Beware the Mare

by Jessie Haas

  After that Lily can go out alone. Beware likes that best. She walks along with her neck stretched and her ears pointed forward. When she comes to a bend in the trail, she steps more eagerly, looking ahead for the fresh view. If she sees a log, she wants to jump it. If she sees a deer running, she wants to follow it.

  Every morning, before breakfast, Lily and Gramp go to the barn together. Gramp gets his big can of fly repellent and his rag. Lily gets her small can and her rag. They each go to their own pastures and put fly repellent on their own horses.

  The fly repellent doesn’t work perfectly. Some strong blackflies bite anyway. Lily does her best, but Beware still gets little bumps inside her ears and on her belly.

  “That’s not too bad,” says Gramp when Lily calls him to look. “Better than poor old Stogie.” Stogie stands under a tree with his ears flattened out to the sides. His ears are full of itchy, stinging bites.

  “They’re driving him crazy,” says Gramp. “Wish I could convince him I want to help.” He rubs the bumps on Beware’s belly. Beware makes her upper lip long, the way the Girls do when they scratch each other’s shoulders. She bends herself almost in a circle, and she scratches Gramp’s arm with her lip.

  “Itch, don’t they?” says Gramp. “Never mind, blackfly season will be over soon. Then there’s just deerflies and horseflies and botflies and face flies.… Makes you glad you aren’t a horse, eh, Lily?” Then Gran rings the bell on the porch, and it is time for breakfast.

  Today Gramp says, “I sold that sorrel to somebody over where your mare comes from, Lily. After I deliver him, I’ll go see what I can find out.”

  Gramp isn’t back when Lily gets home from school. She puts on her riding clothes and goes down to catch Beware.

  The afternoon is warm and sunny, and the black-flies are hungry. Beware and the pony stand head to tail in the shade. They scratch each other’s shoulders with their teeth. They butt their heads into each other’s sides to rub the flies away. For the first time Beware does not come when Lily calls.

  “I’ll put some bug stuff on you,” Lily promises. She ducks under the electric fence and walks across the pasture.

  Suddenly Beware shakes herself hard, all over, and comes trotting toward Lily. When she gets close, she slows down, but she puts her ears back. She comes at Lily with a prowling sideways step.

  “If you ever see a horse come at you like that,” Gramp has said, “get out of the way.”

  But now Lily is in the middle of the open pasture. There is nowhere to go. She is too surprised and too afraid to think. She only steps back one step. Beware follows with a big, dangerous stride. She flattens her ears. She pushes Lily with her belly. Lily steps back. Beware follows.

  Now Lily can think. She can think what it will feel like to be kicked. She can think of what Gran said: “If the horse proves dangerous, you’ll let her go.”

  “Oh, Beware!” she says. “Oh, please be good!”

  Beware takes another sidestep. Look out! she is saying. Beware! I’m dangerous; you’d better do what I want! Bump!

  Lily almost falls down. She should hit Beware with the halter.… Bump! Beware pushes with her belly. “Stay close,” Gramp has said. “She’ll only be able to push you.” Bump! Lily’s hands go out to keep herself from falling. She touches the bug bites on Beware’s belly.

  Beware stops moving. She lets out a huge sigh and turns to look at Lily. Her ears are forward now. She bends in a circle, as far as her neck will stretch. She nudges Lily’s arm and scrubs with her upper lip.

  Lily moves her hand. Beware’s eyes brighten. She scrubs harder with her lip.

  “Oh!” says Lily. Her heart is beating so hard she can barely breathe. Softly she scratches Beware’s itchy bug bites.

  Beware scratches back, just as she did with the pony a minute before and just as she did with Gramp this morning. She scratches in a bossy way. Harder! she tells Lily, with her firm, scratchy lip. If Lily stops, if she moves away, Beware puts back her ears and follows. She bumps Lily with her side. She pushes with her nose.

  “Careful!” Lily says. She leans against Beware’s side. She feels weak. She almost feels like crying. But she keeps scratching Beware’s belly until her arm is tired.

  “All right,” she says. “That’s enough.”

  I’m dangerous, Beware tells her. But Lily tells Beware right back: “Don’t be a brat. I’ll scratch you again later.”

