by C. S. Adler
* * * *
One afternoon, Mel had charge of Lily's current rider, a petite blonde girl named Paris. Paris was practicing her riding skills in the small ring. She had kicked Lily into a smooth lope. For once the horse was circling the ring without dropping back into her bumpy trot, the gait Lily was most often called upon to do other than walking. Next Paris began directing Lily between the rusty metal barrels in the middle of the ring in a figure eight pattern. Suddenly Mel heard the goat bleating loudly. She looked up in time to see twin boys chasing after the agile black-and-brown creature. All three were heading right for Lily and Paris.
“Whoa, Lily!” Mel yelled. But it was too late. She ran to intercept the goat, but it was faster. It skipped sideways away from Mel, and kept running, right past Lily, who was loping dutifully around the second barrel. Lily neighed and reared. Paris dropped the reins and clasped the horse's neck. Lily came down, twisting to the side and hitting the sharp edge of the barrel. The mare crashed onto the ground, and Paris rolled off her. Meanwhile, the goat had slipped under the rail, out of the ring, and was gone into the dark evergreen woods that furred the mountainside.
“You all right?” Mel asked as she knelt beside Paris.
“I don't know. I think so,” Paris said gravely. She had banged her arm and was rubbing it, but it didn't seem to be broken. Then Mel looked toward Lily and screamed. The mare was trying to right herself and blood was pouring from a wound between her udder and rear. Lily's squeal was pathetic. Mel covered her ears to shut out the sound of the mare's pain.
“Stay here, Paris. I've got to get help,” Mel said. She went racing back across the brook, glad not to have to witness any more of Lily's struggle to stand upright.
* * * *
Jeb got Lily back on her feet and put a temporary bandage on her wound until the vet could look at it. Meanwhile Paris's parents came and carted her off, although she kept protesting that she was fine.
“Why did you leave the gate open?” Jeb asked Mel.
“I didn't. The goat got in through the fence.”
“That horse won't be usable for riding 'till she heals. I'm going to have to ship her back down to Jeffries' ranch, maybe for the rest of the season,” Jeb said.
“She'll be all right though, won't she?” Mel asked.
“That's for the vet to say. But it looks like you're out of a job, kid. Unless you decide you can take on trail rides like any wrangler here.”
“A wrangler gets paid. I don't,” Mel snapped.
“Well, you would be paid if you'd do what you're supposed to do.”
She bit her lips and turned away from him.
That evening the goat returned by himself. Mel sat on her bed in her dark closet of a room, brooding. Was what had happened to Lily her fault? Jeb had made it plain he thought so. Sally said she had a special feel for horses, but every contact she had with them seemed to end in disaster. Now what, she asked herself. Now what should she do?
Chapter Five
Mr. Jeffries was a rich, retired businessman with a much younger wife. He owned the pretty spread in the valley below Little Creek Ranch and kept it for his own pleasure. To Mel's surprise, she discovered that half the horses on the guest ranch were rented from Mr. Jeffries for use during the summer when the ranch filled up with paying guests. Lily belonged to Mr. Jeffries. She was a rental horse.
Mel got her mother to drive her down to Jeffries' spread a couple of times a week to visit with the mare. Mel would bring her carrots, which Lily liked. She'd limp over to the gate when she saw Mel there and stand patiently while Mel brushed and curried her. Lily moved more and more easily. Soon, Mel hoped her horse would return to the dude ranch so they could be together again. But in the middle of June one Saturday morning, Dawn dropped Mel off at Jeffries' field, promising to pick her up in a few hours on her way back from shopping at the mall. That day Mel couldn't find Lily anywhere. She approached the fancy, two-story log house with the big front porch that was the Jeffries' summer home and rapped on the door. Mrs. Jeffries answered in a black velvet housecoat. She looked glamorous but sleepy.
“I was looking for Lily,” Mel said, “the white horse that had the big wound?”
“Oh, the Arabian? Yes. The girl that bought her picked her up this morning.”
