“And where do you suppose our Mr. Whittaker is tonight?” Miss Hooper wanted to know. “Certainly not here with the rest of us. Haven’t heard two words out of him since we sat down.”
“That’s for sure,” Hy said. “I been noticin’ that too. What you been mullin’ over so hard, pardner?”
Gib laughed and said he guessed he’d been woolgathering, all right. “I was listening, though. I heard what everybody was saying about that earthquake in California.”
They all laughed then and Livy said, “That was at least half an hour ago. Just now we were talking about President Taft and before that it was coyotes. Where have you been, Gib?”
When Gib said he didn’t know, Livy said, “Well, I do. Out in the barn trying to get that wild ... Oops.”
There were frowns all around the table and Livy must have gotten the message because she swallowed the rest of what she was saying with a big forkful of mashed potatoes, and the conversation went back to politics and President Taft. Gib made an effort to get back into the discussion but without much luck.
When the meal was over Gib didn’t stay downstairs to read or play games the way he sometimes did. After he’d helped Hy up the stairs he went on to his own room. What he was tempted to do was to go back to Hy’s room and just plain out ask him what he thought was the matter with a horse that didn’t even hump his back when you saddled him, but who went crazy when you tried to make him take a bit. But he knew that was exactly the kind of thing you didn’t want to mention to Hy Carter. Not unless you wanted him to be on his way to the barn immediately, influenza or no influenza.
So no good advice from Hy. But later that night while Gib was waiting to go to sleep he began to develop a theory of his own. He was still making plans for testing it out when he finally fell asleep, and went right on solving head-shy horse problems in his dreams.
But the next day was Thursday and, with the end of Christmas vacation only a few days away, Livy insisted that she needed a special riding lesson. A lesson that would include some time outside on the open road. Which, Gib had to admit, made a certain amount of sense. Riding down the snowy driveway and then out onto the Longford road was likely to present some problems that you wouldn’t run into trotting around inside a corral. So after they’d been around the corral a few times Gib unlatched the gate and off they went down the Rocking M’s long drive.
There’d been a couple of inches of fresh snow the night before, but now the sky was a clear, cold blue. Under the thin layer of fluffy stuff, the remains of the old snowpack were still unthawed, so the footing was pretty tricky. Old Lightning, who’d probably seen lots of bad weather in his time, took it calm and easy, and even Silky, after a few snorting, plunging protests, settled down to businesslike behavior. On the driveway some of the drifts were almost up to the horses’ bellies and as they struggled forward, their heavy breathing sent twin plumes of frozen mist from their distended nostrils.
Right at first Livy’s face had been tight with fear, but halfway down the drive she began to relax. “Look at the horses’ breath,” she said. “They look like smoke-breathing dragons.” She giggled. “I was scared at first but I like it now. Do you suppose we could go all the way to Longford today? It ought to be easier once we get out on the main road where the snow’s been packed down a little.”
But Gib, who was anxious to get back to the barn to try out his theory about Ghost, said he didn’t think they should go too far on the first day. “Got to break the horses in to heavy going like this kind of gradual-like,” he argued, and after a while Livy agreed.
“All right,” she said, “let’s turn around. Right now. I think Lightning is getting tired, and besides my nose is freezing.”
Back in the barn with Lightning and Silky taken care of, and with Livy off to the house to warm up her nose, Gib went looking for a hackamore he remembered seeing somewhere in the tack room. Sure enough, there it was on a high peg under a bunch of old broken halters. It was a nice one. Made mostly of horsehair rope, it had a leather chin strap, but the knot that went under the chin was a large ball of braided rope. Gib examined it carefully. He’d never used a hackamore instead of a bridle before, but he knew how it was supposed to work. The reins were attached so that when you pulled on them the knot pressed under the horse’s chin and the pressure told him to stop. In general, what Gib had heard was that you didn’t have nearly as much control as you did with a bit, so hackamores were usually used only on a mount that was pretty easy to control.
