Scarecrow on Horseback

by C. S. Adler

  ”What's wrong if Mr. Jeffries just keeps them?” Mel asked. “If I were rich, that's what I'd do. I'd have a ranch for every horse that nobody else wanted, and I'd take care of them and let them roam around free.”

  “Yeah? Well, don't you think a horse'll get pretty bored running around the same field for years, never getting anywhere and never being useful for anything?”

  “You think a horse likes to be useful?” Mel asked.

  Jeb lifted one shoulder. “Maybe a horse is like a man that way.”

  She studied him. “Do you like your job?”

  He nodded. “I always wanted to work with horses, and here I am doing it. Sure, I like my job.” He smiled at her. She smiled back, drawn to him for the first time.

  “I want to work with horses, too,” she said. It was the pleasantest exchange they had ever had.

  “I have an idea,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Don't want to tell you till I see if it can be worked out. But you'll be glad. I can promise you that.”

  “Does it have something to do with me?” She still didn't believe he could want to be nice to her, unless it was to please her mother. Probably that was it, she thought.

  “Yeah. It's something to do with you all right. What do you say? Want to try being friends?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.” While he obviously liked himself a whole lot, that didn't mean he couldn't care some about other people's feelings. And to be fair, as Sally had pointed out to her, the horses Jeb had sold out from under Mel had belonged to Little Creek Ranch, not to her. As for how Jeb treated Sally, possibly she did take the teasing too seriously. Mel held out her hand, “Friends,” she said.

  They shook solemnly. One last splash of pink lingered in the V between the two mountains ahead of them. The mustangs were huddled together now at the far end of the field in the dark that was coming on. “Might as well go,” Jeb said.

  On the way up to the ranch, Mel wondered about Jeb's idea. She hoped it had something to do with paying her a real salary for the work she did on the ranch. It seemed to her that an assistant vet, even if only needed on occasion, and a regular poop scooper and horse groomer should earn something. She'd be a senior citizen before she could afford a horse at her current savings rate. But if she pushed Jeb to pay her, he'd push right back about needing her to lead trail rides. And if she gave in, likely something else terrible would happen to the horse she chose. No, she'd best wait and see what Jeb's big idea was.

  Chapter Twelve

  Whatever Jeb's idea for her had been the night he took Mel down to see the mustangs remained a mystery. He said nothing in the next week, and she was too proud to pester him. Instead, she spent the early morning hours helping Sally. Later in the day, she hitched a ride down the mountain to watch the mustangs in Jeffries' field. Some guest or staff member was always heading to town to pick up supplies. After a couple of hours of hanging around the pasture, she'd start walking home. If no one she knew stopped to give her a ride, Mel hiked the whole way back to the ranch. As she told her mother, who wanted to know why she so frequently missed lunch or was late to dinner, a five-mile hike up a mountain was good exercise.

  Her spirits rose so high, Mel even wrote an e-mail for her mother to send to Tanya.

  “So what's new with you? The big excitement around here is there's three wild horses down the road. The one I like best has a look in his eye like he's someone I could get to know.”

  Maybe Tanya would think I’m crazy to say that, Mel thought, but she asked her mom to send the message anyway.

  Denise understood. On the first Saturday Denise rode Lily down to meet Mel at Jeffries' field to watch the mustangs, Denise told Mel the story she'd read about a boy who had tamed one.

  “You could do that, Mel. I bet you'd get those horses tamed in no time.”

  Mel laughed. “Nobody's asking me to even get near them,” Mel said.

  “But you'd like to, wouldn't you?” Denise guessed.

  “Yes, more than anything,” Mel said. The daydream of taming the mustangs had been running unbidden through her head since the first night when Jeb had brought her down to see them.

  “That paint's pretty, isn't he?” Denise said. “Which one do you like best?'

  “That one.” Mel nodded at the mahogany colored horse that was watching them, head up, ears at alert.

  “I don't know,” Denise said. “He looks like a fighter.”

  “He's big and strong, and that's what I need.”

