by Patsey Gray
“In the universe,” Bethie corrected.
Sis had to shut her mind to their chatter while she brushed and curried Gull. Bobby steadied the stool on which she stood to do Gull’s mane and foretop. Another youngster cleaned her saddle, another polished her bit and stirrup irons.
Cross-tied in the aisle, Gull looked tremendous. Plainly, he liked being the center of commotion. He must know by the preparations that he was going to a show. Even now he was listening for the sound of the van outside.
When Sis heard it, she was packing the grooming box, reciting, “Hoof pick, sponge, comb, two brushes, hoof grease, towels, clippers, liniment, shampoo, soap—what else?” she asked the eager faces.
“Lee’ll take a broom and pitchfork,” somebody said.
A mother suggested “Medications?” Then she added quickly, “Just in case.”
“Yes, and scissors, and a hammer, and what else?”
In the background, Manuel spoke softly. “Sombrero?”
“Sombrero—hat—oh, my hunt cap! I have it. Thanks, Manuel.” They heard Lee coming, and made way.
“Zip on his leg wraps,” said Lee, “and blanket him. I’ll load some feed.” Minutes later, “All set?”
Sis glanced around in panic, sure she’d forgotten something—but what?
She led the big horse out, and up the ramp into the van. She’d ride with him. Semidarkness fell with the closing doors.
Above the crunch of tires, the kids shouted, “Good-bye!” “Win everything!” “Good luck!” “’Bye, Gull!” Lastly, Melissa shrieked, “We’re waving, Ms.!”
ELEVEN
“HI GALS,” Sis wrote her sisters, scribbling fast by flashlight. “I tried twice to call you, but phone booths here are always full, and there’s not much privacy with a roommate. You see, I’m in a motel, with Doctor Nesbit, this super lady vet. Of course, both of us are here for the Hall show. We came early, which I’ll explain when I get home.”
Sis shifted her pad and paused to listen. No sounds came from the other bed, only from the street where already cars sped by, their headlights sweeping the window. How anyone could sleep here was amazing. It must be even noisier in the daytime, but Sis’s days were spent with Gull. Luckily this motel was within walking distance of the Hall, but those walks in the dark were scary. Mornings, she ran, pretending it was for her health. At night, usually she got a ride from Bitsie or some horseman staying here.
“I’ve made friends with our stall neighbors,” she wrote. “They’re a nice couple from Oregon, with a terrific black jumper. But there aren’t many people my age. It’s an adult world, mostly professionals, and they’re not in it for fun. Everybody has arrived by now, and the pressure’s growing every minute. It gets to me, but the worst should be over when you read this.”
A truck passed with a rattle and roar that brought a groan from Bitsie, then a whispered, “Awake, Sis?”
“Hours ago,” Sis said, and snapped off her flashlight.
“You’re nervous.”
“Well, opening night’s tomorrow, and I’m in it, the first class.”
“If you weren’t nervous, I’d worry about you,” Bitsie said.
“Gull’s getting nervous, too,” Sis told her. “He hates the crowds, and people trying to pet him, like in a petting zoo. I’m sure he’d like to bite one. And the noise upsets him when he’s eating. He’ll grab a mouthful and then wheel and drop it. And with lights on all night he’s not sleeping well.”
Sis heard Bitsie sit up to ask, “You can tell by his bedding in the morning?”
“Yes, it’s so churned up the stall’s hard to clean.”
After a silence Bitsie said, “If he were mine, I’d give him a long rest when this show’s over. He’s been campaigned steadily all summer, and Lee’s pleased with his improvement. A vacation would improve him even more, for next year’s circuit.”
“Then I’d see him when I come back at Christmas.” Sis noticed neither one mentioned the chance of Gull being sold.
Bitsie was up now, groping toward the light switch. “Why don’t you lease him?” she asked. “That way, you could be sure he gets his rest, turned out at the ranch. I’d keep an eye on him for you.”
It was an exciting idea. Sis had saved most of her salary, and if Gull won here, she’d get a cut of the purse. He had to do well tomorrow night. As Lee said, Gull’s first performance would show what he would or could do the rest of the weekend. But at the moment, Sis wasn’t sure she’d survive that long.
