A Horse to Love

by Nancy Springer

  “What the devil—”

  “Aunt Lexie,” Erin interrupted, her voice shaking, “William is down, and there are flies on him, and I don’t see him moving.”

  Alexandra Bromer stared. Then, arms flung wide for balance, her stocky body jouncing painfully, she started at a stubborn, limping run down the lane.

  Erin sat on Spindrift and watched her go. The mare was dancing, excited by her brief run, and Erin patted her and talked to her softly to settle her. When Spindrift was calm, Erin sent her at a slow walk down the lane. She did not want to come to the paddock before Aunt Lexie did.

  She got there at last, tied Spindrift’s reins to a fence post—another thing she was not supposed to do—and went in, although she did not really want to. The gate was hanging wide open. Aunt Lexie was kneeling in the grass by William, chasing the flies off him with fiercely swinging arms. As Erin watched, Aunt Lexie gave up on the flies, slumped sideways, so that she sat in the grass, and heaved William’s heavy, lifeless head into her lap.

  “Poor baby,” she said in tight, angry tones. “Poor William.” She did not look at Erin, but sat stroking the horse’s bony forehead. “His old heart must have stopped, just like that, and he was all alone, no one to be with him, and I hope it was quick.… I guess it was quick. I don’t see any grass torn up or anything like that. Do you?” She glanced up at Erin, a quick, hard glance, and Erin was startled to see that her old eyes were glittering with tears. She shook her head, and Aunt Lexie laid William’s head down off her lap and struggled up.

  “Got to call the rendering plant, I suppose.… Where’s my pipe?” Aunt Lexie fumbled in the breast pocket of her plaid hunting shirt, found the pipe, and looked at it as if she did not know what it was. “Hell’s bells!” she exploded. Turning, she flung the pipe away over her shoulder and strode up the hill toward the house. Erin untied Spindrift’s reins and followed her, leading the mare.

  Limping and puffing, Aunt Lexie soon slowed her pace. “Aren’t you going out riding now, after all?” she asked Erin.

  “No … I guess not.”

  “Well. I have to admit I’m glad you’re here, kid.”

  Abruptly she stopped walking and leaned against the nearest fence post, leaned heavily, staring down toward the woods.

  “Don’t have anyone else who gives a crap about me. Got that horse when Mr. Bromer left me—”

  “Mr. Bromer?” Erin blurted, surprised. Though she knew Aunt Lexie was called Mrs. Bromer, it had never occurred to her that there was a Mr. Bromer.

  “Yup. Rotten bum. Gave up my horses for a horse’s behind when I married him.” Aunt Lexie’s tone was as bitter as iodine, harsh as a farrier’s rasp. “Haven’t heard a word from him for twenty years. When he left, first thing I did I went out and bought myself a horse, and it was William.…”

  The name trailed away into a gulp. Aunt Lexie plunged off into a hard walk toward the house again, and Erin, not knowing what else to do, hurried along beside her in silence until they reached the stable. Then she took Spindrift in, untacked her, and groomed her for a long time, feeling the touch of the future like the tap of a cold finger on her shoulder. Someday Spindrift would die.… She sighed and rested her face against Spindrift’s neck, and the mare stood still for her.

  Aunt Lexie had gone into her house and did not come out. Erin took care of the evening feeding, as she often did, and went home.

  Her mother and father were there in the kitchen. “William died,” said Erin.

  “Aunt Lexie’s old horse?” It was Mrs. Calahan.

  “He was just lying in the paddock, dead.”

  Tawnya Calahan heard something extra in Erin’s voice, and looked up from the apples she was peeling. Don Calahan heard it, too, and turned around where he stood by the stove.

  “She threw her pipe away. Said she’s got nobody who cares about her. She’s had William for twenty years.”

  Don and Tawnya Calahan glanced at each other. Then Mrs. Calahan went over to the wall telephone and started to dial. “We’re having her over for supper.”

  “Do you think the old hag, or old bag, will come?” asked Mr. Calahan. Aunt Lexie’s self-chosen title had become something of a joke in the family since the night of the bear crisis.

  “Maybe, if I twist her arm.… Hello, Mrs. Bromer? This is Tawnya Calahan. Erin told us about William, and we’re very sorry.…”

  Aunt Lexie’s voice was not as sharp as usual, but somewhat muffled. Erin could not hear what she said.

