Hunter Pace (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 7)

by Claire Svendsen

  We lifted the wooden planks that Esther had placed on brackets and slipped through the fence. She’d said it was easier than nailing them up since she had a sneaking suspicion that Bluebird might try and get back to his old home again. But he never did and I hadn’t seen Sally since last summer when she’d seen us jump in the summer camp demonstration. She’d been away at her fancy boarding school where they got to ride horses all the time. I often wondered how she was doing but she was older and cooler and I always felt too awkward to try and text her in case I didn’t get a response.

  “This is great,” Ethan said as we made our way back down the hill. We could canter down here.”

  “Yes, let’s,” I grinned.

  Our horses fell into an easy canter and soon we were at the patch of trees where Mickey and I had once stopped to look for Bluebird, trying to follow the hoof prints he left behind in the wet sand. Since the last time some of the trees had fallen, leaving natural obstacles that we could jump.

  “Look,” Ethan pointed. “That one there or this one. They would make perfect jumps.”

  We checked them out for safe takeoff and landing spots and agreed that they would be fine. I made a note on the map. Then we carried on down to the old farmhouse with the moss covered walls and slimy courtyard where it looked like the same chicken from last summer was pecking around in the dirt.

  “I think it’s abandoned,” Ethan said.

  “That’s what we thought the last time,” I dismounted and handed my reins to Ethan. “Sally’s grandmother is too old to clean up much. I’ll just be a minute.”

  I ran to the door while Ethan tried to stop Bluebird from playing tag with the chicken. But after knocking several times, I was starting to think that Ethan was right and no one was home.

  “Let’s just come back later,” he said as Bluebird charged at the chicken with his ears pinned, hitting the end of the reins and trying to pounce on it like a cat.

  “But I don’t think she ever leaves,” I said.

  “She must have done. She has to buy groceries and stuff, doesn’t she? Everyone leaves their house sometime.”

  I stood there in front of the rotten door. The doorbell didn’t work. The knocker was rusted. The house was in even worse disrepair than it had been the last time and a guilty feeling washed over me. I should have come over to visit more and check that Granny Mae was okay. I just assumed that there was family around who would take care of her. Sally hadn’t seemed worried and the woman sure seemed in pretty good shape for an old person.

  “Come on,” Ethan said. “Your pony is yanking my arm out of its socket.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning back.

  But I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something wasn’t right.

  “Just a minute,” I said.

  I ran back and tried the door. It wasn’t locked and as it swung open a stench rushed out to greet me. It was dark inside. I didn’t want to go in. I was afraid that I would find a dead body or something. I’d seen enough TV shows to know that was the sort of thing that could happen. But then I heard a moaning noise and without a second thought, I rushed right inside.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Moldy food was spread across the kitchen table. Bread that was green and fuzzy and a gallon of spoiled milk. Some of it was still in bags, like someone was in the middle of unpacking their groceries and had just stopped. There were soft, brown apples that had rolled out of their bag and onto the floor. Next to them was an outstretched arm. My heart was pounding in my chest. I’d never seen a dead body before. Would it be gross? I’d probably be scarred for life or something. Maybe it was better to let the professionals deal with it. Call the cops or something. Then I saw the fingers move.

  “Granny Mae?”

  I dashed forward, the fear of seeing her dead gone. She was lying on the floor, her eyes closed and face completely white. There was a small fleck of blood on her lip and a purple bruise on her forehead. Her legs were twisted awkwardly to the side.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll call for help.”

  I dashed outside where Ethan had dismounted and was now trying to keep both horses from killing the chicken.

  “Call 911,” I said breathlessly. “Granny Mae is hurt.”

  Ethan took both horses back to Sand Hill while I waited for the ambulance to arrive. I held her hand and gently stroked her forehead, telling her that everything was going to be okay. But it felt like a lie. Granny Mae was old. Old people got hurt or sick and then they went into the hospital and never came out again.

  It didn’t take long before sirens were blaring down the lane and I was glad that Ethan had taken the horses away. I imagined them freaking out at the noise and the flashing lights. I ran out to greet them, two guys with a stretcher and medical bags.

  “This way,” I said. “In the kitchen.”

  They didn’t bat an eye at the smell or the gross, moldy food. They just got to work on her.

  “How long has she been like this?” one of them asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t live here,” I added, feeling guilty. “I ride at the stables over the hill and was just coming by to ask about riding on the land. No one answered the door but then I heard a moan. I’m not going to be in trouble, am I?” I said.

  “Trouble?” he answered. “You may have just saved her life.”

  They picked Granny Mae up gently like she weighed less than a feather and placed her on the stretcher. Under the blankets she looked all small and childlike, her gray braid fanned out beside her. For a moment her eyes fluttered open.

  “Granny Mae?’” I said. “Can you hear me? They’re taking you to the hospital.”

  She reached out for me as they wheeled her outside, her dry lips whispering like autumn leaves. I leant down next to her face.

  “Willow,” she whispered.

  “Willow?” I said. “Don’t you mean Sally? You want me to call Sally?”

  “Willow,” she mumbled. “Take her.” And then her eyes closed and they didn’t open again.

