by Tudor Robins
“So did I.”
“Really?” I take a deep breath, about to launch into my theory, then a word flits through my brain: control – the word I almost tossed at my mom this morning. I exhale. “So, what’s your idea?”
“Well, what did you notice about her field at Tom’s?”
My pulse quickens. “She wasn’t alone.”
“Right. She was with cattle and a donkey. So, I thought maybe that’s it. Maybe she just needs …”
“… company!” I can’t resist any longer. “That’s exactly what I thought!”
“So you want to try turning her out with some of the cattle? I was thinking the weanlings. Maybe having her around would make them feel more secure after being separated from their mothers. What do you think?”
“I think, definitely. I think, yes.” I drop Salem’s tail, thrust my right hand out. “I think we could be an amazing horse-training team.”
He laughs, and takes my hand. Gives it a shake. I look at our two hands, both dirty, with jagged nails and small scrapes across the skin. I think Slate might prefer a good manicure, but to me these hands are beautiful. A tingle runs up my arm, and I look back at Jared’s face, and another tingle runs through me when I meet his eyes.
Then Salem nudges our hands, and we laugh, and pull back.
“I’ll go herd those weanlings into this field.”
“Thanks, great, and I’ll finish with her.”
“OK.”
“OK.”
As he walks toward the field, a late-evening ray of sun hits him, picks out the gold in his hair.
I tilt my head, and squint, framing up an imaginary picture I’d love to send to Slate.
Or, maybe, just keep for myself.
Chapter Fifteen
Hard to believe I’m getting paid to sit in the sun on the edge of the ferry dock, and watch the boat come in.
Fronds of seaweed swirl and sway under my kicking feet, with quicksilver fish darting in and out. The last person who waited here dropped a potato chip, and I nudge it into the water; watch the fish swarm it.
I jump as my phone vibrates in my back pocket. I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have cell service.
Slate: So, are you dead, or just ignoring me?
Me: Death is an extreme assumption.
Slate: I got a job serving lunch at Restwell. I think about death a lot.
Me: Restwell?!?
Slate working in the retirement residence down the road from our school is a mind-stretching thought.
Slate: It’s more fun that you’d think. I curled my hair and they said “another girl named Slate works here, but her hair’s different.” Old people can be funny.
Me: Do you have a polyester uniform?
Slate: Yes, and I rock it, TYVM. Anyway, since not dead, then what?
Me: Working. Running. Taking care of my horse …
Slate: ??!!??!!??!!
Me: Don’t get excited. She’s green and / or rusty. Straight out of a cow field. 15.3. Appy. Craig would hate her.
Slate: So? Major Disaster ring any bells?
She’s got me there. I smile, shake my head. Major Disaster. It seems like a long time ago.
I poise my thumb to text her back when my phone pings again:
Crap. Gotta go. Tapioca time! Byeeee!
The ferry engines are churning just metres from where I’m sitting anyway. I hop up and wait while the big boat grinds into dock, and the massive ramps lowers into place. Then I scamper across the temporary iron bridge and smile at the ferry operator. “Package for Carl Waitely?”
He hands it over. “Say hello for me.”
“I will.” And, clutching the part Carl’s been needing to fix his ride-on mower, I head up to the main street to find Betsy at the bakery, post office, or general store and help her pack her purchases into the car.
**********
In the car on the way back to the B&B, Betsy hums along to a floaty piece of violin music.
I lean my head against the window and relax my eyes until the grass in the ditches fuzzes into a green blur, broken by the occasional driveway or clump of tiger lilies.
It reminds me of the time we first brought Major home two-and-a-half years ago. Craig driving. Happy about the four horses he’d chosen for himself, and to show to some other riders who hadn’t made the trip. Pleased with the dainty grey mare the other girl in the truck had selected.
Sighing every time he looked at me.
Slate was right. Craig did not like Major back then.
When I looked into his narrow, dark stall I saw a skinny, dirty, horse. When I tried to handle him I discovered he was head shy, and wouldn’t let me pick up his feet.
“Stubborn,” Craig said.
“Scared,” I countered.
Craig’d given me a sideways look reminding me that as a fourteen-year-old girl, I should be scared to contradict him.
But the shape of Major’s ears, and the flare of his nostrils, and the way he held his head, had already gripped my heart.
“What’s his name?” I’d asked the trainer showing us around.
“Major. Short for Major Disaster.” He’d grinned, like he’d thought of the name himself. Maybe he had.
Craig snorted. “I rest my case. No horse with that name is coming to my barn.”
It was the only time I’d known Craig to be wrong.
He’d done his best. Pointed to the five other horses waiting to be loaded into the trailer. All prettier. More polite. All with reasonable names. “Lucky Lady”, “Gotta Run”, “Okee Dokee”, “Dare to Dream”, “Rhyme and Reason”.
But I’d shaken my head. Refused to budge. And Major’d been loaded into the sixth stall in the trailer – although with large conditions hanging over his head. “On trial only.” Craig’d made them write it on his bill of sale. “And the vet’s going over him with a fine-tooth comb.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
“And …”
“What?”
