by Jessie Haas
“Mom! Your apron!”
Mom looked down at herself, snatched off her apron, and threw it into one of the stalls. Sarah led Goldy into the other stall and locked the door. Then she and Mom waited, trying to appear calm, while the powerful engine sound grew louder.
Nancy Page had a beautiful horse trailer, maroon and silver and shining new. She handled the matching maroon and silver pickup with perfect ease, swinging the whole rig around in the yard and backing up close to the barnyard gate. Mom was visibly impressed.
When the trailer backed, Sarah could see the two rumps, one high and dappled silver, the other much lower, gingersnap-colored. At the front end two heads turned, craning to look back.
Nancy Page hopped out of her truck. “Hello, nice to see you again! Is this where you want to unload?”
“Well, yes,” Mom said. “There isn’t anyplace else.”
“Fine.” The tailgate was let down, and in another moment Roy stood there in the yard, looking around.
He had seemed small next to the gray horse, but once outside the trailer he looked large again. His nostrils flared wide to take in the strange scents, and his little ears moved constantly.
“Where do you want him?” asked Nancy Page.
“In the barnyard. I’ll get the gate.” Sarah opened it, and Nancy Page led Roy inside and unclipped the lead rope.
“Oh, don’t you want to take your halter off?”
“His halter and bridle go with him. They’re too small to fit anything I have.”
Now Mom was dealing with payment, with the bill of sale and the transference of registration papers. Sarah knew she should be paying attention, but she was unable to turn away from the gate. Roy in that little barnyard looked like a king, graciously visiting a poor neighborhood. Calmly, but with an expression of great interest, he started to explore, sniffing the water tub, the wooden feedbox.…
Inside the stall Goldy bleated, and Roy leaped sideways with an explosive snort. He turned toward the stall and blasted a breath, a sound like the air brakes on a truck, so loud and sharp that Sarah heard it echo off the side of the barn. He stood for a moment, gazing intently, then took a cautious step forward.
Goldy reared up, craning her neck to see. Roy snorted, his tail sticking straight up over his back, and trotted in a circle. His stride was as lofty as a carousel horse’s, and with each step he seemed to hover a second in midair.
“What have you got in there?” Nancy Page asked.
“A goat.”
“Poor Roy, I don’t think he’s ever seen a goat!” Roy stopped again and blasted snort after snort at the barn, bobbing his head in an effort to bring Goldy into focus. Every time her hooves scrabbled against the door or she bleated, he jumped.
“Good-bye,” said Nancy Page. “Have a good time together, you two!” Roy didn’t look away from Goldy, and Sarah didn’t look away from Roy.
It took him half an hour to creep up on the stall, one suspicious step at a time. Finally he arrived, though, and with the first sniff Goldy seemed to win his heart. He sighed, his whole body relaxed, and he stood there with his head over the door, for a long time. Sarah sat on the gate and watched. Nobody paid any attention to her.
She had a horse now, a horse of her own—what she’d been wanting all her life. She’d imagined feeling wildly happy. Instead she felt the way she had when she was very little, the first time she climbed to the top of the giant slide in the park. It was a long way down, but somebody was behind her on the ladder, and it was too late to go back.
21
Highland Royal HotShot
Mom and Dad were deliberately leaving her alone, Sarah realized after a while. The scent of blueberry jam wafted out the kitchen window, and she could dimly hear the sound of typing. It was tactful of them—or would have been if there’d been anything going on out here!
Half an hour of staring at a horse’s rump was plenty. Sarah slid down off the gate. Only as she hit the ground did she remember; Barney, at this point in their relationship, had charged her and chased her up onto the gate.
Sarah hesitated. Roy hadn’t even noticed she was there yet, but it was a long way across the open barnyard. After a moment she climbed back over the gate and got a nice springy maple twig. Might as well be prepared.
“Hi, Roy!”
He turned his head, and the splashy white trickle down his face looked suddenly like a question mark. Who, me?
