True Blue

by Jane Smiley

  Rain Sheet

  Chapter 3

  I WAS STILL PRETTY UPSET ABOUT BRAD ON MONDAY MORNING. I was used to being the good girl of church, and having my head patted every time I turned around, so it was pretty shocking to be the one who was responsible for things that might have happened that no one even dared to name. So, I was glad to get to school, and even to sit in French class and have the teacher give us another page of Le Petit Prince, which we had to struggle through right there and then. My sentence was C’était pour moi une question de vie ou de mort. When it was my turn, I said, “This was for me a question of the life or the death.”

  “Of life or death,” said Madame. “You should make it idiomatic.”

  In the back row, Bret Hatton said, “You should make it idiotic.”

  Madame ignored him, but a couple of kids laughed.

  For physical education, we were now just starting tennis. The courts outside were still damp, but we were in the gym with our rackets and our balls, practicing bouncing them, first on the floor, then upward, then, in groups of five, against the walls of the gym, which had a line painted all along two walls that was the height of a tennis net. Barbie Goldman was in my class. Her twin sister, Alexis, was still taking volleyball. For some reason, Barbie did not like volleyball, and when she was told she had to keep taking it, she tried what she called “civil disobedience,” which involved letting the ball drop all around her, and even hit her in the head. This made Alexis laugh so much that the teacher gave up and put Barbie into tennis.

  Barbie had become my slightly better friend than Alexis, though Alexis was completely nice, too. I could tell them apart all the time now. For one thing, Barbie was left-handed, and for another, her eyes were shaped a little differently. But it was also true that they were just themselves. Once you got to know them, they were themselves.

  As soon as she saw me, Barbie came over, and we stood in our places in the row of ball bouncers, bouncing our balls on our rackets, trying to hit the sweet spot and trying not to let the balls get away. The tennis teacher, “Mr.” Tyler, who was really not much older than a high school kid and still had acne, was bouncing his ball on the rim of his racket. He didn’t have that kind of control over the class, but he was nice, and even though we almost always talked, no one ever just walked out. Or not very often.

  Barbie said, “So guess what.”

  “What?”

  “My mom said that if you would agree to give me some riding lessons, she’s happy to bring me over.”

  “You want riding lessons?” I didn’t think I had ever heard the word horse come out of Barbie’s mouth.

  “They had My Friend Flicka on the late-night movie Friday night. I thought, ‘Well, that’s what Abby does all day.’ It looked like fun.”

  “It is fun. But I never taught anyone to ride before. If you go out to the coast, there’s a great stable where they teach people all the time. I have a friend there.”

  “Oh, I know that place. Dad plays golf there about once a year. But I want to ride western. And I want you to teach me.”

  “You girls! Barbara G.!” This was “Mr.” Tyler, who had noticed that our balls were no longer bouncing. Barbie balanced her ball in the middle of her racket, then popped it up about two inches, then three.

  I did the same thing, which made it hard to say, “What. About. Alex. Is.”

  “She’s. Not. Inter. Ested.”

  We laughed. “Mr.” Tyler gave us a look.

  Barbie said, “I’ll call you tonight.” Then we had to go to our assigned places on the wall and hit above the line twenty-five times.

  I didn’t go home from school on the bus—I went out to the road that runs in front of the school and I waited for Daddy, who pulled up in the truck and trailer. We were going to pick up True Blue. As I got into my side of the truck, I glanced at Daddy’s face to see if he was still mad at me about Brad Greeley, but he didn’t look it—he looked normal. As soon as I got in, he said, “We will just SLLIIDDE out of here as quick as we can to try to avoid all these buses and carpools.” We drove along. I was still thinking about Brad, but I decided that if Daddy wasn’t going to bring it up, why should I?

  The day was rather dull—not bright and not gloomy, not cool and not warm. I took off my nice new sweater that I had bought before Christmas and put on an old jacket, then I took off my loafers and put on some jeans under my skirt. Then I took off my skirt and put on my boots. Then I folded all my good clothes and put them in a paper bag that Mom set on top of my riding clothes. I was ready for my new horse. We pulled into the stable courtyard ten minutes later.

