Taking the Reins

by Carolyn McSparren

  “What about me?” Mickey said. “How come he gets to go first?” He nodded at Hank.

  “If we have time and energy after this, we’ll get out your carriage. We may have to wait until tomorrow morning to actually put a horse to it. You all right with that?”

  “I guess.” Mickey glared at Hank, who smirked back.

  “Everybody stop in the tack room, find a hard hat that fits, put it on and fasten the chin strap,” Charlie said. “I don’t expect anyone to fall off, but if you should bump your head it’s nice to have a big hunk of fiberglass and padding between your skull and the dirt.”

  By the time they came back in their hats, Charlie had put on hers and donned her brown leather driving gloves. “Jake, can you take the ties off and head the horse?” Charlie asked.

  “Head the horse?” Sean repeated.

  “Never leave a horse loose when it’s attached to a carriage,” Charlie said. “You stand at its head and hold the bridle until the driver is seated and in control of the reins.”

  Hank had started to climb aboard when Charlie stopped him. “Hey, cowboy! Never, ever mount before the driver is up and gives you permission.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hank said.

  “Okay, everybody climb aboard,” Charlie said. “Pindar, stand.” Charlie felt the carriage shift slightly as Jake and Sean stepped on, then Mary Anne. Hank put his good foot on the front step and climbed into the seat beside Charlie.

  “Everybody settled?” she asked. “Pindar, walk on.”

  The late afternoon still shimmered with heat, but a breeze from the northwest presaged cooler temperatures for the evening with maybe a late shower. The leaves moved listlessly, but they did move. The only sounds were the clop of Pindar’s giant feet, the steel-rimmed carriage tires swooshing on the grass and the rhythmic creak of the carriage itself. In the driver’s seat, Charlie always felt as though she were sitting in the clouds.

  “How you doin’ back there?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Fine,” said Sean.

  “All right,” said Mary Anne, and expelled the breath she’d obviously been holding.

  This was the way to see the farm. Her grandfather had laid out his pastures with broad avenues between the fences so that two big carriages could pass one another. Beyond the fenced pastures, the rest of the acreage was planted in hay and grass. Pindar snorted. Mary Anne squeaked.

  “That’s his signal he’s completely relaxed,” Charlie said. “That is a happy horse.”

  “Oh, look,” Mary Anne said, as they rounded the corner by the mares’ pasture. The mares and foals spotted them and came trotting up, hoping for treats. “Ooh, the babies are adorable. But so big!”

  The foals began to buck and kick and run circles around their mothers, who ignored them and went back to grazing on the lush grass. At the end of the avenue, Charlie turned the carriage around and walked Pindar back to the stable. Mickey waited for them under the overhang.

  “Mary Anne, how’d you like your first carriage drive?” Charlie asked. “Pindar, stand.”

  Mary Anne climbed down, came around to the front and smiled up at Charlie. “Actually, after I relaxed, it wasn’t that bad.” She walked over to Mickey and settled on the bench beside his wheelchair.

  Everybody laughed.

  “Okay, you guys, ready for a little trot?” Charlie asked. She swung Pindar in another big circle and headed for the long drive to the road in front of the farm. “Pindar, trot.”

  He moved off in an easy rhythm. After a while she said, “Pindar, working trot.”

  The big horse seemed to shift gears in one stride, and a few minutes later when she said, “Pindar, trot on,” he opened up into a ground-covering gait that brought them to the road in no time.

  “Pindar’s getting pretty warm, but we’ve got a few minutes left before we need to cool him out. Anybody game for a canter?”

  “Yeah, man!” Hank said.

  “Oh, Lord,” whispered Sean.

  Jake said nothing.

  “Pindar, can-ter,” Charlie said. And they were off. For a big horse, he was amazingly agile and seemed to enjoy himself immensely as he wove between the pastures.

  “Pindar, walk,” she said after only a couple of minutes. Instantly Pindar resumed his contented amble. “Now, let’s cool him out and settle him for the night.”

