A Good Horse

by Jane Smiley

  “Well, Abby, he may not have a reason to change, but you do. The canter is an asymmetrical gait, and the legs launch and then catch the horse. If he’s on the proper lead—if his outside hind launches the step, then the inside hind and outside foreleg continue it, and finally the inside foreleg catches it. The inside foreleg steps farther forward so that the outside hind can come under and launch again. If he’s on the proper lead, his path to each jump will be straighter, safer, and also more in line with how the course designer has set it up. You want him to get to the jump and over it in the easiest way, and that means changing leads when he turns away from the direction he’s been going in.”

  She had me sit up straight and canter to the left, in a large loop. When I came across my path again, I was to use my right leg to get him to move a little sideways to the right, and touch him behind the saddle with my right heel. We knew he could change leads, the question was whether he would. Left to right was easier, and he did do it. It felt like a four-footed hop that then smoothed into a right-lead canter. I stopped him, and we did it again. Then we tried exactly the same thing starting to the right and changing to the left. We were both more awkward at this. I didn’t sit up very straight, and he only changed his front legs. Miss Slater was patient. We tried again, me thinking, “Sit up! Sit up! One—sit up; two—move him over; three—touch him with the left heel!” He changed, and more smoothly than the times to the right, as if it wasn’t such a big deal. We tried again, missed again, then tried again, and had a good one.

  Miss Slater said, “It’s very much a question of being sensitive to the rhythm of the horse’s stride. Count the steps, sit up, ask for the change.” While I was thinking of this, Daddy returned without Ellen Leinsdorf. The look on his face said, “So long, it’s been good to know you,” which was an old song he sang around the barn sometimes. Miss Slater didn’t ask him anything about it.

  Instead, she pointed to the jumps in the field and said, “Abby, we are rather proud of our outside course, and I think you might like going over a few of those. I’m sure Black George will enjoy the open space, and most of those are fairly modest.” We walked to the coop in the fence line and gazed out across the field, which maybe in the spring was green but now was a bright, clipped golden color. There were six different obstacles out there—three fences made of living green bushes, a big log, an actual stone wall, a long slope that ended abruptly in a vertical bank that looked pretty high to me (you could jump on or off this anywhere along the slope, so your jump could be any height from about one foot to bigger than I could imagine jumping up to or down from). From where we stood, they seemed randomly scattered in the field. Miss Slater climbed over the fence beside the coop, and Daddy climbed after her. When they were out there, she shouted, “Make a circle and jump the coop. It’s a very inviting fence!”

  And so it was.

  We walked toward the center of the field. Now the jumps seemed to be more in a pattern. One that I hadn’t noticed before and certainly would avoid was a big ditch full of water. Since the sun had come out, the water looked deep and blue. The ground sloped up to it slightly; then there was a narrow small log; and then the rippling water, which looked very wide; and another very narrow log defining the other side.

  The first thing I did was jump on and off the sides of the bank. They were very low—not more than one foot high or two feet high. Black George hesitated going down at first, but only to figure out how to balance with me on him—he and the other geldings went in and out of our crick all the time, on their own and with us on their backs. The brush fences were fun, too. Miss Slater was all smiles.

  Finally, she gave me a course—do a canter circle to the right, jump back into the ring and over the red and white vertical poles, then come out again over the coop. Gallop down over the first brush going away, then the second brush coming back. Then take the bank crosswise—up one side about halfway along the slope, then two strides across and down the other side, then turn right and come back to where they were standing.

  I gathered the reins. I did not close one eye, lift my hand, and walk my fingers around over the jumps. What could be hard? Over the coop, over the red and white poles, back out over the coop, out to the brush, back over the other brush, then around and up the bank, down the bank, to the left, and back. Except that I didn’t realize just how happy Black George would be when he came back out over the coop. I did not expect him to take hold of the bit and go a little fast over the first brush and then a little faster over the second brush. I did not know that the tears in my eyes were from speed—I thought they were from the breeze. When we headed for the bank, his ears were pricked—what an easy thing to do! Up! Down! Just like that! And then he galloped on. I let him, because we didn’t get to gallop in such a beautiful, gently rolling field very often. And then I turned left.