  “Yes. Well, listen, we want you to come over for dinner.” Mrs. Calahan used her most positive tone. “No use sitting there by yourself. We’re having roast pork, and there’s plenty—”

  “Cripes!” Aunt Lexie’s voice had gotten back some of its usual power. “So that’s what I have to do to get invited to dinner. Have a dead horse.”

  “Well, we didn’t know you all that well.…” Tawnya Calahan was so taken aback that she started laughing. “We’ll have to make sure to invite you soon on some happier occasion. But come tonight, for a start. Shall I send Don for you?”

  “Heck, no. I can find my own way. You want me to bring some wine?”

  “If you like. I’m not sure what goes with pork and sauerkraut.”

  “I’ll find something,” said Aunt Lexie grimly, and she hung up.

  “There,” said Tawnya Calahan in uncertain tones. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  Don Calahan looked at her. “So how come you’re shaking?”

  The dinner was much more cheerful than anyone might have expected. Aunt Lexie came in her best red polyester slacks and a startling top with sequins and glitter, maybe left over from somebody’s Christmas party. And a blaze of red lipstick, a red badge of courage worn proudly. I am not going to let it get me down, Aunt Lexie’s lipstick said, and the dinner took its tone from her: good times in the midst of bad. No sniffling, no tiptoeing around.

  “So how’s the old bag?” asked Don Calahan as he seated her.

  “Fair,” she shot back.

  “Good. Ahem.” He cleared his throat. “So this is the William H. Bromer memorial dinner, I understand.”

  “H?”

  “Horse,” he told her meekly, and she laughed.

  She praised William, the real mashed potatoes, and the hot baked apples with cinnamon and nutmeg and butter. By dessert time the talk had become general and somewhat silly. Even Mike and Erin had been given a watered-down sip of the Blue Nun wine that Aunt Lexie had brought, and though it certainly did not go with pork and sauerkraut, it seemed to mellow the old woman. Before she touched her ice cream, she stood and proposed a toast.

  “To William—an honest, generous, and ardent horse.”

  “Hear, hear,” seconded Mr. Calahan. “To a good horse. Though I don’t know a thing about it.”

  “That you don’t,” his wife agreed.

  Everyone touched glasses and drank to William. Tawnya Calahan proposed a second toast.

  “To the bear! May he find a happy home in the state park, a home so dear that he never wants to leave it.”

  “To the bear,” Mike echoed.

  The ice cream, Erin thought longingly, was melting. Everyone touched glasses and drank to the health of the bear.

  “To the old gray mare!” Don Calahan proposed, glass lifted high.

  “Spindrift is not an old gray mare!” Erin protested.

  “She’s not,” said Aunt Lexie primly, “but I certainly am. Swaybacked, and getting long in the tooth.”

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Calahan. “To Aunt Lexie Bromer, who ain’t what she used to be. She’s not a stranger anymore.”

  The clink of glasses was a warm and friendly sound. Erin no longer cared about the melting ice cream. Aunt Lexie’s face had changed, had softened.

  “Well,” she muttered, “I’ve heard about deaths bringing people together, but I never thought …”

  “To the ice cream,” said Mike without lifting a glass, and they all took spoons and attended to it.

  Aunt L
exie stayed late, talking. She had a number of stories to tell, not all about horses, and a razor-sharp wit when she told them. On toward the end of the evening, though, without much effort, she began talking about William again.

  “It was a shock,” she said. “I have to admit it. I don’t know when I’ve felt so … old. But, you know, thinking about it, I’m glad he went quickly. It’s when they’re suffering, and you have to make a decision to put them down—that’s when it really breaks your heart.”

  “You’ve had horses die before?” asked Mike.

  “Oh, yes. Not many, thank God. But I guess—I guess I just thought William would live forever.”

  Silent sympathy all around.

  “Do you know what really bothers me?” Aunt Lexie asked, not expecting an answer. “Especially about William. It’s having to call the rendering plant.”

  “Huh?” said Mike.

  “They send a truck out to take the animal, and they haul it off and make it into leather and grease and dog meat and bonemeal and … glue, I guess.” Her voice faltered for a moment, and Erin sat very still, feeling sick.

  “My poor William.… But there’s really nothing else I can do, except have a man in with a backhoe to dig a grave, and that costs.”

