A Horse of Her Own

by Annie Wedekind

  But before they could really talk, or Jane could show them Lancelot, Susan was waving her arms to get everyone’s attention and telling the families to go down to the dressage ring, where they’d find seats from which to view the first test, and lemonade as well. Then, spotting the Ryans, she came over to say hello.

  “Jane told you that this is a bit of a surprise …?” Susan looked enquiringly at Jane’s mother. “Riding in today’s event?”

  “Jane’s always surprising,” her father commented.

  “Well, Lily told us that Jane wanted to ride in the more challenging show, yes,” Jane’s mother said calmly, smiling at her daughter. “We think it’s wonderful.”

  Susan’s eyebrows shot up. She looked skeptically at Jane, who gave a slight shrug. There were benefits after all, she supposed, to having parents who understood nothing about horses.

  “Well, okay, then,” Susan said, clearly ready for more of a discussion and not finding one. “I’ve got to inspect the horses, so I’ll see you all down at the ring.”

  Mrs. Ryan kissed Jane and wished her good luck, and her father squeezed her shoulder, making Jane flinch. “Break a leg,” he told her.

  “Dad, no! That’s what you say to me, not Jane! Especially not when …” Lily paused, and Jane mentally finished her sentence for her: Especially not when it could actually happen.

  “Well then, break a hoof, or what have you,” Mr. Ryan continued cheerfully. “‘Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!’”

  Lily drew Jane aside, reaching into the pocket of her dress. “Here, Janoo, for luck. It’s Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. I thought he was the most appropriate.” She lifted a delicate chain with a silver medallion over Jane’s head and tucked it under her shirt. They grabbed each other’s hands for a moment, then the Ryans headed down to the ring.

  “Wow,” Ben said, looking bemused, “your family is really …”

  “Aren’t they?” said Jane, and she smiled as she watched them go.

  Chapter 19

  Sunday, Part Two

  Susan made her way down the line of horses standing in a row before the barns. There was Thunder, rangy and gray, his mane and tail braided in a tight, complicated weave, with ribbons that matched Jennifer’s midnight-blue coat. Quixotic seemed edgy, pawing and trying to circle away from Jessica’s grip. “Cut it out, Quiz,” Jessica muttered, and gave a sharp yank on the reins. Ariel, of course, stood calmly at Alyssa’s side, looking immaculate and alert. Lancelot towered over the Arab mare—Jane hadn’t realized just how much bigger he was than these horses, not having seen them this close together since the very beginning of camp. He made the others look curiously diminished, and Jane admired with pride his massive form, his gleaming, fire-red coat, his three white stockings (which had been green until Jane scrubbed the grass stains from them) flashing below his knees, and his sculpted head, held high and warily eyeing the horses beside him. The other girls looked smart in their jackets, and Jane felt underdressed in her shirt. But, she thought, at least she’d be cooler.

  Finished with inspection, Susan gave each of the riders a leg up, wishing them luck and giving last-minute advice. “If you feel at any point that you don’t want to continue, just tell me,” she told Jane in a low voice. “No one will blame you.”

  Yeah right, Jane thought, picturing Alyssa’s glee, Jessica’s scornful triumph should she quit in the middle of the show. No matter what happened, she was going to see this through.

  Susan, observing the expression on Jane’s face, patted her boot. “Just take it easy, then,” she sighed.

  As they turned the horses toward the dressage ring, Alyssa “accidentally” waved her long dressage crop directly in front of Lancelot’s face, and he spooked. He took five enormous, leaping strides forward and sideways before Jane stopped him, her shoulder blazing with pain.

  “Oops, sorry,” Alyssa said, and kicked Ariel into a trot, leaving Jane red-faced and furious, hands shaking, horse shaking, behind her. Jane took a few steadying breaths, petted Lancelot, and followed her, muttering every bad word she could think of at Alyssa’s jaunty back.

  She felt like swearing some more as she watched Alyssa complete a nearly perfect dressage course (it was a counter canter, Jane discovered) and smile proudly at her family as she and Ariel exited the ring. Jane noticed that Clay wasn’t paying any attention to his sister; he was leaning back on his folding chair, balancing on its back legs, trying to catch Lily’s eye without being obvious. Lily was wearing her serious face, intensely absorbed in everything except Clay’s existence.