“His name. He’ll never be called that in my barn. From now on he’s ‘D Major’.”
“Why does it matter so much?”
Craig shook his head. “Sometimes it’s better not to court trouble. A name like that – it makes me nervous.”
Betsy slows for the turn off the highway and I jerk my head up. Maybe Craig was right. Some people, looking at how things turned out, would probably say he was.
But for me, Slate bringing up the story does something different. It reminds me how much fun I had working with that horse nobody expected much of. Seeing the potential in an animal that didn’t look like much.
It makes me itch to get to work on Salem.
**********
Salem now shares her field with a half-dozen of Jared’s calves, born late last fall and learning to live without their mothers.
She’s calm, head down. She’s doesn’t graze particularly near to any of the big calves, but neither is she pacing, or whinnying, or jumping out of her field. First challenge solved – I hope.
“Let’s get to work.” I slip Salem a carrot and lead her to the gate.
Now that she’s shampooed, it takes no time to groom her, and she’s only found a few burrs to replace the ones I worked out of her tail yesterday. I’ve got her bridle and bareback pad on in minutes, then snap on the clothesline Jared found me yesterday when I asked for something I could use as a lunge line.
I lead her to the level-looking expanse of grass in front of the house where Jared told me to lunge her. “We’re not fussy about our lawns around here.”
I stand in the centre of the big space, give her some line, and hope she’s done this before, and isn’t too lazy. I’m not sure the willow switch I’m holding makes a very convincing lunge whip. I cluck twice and order “Walk on.” Cross my fingers. Let’s see what you can do.
She may be smaller than Major was, but she’s well-proportioned, and knows how to carry herself. As soon as I ask her to trot she frames right up, neck arched and hind legs tracking up
. She picks her canter up on the right lead first try and, for a few minutes, I just stand quietly and enjoy watching her.
She moves like a rocking horse, and she carries her tail held high, like a flag, so it flutters as she moves. “You’ll be nice to ride, won’t you?” Her inside ear flicks toward me, then back to the front. Promising: she can listen, and she can focus.
As I watch Salem trot around me, memories come floating back of the slow but steady progress and small victories Major and I had together.
There was the first time I ever got him to pick up a right lead canter – the opposite direction from the way he’d always run on a racetrack.
The day I asked him to back up, and he didn’t throw up his head, or half-rear, just kept his nose down and stepped backward.
And then, when I finally decided he was ready to jump, he took the tiny fence at double its height, then bucked on the landing for good measure. Turns out Major hadn’t been born to race; he’d been born to jump, and introducing him to it was amazing fun.
I let my eyes relax the way I did earlier in the car. I don’t look too hard for details and particulars; just try for a big picture impression of the mare. And the impression’s a good one: she has good proportions. She’ll look great under saddle. And if she can jump the way I think she can …
Think is the operative word. I think she jumped clear of Jared’s field the other day. I need to find out for sure before getting carried away.
I call her in, and she comes eagerly, ears pricked forward. If a horse doesn’t like to work, there’s not much you can do to change her mind. Her energy is a good sign. “Good girl.”
I loop the line loosely around the fence and get to work. I go in search of a stack of milk crates I saw by the side of the barn. Bingo. And, lying with them, some lengths of lumber. Perfect.
It starts as carrying, and ends with dragging, and I’m out of breath and sweating by the end, but I get them all in place to form a tidy little X.
I take Salem back out, lunging both directions in trot and canter. She scopes out the jump the first time she passes it and, from then on, her outside ear flicks to it every time she goes by.
No time like the present. I take a big step forward, letting her move away from me so that when she comes around again, the jump will be in her path.
It’s no big deal. It’s tiny and hardly solid. If she kicks it apart it won’t hurt her. Besides, any horse could clear this. Any horse at all; no jumping experience required.
But how she jumps it will tell me so much. Will she be eager and forward, or will she run out? Will she pick her way over it unenthusiastically, or trip through in a clumsy mess?
Please be good at it. Please like it. Please, at least, don’t hate it.
She reaches the point in the circle where she first sees the X in her path. Both ears pitch forward, and stay there. Her nostrils flare, wide and pink-rimmed. I have her in a trot, but four strides out, she breaks into a canter. A forward, long-striding canter. With room left to put in one more short stride, she takes off in a beautiful arcing leap, clearing the X as though it was a four-foot wall, landing with a snort on the far side.
“Good girl! Good girl! Good girl!”
Salem can jump. Next step is to do it together.
**********
I stand on my pedals, and the breeze funnels down the neck of my t-shirt and flaps out the sleeves and hem. The bike freewheels down the gravel road. At moments like this, cycling is almost as good as riding.
In a few minutes, when I reach the cottage, I’ll remember I’m hungry, and tired, and dirty, but right now I’m invincible, riding the wind, my tears drying on my face as fast as they’re whipped out of the corners of my eyes.
Stopping at the highway is a formality. Except once an hour, when the ferry docks, there’s never anyone here.
Except today.
I yank on the brakes. The tires bite, and I judder to a stop to let Jared turn off the blacktop onto the road beside me.