“Someone bought Lily?”
“Yes, dear. The horse didn't seem strong enough for hackwork. It's hard on them, you know, all those different riders and out on the trails all day. Luckily this little girl fell in love with Lily. Don't worry. She'll take good care of her.”
“But Lily was mine!” Mel blurted out.
“She was?” The woman frowned in confusion. “Not this horse I'm talking about. She belonged to my husband.”
Mel turned on her heel and walked away. She sat down under a tree, barely able to breathe, and waited for her mother. A hawk settled on a fence post not ten feet from her. Mel barely looked up. Loneliness twisted her gut into a knot. Life on a guest ranch was too unpredictable, and worst of all she'd lost Lily.
* * * *
The next morning Mel got dressed and dragged herself down to the corral even though Lily wouldn't be there. She'd promised to help Sally with the horses, and once she made a promise she kept it
Jeb was conferring with Sally about some horse's sore foot. Jeb looked up when Mel appeared and said, “What're you scowling about, Mel? You got a problem this morning?”
“I'm not scowling.”
“Well, you don't look too cheerful.”
“Why should I be? You sold Lily. You said I was in charge of her and then you sold her.”
“And what business is that of yours? You didn't own that horse.”
“Let the girl be, Jeb,” Sally said.“She got attached to Lily. You know she even visited the mare regularly while it was down at Jeffries'?”
“I just wish you'd warned me that Lily could be sold,” Mel burst out. Then to hide the tears in her eyes, she set about filling feed buckets.
“Listen,” Sally said to her when their paths crossed in the tack room, “it's better that Lily found a good home. Likely her life'll be better. Anyways, she won't have to work so hard.”
Mel swallowed hard, accepting the truth of that, but accepting it didn't stop her from grieving for herself, for the companion she had lost.
She was heading out of the corral when Jeb came up behind her and said, “We got a bunch of horses here. Why don't you pick out another one? You might find one with a better trot than Lily so you'd feel like doing some trail riding. Then you could make yourself useful around here.”
“I am useful,” she said indignantly.
“Not as useful as you'd be if you rode. We're still short of wranglers.”
He left to tack up the eight horses needed for the breakfast ride and Sally came by to coax, “I bet you haven't noticed that little bay with the sweet disposition over there.”
“Leave me alone, Sally. I'll do okay just picking up horse poop.” She let herself out of the gate and went to hide under the hanging branches of a spruce that towered over her cabin. There she sat and brooded until the bell clanged for lunch.
* * * *
The guest list picked up as June warmed up and before long the season was in full swing.
One Sunday, Hojo, a huge one-time draft horse, was assigned to a two hundred plus pound male guest to ride. The big man complained. “This plug ugly beast is like riding an elephant without a trunk.”
“Hojo's strong and he'll work hard for you,” Jeb said, his tone level and polite because he was speaking to a guest.
Reluctantly, the big man set off alone with Sue, the eighteen-year-old wrangler from town who had returned to her summer job now that her school term had ended. Sue and the man were back in twenty minutes while the other horses for the day's trail rides were still being readied by Jeb and Mel. Sally had taken a group off on a breakfast ride with another wrangler, a summer hire who'd just returned from college.
Hojo's right rear leg was bright red
with seeping blood.
Speaking so the guest couldn't hear, Sue told Jeb, “He galloped Hojo over that wooden bridge down the road. Hojo ripped open his flank on a nail at the turn. Then the guy tried to muscle Hojo into going on, and I had a job talking him into turning back.”
The guest had dismounted without waiting, as he was supposed to, for a wrangler to help him. “I'm trading this clumsy brute in,” he said to Jeb without apologizing for what he'd done to Hojo. “I want a decent mount.”
Jeb didn't blink at the outrageous request, but Mel muttered too low for the guest to hear, “You're the brute, Mr.”