“Well,” Gib told Ghost as he walked into the stall carrying the hackamore. “Can’t say as how you’re all that gentle, pardner, but what I think is that somebody’s really turned you against having a rough old iron bit in that soft mouth of yours. So let’s see how you’re going to take to this contraption.”
Like before, the saddling went without a hitch, but when Gib started to slip the hackamore over the gray’s nose there was some pretty suspicious snorting and head tossing. But Gib made a lot of soft talk, telling Ghost, “See, there’s no bit here. Just like another halter, is all it is. Nice soft halter with nothing that has to go inside your mouth.”
A lot of such soft talk and a few carrots later, Gib led Ghost out into the corridor wearing a cinched-up saddle and, on his head, an old braided horsehair hackamore. Using the reins as a lead rope, Gib led Ghost up and down the aisle a few times before he pulled him to a stop.
Talking all the time, he lined the gray up, adjusted the reins, and started to ease himself up into the saddle. But Ghost didn’t like it. His ears flicked backward and he sidestepped before Gib could get his foot clear into the stirrup. But after some more soft talk and a couple more circles up and down the aisle, Gib tried again. And this time Ghost stayed put, even when Gib put his foot in the stirrup, put some weight on it, waited a moment, and then swung up into the saddle.
“Okay, boy,” Gib said as he touched his heels to the gray’s flanks. “Here we go.”
The big horse’s head went up. He snorted softly and began a dancing, head-tossing movement down the corridor. They were almost to the barn door when, holding his breath, Gib leaned the reins to the left across the powerful gray neck. Immediately Ghost turned left in a sharp circle. Letting his breath go in a puff of relief, Gib grinned. Just as he’d figured, Ghost certainly had been trained to neck rein. There was no problem there.
But the important test came at the other end of the corridor when Gib pulled back on the reins and whispered, “Whoa.” The gray hesitated, tossed his head anxiously, and then, responding to the pressure on the noseband and the lump of rope under his chin, came to a stop. Grinning again, Gib patted the gray’s neck, telling him over and over again what a good boy he was and how well he was doing. And he was too, letting a pull on the reins tell him to stop even though there was no controlling bit in his mouth.
It had gone so well that Gib didn’t want to stop, but it was getting late and there were still the chores to be done. Tomorrow, he told Ghost, they’d be branching out. Going out into the outside world. “Yes, sir,” he said as he pulled off the saddle and led the gray into his stall. “Tomorrow’s going to be the big day. Tomorrow we’re going to see what you can do outside this old barn. Out there in the big old scary world.”
Chapter 18
GIB HADN’T THOUGHT IT would be an easy day, and it wasn’t. After the usual barnyard chores, there was saddling up Lightning and Silky for Livy’s riding lesson, which turned out to be a long one, followed by a rubdown for both horses. It wasn’t until midafternoon that Gib was able to keep his promise to Ghost.
The saddling up went without a hitch, but the moment Gib started to lead him across the barnyard Ghost became a different animal. A head-tossing prancer, whose sideways skittering almost jerked Gib off his feet two or three times before they reached the corral. And once inside the gate it took a lot of soft talk and several tries before Ghost would let Gib get close enough to swing up into the saddle.
Sitting on Ghost for the first few turns ar
ound the corral was something like riding on a barrel of dynamite. A barrel that threatened to explode at any minute. He didn’t buck, at least not exactly, but he surely wasn’t paying much heed to what Gib was telling him to do. Plunging forward, dancing sideways, rearing and tossing his head, he rounded the corral at least a half dozen times before he settled enough to respond to the reins, and to the sound of Gib’s voice telling him, “Take it easy. Settle down now, you high-stepping rascal.” But when he did start listening a little Gib put him to working out his nervous energy by rounding and re-rounding the corral, crossing and crisscrossing it in sharp figure eights.
The figure eights were high-legged and sideways at first. It wasn’t until a half hour or so had passed that they settled into a steadier trot, and finally an almost flat-footed, down-to-earth walk. Gib knew that one reason for the better behavior was that the gray was getting tired, but there was more to it than that. It seemed to Gib that Ghost was settling down because he was beginning to figure out that he wasn’t about to be hurt. Wasn’t about to be punished by bit and whip the way he’d surely been before.
