Sale Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 5)

by Claire Svendsen

  “I think I will,” I said. “I don’t have the strength to even consider jumping today.”

  I split my remaining carrots between Hampton and Harlow. Hampton didn’t seem like he could care less but Harlow was all snuffles and hugs. I leant against his neck, inhaling his sweet smell. I wished he was sound enough to jump. To turn back the clock to how things used to be. I never even got much of a chance to show everyone what he was really capable of but at least we’d had one show and that was better than nothing. I knew in my heart that Esther was right. He did deserve a home where he could be loved and not have to work for a living. Liesl would make sure that happened. He’d get massages and rub downs and plenty of time to be outside and live like a real horse again. His showing days were over and no matter how much it hurt, I had finally accepted that it was true.

  Almost on cue, I heard Liesl’s old car rattle down the drive, back firing every now and then as it ground to a halt.

  “Do you want her to be your new owner?” I asked Harlow, slipping out of the stall and sliding the door shut.

  He closed his eyes and nodded his head up and down. I guess that was a good enough answer for me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  “I knew you’d be feeling better by now,” Liesl greeted me with a grin.

  “How?” I asked. “A psychic connection?”

  “No,” she shrugged. “Colds last seven days no matter what you do.”

  We both laughed as she pulled a woven bag out of her car. I could see candles sticking out of it and some little bells rang out from deep inside.

  “What is all that stuff?” I asked.

  “I thought,” she said, putting her arm around me. “That it was time we did a little ritual to send your friend back into her body.”

  “You’re not a witch, are you?” I said.

  “Of course not,” she shook her head. “But sometimes spirits need a little nudge in the right direction, don’t you think?”

  “I guess,” I said, not really convinced. “You know you can’t burn those candles in the barn though, right?”

  “Of course not,” she said.

  I’d only just come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe Liesl had some sort of connection with the horses, though how she was able to communicate with them I still wasn’t sure. Now here she was claiming that a ritual could wake Mickey from her coma? She was stretching my new found faith in her a little thin.

  “Hello my boy,” she greeted Harlow as we came into the barn.

  He stuck his nose to the bars and let out a soft sigh. She poked her fingers through and rubbed his cheek.

  “He really does like you,” I said. “Are you still going to buy him?”

  “I want to,” she said. “If your trainer and I can agree upon a price.”

  I didn’t exactly see that being a problem. Harlow was only really pasture sound. He could probably manage a little flatwork and some trail rides but that was about it and there was always the possibility that he would eventually get worse. I knew that you couldn’t even give a lame horse away.

  “Is this Mickey’s horse?” she asked, stopping in front of Hampton’s stall.

  “Yes,” I said. “And you don’t need to tell me that he’s sad. I already know.”

  “Then perhaps we should include him in our plans too?”

  “What do you think boy?” I asked him. He answered by turning his butt to the door. “We’ll include him anyway,” I said. “Better to be safe than sorry.”

  I stuck my head in the office where Esther was working.

  “Liesl is here,” I said. “And we’re just going to take Hampton out back to hand graze. Okay?”

  “If you’re okay with it?” she shrugged. “Do you think she still wants to buy Harlow?”

  “I think she still wants him,” I said. “I don’t know how much she can afford though.”

  “Horses aren’t free you know,” she said.

  “Not even lame ones?” I raised an eyebrow.

  I knew that she knew better but she didn’t trust Liesl to be able to take care of Harlow and that was my fault. I was going to have to make things right between them but first we had to fix Mickey.

  I slipped Hampton’s halter on and led him out the back to the grassy area where the old paddock was that Bluebird used to live in. He looked around, sighed and then started to graze. Liesl was setting up candles on plates in a sandy patch and along with the bells she had pieces of ivory, dried flowers and an old horse shoe.

  “Is this really going to work?” I said.

  “At the show,” she said. “Bluebird went over that wall because you believed in him. Yes?”

  “Yes,” I nodded.

  “So don’t you think that this might have a better chance of working if you believe in it too?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  I watched her arrange things in a circle. The candles, the ivory and the flowers with the horse shoe in the middle. She was mumbling as she worked, her skirt today as blue as the sky. Somehow she looked younger than she had seemed before, as though age was something fluid and not fixed in time.

  Liesl didn’t know Mickey. Had never even met her and yet here she was, doing something for her anyway. There was goodness in her. I could feel it. Maybe she was just a little crazy. Maybe we all were. But I was willing to give anything a try if it would bring Mickey back to me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  I wasn’t really sure what I expected a ritual to be but this wasn’t really it. We sat cross legged on the grass as Hampton grazed around us and the candles burned. Liesl chanted something under her breath and she had a wad of sage that she burned, the air filling with the musky scent.

  “Is that it?” I asked when she finished.

  “I want you to think of the best ride you ever had with Mickey,” she said. “Picture her on the back of her horse alongside you at a time when she was healthy and happy.”

  There were so many memories that I found it hard to pick just one. They flooded through my brain one after the other like a slideshow of pictures. I could see her on Hampton as we rode through the trails, her feet free from the stirrups and laughing. Then at a show, collecting her blue ribbon with her face full of joy.