  Monday was not a big day at the stable—no lessons were given, and half the grooms got a day off. Usually, even Colonel Hawkins wasn’t there. Jane was more or less in charge, and I found her in the main office, doing some paperwork. Daddy was opening the trailer—he wanted to get Blue home and settled in before dark, so he was trying to be efficient.

  Jane and I went over to the section where my new horse was stabled. He was standing there, just the way I remembered him, with his chest pressed against the bottom half of the stall door and his eye out for everything. Some horses are like that, always surveying the horizon. Others always have their heads down, looking for bits of hay or grass. She didn’t call to him, but he whinnied anyway, and she pulled a carrot out of her pocket.

  She said, “I’m going to miss him.”

  I said, “I thought he’s only been here for a couple of months.”

  “He has, and I’ve never even ridden him. But you notice we put him right here, in one of the prime spots. That’s because he’s so beautiful, and that’s what I’m going to miss—just having a look at him every time I walk by. You’re a good boy, aren’t you, Blue?”

  He nickered and she gave him the carrot.

  It was then that I noticed all the things by his stall door. They were all blue.

  Jane said, “And he has more stuff than any horse I’ve ever seen, and everything has his name on it.” She opened one of the two navy-blue trunks. “Here’s his rain sheet. Here’s his fly sheet. Here’s his winter blanket from back east; that’s much too hot for around here. Here’s his summer sheet from back east. Here’s his bridle. See the tiny brass tag, ‘TB’? His saddle is in that trunk. It’s a Barnsby. Nice saddle. Also three sheepskin pads. Two sets of blue flannel bandages and some cotton sheets. A spare halter with a brass plate, two spare lead ropes. Never saw a horse with so much stuff. And the lady drove an old Ford, nothing fancy. My guess is that she spent all her money on this guy.”

  I petted Blue on the neck and ran my fingers around his eyes. Daddy had finished getting the trailer ready, and I could see him heading our way. I kept petting Blue, and when Daddy got to us, I said, “All of this stuff is ours, too. Blankets and saddle. Everything.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Daddy opened the second trunk and lifted out a very nice saddle. Underneath it was a pair of boots—black, tall boots. Jane said, “Oh, I forgot about those. I only saw her wear them once. I guess I thought she kept them at home.”

  Daddy set down the saddle on blankets that were folded on the first trunk and took one of the boots. He looked inside the top, then said, “These are, what is that, Dehner boots.”

  “Goodness,” said Jane. “Custom-made. Dehner is in Omaha. Those are seventy-dollar boots.”

  We stared at the boots. It was one thing to take a woman’s horse because there was no one else to take care of it, but I thought it was creepy that the horse didn’t come in just a halter like all our other horses, stripped and ready for a new life. Daddy looked in the trunk again. He said, “Boot hooks. Some brushes.”

  Jane said, “My parents bought a lake house when I was a kid, up in New Hampshire. The people who sold it to us walked away without taking a thing. They didn’t even throw away the old whiskey bottles or the half-smoked packets of cigarettes. It was like we were visiting there. It never did feel like our place.”

  Daddy said, “I’ve b
ought plenty of used equipment.…” But his voice trailed off. Then Blue whinnied, as if to say, “Look at me, I’m the main event here.” And he was. He was beautiful and healthy and he needed a home. Jane said, “If you don’t take it, it will just gather dust in that storeroom.”

  Daddy shrugged. He put the boots and the saddle back in the tack trunk and said, “Got a dolly?”

  Jane nodded.

  While they loaded Blue’s belongings into the bed of the pickup, I got him out of his stall and let him eat grass at the edge of the parking lot. I petted him and said his name, and from time to time, he looked at me and flicked his ears. For some reason, all the stuff didn’t seem like a bonus—it seemed like a reminder that there’s no such thing as a free horse.

  But Blue performed his first task kindly—he paused and sniffed the trailer before he got in, but then he got in, and didn’t seem to worry when we lifted the ramp. You never know with a new horse if he’s been properly trained to load or if he’s been given some reason to worry in there. We drove home. My horse passed his first test. Or, that’s what Daddy said. He said, “Well, your horse passed his first test.” This made me uncomfortable. I did not want to think of Blue as my horse now that he had all this stuff. Somehow, he seemed like too big a responsibility if all of his blankets were embroidered with his name.

