Double Standards

by Patsey Gray

  Lee must have misread her smile, for he asked as if nervous, “Don’t I look all right?”

  “You look fine,” she said.

  “Classy,” Laurie added. Then she asked, “You wanted something?”

  Lee’s gray eyes roamed the room, until he said almost sheepishly, “I forget.”

  The girls looked at each other, then at him.

  “You’re going out?” Sis asked.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Dating?” Laurie suggested. This was incredible!

  “I figure,” Lee answered, “you could call it that. I’m taking Bitsie out.”

  Two voices echoed, “Bitsie?”

  At the door he mumbled, “Doctor Nesbit,” and disappeared.

  The girls collapsed in each other’s arms. Somehow the picture of Lee dating was too much. Together they repeated “Bitsie!” until tears of mirth weakened them.

  “So that’s what’s been goin’ on!” Laurie cried, wiping her eyes.

  “And that’s why he’s been so mellow,” said Sis.

  Lee continued to be mellow and, Sis reflected, so did Gull—at least with her. Around strangers, he still cocked an ear or rolled an eye, and the muffled snorts said, “I don’t quite trust you.” But with her, he’d become so responsive that they no longer argued, and she could concentrate on perfecting his jumping, or their jumping together. During the summer, she’d shortened his stride, improved his mouth, and in general relaxed him. Naturally, Lee was aware of these changes. So must the horse show crowd be, including Karl Kramer. Sis could only hope to make Gull so valuable to Lee that Lee wouldn’t sell him.

  At rare intervals Gull was still flighty. Yet at recent shows his score had been excellent, sometimes super. So why not at all shows? Sis gave this a lot of thought, and tried to recall everything her coach had taught her back home.

  Not being a jump rider himself, Lee couldn’t solve the problem. But he agreed that Sis should call her old coach for advice.

  On the phone, she answered dozens of questions: on just how Gull misbehaved, and in what circumstances; what bit she was using; how she cued and rated him; how she communicated through hands, legs, and voice; whether she’d developed any bad habits. Her coach asked about Gull’s feed, schooling, weight, shoeing, work schedule, and health. Had he had his shots? Teeth floated? Wormed?

  Finally, he said, “It seems I can’t help you, Sis, without seeing you jump this horse. Do you know anyone who’d take movies of you?”

  Sis had to say no.

  “Stills, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, send them along, and I’ll comment by mail. Will you be showing at National, in the Hall of Sports?”

  Sis smiled. “Gosh, no. We don’t have that good a stable.”

  Each day, school’s opening date crept closer with the first hints of fall. The weather didn’t seem to have changed, yet sunlight was a trace less golden, twilight came a trace earlier. Sis couldn’t bear to think of leaving. Already she had plans for Christmas vacation.

  “I’ll hitchhike back if I have to,” she told Jeff.

  “Don’t even think of doing that,” he said very soberly.

  He’d come to take pictures of her jumping. Then they’d double date with Laurie and Ernie, a date that would include finishing the treehouse. Jeff wasn’t her only date. She’d gone out twice with Murph. But both times were disappointing. Murph wasn’t exciting. Kind of fun—but only kind of.

  By the time Jeff arrived, hurrying from work, Lee and the boys had set up four fences outside the ring where the light was good. Gull was bathed and saddled, Sis ready in clean breeches and shirt, shined boots and brushed hunt cap. She’d really worked over Gull’s tack, too, so her coach wouldn’t think she’d grown sloppy.

  With newly acquired patience, Gull stood for her to mount. Together they looked over the jumps, placed roughly in a circle as space allowed.

  “Just what would your coach want to see?” Jeff asked her.

  “Most likely fences of different heights,” she said, “and maybe a few turns and stops.”

  Within minutes she was on her first round, trying hard to make it look polished. She succeeded so well that when she’d pulled up, Jeff said, “How’s a man going to criticize that performance?” But she suspected the pictures would show some faults to a professional eye.

  Lee didn’t say anything; even now his mind might be on Bitsie. Then Sis saw his expression, keen as ever, and heard his smug words, “Looks like I wasn’t wrong.” Whatever that meant.

  On the sidelines Bud prompted, “Raise ’em up?”

