by Jane Smiley
“I can’t do it.”
“Sure you can. You did do it. More than once.”
“I don’t care. I can’t do it.”
“Abby! Don’t be—”
I knew she wanted to say “silly,” but she didn’t. Instead, she stood there looking at me, thinking about what to do. Daddy came into where we were standing. Jane said, “She doesn’t want to go any higher. It’s no problem for the horse, of course, but …”
Daddy pushed his cowboy hat back on his head and looked up at me. He was about to say something when a voice called out, “I’ll ride him.”
We all looked around. There, by the gate, was Sophia Rosebury, and she was already in the process of springing off her chestnut. She was the person on a horse that I had seen standing there. I didn’t say anything because I knew Daddy would shake his head no, and then we would have to figure something else out—maybe Jane would get on Black George—but Daddy didn’t shake his head no. He looked at Jane, who looked at him, and said, “Well, this is as good a time as any.”
As good a time as any for what?
Sophia ran up the stirrups on her saddle and brought the reins over her horse’s head, and led him into the arena. She had on Newmarket boots, which were boots with rubber feet and canvas legs. Lots of people had them for training, but you couldn’t wear them in a show. When she got closer, I saw that hers did not have rubber feet; they had regular leather feet, which meant they were custom-made.
Daddy said, “I suppose that’s true.”
I suppose what’s true?
Sophia and her horse got closer, and then off in the distance, I saw Colonel Hawkins coming in our direction at a fast walk. I thought he would stop her for sure, but when he got to the gate, he said, “Ready?”
Ready for what?
Jane shrugged and said, “Well, he’s warmed up. Might as well.”
Daddy glanced at me and said, “Well, let’s try it. Abby, why don’t you get down and—”
“Get down off Black George?”
“You heard me.”
And I did. And if I hadn’t already gotten in trouble for being sassy that morning, I might have said something or just sat there, but I had, so I didn’t. I dismounted—a little slowly, I admit—and traded reins with Sophia. I held the chestnut, and she mounted Black George from the ground. She had incredibly long, thin legs, and she just put her foot up there and bounced on. When she picked up the reins, Black George pricked his ears and headed to the rail without a backward glance. Well, a horse can make a backward glance without turning his head, but not Black George, not this time. He was set to jump, and he didn’t care if it was me on his back or Sophia. In the meantime, the chestnut sneezed all over my shoulder.
Sophia knew the course, I suppose from watching—she had been going to shows for a long time, so maybe she was fast about learning courses. She began her trot circle, went up into the canter, galloped down around the S curve, then around the loop, slowing down a bit for the triple in-and-out, and then sitting up and asking for a bigger stride on the last fence. For me, it was amazing to see Black George jump because, as I realized while watching them, I never had before—I had always been the one riding. Sophia was a good rider—her form was perfect over every fence, her back straight, her heels down, her eyes looking where she was going, and her hands always alongside his black neck, the reins straight like taut threads between her hands and his mouth. Yes, she looked like a stick figure, but it was the sort of stick figure you draw to show what the right way to do something is. Over each jump, her braids flopped on her back.
But really, for me, the one to watch was Black George. I could see why Jane and Daddy were surprised I was scared, because he just bent his knees and went over the jump. And if you couldn’t tell by his form that it was easy and he was having a good time, then you could tell by the look on his face, which was perfectly calm. Horses have all kinds of looks on their faces as they are going to the jump—I had seen that at shows. With some, their eyes are wide and their ears are up and their nostrils are flared, and maybe they will refuse. Others look dull and others look determined, and others even look tricky—Sophia’s chestnut, who was breathing down the back of my neck right then, looked tricky that time, which meant no expression on his face and then his eyes narrowed and he was out of there. I saw one horse who jumped all the jumps but was grinding his bit the whole time. Black George had the look of a horse who was taking care of his job and who liked his job. Just watching him made that skittery feeling of “four” and “feet” go away.
Then Sophia turned him in a circle and brought him down to the trot. She trotted over to us, did her leg-over-the-neck dismount while Ellen was clapping and shouting “Hurray.” Then Sophia said to Colonel Hawkins, “Yeah, I like him.” She threw him the reins. She didn’t say a word to me when I handed her the reins of the chestnut gelding, nor did she give the gelding a pat or say hi to him. She just said to the colonel, “I’m taking this one to be put away. I’ll get on the mare.” And off they went.
The colonel had better manners, at least. He shook Daddy’s hand, then came over to me and said, “Thank you, Abigail, for letting us try your horse. You’ve done an excellent job with him.” Then he patted me on the head and handed me the reins, but only after giving Black George another piece of sugar. I didn’t like being patted on the head, and I didn’t like being called Abigail. I threw my arms around Black George’s neck and put my face against his coat. He smelled good—sweaty but clean and healthy. Then I walked him over to the fence, stood him up beside it, and got on the fence to mount. It felt good to be on his back. I settled myself in the saddle and then leaned down and patted him on the neck. I told him what a good boy he was, all the time, every day, and then I walked him over to Jane and Daddy.
I said, “That was good. I learned something from that. Shall we try a different course?”
