Show Barn Blues

by Natalie Keller Reinert

Gayle nodded.

  We watched Rainbow in silence. His strawberry roan coat was dark with sweat, and the white patch between his rolling eyes somehow combined to make him look even more wild-eyed. I could see how Gayle might equate him with a mustang.

  Anna came up behind me and whispered in my ear. “Colleen just drove in.”

  Oh God. “Thanks. I’m hiding — feel free to do the same,” I told her, and clapped Gayle on the shoulder as I scuttled past, heading for the office steps. I wished Rodney had delivered the horses at a different time, like, say, the dead of night, or on a Sunday evening after Colleen had already gone home. It would have been nice to present them as clean-shaven civilized members of society, instead of the drab, hobo citizens of a failed farm down the road. Ever since Colleen had started talking up the farm to her PTA cohorts, her standard for barn appearances had surpassed even my own.

  I had my hand on the stair railing when Colleen’s shriek reached my ears.

  “What in God’s name are these?”

  I turned around. In front of the trail horses’ stalls, Colleen was waving her arms around while Anna quailed. She obviously hadn’t run off to hide fast enough. I sighed. Now I had to rescue her. I ambled back down the aisle, trying to fix a professional smile on my face. Jesus give me strength. Fortunately, I had several decades of idiot-placating on my resume.

  “Colleen,” I said pleasantly. “How are you today?”

  Colleen rounded on me with a face like a particularly well-made-up demon’s. “Not great, Grace! I have two friends bringing their children out tonight to see the barn and these donkeys are not exactly what I was describing to them!”

  Two friends with children! Exactly what my bank account was crying out for. If not my mental health. Two of Colleen’s friends sounded downright repellant, but with unfortunately attractive bottomless bank accounts — if they weren’t as spendthrift as the girls would have me believe Colleen was. “I’m sure they won’t mind these guys. And we’ll have them cleaned up in a few days. Clipped, manes pulled, bathed… you won’t even recognize them!” Although there would be no mistaking these plain plodders for the expensive designer warmbloods that Colleen would prefer to see in these stalls, they’d still look just fine cleaned up.

  At least, I hoped so. Rainbow’s strawberry speckles did not exactly cry out to my aesthetics, but the bay gelding next to him, plain and pleasant as chocolate milk, would look nice with a haircut, and so would the nondescript brownish gelding at the end of the row. I had a suspicion that he’d turn out to be a darkly handsome liver chestnut once the burnt ends of his coat were clipped off and he had some good feed pumped into his system.

  Either way, they were quality horses who were going to make me some easy money, and that was what was important. I couldn’t have any horses in the barn, fashionable or not, if something didn’t give really, really soon.

  Colleen was glaring at me with that patented steely glare. “When you said you were going to expand the lesson business, you said you would be bringing in well-bred ponies. This is not what we discussed.”

  “Colleen,” I said patiently, imagining her head exploding into a million particles, “these aren’t the lesson horses. These are the trail horses.”

  If her head didn’t explode on the outside, the blank, shocked expression on her face suggested it had on the inside. I had just blown Colleen’s mind, and not in a good way.

  There was a sound of slamming car doors in the parking lot, and then some children laughing, sneakers pounding on pavement. “Your guests?” I asked.

  Colleen blinked and came back to the world. “Yes, that will be them. But we’re not through here. You made certain commitments to me. I have made promises based upon those commitments. We need to have a conversation to make sure that we’re both on the same page. If the barn is staying in business, it will be because of my patronage.”

  I watched her stride away in her elegant new boots, her childish pony-tail flipping from side to side. For all intents and purposes, I supposed, Colleen was a child — a teenager, raised with too much money and too much entitlement, so used to getting her own way she had forgotten there had ever been anyone else’s way. If she had ever known it at all. She really seemed to think she owned me, and the barn, since I had welcomed her suggestion to bring out new students from the prep school.

  “What commitment did you make?” Anna asked softly.

  I’d forgotten she was there. “Just to bring in ponies, really,” I said. “Which I’ve done.”

  “But not for lessons.”