Her doubts increased with the passing hours, while she tried to hide what the strain was doing to her. She avoided talking because she had no idea what she might say. She failed to recognize people she knew. In the Hall’s cafeteria, she forced herself to eat. Only with Gull she felt calmer because he kept her busy. No horse in the Hall was better cared for. Besides, she wanted above all to soothe his tension, not communicate more.
Somehow she got through the day, and Jeff helped her through the evening. He brought her the ranch news, took her to dinner, and made her laugh. She felt he was good for her because he really didn’t understand how nervous she was. When he took her back to the motel, Bitsie was just getting back too, with Lee. All four sat on the beds and talked until abruptly exhaustion overcame Sis and she fell asleep fully dressed.
When she woke, the window showed a hint of daylight, and someone was talking in the next room.
“It’s Mason, the stockhorse man,” Bitsie said. “His mare’s on my list of ill and injured.”
Sis heard without interest the list of Bitsie’s patients. She fumbled into work clothes, with no sensation except that her stomach felt weird. At the door she said, “I’ll come back to change before tonight.” Then she stepped out into a wall of fog.
Fog engulfed her. It crawled on her skin and into her mouth. It tasted like some choking cold soup. It muffled sounds and blurred lights along the avenue. Lucky, she thought, that she couldn’t get lost. But she didn’t dare run for fear of smashing into somebody, both their steps soundless. The thought struck her that if Bud was around, and if he suddenly sprang out of the fog—“Skip it,” she mumbled.
“Pardon?” A bodyless voice croaked beside her.
Now she did run, and reached the Hall panting.
Inside, she blinked in the glare of lights. The cleanup crew was at work, maneuvering trucks expertly in the aisles. Grooms were feeding their charges, horses pawing for breakfast or rattling pans and buckets. In some tackroom a radio played rock. And as she neared Gull’s stall he nickered even before he could have seen her.
She fed him, and he ate calmly enough as long as she was with him. She heard him pace about when she went to the tackroom she shared with the Oregon couple. Their black horse was out, no doubt in the ring, with a mob of others.
She’d finished her cleaning when Lee’s voice said, “Good morning.” He’d never wasted two whole words before Bitsie softened him! “Looks fit,” he went on, his gray eyes on Gull. “I’ll school you over a few fences this morning. I aim to stick around all day. No telling who might turn up.”
“You think Bud might?”
“I kinda hope he does,” said Lee in his mildest voice.
The ring was crowded, but its large size suited Gull. After some minutes of warming up, Sis let him gallop weaving between riders and taking advantage of open spots on the rail. When there weren’t any, and she came up fast on slower horses, she’d yell “Rail!” and squeeze by. In the center of the ring, men and boys had set up practice fences, which meant staying well clear of horses taking off or landing. Once she swerved hard to avoid a girl who’d fallen, and then again to avoid the girl’s loose horse. She kept an eye on Lee, who was helping raise and lower fences or pick up poles while he waited for Gull’s turn to jump.
Over it all, a hum of voices and a film of tanbark rose to the roof way up there. Skylights gave ventilation, but not enough, Sis thought. After a long weekend of electric light indoors and darkness outdoors, she’d look a fright.
When Lee signaled her, she rode to the center for his instructions, and checked her girth. Along with others, she kept circling, waiting her turn to jump. The wait was a double one—for their turn, and for free space. But Gull didn’t cooperate. He knew why he was here. He wanted to jump. What a change from his old self! In protest at restraint, he pranced and tossed his head. He shook flecks of foam from his bit. The reins grew slippery in the sweat of his neck. Sis sat tight, and when the rider ahead of her shouted “Heads up!” and took off, she lined up to go next.
But Lee spoke at her stirrup. “Move aside. We’re not jumping.” And to the rider behind her, “Go ahead.”
At a safe distance he explained, “Gull’s too excited now to do the job right. Let’s save his fire till tonight. Just let him stand around till he relaxes, then walk him quietly to his stall.”