  Beware sighs. She lets Lily put the halter on and follows to the gate. Her ears are forward now. She is ready to have fun.

  Gramp comes home just at suppertime. He sails his green hat across the room to the top of the coat-rack, washes his hands, and sits down to the table. He takes a baked potato from the bowl. “Hot potato!” He tosses it from one hand to the other and winks at Lily. “Found something out, today!”

  “Me, too,” says Lily.

  Even without his hat and pipe, Gramp gets his horse-trading look. “Did you find out the same thing I did, I wonder?”

  Lily tries the horse-trading look herself. She makes her eyes narrow and holds her mouth still. “What did you find out?”

  “All right, you two!” Mom says. “Is this about Beware?”

  Gramp nods, and Lily nods. They don’t look away from each other.

  “Then talk!”

  Lily keeps her eyes narrow. Gramp starts laughing. “You win!” he says. “They’re nice people—glad the mare has a good home. And I found out about the name.”

  “And?” says Gran sharply.

  “And the reason for the name,” says Gramp, “is just this.…” Now he watches Lily carefully. He springs his words on her one by one, trying to guess how much she knows. “In blackfly season—when her belly gets itchy—this mare likes—”

  “To have it scratched!” shouts Lily.

  “That’s right,” says Gramp. “Scare you?” Lily nods.

  “But you figured it out.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why should she be scared?” Gran asks. “Linwood?”

  Gramp takes time to butter his potato before he answers. “Well, Gracie, did you ever stop to think about how a horse tells another horse to do something?”

  “I never think about horses at all if I can help it!”

  “They’re more interesting than you might guess,” says Gramp. “They never say please, for one thing. If they want a nice scratch, they come up to another horse—or to you—and start in scratching.”

  “Go on,” says Gran grimly.

  “So come blackfly season, this mare learned it felt good to have her belly curried. And if it feels good then, why not anytime? So one day the girl that owned her is out in the pasture when up comes Lady with her ears back—”

  “Just like Stogie,” says Lily. “Like she’s going to kick.”

  “And does she?” Gran asks—not of Lily but of Gramp.

  “No,” says Gramp. “She won’t do any more than bump you with her belly. But it’s scary. They came close to selling her before the girl figured it out.” Gramp winks at Lily. Lily knows he is proud because she figured it out right away.

  “So her name was Lady,” Mom says.

  “I was brought up to think it was bad luck,” says Gran, “changing an animal’s name.”

  “Me, too,” says Gramp, “but they weren’t. Started as a joke—better beware the mare, and so forth—and then it got to be a nickname, and pretty soon they started putting it down on entry forms for shows. Sounded more exciting, I guess.”

  Mom and Lily meet each other’s eyes.

  “Anyway, Gracie,” says Gramp, “you were right to have me be careful. She’s a good little horse, and now we know. What you going to call her, Lil? Lady?”

  “Her name is Beware,” says Lily. She has finished her supper, and she gets up from the table.

  “Where are you going?” asks Mom.

  “Down to say good-night.”

  “Don’t get knocked down!” Gran warns. Gramp winks at Lily, and Mom smiles down at her plate.
r />   Lily walks down the path to the pasture. It is cool out and almost completely dark. The flies have gone away. She can smell the daffodils and hear the peepers in the pond.

  When she reaches the pasture gate, Beware and the pony are nowhere in sight. Lily ducks under the electric fence. “Beware!” she calls. “Beware!” She hears a nicker and the soft thud of hooves, and then Beware is there. Lily holds out her hand. Beware drops her velvety nose into Lily’s palm for a moment. Then she swings her belly around. Bump!

  “Yes, Beware,” says Lily. She leans against Beware’s warm, sleek, horse-smelling side. She reaches under Beware’s belly, and she scratches.

  Beware sighs deeply. She braces her legs, and cranes her neck all the way around, and scratches back. The big warm curve she makes around Lily feels almost like a hug.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Beware the Mare series

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE SIGN POINTS toward the ball field behind the library. JUNIOR HORSE SHOW TODAY. Lily’s stomach jumps, and she clutches the door handle of Gramp’s big old truck. At last she is really here. The horse show is about to happen.

