And what Gib wanted to do, of course, was spend more time with the horses. Particularly with Black Silk. At first he just hung over the stall door talking to her, but on the third day, after he’d brought in the team and Hy had gone off to the cabin, Gib decided to start grooming the black mare just like he did the other horses, even though Hy had told him not to until they got better acquainted.
But Gib felt that he and Black Silk had struck up a pretty good understanding already and he was just about sure she wouldn’t give him any trouble. And besides, she looked like she needed grooming real bad. Like maybe no one had brushed her down real good since Hy broke his leg.
That first time Gib didn’t take his grooming stool into the stall with him, so he couldn’t reach up high enough to do a good job on her back and neck. But he did enough to find out that she liked being curried and that she could be real quiet and cooperative once she got used to you.
So the next afternoon, right after he finished bringing in the team, he got out his stool and got ready to finish the job. After pouring a little extra oats into her feed bucket, he went back out for his grooming tack. Silk snorted a little when she saw the stool, which Gib had expected, since it wasn’t likely she’d ever been groomed before by somebody short enough to need one. But when Gib put the stool down slow and easy like and climbed up on it, talking to her all the while, she quieted down right away. And when he started with the currycomb she looked back at him, nodding and doing her little half nicker.
“You can say that again, Silky girl,” he told her. “Bet that feels mighty fine. Looks to me like nobody’s brushed you down real good for a long, long time.” He was running the currycomb down her short, powerful back, watching how her black hide gleamed where the dust and straw had been cleaned away, when from behind his back a voice said, “Oh!” sharply, and then, “Does Hy know you’re in there?”
Silk snorted and Gib, moving slow and easy so as not to spook the mare, turned to see a hair ribbon, a bunch of gold-streaked brown hair, and the top half of a small face above the stall door. Livy Thornton. A mouth and chin became visible a second later as Livy rose onto her tiptoes, and the bottom half of the face looked just as shocked and angry as the top. Gib nodded and smiled, but Livy went on frowning.
Gib’s grin widened. “You talking to me?” he asked, keeping his voice calm and quiet.
“Of course I’m talking to you,” Livy said. “Who else would I be talking to?”
Gib went back to the currying but then, thinking of all the times she obviously hadn’t been speaking to him, he said, “Well, I was just wondering because I’ve been thinking that maybe there was some reason we weren’t speaking.” There was no answer for so long that Gib was beginning to wonder if she’d gone away, but then the voice came back. “You didn’t answer my question, Gib Whittaker. Does Hy know you’re in Black Silk’s stall?”
“Well,” Gib said, “to tell the truth, I didn’t ask Hy about grooming her, but he’s been letting me come in here to do the feeding and watering.” There was no answer. Gib went on with the currycomb and brush until the left side of Silky’s back was clean and gleaming. Then he got down off the stool and went around behind her, gently shoving her hindquarters to make her move over and give him room to work. Now he could see the door without turning around. Livy was still there, watching with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth.
“What’s the matter?” Gib asked. “You seen a ghost or something?”
Livy closed her mouth, blinked hard, gulped, and said, “I thought she was going to kick you. When you went around behind her like that, I thought for sure she was going to kick you to death.”
Gib chuckled, thinking that Livy did sound worried but at the same time maybe a little disappointed. Like maybe she was mostly just looking for some excitement. He ran the comb down the beautifully arched neck and across the mare’s withers several times before he asked, “What made you think old Silky would do a thing like that?”
“Because ... The shakiness in Livy’s voice was sounding more like anger now, instead of just excitement. “Because she’s a killer.”
“A killer?” Gib stopped brushing. He couldn’t see how that could be the least bit true. He didn’t say he didn’t believe it, but he must have looked it because she went on, “She is. She is too. I know she is. I hate her. I don’t like any horse much, but I hate her most of all.”