  “I always thought that stuff about the glue factory was a joke,” said Mrs. Calahan, sounding dazed. “I mean, I thought that all stopped years ago. Aren’t there cemeteries for horses?”

  “Nothing around here. In big cities, maybe, but they cost a bundle, too. You know, people around here think I’m rich, but I’m not. It’s all tied up in land and horses. You know what’s buying my groceries? Your board money.”

  Mr. Calahan had been thinking rather than listening. When he spoke he seemed to be far off the subject. “I have to shoot a wedding Saturday,” he said. “But if you can hold off till Sunday, Mike and Erin and I can dig you a hole. I don’t know how long it’ll take us, though.”

  Aunt Lexie first gaped, then looked as if she might cry. Then she made some visible changes in her thinking.

  “Can’t hold off till Sunday,” she said briskly. “He’ll start to swell and stink before then. And it’s a nice thought, but there’s some sort of ordinance against it, anyway, groundwater contamination or whatever. Nope, some things really just can’t be helped. The Hide and Tallow people are coming tomorrow.”

  Erin looked at the floor. She hoped they would be gone before she got home from school.

  “And, you know, William’s gone. It really doesn’t matter to him one way or the other,” Aunt Lexie added thoughtfully. “Guess I’m just sniffling for myself.…” She heaved herself up off the sofa, straightening slowly. “Well, I ought to get home. Thank you all. Best dinner I’ve had since I don’t know when. I don’t generally cook much for myself.”

  “Come again soon,” said Tawnya Calahan promptly. “Let’s set a date right now.”

  “Cripes, I’d love to.” The old bag sounded almost touched. “But I hate to—when I can’t have you over—I mean, my place just isn’t …”

  Have us in the tack room, Erin thought.

  “No problem. You come here. First Friday in June sound okay?”

  “Okay.” Aunt Lexie swallowed. “I’ll bring the wine.”

  Erin went to bed after Aunt Lexie left, but it was a good while before she slept. She was thinking.

  Spindrift was out in the paddock closest to the barn when Erin arrived at the farm the next day. Aunt Lexie was nowhere to be seen, but Spindrift greeted Erin with a sulky look and ambled away from her, plodding with a poor-old-horse air to the paddock’s farthest corner, where she stood with her tail toward her mistress. Erin smiled. She knew that the mare, though she refused to come when she was called, would stand grumpily and let herself be caught. She just had to have her say about work and humans.

  “I’ll fake you out today,” muttered Erin.

  She had something else to do besides ride. She walked slowly past Spindrift’s paddock and down the lane to the paddock by the woods. The Hide and Whatever people had been there, thank God—William’s body was gone. The gate still hung open, and Erin nodded at it. Aunt Lexie probably would not use this paddock for a while.

  Erin went in and looked around. She got on her hands and knees, hunting. It took her a good hour to find the pipe—it had landed in the weeds beyond the fence. When at last she had it, she took it up and put it on a ledge in the stable, where the old bag would be sure to find it if she wanted it.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Whoa, girl, good wossie.”

  With sponges, towels, a garden hose, a bucket of suds, and one of bleach for the hocks and tail, Erin was giving Spindrift a bath. She had the mare tethered in the driveway outside the stable, and for the most part, Spindrift was standing quietly. Even so, Erin was struggling. Bathing a horse is at least as large a job as washing a car, and Erin had gotten nearly as wet as Spindrift. Seated on a lawn chair well out of hose range, Aunt Lexie was watching with amusement.

  “Whoa, girl, good baby—” The mare shook her head again, and Erin stood back with frothy clumps of suds clinging to her T-shirt. “Why won’t she let me shampoo her mane?”

  “Most of them are funny about their ears and their polls. Ticklish up there. Start down lower, and work your way up.”

  Erin did.

  “At least she didn’t go bananas when you hosed her down.”

  “Probably felt good. I think she liked it.”

  “She should. It’s hot enough.”

  The school year was over at last, just the day before. Now that Erin had more time, Mr. Calahan wanted to take some pictures of her on Spindrift. But no amount of brushing ever made the mare look clean—dirt showed on her white coat, and grass stained it. So did manure. She looked like a pinto. Like most horses of a different color, she seemed to aspire to be brown, or at least beige.