  “I'll wish for you that you get him.”

  “Probably better for him if I don't,” Mel replied.

  “You think you're jinxed, but you're not,” Denise said. “You've just had a long run of bad luck.”

  “Too long,” Mel said.

  “Well, it's going to change.” Denise sounded as positive as if she had the power to make it happen. Mel only wished her friend did.

  For the first week and a half that Mel hung out at Jeffries' pasture, she didn't see him or any other human. But the mahogany colored horse became accustomed to finding her at the same place along the fence every day. His head would come up. Slowly, he'd drift away from his companions and walk toward her. At first, he stopped to graze fifty feet, thirty feet, twenty feet away. When he finally got within earshot, she began talking to him, making her voice purr and rumble. She told him all kinds of things—that he was beautiful, that she wished she had a horse like him. She warned him not to eat anything poisonous like ragwort or viburnum or yew—plants she'd come across in a book on horses she'd found in the ranch's library.

  “I don't know what the yellow and white flowers in this field are,” she said. “Did you have the same kind where they caught you? I bet you could run for miles and miles there on the plains. You must feel like you're in jail in this pasture. But you don't act too unhappy. You must be bored though because you wouldn't be so curious about me if you weren't.” She waved her arms at him to see his reaction, and his ears stiffened on alert. Head up, he watched to see what she'd do next.

  She leaned against the fence and continued talking. “What're your buddies like? Are they good company? You don't seem to hang around them much. Don't you fit in with the gang? Maybe you're too smart for them. You look smart.”

  She had observed that curious horses tended to be the most intelligent. They had a brightness in their eyes that other horses lacked. The mahogany colored horse's eyes had that inner light. Frequently, he would jump as if something had startled him, although she couldn't see what from where she stood. Then he'd run, kicking up his heels. Before reaching the fence, he'd stop and turn to gallop back the other way. Mel suspected that he ran for the sheer joy of it, that he was just pretending to be startled to give himself an excuse to flee.

  “I think we belong together,” she told him. “I'm kind of a loner, too. Sometimes I even want to be alone so I can think things all the way through without getting distracted. Thinking's hard for me, so I distract easy. Are you like that, too? Maybe we're soul mates, you and me. What do you say?”

  The mustang kept grazing, looking up to eye her occasionally, chewing as he studied her. She wondered if he could be as attracted to her as she was to him. The other two horses kept their distance. Only her horse apparently found humans interesting. At least he found her interesting.

  “You could call him Cheyenne,” Denise suggested on her visit the next Saturday. “We studied western Indians in fifth grade, and the Cheyenne were tall and brave. They roved the plains and were good fighters.”

  “Cheyenne.” Mel liked the sound on her tongue. “Thanks, Denise. That's who he is.”

  One day Mel arrived to find Cheyenne charging down the entire length of the field, rearing at the fence and racing back the other way. She was thrilled by the graceful abandon of his movements—muscles rippling, tail flying. She clapped her hands as if he'd performed just for her, and he stopped. Just like that in the middle of the field. He stopped and turned to face her. She was eating an apple. She he
ld it up for him. Then she tossed it as far as she could toward him. He ignored it and loped away from her, but halted to graze and circle slowly back. With his eye fixed on her, he approached the half-eaten apple. He nudged it with his nose, licked it, and left it. She laughed as he sauntered off as if he couldn't care less about anything she might have to offer.

  The next day on a sudden impulse, Mel slipped under the fence. She walked as far into the field as Cheyenne had stood the day before. Her heart began a tom-tom beat of danger. He was a wild horse, and she was invading his territory. If he attacked, could she run fast enough to make it back over the fence? Not likely. But she didn't believe he could want to hurt her.

  She planted herself in the field like a tree and let the wind toy with her hair and clothes. It curled around her cheeks and rippled the grass. A hawk sailed by dark against the sun, rising with the currents. She watched it spiral higher, growing smaller as it went. Meanwhile, Cheyenne stood watching her. Mel waited patiently. It seemed like an hour before he left the other two mustangs. He wandered her way, pretending not to notice her standing there, although he was obviously approaching her. A few feet from her he stopped.