  I looked down the aisle, where Tom and Margaret were leading in Wishes and Dream for the night. Outside, Magic whinnied shrilly, annoyed at being the last horse out. “They’ll be good for lessons eventually.”

  “Kennedy fell off Magic a little while ago.”

  “Well, they haven’t been under saddle that long.”

  Anna looked skeptical, but she subsided.

  “Go bring Magic in,” I told her, and she scurried off.

  Thank God there was always work to distract us from our problems.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  A Saturday in February, with a packed show barn full of wealthy women and expensive horses, brought the first taste of true winter in the air. I was huddled into an old barn coat and feeling like I should have moved to Miami, but the horses were in ecstasy.

  There was an icy blast of wind down the barn aisle, and the boarders shrieked with something halfway between shocked horror and laughter. In the wash-stalls, Anna hastily turned off the water and grabbed a fleece cooler from the stack I’d left nearby, throwing it over Wonder’s furry little body. The rug was about four times too big for the pony, and after she was done tucking up the loose ends and knotting them together, all that was visible was his white face and ears, peering curiously from a cherry-red bathrobe.

  I happened to be walking by and flipped on the heat lamps above the wash-stalls. Anna jumped and looked up. “I didn’t even know those were there!”

  “Your first winter here,” I observed. “Hopefully your apartment doesn’t get so cold that you come sneaking down here to use the heat lamps to stay warm.”

  “Hopefully!” She grabbed a towel and all but disappeared under the cooler, rubbing down Wonder’s sopping wet legs.

  “Where did this weather come from?” Kennedy grumbled, leading Dream in from the arena. He was sweaty and hot as well. I grabbed a sponge and a bucket and turned on the warm water. At least the wash-stalls, situated behind the center aisle of stalls, were fairly well protected from the gusting wind.

  “It’s already February. You can expect a big cold front right about now,” I said simply, helping her strip the tack from the tired little pony. Kennedy sure wore out these little monsters. They didn’t tear around the paddock when they were turned out anymore — they went out, had a nice dignified roll, and munched at their hay like model citizens. “It will be thirty tonight, fifty tomorrow, and eighty on Monday.”

  “That’s insane.” Kennedy piled the pad, saddle, girth, and bridle over her arm and marched them over to an unused saddle rack. “I’m going to have to find my feather comforter.”

  I just shook my head and went to work sponging off Dream’s sweaty spots. He sighed at the touch of the warm sponge on his tired muscles, hanging his head from the cross-ties and fluttering his nostrils. “Good boy,” I told him. “You’ve come a long way in three months.”

  Anna climbed out from under the red cooler, wet towel in hand. “They all have,” she said, giving Wonder a kiss on the nose. The pony wiggled his upper lip at her. “This one, he’s a complete heartthrob. He’s going to make some little girl very happy.”

  “You’ll have to ride him sometime,” I said absently. “It would be nice for all of them to get used to having different riders from time to time.”

  “I would love that,” Anna breathed. “Don’t you want to ride them?”

  “I do not.” I dipped the sponge in the bucket and scrubbed between Dream’s
forelegs. I had to bend down to do it, something my back did not love. “I’m not a pony fan, personally.”

  As soon as I said the words, I knew they weren’t true. Of course I was a pony fan. Just because I didn’t ride ponies anymore, just because I hadn’t made them part of my business before, didn’t mean I didn’t love ponies deep, deep down. It was just that Sailor had made all other ponies irrelevant. Dream and Wonder and Magic were all turning out lovely (although frankly, Magic had way too high an opinion of himself and I was wondering just how old that little stinker had been when he was gelded) but they weren’t Sailor. No horse ever would be. Ivor did make a hell of an effort, when he wasn’t being moody and unpredictable. (Yes, that had started up again.)

  “Not a pony fan!” Anna stopped what she was doing and stared at me from around the wash-stall wall. “But ponies are amazing.”

  “Oh, Anna, ponies are trouble on four legs and you know it.”