  “Six inches—and I’ll measure,” Lee answered, showing his measuring stick.

  Jeff changed his position for the best shot at Gull over the post and rails, now widened as well as heightened.

  Sis took a deep seat and came at it in a strong gallop. Just where she’d calculated, she tightened her legs, cued Gull with a cluck, and gave him the rein he needed. He was over with a leap that landed him well beyond. She took back to steady him, then again increased his pace facing the brush. Lee had laid a pole on top of it, and at her signal Gull cleared it too as if it were on fire.

  A tight turn, and they were headed for what Sis called “the Lee special.” This was a row of the ranch’s metal trash cans on crates. Their height wasn’t over four ten, but gave the illusion of being more, perhaps because of the flashing sunlight on them.

  As Gull neared them, his ears pricked, and for a second his stride faltered, but Sis drove him on. He responded with a bound that could have left her behind if she hadn’t been prepared. Airborne, she heard the click of Jeff’s camera, and Manuel’s “Dios!”

  The photography went on until Jeff was confident that he had a number of good pictures. Then Sis jumped down and started to lead Gull off with the praise he deserved. Passing Lee, she caught his words, “Yessir, I was right.”

  She couldn’t resist asking, “About what?”

  “Keep walking,” was the answer.

  But a few minutes later, he joined her where she was rubbing down Gull, cross-tied in his aisle.

  “When does school start?”

  His question surprised her, but she didn’t stop grooming to answer, “Just after Labor Day.”

  The subject seemed closed, because he said next, “Use your hoof pick.” But when she straightened after some moments, he asked, “So you’ll still be free Labor Day weekend?”

  “Yes.”

  Conversationally, he went on, “That’s the weekend of the Hall of Sports Show.”

  “I know.” He was going to invite her to see some of it, a bonus before she left. They might double date with Jeff and Bitsie. Swell.

  She unsnapped Gull’s cross tie and led him into his stall. After a drink, he walked over to his feed pan and rattled it, a call for supper. She stepped from the stall, but Lee was talking.

  “I believe Gull could handle those courses as well as any horse.”

  She paused. “What courses?”

  “In the Hall of Sports.”

  She felt herself flush, tried to swallow, and managed to blurt, “Were you—you weren’t—thinking of showing him there?”

  Lee nodded. Both stared at Gull. Then Sis said in a dead tone, “The entries must be closed.”

  “Yup,” said Lee.

  “And a National show like that, they won’t take post entries?”

  “Right.” A spark lit his eyes, as if this were humorous, as if he enjoyed torturing her.

  “Post entries wouldn’t help,” he said.

  Baffled, bitter, desperate with hope, she gazed at him.

  “Because,” he concluded, “Gull’s already entered.”

  NINE

  IT SEEMED TO Sis that suddenly she was the most important person on the ranch—or at least someone special. Two days had passed since Lee’s amazing news, and already everybody knew that Gull was entered at the Hall of Sports, and that Sis would ride him.

  While she worked as usual, her mood wa
s anything but usual. It teetered from high, when she pictured impossible victories, to lower than low when she saw herself falling, going off course, or, worst of all, wrecking Gull in a gory crash. Thoughts of the big entry fee Lee had paid, of the trainers she’d ride against, of how green she was still—all this kept her in turmoil that outweighed her elation.

  As the days passed, other people met her attitude in characteristic ways.

  Laurie advised, with a shrug of plump shoulders, “If you don’t want to ride in the big one, don’t do it.”

  “But I’m dying to,” Sis said miserably.

  Jeff told her she’d enjoy every minute in “the Hall.” He’d had a raise, so was annoyingly cheerful himself.

  Bud said, “Keep away from me, grouch,” and Sis flared, “With pleasure.”

  Mrs. Ashby praised her for her nerve in wanting to jump enormous fences. “Myself, I’d die of fright,” she said, which struck Sis as a sensible outlook.

  Of course the kids were thrilled by the news. But they had their own interests, and their excitement subsided, temporarily. Sis knew it would accelerate again when the fateful day neared, in only two weeks.

  Manuel didn’t seem to notice any change in her, but she noticed increasing depression in him.