  It wasn’t that late when we got home, but late enough, with the cloudy weather, to be a little dusky and mysterious. When I backed Blue out of the trailer, he was much more nervous than he had been. His head was up, and his ears were as far forward as they could be. His neck was arched, and his tail was lifted, and I didn’t have to touch him as he swept around me to see that he was tense from front to back. He stared at the mares, whose pasture was closer to the road, and whinnied something that sounded a little like a scream. Amazon and Happy answered him right away—I was sure Amazon was saying, “Who are you?” and Happy was saying, “Who do you think you are?” Then he whinnied again, and the geldings all came to the fence and stared at him. His ears went, if possible, more forward, and two of the geldings whinnied, Jefferson, who now saw himself as the pasture boss, and one of the others, I couldn’t tell who. And Jack had something to say, too.

  Daddy came over and took Blue’s lead rope out of my hand and said, “Let’s put him in the pen for a few minutes. He seems a little worked up.”

  He took him over to the training corral and opened the gate. Blue swished through and barely gave Daddy a chance to unsnap the rope. After Daddy got out of there and closed the gate, he started whinnying and running from one side of the pen to the other, which got the other horses worked up, too, until we gave everyone their hay, which they were waiting for anyway. I also, of course, gave Blue his hay, and he put his nose down to it. I thought he was going to eat, but he only took a little bite before trotting away from it, across the pen again. Then he came back, and trotted right through the hay, scattering it, as though he didn’t really care about it. By now the other horses were eating, and no one was whinnying, but Blue couldn’t stop staring at them.

  Daddy and I put his stuff away. We didn’t empty the trunks, but we took them into the tack room in the barn and we hung up and stacked away the extra things that weren’t in the trunks. I didn’t open either trunk, but I thought again about those boots. When we came out of the barn, Blue was still trotting back and forth, and he was in something of a sweat.

  Daddy shook his head. “Best to go inside and let him settle down on his own. They always do. Maybe he needs to stay out all night. Sometimes they prefer the close quarters of a bedded stall and sometimes that makes it worse. I don’t know.” He looked at me. “We’ll pray about it. But he’ll be all right.”

  The bad thing, I thought, was that Blue wasn’t rearing and kicking up, or even bucking. Those things show at least a little playfulness. But just running back and forth—that isn’t playful at all.

  My ears were open all through supper, and I could hear both the hoofbeats and the whinnies—there got to be fewer of the whinnies, then, after a while, fewer of the hoofbeats. I went out when we were finished and gave him another flake of hay, since he had scattered what I’d given him before. After I threw the hay over the fence, I stood there for a while, hoping that he would come up to me and let me pet him, but when he did, he turned away almost before I could touch him. I talked to him anyway. “Hey, Blue. Hey, Blue. You are such a beauty. This is a nice place. Look at the others. Everyone is just eating or walking around. Look at Amazon. She’s lying down taking a nap. Do you think if anything were really going on, Amazon would be taking a nap? Here comes our dog, Rusty. Hi, Rusty. Rusty watches for all kinds of things, including empty water troughs. Did you ever hear of that before? Last fall, we went away, and when we came back, it was Rusty who took me to the tipped-over water trough. See? You’ll like it here. In a day or so, you can go out with the other geldings and be in a herd. Every horse likes to be in a herd.” He wasn’t moving around as much as before, but even when he was eating, his head kept popping up and looking here and there. Every little noise or movement attracted his attention.

  And yes, I knew he would settle down. But this was a horse Daddy would not have chosen if he’d found him at By Golly Horse Sales, back in Oklahoma, where he went to look for horses to bring to California. He would have noticed his nerviness and passed him over, and that was why we didn’t have much experience with this sort of horse. The other thing was that even though I knew the horse would settle down in a day or two—after all, he had been perfectly calm out at the stable—it was like his worries got into me. Everything was all right around the place. I mean, Rusty was just sitting on my left foot, letting me pet her, as relaxed as she could be, and Rusty’s entire life’s work was keeping an eye out. Happy, in the mare pasture, was dozing on her feet, and Happy always had her eye out, too. But the weird thing is that everything you know doesn’t always stop you from having feelings. You get this prickly tension in your stomach or your shoulders, and then your mind, which was just a minute ago thinking about Le Petit Prince and the Oregon Trail, starts thinking, Well, what if there is something up on the hill? or, What if he runs so fast that he breaks the fence? or, What if he jumps out? or, What if he’s always like this, and Jane Slater just gave him some sort of shot to calm him down long enough to get us to take him?