  “Make sure she doesn’t roll after you’re done with her. Every little speck shows on that one. That’s what comes of buying such a flashy critter.”

  Erin made a face at Aunt Lexie and set to work trying to bleach the stains out of Spindrift’s tail and off her hocks.

  “Who’s that standing up along the road?” Aunt Lexie asked suddenly. “I’ve seen her up there before, from time to time.”

  Erin shaded her eyes to look. “It’s Marcy. She’s nice, Aunt Lexie. You should see the card she gave me when I was laid up.”

  “What sort of card?”

  “A drawing of Spindrift. She really loves horses. I’m going to ask her down.” Erin signaled so eagerly that she knocked herself off balance.

  “You’re going to spook your horse.”

  Spindrift stood quietly, looking scornful, as Erin, swinging her arms like a windmill, stumbled into her bucket of suds, soaking one foot. She stood red-faced as Marcy came slowly down the driveway. But Marcy seemed impressed by the chaos.

  “I never knew you could bathe a horse!”

  “I should have done it weeks ago, the first hot day. They get really gross over the winter.” Erin dumped the remaining suds and the bucket of bleach over Spindrift. “But all I wanted to do was ride.”

  “I bet,” Marcy mumbled, staring at the mare.

  “You’ll find,” Aunt Lexie boomed, “that it’s almost as much fun working ’em from the ground.”

  “Marcy, do you know Mrs. Bromer?”

  Erin felt quite certain that Marcy knew who Aunt Lexie was, just as well as Aunt Lexie knew who Marcy was. But Aunt Lexie would require an introduction, just as she required her “Aunt.” So Erin did her duty; Aunt Lexie heaved herself out of her lawn chair and shook Marcy’s hand, and Marcy said a polite hello. She sounded scared.

  “So,” Aunt Lexie said with a sharp stare, “you’re another one who likes my horses.”

  “I—They’re beautiful. But I love all kinds of horses.”

  Erin adjusted the garden hose and went to work rinsing the soap and shampoo off Spindrift. The mare didn’t like the spray near her face. Erin could not
coax her to stand still while her neck and mane were being rinsed. Aunt Lexie and Marcy stood watching silently.

  “Fill a bucket,” Marcy suggested at last, “and use that.”

  “My very thought.” Aunt Lexie looked at Marcy curiously. “You’ve been around horses?”

  “No.”

  Silence, as Erin filled a bucket and poured it behind Spindrift’s ears. The mare shook herself, showering Erin, and everyone laughed.

  “But I’d love to have one,” Marcy declared in a burst of confidence. “Just—any one. It wouldn’t have to be a beautiful one like Spindrift. Just any horse at all.…” Her voice dwindled away on a note of longing that Erin recognized all too well. She stood fumbling with the bucket handle. It made her feel uncomfortable to have something that Marcy so badly wanted.

  “Sweat scraper,” Aunt Lexie told her crisply. “On the bench, Erin.”

  She picked up a towel instead. “Maybe you’ll have one someday, Marcy,” she said.

  “Not a chance.” Marcy seemed sadly certain of that. “My folks are divorced, and half the time Dad doesn’t send the money. My mom’s car is just about shot, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to get another one.”

  Stuck for an answer, Erin towel-dried Spindrift as best she could. The mare’s mane and tail hung stringily. “Tangle remover,” said Aunt Lexie, reaching up onto her porch for the pump-spray container.

  “Well,” said Marcy, “I have to go home.”

  “Already?” Erin protested. “You just got here.”

  “My mom’ll want me home. She’s always afraid my dad’s going to kidnap me or something.” Marcy shrugged. “Most days, after school, I’m not allowed out till she gets home from work, or I would have been here sometimes to watch you ride.”

  “Hi yi yi,” Erin said, dazed. “What do you do in the summer when she works?”

  “She’s a teacher out at Vo-Tech. She doesn’t work summers.”

  “You mean she’s home now?” Aunt Lexie cut in sharply.

  “Uh-huh. Hey, I’ve got to—”

  “There’s a phone in the tack room.” Aunt Lexie pointed with one outstretched, leathery hand. “Go in there and call her, tell her you’re here with Erin and me. Tell her you have to stay and help Erin walk that horse dry. You want me to talk to her?” Coming from Alexandra Bromer, that sounded like a threat.