While Sis followed orders, she pondered Lee’s strategy. He was counting on Gull’s being calm tonight because he’d been made to calm down in the ring instead of charging his fences. Whether he needed the schooling he’d missed was a gamble they had to take.
She talked it over with Lee later in the cafeteria. Through the clatter around them, faces looked drawn, bluish in the harsh lights. Some of the girls still wore hair curlers under scarves and the guys looked in need of a shower and shave. In general, talk was subdued.
Meanwhile, the Oregon people were keeping watch on Gull at Lee’s request, and he’d return the favor. No one was to go into Gull’s stall, he’d told them. The only exception would be the person testing for drugs tonight.
Sis suspected Lee was worried, though he said, while eating, “We’ll do all right tonight, and that’s all we have to do, just all right. Maybe in the money some place, but don’t expect to win in this company. And if Gull does even pretty good, he’ll improve during the rest of the show.”
Or else, Sis thought, we can scratch and lose huge entry fees, or get another rider, or cut my throat.
On their way out, Lee said he had business to see to. She should stay with Gull. Then he’d relieve her, and she could walk to the motel for her clothes. “What you need is some air,” he added.
Sis’s nod amounted to a lie, because what she needed was a new stomach.
At Gull’s stall, the Oregon man was upset. He said, “Some dude slapped Gull, over the door, just fooling, and Gull lunged at him. It happened so fast I couldn’t stop them. But I sure told him off.”
“Gull bit him? My gosh! But who—”
“No, only tried to. But the guy was furious. He talked about suing. Darn rubbish.”
“His name couldn’t have been Bud?” Sis asked, and her heart gave a nasty lurch.
“Kramer was the name he gave.”
It was Sis’s turn to be furious. Her anger at Karl Kramer did a lot for her, she realized later. At the time, she scarcely felt her doubts disperse and her nerves steady. She wasn’t aware that her expression changed from gloomy to aggressive. A rush of adrenalin had charged her batteries and provided a high of energy and courage.
When Lee returned, she left, having bathed Gull and trimmed him, cleaned tack, and swept the whole aisle. Her neighbor said, “You can come do my housework any time.”
“Horsework, yes. Housework, no,” Sis answered.
Still high, she spent half an hour cooling a horse for an injured girl groom. She didn’t know the girl, but had seen her limping on a slippered foot. She’d felt sorry for her before, and now felt ashamed that she hadn’t offered help sooner.
Outside, no more fog. Sunshine was brilliant, buildings clearcut against the bright blue sky. A breeze played with the flags atop the Hall.
But nothing could improve the motel. Sis knew she had time for a nap after her shower, but she wouldn’t push her luck. Being alone in this dismal room might bring back her unease. Besides, she couldn’t possibly sleep. It was early to change, so she changed only partly, pulling on clean breeches and boots, then a work shirt and sweater. She picked up her hunt cap, good shirt, and jacket, and slammed the door behind her.
On the avenue, she was overtaken by a car full of kids calling her name. It was some of the Tanbark bunch. Sis climbed in their car, and soon all were hurrying to Gull’s stall.
After a few private words with her, Lee took off, and she turned back to Gull. He didn’t need her now, but neither did she need a lot of chit-chat. At her suggestion, the kids went off to look at other horses and explore the Hall.
Their departure, however, didn’t ensure quiet. On the contrary, by feeding time strangers filled the aisles, wanting to see the horses. First in small groups, then in large ones—finally, in a solid queue they pushed along. Some wore formal dress, most likely planning to dine in the Hall’s Skydome restaurant before the show. The scrape of shoes on cement and babble of voices rose, while scents of the well-dressed mingled oddly with stable smells.
Sis saw the Oregon wife seated on a stool in front of the black jumper’s stall. She herself stood at Gull’s door. No one was going to bother him again. The black’s owner called to her with a grin, “So how do you like opening night?”
“Exciting!” Sis called back. She was proud that people stopped longer at Gull’s stall than at others. Some asked foolish questions, but all were plainly impressed by the tall dappled gray who stood well back, eyeing them haughtily. As one woman put it, “This horse has what’s called ‘the look of eagles.’”
