Scarecrow on Horseback

by C. S. Adler

  Then the horse did something that startled Mel and made the others laugh. He took the end of her ponytail in his teeth and tugged. “Ouch! Stop that.” As if he had pulled off a great joke, Cheyenne whinnied, turned and romped back across the field.

  “Well, I never saw anything like that in my life,” Mr. Jeffries said.

  “He's her horse all right,” Mrs. Jeffries said. And she laughed with delight.

  “How about that?” Jeb said. “That's some weird horse. You sure he's a mustang?”

  “Far as I know,” Mr. Jeffries said. “That's what I bought him as anyways.”

  “He's a tease,” Mel said. “But he's the best horse I've ever met.”

  “So you want him, eh?” Mr. Jeffries asked.

  “Oh, yes, I want him.”

  “Well, I guess you're the one should have him seeing as the admiration appears to be mutual.”

  “Really?” Mel asked. “Really? You'll let me buy him?” She hugged herself to try and contain her joy. “When can I bring him up to the ranch?”

  “You got to work to earn him first,” Jeb said.

  “I'll do anything you want me to, except I really, really hope you won't make me ride some horse I don't know,” Mel said. She looked at him pleadingly. If anything happened to another horse now because of her, she couldn't bear it.

  “She's as loco as that horse,” Mr. Jeffries said. But he was smiling. “I'd say the two of them are made for each other.”

  * * * *

  Fortunately, for Mel, two horses went lame that week and her services as an assistant vet were in demand. Mr. Davis decided that she had cared for enough sick horses, shoveled enough barrels of feed and loads of horse droppings, swept out enough stalls, and readied enough horses for trail rides so that she had earned at least a down payment on Cheyenne.

  “I'll bring the horse up to Little Creek Ranch tomorrow so's you can spend more time taming him,” Jeb said.

  “I told you Jeb is basically a nice guy,” Dawn told her smugly.

  Mel shrugged. “He's okay, I guess. At least, he's been okay to me lately.” And she decided that if Jeb really brought Cheyenne up to the ranch tomorrow as he'd promised, she'd start forgiving him for taking Lily and Hojo and Colby away from her.Tomorrow she'd see.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The horse that Jeb and Sally released from the van Sunday morning was not the Cheyenne Mel had fallen in love with. A crazed animal, screaming a war cry, careened into the small arena on the other side of the stream. He was to be left alone there, which was a good thing because he clearly meant to kill anyone who dared come near him.

  For an hour, Cheyenne bucked and reared and raced around the corral, smashing himself into the fence, which shook but held fast. His eyes showed white and his nostrils flared. Wranglers and even the kitchen and office staff came running to see what was happening. A guest registering for the week asked if someone was being murdered.

  Mel clutched her cheeks and asked herself what she had done to her horse. Cheyenne frightened her now, but at the same time she pitied him. He was being imprisoned once again, but now he lacked even the comforting familiarity of the horses that had been captured with him. Alone in a strange place, he was as terrified as he was terrifying.

  When Cheyenne finally wore himself out and stood shuddering in the ring, Mel's sympathy got the better of her caution. She started to duck under the railing into the corral, but Sally caught her by her belt and pulled her back.

  “You crazy? You can't go near that horse yet, Mel.”

  “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” Mel said. Struggling not to burst into tears, she stood between Sally and Jeb. “I didn't know how much he'd hate moving.”

  “Don't worry. He'll calm down,” Sally said just as Cheyenne rose on his hind legs and shook his front hooves at the sky, trumpeting his rage again. “May take him some time though.”

  “Yeah, a week or a month or forever,” Jeb said. He looked shaken as he wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve and resettled his hat on his head. “We should have sedated him before tying him up. That maniac kept trying to kick out the back door on the way up here.”

  “Anyhow, we got him here,” Sally said. “Keep away from him for a few days, Mel. Give him time to get used to the place.”

  She nodded. He needed to get used to the little corral, but would he ever? He was a wild horse and she had penned him up. Would he forgive her for doing that to him? Ripples of fear ran down her back. She might just have made the worst mistake of her life.