  The trouble with left and right is that you have a fifty-fifty chance of being wrong. So when I turned left at a brisk gallop, there we were, maybe five or six strides out from the giant ditch (it looked as big as our whole crick), and Black George was going fast. I saw his ears prick, and then, before I knew it, he had shifted his weight backward—not in order to stop (and maybe dump me in the water) but in order to gather himself and leap. When I realized that that was what he was doing, I grabbed his mane, pushed my heels down, and more or less curled up on his neck and went with him. He landed and galloped on. Fortunately, there weren’t any more jumps between me and Daddy and Miss Slater, who were now standing on the bank, staring toward me. I brought Black George around in a circle and stopped beside the bank. I was panting harder than the horse was.

  Miss Slater said, “How old is that horse? Where did you get that horse?”

  Daddy said, “He’s five, as far as we know. We thought he was four, but his teeth seem to be those of a five-year-old. I got him in Oklahoma.”

  There was a long pause while I walked Black George around in a circle. I didn’t know if I was in trouble or not.

  Miss Slater said, “He didn’t put a toe in the water.”

  “How wide is it?” said Daddy. I could tell he was trying to remain calm.

  “Well …,” said Miss Slater.

  There was another pause. Black George and I kept walking in our circle.

  “Well.” She coughed. “There is a constant argument around here about that water jump. It’s too big, and I keep telling the colonel—”

  “How wide is it?” said Daddy.

  “The colonel insisted on, I must say, fifteen feet. Including the little logs.” Then she said, “I myself have never jumped it. The widest I’ve ever jumped is twelve feet.”

  We were quiet for a long time after that, then Daddy said, “Abby, why didn’t you stop?”

  I said, “Black George didn’t want to stop.”

  Daddy said, “Sometimes, a horse isn’t the best judge of what to do.”

  I said, “I know that. I’m sorry.” But I was only sorry about part of it—what might have happened. I wasn’t at all sorry about what did happen—being in the air over that big water and knowing that Black George was enjoying himself maybe more than he ever had was the thrill of my life. We all walked back to the main stable grounds without saying anything. I had Black George on a loose rein, and he was swinging his head and neck, looking here and there. His nostrils were flaring, but he didn’t seem tired. Every so often, Miss Slater, who was walking beside us, would turn and look at him, then pat him on the neck. When we got back to the trailer, she pulled a sugar cube out of her pocket and gave it to him, saying, “Well, you are a fine fellow, Black George. I would love to know your breeding.”

  Then she and Daddy talked about the show, which was to begin in five days, on Thursday, but because of school, we wouldn’t be coming over until Saturday. We were entered in two classes on Saturday, nice, easy hunter classes. These were like the ones I had ridden Gallant Man in the previous spring—the horse was to jump nicely and show good manners, but the jumps were not terribly big, and the courses did
n’t have a lot of turns. We tied Black George to the trailer and un-tacked him, then brushed him down. I thought the weather was too cool to hose him off—we could do that at home, where it would be sunny and warm. When he was all clean and relaxed, Daddy loaded him in the trailer and we headed for home.

  Daddy was saying nothing in a very suspicious way—in exactly the way he usually got when he was hatching a plan. It was always, always better when Daddy talked. I looked at him a couple of times, waiting for him to say something, but then, when he didn’t, I picked up Great Expectations again. It wasn’t until we were almost home that I realized that I had put the bookmark in the wrong spot, and I was reading a section I had already read without even knowing it. Right when I noticed that, Daddy suddenly said, “Did that jump really come as a surprise to you? You galloped right past it.”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t see it, except that the sun wasn’t shining on it. I don’t know.”

  “Let’s not tell your mother how big it was, okay?”

  “It wasn’t as hard as it looked. I just curled up and sat there. He did all the work.”

