Champion Horse

by Jane Smiley

  My own opinion was that it wasn’t all that bad to have Stella gone for three days. When we were eating our lunch, we didn’t talk so much about what the other girls looked like or what they were wearing. Leslie was more in charge when Stella was gone, so we talked about which of the junior boys was the cutest. We didn’t dare talk about the senior boys, though. We also didn’t talk about Stella.

  *

  Carlie Hollingsworth, who went to our church, was now in high school, too, and our high schools were number one rivals. This actually made us better friends because we had something to talk about, the Condors and the Coyotes. Mr Hollingsworth had played football in both high school and college, as something called an ‘end’, which Carlie said was the boy on the team who was always running somewhere and trying to catch the pass. Mr Hollingsworth was thrilled that he could now be a big fan of the Coyotes, and even more thrilled that the Coyotes had been first in the league the year before (the Condors had been third). The first game, with a team called the Range Riders, had ended at 21–0 in favour of the Coyotes, of course. I knew that the Condors had lost their first game 0–6, but I knew only because Gloria had gone with Leslie and called to tell me. Carlie knew this without me telling her. She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Pop is a little nuts.’

  My dad didn’t even know that the name of our team was the Condors. I guessed that Mr Hollingsworth would tell him. Also, one good thing about Mr Hollingsworth going to the games was that he saw what the other kids had on compared to Carlie, and on the way home, he stopped at a store and bought her some nice clothes. She was wearing a new dress to church. It had long sleeves and a collar like the collar of a man’s shirt, but it was short – the hem was a few inches above her knees. I could see the Sisters glancing at it and making noises, but I liked it, and I thought she looked pretty. Dad, who had learned his lesson with the Greeleys, acted as if he didn’t notice the dress, and Mom went right up to her and said, ‘That’s a sweet dress, Carlie! I love the collar.’

  Mrs Hollingsworth said, ‘Why they would put long sleeves on a short dress I will never understand. Too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.’ Simultaneously, she shook her head and Carlie rolled her eyes. Brother Abner gave a talk about ‘the Rules and the Spirit’. When we had our supper, which was meatloaf made by Mrs Hollingsworth, I saw Mrs Larkin and Mom off in a corner, talking for a long time, but when Dad looked over at them, they stopped talking. I thought that was weird.

  Chapter 7

  After our one jumping session with Dad, I’d tried to forget the whole thing. I had ridden in the arena, down to the creek, up the hillside, and down the road. I had gone out with Mom, with Dad, with Danny, and by myself. Blue had been kind and responsible – one time, when Morning Glory shied with Mom at a deer, Blue just stood there and let Morning Glory bump into him. He hadn’t minded the cows up the hill – not blue Brahmas this time, just plain old Herefords. He had gone nicely into the water in the creek (just a ripple, though), and up and down the banks. He had walked on a loose rein and trotted out when asked. He hadn’t even minded Rusty weaving in and out of the trees – he was used to Rusty, and Dad would say that a horse knows where its dog is every minute, just like he would have his eye on the neighbourhood wolves if there were any.

  In the arena and in the pen, I had set out poles for him to trot over, and he had done so, only looking down at them every so often. But it wasn’t my idea to jump him. I just came home from school and found a couple of jumps set up, Blue wearing his English saddle, and Dad ready to go. He had made four jumps – a vertical of poles, his branch gate, an oxer of poles, and a row of hay bales. They were set with one end against the fence rail, so there’d be no run-outs in that direction. After we worked Blue in the pen so that he was relaxed, we led him around the arena and sat or leaned on the jumps and petted him so that he was more relaxed. Then I stepped him over about a zillion times so that he was as relaxed as he could be, and I have to say that when I got on him and we walked, trotted, and cantered, he seemed good. But when I turned him towards that first vertical, I felt his body go rigid and I had to kick him over the fence, which he took awkwardly.

  Dad walked over and gave me a whip. He said, ‘Don’t hit him, just make sure he knows you have it.’