  “Good,” Liesl finally said, standing up and brushing the grass from her skirt. “I think we’ve done all we can. The rest is up to Mickey.”

  I waited for my phone to buzz. To get the call that she was awake but nothing happened. I turned it off and on again just to be sure.

  “It’s not working,” I said.

  “Give it time,” Liesl laughed.

  We put Hampton back in his stall and watched as he started to eat his hay.

  “Do you think he’d be happy with a new owner?” I said. “You know, if it doesn’t work.”

  “What did I tell you about believing?” she said.

  “I know, I do believe but can’t I be a little practical as well?”

  “No,” she said. “But he would learn to accept it just like we all have to accept change.”

  “I hate change,” I grumbled.

  “I know you do,” she said.

  I left her in the office with Esther where they were no doubt going to talk about giving Harlow a new home. I slipped Bluebird’s bridle on and took him out into the sunshine where I hopped up on him bareback. His chestnut ears pricked up as we headed back towards the trail. He knew this meant we weren’t going to work in the ring today and I didn’t need Liesl to tell me that he was happy about it.

  I tried to imagine what life would be like without Hampton and Harlow at the barn. Esther said that she hadn’t heard anything from Todd after the show. Perhaps my passing remark had worked on Samantha and she had decided that maybe it would be in her best interest to buy a pony instead. But there would always be another Samantha waiting to purchase a beautiful hunter like Hampton and I knew that if Mickey didn’t wake up soon then she was going to lose her horse. There was nothing more that I could do about it and as I rode throug
h the trees, the sunlight dappling the ground and lighting Bluebird’s coat like polished copper, I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders. I’d done everything I could. There was nothing left for me to feel guilty about. If I had the money I’d buy Hampton and keep him for Mickey but I didn’t have thousands of dollars to pay for him or the money for his board. Even though I didn’t want to, I had to accept my limitations.

  As I reached the back fence, I saw a girl in the distance riding a black horse and leading another. Bluebird let out a whinny and the girl looked up and waved. It had to be Amber. Jess would never wave hello. She came over to the fence.

  “Two for the price of one?” I pointed to Beauty and Belle.

  “I had to get her exercised somehow,” Amber said.

  “Where is your sister?” I asked.

  “Back at the house, sulking.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s actually giving up riding for good?” I said.

  “Fat chance,” Amber sighed. “But Dad and her are in this giant debate over what she is going to do next. She wants to do more of the jumpers and he thinks she should go back to the hunters where at least she actually placed in the ribbons.”

  “You know you probably shouldn’t be telling me any of this?” I said.

  “I know,” she sighed. “What can I say, I guess I’m a rebel.”

  We sat there in the sunshine on our horses and talked about school and parents and how hard it was to keep breeches clean. Bluebird nibbled Spanish moss that hung from a nearby tree and Beauty grazed at the end of her lead rope, obviously pleased with her extended vacation from Jess.

  “Are you going to go back to hating me when your sister starts riding again?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged.

  I guess at least she was honest.

  “It’s not that I hate you,” she said. “I don’t. I don’t think Jess hates you either. It’s just that you are the one thing that stands between her and winning.”

  “Winning isn’t everything,” I said.

  “It is to my father,” Amber sighed and that wasn’t the first time I had heard it so I knew it was true. “You don’t know what it is like in my family,” she said.

  And she was right. I didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’m not the only one at the shows so it’s hardly fair to say that I am the only thing standing in her way.”

  “But you don’t have money or fancy horses and yet you still win,” she said. “That’s why she hates you.”

  “There is room for more than one rider on an Olympic team,” I shrugged. “I don’t see why we can’t all get along.”

  “Never going to happen,” Amber shook her head. “It’s been drilled into us since birth. Destroy the enemy at all costs.”

  “You don’t seem to have turned out so bad,” I said.

  “I guess I wasn’t listening,” she grinned.

  As I waved goodbye to Amber, I wondered if the next time I saw her she would like me or pretend to hate me. Life sure was complicated on the other side of the fence and not for the first time, I felt sorry for Jess and even sorrier for Amber.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  The ritual didn’t seem to be working. I guess I was hardly surprised. If modern medicine couldn’t fix Mickey then why did I expect voodoo magic to? Still I wasn’t mad at Liesl. Maybe she’d just done it to give me hope or maybe she really did believe in all that stuff. But either way nothing had happened at the hospital. Mickey was still in a coma and I still wasn’t allowed to see her.

  “Maybe I could see her if I promise not to say anything about riding or horses or selling Hampton?” I asked Mom.

  “It’s too late for that,” she said. “I’m sorry, really I am but they are not going to let you see her again. I already talked to Mickey’s mom and she said it would be best if you just stayed away.”

  “It’s not fair,” I said.

  “I know,” she sighed.

  Lately nothing had seemed very fair. When I wasn’t at school or at the barn, I sulked around the house looking at photos of Mickey and Hampton which was dumb because it just made me cry. So eventually I gathered them all up and stuffed them into a box which I pushed under my bed. Wallowing in sadness wasn’t going to help the situation. But it was like Mickey was stuck in limbo and so were we. All trapped in this reality where we didn’t know what to do without her.

