Bold Beauty

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  “So you’ll let me train her? Two weeks. That’s all I need. I’ll have her sailing over that high hurdle—”

  “She can’t train here!” Summer cried.

  “Winnie doesn’t work horses here!” Richard roared. “I can’t allow it.”

  I glared at them. It wasn’t fair. They didn’t want Beauty—or me—to have a chance. I knew if I asked their dad, he’d say the same thing. “I can train her in my pasture! There’s even a hedge the same height as that high jump!”

  “Really?” Adrianna turned to her husband. “We could loan her our cavalletti!” She pointed to the pole jump and the stack of red-and-white poles to the side.

  I’d know what to do with them. Mom had used cavalletti poles to work with jumpers in Wyoming.

  “I don’t know . . .” Jeffrey looked at his wife.

  “Jeffrey, if there’s any chance Beauty could work out, I think it’s worth a try. We could leave her while we’re on our honeymoon.”

  Jeffrey put his arm around her and turned to me. “My wife is impossible to argue with. We’re leaving tonight. Can you bring your trailer and pick up the mare?”

  Yes!

  Summer laughed. “Her trailer? The day Winnie gets a trailer, I’ll get a spaceship and fly to Venus!”

  Note to self: Get a trailer.

  “You won’t be sorry! You’ll see!” I couldn’t believe it. They were going to let me train her! “And I’ll just ride Beauty home!” I started to mount. My mucking boots barely fit into the metal stirrups.

  “Ride her? On streets?” Adrianna asked.

  “She’s traffic shy. Since she started refusing jumps, she’s scared of everything,” Jeffrey explained.

  I swung up into the saddle. She had to be at least 17½ hands high, two hands taller than Nickers. “Then I’ll cure her traffic shyness, too.”

  “Didn’t I tell you she had enough confidence for all of us?” Adrianna stood on tiptoes and handed me her hat.

  “Two weeks then,” Jeffrey said. “We’ll pay you what we were paying Spidells, if that’s all right. Half the monthly fee?”

  I gulped. Half the Spidell fee was four times what I charged Hawk to keep Towaco. With that much money, I wouldn’t have to muck Spidells’ stalls all winter. “Great!”

  I rode out of the stable and down the long driveway. God, thanks for giving them confidence in me.

  The stirrups were too long, or my legs too short. It had been a couple of years since I’d ridden a hunt saddle, and it felt weird—light, like English saddles, but deep-seated, with padded knee rolls. Give me bareback any day.

  Beauty still wore the sheepskin-lined leather tendon boots that protected her from clipping her front feet with her hind hooves. The boots clumped along as she pranced down the road.

  The Howards drove by in a silver car and waved. Beauty tensed, but didn’t bolt.

  The orange sun hung low, leaving the air chilled and tuning up a chorus of crickets. I felt like jumping over the sun and almost believed I could. Beauty raised each hoof too high, springing from the road, flicking her ears at a woodpecker, snorting at falling leaves. Behind us, a horn honked.

  Beauty stopped, her legs stiff, every muscle coiled.

  “Easy,” I murmured, scratching her withers.

  Richard pulled up beside us in his new black Mustang convertible. “We don’t appreciate you stealing clients!”

  “You’d given up on this horse, Richard! What was I supposed to do?”

  “Well, you’re fired!”

  “I quit!”

  He gunned the engine, squealing tires, spraying gravel and dust.

  Beauty reared, then bolted sideways. I tried to get her back on the road. But her hooves slid on the grass. Her hind legs scrambled.

  “Whoa!”

  She couldn’t whoa. We slid toward the ditch in slow motion. Right fore and hind foot plunged down the ditch. And, like a plastic horse knocked on its side, Beauty toppled over.

  My elbow brushed the ground, but I managed to stay in the saddle. Beauty and I were practically lying on the side of the ditch.

  “Easy,” I murmured.

  I thought I heard someone calling my name. But I couldn’t look. It was all I could do to stay on.

  Beauty thrust her head forward. With a lunge, she stumbled up and out of the ditch. My heart pounded. Beauty shook herself off like a dog coming out of a pond.

  “Man, you okay?” Catman Coolidge hopped off his back bike, Dad’s first sale. Catman’s blond hair flowed behind him, and his wire-rimmed glasses scooted down his nose.

