“During school breaks,” Mom said. “She comes when you’re at school, and you can’t miss a day of class. Don’t worry about your horse. I’ll make sure Beth is gentle with him.”
“She’s gentle all the time.” I finished scraping out the dirt, put down the foot and gave Twaz a piece of carrot. I moved to his left rear and ran my hand down from his hip to his ankle. While I cleaned the hoof, I asked, “What happens if he doesn’t get this done all the time?”
“He can get thrush or grease heel or some other hoof infection,” Mom said. “A horse is only as good as his feet. You can buy new tires for that car you want, but you can’t buy new hooves or legs for Twaziem.”
“Have I ever mentioned that I hate cleaning his feet?” I put down the hoof and stepped up to give him another piece of carrot. Third foot. Third carrot and finally I was finished. Yippee! It was over for another day.
While I fed Twaziem carrots, Mom hung around. “So, what did you find out about him when you and your dad went to see Mrs. Bartlett?”
I shuddered and kept my attention on the horse. “Could you talk to Dad about it? I don’t want to think about all the mean things they did to Twaz when he was a baby.”
“Sure.” Mom put her arms around me and rocked me close to her. “Honey, you saved him. He’s going to have a good life here. When you start to think about what he suffered, remember that, too. Okay?”
I buried my face against her shoulder so she couldn’t see me cry. I felt Twaziem nuzzle my hair. Did he think it was hay, or was he just hunting for more carrots?
* * * *
Saturday, September 28th, 6:45 a.m.
The rest of the week zoomed by between school, cross-country practice, the meet on Thursday, which we won, Mom leaving with Singer on Friday and Jack’s football game that night. Surprisingly, Vicky’s dad showed up to take the kids, and she didn’t have any trouble making the game. She was spending the night with Sierra and that meant no problems with her internship.
Saturday morning, I rolled out early. Jack and I did chores together, then I headed for the house to get ready to leave with Dani. Her parents would pick me up on the way to the fairgrounds in Monroe. They’d also drop me off tonight on the way home. It wasn’t the first time I’d gone to the fair. I went every August with friends, and most of the local rodeos were held in the huge arena there.
“I don’t even know what she’s going to do today.” I talked to Salt who sat on the vanity in the bathroom while I put on my makeup. He mewed back, and I knew he wanted breakfast. He really didn’t care about anything but his cat meat. “I just hope I’m a big help to her.”
Wearing jeans, a bright blue turtleneck under my western blouse, and my boots, I looked good, almost like one of the models in a horse magazine. I fed the kittens, then took the money Dad offered. “You’re the best. Thanks.”
“Call if you need a ride,” Dad told me. “We’ll be in Snohomish today, and it’s not that far from Monroe.”
“No worries,” I said, taking the lunch bag he held out. “This is going to be fun. I’ll tell you guys all about it tonight.”
“Sounds good.” Dad dropped a kiss on top of my hair. “I’m leaving all our cell numbers with Zeke so he can call if Twaziem has a problem, but since he’ll spend the day eating, I think your horse will be fine by himself.”
The doorbell rang and I hurried to answer it. Dani stood on the front porch.
“Hi,” I said. “Let me grab my coat and I’m ready to go.”
“We have ten minutes. Let’s go look at your horse.”
I hesitated. “He still doesn’t look that great even if he’s gained almost forty pounds.”
“Stop worrying so much,” Dani told me. “I’m not going to give you heartburn because you have a rescue horse. I’ll bet he’s a lot further along than you think.”
“Okay. Well, let me introduce my dad to your folks,” I said. “Mom’s gone to an endurance ride in Eastern Washington.”
Once the parents were talking to each other, Dani and I headed down to the indoor arena. I spotted Jack in with Nitro, grooming him before they left with Dad. I waved at him, but took her to see Twaziem. “Well, this is him.” I held out a carrot. “Come on.”
He glanced at us, then his attention returned to the bale of alfalfa-grass hay in his manger. “Everything comes second to food,” I said.
“That’s okay for now,” Dani said. “Robin, he looks almost exactly like Lady. He’s the same shade of bay. He even has ankle socks like she does, but she has a baby star in the middle of her forehead while he has a blaze. When you start showing him, he’ll really catch the judge’s eye.”
