Pie in the Sky

by Jane Smiley

  He said, “Okay. Forty-five minutes. I’ll pick you up and we’ll drive out there and you’ll have exactly forty-five minutes of my precious time.”

  Well, it was precious, at least where horses were concerned.

  Jane, of course, had told Rodney when we would be there, and Pie in the Sky was tacked up and ready, with his own Pariani saddle, running martingale, breastplate, and jumping boots. He looked like he was about to go into battle. Rodney seemed to know perfectly well what we were doing there—he pointed to one of the far-off smaller rings and said, “Well, miss, I’m guessing you’ll have that spot all to yourselves.”

  I said, “Thanks, Rodney.”

  He said, “Watch yerself, then, miss.” Rodney had never cautioned me before. He and Danny exchanged a glance.

  But I don’t know if there was a horse that had ever made Danny nervous—and it wasn’t just because he would ride anything. It was because he wasn’t too lazy to take his time and be careful. In this case, as soon as we got to that small arena, with Pie in the Sky snorting all the way, he took all that tack off the horse and let him skitter around on his own for five minutes. Then he stepped forward and began to direct the skittering, so that Pie in the Sky could still be moving, but he had to move because Danny told him to, and in the direction Danny indicated. In another five minutes, Pie in the Sky was no longer skittering—he was trotting around and then cantering around, smooth, though fast, with big strides, and with his neck arched and his ears forward. Danny stepped over to him, put the bridle back on, and asked him to step under. He didn’t know what we were talking about, but he was willing. I saw that he was pretty supple, either from training or naturally; stepping under was something he could easily do.

  Then Danny put the saddle back on him with the breastplate, but not the running martingale, and let him do all his moves with that darn stuff flapping all over him. He settled down. And then he did a funny thing. He turned, dropped his head, and came over to us. His face was calm and he was not looking for carrots. I petted Pie in the Sky on his bright red cheek and said, “What’s this all about?”

  “I think he’s saying he’s ready. It’s not like he doesn’t know what his job is.”

  Danny stroked him down his neck, tightened the girth, and then cupped his hands. I went over and he legged me up into the saddle. Danny said, “Step him over a few times, both directions.”

  This was the great Jem Jarrow lesson for all horses and riders—you lift the horse’s head to one side with the rein, and he learns to soften his back and step one hind leg across in front of the other, thereby turning his body in a small circle. It shows him where his feet are (you would be surprised how many horses have no idea where their feet are), it loosens his muscles, and it also makes him aware of the rider as someone who does something other than kicking him forward or pulling him back (or both at once). After we did this a few times, I trotted him in curving lines around the arena, asking him to change direction over and over. He did it, as I would expect him to.

  It wasn’t that he had no bad habits—he stuck his nose out more than I liked, and his idea whenever he didn’t understand something was to go fast. But he felt agile and mostly willing. By the time Danny had to leave to get to work, I was as comfortable on Pie in the Sky as I was on most horses that I rode for the first time—there is always the first time. No horse feels the same as any other horse.

  I took Pie in the Sky back to Rodney, and Rodney gave me a pat on the shoulder and said, “Yer a quiet thing, miss, but tough as an old boot, aren’t ya?” I did not know if this was a compliment.

  I went over to the big arena, where Lucy, Monica, and Penny had been joined by Nancy on Parisienne. It was after nine, so they were already going at it. Peter Finneran had his back to me, his hands on his hips. The girls were doing flat work—they were walking. But even so, Peter Finneran had plenty to say. “What do you girls think a walk is? A stroll? No sirree! A walk is a four-beat gait, four distinct beats. That horse needs to be saying, ‘I am walking, hut two three four, hut two three four.’ That horse needs to soften his jaw and hinge at the poll and step out step out step out. And he needs to go straight. Lucy! Your horse is going sideways, and you don’t even know it, do you? Where is your hind end? Your horse’s hind end? Well, it is not behind you, it’s beside you! It’s going to pass you if you don’t watch out. Come over here!”