Before attending to Hojo's wound, Jeb found the man another horse. When he'd ridden off again with Sue, whose thin, freckled face was set in disapproving lines, Jeb went to Hojo. The big animal was still bleeding. Jeb led him into the barn and cross-tied him to posts so that he couldn't move. Then Jeb got gauze pads and staunched the wound by pressing the pads to it.
“I guess we got to call the vet,” Jeb said to Mel who'd followed on his heels. “The ranch owner's not going to like more vet bills, but this wound's deep. Can you hold these pads here, Mel?”
She took his place at Hojo's side as Jeb unhooked his cell phone from his belt.
The horse craned his neck to look back at her and snorted as she pushed her palm against the gauze pads. The blood kept welling out until it covered her hand. But after dropping a load of manure, Hojo stood still, his head hanging so low that her heart went out to him.
The vet happened to be in the area and came right away. “Good thing this fella's had his shots recently,” the vet said. “That nail dug deep.” He finished bandaging the wound and said the dressings would need regular changing.
Sally had returned from leading the breakfast ride by then. “That'll be your job, Sally,” Jeb said as the vet left the barn.
“Sally's already got more jobs than fit in a day,” Mel complained on her friend's behalf.
“Why can't one of the other wranglers do it?”
“Because Hojo could be tough to handle when he's hurting,” Jeb said. “You take care of him if you think it's so easy, Mel. I might even pay you for it.” His grin challenged her.
“Fine,” she said. “I will.”
“No she won't,” Sally said. “That horse could kill her, Jeb. She's only a little girl.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn't serious,” Jeb grunted.
“I'll take care of him,” Sally said.
“When?” Mel asked. “You already work way past quitting time.”
“How'd you get to be Sally's ma?” Jeb asked her. “He's grown. He don't need you to protect him.” And Jeb walked off, leaving Mel to fume about how he treated Sally.
“It's okay, honey,” Sally told her. “Hojo probably wouldn't appreciate anyone else touching him.”
“He doesn't seem to mind me,” she persisted.
“No, Mel. A horse that's hurting will take a bite out of anybody who messes with him, and Hojo's hurting now. Look at him eyeing us, waiting for one of us to get within range.”
* * * *
Hojo was resting in a stall in the big barn the next morning when it was time for his dressing to be changed. A male college student who had been hired as a wrangler for the summer season had called in sick. Jeb and Sally were rushing to get the horses ready for the morning trail rides and didn't notice when Mel stopped helping and slipped away to the barn.
Bright morning sunlight lit the open arena inside, but the rays didn't reach the stall in the back where Hojo was stamping his foot. Mel stopped at the opening above his door and started talking to the pale gray horse bulking out of the dimness of the stall like an outsized ghost.
“So how're you doing, Hojo? Do you still hurt a lot? At least you don't have to carry any nasty dudes on your back today. You can rest while you heal. Did they feed you yet this morning? Probably not. Probably they'll feed you after they finish tacking up everybody else.”
She went for some flakes of hay, opened the door to the stall, and pitched them in.
While Hojo was chewing his first mouthful, she stepped into the roomy box stall and closed the door behind her. “You don't look mean,” she said to him. “And who could blame you for not liking those riders they give you? Just because you're big, they shouldn't muscle you around like you're some kind of old tractor without feelings. Right, Hojo?”
She put her hand on his shoulder. He turned his head to eye her, but he kept chewing and didn't move. She stroked his neck, then reached up and rubbed behind his ears. He snuffled.
She said, “I saw what that vet told Jeb to do about the dressing. I bet I could do it as good as Sally. Would you let me? Huh?”
All she got for an answer was the sound of Hojo's steady chewing. She slipped out of the stall and got the white first aid box. Setting the box down on the floor of the stall, she went back to stroking Hojo. He was still chewing at his feed, and when she stopped petting him, he bumped her shoulder with his nose.
“Hey!” she said in surprise. “So you want to be friends?” Still talking to him cheerfully, she pulled off the adhesive bandage and the medicated gauze soaked with dried blood. Hojo had stopped eating. His head was turned to watch her, but he wasn't backing away and he looked calm.