  I don’t think I’d ever seen Catman un-calm before. He’s so cool, a throwback to the 60s. He looks like a hippie in an old movie about protests and flower children.

  Catman touched my muck boot, as if he didn’t care how dirty it was. “Bummer about the fall!”

  I felt like crying. It might have been from Beauty’s close call . . . or because I didn’t know Catman cared so much. He was probably the best friend I had, although neither of us would have said so. I hated that he’d seen me almost fall.

  “I’m still on,” I pointed out. “And in one piece. Meet Bold Beauty. I’m training her to jump.”

  “Already pretty jumpy.” He retrieved his bike and turned it around to head in my direction. “That’s a lot of horse, Winnie.”

  The last thing I wanted was for Catman to doubt me as a horse gentler. “She’s not too much horse for me. Mom told me about a horse foaled in England over 150 years ago, a Shire gelding that measured 21½ hands. That’s almost 7½ feet tall.”

  “Maybe the trainer stood over five feet.” He was teasing. I am over five feet. But I knew he didn’t totally believe I could handle Beauty.

  As I rode home with Catman walking his bike beside us, I filled him in on the details. “I’ve got two weeks to get Beauty over the high jump. I’ll bet I could get her to take that big hedge right now if I wanted to.”

  “Pretty sure of yourself for a cat who just came out of a ditch.”

  “I am! And that’s what Beauty needs. Nine times out of 10, a bad jump is the rider’s fault. If the rider loses confidence, so will her horse.”

  “I’m hip.”

  As we walked, cats fell in behind us. Burg, a.k.a. Cat Burglar, one of Catman’s brood, crept out from a bush, his black mask ruffled against his white fur. Churchill, a big, flat-faced cat, trudged along with Nelson, my barn cat. Four kittens darted out of a ditch. Catman was the pied piper of cats in Ashland, Ohio.

  “Wilhemina!” Catman called.

  Wilhemina is a fat orange tabby, named after the author Charles Dickens’ cat. She plodded up behind us just as a pickup approached ahead of us.

  Beauty froze, nostrils flaring. She jerked sideways, but I held her to the road. The truck passed us slowly, and I felt her relax.

  Catman shook his head at Beauty.

  “I told the Howards I’d cure her of shying, too,” I admitted.

  He glanced up at me. “You got that kind of time?”

  Why didn’t he understand how good I am with horses? He’d seen me gentle my own horse, Nickers, and several other horses, too. But I guess Catman Coolidge was hard to impress.

  When we reached my house, Catman beeped his bike horn. But instead of a beep, out came a sound like a rush of wind, a tornado.

  Beauty shied, then kept walking.

  “Catman, what did you do to your horn?” Before it had meowed, thanks to Dad’s invention, the cat horn.

  Catman grinned his catlike grin. “Your dad’s idea. He figured out what they used for the tornados in that movie Twister.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Camel. I went to the Cleveland Zoo and recorded a camel moaning.”

  Note to self: Never go to the zoo with Catman.

  Catman and his cats hung out with me in the barn. When Dad first rented our house from Pat Haven, he hadn’t even known we’d be getting a barn thrown in. The building needed paint and a few repairs, but I loved the smell of horse and fre
sh hay and the way light poked through knots in the barn wood. Nickers loved her home, too.

  I cooled Beauty down and introduced her to Towaco and Nickers. I’d planned on getting the three together slowly. But Nickers surprised me by being a good hostess and making up fast. Usually, she’s as lousy with horses as I am with people.

  Catman and I crossed the lawn, littered with “works-in-progress” people had dropped off for my dad, Odd-Job Willis, to fix. Dad can fix anything from radios to washing machines, but he’d rather work on his inventions. He claims that even in his insurance days he dreamed of becoming an inventor. He just never had time to work on stuff.

  Dad stopped hammering and waved. “Catman! Come see this!”

  “Hey, Dad!” I shouted, knowing he didn’t mean to ignore me. He just gets so wrapped up in his inventions. And Catman had been helping him.

  We headed for the pile of wood Dad was working on.

  “Stop!” Lizzy dropped from a tree and threw herself in front of us. “Don’t take another step!”

  “Lizzy—,” I started.