  With that thought, I couldn’t watch him anymore, and I walked around the barn and over to the gelding pasture. Rusty followed me. Jefferson and Lincoln were standing under the tree—hardly visible in the dark—but Jack came over to me right away. He was quite big now, and since we had done the string test right around his one-year birthday, we knew that he was going to get as big as Amazon, or bigger, maybe seventeen hands.

  A “hand,” as I had told the kids when I did my English report “The Language of Horses,” is four inches, and horses are measured in “hands.” I guess someone’s real hand could be four inches wide, and you could estimate a horse’s size if you bent down and moved your two hands upward along his leg, then his shoulder, to his withers, which is the topmost point, where the neck comes into the body. A horse is never five foot four; he is sixteen hands. I was five foot four now—the top of my head would be even with the top of the withers of a sixteen-hand horse. Five four isn’t tall for a person, but sixteen hands is tall for a horse and seventeen hands—five foot eight—is very tall. That means that the bottom of his chest is about at my waist and I have to reach way up to put my hands on the saddle just to mount from the ground. Daddy, who was almost six feet, liked for a horse’s withers to be about even with his collarbone. That meant he could mount easily no matter what, and also that the horse would be compact and athletic.

  The string test was something I’d never seen before, because we’d never had a yearling before. It was simple. What you did was take a piece of string in your two hands, and set one hand against the yearling’s fetlock (another word I told my class about—this is the joint at the bottom of the horse’s leg where the leg makes an ang
le toward the hoof) and one against his elbow, which is right at the top of the foreleg next to the chest. Then you pivot the first hand around the second hand, and hold the length of string straight up. Where your top hand is (the hand that started out touching the fetlock) is where the withers of the horse will be when the horse is full grown. This is because a horse’s legs are longer when he’s born (so that he can keep up with his mother and the herd) and the body has to grow to catch up with the legs. When the string test showed that Jack was going to be seventeen hands, Daddy was not happy. As far as he was concerned, a seventeen-hand horse costs more to feed and takes more time to care for than a nice fifteen-and-a-half-hand horse and would not be nearly as useful. But I had noticed when we were showing Black George, before he got sold to Sophia Rosebury, that a lot of those jumpers and hunters were big, so I had already made up my mind that Jack was not going to be a cow horse, so he could be seventeen hands if he wanted to.

  But here was the funny thing. Right after we did the string test and were talking about Jack being seventeen hands, we did a little geometry unit at school, and I saw why a seventeen-hand horse is so much bigger than a fifteen-hand horse—he’s got lots more volume. He’s one-sixth taller, but he’s really one-third bigger. When I did an extra-credit problem likening horses to spheres, my math teacher gave me an A.

  Jack looked in my hands for a treat, which really is not good manners. According to Daddy, horses are supposed to never know that you could have a treat, and to act like a treat couldn’t possibly come their way, and keep their noses to themselves. But with Jack, I just opened my hands and let him sniff them and learn for himself that there was nothing there. Once in a while, he also licked them, but tonight he didn’t do that. He stood next to the fence while I scratched his forehead, then smoothed down his forelock, then petted his neck and ears. Horses like petting, but not as much as dogs do—even a youngster like Jack, who was used to being brushed and rubbed with the chamois, soon got bored with mere hands. He put his nose over the fence and sniffed my hair, then looked over at Blue, who suddenly started trotting back and forth again. I said, “You are not going to be nervous like that, are you? No, you’re not. Because we are going to raise you to be a good boy.” Jack snorted, which I took as a “yes.” Rusty, who had walked out toward the end of the fence line, now walked back toward me, yawning. Then she gave a little bark, and Jack gave another little snort, and I laughed. When Rusty first started hanging around, she had actually chased Jack down most of the length of the pasture—we never figured out if she was playing or attacking. But now she and Jack sometimes trotted around the pasture together, so whatever she had been doing that first time, now she was playing, or at least Jack thought she was.