Horse Heaven

by Jane Smiley

  “Why?”

  “Because it is. You are rejecting the love of God, and look at you. You may call yourself an embittered woman all you wish, as if saying it will make light of it, but it’s true and it doesn’t make you happy.”

  “And the love of God will make me happy?”

  “Here’s how it works, Cousin. First you admit it exists, then you admit you can see it, then you admit you can feel it, then you admit you want it, then you return it, and then it fills you. Then you are happy.”

  “Seems like a lengthy process, George.”

  “Pride makes a grand thing small, darlin’.”

  And then they had stopped talking about it, and she had taken George to the plane the next day and put him on it, and that had been two months ago. He had nailed her good, and they both knew it. Her own pride had made every grand thing she’d ever experienced small, and then smaller. Wasn’t she right now among the nature-lovers, busily making all this grandness about her—this ocean, these mountains, this light of day—as small as she could so she didn’t have to admit that she couldn’t experience it, didn’t know how, was immune to it?

  But, then, did she know how to make anything large anymore?

  By now the scene around her was bright and animated. The deck was full of people, first-day-of-vacation people, who were oohing and aahing at the scenery they had awakened to discover. How they had slept, how hungry that sea air made them, how happy they were to be here, it wasn’t like this back in Columbus, how nice it was to make a change. Many of them smiled at her and said “Good morning.” She smiled back. Even to speak, she thought, would be to cast a cloud over their pleasure.

  Tiffany she had made large, so large that she had had to run a third of the way around the world to cut her down to size. What had she said to George, in passing, as if it didn’t matter, just for something to say? That she was tired of making a big deal of everything. “What have I gotten from bringing my passions to bear on everything, George? Exhausted. That’s what.” But it was all too true. The horses had done her in; Tiffany might do her in.

  She went around to the stairs and mounted to the next deck, the promenade deck. It was much fancier up here, with great windows all along the deck, and polished wooden doorways and gold and all. She turned and entered the dining room, which was already, at, what was it, five-thirty, set up and aglitter with glassware and place settings and napery. She walked down the long buffet table, upon which men in white were setting out platters and chafing dishes. Bagels. Cream cheese. Another sort of cream cheese, onions, smoked salmon. Another sort of smoked salmon. A tiny dish of capers. She lifted her gaze. Dishes by the dozen, piled and mounded and stacked with food, all of it fresh, all of it made into a picture. She took a deep breath, and felt that biological rebound set in again—daylight, food, beauty, luxury. Were they not the simplest things to fall for? And yet. She went to the end of the buffet table and picked up a plate.

  TIFFANY WENT AROUND the barn with Ellen and followed her down a path that led to the back of the property, to a wooded pasture screened by trees from the rest of the paddocks. The day’s mid-Atlantic heat and humidity were gearing up, but there had been plenty of rain and the grass was green and thick. Groups of horses, grazing in twos and threes, looked up or came over to the fence. It was a scene Tiffany was utterly familiar with now, but it always pleased her. She was reminded of something. She said, “I meant to tell you. My mama was talking to her cousin, and she said that they had a great-uncle who was a horse-breaker in North Carolina back around the twenties and thereabouts. He didn’t have any children, so the cousin didn’t know much about him, but now my mama doesn’t think this is all so crazy anymore. Or, I guess, better crazy in the family than crazy out of it.”

  They came through the trees. Standing at the far end of the two-acre rectangle was a large black horse. He lifted his head, but he did not approach, not even one step. He looked at them for a minute or two, then bucked, kicked, farted, and set off galloping. He ran toward the fence, ducked, pivoted, kicked up his heels, and ran in the other direction. Tiffany, whose runners had given her a good eye, said, “He’s fast!”

  “Look at him turn. He can pivot on one front toe or he can rock back on his haunches.”

  He reared, and his forehand was in the air for what seemed like five minutes. Ellen said, “Made to jump. But you can’t touch him or approach him.”

  “Why did you buy him?”

  “I didn’t. They gave him to me.”

  “Who gave him to you?”

  “Barry Jordan, at Patch Creek Stud Farm, up by Chesapeake.”