His window’s rolled down. “How’d it go?”
“Good. Really good. Thanks for the line. It worked perfectly.”
“So are we any closer to picking that show date?”
“Sure, closer, maybe.” My stomach rumbles and I throw my arm across it. “Sorry. I haven’t had dinner yet.” I lift my foot back to my pedal.
“Hey. Wait. Not so fast.”
“Yes?”
“Speaking of eating …”
I freeze. What does that mean – speaking of eating? I’d almost forgotten it’s Saturday night. People go out on Saturday night, don’t they? On dates? The hollowness in my stomach now has nothing at all to do with hunger; in fact, I’m so nervous I couldn’t eat anything right now.
“Yes?”
“That party Will told you about. The barbeque. I was just over at their place, and I promised him I’d make sure you know it’s tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
“By ‘oh’ do you mean, ‘Great, thanks, and I can’t wait to go?’”
I sigh. “More like I’m working tomorrow, and it’s on the other side of the island, so …”
“So, that’s why I’ll pick you up as soon as you’re done work, which I know will be early because Betsy and Carl will be going.”
“They will?”
“Everyone goes to this party, Meg.” He adds, “Everyone important, that is. Which is why you’re invited.”
“Oh!”
He smiles. “That sounded like a better ‘oh’. So, I’ll pick you up tomorrow around four?”
“That sounds early.”
“It won’t be – trust me – if you’re still working at four, I’ll personally help you finish making beds or whatever it is you do up there.”
“Bring your duster, then.”
“I won’t need it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Betsy comes to find me weeding in the vegetable garden at three o’clock. “Go! Get ready!”
“But I don’t need an hour to get ready.”
“Well, I do.”
“Oh. OK.” I put both hands on my hips and bend to stretch out my lower back. Squint up at Betsy. “Wait, should I be spending an hour getting ready? Is this party a big deal?”
She holds out her hand and helps me up. “Don’t be silly. You’re sixteen and beautiful. I’m sixty-six. You need ten minutes to get ready, and I need ten extra minutes for every decade I’m older than you.”
As I’m heading out across the lawn, she calls after me. “But if you brought a dress, this might be a good chance to wear it!”
“Really?”
“Not necessary. Up to you. It would just make a change from working and riding.”
Really? I’m wearing the one dress I brought. It’s lacy, and light without being fancy, and you’d think that would make it perfect for a Sunday afternoon barbeque, but, as far as I can tell, from my vantage point standing on top of the toilet and bending over to peer in the bathroom mirror (the only way to get anything close to a full-length view in the cottage), it just looks wrong.
And feels wrong.
It needs something to make it country, casual fun, instead of city, tea-party frilly and, whatever that something is, I don’t have it.
I glance out the bathroom window – is that Jared turning off the road? Crap! Jump off the toilet, run upstairs, yank the dress over my head … go, go, go!
By the time he rolls onto the circular turn-around portion of the driveway, I’m sitting, chin cupped in my hands, hoping he won’t notice I’m out of breath.
“You look nice.”
“Thanks.” My capris and shirt are clean. They’re ones I don’t ride in, and I feel like myself in them. Good enough.
**********
The first person I see when we find a parking spot on the grass, and hop out of the truck, is my cattle-working companion. “Will!” Jared says. “How are you?”
“Good,” Will says, but he’s not looking at Jared, he’s looking at me, and he’s not alone. A girl,
slightly taller than him, but with the same long thin nose, freckled cheeks, and curling dark brown hair, reaches over and gives him a noticeable nudge.
“This is my sister, Lacey,” Will says.
“Hi Lacey. I’m Meg.”
“Oh, I know. I hear you jump.”
“Um, yes …” I start to say, but she’s not done.
“I started riding Western, but now I want to ride English, and I saved up, and I’m taking lessons in Kingston, but I want to ride at home too, and my pony’s a pig!” She pauses long enough to take a deep breath. “Will you help me?”
Jared laughs. “That’s our Lacey. Little miss one-track-mind. Meg just got here, Lacey. Let me at least get her some food, and we’ll both meet you at the barn.”
Lacey crosses her arms. “Fine. I’ll go ahead and tack Cisco up. You’ve got ten minutes.”
“Wow!” I say. “She told us.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to go.”
“No, it’s fine. I don’t mind at all. She’s cute.”
“Well I’ll come with you, and yank you away before long. Lacey’s less cute after ten or fifteen minutes.”
I’ve heard meals called “spreads” before but this one truly is. The food is spread the length and width of a very long, and very wide table. There are salads, and casseroles, and half a dozen different kinds of home-baked bread.
“Hamburger or hot dog?” Jared calls from his spot up by the barbeque.
“Hamburger!”
“Sounds good,” says a voice in my ear.
“Betsy! You look like someone who spent an hour getting ready, even though you really didn’t need to.”
Carl laughs. “I agree with Meg, you look great now, and you looked great before the hour too.”
I catch sight of Jared weaving his way over to us, balancing two plates of food. Betsy follows my eye. “I see you decided against the dress.” She sighs. “Fortunately, you look very pretty without it, but I do like to see a nice dress.”