Gib finished with the brush then and got down off the stool. He walked around behind Silky again while Livy went on staring wide-eyed, and gasping a little when the mare shifted her weight on her hind feet. But Gib could tell that the weight shifting had nothing to do with kicking. Outside the stall he put the brush and comb down on the stool and, joining Livy at the door, watched while Silky pushed the last crumbs of oats around with her nose and then looked at Gib, tossed her beautiful black head, and nickered softly.
“But she is a killer.” Livy’s voice was a trembly whisper. “I know she is. She almost killed my mother.”
Now it was Gib’s turn to gape. Questions raced through his mind, questions about what Silky had done—and why. If it was true, there had to be a why. And then, suddenly, an even more startling question came to mind—about the wheelchair. About whether Black Silk had something to do with Livy’s mother’s wheelchair.
But Gib was still feeling for the right asking words when Livy’s angry blue eyes flooded over with tears. “I hate her,” she gasped, “and I hate you too. I do.” She whirled around then and ran out of the barn.
Chapter 21
THAT NIGHT AT SUPPER Gib kept glancing over at Mrs. Thornton in her wheelchair while his mind turned and twisted, churning up a whole lot of questions and possible answers. Julia Thornton—or the missus, as Hy called her—smiled at him when she noticed him staring, but Livy didn’t. When Olivia Thornton caught him looking at her, she only glared and turned away, like always. But her glare was different now. A little more pointed, maybe, like it was saying, “Don’t you dare say anything about what I told you. Don’t you dare!”
She needn’t have worried, though; he wasn’t about to. He grinned at her again, thinking that he’d have put her mind at ease if she hadn’t made it so plain that they weren’t speaking.
Later that night back in the cabin, he did get up his nerve to ask Hy about the wheelchair.
“Why’s she always in that chair?” he asked. “Can’t she walk at all?”
Hy eased himself down into his seat and, using both hands, lifted his broken leg up onto the apple box stool. Staring off into the past with a particularly melancholy-looking arrangement of the wrinkle gullies on his beat-up old face, Hy finally sighed and said, “’Fraid not. From what I hear, the missus is plum paralyzed from the waist down. Surely is a sorrowful thing.”
“But she hasn’t always been that way,” Gib said.
Hy looked at him sharply. “Who told you that?” he asked.
Gib shrugged. “You did,” he said. “You told me, when you said she used to ride Black Silk.”
Hy nodded. “Sure enough,” he said. “I did tell you that, didn’t I. Well, you’re right. Julia Thornton was one of the finest horsewomen I ever seen. Come by it natural, she did, being a Merrill by birth and all. But then the accident happened—in 1903, I think it was. Leastways Livy was four or five years old.” Hy’s voice trailed off and he went back to staring into the past. This time nothing that Gib could say would pull him out of it. And when Gib pushed a little, saying things like “What happened?” and “What kind of an accident was it?” Hy got sharp and grumpy and said he was going to bed.
But the next day, when Gib came into the horse barn after finishing his chores, Hy was already there, leaning on his crutches outside Black Silk’s stall.
“Been groomin’ the mare, haven’t you?” he asked, and when Gib confessed, he went on, “And she behaved herself, I reckon? Didn’t give you any trouble?”
Hy seemed pleased when Gib said that Silky had been good as gold, but then he wanted to see for himself
. And after Gib got through demonstrating, he seemed even more pleased and impressed. Gib was putting away the grooming tack when Hy limped into the tack room and said, “How’d you like to do some ridin’ this afternoon? Just a few turns around the corral, maybe.”
“Riding?” Gib couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice, “Yes sir, I’d surely like that. You meaning riding Black Silk?”
Hy chuckled. “Whoa there,” he said. “Slow down a bit. Maybe Silky someday, but what I had in mind just now was Lightnin’. We’ll start out with Lightnin’ and see how it goes. Neither one of them’s been getting any exercise lately. So we’ll start you off with Lightnin’ and then maybe Silky soon as I get permission from the missus. All right?”
“All right,” Gib agreed, trying to keep from jumping around like a two-year-old. “All right!”