Jane said, “Oh, I think he’s had enough for today.”
Daddy said, “What did you learn?”
“I learned that it really is not a problem for him, whatever the numbers are.”
The two of them smiled. Jane said, “I’m so glad you realize—”
I interrupted her. I said, “I learned that if you stop when you’re scared, like I did the other day, then you’ll be scared until you start again, and maybe after you start again.”
Daddy smiled, and Jane said, “Well, that is a good lesson. I never really thought of it that way, but of course it’s true.”
“So, I want to go again.”
Daddy and Jane looked at each other, and there was a long, quiet moment, quiet except for, of course, all the sounds from the barn and the rings and the rustling trees and the birds, but quiet to me. And then Daddy said, “Yes, Abby, you learned some very good lessons, but the fact is, he’s had plenty, and I don’t think it would be good for him to go around again.”
Jane said, “He’s a valuable horse. Best not take any chances.”
Of course, then I knew what was coming next. I was amazed I had been so dumb. Sooner or later—and if Daddy had his way, sooner—my horse was going to be Sophia Rosebury’s horse, and it didn’t matter if she ever patted him or gave him a treat or even remembered his name (which she would certainly change, anyway). Daddy squeezed me around the shoulders and we started walking back toward the truck and trailer, me leading Black George, and Daddy and Jane walking a little ahead of us. He had a beautiful face, Black George, with a quiet eye and quick ears—he flicked them back and forth in order to keep track of what was going on, but nothing worried him. His best feature was his mouth—smooth, long lips, just relaxed, because he didn’t wrinkle them all the time. As we walked, I stroked his nose.
Lead Rope
Braided Rope Reins
Bridle
Chapter 12
IT WAS COLONEL HAWKINS’S VET, SOMEONE WE DIDN’T KNOW, who came out to inspect Black George. Just having a vet look at the horse was a sign of how much they thought of him. When we sold Melinda Anisto
n the gray pony, all they did was look him over very carefully, flex his joints, trot him out, and let us know that if something turned up in the first week or two that showed we’d misrepresented him (given him some kind of drug, really), we would get him back and return the money. People bought and sold horses all the time, and having a vet go over every one of them would be very time-consuming. When Daddy went to Oklahoma and bought horses, he went over them inch by inch himself and prayed for guidance, but if he needed a vet to find out something about a horse, then that was a horse he didn’t want, anyway.
The vet even brought an assistant to hold the horse and trot him out and to run to the truck and get this and that. They came at the end of the day, and I had work to do, but while I was riding Jefferson and then after I got on Happy, I could see them going over him. Daddy did things in the barn while they worked, and then I could see the assistant hand Daddy the lead rope, thank him, and get in the vet’s truck. We would hear, not from the vet himself but from Colonel Hawkins.
According to Mom and Daddy, it was not my job to know what sort of price we might get for Black George, but according to me, it was my job to keep my ears open, even if I didn’t ask any questions. And keep my window open, if the weather wasn’t too cold. At first, I couldn’t understand why they were being so secretive—Daddy often talked about how he bought a horse for four hundred dollars and sold her for eight hundred, and her keep over the months had cost such and such and every shoeing was six dollars, but I decided that what was really going on was that they didn’t dare say the amount aloud. Twice when I passed through the kitchen, I heard them lower their voices as they said the word ten. I guessed that they were asking for ten thousand dollars.
Ten thousand dollars was an unbelievable amount of money. I knew we had sold the pony for thirty-five hundred, because Daddy had not been able to contain himself after he made the deal and had burst out with that on the way home from the stable. Other than that, I didn’t know much except that when they wondered whether Jack’s stud fee was more than they could afford, if it turned out that we had to pay to keep him, they started shaking their heads at a thousand dollars. A pair of good riding boots was forty-five dollars, and when Mom had stopped with me once at a car dealer’s and asked the price of one of the cars, it was two thousand. Danny, we heard, had paid five hundred for his, and it was still running. So I had no way of knowing how much money ten thousand dollars was, except that Daddy and Mom never said the words above a whisper.
Wednesday night, when I was in my room doing homework, the phone rang and Daddy answered it and talked for a long time, as long as he would to Uncle Luke if he called, but he didn’t raise his voice or invoke the name of the Lord, so it couldn’t be Uncle Luke. I even went out into the hall to see if I could hear something, but Daddy was being so polite that I couldn’t make out a word. Every whisper was a reminder to me that I should be happy rather than sad. We had done the thing that every horse trader wants to do—find the diamond lying by the side of the road, pick it up when no one else sees it, polish it. I had shown off the diamond and gotten prizes and praise. Now it looked like other people, people who knew the business, agreed that the diamond was a diamond and not just another rhinestone.