“Yeah, you,” Sarah said. “Can I have five minutes of your time?” Goldy reared, poking her nose straight up in an effort to see over the top of the door. Sarah caught Roy’s halter before he could turn back to the goat.
It was a good, heavy leather halter with brass fittings. My halter! Sarah thought.
There was a brass name plate on the cheek strap, and Sarah drew Roy’s head closer to read it. “Highland Royal HotShot.” Oh, Lord! No wonder Nancy Page didn’t want to remember! It was a name that belonged in the carousel show-ring, not in the exalted circles of Combined Training.
Hey! she thought, remembering the carousel horses. I own one of those!
For just one moment Sarah put herself in that show-ring, pink spots on her cheeks and the tails of a long pink coat fluttering over Roy’s back.
But no, she didn’t want him going like that, up and down and nervous. She wanted him going forward, giving her that wonderful trot. She’d be riding in the big green infield—over the jumping course, in the dressage ring.…
Highland Royal HotShot, once and future champion, leaned over the stall door again and blew his breath gently on Goldy’s back.
“I guess you like goats,” Sarah said. “Are you going to like Thunder when he comes?” Two horses. There would be two horses here … and who was going to clean their stalls? Sarah wondered. She and Mom had better come to an agreement right away.
Goldy butted at Roy’s nose. He jerked his head up with an injured expression and then reached out to her again.
“Hey! How do I get you to pay attention to me?” Roy cocked an ear at Sarah, but that was it. “Wish I could ride you!”
She owned a new bridle, too, and she went to get it off the fence post where Nancy Page had left it. A good bridle, the leather dark and supple, strong enough for every day and handsome enough for show. “I could ride you bareback,” Sarah said, taking the bridle over to Roy.
It took her several minutes to argue herself out of it. Even with a saddle, Roy was a challenge. Sarah didn’t want to start out on the wrong foot with him. Reluctantly she took the bridle inside and hung it on a nail.
She felt disappointed but also pleased with herself. She’d made the right decision, not because she was afraid but because it made sense. It was nice to know she could do that. She’d had a lot of practice making decisions lately. She’d decided Beau was a bad idea, she’d decided about Roy … and then she’d decided to get Thunder instead. That had been hard, and she could feel proud of herself, even if in the end she hadn’t had to stick to it. She could make herself do things she didn’t want to, now. She was old enough—
“Sarah!” Mom called. “Missy on the phone for you!”
“Hi, Sarah.” Missy sounded depressed. “I talked with them, and they don’t want to take him. It’s a lot of responsibility, and Mom still has trouble getting down that hill. She probably won’t even go down to check Barney till she has to start haying him. So … I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Sarah said. “Mom bought him.”
“Already? Well … you’ll have fun—”
“No, for her! She bought him for herself, and I bought Roy, and he’s here!”
“What? When did all this happen? Why didn’t you call me?”
Sarah had to explain the whole string of events, all the way back to Mom’s summer tutoring job and the reason for it, before Missy was satisfied.
“Well,” she said finally, “that’s great! So everything’s worked out perfectly.”
Perfectly. That word made Sarah uneasy. “Not really,” she said. “I
can’t ride him. I don’t have a saddle.”
“That’s solvable. Let’s stop at a tack shop tomorrow and buy one! Would your mother write you a blank check?”
“I’ll ask.”
When Sarah had explained, Mom thought for a minute, as she stood stirring the deep purple jam. “I’d rather go with you,” she said finally. “I need to buy a girth for my saddle—” Her cheeks flushed slightly as she said it. My saddle.
“All right, come with us!” Sarah said. “You’d better buy a hard hat, too.”
After she’d hung up from talking to Missy, Sarah stood beside the telephone for a long time. There was one more person she should call.… Hi, Jill, we have two horses now. Would you like to go with us tomorrow and watch me spend a ton of money on a saddle?
Jill would be happy for her, Sarah knew. Jill was used to being poorer and working harder than other people. But Sarah wasn’t used to it. It isn’t fair! she thought. And don’t tell me life isn’t fair because I already know that. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
“Sarah? Why are you scowling at the phone like that?”