  * * * *

  Two days later, Mel was crouching in a shadowed stall using duct tape to hold a dressing on the haunch of a horse that had been bitten by another. She heard an angry bellow that no doubt was Cheyenne. She finished comforting the wounded animal, put away the first aid supplies, and hurried out of the barn and across the bridge. Cheyenne had better calm down by Saturday morning because that was when the ranch put on a guest rodeo in the small corral. It was meant to be fun and a way to show off the skills the guests had learned during their stays. Parents and children had to direct their horses around poles and ride them across the field carrying eggs aloft on a spoon. Children tied their kerchiefs on the calf's tail in relay races. The littlest kids rode the sheep from the petting zoo like rodeo riders, which was why, Mel had decided, the sheep were so unfriendly. On Saturday, Cheyenne would have to be moved out of that arena for the day, another new situation for him to adjust to, and he didn't seem very adjustable.

  He had ignored Mel when she stood outside the fence talking to him. He'd ignored every treat she'd offered. Any progress she'd made in getting Cheyenne used to her had been lost in the move. Guiltily, Mel stood outside the fence again and asked him, “Are you still mad at me? Aren't you ever going to forgive me for getting you up from Jeffries' field? It was nice there, I know, maybe not as nice as running free on the plains, but at least you could find grass in the field. I'm sorry, Cheyenne, really, really sorry. ”

  Cheyenne stopped on the far side of the bare corral, hung his head, and gagged. His neck was sweaty from all his exertions. Mel moaned, feeling so bad for her horse that she considered opening the gate and letting him loose. But where would he go? He'd get hit by a car on one of the roads, or if he headed up a mountain, he'd starve. In the vast forests of pines and spruce and aspens, intertwining branches kept out the sun so that no underbrush or grass could grow. Despite her sympathy for Cheyenne's frenzied fight against his imprisonment, she couldn't think of any way to help him now.

  Mel was up at dawn the next morning to bring Cheyenne feed and refill the water barrel set out in the arena for him. For a long time, he avoided the feed bucket. Then he kicked it over. It took another whole day before he stopped bucking, heaving himself about, and banging into the fence. When he'd finally calmed down, what he wanted was to drink. He drank half the barrel of water dry while she brought him another bucket full of feed. He shook the drops from his wet muzzle and looked at her with wounded eyes, his front legs spread wide, his never-shod hooves big and clumsy as hiking boots.

  “I'm sorry, Cheyenne. I didn't mean to torture you,” she said. She was so ashamed of bringing him low just by wanting him to be hers that she went to Jeb and asked him to cart Cheyenne back to Mr. Jeffries' field. “He was better off there,” she said.

  Jeb laughed at her. “He's a horse. They don't have much brain. He'll get used to it here so long as we feed him.”

  “But if he doesn't get used to it—”

  “Yeah, well, I'm not about to try getting him back in that horse trailer anytime soon. I'll tell you that much.”

  Then on Friday, as if he'd decided resistance was hopeless, Cheyenne quieted. Mel ventured into the corral with him. He let her touch him and didn't fight the halter when she put the lead rope on him. One small part of her felt bad to see him defeated. But mostly she was relieved that he'd given in. On Saturday morning, Cheyenne allowed Mel and Sally to lead him from the small arena to the big one without much fuss. He was on his w
ay to being domesticated, so quiet that Mel dared spend most of the day with Denise as usual.

  “I'm just a bad luck charm for any horse that likes me,” Mel confided to her friend. They were sitting on the back steps of Denise's house, shucking the dozen ears of corn that Denise's artist father was going to serve them for supper along with barbecued spare ribs. On Saturdays Ty did the cooking.

  “I think bad luck comes in clumps,” Denise said. “And then it's all good for a long time after. Like the year when Ty lost his teaching job and my mom found a lump in her breast and they lost the baby they'd been trying to have. But then we moved here, and now Ty's paintings sold out at his last show, and Mom's tests came out fine, and I found you, and we're happy here.”