  After a moment of consultation and comparing of sheets of paper, the judges, sitting at the far end of the ring, on the other side of the fence from “C,” awarded Alyssa and Ariel forty-five points out of a possible fifty. The crowd applauded loudly.

  Next was Jennifer, and Jane thought she looked nervous. She was sitting stiffly on Thunder, and when he didn’t perform the counter canter, but stayed on the right lead, her face screwed up in obvious distress. She looked unhappy as she left the ring, and unhappier still when she heard her score of thirty-nine points.

  As Jessica entered the ring, Jane looked around for Ben, finding him sitting next to his grandfather in a spot of shade somewhat away from the parents. He was watching Jessica, who gave the judges a cocky salute, but then his eyes met Jane’s, as did Jose’s. They winked at her simultaneously, and Jane managed a smile.

  Jessica rode beautifully, though Quixotic only took two steps of the requisite five in the rein back, and Jane thought he wasn’t bending into the turns as well as she knew Lancelot could. And then she was walking on a long rein from the ring to enthusiastic applause, her score of forty-two announced. It was Jane’s turn next.

  As she squeezed Lancelot’s sides and he bounded forward, Jane distinctly heard her father say, “Good lord, that beast is enormous!” and Lily shushing him. She halted at the X, saluted, then for a brief, panic-stricken moment forgot everything that came next. She forced herself to shut out the sound of the audience, not to look at Susan or Ben or Lily or Robin or her parents, and to think. Working trot to C, turn left, medium trot diagonally across the ring … She let out her breath and began.

  Lancelot had decided that today was a fine day for his parade horse routine. He transitioned to a medium trot fluidly and bent around and against her leg in the tight circle at A better than he ever had before. Jane felt herself relax. She guided him straight across the ring, easing to a working walk for a few strides across, then repeating the same actions crossing the ring from the opposite direction. From M to K, Lancelot bowed his head grandly in another working trot and snorted loudly. Back at A, she halted him, then took a deep breath for the rein back. He responded immediately, taking five relatively straight steps backward, snorting with satisfaction at his brilliance, then starting his canter from the halt with another snort and flick of his tail. She guided him quietly with her seat and legs in a circle at the lower third of the ring, relaxing even more into his molten stride at this gait. Jane then looked forward to the rail, where she’d ride till R, then turn left and loop back around in a diagonal on the counter canter. But just as she was almost to the rail, two explosions happened at once.

  The first—Clay Taylor losing his balance on his chair and crashing backward into Dalton—Jane barely registered, though she heard his idiotic “My bad! My bad!” as she struggled to control the second explosion—Lancelot. He’d spooked so quickly, half-rearing then smashing her right leg into the fence, and Jane had reacted so fast to bring him under control, helped considerably by the close contact she already had, that it was over before the audience’s gasps had died down. As were Jane’s chances of winning the dressage competition.

  “You dummkopf!” Lily hissed loudly as Clay clambered shamefacedly to his feet, and her sister’s indignant voice gave Jane heart. Ignoring the renewed throbbing in her shoulder and the brand-new sharp pain in her calf, and not looking at the judges, dreading Susan’s expression, she gave La
ncelot’s neck a few strokes, gathered her reins, and asked him again for a canter. There were a few beats of silence, then she heard a burst of applause.

  Jane wasn’t sure how she made it through the rest of the course, but she did, and she exited to enthusiastic clapping that didn’t do much to assuage her fury and her disappointment. She knew that Lancelot had done better than any of the others and that were it not for that stupid, stupid Clay she’d be rivaling Alyssa for points. But, she reminded herself, having your horse not spook at loud noises was surely one of the most obvious prerequisites of dressage. Ariel probably wouldn’t have batted an eye if a mushroom cloud had billowed over the farm. But still … it was maddening.

