Gee Whiz

by Jane Smiley

  She put her elbows on the desk and her face in her hands. The sun was shining in the window. She looked at me. She said, “I want him.”

  This was Dad’s dream—a person he trusted asking to buy a horse that he had trained. I knew it should be my dream, too. And in a distant way, I did feel pleased with the praise.

  Jane said, “You were watching Pie in the Sky. Do you wish you were riding him again? He’s doing well.”

  I said, “I don’t know what I do wish, but I don’t wish that. I enjoyed him, but maybe it’s because he’s so good that Sophia never seems to do anything on her own, or for fun. I asked her to bring Onyx out to our place for a trail ride, but she never has time. Has she even gone down your trail to the beach?”

  Jane shook her head, then said, “Sophia is very focused.”

  I thought that was a good word for Sophia. When she set her mind to do something, she always did it, but she always also set her mind to do something. Even at Barbie and Alexis’s party, she didn’t know how not to be serious.

  Jane said, “What would you like to do with Blue?”

  “It might be fun to take him to some shows, but he isn’t going to be comfortable jumping more than three feet or 3′3″, even though he’ll do it.” This meant, we both knew, that he would never be a star—a star jumper has to jump high, whatever his style; a star hunter has to look as though everything is easy for him and still jump four feet or 4′6″; and a star equitation horse has to go like a machine, no matter what the exercise, so that the rider can look perfect.

  Jane said, “I don’t know what he would have become if we’d started early with him, but he’s seven or eight. What most horses can do is set by then. It’s like a person being twenty-five or thirty—the years of education are behind them, and they have to make the best of what they are.”

  I suddenly thought of Gee Whiz jumping over the chute when the bird flew at him. I said, “What about ex-racehorses? We have one now who’s eight, seventeen hands, anyway. He seems ready to do anything.”

  “Hmm,” said Jane. “Was he good?”

  “Apparently he was,” I said. “He won a lot of money, raced for a long time, and remained sound.”

  “Well, racehorses are a little different. They often have plenty of energy and a good deal of untapped potential. They are kept fit their whole lives, so fitness is second nature to them, and they can be very intelligent—I mean, don’t tell the jockeys, but it’s the horse who runs the race and decides to win or not. And some sire lines have a lot of jump in them. Whether you can enlist those qualities for something new varies from horse to horse, but lots of them prefer activity to boredom. I’d like to see him.”

  There was a tap on the door. Jane said, “Come in!” Then she looked at me and said, “I’ll give you a thousand dollars for Blue. And if I sell him to someone else for more, I’ll give you ten percent of that.”

  The person at the door was Mom, and she was smiling. I wondered if all of this had been arranged. I said, “I’ll think about it.”

  Jane said, “May I keep him through Monday, so that Melinda and Ellen can have another lesson on him? And your friend Barbara, too, maybe.”

  I said, “Okay.”

  I was in bed, reading. We had to read a book for English class called A Night to Remember, about the Titanic, which was a ship that they said would never sink, and then it sank first time out. The homework was due when we got back to school, in four days, and I was only to the part where the people feel a little something, but don’t know that that little something is that they’re hitting an iceberg. I heard the phone ring twice, and then someone must have picked it up, because it stopped ringing. A few minutes later, there was a knock at my door. I called, “Come in!” and there was Mom. She said, “Are you still awake?”

  I said, “It’s only eight-forty-five.”

  “That’s true. Well, I have some bad news.”

  I felt myself sort of turn to stone. I was sure that the phone call had been Jane, and that something had happened to Blue. I didn’t say anything.

  Mom said, “I guess Sister Brooks went by to check on Brother Abner.” There was a pause, then Mom hurried to say, “He was in his bed, and he had passed away.”

  “When was that?”

  “Well, she went over there this afternoon, but when the police came, they said he had been dead since last night. They called a funeral home. We’re going to have a service tomorrow, at the funeral home and the cemetery, and then another memorial service Sunday.”

  I said, “He seemed better Sunday. He really did. He talked and he ate most of his supper. He seemed kind of happy.”

  By now, Mom was sitting on the bed. She said, “Sister Brooks and I discussed that. The thing is, sometimes … well, do you remember a dog my parents had when you were little? Her name was Tizzy. She was half fox terrier and half something else. You liked her when you knew her.”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, she got to be about fifteen years old, which is something like a hundred in a person, and all of a sudden, she seemed tired and sick. The thing is, she was a great guard dog—nothing moved on my parents’ land without Tizzy barking about it. Well, she stopped barking—she was just too tired. Then, one day, she went outside and lay down on a hill overlooking the road to their place, and she started barking and barking. She barked for two hours, and then she went into the house and died in her bed. Your grandmother said it was like she just wanted to live the best part of her life over again, and then she was ready to go.”

  “He wanted one last Christmas?”

  “One last good meal, one last evening with his friends, one last singing of the carols, one last celebration of our Lord. It’s sadder for us, maybe, than it was for him. Your dad says that if there is anyone who is rejoicing in the presence of the Lord right now, it is Brother Abner.”

  “So I should be glad?”