  The consensus was that they should bring Mickey’s carriage out of storage, but not try to put to another horse this late in the hot afternoon.

  “Sure is a lot more work than tossing a saddle and bridle on a horse and riding off into the sunset,” Hank said, after they were done unbuckling the harness and cleaning horse and carriage. “Man, could I use a beer right now.”

  “I think that can be arranged,” said the colonel from the door to the common room. “I picked up a couple of cases this afternoon when I was in town.”

  “Lead me to it,” Sean said.

  “Me first,” Mickey said.

  “No, ladies first,” Mary Anne said. She retrieved the beer from the fridge and handed the cold long-necked bottles around to the men.

  Charlie shook her head. “No thanks, I’ll stick to diet soda.” So the colonel was checking up on her. Between Jake’s fight and Mary Anne’s meltdown, she hadn’t done too well. Time to switch to teacher mode.

  “I’m staying in the air-conditioning,” Mickey said. The others agreed and found seats in the common room.

  “We have a while until dinner, people,” Charlie said. “Time for questions.”

  “How can anybody figure out where all that harness goes on the horse?” Sean asked. “It’s like a nest of pythons.”

  “You’ll learn to recognize the bits and pieces and learn where they go. Never leave a horse in draft unattended. There’s nothing scarier than a loose horse with nobody behind him holding the reins.”

  “I really needed to hear that,” Mary Anne said.

  “If you pay attention to the other first rule—never drive alone—you won’t have to worry about it.”

  “So what kind of jobs can we get?” Sean asked the colonel.

  “I don’t think either Mary Anne or Mickey would fit into logging with draft horses and mules, although horse loggers make an excellent living. They’re also ecofriendly. Say a farmer has some big trees among the smaller ones in his forest that he wants to cut and sell without cutting roads or clear-cutting, he’ll bring in the draft horse loggers. We have a couple of groups in this area who are booked months in advance.”

  “I’ve seen those guys on a couple of the TV shows about loggers,” Hank said. “I’m tough, but I’m not sure I’m that tough.”

  “Wimp,” Sean said amiably. “I put myself through junior college logging in Washington State.” He flexed his right hand. “Set this bionic do-jigger up right, and I sure won’t drop an ax. Not so sure about a chain saw.”

  “You’ve seen those movies where the hero loses an arm or a leg and attaches a fifty-caliber machine gun directly to the stump and massacres the bad guys?” Mickey said, warming to his subject. “I can see you now, Sarge, running through the woods slicing and dicing. You’d be a logging fool.”

  “Hey, kid, you might have something there.”

  “Don’t worry, Sean, the horses are a sight smarter than you are,” the colonel said.

  “The Campbell brothers are going to let us go to one of the sites they’re working to see what they do,” Charlie said. “Then we’ll practice ground driving here on the property. We have a couple of old-growth trees ready for you guys to take on.”

  Hank rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have anything cleaner? Like maybe driving one of those fancy tourist carriages around downtown Memphis? Maybe in a top hat and tails?”

  “Just like you to be picking up women,” Mary Anne said. She spread her arms to
unroll an imaginary banner. “How about a sign on the carriage that reads, I Flirt for Tips?”

  “Flirt?” Mickey said. “You gonna stop at flirting, Hank?”

  “Okay,” Charlie said. “Let’s move on.”

  “How about me?” Mickey grumbled. “I don’t see me climbing on and off one of those vis-à-vis things loading and unloading tourists on Beale Street.”

  “You could do the driving with a groom for the up-and-down part,” Mary Anne said.

  “More and more funerals are using horse-drawn hearses,” the colonel interjected. “Especially in the military cemeteries.”

  “Perfect,” Hank said. “Your passenger sure won’t ask you to open the back door for him.”

  Mickey flushed. “And how great it would be for his family to see the crip in the wheelchair driving their son to his grave. I don’t think so.” He wheeled down the hall. A few moments later the door of his bedroom slammed.