  “He surely did. He surely did. But thank the Lord you stuck on.”

  I nodded.

  Because of church, I wasn’t allowed to do homework on Sunday. The Sabbath was reserved for the Lord, and we went to church all day with our Brothers and Sisters. We could feed the horses, of course, and cook for the church supper, but we could not engage in “secular pursuits.” Therefore, I had to sit in my room that night and finish reading Great Expectations and then write my book report in ink, because I didn’t have time to copy it over for Monday. I had no idea what to say, so I did a funny thing—I imagined that I was Kyle Gonzalez and just started writing. I imagined Kyle going on and on about everything in Great Expectations that no one else in the world cared about, like what did the author mean by naming a character Magwitch, and why did he name the main boy Pip and the old woman Havisham? I came up with some Kyle-ish ideas, for two and a half pages, and put it away and that was that! It was pretty easy, in the end.

  Bank Jump

  Brush Jump

  Rope Halter

  Chapter 5

  ON MONDAY, THERE WAS ANOTHER LETTER FROM MR. BRANDT in Texas. Daddy showed it to me after dinner. It read:

  Dear Mr. Lovitt,

  Thank you for your prompt reply. Since I last wrote you, I have interviewed Mr. Robert Hogarth again, and also I have twice spoken to Mrs. Hogarth (who, you may know, does the correspondence and bookkeeping for By Golly Horse Sales). Most important, I finally managed to get in touch with Mr. Samuel Walker, who, you may remember, was temporarily managing the sale barn when you visited in November, while Mr. Hogarth was recuperating from an illness. I had not spoken to Mr. Walker before, because he has moved from Oklahoma to Florida, but I have now talked to him over the telephone and in person.

  While we cannot be one hundred percent certain that the mare you purchased was Alabama Lady, the profile of the mare who came into By Golly Horse Sales and was sold to you fits the profile of Alabama Lady in color, size, and condition. The Hogarths did not suspect that the mare was pregnant, and neither did Sam Walker, though he does remember wondering how she could be very bony and also have such a big belly, but he thought it was just a hay belly. Alabama Lady was a big-boned, rangy mare, long in the back, and perhaps her pregnancy was not as apparent as it might have been in a more compact animal. I have written to two others who bought brown mares from By Golly Horse Sales in November and December. I have heard from one of these parties—that mare has not produced a foal. I am waiting to hear from the other party.

  If your mare was indeed Alabama Lady, then the foal you have is a valuable one. Alabama Lady’s first foal, a colt, is now a four-year-old. He has won a stakes race in Arkansas. Her second foal, also a colt, is a three-year-old, who has won four races, including two stakes, in California. The two-year-old filly is promising, too. Most important, the sire of the foal Alabama Lady was carrying is a horse named Jaipur, who won the Belmont Stakes and the Travers Stakes in 1962 (as you may remember). He is the best horse Alabama Lady has been bred to, and his stud fee last year was substantial. Alabama Lady was sent to Kentucky to breed with Jaipur and returned when she was four months in foal.

  Please let me know if you have come up with any other information concerning your purchase of the horse. I would very much like to see any paperwork pertaining to her, or perhaps you took a photograph of her when she arrived in California?

  Yours truly,

  Howard W. Brandt

  I read the letter very calmly, I thought. He still wasn’t saying, Your horse is mine, give me back my horse. There was still the chance that this other brown mare that passed through the sale barn was exactly like Brown Jewel (or Pearl) in every possible way and that she produced a big, beautiful brown colt with a cowlick in the middle of his forelock who moved like a … panther? a deer? In fact, like a racehorse. There was still that chance. I said, “What do you think that he means by substantial?”

  “You mean the stud fee,” said Daddy. “Do you know what a stud fee is?”

  “I can imagine,” I said.

  “Well, don’t imagine too hard,” said Mom.

  I think this was meant to be a joke.