  “But how can you know when you're luck's going to turn?” Mel asked.

  Denise shrugged. “I guess you just keep testing it.”

  “What you mean is there's no way to know?” Mel asked.

  “You need to believe things will go well,” Denise shrugged. “Do you want to see the painting Ty did of Lily? It's on the wall over my bed.”

  “Sure.”The painting was of Lily looking like a dream horse in the moonlight, and Mel admired it enthusiastically.

  * * * *

  Between the hours Mel spent working as a wrangler taking care of horses and doing the scut work Jeb set for her, and the hours she put in each day with Cheyenne, August had sped by in a blur of activity. In September, school would begin. Already mornings were chillier and pierced with the rasping songs of insects. In the afternoons, the sun grew huge and gleaming overhead, but its heat barely reached the ground. Lazy clouds flocked the high blue skies, and occasionally the clouds piled up and brought afternoon thundershowers.

  Mel was relieved to see that Cheyenne took storms in stride. Even a crack of thunder like a storefront window shattering didn't throw him. She had progressed from touching him, to currying him, and rubbing his mahogany colored hair until it shone. He let her lift his hooves and use the pick on the dirt crusted in them. One day he stood steady while she put a bridle and saddle blanket on him. He accepted the weight of the saddle and only turned his head back to watch her as she tightened the cinch. Then he followed her docilely around the ring.

  “Cheyenne,” she'd call. He'd prick up his ears and come to her, nudging his long head against her, poking at her pockets to see if she had a treat he could steal. Training him had suddenly become easy.

  One Saturday she tacked up Cheyenne and led him out of the cramped corral and back across the brook to the road. She walked him down the mountain on the road past the ranch, almost to the turnoff for Jeffries', and then she led him back, grinning with pride that he had cooperated so well. Her mother, who had stepped outside the office in the main building for a breath of fresh air, saw her leading her well-groomed horse home in triumph.

  “Looks like you got yourself an expensive dog to walk,” Dawn said.

  “So far I've paid for less than half of him,” Mel said.

  “You ever planning on riding him?” her mother asked.

  “Someday maybe. I'm in no rush.”

  Mel didn't want to take any chances she didn't have to take. She was too happy as things were. Cheyenne and she had become as close as family, closer than most family. Their attachment to each other was wordless and cemented by touch. She could feel his affection for her when he nuzzled her or bumped his head against her chest. She could kiss his buttery soft muzzle and revel in the healthy smoothness of his muscular body and the coarse strength of his long black mane and tail. He moved toward her when she came into his corral as if he liked being near her. It thrilled her to be near him.

  “We're going to be together forever,” she told Cheyenne, “or at least until we're both old.” Most likely Cheyenne would die before her even if he lived to be old for a horse, thirty maybe. But by then she'd be as old as her mother and that was too far in the future to imagine.

  “That horse wouldn't mind having you on his back now,” Sally told her. “Lead a few trail rides with him, and you'll pay off what Davis loaned you fast.”

  “I'm not in a hurry.”

  “Well, maybe not, but once you've paid up, you won't have to worry about losing him.”

  “But he's mine now, Sally.”

  “No, he's not. It's like the bank owns your house so long as you've got a mortgage, Mel. The ranch owns Cheyenne till you pay them back.”

  “There's no rush,” Mel said stubbornly, unwilling to risk being toppled from her peak of happiness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She should have listened to Sally. Late in August, a week of cold, rainy weather set in. One of the guests fell off a horse on a muddy trail and was hospitalized with a cracked pelvis. Guests, who were paying to ride and couldn't because of the rain, wanted refunds. Jeb was tense and irritable. He snapped at the wranglers. He put Sally down in front of guests and staff alike for not getting the experienced riders, who had gone out in the rain anyway, back in time. He accused Sally of not stopping to check cinches a second time, and one day even for not changing his shirt, which smelled faintly of horses and sweat.

  And then Mel overheard the cook talking to her helper in the kitchen. “I hear Joy's on her way back.”

  “Jeb's girlfriend? How do you know that?”