  Robin tiptoed across the grass to join Jane to hear her score. The judges seemed to be taking an inordinately long time. Finally, Susan cleared her throat. “This has been a difficult one. All of us are in agreement that Jane Ryan and Lancelot rode the strongest course”—Jane heard Alyssa give an outraged “Pah!” behind her, and heard Lily give a loud wolf whistle, which inspired sycophantic laughter from Clay and Dalton. Robin wrapped her arm around Jane’s boot, bouncing a little on her toes. “However”—Jane had a feeling that there was going to be a “however”—“because of the … unfortunate spook, we can’t award her top marks. The score for Jane Ryan and Lancelot is forty.” There was another smattering of slightly confused applause from the audience and a loud exclamation of “Unbelievable!” from Jennifer, who was now in last place.

  Jane still felt angry and disappointed, but she knew the score was probably fair. She tried to give Robin—and her family—a reassuring smile and shrug. Her parents both looked much more anxious than they had at the barn when Susan asked them about Jane riding today. Now that they knew what that really meant, Jane hoped they wouldn’t have a parental meltdown. “Will you go say something to Mom and Dad?” she asked Robin. “I don’t want them getting worried about me.”

  “Sure thing,” Robin said. “I’ll see you at cross-country.” And Jane turned Lancelot toward their next task.

  It took a while for Mrs. Jeffrys to usher the parents to various points around the cross-country course from which they could see the action but be out of the way, and Lancelot was getting restless. Jane walked him in circles, going over and over the course in her head. Jose stopped her so he could wrap Lancelot’s legs in Bess’s green bandages, and the big horse made a bit of a fuss until Jose expertly calmed him. Jane knew she had to wait even longer, being last, and Lancelot’s agitation was starting to rub off on her. She got an attack of the nervous yawns, and was sitting with her mouth ridiculously agape when Ben jogged up to wish her a quick good luck before heading to the field, where he’d take up a post of observer for the jumps into and out of the pond. Jose told her that Ricky and Gabriel were also monitoring various jumps, as were all of the judges, so if anything happened, someone would be there right away. This, Jane found, did not exactly calm her. She had a memory flash of hurtling over Lancelot’s shoulder and gave another shuddering yawn.

  Finally, there was a blast of a whistle, and Alyssa was cantering away. Jane saw her clear the first jump, a big log on a downhill slope, then just as neatly take the second, a corner jump that Jane hadn’t liked the look of when she walked the course that morning. She decided not to try to watch anymore and took Lancelot into the ring to walk and trot their nerves out.

  In seemingly no time at all, Alyssa was back. She hopped off Ariel and began to hot-walk her, ignoring her friends as well as Jane, and since there was no one else around to ask, Jane was left to try to read how her ride went from her expression, which didn’t look quite as glowing as it had been after dressage. Another shrill whistle, and Jennifer was off. It seemed a slightly longer time before she returned, and she couldn’t have hidden her reaction if she tried. She was crying noisily, and as she went to comfort her friend, Alyssa looked distinctly pleased. Jennifer’s parents were coming in from the field as well, and Jane soon learned that Thunder had refused the shrubbery three times, disqualifying them.

  Shouldn’t have skipped it before, Jane thought with a rather savage delight, and watched with amusement as Jennifer threw a princess-sized tantrum to her parents before storming off to the barn with the sheepish Thunder in tow.

  There was the whistle again, and Quixotic burst away. Jane and Lancelot resumed their restless pacing.

  Jane didn’t stop to examine Jessica’s expression when she returned—she was aching to be off, anything to cut short the awful suspense and waiting. She trotted Lancelot briskly through the gate, almost colliding with the exiting Quixotic and earning a snarled “Watch the hell out, Jane” from his rider. Lancelot was dancing under her hands, and Jane firmed up her reins, almost ready to beg Jose to blast the whistle. And there it was—they were off.

  It occurred to Jane after Lancelot sailed over the log and made a sharp left turn to the corner jump, a solid-looking wedge that required precision but proved to be as easy for the big horse as the barrels had been, that cross-country was, perhaps, her favorite kind of riding. It was the most like her dream of escape: of taking off with a horse on a journey through the world, free and filled with anticipation for what was over the next hillock, around the next bend. Filled with joy. These thoughts flashed through her more as feelings than anything else since she had to be so utterly in the moment, which was also exactly where she wanted to be.