  Liesl had struck up a bargain with Esther that seemed to make everyone happy. Free massages for the horses in the barn for a year in exchange for Harlow and if at any time she decided that she couldn’t keep him, then she was bound by contract to return him to Esther. We were going to take him out to her place on Saturday. I was still sad that I wasn’t going to see him as much but at least I’d still get to see him every now and then. Liesl was teaching an equine massage course and Harlow was going to be her demo horse so basically he was going to stand around getting his muscles rubbed all day. I couldn’t have chosen a better life for him if I tried.

  “Now promise me you’ll be a good boy,” I told him as I ran a final brush over his gleaming dapples.

  It had taken hours to get all the manure stains out of his coat and I certainly wasn’t going to miss getting a gray horse ready for shows. It was about five times the work.

  “You want to put his shipping boots on?” Esther asked. “I’m going to hook up the trailer now.”

  “Alright,” I gulped.

  “I’m only bringing you along if you promise not to cry,” she scolded.

  “I know,” I said.

  But even she looked a little sad as Harlow looked around the farm and let out a final whinny before stepping inside the trailer.

  “He was saying goodbye,” I said, blinking back tears.

  Esther made a strangled, throaty noise, tucked her hair behind her ears and closed the door. She’d been doing this a lot longer than I had. I knew it wasn’t the first horse she’d said goodbye to.

  Liesl had a little three acre farm that was about thirty minutes away. As we pulled in the gate I saw a gray miniature horse doing laps in a small field, followed closely by a goat and a dog.

  “Look,” I cried. “It’s a miniature Harlow!”

  The tiny horse had the same dapples and dark mane that turned to light and it let out a high pitched whinny when it saw the trailer. Liesl waved as soon as she saw us. Today she wasn’t wearing a flowing skirt but jeans and a purple shirt.

  “Welcome to my little slice of heaven,” she said.

  “This is great,” I grinned, looking around.

  The farm was about as miniature as the horse with a three stall barn and two small fields. Esther backed Harlow out of the trailer and he took in the goat and the mini and snorted, his legs splayed like he wasn’t sure if he should stand his ground or gallop off.

  “You can’t be scared of that little thing,” I said, taking his boots off. “You’re ten times bigger than he is.”

  “That’s Tonka,” Liesl said. “I rescued him from some people who thought having a mini would be fun until their daughter outgrew him. So they just decided to forget he was out there in their back yard. You should have seen the state of his hooves when I first got him.”

  “He looks great now,” Esther said.

  “It took a little time but he’s back in shape. I’m thinking about teaching him to pull a cart.”

  “Oh that would be so cool,” I said. “Can I help?”

  “I think you have your plate full enough as it is,” Esther said but Liesl smiled and winked.

  “Shall we put him in the field next to the menagerie and see how he does?” Liesl asked, pointing to Harlow.

  “Might as well,” Esther said. “He’s going to have to get used to them sooner or later.”

  She took him into the second field next to the mini, goat and dog that looked like a cross between a Great Dane and a German Shepard. They all came over to the fence, their noses pushed through the planks expectantly, ready to greet their new barn mate. />
  As soon as Esther slipped Harlow’s halter off he spooked away from her, galloping down the fence line and snorting. Then he spun around and came back at a huge, ground covering trot.

  “He doesn’t look lame now,” I said.

  “Of course he doesn’t,” Esther said. “I just gave him away. He’ll probably be sound for the rest of his life.”

  But she wasn’t mad. She was laughing. We hung on the fence and watched Harlow investigate his new friends. Every time one of them would get too close he would prance away but then come back for more. Eventually the horse and goat got tired of the game and went off to graze while the dog went to roll in a sand pit. Harlow decided that rolling might be a good idea too so his knees buckled and down he went, scrubbing dirt into his coat. By the time he jumped up he didn’t look anything like the show horse I’d got ready that morning.

  “Harlow,” I cried. “How could you?”

  “A dirty horse is a happy horse,” Liesl smiled as Harlow settled down to graze as well.

  She offered us cool iced tea which we drank in the shade of the barn watching the horses and then Esther said it was time to go. As she went to put the boots in the trailer, I lagged behind.

  “It didn’t work,” I told Liesl. “Mickey didn’t wake up.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to,” she said.

  “Why on earth wouldn’t she?” I replied.

  Mickey had so much to live for. Hampton and me and her family. I just couldn’t understand it.

  “Not everyone is a born fighter like you are,” she said. “Some people just don’t have it in them.”

  And I knew she was right, even though I didn’t want her to be.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The next morning I was supposed to have a lesson but when I got to the barn, Esther was in Hampton’s stall looking worried.

  “What is it?” I ran to the door. “Is he sick?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “But he will be. Mr. Eastford and Jess are coming over to try him out.”

  “What? No,” I cried. “They can’t do that. Jess has Beauty. She doesn’t need another hunter and besides, Amber said that Jess really wants to ride in the jumpers anyway.”