  “She sent the Davises an e-mail that she was thinking of it. You'll see. She'll turn up one of these days.”

  And the very next day, the van came from the airport bringing late season guests from the east and one young woman from the west.

  Joy breezed into the dining area that evening, came up behind Jeb and Mr. Davis, and threw her arms around both of them. “Oh, it's so good to see you guys again. I feel like I've come home. Tell me all the news. Tell me how everybody's doing.”

  “How about you, Joy, how are you doing?” Jeb asked. His eyes shone with pleasure as he covered her hand with his.

  “Just fine now I'm here.” Joy smiled at him, her pert face alive with affection. “I've been everywhere and done everything. Now I'm ready to settle down and work. You got room for me? Can I have my old job back?” Her hair was auburn, and Mel thought Joy might even be prettier than her mother, who was Mel's gold standard for beauty.

  “The season's about over,” Jeb punished his old girlfriend by saying. “Not much use for another wrangler now.”

  “Well, there's got to be something for me to do around here.” Without waiting for his response, Joy turned from him to renew acquaintance with the others on the staff. She asked about Mrs. Davis's ailing mother, whether somebody's sister had had her baby, and if Sue was going off to college soon.

  She smiled at Mel and said, “Hi, there,” without much interest when Sally introduced her. When Joy ran out of questions, she regaled the supper table with stories about her adventures since she'd left the ranch. She'd gone out to Hollywood and worked as a stunt rider, a stand-in for some actress whose name she obviously expected them all to recognize, although Mel, for one, had never heard of her. Joy had been to Mexico and tried surfing until a shark got too close to her board. She'd spent time with her family in Duluth and been a bridesmaid in her sister's wedding.

  “But it sure feels good to be home again,” she repeated as she licked her dessert spoon clean.

  “Is she a good worker?” Mel asked Sally when the meal was over and they were walking out together.

  “She's a lively one.” Something in Sally’s tone made Mel think he had more than work in mind.

  That night, Mel's mother came home early. “Where were you?” Mel asked.

  “At the bar in the lounge with Jeb and Joy.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “Well, she's interesting. And Jeb's obviously still in love with her. Anyway, they didn't need me around. Looks like I'll have a lot more time for quilting now.”

  It didn't occur to Mel then that Joy's return might have an effect on her life as well.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Jeb came up beside Mel in
the corral where she was combing stickers out of a horse's tail. “Listen, Mel,” he said, “school's about to start anyway, so you might as well take a vacation from the horses in the time you got left.”

  “What do you mean? I don't want a vacation. I have to earn the rest of what I need to pay off my loan on Cheyenne?”

  “Maybe the kitchen staff can use you,” he suggested lamely.

  Mel gritted her teeth and glared at him, but he'd already turned to walk away. She went to the new cook who shook her head. The cook said she could handle the current batch of guests. After they left, even with a diminished staff in off-season, she could manage by herself.

  “What am I going to do, Sally?” Mel asked that night.

  “Well, I can lend you a few bucks. I don't know,” he said. “Maybe Davis will extend your loan till next summer. Maybe your mother can help you out some.”

  “Mom doesn't have any extra to lend,” Mel said gloomily. She had known she couldn't trust Jeb. My instinct was right, she told herself.

  “You rat,” she snapped at Jeb outside the main building when he came whistling along to breakfast the next morning. “You were going to help me get Cheyenne, and now you're acting like you never promised me anything.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her and fought back. “I didn't promise you anything. What's more, kid, you'd better get that useless horse ready for riding. You got to add his winter-feed bill to what you owe, you know. And if he can't be ridden by next spring, we won't have room on this ranch for him.”

  Jeb strode off into the dining hall. Mel stood outside fuming. She felt as trapped and angry as Cheyenne when he had first been brought up to the dude ranch. All afternoon she stewed about what to do without coming up with an answer she could accept. That night, the moon was round and ripe enough to burst. In the cabin, Dawn was working on the second pillow cover she'd quilted that summer.

  “My sewing just isn't as straight and even as Mrs. Davis's,” Dawn said.