  Looking uneasy, he followed her one morning into Gull’s stall. “Señorita,” he said, “there is a thing I tell you.”

  “A thing?”

  He nodded, glanced about, then muttered, “A bad thing.”

  For a moment Gull needed her attention. When she turned back, Manuel had gone, as furtively as a shadow. She guessed why, seeing Lee in his place. Well, she would find Manuel later. But that day she was so much absorbed by her own affairs that she forgot him.

  If Lee noticed her moodiness, he wasn’t about to humor her. This was understandable. After all, his money and his horse were involved. He wouldn’t want a jockey with finicky moods. He became if anything more businesslike, with instructions about a tighter schedule for Gull.

  “Not more schooling,” he said. “But grain him, and add a portion of those vitamin pellets or powders, Drive or Go-Boy. I’ll buy the best. He’s got to feel high to clear those high fences.”

  Sis shuddered. With Lee, she stood at Gull’s stall door, looking in.

  “He has to be fit—and you too,” Lee went on. “So get up earlier and gallop him in the ring every morning, and get in some hill work too. That’ll leg you up as well. No rag doll can handle a thirteen hundred pound thoroughbred.”

  Sis steadied her voice to ask, “Which fences shall I practice?”

  “I’ll tell you which and when,” Lee said. And he asked abruptly, “How much do you weigh?”

  “About a hundred and twenty.”

  “Don’t lose any,” he ordered. “You’ll need every ounce.” It sounded ominous.

  While another week passed, Sis knew she was losing weight in spite of Lee’s orders. Meanwhile, Gull was becoming a powerhouse of muscle, explosive with good health. When he pranced, his dapples seemed to bounce with a life of their own. Yet his manners had improved to a satisfying extent. So had her horsemanship, Sis realized. Her coach had said so too in his answering letter. She supposed her loss of weight was due partly to hours of added riding, partly because her appetite had dwindled. Laurie noticed that, but couldn’t help.

  Strangely, help came from Bitsie, a week before the show.

  The girls had grown used to seeing her on visits that they suspected weren’t all strictly necessary. From referring to her in private as “Bitsie,” it seemed natural to call her that to her face. In her white coveralls, she appeared fresh even after dirty jobs, and pleasant, though with something of Lee’s bluntness. The fact that Lee no longer used any other vet proved that he admired Bitsie’s work. He wouldn’t have let her touch a horse just because he admired her as a woman. Elsewhere, too, her reputation must be tops, for she’d been selected one of three vets to serve the long weekend at the Hall.

  Bitsie wasn’t in work clothes the evening she stepped from her pickup in front of the Wagon. She looked very feminine in a short yellow dress. To Sis who joined her, she said, “I’ll wait for Lee. Probably he’s changing in his office.”

  Through with her day’s work, Sis strolled to the pasture gate with Bitsie, who wanted a look at Fury. Their voices brought him slithering down the hill on his matchstick legs, with snatches of whinnies as high pitched as Melissa’s voice.

  “I hardly thought he’d make it, a few weeks ago,” Bitsie said. “Now he has more pep than you.”

  “Yes, I’m a mess,” Sis answered, too depressed to care. She shoved her hands with their bitten nails into her pockets.

  Bitsie began to talk, not unkindly, but firmly, about Sis’s attitude toward riding in the Hall. What she said made Sis first angry, then ashamed.

  The gist of Bitsie’s talk was that Sis was selfish in giving way to her moods; that she was unfair to Lee, to Gull, and to herself. That she must either tell Lee to find another rider— “There are others, you know, good ones, who’d give anything to ride in the Hall”—or Sis must pull herself together and behave like an adult responsible for a job.

  Bitsie might have said more, but Lee and Burper interrupted. She ended, with a smile for Sis, “If you want to talk this over, call me in the morning. Before seven.”

  But Sis had seen the light at the end of the tunnel. “We can skip that,” she answered. “What you said is all true. And—well, thank you.”

  Lee took Bitsie’s arm and told her, “You might not feel so sharp before seven a.m. tomorrow. We’ll be out late. And what’s to talk about anyway?”

  “Girl stuff, no boys allowed,” said Bitsie with an impudent grin.