“Oh, nothing.” Sarah went over to look out the window at Roy—rump turned toward her, head inside the stall. Then she took a deep breath and dialed Jill’s number.
“Hi. It’s me. Want to come with us tomorrow, to see Albert in the award ceremony?”
“I can’t,” Jill said. “It’s my grandmother’s birthday, and we’re having the family reunion.”
“Well, do you have to be there?” Surely Jill’s family was large enough that one person would not be missed.
“I don’t have to,” Jill said, “but I want to see my cousins.… Celia’s my best friend, next to you, and I haven’t seen her all summer.”
“Oh. Well … okay, then.”
“I’m sorry,” Jill said quickly. “I wish it were a different day, ’cause I’d love to see Albert get his ribbon, but … anyway, I’ll see you in school, day after tomorrow. Are you going to wear pants or a skirt?”
“Pants.”
“Me, too, then. Have fun. Say hi to Albert for me.”
“I will,” said Sarah. “See you, Jill.”
That night after Sarah had brushed her teeth and put on her pajamas, she went out to say good-night to Roy. It was what she’d done every night while Barney was here, and it was one of the things she’d missed most.
It was a beautiful night, crisp and moonlit. She’d been missing night, too, Sarah realized, with nothing to draw her outside.
At first she could see nothing at all in the barnyard. Could he have gotten out? “Roy,” she called softly.
Over near the stall door she saw a movement, and then the wobbly white question mark leaped out at her. Huh?
“It’s me,” she said. “Hi.”
Roy continued to regard her for several seconds. Then she heard a large sigh, and he started toward her.
“Hi,” she said again, holding out her hand. Roy sniffed it and then lifted his muzzle to her face. His whiskers and his sweet-smelling breath sent a tickle down Sarah’s spine. He stood drinking her in for several minutes, and Sarah did her best not to move. This was the first time he’d come to her of his own accord. She wanted to give him plenty of time to make up his mind.
Finally, with another big sigh, he lowered his head and stood gazing toward the house and toward Star, standing behind Sarah, waving her white-tipped tail.
“This is your new home,” Sarah said. “And that’s your new dog. In a couple of days there’ll be another horse to be with. Think you’re going to like it?”
Goldy bleated softly inside the stall, her voice low and breathy like a whisper. Immediately Roy turned to go back to her. When he’d gone a few steps, Sarah whistled.
Roy paused and turned his head. The friendly question mark blazed back at Sarah, and that was when she realized that she was, after all, very happy.
22
Tall in the Saddle
When Sarah opened her eyes in the morning, the sun was making a pattern on the wall, a pattern made of leaf shadows and slowly bobbing prisms from the crystal that hung in the window. Sarah lay for several minutes, watching it. Slowly she noticed an excited feeling deep inside her, and just when she realized it was there, she realized why.
I have a horse!
She jumped out of bed, still tangled with the sheet, kicked free, and ran downstairs, to the nearest window that looked out on the barn.
Roy’s broad rump was turned toward her. His head was out of sight, inside the stall.
With a sigh Sarah turned away, back upstairs to get dressed. This wasn’t much like the scenes she’d been imagining—as usual, she reminded herself. The trouble was, in her imaginings she kept leaving out huge swatches of time: the time between rides, nighttime, feeding time, the period of time when she had a horse and no saddle, the period of time when her horse was in love with a goat and wouldn’t pay attention to her.…
But when she went outdoors and spoke his name, Roy swung away from the stall with an eager nicker and came quickly toward the fence. It was the nicker that Sarah had fallen in love with, even before she’d seen him, and she didn’t care at all that it was pure greed.
The barns were quiet when Sarah, Mom, and Missy got to the Equestrian Center, the same place where they’d watched the Combined Training event. Across the white wooden bridge they could see a large crowd of horses outside the ring. There were horses lined up in the ring, too, and one horse and rider all alone, galloping along the rail. They went all the way around and then stopped beside a person on the ground, who pinned a long green ribbon on the horse’s bridle.