  Lucy and Donegal turned and walked over to Peter Finneran. They halted in front of him, and he said, “Here’s a funny thing that is especially obvious on this horse. His back end is wider than his front end. It’s true of every horse, even the most delicate Thoroughbred!” He nodded toward Parisienne. “No, keep walking! You can do two things at once, I hope!” With two little motions, he made Donegal stand square, then he said, “If you are moving straight forward and your horse’s spine is straight, then he cannot be parallel to the rail. There are sometimes when I want him to be parallel to the rail—so that he is a tiny bit bent to the outside—but I want you to know the difference between parallel to the rail and therefore a little bent, and straight, therefore not parallel to the rail. Lucy, sit up, apply your legs equally, and look ahead.” She walked a few strides, and Donegal looked straight to me. He did have large haunches, and you could see that he was a little triangular from front to back. Peter Finneran said, “When do you want them absolutely straight?”

  Nobody dared answer. All of a sudden, he whipped around and said, “Abby? What do you think?”

  I said, “Going down to a jump?”

  “Finally! Some sense! Yes. Now, I want you girls to turn your horses in a line and walk down the center of the arena and see if you can sit up, go straight, and balance these animals.”

  I backed away from the arena, and carried the sack Mom had given me of peanut butter and jam sandwiches for breakfast around the big announcer’s stand and clock stand to where Peter Finneran couldn’t see me and I couldn’t see him. But I could hear him. It was exhausting. The clock said nine thirty. My group didn’t go until after lunch.

  The morning was very dull except for one time when Jane came out of her office, saw me, and said, “Oh, come talk to me for five minutes. I feel like I’ve hardly seen you lately.”

  The stables hadn’t stopped for Peter Finneran. He had the big arena, but other lessons were being given, trail rides were going out, and the grooms and workers were cleaning stalls, turning out horses, and otherwise tending to the stable business.

  Jane had papers laid out on her desk—a map of the stables with names written over each stall. She also had a pad of paper and a stack of envelopes. I thought maybe she was making up bills or something like that. I sat down.

  She went around, plopped into her desk chair, and said, “You know how to make sure you never ride?”

  I shook my head.

  “Run a stable!” She laughed. Then she leaned forward and said, “Did you ride Pie in the Sky?”

  I nodded. “Danny helped me.”

  “He’s not a bad horse. He’s got air to spare.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I saw him jump a five-foot course one day, easy as you please. He’s got amazing spring. But they—well, anyway. I’m sure your brother had a few ideas.”

  “Pie in the Sky came right over to us when he was finished loosening up, like he was saying he was ready.”

  “They do lunge him. But he’s so valuable that they never let him play or jump around. Might hurt himself. Not my business, but it could be said that if Sophia would pay more attention to him, she might like him better.” Then she looked at me and said, “When you’re going down to the jump, sit up a little. That’s all. I’ll be finished with this in time to come watch you.”

  The first thing I did when we were mounted and doing our own flat work was lift the inside rein every so often, at the walk, trot, and canter, and in both directions—not enough for Peter Finneran to see, but enough for Pie in the Sky to feel and to respond to by lifting his inside shoulder and relaxing
his back. When Jem Jarrow first taught me that trick, it had worked even with Rally—or Ornery George, as he was called then—who was about as stiff in his back as a horse could be.

  We did half an hour of flat work, and I could see Sophia watching me, and Sophia could see me watching her. The best thing for getting used to another person riding your horse (and there was still a part of me that thought of Onyx as my horse) is to watch that person riding your horse—after a while, he stops looking like your horse, and she stops looking so odd on him. Sophia was maybe the thinnest person I ever saw, but not skinny—more like made of steel cables. She had long braids to the middle of her back, thick and blond, and she had big braces in a thin face. As far as I could tell, Black George behaved perfectly for her. But Peter Finneran acted and talked like he thought she was a mess. If he wasn’t shouting, “Corner, Sophia!” then he was shouting, “Sophia! Please ask that horse to wake up!” or “Elbows, Sophia! Bend your elbows!” And then once we were warmed up, instead of having us trot over a jump (there were six set up, plus a long row of crossbars), he had us line up and dismount. Then, one by one, he got on each of our horses and took him or her down over a vertical, maybe 3′3″, and four strides after that, a triple bar, a pretty high jump, maybe 3′6″. The first one he got on was Onyx. Once he was mounted, he said to us, “All right. I’m going to jump the first jump the way you girls jump, and then I’m going to jump the second jump the way it should be done.”