  I watched the ambulance drive away, tears streaming down my face. The paramedic said that I may have saved her life but she was so frail and old. Just because she made it to the hospital, didn’t mean that she was going to live. I stood there as the chicken pecked my foot, thinking about how stupid death was.

  “You think you can manage to survive on bugs until she gets back home?” I asked the chicken.

  I didn’t think Esther would be too keen on me bringing a chicken back to Sand Hill. She already thought I was a lost cause when it came to finding animals that needed help.

  The last time I’d been here Granny Mae had a dog, a black lab called Ace. I called out for him as I went to close the kitchen door but he wasn’t there. I was about to go looking for him when I saw a tin on the mantle with his name on it. I didn’t have to look to know that it wasn’t dog food in there. Mickey got a tin just like it when her dog died, full of ashes.

  Poor Granny Mae. She’d lost her dog and been all alone with only a stupid chicken for company. I closed the kitchen door and was walking away feeling horrible when I heard a noise coming from the barn. Only this time it didn’t sound like a person. This time it sounded like a horse.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The barn was just as disgusting as the last time I’d been inside it. Only this time there weren’t any cow pats on the floor. They had long since disintegrated into the dirt. But it smelt damp and decaying, the way a forest does after a heavy rain. There was still only one tumbledown stall but instead of Bluebird’s chestnut head sticking out, this time there was a dished bay one with a white star.

  “Hello,” I said, approaching quietly and reaching out a hand. “What are you doing here?”

  The bay mare sniffed my fingers and then licked them. Her stall was horribly dirty, all piles of manure and wet with pee. Her water bucket was bone dry and it didn’t look like she’d been fed in days since she had started eating the wooden stall door. There had been no o
ne to take care of her after Granny Mae fell. But what on earth was she doing with a horse in the first place?

  There wasn’t a hose so I took the bucket to a tap outside and filled it. Then I lugged it back to the stall, half the water sloshing over my boots before I was able to hang it back up. The mare gulped at it greedily.

  “Steady girl,” I told her. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  I found some grain in a bin but it smelt fusty and old and I couldn’t find any hay. But there was a leather halter hanging next to the door with a polished plate etched with the name Willow. The brass shone in the dark, decaying barn like a sliver of sunlight. I slipped it on the mare and led her outside. She was cute. Maybe 15.2hh with fine bones and a sweet eye. But her coat was matted from lying down in the dirty bedding and her hooves were long and overdue for a trim. She dragged me to a patch of grass and snatched giant mouthfuls, barely swallowing before grabbing another.

  “What am I going to do now?” I asked her.

  In the end I called Sally. I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t too keen to be the one who broke the bad news about her grandmother but I couldn’t just leave the horse there with no food and no one to take care of her.

  “That crazy old woman,” Sally said when she finally answered the phone. It wasn’t exactly the response I was expecting. “My mom has been trying to get her to go into a nursing home for months. Living all alone out there. It was just a matter of time before she fell or got sick or something without anyone knowing.”

  Listening to Sally talk was like hearing someone’s voice in your head that you’ve imagined for ages only in reality it turns out to sound different. Sally sounded older and a lot more mature than the last time I had spoken to her.

  “It was only luck that I came over,” I said. “I would have checked on her if you had told me.”

  “Granny Mae didn’t want people checking in on her,” Sally said. “My mom organized for a woman to come in and cook and clean for her but Granny Mae locked the doors and refused to let her in, saying that she was a spy.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “We thought that when poor old Ace finally died we’d get her to go into a home but no. She wouldn’t.”

  “Well that’s the thing,” I said. “I found a horse in the barn.”

  “In Granny Mae’s barn?” she said. It sounded like she had no idea the horse was even there.

  “She’s been starved since Granny Mae fell and stuck in her stall without water or food or anything. Her feet are bad too but other than that she seems okay.” I looked at the pretty bay with the long black mane and wondered what I was supposed to do with her. “But I can’t just leave her here.”

  “Mom is going to hit the roof,” Sally said. “Why on earth did Granny Mae buy a horse when she could barely take care of herself?”

  Sally sounded like she thought the old woman was crazy but I knew better. I knew why Granny Mae had bought the mare and refused to leave her house. She didn’t want to go somewhere plastic and fake where you were fed three cardboard meals a day by false smiling nurses who told you that everything was going to be just fine when they knew exactly why you were there. They knew you’d come to die. She didn’t want to die surrounded by that hospital scent of sickness and bleach. She wanted to be out here in her mossy old farmhouse with her animals. A place where she could see the sky and breathe fresh air. I knew she wanted that because I would have wanted the same thing. Only Sally didn’t seem to understand.

  “I guess I’ll get my mom to call animal control,” Sally said. “It’s the safest thing. Then if Granny Mae gets better, she won’t have any more excuses,” she paused. “And it will be kinder to the mare.”

  “No,” I almost shouted. “Let me take her.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “I mean at least let me take her over to Esther’s barn for now. She’s really hungry and in a pretty bad state. Granny Mae could get in trouble if they thought she’d neglected her like this. We can fix her up and then your mom will be able to sell her.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Sally said. “I’ll have to talk to my mom but I guess it’s okay if you take her for now.”