By the time Gib took him back to the barn the sweated-up, hard-breathing gray was listening again, not only to the reins but also to the sound of Gib’s voice telling him what a great job he’d done.
Gib was mighty tired that night. Even after he’d cooled Ghost down and groomed him there were still the milking and the other evening chores to be taken care of. When dinner was over all Gib wanted to do was to go to his room and collapse, but Livy wanted him to stay downstairs and talk for a while. To talk, she said, about Monday, and their first ride to school.
“And something else,” she whispered as soon as they were out of hearing of the adults. Her eyes flickered excitedly as she went on. “There’s something else I want to tell you about too. Something secret.” She glanced around the library to where her mother was reading a book and Miss Hooper was writing a letter. “We have to go somewhere we can talk without anyone listening.”
She looked around the room for a moment longer before she said loudly, “I know. Let’s play dominoes. Come on, Gib, I want to play dominoes.”
Gib didn’t feel a bit like playing dominoes, but he saw right away what Livy was setting up. The game table was way across the room in the bay window alcove, where it would be possible to talk without being overheard as long as they kept their voices down. So he let himself be led over to the alcove and helped get the tiles turned over and stirred around. As soon as she’d drawn her tiles Livy plunked down a double-four and then forgot all about the game. “I saw you,” she whispered, leaning forward. “I was looking out of the window. Upstairs where you can see the corral. And I saw you riding the gray.” Her eyes were glittering.
Gib chuckled, shaking his head. “He’s pretty rambunctious, all right.”
“Rambunctious?” Livy raised her eyebrows. “A lot worse than rambunctious. I really thought you were going to get killed right there in front of my eyes.” She sighed shakily. “It was so exciting.”
“That right?” Gib asked, straight-faced. “That must have been pretty exciting, all right. Not every day you get to see somebody getting killed.”
Livy frowned. “That’s not what I meant and you know it, Gib Whittaker. I just meant it was so—thrilling. Like watching them ride the bucking broncos at the Longford rodeo. Only even more thrilling because those bony old rodeo broncos aren’t nearly as beautiful as Ghost is. He’s so magnificent and—wild.”
“No, not wild.” Gib shook his head. “He’s been stable-raised and trained too. Real well trained, I think. It’s just that he was kind of crazy when he first got here.”
“Crazy?” Livy was fascinated. She stared at Gib and he stared back, thinking how Livy’s face with its big eyes and sharp-edged cheekbones had a way of putting him in mind of a hot-blooded horse. A horse that was full of life and fire and—the thought made him grin—a lot of downright muleheadedness.
“Well, maybe not crazy,” he said. “But awful scared. Somebody’s scared him real bad and hurt him too.”
“Hurt him?” Livy’s eyes were wide and demanding. “How do you know? Tell me.”
All right, he thought. I guess you ought to know. So he told her about the whip marks. Not making it as bad as it really was, but enough to make her understand how serious the problem had been. “He was scared, but he was angry too,” Gib said. “Mighty angry and looking to get even.”
Livy was glaring now. “That’s terrible,” she said. “How could anybody do a thing like that? Whoever it was ought to be shot. He ought to be tied up and—” Suddenly she stopped raving and told Gib to get busy and play. “They’re watching us,” she said. “Hoop is. Go on, play a tile.”
So Gib put down a four-two, and they went on playing until the game was finished and Livy had won. Actually Gib helped her just a little because he knew she’d never quit until she’d won, and right at that moment he was mostly interested in getting up to bed. Livy didn’t say any more about the gray until the game was over, but as they were putting away the tiles she whispered, “Are you going to ride him again tomorrow?” And when Gib said he was hoping to she said, “Good. Tell me when, because I want to watch again.”