  “Is he a stallion?”

  “Not anymore. That’s why they gave him to me. His owner had him at the track up in New York, and he won some big race, but then he got ruled off for savaging someone, so they sent him to the studfarm to see if that would calm him down, because, you know, sometimes it’s the stress of racing that makes them bananas, but he was still bananas, and when the stud manager said that they preferred not to stand him, the owner had him gelded.”

  “You know what Deirdre says.”

  “ ‘Geld him now and improve the breed.’ ”

  “So you said you would make him into a riding horse?”

  “I said I would. We’ll see. It takes a month for the testosterone to clear. It’s been two weeks. But I took all the mares out of these back paddocks. We’ll see.”

  “What’s his name?” said Tiffany.

  “You know what? They wouldn’t tell me. And they wouldn’t give me his papers. All I know is what I told you. Of course, I could read his tattoo and call the Jockey Club, but I can’t get close enough to him to read his tattoo at the moment.” She was smiling, perfectly happy. Nothing ever daunted Ellen, or, rather, nothing about a horse ever discouraged her. “We’ll name him something when we think of it.”

  This horse was a discouraging sight. He was rearing and running around and kicking up and pinning his ears now, and two times he ran toward the fence as if his bad intentions were personally directed at them. At the same time, he was obviously beautiful and talented. Tiffany said, “Ugh. I don’t like him.”

  “He is a bad bad boy,” said Ellen, but she said it fondly. “Maybe when he’s less of a boy, he’ll be less bad. We’ll see.”

  They turned and walked away, down the path and into the trees. Epic Steam stopped expressing his opinion of them and stood still. After they disappeared, he put his head down to graze, but then he began trotting the fence line. As for his testicles, they were gone but not forgotten. The fence was four feet six inches high, white boards, with a live electric wire running around the top to discourage wood chewing. Epic Steam was not nearly bored enough to chew wood—he was much too interested in the mares and fillies he could smell in the distance. One of these days, though no one yet knew it, he was going to discover his greatest talent. It was just a matter of time.

  JULY

  66 / ALL FEMALE

  ALTHOUGH LEON was fully equipped, with beeper, cellular phone, and voice mail, when Deedee went into labor at the Safeway in Arcadia, there was no one available to take her call. Right there between tortellini on one side and herbs and spices across the aisle, she lost her waters with a splash. But she who had once weighed 102 and now weighed 152 was well beyond embarrassment. The first thing she did was look in her grocery basket. Best not fool around with the frozen foods. She moved those to one side. That left a bag of potatoes, some oranges, two loaves of bread, a box of Team Cheerios, a jar of peanut butter—oh, what the hell. She took her purse out of the baby seat, knowing that the next time she saw one of these seats she would be using it, and left. Her goals were changing by the second. First it was shop for groceries, then it was at least buy the basics, now, as a result of feeling the first labor pain of her life, it was make it to the van in the parking lot.

  She stood still. Underneath her maternity T-shirt, she saw as well as felt the contraction. It unfurled upward like a sustained gripping sensation, held her tigh
t, then eased off. After it was gone, she began to count and walk at the same time. The Lamaze teacher had said the initial contractions would be about ten minutes, give or take a minute, apart. Deedee gave and took eight minutes. The contractions were two minutes apart. She had the second one right by the door and the third one about halfway to the van. She tried Leon again, left him another message, looked at her watch. It was eight-forty-two. She could not contract, walk, count seconds, and talk on the phone at the same time, so the message she left was, “Oh, shit, Leon, where are you?”

  The first contraction in the van lasted thirty-six seconds, which left her just over a minute to turn on the ignition and pull out of her parking place. Then she sat there for another thirty-six seconds, gasping, while cars lined up waiting for her to move. They weren’t honking yet, though. Then she thought she was going to faint, so she put down her window, but since it was hot outside, that didn’t help much. She put her head down on the door of the van and closed her eyes. That’s when the waiting cars started honking. Sometime later, in the midst of the noise, a voice said, beside her ear, “Deedee? Is that you?”

  She lifted her head. It was Marvelous Martha. Deedee said, “The contractions are two minutes apart. How did Residual work this morning?”

