon as school ended.

  No truck, River noted with relief, but a red Camaro was parked in the yard. Warren must be home again. That did lighten his mood. He fed Storm, and then went inside the house.

  “Hey, cuz,” Warren greeted, and waved a bottle of beer at him. He lounged on one end of the sofa with one leg stretched out and the other hanging over the side. Steve slumped in a chair, smoking a cigarette, also with a bottle of beer in hand.

  “What’s up?” River greeted and smiled as he went over to Warren and they slapped hands.

  “Shipping out next week,” Warren answered.

  “Where to?” River knew his cousin had already done a short tour in Iraq.

  “Back to the desert, man,” he replied.

  “Iraq ? How can they make you go twice?”

  “I volunteered; most of my outfit is going.” He grinned back and River thought he looked excited. “Hey, we need to be where the action is.”

  Warren tossed River a beer from the six-pack carton near his feet. River caught it and sat down on the other end of the sofa, and listened as Warren talked about his life in the army. His phone vibrated, and he answered when he saw it was Laila.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  “I know you say you’re not mad at me and all that, but you never come over,” he said. “Do you want to go get pizza or something? We can just talk.”

  “Is that what you want to do?” He could hear the teasing in her voice.

  “I like pizza,” he answered. “But…”

  She laughed. “I have class tonight, but what if I come over after that. It’ll be about nine-thirty.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be here.” He disconnected, feeling much better now.

  “Hungry?” Warren asked.

  “Always.”

  Warren drove River and Steve to a nearby café where they ate dinner. Warren had always been a good story teller and River liked to sit quietly and listen to him talk, finding his company relaxing. Steve sat sullenly, smoldering that his brother included River as part of the family.

  On the way back to the house, River’s phone vibrated again. Tess? He had no idea what she might be calling about except…a shiver went up his spine.

  “River?” Tess said when he connected.

  “Yeah.”

  “Manuel just called me and said something is wrong with Fiel. He is very upset and I can’t understand him. I am at dinner with a client. Can you go see what’s going on?”

  “Yes,” he answered, his heart suddenly pounding. He asked Warren to drop him off at Pegasus since it was on the way home.

  *****

  “Ees no good,” Manuel said as River hurried into the stable and up to Fiel’s stall after Warren dropped him off. When he looked inside and saw the gray horse, his heart dropped like a rock into the pit of his stomach.

  Manuel had the halter on and was holding the lead rope to keep Fiel fr
om lying down. The horse stood with his head low. His neck was damp with sweat and his belly tightly distended. With each exhaled breath he emitted a mournful groan. Every few minutes he bared his teeth and brought his head up to try and bite at his side; but Manuel kept his head forward with the lead rope. Most of his hay ration lay in piles around his feet, untouched.

  Colic! No question.

  “Have you called Dr. Patterson?” River asked in Spanish.

  Manuel shook his head and answered in Spanish that he had only called Tess. Fiel had tried to lie down to roll, and he did not want to leave him.

  River felt so thankful that Manuel recognized the signs of colic and knew what to do. He pulled out his phone and with trembling fingers, scrolled through to the vet’s number. When he got the answering service, all he had to say was, “I have a horse with colic,” and quickly described the symptoms. The service immediately put him through to Dr. Patterson.

  “I’ll be right over,” the vet said, alarm in his voice. “Keep him on his feet.”

  “We will,” River assured him.

  “Have you tried to walk him?” River asked. Manuel shook his head no.

  “If we can get him moving, it might help,” River suggested. He opened the stall door and both he and Manuel tugged gently on the halter and lead rope. Fiel took a few staggering steps and slowly, they started to walk him in the aisle.

  “You call Sierra,” Manuel said.

  “I know; I need to.” It was a call River dreaded. “I will, as soon as the vet gets here. How did you find him?”

  “I was fixing that loose board out in the paddock and on my way back by the stable I heard loud pawing. I come in to check and everyone is still eating hay except Fiel. I think he had just gotten to his feet for he had hay on his coat, and it was him pawing and biting at his sides.” Manuel explained in Spanish.

  If he was down, did he roll? River wondered with increasing anxiety. He knew the danger of a colicky horse rolling and potentially twisting the intestines.