  The truck creaks and rumbles onto the ball field. A cool gray mist hangs low. It makes the grass look very green. Other colors are bright, too: red bandages on a dapple gray horse; shiny blue, maroon, and silver trailers; the rusty brown snow fence ring that Gramp helped set up last night.

  Gramp parks the truck. When the engine shuts off, Lily can hear Beware in the back, crunching hay.

  “See Mandy anywhere?” Gramp asks. Lily is looking, as her fingers fumble at the seat belt. Nearby is a trailer that looks like Mandy’s. Standing beside it is a chestnut horse that looks a little like Shane. But the horse’s tail is braided, and so is his mane, in little short braids evenly spaced along his neck. Mandy doesn’t know how to make those braids.

  Gramp hops out of the truck. “Hey, Woodie!” somebody yells. Everywhere Gramp goes, somebody knows him.

  Lily climbs down on her side of the truck. She can’t bring Beware out until Gramp is through talking. Just for a minute there is nothing to do but look.

  There are horses everywhere: tied to trailers; cloaked in bright blankets; being led somewhere; being groomed. All the horses look tall and beautiful.

  There are kids in breeches and crisp white shirts. Kids in chaps and cowboy hats. Parents bundled up in sweaters, with thermoses of coffee. Parents in shorts and goose bumps.

  Under a yellow striped tent near the ring, a crowd of kids and parents gathers. Mandy might be over there, signing up for classes, getting her number. Last year, Lily remembers, they stood in line together. They were sharing Lily’s old pony, and right up to the last minute they couldn’t decide who should ride in which class.

  But if Mandy is there, Lily does not see her.

  Thump! Beware stamps inside the truck.

  “Guess the little mare wants out,” Gramp says. In a moment Lily hears the chain on the tailgate rattle. She starts toward the back of the truck.

  “Lily!”

  Lily turns. A girl in white breeches and a dark coat and hat is coming toward her. The girl leads the braided chestnut horse. It’s Mandy! But she looks so grown-up. She looks like a rider in a magazine, and Shane looks like a magazine show horse.

  “Lily, you don’t have your riding clothes on!” Mandy’s eyes are very bright, and she seems to have even more freckles than usual.

  “Mom and Gran are bringing them,” Lily says. She can’t stop looking at Shane’s braids.

  “Doesn’t he look great?” Mandy says. Her teeth are almost chattering, she is so excited. “My mother did it! From a book!”

  “Oh,” says Lily.

  Beware’s hooves thud inside the truck as Gramp turns her. Now he leads her down the ramp.

  Beware’s coat glows dark red. Her mane hangs long and black down the side of her neck. When Gramp led Beware into the truck half an hour ago, Lily thought her mane looked beautiful. Now it seems shaggy and messy.

  Gramp ties Beware to the side of the truck. “Hi, Mandy,” he says, and: “Lily, better not stand there like a bump on a log. You’ve got to get this horse ready!”

  Now it’s time to hurry. Lily brushes Beware all over, with the currycomb, the hard brush, the soft brush. When she brushes Beware’s belly, Beware curves her neck around and scratches Lily’s arm with her bristly upper lip. Beware loves to have her belly scratched.

  But Lily doesn’t have time. She gets out a soft piece of cloth that used to be Gramp’s T-shirt. She polishes Beware with the cloth until her coat is sleek and bright. She combs Beware’s mane and tail until every hair lies straight and separate.

  “She looks beautiful,” Mandy says. It’s true, but does Beware look like a show horse?

  While she works, Lily listens to the sounds of the horse show. Even though there are so many people and horses, it seems quiet. Everyone is grooming and getting ready. Nothing has started to happen yet.

  Mom says, “Brr! Chilly morning.” She has Lily’s good riding clothes over her arm and a mug of coffee in her hand. Gran is with her, in a gingham dress and a sweater. She has brought a big picnic basket.

  “It’ll get hot later,” says Gramp. “All set for a day with the horses, Gracie?”

  Gran snorts. “I’m here to spend the day with Lily,” she says.

  “Better get dressed, Lily,” Mom says. “Oh, Mandy, don’t you look sharp!”

  Lily takes her clothes into the back of the truck. In the dark corner she starts to take off her barn clothes. “I’ll go sign Lily up for her classes,” she hears Mom say, right outside the wall of the truck.