  “We just jogged. She did a half in forty-four and a half yesterday, though. Move over.” Deedee moved over. “What hospital are you in?”

  “Arcadia Methodist.”

  “I should have known.”

  Deedee put the seat all the way back, which didn’t help all that much, since the baby, a nine-pounder according to her doctor, now straddled all of her internal organs. She lifted her feet and put them on the dashboard, then said, “Don’t make me put on my seatbelt. Ohhhhhhh.”

  It came to Deedee that she might well die in the next five minutes to five hours, and so it would be best to make a confession. She said, “I’m sorry I didn’t like you. I was envious and angry.”

  “That’s okay, dear.”

  “And I’ve been a bitch to Leon. I mostly got pregnant to focus his attention.”

  “It seems to have worked, sweetheart. He’s much better at his job now.”

  “I was sorry I got pregnant. I thought about having an abortion.”

  “Most people do, honey. Thinking about it isn’t the same as doing it.”

  “Ahhhhh.”

  “Did they teach you how to breathe?”

  “Heeheeheehaahaahaaheeheehee.”

  “There you go. The baby doesn’t know what you’re thinking, either.”

  “I wish I’d done better in high school, and then gone to college.”

  “You still can.”

  “I was so awful to my mother. And she did this for me. I took money out of her purse for something.”

  “What was that, Deedee?”

  “Heeheeheehaahaahaaheeheeheehaahaahaawheeeeew.”

  “It won’t be far now. We’re almost there.”

  “It was for a jumping clinic with George Morris. I took it out of her purse a little at a time for three months when I was fifteen.”

  “At least it wasn’t drugs. You can pay her back after the baby’s born.”

  Should I live so long, thought Deedee. But she said, “Leon told me something.”

  “What’s that, honey?”

  “He told me that he saw Buddy and Curtis Doheny standing outside Residual’s stall. When they saw him, they walked on down the aisle very casually. Ahhhh. Heeheehee. Here we are. Oh, God!”

  Marvelous Martha pulled into the emergency entrance and glanced at her watch. The attendant was right there. She said, “I think her contractions are less than a minute apart.”

  The attendant opened the passenger door of the van while another attendant brought out a wheelchair. The two of them helped Deedee out of the van. Marvelous Martha went around and took Deedee’s hand. Deedee said, “Can you find Leon?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Thank you for being at Safeway.”

  Marvelous Martha smiled and said, “Is your conscience clear now?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Then go have a baby!”

  But then, after she got back into the van and pulled it out of the emergency entrance, she decided to park and go in, just to see.

  Inside the emergency-room door, they had already stretched Deedee out on a gurney. One nurse had hold of one leg and another nurse had hold of the other leg. A woman doctor was leaning forward, looking at the opening of the birth canal. Just as Marvelous Martha approached them, she stood up and said, “Baby’s crowning. Let’s do it. What’s your name, Deanie?”

  “Deedee,” said Marvelous Martha.

  “Deedee. Well, Deedee, give us a push.”

  “Hunnnnnhhhhhhhhh,” exclaimed Deedee.

  “Good one,” said the doctor.

  Marvelous Martha took Deedee’s hand.

  “HUUUUUNNNNNNNHHHHHH!” exclaimed Deedee.

  “All right! Here we go! Yes!” shouted everyone all at once, including several patients waiting in the emergency room to be treated.

  “One more for good measure,” said the doctor.

  “OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAUUUUUNNNNNH!” ululated Deedee.

  All over the emergency room, “Yeah! Go! Wow! Yeah! Yeah!”

  “Here she is,” said the doctor.

  Marvelous Martha stroked Deedee on the forehead and then leaned down. Deedee’s eyes closed briefly. She was panting. Before she could say anything, Marvelous Martha whispered in Deedee’s ear, “It’s a filly.”