  He glanced at his watch. “Come on, then, girl,” and he walked her off.

  Burper burped, and Sis picked him up. Deep in thought, she carried him to the Wagon. The light she saw mentally wasn’t dazzling—yet, but it was an exciting spark. She was still thoughtful over supper.

  “You look almost human,” Laurie remarked.

  “I’ve decided to enjoy life.”

  “About time.”

  At her bedtime check on Gull, Sis laughed aloud when he greeted her. Even his voice was changing, to a deeper, stronger tone. So he must have sounded, and looked, as a stallion. Magnificent.

  In her cabin she prepared for reading and a good night’s sleep. It would be the first in weeks, for sleep had been restless lately, although the treehouse, now completed, made a fine bedroom. How many people, she wondered, could see stars through branches from their bedroll, hear a stream below them, smell its moist banks, and listen to owls call back and forth in the black woods….

  She was awakened only an hour or so later, it seemed, by something falling on her head. Groping, she removed a twig. “Hey, up there, quit it, Whisk,” she mumbled. It was cozy, though, to think of him in his twiggy bed high above hers. How cute, a squirrel in bed!

  She turned over, and then, for the third time, she saw it—a glow through the skylight of Lee’s storeroom. This third time was too much. It couldn’t be accidental. Besides, the light wasn’t there when she’d gone to bed, so Lee hadn’t left it on.

  Frightened, she jerked on her robe over pajamas and hurried barefoot down toward Gull’s barn. She scarcely felt the rough footing, only the banging of her heart.

  Her steps into the barn were so stealthy that even Gull didn’t hear them. But any second he’d sense her presence and reveal it. On tiptoe, hardly breathing, she approached the storeroom door. Like the last time, it was open a crack. Inside, somebody moved. She half expected it to be Bud.

  One more step, at which Gull discovered her, and rumbled deep in his throat.

  A voice cursed behind the open door. Bud’s voice? Sis wasn’t sure.

  But Gull sensed trouble since she hadn’t answered him. He circled his stall noisily, then began to paw.

  A mutter came from the storeroom. The door was pushed wider and Bud stepped into the aisle.


  Sis saw a stack of cartons in the room, and a syringe, bottles, and glass vials on the floor. The shaft of light pinned her in full view.

  Bud gaped at her from the threshold. Then he reached for the doorknob.

  “Don’t close it!” she cried. The thought of being alone with him in the dark aisle terrified her. “I mean, it’s too late,” she blurted. She’d seen what surely must be drug supplies, and he knew she’d seen them.

  Still, he tried a bluff. “Look what I found!”

  She stepped into the storeroom. After a glance at the items on the floor and at Bud’s face, she said, “There’s no use lying, Bud. All that stuff—it’s yours, isn’t it?” His manner, as well as the evidence, convinced her that it was.

  He scooped everything into an open carton, pushed the carton into place, and piled on it other cartons, dusty and evidently empty. That done, he faced her, and before her eyes he seemed to deflate. He was pale, his glance shifty. His whole person admitted guilt.

  It struck her that she needn’t be scared, because he was scared. “Turn out the light and lock up and let’s get out of here,” she said. “Lee and Bitsie’ll be coming back.” She tightened her robe about her.

  “Not yet. They went to Frisco. I heard ’em talk.” Bud’s tone was plain misery. “What—what’re you gonna do?”

  Sis asked herself the same question as they walked from the barn. There was only one answer, and it took nerve to give it. “I’ll have to tell Lee what I saw.”

  To her horror, Bud broke out crying, great rasping sobs that would have been pitiful from a child. From him, they were shocking. They shook him so that he couldn’t walk on.

  Beside him, Sis stood in the starlit road, panicked by the whole scene. What if Lee returned and found her here in pajamas? What if Laurie for some reason came out, or Manuel came looking for Bud? And what about Bud? Alone with her, he might do something crazy.

  Sis grasped his arm and tugged. Minutes later they reached the haystack and sat on a fallen bale.

  Bud acted relieved to admit everything. Yes, he’d picked the storeroom lock; that was easy. Yes, the drugs were his, but not stolen; he’d been buying them from a friend at the Albany racetrack. They weren’t for humans, only animals.