  “Well, it’s hard for us to be glad when our friends go on ahead of us, because we miss them, but maybe you should be thankful that he lived a long and varied life, and that he was content with it.”

  We sighed.

  I saw the next day that funerals are like Christmas—there are things you have to do, and in a certain order. Time moves very slowly, and there’s plenty of music. Brother Abner was my only funeral. My uncle John died before I was born, and the rest of our relatives were all alive; although the brothers and the sisters seemed old to me, Brother Abner was the oldest, I found out, by ten years.

  The funeral home was a big building downtown, not very fancy from the street, but bright and clean inside. We wore nice clothes, but nothing “flashy,” as Mom said. Brother Abner’s casket was in the front of a paneled room with a blue carpet and no windows, much fancier than our church. There were baskets of flowers here and there. The chairs in the room were carved, and had blue tasseled cushions. There was a decorated stand in front, but when Brother Brooks and Mr. Hollingsworth and Dad stood up next to the casket to talk about Brother Abner, they didn’t go behind the stand, or even look at it—they held their Bibles in their hands and spoke in regular voices. Mr. Hollingsworth even rested his hand on the casket, as if he were shaking Brother Abner’s hand one last time.

  I knew that sometimes Brother Abner disagreed with the others about what was right and what was wrong, but Dad chose a verse that Brother Abner would have liked: “But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or in speech but in deed and in truth.”

  And Mr. Hollingsworth did, too: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

  Brother Ab
ner had once said to me, “I don’t like folks talking about who’s right and who’s wrong. There’s too much of that. It’s better to talk about the love of the Lord.” Afterward, we sang two hymns, “Amazing Grace,” of course, and “O God Our Help in Ages Past.” Then everyone said nice things about how Brother Abner always spoke his mind, but he always had a twinkle in his eye. Most of the sisters were crying. I cried, too.

  After the service, six of the brothers, including Brother Ezra Brooks, lifted up the casket and carried it out a back door I hadn’t seen that led to the parking lot behind the building. They slid it into a big black hearse and closed the doors. Then we all went to our cars. Little pennants saying FUNERAL were clipped to the front windows of each car. We got into ours, and Dad waited for the others. When the hearse pulled out of the parking lot, we all went along in a line behind it. There were ten cars.

  The cemetery was almost in the country—it was flat and green, surrounded by a fence, and looked out at hills to the west and fields to the east. We stood beside the grave, which had already been dug, and after we sang two more hymns, they lowered the casket, and we walked past in a line and threw flowers onto it. Then Dad and the other brothers each tossed a shovelful of dirt into the grave. There were plenty of headstones around, and it made me think of that book we’d read before the end of the semester, Spoon River Anthology. If Brother Abner were to wake up and speak, the way the dead people did in that book, I knew he would have some funny things to say, and I also suspected that he would not say things that he had forgotten to say, or been afraid to say, when he was alive. But I was sorry that I’d never heard more of his adventures.

  Danny was at the graveside service. Maybe Mom had called him. He was wearing work clothes, and standing at the back. I saw him bow his head and move his lips in some kind of prayer. But he waved and drove off before we could talk to him. Everyone else pretended not to notice him, but I was glad he came.

  Chapter 10

  IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON BY THE TIME WE GOT HOME. I CHANGED into my work clothes. I can only explain what happened after that by saying that all three of us must have been a little dazed or tired, or something, but the fact is, someone forgot to close the big gate. I don’t know if it was me, when I got out and opened it when we returned from the funeral. I don’t know if it was Dad, when he left in the truck to pick up something at the Jordan Ranch. It could even have been Mom, who had seen some wild rosemary blooming by the side of the road, and wanted to dig it up and plant it in our garden. The thing about us was that we never left gates open.

  I was thinking about what Jane said about racehorses, so I decided to get Gee Whiz out and clean him up. He was dusty from nose to tail. I wasn’t planning to wash him, just to curry him thoroughly, brush him, and rub him down with the chamois. He came right to the gate when I called him. I put his halter on, led him out of the pasture, and took him over to the barn, where I looped his lead rope around the bar. I could have taken him into the barn and cross-tied him, but it was sunny and pleasant outside. I started with the currycomb. I can’t say that he liked it—he was bobbing and turning his head, and then when I got to his flanks, he started lifting his back leg, not as though he was going to kick me, but as though I was tickling him. He seemed to enjoy the brushing, however, and I got to be sort of lost in it, thinking idle thoughts and humming to myself. Grooming Gee Whiz was taking a long time. But by the end of the brushing, his head was down, his right hind ankle was cocked, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. I saw that I hadn’t put the chamois back in the grooming bucket, and went into the barn to find it.

  There was a noise.

  I turned around to see that Gee Whiz was pulling back, his head up, his ears up, and his eyes wide. The lead rope pulled off the bar, and he turned toward the house. I went after him, at first thinking only of what I thought I’d done, or should have done—he was tied, I should have put him on cross-ties, or groomed him in a stall. Then I saw him swing out around the house and head down the driveway. At first, he was trotting his big trot, and then he was galloping, and he went right out the gate. I knew Dad was gone, but as I ran past the house, I yelled for Mom. She came out onto the front porch when I was halfway to the gate, then she went back inside again.