  I took it in my hand lash upward, like a weapon, the way Peter Finneran said, and headed for the fence. Blue sped up so much I had to really take hold because I was afraid he would run away. Once again, he threw himself over the jump. I dropped the whip. Dad picked it up and said, ‘What did you learn in that clinic? Peter Finneran said you have to make him do it.’

  ‘But when I do that, it feels like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He might run into the fence or fall down.’

  ‘Peter Finneran is the expert on jumping, not me. He showed you how to press him.’

  ‘I don’t believe him.’

  Dad shook his head – only a tiny bit, the way you do when you are getting exasperated.

  I said, ‘I mean, I don’t believe him about Blue. He hated Blue.’

  ‘No horseman hates a horse.’

  ‘He said he was a worthless beast. That’s why he put me on Pie in the Sky.’

  ‘I’m sure he was just—’ But then he stopped. What was there to say? Dad pursed his lips. Then he said, ‘Well, that was not something he should have said to a child who paid thirty dollars to ride in his clinic.’

  I said, ‘You paid?’

  ‘Well, we paid thirty. Jane gave you thirty for coaching the girls in the show, so the other kids paid sixty.’

  ‘Sophia paid sixty dollars to have him yell at her for three days?’

  ‘All of you girls paid money to be coached by the best in the business.’

  I said, ‘Well, he didn’t like Blue, and I don’t think he understood him.’

  ‘I don’t think we understand him, either.’

  I said, ‘Yes, but we like him.’

  Dad said, ‘Well, then he’s a lucky horse. Why don’t you walk him around for a while, and take him up the hill. He enjoys that. Let’s say he’s just not a jumper, all right? There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  I nodded.

  That evening, after I did my homework and finished The Red Badge of Courage, I decided to write Barbie a letter:

  Dear Mlle Barbara Goldman:

  There is one thing wrong with our high school and it is that you and Alexis are not there! (Maybe that is two things.) But you should see Leslie. She went to a camp for losing weight (and she is the first one to tell you that), and now she swims and is taller than everyone else. She looks really good, and she knows it, and I told Gloria when she said that that there is nothing wrong with her knowing it. Better that than doing what Stella does all the time, which is to tell you how terrible she looks today, but hoping that you will tell her that she is wrong, which I always do because I am afraid not to.

  And guess what? Stella started smoking cigarettes, and she smoked one in the girls’ bathroom and got caught, so she was suspended for three days. She’s back now, and every time she opens her purse, she makes sure that you see that the pack of cigarettes is in there – Pell Mell or something like that.

  I think you would like the high school. They have already cast the first school play – it is The Crucible, and how they can do it without you I don’t know. It is perfect for high school because freshmen have to play the girls who see the ghosts, and there are lots of girls’ parts – ten or eleven. I guess last spring they did Peter Pan and there were about three girls’ parts, so the audience wasn’t very big. You would love the theatre. There is room for a BIG audience. Also, there are two plays each year directed by students. Will that make you come home?

  Right after you left, I did a riding clinic with a very famous man named Peter Finneran, who was in the Olympics and everything. I guess by the time he was my age, he was already a US champion rider, and he is not that old now. Thirty, if that. Anyway, he hated Blue, and called him a worthless beast. And yes, it is totally true tha
t Blue cost me five dollars and sixty cents and the other horse I rode cost thousands of dollars, but since you love Blue, I am telling you this because it really bothers me, and even though I actually had fun in the clinic sometimes, because he was really good at thinking up exercises, it makes me mad every time I remember it. There was another girl in the clinic named Sophia who we didn’t know (she went to the Derby School through eighth grade). She’s now at the high school, and I sort of think she’s my friend. This man was as mean to her as kids at school are when they are doing their worst – I am thinking THE BIG FOUR! I should ask her about it but I’m afraid to.

  So anyway, I do wonder how you are doing there. I hope it’s not really three campfires and twelve buckets of water a day. But your horse Tooter sounds nice! Just remember to keep your heels down and your eyes up and your you-know-what deep in the saddle. You are a good rider, and Blue misses you! You can ride him as much as you want when you come home for vacation, if they let you do that.