“I’ve never been to a show before,” I said. “I don’t know if Twaz and I will be able to do it or not.”
“Sure you can.” Dani wiggled a carrot at Twaziem. “I’ll help you and so will Rocky. She and Sierra are wonderful.”
“It’ll still take months before Twaz can be ridden.” I glanced at my watch. “Come on. We need to go.” I took her carrot and mine, then I broke them into pieces and put those in his grain bucket. He’d find them and eat them later. It’d be a good lesson for him since I wanted him to start eating supplements.
We arrived at the fairgrounds almost an hour before the show started. Dani’s mom sounded like a general when she took charge. “Robin, you and my husband can groom Lady again for her first class. It’s halter. She won’t need a saddle. Remember to rub cornstarch into her white socks. And use hair spray on her mane so it stays in place.”
“She needs to be shaved again.” Dani pulled a garment bag and a suitcase from the back of the super cab. “Dad, you’d better do that. Robin won’t know how. And Lady needs her hooves shined.”
“We can handle it.” Mr. Wilkerson smiled at me as the two blondes bustled away in the direction of the indoor arena and the bathroom. He was tall and sandy-haired. “Is this your first show?”
“Yes. My brother games. My dad ropes and my mom does endurance. We have a shower stall in our arena, but mostly we use brushes to groom our horses, and we only fly-wipe during the summer.”
“Well, Lady is a pro.” Mr. Wilkerson strolled toward the back of the trailer. “She behaves perfectly when we bathe, clip, or haul her. Sometimes I’m sure that we need to drop in coins to make her go like one of those rides at the grocery.”
I couldn’t help smiling as he opened the doors. He eased into the trailer, then backed out the mare. He passed me the lead. “Hold onto her for me.”
I did and he climbed back inside only to return with a large tack trunk. “So, do you want to carry this crate? Or lead the horse?”
“I’ll lead her,” I said. “We know each other. I ride her son, Charming.”
Lady was a reddish brown bay with a gold cast to her hide, just like Twaziem. Her mane and tail were long, lustrous, and black. She had four tiny white ankle socks. Of course, there were differences. She was twelve, not two. She was a mare, not a gelding, and she had to weigh at least seven hundred pounds more than my horse. Dani’s mom might say she needed to be groomed, but Lady’s coat gleamed. She must have had a bath last week.
She was as perfect as her name when we headed behind Mr. Wilkerson toward one of the huge barns. No matter who was on the road, she never spooked. She wasn’t afraid of the horse trailers moving around the parking lot or the tractors hauling carts of shavings. Once a little kid raced by, a red balloon bouncing behind her on a string. Lady stopped and waited until the traffic died down, then walked beside me again.
Mr. Wilkerson stopped and talked to a barn official, then went down one of the wide aisles to an empty stall. “Well, what do you think of her?”
“She’s amazing,” I said. “I hope Twaziem acts like her someday.”
“You’ll have to share that with Rocky. She’s the one who trained Lady. And Rocky can make that happen.”
* * * *
Saturday, September 28th, 5:45 p.m.
As we headed home that night, memories jumbled my m
ind. I’d never known there was so much grooming that could be done with a horse. Lady looked like a beauty queen when she went into halter class. Her mane and tail floated in the breeze. Dani told me afterwards that the class was judged on cleanliness and manners. Well, Lady showed both. And she scored a first place.
Dani said it was because of the grooming that her dad and I did, but her mom said that Dani contributed, too. After all, Lady couldn’t have gone in the ring without her. I still had trouble believing the manners that the horses exhibited. And the audience had been different too. There wasn’t any whistling or yelling like I heard at rodeos or gaming events.
Even when the horses galloped in the show ring, they did it very slowly. The emphasis had been on control and discipline. If I closed my eyes, I could see the way Lady loped, as if she was recorded moving in slow motion. It was beautiful. Maybe one day Twaziem would do that same gait. It hadn’t looked frightening. I might be able to ride it.
Dani poked me. “What did you think of your first show?”