It was late Saturday afternoon, with the chores and Livy’s riding lesson finally finished, before Gib had time to get the gray saddled up and ready for another ride in the corral. Late in the afternoon on a darkening day with such a heavy mist in the air that halfway across the barnyard everything faded into blurry shadows. The weather, Gib thought, was playing the same sorts of tricks as it had that morning when Ghost had first appeared at the Rocking M. An icy fog had come in, like the one out of which a huge silvery shadow of a horse had appeared and then, just as swiftly, faded away.
Looking around the mist-shrouded barnyard, Gib couldn’t help shivering, even though he was warmly dressed. There was something mysterious about the blinding fog. Mysterious and cold too. Terribly cold and getting colder by the minute. As he led Ghost across the barnyard Gib told him it was going to be a short lesson. “So you’d better concentrate on learning something in a hurry, before we both freeze solid,” he told the prancing gray. And Ghost, throwing his head violently up and down, seemed to be saying that he wanted to hurry too. “All right, all right,” he seemed to be telling Gib. “Stop talking and let’s get started.”
Ghost started out pretty lively again. Plunging and sidestepping and tossing his head, he managed to keep Gib too busy to notice much of anything besides the dapple gray powder keg he was sitting on. It did occur to him, after a while, to wonder if Livy was watching from the upstairs window, like she’d said she was going to. But when he looked up toward the house the drifting mist made it impossible to tell whether anyone was there or not. Gib forgot about being watched then and concentrated on getting Ghost to stop the nonsense and quiet down.
It was Ghost who saw them first. Something near the gate spooked him into a sideways sashay so sudden that it almost left Gib behind. It wasn’t until he’d regained his balance and got the gray to quit acting the fool that he saw what the trouble was. Right outside the gate a tall man wearing a big Stetson and woolly chaps was sitting on a Roman-nosed buckskin. Gib recognized the horse first, and then the man. Yes, it surely was the Thorntons’ neighbor, Mr. Clark Morrison.
Gib was reining Ghost back toward the gate and fixing to call howdy, when Morrison started shouting. “My God, boy,” was what he yelled. “Get off that horse before you get killed.”
Chapter 19
IN THE FIRST FEW seconds after Mr. Morrison appeared at the corral gate, Gib was too busy quieting the gray to think about what the man had yelled, and what it might mean. But by the time Ghost’s plunging dash toward the other end of the corral had finished up in a skittering sideways dance, the questions had begun to shape themselves inside his head.
Why did Mr. Morrison yell at Gib to get down before he got killed? Did he know something about Ghost? And if he did, why did he? Was it because—
the thought hit Gib like a kick in the stomach. Was it because Ghost belonged to him? And if he did, did that mean that he was the one who ... ?
As Gib dismounted and led the fretting, head-tossing horse to the gate, the rest of that question was churning around inside his head and threatening to spill out of his mouth in an angry yell. But Morrison was no longer in asking distance. He had ridden off to the other side of the barnyard, and there he sat on his big buckskin, watching and waiting while Gib led Ghost back toward the barn. Gib blinked hard and shook his head, trying to see Morrison through a vivid memory of scabbed and bloodstained ridges on dapple gray flanks. Clenching his teeth, he looked back to where Morrison was following along behind, leading the buckskin. But when Gib slowed down to let him catch up Morrison slowed too. At the barn door he stopped altogether and waited until Gib unsaddled Ghost and put him in his stall. It was only then that Morrison came on into the barn and began to ask questions. To ask, but not to answer any, at least not right at first.
Morrison had lots of questions. “All right, young man, what are you doing with my horse? Who told you you could ride him? Did Carter let you do that? I can’t believe Hyram Carter would be fool enough let a boy ride a dangerous animal like that.”
Swallowing down some questions of his own, questions about horse beaters and bullwhips, Gib managed to squeeze out an answer to Morrison’s question about Hy. Between clenched teeth he said, “Hy has nothing to do with this, Mr. Morrison. He’s been sick in bed for almost a month. Real bad influenza.”
Morrison frowned. His voice had a tight, angry sound as he asked, “Do you mean to tell me Carter doesn’t know that he has an extra horse in this barn? A horse that just happens to be a valuable Kentucky Thoroughbred? And how about Mrs. Thornton? She doesn’t know either?”
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