  Sally hung up and I was left holding Willow’s lead rope. What had I done? Why had I said we would take her? I hadn’t even talked to Esther. She would be furious.

  “See what you’ve made me do?” I told the mare as we walked back over the fields. “I’m going to get in trouble now. That’s what is going to happen and look at you. You don’t even care.”

  Willow was prancing about on the end of the lead rope. She’d obviously been locked in that stall for a really long time. She snorted at patches of weeds and I thought her head was going to explode by the time we got up to the trees.

  “Listen,” I told her. “If you want to stay at Sand Hill then you’re going to have to settle down. If you’re a good girl, maybe everything will work out. Mickey could ride you and maybe Esther will take you on as a lesson horse but you have to really show her that you can behave. Okay?”

  Willow responded by shaking her mane and throwing in a little buck for good measure. But as we walked, I could tell she was not a bad horse. She was just happy to be out of that stinking old stall. In fact, when we got her cleaned up, I was pretty sure she would be a really nice horse. She was no Hampton but Mickey couldn’t exactly be picky, could she?

  But as we walked through the gap in the fence and then on down to the barn, a growing uneasiness grew in the pit of my stomach like a black hole. And at the end of the barn Esther was standing there, arms crossed as she watched us coming towards her. Even from here, I could tell she was mad.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “What is that?” Esther said.

  She was standing at the entrance to the barn, essentially blocking my way inside. Tears pricked behind my eyes. What was I supposed to do? Leave the mare there to starve? Let animal control take her away? I could tell she was a really nice horse under all that dirt and neglect. She’d be a perfect horse for Mickey, if only I could convince her. But instead of telling Esther all that, I just started to cry.

  Esther’s face softened.

  “Oh all right,” she said. “Bring her inside.”

  We put Willow in Harlow’s old stall. She sniffed at the fresh clean bedding and drunk out of the waterer.

  “I don’t know how long she’s been without food or water,” I said as Esther threw in a flake of hay.

  The mare charged at it and started to inhale the stalks.

  “We’ll take it slow with her,” Esther said. “But she hasn’t been starved for too long. There is weight on her bones. Nothing a few calories and some elbow grease won’t fix.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t just leave her there. They came and took Granny Mae away in an ambulance. I thought she was dead. It was awful. Maybe, if she knows that we are taking care of her horse, it will give her something to get better for.”

  “Sometimes,” Esther said, putting her arm around me. “I think you are too smart for your own good. But you have to stop adopting all these waifs and strays. We’re not running a rescue farm.”

  “I think she might make a good lesson horse,” I said, trying to sound hopeful.

  “You have no idea if she’s even ridable,” Esther said.

  She was always so practical but she hadn’t seen the mare prance her way over. She wasn’t lame and she was a pretty mover. I knew everything would work out okay.

  We spent the rest of the day cleaning Willow up. She didn’t seem to mind us fussing over her with buckets of water and soapy sponges and we fed her small handfuls of grain that she gobbled up so fast I was afraid she might choke. When we were finished she looked like nothing bad had ever happened to her, other than the fact that her feet looked terrible. Esther said she would have the farrier stop by and trim them up. After that, I was hoping that maybe she would let me ride her and just maybe she might turn out to be the perfect horse for Mickey to ride while she w
as waiting for Hampton to come back. Only despite my best intentions, things weren’t working out quite the way I’d planned.

  “We got a new horse,” I told Mickey the next time she came out to the barn. “Isn’t she cute?”

  “She’s alright,” Mickey said.

  “What do you mean, she’s alright?” I said. “She’s fantastic.”

  After a few days of good grooming and food, Willow had blossomed into a beautiful shiny bay. She’d lost that gaunt, sucked in look and her eyes weren’t full of fear and starvation anymore. The farrier had been and trimmed up her feet, which he said were pretty decent other than being overgrown. She’d been a little sore for a day or two but now she was fine and I was hoping that Esther would let us try her out.

  “You think all horses are fantastic,” Mickey sighed.

  “That’s because all horses are fantastic,” I said.

  “Not all of them,” she replied.

  “But she could be,” I said. “Come on, don’t you want to see Esther try her out? She could be amazing.”

  “Or she could be completely ordinary.”

  “No horse is ordinary,” I said quietly.

  I didn’t know what Mickey wanted from me. I knew she was depressed about losing Hampton but he wasn’t gone for good. In six months he’d be back and in the meantime here was a super cute mare that she could probably ride.

  Esther had spoken to Sally’s mother and they had come to an arrangement where Willow would be able to stay here if she could be used in the lesson program. If Granny Mae got better and came home then they would figure something else out but so far it wasn’t looking good. Apparently she had broken her pelvis when she fell and had developed pneumonia since arriving at the hospital. They weren’t sure if she was going to make it or not. But I tried not to think about it. I just knew that if we could take good care of Willow for her then she would get better.

  “Are you going to ride her now?” I poked my head in the office where Esther was sitting at her desk. “Please?”