  He turned Onyx in a small circle and cantered toward the first jump. At the very last moment, Onyx made an extra tiny stride, then he jumped awkwardly, but he got over. Then he galloped to the second one, jumped perfectly out of stride, and made a small circle and came back to us. Peter Finneran said, “Scary, wasn’t it?” He pointed to the triple bar. “Well, my heart is in my throat every time you girls head down to a fence. If your parents aren’t passing out with anxiety, they’re fools. But then, buying you these horses was pretty foolish, so maybe they are fools.”

  He got off Black George and onto Eileen’s bay, then did the same thing, right down the line. Standing there watching Pie in the Sky do this, “chip,” did not make me want to jump anything, but I had to admit his second jump was bold and graceful. After I was back on (and I had to mount from the ground—no leg up from Peter Finneran), he sent us to the rail again, and we practiced shortening and lengthening our canter strides—eight strides short, ten strides long, seven strides short, twelve strides long, six strides short, four strides long. There was a lot of barking about where had we learned to count and what was wrong with schools today.

  When we started jumping, Pie in the Sky and I had to go first. Peter Finneran pointed to one of the fence posts and said, “You begin your canter there, and you get to that fence in four medium strides, and jump the first one, then four more strides to the second one. Easy as can be.”

  I sat up, put my heels down, and did what Peter Finneran said. Four strides to the first fence was a little bouncy, four strides to the second fence was a little gallopy, but Pie in the Sky had no trouble, and he didn’t even seem to think of stopping. Each horse after me had a slightly different starting spot and a slightly different count, but we all got the job done. He nodded the first four of us through. Then for Sophia it was “One! Two! Three! Sophia! Where are you? You are half a stride off. That horse is a saint, the way he saves you every time! Try it again! Try it again!” After the fourth try, all of which looked okay to me, Sophia began to look rattled. I could see that her eyes were red. Peter Finneran said, “Well, goodness. Go to the back of the line and ponder your sins.”

  The next exercise was over a hogsback set in the center of the arena, also pretty high—gallop toward it on an angle, jump, gallop away, loop around, and come back at the opposite angle. I thought I would have to pay attention to Pie in the Sky’s canter lead, but not at all—he did his own leads. All I had to do was make sure he was level. In this exercise, Margie’s horse ran out to the right, but really, it was the easier thing to do. All Peter Finneran said was “Try again,” and she did, and she jumped it. As for Sophia, I don’t know why she looked down going over the fence, but she did, and even though Onyx performed every step correctly, Sophia got yelled at for three minutes about the first thing you ever learn about riding a horse, and how looking down is falling down, and did he need to tie her braids under her chin to remind her of the most basic rule? I almost asked Eileen if Peter Finneran had yelled at Sophia like this in every class, but I didn’t dare, because his hearing was like radar.

  We did two more exercises, one with a curving line—a vertical curving five strides to an in-and-out, which made us really sit up and ask the horse to shorten his stride and make it bouncy. The other was a five-fence grid of steep crossbars, which Pie in the Sky greeted like an old friend. For these two exercises, Peter Finneran didn’t say much, though once in a while he pretended to be appalled at Margie. Then we were given a course that added all of these exercises together except for the crossbar grid. At the third fence, Pie in the Sky began to stiffen, but I lifted the rein on the stiff side and bent him a little, and he smoothed out and jumped nicely. He was no trouble over the others. Margie’s horse was getting tired—he knocked down some poles. Eileen’s horse went nicely, and Dinah’s horse was, as Peter Finneran said, “workmanlike.”

  Sophia and Onyx fell apart. I had never seen them make so many mistakes—wrong lead approaching the first jump, and then Sophia panicked about that and tried to change it, so he changed in the front and not in the back. For the curving line, his curve was flat, so he got into the jump wrong and chipped, then he broke to the trot in front of the in-and-out, though he got through it okay. Sophia even said “Dammit!” at one point. When she was finished with all the jumps, she jumped off Onyx the way she always did, leg over the neck, and stomped out of the arena, pulling him behind her.