  “Can’t you see what you’re walking into? There!” She pointed, but I didn’t see anything.

  “Far out!” Catman stared into space.

  “It’s an orb weaver, Catman!” Lizzy exclaimed. “I watched him weave it. He got interrupted twice, and each time he started over from scratch, like the whole weaving pattern was memorized but only if he started from the beginning.”

  I moved closer to Catman, and then I saw it. A fantastic web stretched between two trees, hundreds of thread-fine spokes crisscrossing circle after circle. I shuddered, glad I hadn’t walked into it. “Where’s the spider, Lizzy?”

  “Waiting.” She showed us where a fat, black spider lurked in the far corner of his web. “See how he holds onto the silk thread, waiting for something to land? He feels the vibration and pounces! This afternoon he caught a wasp!”

  “Cool.” Catman got so close to the web I was afraid his nose would touch and the spider would pounce. “So, you got tired of lizards?”

  “Catman!” Lizzy scolded. “Never! How could I? I love all 3,000 species of lizards! Don’t I, Larry?”

  Larry the Lizard stuck his head out of Lizzy’s pants pocket, and Lizzy petted him. “Besides, I could never collect spiders. They don’t make friends like lizards do. Put two spiders in a box, and they’ll fight to the death!”

  “Catman!” Dad yelled.

  “Stay for dinner, Catman,” Lizzy urged. “I made a spider-shaped casserole that rocks!”

  “I can dig it.” Catman ducked under the web.

  “Tell me about the new horse, Winnie,” Lizzy said as we watched Catman join Dad and immediately drop to the ground to inspect some new invention.

  I explained to Lizzy how I’d ended up with Bold Beauty and how I’d be jumping her.

  “I’d love to get a jumping spider!” Lizzy exclaimed. “They’re so cute! Two huge eyes in the middle, four more on top, and one on each side. They don’t even have to move their heads to see everywhere. And can they jump! Of course, fleas are better jumpers. They can jump 150 times their length, which is like us jumping over a 100-story building! Spiders can’t jump that high, but . . .”

  I rolled my eyes at my sister, then joined Catman and Dad by what looked more like a rocking chair than one of Dad’s crazy inventions.

  “Congratulations on getting another horse to gentle, Winnie!” Dad handed Catman a screwdriver. “Catman said it’s a jumper?”

  “A hunter actually.” I liked that Catman had told Dad about it—and that he hadn’t mentioned the run-in with the ditch. “Great pay, too. I won’t have to clean Stable-Mart stalls anymore.” No sense wasting time on the details of that one.

  “Uh-huh.” Dad pushed the rocker back and forth.

  “Are you making chairs, Dad?”

  “Like no, man!” Catman was screwing a tube-line rod to the back of the chair. “Your dad’s inventing the first rocker-powered fan!”

  “Rocket-powered—?” I repeated.

  “Rocker-powered!” Catman corrected. “Dude sits and rocks. Then energy—”

  Dad interrupted, continuing as if they had one brain, forming the same sentence. “—transfers through air, which is sucked up into this tube to a generator fan!” He sat in the chair and rocked. “Air up. It blows through the fan—we’re still working on that—turns the blades. Voila! Fan blows on the rocker! No electricity! No battery!”

  “Rocker-powered,” I muttered.

  At least it was a step up from the toaster that buttered toast on the way out . . . or the electric fork . . . or the boomerang baseball . . . or the automatic cat comb. Even Catman didn’t like that one.

  I cleaned up, and Lizzy finished cooking dinner while I set the table for four. We didn’t get much company, so it felt strange to fill the little kitchen table. It made me think about Mom and dinners when we had always set the table for four.

  During dinner Lizzy did most of the talking, and most of it about spiders. “Of course, not all spiders use webs to catch dinner. Some jump on their prey. Others spit out sticky nets of poison and trap anything in their paths. But spitters live mainly indoors, so—”

  “Lizzy!” Dad gulped a mouthful of spider-shaped casserole. “Could we please change the subject?”

  Good. I wanted the subject to turn to Bold Beauty and me.

  But before I could jump in, Catman spoke. “I brought those entry forms, Mr. W.”

  I glanced at Lizzy, but she shrugged. “What entry forms?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” Dad shook his head. “Catman, I told you I didn’t think I’d have the rocker ready in time.”