  “What did I say?” Hank asked, his expression innocent.

  “You know what you said,” Mary Anne snapped. “You total jerk!” She smacked him hard across his shoulder. “I’m gonna take a shower before dinner.”

  “Well, excuse me,” Hank said, and stomped off up the stairs. Charlie noticed he’d changed the cowboy boots for a pair of sneakers, and today’s jeans didn’t pool around his ankles. He’d either dropped the rodeo persona or had put it on hold while he actually did some work.

  “Come on, Jake,” Sean said. “Let’s go upstairs. Party’s over. See you at dinner,” he said to Charlie and the colonel. “I hate prima donnas.”

  * * *

  SINCE SATURDAY NIGHT was Vittorio’s night off, the colonel grilled steaks on the patio. He hadn’t mentioned Jake’s confrontation with Aidan, but Charlie would bet he knew.

  Both he and Sarah joined the others in the common room to eat the steaks and potatoes. Jake relented enough to sit in the window seat on the far side of the room with his back to them. Charlie regarded that as a small victory. Only a few strides from the table itself.

  Afterward Sarah and Mary Anne went upstairs in the main house to work on Mary Anne’s possible transformation.

  After dinner, Charlie walked through the barn checking that the water buckets were full and the horses happy before she slipped out onto the patio to sit down on the glider.

  Would Jake materialize out of the darkness as he had the night before or had she scared him off? She and Steve had been estranged for two years before his last tour, and set on divorce before he left for the one from which he never returned. Not too soon to be attracted to another man, but Jake? She’d met unattached men who were better looking, more charming—even rich. Definitely healthier mentally.

  Her vow to stay celibate had been easy to keep before Jake climbed down from that bus.

  He was physically attractive enough...all right, he was extremely physically attractive with his strong jaw and his bright blue eyes and his muscles. Kind of a combination of Alan Alda and Gary Cooper.

  He’d shown this morning with Aidan that underneath the laconic aw-shucks attitude the warrior was still alive and kicking. She had sworn she would never, ever have anything to do with a warrior again.

  She’d also seen the gentle side of him, the way he touched the horses, talked to Mary Anne, won over Mama Cat. Heck, he touched her emotionally. She absolutely hated, loathed and despised the thought that she wanted him to touch her physically, too.

  My world is complicated enough without falling for an incredibly damaged man who won’t even eat at the same table as other people. I want this farm and a home for my daughter. I do not either want or need a man in my life.

  Even though she was alert, listening, she wasn’t aware that he had joined her until he sank onto the glider next to her. Neither of them spoke. For what seemed an incredibly long time but was probably no more than a couple of minutes, they swung without speaking.

  “From the relative quiet, I’d say our bullfrog buddy won his ladylove,” Jake said at last. “He’s out there in the lake right now making millions of pollywogs.”

  “Most of which will be devoured by the snapping turtles.” And wasn’t that a romantic image?

  “Ever find a gator in your pond?”

  “Good grief, no! I hope I never do.”

  “Mama Cat is close to having her kittens,” he said. “Where does she go where the tomcat can’t kill them?”

  “I’ve never discovered,” Charlie said. “If you can manage to catch her, I’ll have her spayed after the kittens are born.”

  She felt his shoulder stiffen. She should have known better than to make a direct request of him. “Sarah’s wanted a kitten forever, but we couldn’t have one in quarters. She’ll be delighted to socialize them. She needs a job. She’s bored and lonely and misses her daddy and her friends. I haven’t been much help.”

  “You’ve been busy making a home for her.”

  “Not good enough. She blames me because Steve went back and got himself killed. I can’t tell her he’s the one who demanded a divorce.”

  “I’ll try to find Mama Cat before she delivers. For Sarah.”

  She was so startled at his offer that she squeezed his knee. His bad knee. She couldn’t just snatch her hand away, so she left it there. He didn’t move. Then she felt his long fingers interlace with hers. She wanted him to turn her face and kiss her, but he’d never get up the nerve to make that decision.