  “Well…” This fact could not be denied. “But they’re still so fun, and cute, and look at how precious —” She pointed at Wonder’s little white head emerging from the red cooler, like a character from a Disney film. Fair enough, another fact that couldn’t be denied — Wonder was an absolute doll-baby.

  “Okay. He’s pretty damn precious.”

  Anna smiled and busied herself taking Wonder out of the cross-ties and down the aisle to his stall. The pony toddled along it his red cape, looking like a cross between a super-hero and Little Red Riding Hood. Dream watched him go, his nostrils fluttering in a silent whinny. “You’ll be back in your stall soon too, as soon as I get this sweat rubbed off,” I told him, and went back to scrubbing. Dream took the elbow grease without complaint, shifting his weight a little when I leaned in hard enough to throw him off balance. It was amazing, I thought, that a horse could be so small that I could essentially shove him over. Years of massive warmbloods possessing all the flexibility of brick walls had made me forget such tiny wonders existed.

  A little while later, Dream had been wrapped in a green cooler of similarly epic proportions to Wonder’s, and I went out to the arena to watch Kennedy riding Magic. The smallest and fiercest of the ponies, Magic had a buck on him that took my breath away, and Kennedy’s too, judging by the taut, strangled look her face took on when he started protesting her commands. The other ponies were about ready to start over small crossrails, already following her orders for walk, trot, canter, picking up leads, and going over trotting poles. Magic was still mastering the simple art of not being a total jerk.

  Kennedy gave him a canter cue, bringing one leg back behind the girth and touching him in his ribcage, and Magic actually squealed aloud and kicked at her leg. Kennedy kicked harder; so did he. “Stick, Kennedy!” I called, and she looked at me quickly, but didn’t listen. Instead, she gave Magic a few hard thumps into the side until his hard trot broke into a canter.

  “Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “Smack him next time, Kennedy!”

  “Pony problems?” Colleen slipped onto the mounting block next to me, and I made a mental note to order another bench for alongside the arena. I wiggled over to one side, giving her room to slide at least one entire butt cheek onto the plastic surface — well, two, Colleen was enviably slim — and forced a smile, though she was the last person I felt like talking to right now. Miss You Should Start A Pony Program. Well, here it was.

  “He’s a tough character,” I admitted, instead of telling her the truth, which was that all ponies had an inherently evil streak. “But he’s going to make a really nice ride once he realizes that we aren’t really asking for much. He’ll have a little extra panache in the ring, and judges pick up on that. I don’t think he’ll make a lesson pony, though. He’s a one-girl horse, I think.”

  “Oh really.” Colleen watched him canter roughly around the arena, cutting off corners right and left. He had less bend than a tank. “Maddy likes him,” she went on. “I was thinking of buying him for her once Kennedy has him ready to go.”

  I looked at Colleen, startled, and she gave me a sidelong smile. “Unless you think we should look elsewhere?”

  I didn’t, of course, but I thought they should at least wait until Maddy, like, knew how to ride. She was still learning to post the trot, and her two-point canter was wobbly enough to put my heart into my throat whenever I caught sight of it, although Kennedy thought it was perfectly fine. I deferred to Kennedy with the kid’s lesson program, which was expanding every week, but I seriously hoped she hadn’t been talking to Colleen about buying a pony. None of us were ready — not the ponies, not the kids — for any kind of buying or leasing to go on yet.

  I cleared my throat. “I think Magic would work fine for her… down the road. But obviously he’s not ready for a kid yet, and definitely not a kid who is still learning.”

  “I’m tired of seeing Maddy on that old Douglas, though,” Colleen sighed. “I’d like to see her on a pony, one I know she can show.”

  Maddy was still months and months away from showing. They all were. What was going on here? Horse show moms, heaven help us all! I remembered when I had been about to throw out Kennedy for trail riding. Those seemed like kinder, simpler times. “If you buy a pony suitable for her now, it won’t be a good match for her later, when she is ready to compete. Then you’ll have all that trauma of selling a pony to deal with. And believe me, you want to put that off as long as possible.”