Hy pointed out Lightning’s bridle and saddle blankets, but when they came to the saddles he stopped, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. There were more than a dozen saddles in the tack room. Long rows of more or less beat-up old roping saddles, leftovers from the days when the Rocking M had been a big cattle ranch. Gib looked them all over and picked out the one he thought must be Hy’s, as well-worn as any, but cleaner and less stiff from lack of use.
“This what you use on Lightning?” Gib asked.
“Yep.” Hy nodded. “Mine. Had them stirrup straps and fenders made special for my long legs.” He glanced at Gib, shaking his head. “Don’t know as how we can shorten them up enough for you.” Then he stepped back and, balancing on one crutch, pointed to something way up on the top row. Right at first Gib thought he was pointing to a fancy silver-studded lady’s sidesaddle. “No, not that useless contraption,” Hy hooted. “The one wrapped up in the blanket. Climb up and get that one down.”
It was a small but beautifully made stockman’s saddle, the fine leather of the skirt and stirrup fenders heavily embossed with a pattern of leaves and vines. “Miss Julia’s,” Hy said, as Gib looked up at him questioningly.
Gib nodded. “But it’s not a—”
“A sidesaddle.” Hy made a snorting noise. “No sirree. Miss Julia—the missus, that is—grew up riding astride. Her pa said those gulldurned sidesaddles was too dangerous on a ranch. The missus never even had one until ...
“Until when?” Gib asked, but Hy only shook his head. “Look at them stirrup straps,” he said, grinning. “Just up a notch or two’ll be about right. Fit you like a glove, I’m thinkin’.”
Gib thought so too. As he led Lightning out to the hitching rack he was feeling excited but not scared. Not really scared, although when he thought about it afterward he didn’t know why he wasn’t. After all, except for sitting on old Juno a couple of times, he really hadn’t been on a horse since he was a little kid, and you might just wonder if a person could forget how. But somehow he knew he hadn’t. He did need a few pointers from Hy about the saddling, but once he was in the saddle, which did indeed fit him like a glove, it was all there, just as if he’d been doing it all along.
And riding Lightning was exactly like something he’d done before. After he’d been around the corral a few times, feeling the familiarity of the old horse’s eager energy and quick, smooth gaits, Gib turned him back to where Hy was leaning on the fence.
Before he could get a word out, Hy said, “You knowed you’d rode the old blue before, didn’t you? Came right back to you, just like it was yesterday. Every time I showed up at your ma’s place you used to beg me to put you up in the saddle and let you take Lightnin’ down the road a ways. But we had to be sure your mama wasn’t lookin’. Thought maybe he was too much of a horse for you, she did, but I knew better.” Hy rubbed Lightning’s nose and chuckled. “And he recollects you riding him too, sure as shootin’. Probably’s tryin’ to figure how come you put on so much weight since the last time you two had a little gallop.”
Hy went off to the cabin, still chuckling, and Gib went on riding Lightning until it was time to do the milking. And from that day on he did all his morning chores moving faster than a scared jackrabbit, so as to leave more time for riding in the afternoon. He rode around the corral at first, but then he began heading out through the east gate and off across open country. Prairie country, which Hy said used to be part of the Rocking M before the boss sold it off. Riding far out across the open land, mostly at a walk or trot, he sometimes let Lightning have his head and stretch himself a little for a half mile or so.
Riding the old blue roan was one of the most comforting things Gib could ever remember doing. And using Mrs. Thornton’s beautiful old saddle, which his own mother must have ridden on that time when she rode Black Silk, made it even better. At night, just thinking about those rides was enough to cure the worrying fits he got sometimes when he let his mind go to wondering about what had happened to poor old Georgie—and what was happening to Jacob and Bobby, too. Or about why Mrs. Thornton hadn’t asked him in for another visit so that he could find out more about the Gibson Whittaker who had lived near the Rocking M Ranch and had known the Thorntons and an old cowhand named Hyram Carter and maybe some other folks who’d been important to him once upon a time.
Mrs. Thornton hadn’t talked to him much at all after that first visit, though, and she apparently wasn’t talking to Hy either, because Hy kept saying he hadn’t yet had a chance to ask her if Gib could ride Black Silk.