I wasn’t supposed to feel that they were stealing my diamond, but I did. I’d been riding Black George all these months—almost a year now—and he had been so easy and agreeable and comfortable and willing that I had forgotten there would be an end to it. Every horse feels different. It’s like looking at people’s faces—each face is itself, and you can always tell them apart. Horses’ faces don’t look as different as people’s faces do—that was the reason no one could be sure whether Pearl was Alabama Lady or not. But every horse was unique to ride, and Black George, I thought, was uniquely good. And the worst thing about it was that I would not be able to remember how he felt after a while—there’s nothing like a photograph to remind your body how a certain horse’s canter flowed along or exactly the way a certain horse’s jump lifted you up and over. And the rest of it was fun, too—going to lessons with Jane, going to the show. I realized that it’s one thing to know that something won’t last and quite another to find out that it’s over.
And then, on Thursday, Barbara Goldman came up to me after lunch, while Stella and Gloria were in the girls’ bathroom and I was rearranging my schoolbag.
She said, “Abby, I wondered how you did on the Julius Caesar test.”
“I got an A, which is thanks to you.”
“Leslie, Maria, and Alexis got As, too.”
“What about you?”
Barbara grinned. “I would have gotten an A if I’d bothered to turn the test sheet over and answer all the questions.”
“You’re kidding! You were the one who told us all the answers.”
Barbara shrugged. “I was thinking about something else, I guess. Listen, you want to spend the night tomorrow night? We aren’t doing anything much, but we thought it would be fun. You did so great as Antony.”
How could you turn down an invitation to spend the night at the Goldmans’? I didn’t even say I would ask Mom; I just said, “Yes.” Barbara said, “Well, great! Bring your clothes in the morning, and we’ll just go home from school on our bus, and your mom can pick you up Saturday.”
I said, “I’ll probably have to go home early to start my riding.”
“But you have to stay for breakfast, because Saturday we have bagels and lox, with cream cheese, and they’re so good.”
I said, “What’s that?”
Now Barbara really laughed but said, “A bagel is like a roll, but they boil it before they bake it. We always have the poppy seed kind. And lox is smoked salmon.”
I couldn’t imagine what she was talking about.
When I got home, both the car and the truck were gone, and Rusty was taking care of things, or that’s what it seemed like. As soon as I got off the bus, she came down to the gate and sat right in the middle of the driveway while I opened it, then she approached me, wagging her tail slowly from side to side, and accompanied me up to the house, where she sat down on the porch and watched me go in.
When I came out after changing my clothes, she walked with me to the gelding pasture, where I patted Jack and Black George on their noses, then she sat there. It was only when I headed for the barn that she whined. I had never heard her whine before, and she had a strange whine, low rather than high, but not at all like a growl. The closer I got to the barn, the more she whined, and then she barked. Now I got that she was trying to tell me something, so I stood there for a moment and looked around. It was then that I saw that the mares had somehow turned over their water trough. They were all standing near it, and when Rusty barked, they looked at us. Or at me. I went and filled the water trough.
When Mom and Daddy and I were talking about this at supper, we could not decide what was going on. The water trough had been dumped since morning, because the ground around it was almost dry, so the mares were pretty thirsty, and in fact, they did all take big drinks after I filled it. But they were not dehydrated—Daddy pinched the skin on each of their necks right in front of their shoulders when he got home—if the pinch stays pinched, then the horse is dehydrated, and the longer it stays pinched, the more you have to worry. None of their pinches stayed pinched. They might have gone down to the crick for a drink, but even with the rain we had had, the crick was just a trickle.
The real question was, how did Rusty know?
Mom said, “Well, look at her! It’s her job to know. That’s what she thinks.”
Daddy said, “Horses do not talk to dogs!”
“Horses don’t have to talk to communicate. If they want to eat, they nose their food tubs. If they want to get out, they kick the door of the stall.”
Daddy said, “Remember a couple of years ago? One of the geldings got a quarter crack and had to stay in that pen we had then, for a month? Danny dumped his water bucket one day and forgot to fill it, and the next day, when I was walking past th
e stall, he went over to his bucket and stood there nodding his head until I checked it.”
I said, “And you’re the one who always says it has to be the carrot or the stick or they don’t understand.”
Mom said, “Rusty probably saw them knock over the trough. She sees everything.”
Daddy said, “So she made the connection between dumping the trough and something being wrong?”
Mom smiled. “It’s you who always says that animals were made to serve man, and now you don’t believe your own eyes.”
I thought she had him there.
It wasn’t until bedtime that I remembered about the Goldmans. But Mom said yes, they seemed to be very nice people, and she gave me a little overnight bag for my clothes. She also said, “I think it’s good for you to get away for a night, I really do,” and she kissed me on the forehead, though she had to reach up to do it. No one said a word about Black George.
Of course I had to tell Gloria and Stella that I was spending the night at the Goldmans’. Stella exclaimed, “Are they even your friends?” and I could see that Gloria was hurt that I would go there when I hadn’t come to her house the week before. I said, “Well, we had fun doing the play. I don’t know why they asked me.”
“No one ever knows why they do anything. I mean, they practice music for hours. You’ll probably have to listen to that. They’re very artsy. My mom said they’re from New York.” Stella said this as though it meant something important.
Things got all quiet.
I said, “Well, I have more free time now, because that horse I was riding so much might be sold.” I glanced at Gloria as if this were a job that I was about to be relieved of, and she smiled and said, “Well, that’s good.” I nodded. And maybe it was, in a way.