  Our driveway sloped gently to the road, which dipped as it passed us, then rose. To the left, the road continued up the hill to the Jordan Ranch. To the right, it dipped, went up slowly, then, pretty far away, made a curve. Gee Whiz went right, at first sticking to the shoulder and staying off the pavement. I guess that was a good sign. He slowed to a trot, and I could see his head turning to the left and the right. The lead rope dangled and flopped. When I got to the gate, I went out into the middle of the road and stared after him. A moment later, Mom was coming through the gate in the car. She pulled up near me and I ran around to the passenger’s side and got in.

  One good thing about Mom was she didn’t always start out asking what had gone wrong, so you didn’t feel like her first idea was to discipline you—that might come later, or she might forget about it. She said, “There he is.”

  Gee Whiz had paused and put his head down—probably he’d found an appetizing patch of green there that he needed to explore. Mom eased the car toward him. I rolled down my window. She said, “You have any treats?”

  “I forgot them. There’s a carrot in my pocket, though.”

  I was such an idiot.

  Now Gee Whiz’s head popped up and he tossed it, seeing the car just fine, and knowing exactly what it meant. He trotted forward, stepping for a moment on his rope, stopping, shaking his body to free himself, then trotting on. Mom said, “He’s a smart one.”

  “Dad would say that’s always a problem.”

  Mom laughed.

  We eased along.

  At least, he didn’t race off. You never know what a horse will do in unfamiliar territory. Some horses would just panic and run, not really caring where they’re going. That would be dangerous, especially if Gee Whiz ran down the slippery road and fell. But the big horse didn’t seem as though he was panicking. He seemed as though he was exploring. He stayed mostly on the shoulder, only stepping into the road when the shoulder fell away or got gravelly. Sometimes he stopped and looked around, his nostrils flaring and his ears pricked. Sometimes he nosed plants, but when we got close, he trotted off. He knew we were in the car, or so it seemed. Pretty soon, we were around the curve. At that point, the road straightened and we could see about a mile ahead. Nothing coming. But after that rise, there was an intersection, and I knew that the road would get busier in both directions, and that the fenced hills of the Jordan Ranch would give way to flat fields. I did not want him running through some farmer’s field. Mom got serious, too. Finally, we got sort of close to him, and she said, “You get out and I’ll zoom around him and at least try to stop him from getting too far.”

  This was the only idea we could come up with, so I nodded. She stopped maybe ten yards from where he was looking at plants growing out of a steep hillside. I closed the door quietly, and she zipped into the left lane and went past him. Then she pulled over onto the right side of the road.

  I pulled the carrot out of my pocket and held it out to Gee Whiz. His ear flicked, but he didn’t turn his head. I knew he saw it, though—a horse can see everywhere except right in front of his nose and right behind his tail. As I stepped toward him, he stepped away. He didn’t run. Or trot. I stopped. He stopped. I stepped. He stepped. I took a very loud bite of the carrot and said, “Mmm. Delicious.”

  It was not delicious. It was kind of gunky.

  But his ear flicked. By this time, I was close enough to see his lips wrinkle. Maybe he was imagining eating the carrot.

  The thing was, he was a beautiful horse, strong and majestic—way more self-confident-looking than Pie in the Sky, or even Onyx. It was like he always knew that crowds had looked at him, crowds had cheered him. Something about his face said that having done many things and been many places, he could do anything he put his min
d to. I murmured, “Gee Whiz. Gee Whiz. It’s much nicer at home than it is out here. We have such nice hay and some very good oats, and apples and more carrots.”

  His ears flicked again.

  I stepped toward him, and he trotted off.

  Now I spun right around, just like a dancer, and I trotted off myself, up the road away from him. But the sun was in the west, and if I looked down and a little to the left, I could see his shadow. He was behind me, coming with me, not going away. I pretended not to know and not to care. I slowed down and paused. I heard his steel shoes on the pavement, clop clop, clop clop. I put the carrot back in my pocket, and pretended to be strolling along, looking at plants—rosemary, yes; French broom, yes; Indian paintbrush, yes; ceanothus, yes. How interesting. And the sky! Very blue! And the side of the hill! Brown and dusty! And the wire fencing! Were those cows up there?

  He nudged my hip with his nose, but I walked away. When he came up and nudged me again, I pulled out the carrot and let him have it without looking at him, but then when he was eating it, I turned and said, “Oh, what a nice horse. Such a beauty to find walking down the road.” I reached for his lead rope and then started petting him. He snorted, but not out of nervousness, just as if to say, “Okay, you got me.” I started walking down the road.

  Mom pulled up beside us. She said, “My heaven. That was scary.”

  I petted Gee Whiz on the cheek. “Only to us, I think.”

  While we were stopped there, Dad came up behind Mom’s car in the truck, slowed, stared, and then waved and went around us. Mom said, “Oh dear.”

  It was then that I knew that she had planned to keep this little adventure a secret.

  I said, “Okay, well, since we’re out here, Gee Whiz and I are going to go for a little walk.”