But lately there’d been another late-night worry pestering Gib. And that was whether he was there at the Rocking M only because of Hy’s broken leg, and if the Thorntons were planning to kick him out as soon as Hy got well enough to take care of things by himself, the way he’d done before.
Gib tried to convince himself that couldn’t be what the Thorntons had in mind. Not if Buster had been right when he said that the official papers promised that the signers would keep any farmed-out kid they took until he was eighteen years old. Whatever you might think about Mr. Thornton, Gib told himself, it didn’t seem like he was the type to welch on an official paper. But still, now that he knew what being a Thornton farm-out was like, with the good food and the horses—particularly the horses—Gib didn’t like to think about being kicked out. So that was another thing he had to put out of his mind at night by reliving his afternoon rides on Lightning.
In the meantime other things were happening in the life of Gib Whittaker, the farmed-out kid. The blisters on his hands had healed up, for one thing, and stayed that way because of the gloves. Mrs. Thornton’s riding gloves at first and then, after Miss Hooper got into town to do some shopping, some small men’s work gloves. And while she was at it she got him some denim trousers and a pair of stockman’s boots. Miss Hooper said he was going to have a new suit too, just as soon as she finished sewing it up.
Getting to know Miss Hooper better was another one of the things that was happening that month. And one of the surprises, too. When Gib had seen Miss Hooper pushing Mrs. Thornton’s chair into the dining room that first evening, he’d thought she was a sure enough headmistress type, bone-thin and stiff-necked, with a frown that could make your hair stand on end. But when you got to know her she wasn’t that way at all.
When you got to know Miss Hooper you found out that talking to her was a lot like talking to Hy, except for the good grammar, of course. She had a way of glaring at you that you weren’t really supposed to take seriously, and she liked to say shocking things like “Go behind that screen and take those pants off,” and then, when Gib stared and gulped, “Heavens to Betsy, boy. Just want you to try this on for size. Nobody’s going to look at you.”
She tended to say things like that quite a lot, things that got your attention in a hurry and then turned out not to mean what they seemed to. So far they’d mostly talked about blisters and gloves and denim pants, but Gib had a feeling she might be the one who’d talk about some more important things once they got better acquainted.
So May turned into June and Gib went on spending most of his time taking care of the Thorntons’ garden and barnyard critters, and all
the rest of his time with the horses. One day for Gib was pretty much like the other, except for Sundays, of course. Sundays were easier because milking and feeding were his only chores. No gardening or stall cleaning on Sunday. But no church either, at least not for Gib. The Thorntons went to church every Sunday morning, except in real bad weather, and sometimes Mrs. Perry and Miss Hooper went too. But Hy stayed home and so did Gib. Nobody asked Gib if he wanted to go, but even if they had he would have had a hard time choosing church over all that extra time with the horses.
In June the Longford school let out for the summer, so Livy was staying home and Mr. Thornton was leaving later in the mornings. But even though Livy Thornton was home all day now, Gib didn’t see much of her except at meals.
Then one afternoon when he was riding Lightning around in the big corral, which was quite close to the house, he happened to look up, and there she was sitting on the roof of the veranda. There was something about the way she was sitting, with her arms wrapped around her tucked-up knees, that made him feel sure she’d been watching him for quite a spell.
Chapter 22
SHE WAS THERE THE next day too, and the next. The roof where Livy sat went out over the side veranda and could be reached from a second-floor window. So it was an easy place to go if you wanted to have a good look at what was going on in the big corral. But the question Gib started asking himself was why.
Gib wondered a lot about that. Why would a girl, or anybody else for that matter, waste half the afternoon watching somebody taking an old cowhorse through his paces? Nothing at all fancy, just a lot of walking, trotting, galloping, and now and then a short run. It wasn’t much to watch, particularly if you were a person who didn’t like horses in general, and especially if you hated the person who was doing the riding.
Gib Rides Home Page 10