  The third jump was slightly uphill—a sawed-off picnic table that was fairly low but very wide; it felt strange to jump flatly, as one huge stride, rather than Lancelot’s usual powerful leap. Jane gave him more rein to get up the hill, curving to the right to point him toward the far paddock. Here, she knew, Susan had set up a jump in the entrance itself, so they would be literally jumping into the paddock, making a circle around the shelter, then jumping out via the shrubbery. Lancelot hesitated, obviously put off by the idea of jumping what should be a barrier preventing him from entering, and Jane gave him a strong leg and firmly centered him straight before it. Now it looks like a jump! she could almost hear him thinking, and he tucked himself over it with a catlike grace that seemed to even take into account the slower speed he had to drop to while barreling around the shed.

  Jill Grabel and a group of parents were standing in the shelter, applauding and whistling as Jane and Lancelot came around the corner. For a second Jane felt pleased, then Lancelot threw up his head and took a leftward bound that almost unseated her. “Please, no clapping, sorry, just … hush!” Jane gasped.

  Oh gosh, that sounded rude, she thought guiltily as Lancelot surged over the shrubbery, eager to be away from the crowd, then, Oh gosh, was that the shrubbery?

  And then Jane really started having fun.

  Lancelot soared beneath her, his enormous stride devouring the ground, and Jane felt not one with him, but that they were two matched halves—partners. She could never forget who Lancelot was; he was too unique, too strong, too completely individual and proud to think of as an extension of herself. She respected him too much to think of him as something that could be hers. He was, simply and grandly, himself, and she was herself while riding him. But he trusted her—and she trusted him. And, she realized, loved him completely.

  Jane thought none of this during her ride—it came to her much later—but it was all decided then and felt in her very bones.

  She forgot her shoulder, forgot the soreness in her leg as they cleared the Mohawk barrels, wove between two copses of trees, and leapt an angled, brushy monstrosity whose height took Jane’s breath away. Around more trees to the bounce: two striped verticals that must have been imported from the outdoor ring. Then Jane eased Lancelot up a bit, preparing for the woodsy trail that led into the creek, and they plunged into the dim, forested glade. Jane started chanting: “Branches away, branches away, branches away.” She kept up the mantra until she spotted another group of people watching their approach, and trying for a bit more politeness this time, called out, “Please don’t clap or anything! Thanks!” then braced
herself for the downward plunge into the creek. Her words did no good, but they were through the flying water and leaping the far log in a tremendous bound when the applause began, and then it didn’t matter because they were gone, flying toward what struck Jane as a ridiculously narrow cord of wood. Lancelot flickered his ears back as if to say, Do you really want me to jump this silly thing? It would make much more sense to go around it. She assured him that she meant him to take it, and he did, though he popped it, adding a chipped stride directly before he jumped, and Jane was ungracefully thrown up onto his neck.

  She recovered, pointing him right and to the ditch. Lancelot didn’t like the look of it, though to Jane it appeared completely harmless, and he zigzagged toward the jump so unwillingly that she decided to circle back and square him up again before he could refuse. She didn’t give him much room to think about it, and he took a huge leap, as if crossing a crater in the Grand Canyon. When they’d landed with a jarring thud of hooves on the other side, she gave him a quick pat and reminded him that his nickname used to be “Nutty.” Now to the left and could it already be the pond? It was, and they were in, rainbowed water spraying everywhere, temporarily blinding Jane, and she gave a whoop of sheer exuberance as they galloped through, mud churning, water drops glistening on Lancelot’s pale fire mane. Another leap out and they faced their last fence, but not before Jane remembered that Ben was supposed to be watching the water obstacles—she slowed Lancelot and cast a glance over her shoulder.

  She spotted him, right by the trees at the edge of the pond, then she heard him: “And the home of the brave, Jane!” he yelled, and threw his arms over his head, waving both hands to her.

  And with that image resting first in her eyes, then tucked away in a place deep down, where she kept things like Lily’s notes, the smell of her father’s pipe, the sound of her mother’s voice laughing on the telephone with her sisters, the way a new sketchpad and pencils feel in your hands, and the perfect form of a horse, she and Lancelot sailed over the final jump and cantered back home.