  Je t’aime,

  Abby

  *

  The next day was my birthday, but even if Sophia had known that, I wouldn’t have expected her to notice. She plopped herself down in front of me in ancient history (now we were working on Mesopotamia) and said to me, ‘I am going to stare at you until you say you’ll come ride Pie in the Sky this weekend.’

  I stared back at her, but I could not keep myself from laughing, and so I said I would ask Mom.

  She said, ‘I know you teach those girls, and I know you do it at nine, so I will have Rodney saddle Pie in the Sky for ten-thirty.’

  She kept staring at me, even when Miss Cumberland said, ‘Sophia! Can you explain the difference between the Akkadians and the Babylonians?’

  But Sophia continued to stare at me until I nodded. Maybe this was twenty seconds, but it seemed like five minutes. Then she turned to Miss Cumberland, and said, ‘The Babylonians were in the south and the Akkadians were in the north.’

  Miss Cumberland said, ‘Well, not exactly, but—’ Then she went on to say that there was a myth the Sumerians had about a huge flood like the flood in the Bible with Noah’s Ark. I thought this was interesting. There was also a long story called The Epic of Gilgamesh. Miss Cumberland got excited about this story and passed around some photographs of the clay tablets that the story was written on. There were ten of them, and people had only been able to read them for about a hundred years because a man who Miss Cumberland said was a great hero had translated them even though he hardly had any education and taught himself almost everything he knew. Miss Cumberland was going to copy some parts of the epic for us to read in the next few days. At one point, Kyle Gonzales raised his hand and said that clay tablets were a great invention, as great as the wheel, because all you had to do to write on them was press a reed into them and move it a little bit.

  Miss Cumberland kept nodding, and I could tell that Kyle was going to get an A in ancient history, but that would never be enough for him. What he really wanted to do was be up there at the teacher’s desk, telling us what he knew. Miss Cumberland said, ‘Kyle, I know you like to find out things.’

  Kyle said, ‘A man came by and sold my mom an Encyclopaedia Britannica, and it is the best set of books ever written.’

  Some of the boys opened their mouths and rolled their heads around like this was a dumb thing to say, but Miss Cumberland didn’t even notice them.

  *

  At lunch, Leslie and Gloria pulled out a Snickers bar and two candles, and Leslie used her fork to dig two little holes in the Snickers. They pushed the candles in, and Stella actually took out a match and lit them. I blew them out in exactly one second, and what I wished for was a good ride on Pie in the Sky on Saturday. There were no presents, but Gloria invited me to her house Friday night for a small party. And it was fun – Leslie, Gloria, Stella, Mary, and Luisa were there, and they gave me some nice things, like a Simon and Garfunkel album and a Gary Lewis and the Playboys album. Gloria also gave me a scarf that her mother had knitted for me, though Gloria had done a few inches. It was blue and yellow, Condors colours. Leslie gave me a book called Smoke Rings, and Stella gave me some blue eyeshadow, certainly a hint. When I got home, I found out why Mom had insisted that I not stay out too late. Even though she and Dad had already given me a new winter coat on the actual day of my birthday, while I was out at the party, they had put a new hi-fi set in my room, on the bookcase, and Mom, Dad, and Danny had each given me a record. Danny picked the Lovin’ Spoonful, Mom picked the Mamas and the Papas, and Dad picked the Statler Brothers. And then I got to listen, with the sound turned down, until I fell asleep. I actually felt fourteen.

  *

  On Saturday, I put on my good riding clothes and my new boots even though it was hot at our house – seventy-two and only eight-thirty in the morning. Mom gave me two dollars as a tip for Rodney and said that he deserved more, but this would be enough for now. I put it in the pocket of my breeches. Mom had agreed to pick me up at noon – she had something that she wanted to discuss with Sister Larkin anyway, and what with going to the store and getting her hair cut, the extra time was fine. The surprise was that it was hot at the stables, too, and sunny in a way that you almost never saw there. ‘Except in October,’ said Jane. For Melinda, I made up a sort of horse scavenger hunt. I got a couple of carrots from a bucket Jane had and broke them into small pieces, then I went around the grounds of the stables – sometimes even a little bit into the woods – and set them places that Melinda could reach from the saddle – on top of a fence post or on a stump or a tree branch or the bonnet of a car, and I sent Melinda and Gallant Man to find them. If they got lost, I shouted ‘hot’ or ‘cold’. Each time Melinda found one, she would lean forward and hand it to Gallant Man, which made her practise leaning forward and gave him a reason to limber up by turning to look at her. I could see by the end of the exercise that Gallant Man was looking for the carrots, too. I would never put it past a pony to understand the point of a game, especially a food game.