  To my relief, Colleen nodded. “I understand that. But let’s not put it off too long, okay? Before you do anything else with that pony, please let me know.” She got up. “I’m going to tack up Bailey for our lesson. Will we ride in here?”

  I had a course set up in the outdoor arena, to give Kennedy some breathing room with the mad pony, but the way the wind was gusting and the dark clouds were rolling in, I figured we’d be better off under cover. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll let Kennedy know.”

  In the center of the ring, Kennedy pulled up the pony, who shook his little head furiously at the hold on his mouth. I marched over to her wearily, and she looked at me just before Magic jumped forward. Caught off guard, she was nearly dumped right out of the saddle. I stood still and let her wrestle the little monster back under control.

  “Everything okay?” I asked eventually.

  “Oh yes,” she panted, wiggling the full-cheek snaffle in Magic’s mouth. He’d long-since proven he couldn’t have a nice plain eggbutt, and he was about two more incidents away from a twisted-wire, as far as I was concerned. Naturally, Kennedy didn’t agree, and since the ponies were her responsibility, I was remaining silent… for now. “He’s really not so bad tonight,” she went on. “I think it’s just the change in weather.”

  That was true. With this cold front was rolling through, everyone would be a disaster. The change in weather was almost certainly why Ivor had been practically illustrating his high school dressage skills earlier this afternoon, actually standing up and leaping on his hind legs at one point.

  It was a better explanation than the one floating in the back of my mind, that I’d spoiled him with all those gallops out on the trail, and all he wanted now was to get out of the ring. But those days were over, I’d decided. I’d known I was risking injury when I’d taken him out, and I was lucky he’d only missed one show over that sore shoulder. We hadn’t been out in the woods since.

  We had turned over a new leaf, gotten back on track, were minding our manners.

  Which couldn’t be said for this hellion pony here. “How far behind the others is he? Seriously.”

  Kennedy lowered her eyes. “A few weeks,” she admitted. “He hasn’t managed to get over trotting poles without taking off or bucking.” The pony crab-stepped and she kicked him straight again.

  “Kennedy, you need to fix the bucking thing,” I said seriously. “Or I’m going to have to do it. And I really don’t want to.”

  “I’ll fix it,” she said.

  “You have a stick, use it.”

  She looked at the riding crop in her right
hand. “I don’t want to hit a baby.”

  “He’s not a baby. He’s a bratty first-grader. Sometimes a first-grader needs a spanking.”

  “I think he’s closer to a teenager.”

  “Well then you really better give him a couple whacks to grow on, or he’s going to be too old for it to make any difference before too much longer.”

  Kennedy nodded reluctantly.

  “Give us a canter,” I urged her. “And make sure he goes straight into it. No running, no bucking. Trot, canter. Go.”

  She bit her lip, thinking, then gathered up the reins and gave Magic a nudge in the ribs. The pony walked off reluctantly, throwing his head up and down. She gave him another nudge, harder this time, and he broke into a choppy trot.

  “Too strung-out for a good transition,” I called. “Put him together. Give him a shot at getting it right for you.”

  Kennedy lowered her hands, widened them, gave the pony leg and some room to move forward. He considered the situation, then dropped his head and tucked his nose in, just a little bit. “Good!” I shouted. “Widen your hands a bit more, drop them below the withers. Make it easy for him to figure out where you want his head!”

  She listened, widening the gap between her hands until her wrists were even with her knees, hunching over a little for balance in case Magic made a break for it. But he didn’t, as I had known he wouldn’t. He just wanted to feel comfortable, and he didn’t know how to get that feeling by himself. He didn’t know how to balance himself with a person up there. I nodded, satisfied with what I was seeing. Maybe he wasn’t a pony criminal after all.

  There was a gust of wind that rattled the arena, the roof creaking, and Magic startled and flicked his tail, starting to fall out of rhythm. I knew the next time something happened, he’d use it as an excuse to cause a little mayhem. “Next time,” I called as the pair drew near, “next time you feel him start to spook, give him the canter cue and a little pop on the butt at the same time. Use that energy to get a good transition. He’ll be happy with himself and remember to do it right more often.”