  Peter Finneran said, “One down, four to go.”

  Pie in the Sky and I were standing next to him, and I said, “You need to mind your manners.”

  Well, it just came out. I wasn’t even thinking it. That was a phrase Daddy used all the time about any child who was getting out of hand, even if the child was not actually his. So instead of me saying it, I like to think that Daddy was speaking through me. Nevertheless, Peter Finneran looked up and me and said, “Who asked you?”

  We stared at each other for just a moment, and I thought, I dare you to make me cry.

  He walked away. After a moment, he looked at his watch and said, “Ten more minutes, girls. Let’s try to use them productively.”

  In fact, our last exercise, pairs abreast, was fun. Pairs abreast was a hunter thing they did in the East—the exhibitors dressed in their complete show hunter outfits, including flask and whip, and rode a whole course right beside each other. I was put with Margie, whose horse was about the same size as Pie in the Sky, and Eileen and Dinah went together. We didn’t have any turns—we just trotted and then cantered to three jumps in a row, trying to stay straight and together. The horses seemed to like it; at least Pie in the Sky was very relaxed. Margie and I almost did the thing you were supposed to do, which was be exactly at the top of the jump at the same time. Eileen and Dinah looked nervous, but then they found that it was easier than it looked. After they were finished, it was three thirty, and we had to line up in front of Peter Finneran and hear what he had to say. To me he said, “Abby, you have a nice seat and following hands. Your leg position could be more secure, and your hair could be neater. This horse is preferable to that worthless beast you rode yesterday.” Then he turned away.

  I did not say a word other than “fine, fine, fine, fine” to Mom, Dad, Danny, or Jane about the Peter Finneran clinic. In fact, I decided to put it out of my mind and never think about it or about him again. I did say a word or two about it to Blue, though. Every time I petted him or gave him a treat, I said, “You are a good boy, and a beauty, and you have the world’s most delicious canter.” When I got out to the stables on Saturday morni
ng, there was no sign that Peter Finneran had ever been there, and I thought that was good. I gave Ellen and Melinda, whom I hadn’t seen since the show, their lessons, and I was really nice to them. Then Mom took me to that store and bought me the black-and-white dress with the short sleeves, because it had been marked down to thirty dollars and she thought that it looked so good that I could wear it around the house if I had to. She put her hands on my shoulders and said, “Wearing nice dresses takes a little practice, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled. “Well, you have to learn not to wipe your hands on your jeans when they get dirty, because sometimes you aren’t wearing jeans.”

  Chapter 6

  THEY BROKE US INTO HIGH SCHOOL OVER TWO DAYS AND A night, and every minute of that, I would look around and wonder where the Goldman twins were. They should have been walking down the hall, laughing and talking. They should have been standing with us, looking at the stage in the school theater and planning a recital or a play. They should have been investigating the potter’s wheels (two of them) in the art room, and they should have been teasing Mrs. Goldman during the evening meeting in the library, where the principal, Mr. Houston (pronounced HOW-ston, not HEW-ston), was telling us the rules: no short skirts, no cigarettes or chewing tobacco anywhere on the grounds, no beer, only seniors can drive cars, every absence must be excused, have to pass the swimming test, no more than three library books checked out at one time, no writing in textbooks, three tardies equals an absence, three absences results in detention, Saturday detention lasts four hours, one sport per year is required of all students otherwise physical education is mandatory, pick up your PE uniform at the concession stand, and Go, Condors! The school mascot was the California condor, and a huge picture of a condor, painted by someone, hung in the hallway. Also in the hallways were giant pictures of every graduating class, with the class of 1933 by the side door, facing the class of 1966 across the hall. The class of 1933 had had 42 students, 20 girls and 22 boys. The class of 1966 had 356 students from all over the western part of the county. Our little eighth grade that I had gone to school with for three years sort of scattered among the others like sand thrown into the ocean. The Goldman twins, somehow, would have made sure that we didn’t disappear.