  No way would she kiss him first. Time to make polite conversation. “Did you learn to drive draft horses at home in Missouri?”

  He took his hand away instantly. She removed hers, as well. Now he’d bolt.

  Instead, he sighed and sat up straighter. “I grew up in an extremely strict Amish community.”

  “Really? Amish? I thought they were all in Pennsylvania.”

  He chuckled. “Look at a census of Indiana, or Ohio, or any Midwestern state sometime and see how many Zooks and Yoders you find. Have to be the census, because most of them don’t have phones, so they’re not listed in the telephone book.”

  “How did a Thompson sneak in there?”

  “Somewhere along the line, either what the Amish call an English slipped into the clan, or an immigration agent at Ellis Island couldn’t figure out the German name my ancestor was born with and gave him what he considered an American one. The name embarrassed my father, who was called Amos Micah Thompson. My family named me Jacob Zedediah. How’d you like to go through public school with a name like that?”

  “Oh, dear. But how on earth did you wind up in the army with that kind of background?”

  This time he did stand up. “Long story.” Instead of the anger she’d expected at her intrusion, he sounded worn-out. She felt his long fingers stroke her cheek, “Good night, dear Charlie,” he said, and was gone.

  * * *

  JAKE HAD TO drag his right leg with its bum knee up the stairs to his room. He could still feel the touch of Charlie’s gentle fingers.

  He’d worked his leg hard today, and it hurt like blazes. He refused to take drugs for the pain, but he’d use a heat wrap. With luck he’d be able to sleep, and it would be better by morning. Today’s work and the confrontation with Aidan had taken more out of him than he’d realized.

  He’d forgotten that the best view in the world was from the driver’s box, watching the undulating rump of a big draft horse moving in front of him. It had always been that way at home. When he itched to run away, the horses kept him grounded.

  Until they weren’t enough any longer.

  This afternoon his soul seemed to smooth out while Charlie drove Pindar around the farm. Or maybe it was sitting beside Charlie. Her grin told him she felt the same way.

  “Jake? You okay, buddy?”

  Sean.

  “Fine.”

  “You
couldn’t sleep, either?” Sean walked into Jake’s room with him and sat down on the chair at the little student desk, his stocking feet propped on the top.

  “My knee’s giving me fits.”

  “After the day you had I do not doubt that. I was thinking about that draft horse logging. You think we could handle that?”

  Jake sat on the edge of the bed and massaged his knee. “I can handle one end of a two-man pull saw, and I know how to use a peavey hook to stack logs, but I haven’t had your experience as an ax man, and I’ve never worked a big power saw. At home we didn’t use power tools.”

  “The job I had in Washington State, we used chain saws and flatbeds, not horses. You think I could learn to drive horses well enough?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m thinking I’d like to learn. Whatever I wind up doing, I’m going to be my own boss. No more brass giving me orders they’re too dumb to carry out.”

  Jake propped himself on his pillows. “Maybe I can work for you. I want a boss who’ll make all the decisions and send me home at night too tired to have nightmares.”

  After Sean left, he lay in bed waiting for the pain in his knee to subside.

  He’d been rude to walk away from Charlie so abruptly. She had no idea she was on sensitive ground.

  Since he ran away from home and joined the army he’d never met a woman he could visualize living with for the rest of his life. Now he was supremely glad of that. Fine husband he’d make.

  Since he’d been on the colonel’s farm he thought more often of home and what it would be like to see his family again after all these years. It wasn’t easy to keep up with them when no one in the community was supposed to speak to him or open his letters. He gleaned updates occasionally from old friends who were more flexible.

  In the beginning he’d felt sure his mother and his sisters would never cut him off, whatever his father did. But they had. Finally, after years of returned notes and ignored messages, he’d given up.

  He didn’t regret leaving the community and joining the army. He couldn’t stay. It was sneaking off in the middle of the night he regretted. The first time he’d truly hurt people he cared about.