  “In time for what?” Lizzy asked.

  “The Inventor’s Contest,” Catman said. “Winner gets a trip to the Invention Convention in Chicago.”

  Dad shoved his plate away. “I’d never win something like that with one of my inventions. Real inventors enter those contests.”

  “You should do it!” Lizzy exclaimed. “That would be so great if you won! Do inventor kids get to go? Sweet! I have friends in Chicago from—what grade was I in there? Oh, it doesn’t matter. When is it?”

  Dad stood up. “I’m not entering. I have to make some calls.”

  Dad left, and we sat there finishing our dinner. I figured it was Dad’s business whether he entered the contest or not.

  Lizzy broke the silence, as usual. “So, Winnie, will this new horse be hard to gentle?”

  “You should have seen that cat on the road, shying at her own shadow,” Catman said, meaning horse. “Winnie’s got her hands full.” He turned to me. “She thinks she can make that cat road-safe.”

  I forced myself to sound as cool as Catman. “I’ll cure her of shying tomorrow.” I yawned for effect. “You’re welcome to come watch if you like.”

  “In one day?” Catman almost sounded impressed.

  Mom taught me that horses shy for one of five reasons: boredom, habit, orneriness, terror, or lack of confidence. Finding out why a horse shies is half the battle. I already knew why Beauty shied—lack of confidence.

  “One day,” I promised.

  Catman narrowed his Siamese-blue cat eyes at me. “This I gotta see.”

  Saturday I woke to honking and made it to my window in time to see a crooked V of Canadian geese fly over the barn. I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and dashed through the dewy grass for an early ride on Nickers.

  As we cantered around the pasture, an autumn, apple smell filled my lungs. Greens blurred into yellow and orange. Shaded maples clung to summer, with only their tips turned red—like autumn fingernails. I eyed the hedge as we galloped by, imagining Beauty and me flying over it.

  When I finished with Nickers, I took a spin on Towaco, making sure he didn’t forget his leads before Hawk came back.

  Then it was Bold Beauty’s turn. I’d just started brushing the mud off her back when Catman appeared, wearing striped bell-bottoms and a paisley shirt.

  “Dirty,” he
commented.

  “Hey, Catman! Dirt’s good. Means Beauty felt at home enough to roll. Bet she never rolled at Stable-Mart.”

  Beauty craned her neck around to nuzzle me. I blew into her nostrils, an old Indian trick. Greet a horse the way they greet each other. Beauty blew back. I already felt myself getting too attached to her. But it would be okay. She’d be getting a good home. Adrianna wasn’t just a good owner; she was a good rider. That helped.

  “Saddle?” Catman asked.

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” I slipped on the bridle. Beauty opened her mouth for me and kept her head low. “Bareback.”

  “Nothing to hang on to,” he observed.

  “I don’t need anything to hang on to.” I swung myself onto her back. “I want to feel her. Horses have sensory cells running through their skin. When Mom and I watched this herd of Mustangs once, we couldn’t believe how they kept touching and brushing against each other. But that’s how they read moods and thoughts. Beauty and I need to feel each other.”

  “Cats don’t need to touch you to know everything you’re thinking . . . before you do.” He set down Nelson, and the tiny black cat with one white paw pranced straight to Nickers’ stall and pounced to the feed trough.

  “Now that’s a horse!” Eddy Barker, wearing his Cleveland Indians hat backward, strolled up as I rode Beauty out of the barn. He carried Chico, his brother Luke’s Chihuahua. Next to Barker, whose skin is the color of a deep bay, the puppy looked snow-white. But their big, brown eyes matched.

  “Hey, Barker!” I struggled to keep Beauty still.

  Eddy Barker is about the nicest person I’ve ever met—and not dull nice either. He trains dogs, plays basketball even though he’s not much taller than I am, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him without the big smile he turned on me now. “Did Pat get hold of you?”

  Pat Haven runs the pet shop where Catman, Barker, and I work on the computer Pet Help Line. She’d been subbing in life science since the first day of school, since the teacher we were supposed to have said he had to go out and “find himself” or something.

  “Nope. Why?” I pulled lightly on the reins, and Beauty backed up until I released.

  “The debate.” Barker snapped on a leash and set Chico down.