“Will he fly tonight?” the woman’s escort asked Sis, and she answered, “You bet.”
She finished changing along with the Oregon wife in their tackroom, hurrying because Lee hadn’t returned. But he was there when Sis came out, and she went off to the ladies’ room. On her way, she was jolted by sight of a boy who looked like Bud. His back was to her, and in seconds he disappeared in the crowd. No, she decided, he was taller than Bud—wasn’t he? But in any case, he was nowhere near Gull.
At the stall she found Jeff, and agreed to have supper with him later. She spoke vaguely, because all at once the loudspeaker came on, testing. It was time for a last grooming, for saddling, for the first call, for Lee’s order, “Jocks up.”
Suddenly, it seemed, she was headed with other riders for the ring’s back gate where the course was posted. There, Lee too crowded in among horses to study it. She saw his face change before she saw the last fence on the diagram.
He said, “It’ll be okay.”
“I know,” she said faintly.
Not all her rivals agreed. They made sick jokes about calling the ambulance. Yet surely they had less reason than she to fear that fence.
She turned Gull to see the actual course in the ring, and gasped at the spectacle. Just then, the band on its platform broke out with the National Anthem.
While shivers tingled her spine, Sis stared at the sea of smooth red tanbark. Islands of vivid jumps rose from it, and, in the center, a canopied and beflowered stand held the officials. Around, the wall of faces stretched to the roof, all facing the spotlit flag at the far end. The lights were too brilliant, Sis thought, music too loud, the tanbark’s smell too sharp—but, oh, the whole was thrilling!
There was the rustle of twelve thousand spectators seating themselves. Introductions followed. The judge, the steward, the ringmaster bowed. Sis felt her rivals waiting with her, but she didn’t really see them. She heard Lee’s “Know your course?” and nodded absently. Seven fences, and then that last one, the eighth. She was conscious only of Gull and of his attitude, a strange poise. It was as if his anger at Karl Kramer had affected him as her anger had affected her. It, or something, had relieved his tension. Then too he’d have caught her cooler mood.
She understood this so well that she thought of herself and Gull as we, not he or I. As one, they watched several jumpers go, Gull’s ears pricked, his head, like hers, turning to follow each. He stood like a rock, steady as her hands and the grip of her legs.
When the gate swung open for them, she half smiled at the ripple of applause that greeted her beautiful horse. Then such a
deep silence fell that she heard a baby’s cry high in the stands.
They circled, trotted, then cantered for the first fence, and she was Gull, saying, we’re over it, a nothing! Now the post and rails, a joke! Here we change leads, we sail over the single bar, over the picket. Toys, all of them! A hind tick at the rustic, but we’ll make up for it. Change leads again. The water jump’s coming at us, fake water, who cares about that! Little panel next, jumped it so fast the wind of our passage blew off a lath.
We haven’t looked at the last fence, though we know it’s there. But now we have to turn and face it, the monster. We remember it from the past—but this time it’s larger, wider, uglier. It’s a killer that can charge and smash us. So take it big. Here it comes! Wait—not yet—wait—NOW! A rush, a lift, and, like that eagle, we fly the big stone wall!
Outside the gate, Sis rode clear of the milling horses who hadn’t yet gone in. Then she slid off and hugged Gull’s neck, and Lee squeezed her shoulder—Lee squeezing! He said, “I’ve never seen him jump so well, or so willing.”
His words exploded something in Sis’s memory. She too had never seen Gull jump as well or as willingly. Now she recalled the boy like Bud who’d disappeared in the crowd, and she felt sick. How ghastly if Gull were tested and found drugged!
“We’ll likely place high,” Lee went on happily. “This could be the start of a great career for the pair of you, you know that?”
“But Bud—” Sis began.
“Forget him. I should’ve told you, he’s in custody.”
Limp with relief, Sis let out a shaky breath.
She heard unmistakable voices of the Tanbark bunch nearing. Now they were mobbing her and Gull, and here was Jeff, too, asking, “What about supper, our date?”