The horses looked gaunt and weary. Their ribs stood out, and their muscles were well defined, like anatomical models from an encyclopedia. They were also hyperactive. The ones in the ring swung and jostled, occasionally threatening one another. The ones outside milled around constantly. They’d been moving so long they didn’t know how to stop.
Before Sarah could find Albert and Herky, Albert’s name was called, and it was his turn to gallop around the ring and collect a ribbon.
To Sarah’s relief, Herky was rounder than most of the others. But even he was thinner than when she’d last seen him. Albert looked utterly worn out, and he clutched the horn as he made his pass around the ring, holding himself forward and light in the saddle. Herky still had some bounce left, and Albert didn’t seem to be enjoying it.
“Wow!” Missy dug Sarah in the ribs with her elbow. “Old Albert’s starting to get pretty cute, don’t you think?”
Sarah flushed, glancing at Mom. But Mom said, “If I were single, this is the horse sport I’d take up. Look at this one, Missy. On the gray.”
“Or this one over here, in the cowboy hat.”
“You guys!” Sarah squirmed. “I think he heard you!” The man in the cowboy hat looked pointedly away from them. He was handsome.…
When all the riders were lined up, the announcer began to give out the awards.
First it was the rookies. Albert was a rookie, and Sarah listened eagerly as the announcer read through the placings. But there was no Albert Jones among the winners. Albert didn’t look surprised or disappointed. When he wasn’t talking to the boy next to him or admiring his ribbon, he was scanning the crowd. He saw Sarah and pointed to the ribbon and made a scissoring motion with his fingers.
When all the placings had been announced, Sarah expected the ceremony to be finished. But the announcer started talking about the special awards. There were dozens. Some were serious, for different breeds of horses, for senior citizens, for high-point stallion. Others were jokes, but there were huge trophies given, giant silver bowls, a lamp, a statue, a gold-plated shovel.
“… and for the greatest gallantry and perseverance shown by a rookie rider, the Simon Rookie Sportsmanship Award. This year it goes to a young man who rides tall in the saddle—a little extra-tall just now, but really, tall every day. The Simon Rookie Sportsmanship Award, to Mr. Albert Jones on Hercules.”
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Albert’s face turned bright red. He started Herky toward the ringmaster and then grabbed at the horn and pulled himself forward.
“I’ll bet he’s got blisters,” Missy muttered.
“Poor Albert! He must want to die!”
Albert did look extremely embarrassed. But the presenter of the award was a spry, gnarled old lady, and after a brief conversation with her Albert seemed happier. He was handed a large pewter bowl with handles, and now he couldn’t hold on to the horn anymore. He rode back to line bravely, with a stiff expression.
“A good choice of trophies,” Mom said. “He can sit in it and soak!”
After the ceremony they gathered at the Joneses’ truck. Herky was resplendent in his traveling blanket and dark red shipping bandages, the ribbon hanging from his halter. Sarah got a carrot from the large bag Albert’s mother had brought. Herky took it eagerly, then sniffed her in a thoughtful way and let out a big sigh. He’d been through a lot. It was time for rest and comfort.
Albert did have blisters. Sarah didn’t have to ask because his father was teasing him about them. When Mom came up, he started teasing her about buying a horse at her age.
“There’s nothing funny about it,” Mom said firmly. “People a lot older than I am just rode a hundred miles here! Maybe you should get a horse and keep Albert company next year.”
“Good for her!” Albert muttered as Sarah helped him carry his equipment into the truck. He walked funny, but Sarah was able to keep from commenting about it. “One thing for sure,” Albert said, “I’ll have to do a lot more of my own conditioning next year.”
“Will you be able to? What about haying?”
“He said he’d hire extra help if he had to.” Albert glowered at his father from the darkness of the truck. “Which is great, if he’d only shut up about the reason why. He’ll tell everybody in the whole world before he’s through!”
“I won’t tell anybody at school.”
“They’ll find out,” said Albert gloomily. “But thanks anyway. Now—tell me about your horse!”