  “So did you eat the apple after I left? I bet you did. Anyway, it's not here anymore so somebody ate it. I brought you another one.” Mel held it up for him. “This one's all yours. I didn't even take a bite yet. Want it?”

  He bent and chewed some grass at his forefeet. At least it didn't upset him that she had entered his area. The other two horses seemed to be playing tag at the far end of the field. The paint reared as if he was going to bite the other horse's neck, but it ducked and ran and the paint chased it. Mel took a deep breath and squatted, wrapping her arms around her knees. Cheyenne snorted and widened his eyes at her.

  “Wondering what I'm up to?” she asked him. She rolled the apple out a few feet in front of her. He stepped back and tried a patch of weeds on his other side. She waited until her knees began to ache and the muscles in her legs cramped from being squeezed. The wind fiddled with Cheyenne's tail, trailing hairs out sideways and stirring the tangled mane that lay every which way on his neck. She yearned to comb out those tangles, to stroke his neck, to touch him. She wanted him to feel how much she liked him.

  A butterfly landed on a flower the size of Mel's thumbnail, a yellow butterfly on a yellow flower. Mel waited. It took Cheyenne what seemed like forever to sidle up to that apple and nose it. His lips lifted as he took it in his teeth. She had to giggle. He looked so funny. His jaw moved loosely from side to side as he chewed the apple, regarding her all the while with his large, intelligent eyes.

  A grasshopper jumped next to her. She started, and so did Cheyenne. “It's just a bug,” she said to him. “Or was it me that scared you? Because I moved? You don't know what to make of me, do you?”

  She talked to him until he lost interest and stepped away from her. He began to run back toward the other two horses, picking up speed as he went until he got to them and scattered them. Then he planted himself in the shade of a tree that overhung the far side of the pasture. There he turned his head to watch her. She waited, but he didn't come again. Finally, she got up and climbed back through the fence.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You making any progress with that mustang?” Jeb asked her weeks after he'd first taken her down to see Jeffries' horses.

  “How do you know about me and the mustang?”

  “Everybody on the ranch knows you been hanging out down there.”

  “He's getting to know me, I think,” Mel said.

  “Well, guess what I did for you?” Jeb said. “I asked Jeffries how much he'd take for one of those mustangs. He said if someone was to put in the time and effort to train one, he'd give them a fair price, maybe a few hundred.”

  “Are you going to buy one?” Mel asked in surprise.

  “Not me. They're no use to me. I don't have any spare time. How about you? You too busy to try training a wild horse?” His grin was knowing.

  She caught her breath, remembering he'd said he had an idea. Was this it? Did he mean to help her? “But I don't have a few hundred dollars.”

  “Well, Davis says if I can get enough work out of you, he'd advance the money.”

  “Really, Jeb? Oh, really?” She couldn't help squealing like a little kid. “That would be so great. That would be so cool. To have my own horse—the dark brown one. His name's Cheyenne. Oh!” She couldn't help herself. She started dancing for joy, and Jeb threw back his head and laughed.

  That night she was in the tack room under the single hanging light bulb dutifully stacking horse blankets when Sally came in with a saddle. “So,” he said, “you found yourself a new buddy I hear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jeb says you and him are like that.” Sally held up his two fingers crossed.

  “He may fix it so I can finally really get my own horse,” she said. “But you and Denise are still my best friends, Sally.”

  “Good,” he said with a smile. “I'd feel bad if you dumped me for a younger feller. So you want to start off riding Rover? You need to get used to riding again.”

  “Why? I don't want Cheyenne for riding, at least not right away. I just want him. Like Mr. Jeffries bought the mustangs, just to have them.”

  Sally shook his head. “You are one strange little girl.”