She used skin swabs to clean the wound and finished by applying fresh medicated gauze and an adhesive bandage to hold it in place. Hojo had twitched at the swabs, nothing more.
“Looks like you're going to heal fast, big fella,” Mel was saying to him when Sally appeared in the open top half of the door.
“What are you doing in there?” Sally yelled.
Hojo squealed and backed up, his big hooves clomping loudly on the floor.
“There, I had him all calm and happy and now you upset him,” Mel said. “I just changed his dressing the way the vet said to do. Saved you one job at least.”
Sally stood there with his jaw hanging. “You won't ride a horse, but you'll go right up to a heavyweight like Hojo and handle him? What kind of sense is that?”
“My feet are on the ground. I keep telling you when my feet are on the ground I know how to move. Besides, Hojo likes me. See.” She put her arm around the horse's neck and posed defiantly beside his head.
“You are something else, Mel. I can't believe you did what you just did. I can't believe Hojo let you.” He took his hat off and ran his gnarled fingers through his wavy, gray-streaked hair.
Sally was standing there being amazed when the clop, clop of a horse's hooves sounded inside the barn. And there came Rover, swinging his head and himself from side to side clownishly.
“Rover, you untie yourself again? What are you doing in here, you fool horse?” Rover came over and nuzzled Sally's back. “Fool horse,” Sally repeated affectionately and hung his arm around Rover's neck.
Just then his cell phone rang. Sally listened a second and said, “Yeah, Jeb. I can do it. Mel already took care of Hojo. Yeah, you heard me right, Mel, little Mel, Dawn's girl.”
She changed Hojo's dressing like the vet said. Looks good, too.”
“I got to go,” he told Mel when he'd shut off the phone. “Some kid hurt himself falling off his horse on the trail. This is one of those weeks when everything goes wrong. Come on out of Hojo's stall now, please. You did a fine job.”
In another minute Sally had swung into Rover's saddle and ridden out of the barn.
Mel ambled around the outside of the barn picking up tufts of long grass until she had a good size bundle of it. The horses loved a fresh grass treat. But no grass grew inside the arena, or the barn, or up in their well-trampled corral on the mountain—only dirt and chewed down vegetation there. She returned to Hojo's stall and spoke softly to him.
“Hey, big boy, want a treat? Do you like green stuff? Hmm?”
He approached the open top half of the door and took the grass gently from her open hand.
“Poor Hojo. That man was gross, and you were just obeying him, weren't you? It wasn't your fault you got hurt.
It was his. And of course, nobody gave him a hard time because he's a paying guest, and a guest can do no wrong. Right, Hojo?”
The horse listened to her with his ears cocked forward. She talked to him some more, quietly repeating what she had said, oozing sympathy over him. He ducked his head and nosed her. She rubbed his long nose with her knuckles. “So what do you want? Want me to groom you a little? Would that feel good?”
She collected the white first aid box and stowed it where it belonged on the shelf, taking a pail of grooming tools back into the stall instead. For a long while she curried and brushed Hojo. She took care to avoid his wound and the area around it that might be sore. When she combed out his mane and tail, it pleased her that he sighed with pleasure.
“You're a brave boy,” she told him, “and much nicer than everybody thinks.”
“There now,” she said when she was finished and he looked as handsome as a bulky, rough-coated animal like him could look. “There. Now show everybody how fast you can heal.”
* * * *
That evening Mel was sitting alone at the staff supper table waiting for her mother who was having a quilting lesson with Mrs. Davis. Sally came in and plunked himself down in the seat next to Mel's. “I still don't get it,” he said. “How come you're not scared of Hojo?”
She shrugged. “I don't know. He needed help, and I could tell how he felt.”
“Lucky he didn't stomp on you.”
“No. He wouldn't have. He wanted me to help him. Anyway, now Jeb can't bug you about him.”