  Daddy said, “Over a thousand dollars, anyway. I don’t know too much about it, but these are rich people, very rich people, people who are richer maybe than we can imagine, so we don’t know what they would pay for something they wanted.”

  “Are you saying that if they can prove that Brown Jewel was Alabama Lady, and we want to keep Jack, they would make us pay that kind of money for him?”

  “They might. Why wouldn’t they?” said Daddy. “How do you think they got rich? It wasn’t by doing favors. Jesus said that it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”

  Mom lowered her voice. “At this point, we don’t know anything about what they suspect or intend, but your daddy and I would like to be prepared.”

  “You mean I should be prepared, because I’m the one who cares.”

  “Are you sassing me?” said Daddy. He cleared his throat.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m saying what I think.” But I was not saying all of what I thought. I thought that he would be glad to get rid of my horse, whose birth had been a surprise, and who was too young to be saleable or useful, and that when I wasn’t around, he was breathing that old sigh of relief—the Lord had intervened, and it was all for the best, and thank you, Jesus. All of what I thought was pretty angry.

  I went to my room and did my homework. I was finished with Great Expectations, but there were plenty of stupid equations, a pile of junk about three types of muscle fiber, some pointless reading about crops of the temperate zones, and je ne sais quoi about tout le monde. It took me the rest of the night, but it didn’t put me to sleep. What did put me to sleep was the idea of disappearing with Jack. There were ranches all around us with plenty of grass for him. I could take a blanket and sleep on the ground. And then I thought about snakes and mountain lions and coyotes, but I dropped off, anyway.

  When I woke up, I was still mad, but I knew I needed a better plan than walking away with Jack across the crick and over the mountains. When I got to school, the first thing I said to Gloria was, “Your mom really likes Jack, doesn’t she?”

  “Oh, she loves him,” said Gloria. We were in the bathroom, and she was putting on lipstick, but she wasn’t using the mirror. Gloria had practiced putting on lipstick so many times that she could do a perfect job just by feel. She pressed her lips together and then blotted them. She said, “I love him, too. You are so lucky.”

  “I’m not lucky if those people from Texas come to get him.”

  “Well, you bought the mare fair and square. I’m sure your dad can get the money back for her, and then he can give it to those people, and they will sell you Jack.”

  “You think so?” Now she was combing her hair. She
was good at doing that without a mirror, too, but I said, “Why don’t you ever look in the mirror?”

  “Because you just see yourself backward. How you look in a mirror is not how you really look. I decided not to get used to thinking that is the way I look. My mom got this new Polaroid Swinger camera. Have you seen one of those? After I get ready in the morning, I take my picture, and it develops right there, and so I know what I really look like. I think it’s a great idea, even if I do say so myself.”

  “Maybe your mom would buy a horse.”

  “You mean Jack.”

  “If we didn’t have enough to buy him.”

  Gloria stopped fixing herself and looked at me. Then she smiled. She said, “I think that would be fun.”

  “Well, don’t say anything yet. There’s still the chance that another mare was the stolen mare.” But I didn’t really believe that.

  When I got home from school that afternoon, I went to Jack first. With all the horses we had, I was only working with Jack about every three or four days, but Jem Jarrow thought that was fine, because Jack also had to have plenty of time just to be a horse and to grow up. The other geldings sometimes looked as though they wished he would grow up—for example, when he played by rearing up and putting his front legs on one of them.

  And only Black George would let Jack share his hay. If he came up to one of the others when that one was eating, the horse would pin his ears and chase him off, sometimes with a nip or two. I also noticed that if they were all standing by the gate and I had an apple or a piece of bread, if I held it out to Jack, Jefferson or Lester would push in and insist that I give it to them. So I made sure to cut the apples and break the bread into enough pieces for everyone. That afternoon, I gave them all some bread, then I snapped the rope onto Jack’s halter and led him out. All I planned to do was give him a good brushing and work with his feet, since Jake Morrisson would be there that weekend to trim him. Danny would be coming, too, and I was sure that Danny would have some idea about the people in Texas.