  * * * *

  Jeb brought her down in the ranch's pickup to speak to Mr. Jeffries after dinner that Sunday. They were invited into the high-ceilinged living room of the log house where they sat down together on the Indian design cushions of the outsized couch. Mrs. Jeffries came in with a tray of cookies, beer for the men and soda for Mel. Mrs. Jeffries looked a lot younger than her white-bearded husband whose blue eyes were sunk into ripples of weathered skin. Her pants outfit showed off her trim figure, but Mel didn't think she was as pretty as Dawn.

  “No, thanks,” Mel said to the cookies and Coke. She was too nervous to eat. It would keep her from concentrating on what was being said, and besides, she might spill something. While the adults chatted about this and that, Mel stared at the finely woven Navajo rug over the stone fireplace, then at the Indian baskets, the pottery, and what tourists called a katchina doll on display. The Hopi, who made the dolls, said katsina was the more correct term. Mel remembered hearing that katsinam meant more than one. The room was like a museum. Mr. Jeffries was telling Jeb that his wife had no interest in horses. She was a potter who spent most of her time on the ranch in a special room where she had her kiln, her wheel, and shelves displaying her experiments in glazed plates and bowls. It was Mr. Jeffries who loved the ranch.

  “I get a kick out of riding around my land, watching the mountains put on thick white winter coats, seeing summer come on green and fuzzy,” he said. “Nothing like watching the seasons, nothing more beautiful.”

  He was very old, Mel thought, but he was her kind of person. “Except the mustangs are,” she said. It was her first contribution to the conversation since they had sat down.

  “Yes, they're beautiful when they run, and beautiful because they're still wild,” Mr. Jeffries said. “I adopted them last year. Had to leave them on a friend's spread near where they were auctioned off until I got around to transporting them here. According to the Bureau of Land Management, I own them now. Not sure anyone deserves to own wild creatures though.” He smiled at Mel and waited as if he expected a response from her.

  “But the one, the tall brown one, I think he likes people,” she said.

  “You mean, he's been showing some interest in you, don't you?” Mr. Jeffries said with a little smile.

  “Well, I watch him a lot.”

  “I know, and tempt him with apples. Kind of like Eve in the garden.”

  “Stop teasing the child, Philip,” Mrs. Jeffries said.

  “Jeb says you're good with horses,” Mr. Jeffries said. “He tells me you got a natural feel for them. That you can even doctor them and they let you.”

  She nodded, h
olding her breath.

  “That mustang, the one you favor, is the wildest,” Mr. Jeffries said. “He nearly kicked out the side of the van when they shipped him here. Maybe you ought to settle on one of the other two.”

  “But he's the one I want,” Mel blurted out. Her heart was beating so hard she was sure they could all see it thumping against the inside of her chest.

  “What's good about him besides that he's big for a wild horse?”

  “He likes me.”

  “Well, now, that's something. But how can you be sure that he likes you enough to want to be yours?”

  Mel jumped up in her eagerness. “I'll show you,” she said.

  The three adults followed her out to the pasture. This time she entered it through the gate. The others stood outside the six-foot high wooden fence watching as she walked a ways into the field. She hadn't gone more than twenty feet before Cheyenne, who was at the far end of the pasture with the other horses, looked up and began watching her. She approached him, then stopped and waited. Cheyenne walked obliquely, toward her and yet off to one side. She backed away from him. He stopped, then changed direction and ambled toward her again. She drew nearer to him until she was about ten feet away. Then she stopped and began brushing at her pants, not looking at him. Cheyenne stepped closer. She held her hand out, palm up. He ducked his head, stretched his neck out, and sniffed her fingers.

  “Well, I'll be,” Mr. Jeffries said.

  “Cheyenne,” she said. “I don't have an apple for you today, but you know what? I'll come by and bring you one pretty soon. Okay?”

  Bending his head and nibbling, the horse moved away from her. But not far. He stopped a horse's length away.

  “Don't touch him,” Mr. Jeffries warned.

  “I won't,” Mel said. “Not yet.” She waited. Cheyenne came back again, close enough to sniff at her shirt. “Hi,” she said. “It's me all right. How you doing?”