  This game meant that when Ellen showed up to jump, Gallant Man was fresh and ready. For Ellen, I set the jumps the way Peter Finneran had that first day – eighteen inches high, in a big X – so that she would get plenty of practice turning and coming back to the jump from both directions. Ellen liked this exercise, just the way that she liked every complicated exercise better than every simple exercise – she had to think about it and didn’t have time to complain. She did a good job, too, which she told me all about as we walked back to the barn. One thing about Ellen was that it didn’t matter whether I praised her, because she always praised herself. Most of the time she was right – she never said that she had done something correctly when she had done it wrong. It was like she was making a list in her head of all the things she did do right, so that she would remember them, and why not?

  Rodney, Colonel Hawkins, Jane, and Sophia were standing there with Black George and Pie in the Sky when I got back to the barn. Ellen dismounted, and I handed her her pony, then I went over to the hook where I had hung my hard hat. Ellen said, ‘Can I watch?’ And Jane said, ‘Your mother is waiting. Maybe next week.’

  Next week?

  Sophia said, ‘Was it your birthday?’

  I nodded. But she didn’t say anything else. Jane said, ‘Happy birthday.’

  Rodney gave me a leg-up onto Pie in the Sky, and Colonel Hawkins took Black George over to the mounting block and got on. He led the way to the big arena, and Jane and Sophia walked behind us. I tried not to turn around and stare. I had never seen Colonel Hawkins ride Black George or any other horse. It was Jane who gave the lesson. Sophia stood near her in the centre of the arena, watching.

  When I had been on Pie in the Sky for about five minutes, I knew all through my body that what Danny and I had done with him on the day I rode him in the clinic had made a big difference in him. This horse was prancy and stiff, and he tossed his head about six times. He also decided that two of the cars parked beside the big arena were not to be trusted,
and though he didn’t shy, he curved out away from them when we passed them. Was there something going on in the woods? Better look. Was there something going on up the road? Better look. He felt like a mess. But Jane hadn’t given any commands yet; she was still watching us, so in a fairly open part of the arena, where there weren’t any jumps, I had him step over three times in each direction, and then bend to the left and bend to the right. I remembered Danny doing some spirals, and did two of those in each direction. Still Jane didn’t say anything, so I realised that they had decided to let me do it my way. He stopped feeling like a mess and began feeling just a little ‘untidy’, as the teachers would say. But that was an improvement. I enjoyed him. He had a bouncy trot and a light mouth.

  Jane said, ‘Are we all warmed up?’

  Colonel Hawkins said, ‘A brisk hand gallop would be good for them.’ He got up in his stirrups and off they went.

  Colonel Hawkins did not ride like a soldier, which surprised me. His stirrups were long and his feet were pushed pretty far into them. His knees were pretty straight. He also kind of bent his back instead of doing that soldier thing, which is spine straight, chin up, shoulders down, yes sir. But even so, he went right along with Onyx on a light rein, quiet in the saddle. In the meantime, Pie in the Sky was enjoying himself, and kicked up now and then. I didn’t mind that. I knew it would loosen his back. It is funny how every horse feels completely different from every other horse. Just watching Onyx, I remembered how Black George had felt – smooth and solid and steady. He was happy to do his work and always willing, but he wasn’t catlike or loose. You could sense from the way he used his body that he was thinking and planning. That’s why jumping big jumps was not as hard as it might seem – he always knew where he was, and because he was big and solid, where he was was where he was going to stay. He was reliable, and also talented. We got a lot of money for him because those two things don’t always go together.