  “No racing!” Gramp warns her. “Remember what we decided.”

  “You decided!” says Mom.

  “Barbie, you know it’s right,” Gramp says. Lily hears Mom make a little sound that doesn’t quite agree with him.

  Lily doesn’t agree with him, either. She wants to ride in every class, all day long. She wants to win as many ribbons as she can. But Gramp thinks the racing classes in the afternoon might teach Beware bad habits. And Gramp is the one who knows the most about horses.

  Lily pulls on her breeches, and buttons her fresh white shirt. She slides her feet into her tight boots. She puts on the dark jacket that Mom used to ride in when she was Lily’s age. The jacket makes Lily feel tall and straight, the way she should look on a horse.

  She puts her helmet on. She feels like Mandy now. The tall black boots pinch a little, but they make a nice hard sound as Lily walks down the ramp.

  “Looks good!” Gramp says. But Mandy is looking at her hair.

  Lily’s hair is too short to braid and too long to disappear under her hat. So is Mandy’s. They have exactly the same haircut. But this morning Mandy’s hair lies neat and soft on the back of her neck.

  “Come over to our trailer and I’ll give you a hairnet,” Mandy says. “There were two in the package.”

  The hairnet makes Lily’s hair feel heavy and together and special. When Mandy has helped her put it on, Lily looks at herself in the mirror of Mandy’s pickup. Now she looks grown-up, too. The mirror can’t show how she feels inside.

  “Do you think we’ll win blue ribbons this year?” Mandy asks. “I’ve never won a blue before.”

  “Me, either,” says Lily. Last year the pony wouldn’t let them win. But this year Lily feels sure she’ll win blue ribbons. This year she has Beware.

  And this year Mandy has Shane. He stands beside the trailer, his copper coat shining. His braids are pulled so tight they make little Vs all along his neck. Shane is a good horse, too—and there is only one blue ribbon in each class. If Shane wins it, then Beware can’t.

  “Thanks, Mandy,” Lily says.

  Mandy is staring across at Beware, and she jumps when Lily speaks. “Oh. Um, good luck.”

  Lily walks back across the wet grass. The sounds are getting quicker and sharper now. There is a loud, whispery noise from the announcer’s tent, and then the loudspeaker vo
ice says, “Testing. Testing. Can you hear me over there, Woodie?” Gramp waves his hat.

  “Thank you,” says the announcer. “And welcome to the thirty-third annual Bradford Junior Horse Show. Halter Class will be starting in about seven minutes, there’s coffee and doughnuts at the food tent—and the sun is coming out!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THERE IS STILL a gray mist in the air, but the sun shines through it. It tickles Lily’s eyes.

  Mom comes back with Lily’s number—number sixty-two. She pins the cardboard circle onto Lily’s sleeve. “There! You look wonderful!” she says. “And so does Beware.”

  “Better go on over,” Gramp says. “Let the judge get a look at you, before the rest of ’em crowd in.”

  Lily unties Beware. She folds the lead rope in her hand, and she turns Beware around.

  Beware’s head goes up. She points her ears at the ring, and she steps forward eagerly. “Look, Gramp!” Lily says. “She wants to go!”

  “Ayup,” says Gramp. “She’s ready to win some ribbons!”

  Other people are heading toward the ring, too. They lead their horses in, and Lily follows.

  In Halter Class the cleanest, sleekest, best-behaved horse will win. Maybe it will be Beware. Her coat is very shiny. Her mane hangs like a soft, floaty curtain. She walks quietly. She is interested in the other horses but not nervous. Lily looks at the judge, to see if she has noticed.

  The judge stands in the middle of the ring. She is wearing a cool skirt and blouse, comfortable shoes, and a big shady hat. She carries a clipboard, and she is writing something on it. Maybe it is something about Beware.

  The ring fills up with horses. Everyone in the show goes in Halter Class. Little kids with ponies. Eighteen-year-olds who are almost grown-ups. Don Rice, who rides Western, in his black hat and shiny purple shirt. Ginger Taylor, who always wins the Jumping Class. Mandy and Shane are there, too. Shane keeps crowding into Mandy.