  ———

  BUDDY AND LEON had gone to New York with a horse who was running in the Dwyer Handicap, and Marvelous Martha was supposed to follow a week later with Residual, who was entered in the Coaching Club American Oaks. The filly was working well, and seemed, Marvelous Martha thought, to have rededicated herself to pure speed. In four starts since January, not counting the race that ended prematurely, she had won twice, run third once, and run fifth once. With each race she got tougher and faster. Getting kicked in Texas had hardly set her back, except for the Derby. The top fillies, especially on the West Coast, were very fast company this year, much more interesting than the males, and Residual herself wanted to keep up with them. They had gone from being debutantes to being M.B.A.’s in one year of racing. They ran for the finish line with their eyes rolling and their ears pinned, the vigorous daughters of mares who ruled their pastures, and Marvelous Martha, who had ridden many a tough mare in her day, admired the filly’s willingness to learn what it took. In fact, she was enjoying herself so much, with Buddy and Leon gone and Deedee cocooned in her condo with Alana Marie Taylor-O’Connor, that she forgot anything could happen, and then something did. She got out to the track for her daily session, this time a jog after the previous day’s work, and the filly had a big soft swelling, warm and painful, in and around her right knee. She was off but not hobbling. It was easy to guess the problem—it was a common racehorse problem, especially with a speedball. The question was not whether she had a chip in her knee, it was how many. The groom put the filly back in her stall while Marvelous Martha went into Buddy’s office to find the vet list.

  After putting in a call to Karen Busher-Sysonby, D.V.M., whose work she had seen and admired, Marvelous Martha called Andrea Melanie Kingston, who was right there beside the phone. Marvelous Martha reported that the horse probably had a chip in her knee, and would Jason mind coming out to the track and speaking to the vet. Andrea Melanie said, “Jason is in Europe.”

  “Well, if she wants to do a surgery, which she probably will want to do, she should talk to the owner about it.”

  “Really?”

  “I think so.”

  “Is Buddy there?”

  “No, Buddy’s in New York.”

  “Are you going to consult him?”

  Marvelous Martha pondered that word, “consult.” If the horse had a chip in her knee, that was a pretty cut-and-dried matter, upon which little consultation was needed. Besides that, the authority
Marvelous Martha most often consulted was her own intuition. Limiting her consultations in this way resulted in a much more productive use of time and much less interpersonal conflict. And in addition to that, she had noticed over the years that everyone more or less agreed about a fait accompli. She said, “Well, let’s talk to the vet. You can make up your mind.”

  “I can?”

  “Of course you can. Though, of course, Buddy and your husband are readily available by phone.”

  “And computer link,” said Andrea Melanie. “We can send any pictures or other information to Jason’s personal computer.”

  “There aren’t really any decisions to make in this case. She’s got a chip in her knee. It has to come out. We can thank God that we have a vet to do it. You know, I had a boyfriend once, this was when I was very young, who was a real cowboy, and one time I saw him build a fire and stick his big pointed knife into it, and I said, ‘Lester, what are you doing?,’ and he pushed his chaw of tobacco to one side and looked up at me and said, ‘Honey, I’m gonna take that chip out of that horse’s knee.’ And he did. Once he pulled his own tooth, too.”

  “He was your boyfriend?”

  “Not for long after that.”

  “Have you had a lot of boyfriends?”

  “Yes, I have, and we can talk about that, but why don’t you come on out here and talk to the vet with me.” And so she did and so there was no further discussion of telephones or computer links.

  Although Karen Busher-Sysonby, D.V.M., was scientifically trained and also excelled at objectivity, she was not unaware of the circumstances of the present surgery. The horse was beautiful and famous; the trainer, whom she had worked for only once and who did not have the best reputation, was out of town; she herself had more credentials than experience; the owner of the horse was not herself a horseman; the guiding hand here, Martha Someone, was assuming more responsibility than was hers by right; and the horse’s bloodwork showed a slightly elevated concentration of red blood cells. All the same, the X-ray showed a simple, dime-shaped chip on the distal aspect of the radius, right front. You could get in and out of that in forty minutes, and looking to others who were older and male for permission to do the obvious was a characteristic of women that Karen Busher-Sysonby did not like, especially in herself. You could float teeth and give vaccinations all your life, or you could go ahead and do what you had been asked to do, and Karen Busher-Sysonby had not gotten through vet school by refusing to go ahead and do what she was asked to do.