“I loved watching the two of you gallop. It was like dancing in an old movie,” I said. “They should have had music.”
“Wait till Rocky teaches you to ride a slow lope,” Dani said. “She plays waltzes until you learn to let the horse flow from one step to the next. It’s always the slower, the better in traditional Western riding. Is that how your family’s horses run?”
“No way,” I said. “They go like they’re exploding from a gate on a racetrack. Jack wants to get his time down to less than fifteen seconds when he barrel races or pole bends. And Buster goes from zero to zoom when he’s after a calf for roping. Felicia does three day eventing. She and Vinnie can jump anything, and she really whines when she has to do a day of dressage and slow down. Endurance is another kind of racing.”
“I guess what I was doing looked boring,” Dani said.
“Are you kidding? I never ride with them, not since Nitro bolted across the highway with me. I love my family, but they’re total speed demons and it freaks me out.”
“Then it makes it even more amazing that you rescued Twaziem,” Dani said. “I’d be so scared if a horse ran away with me that I’d never ride again.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sunday, September 29th, 4:30 p.m.
Nobody showed up to run with me, and I was glad. I needed time to think and running always cleared my head. I jogged down the driveway, turned right and let everything that happened during the past week flow through my mind. Lunch with Harry when he came and joined me on his own, Vicky’s problems with her family, the visit to Mrs. Bartlett’s, leading the cross-country team—the list went on and on and on.
When I returned home, I didn’t have any solutions, but I felt more at peace with myself and the world. I could handle whatever life threw at me. I always managed somehow. Even if I didn’t know what to do about Bill or how to teach Twaziem how to trust guys, an answer would come. I changed to my boots and went down to the barn to help with night chores. I took my horse out to the closest paddock to graze so we could do his stall.
Jack was already mucking when I returned, so I cleaned out the manger. Twaz didn’t need another bale of grass hay. He had about six flakes left, so I added four more. “Dr. Larry says to cut back now and start feeding him more like the other horses.”
“Works for me,” Jack said, pitching manure into the wheelbarrow. “How did your internship go?”
“All right. I learned to stock the truck with medical supplies, and we only had two emergency calls. One was for a colicked horse up past Arlington, and the second was for a colt that gashed his leg on a barbed wire fence. Both horses are going to be fine. Dr. Larry says next time I’ll get to stitch.”
Jack stopped scooping. “Really? He didn’t let me sew anything until I’d been riding along for a year.”
I pulled out the water tub to dump and scrub it. “I’m not looking forward to it. What if I mess up and the horse tears out the sutures?”
“Then, you go back with him and redo it,” Jack said. “That happened at Rocky’s. Sierra’s stepdad decided he knew more than the vet, and Dr. Larry’s associate hadn’t specifically said to keep the horse in a stall while his leg healed. So, we sewed it up again and Dr. L. ripped into Sierra. She told him it was a good lecture and for him to repeat it to her folks.”
I laughed, leaning on the tub. “I can just hear her. She doesn’t take crap from anybody. Today, we bandaged the colt after we sewed him up. Then he couldn’t chew on the stitches when he got bored. Dr. Larry said he couldn’t wear a cone like what you put on a dog, so his owners just have to pay attention.”
“That’s part of having animals.” Jack picked up the last forkful of wet shavings. “You could have Mom teach you to crewel. She uses a lot of the same stitches that Dr. Larry does. Of course, he’s sewing up skin and she sews on cloth when she makes those decorator wall-hangings.”
“And I wouldn’t have to worry about hurting anything. Thanks, Jack.”
He moved on to the next stall. I pulled the tub to the yard and dumped the extra water on the grass. I glanced at the pasture and saw Twaziem stop grazing. He threw his head up, whinnied, and trotted toward the white board fence. I heard an answering neigh and spotted Mom riding Singer across the back pasture from Linda’s place.
Twaziem ran up and down along the fence, but he didn’t seem too agitated. It was more like he just wanted to greet the other horse. I went to meet Mom. “Hi. How was it?”
“Good.” Mom swung out of the saddle and parked her horse near the paddock gate so she could nuzzle Twaziem. “Help me untack her, and then she can go in with him for a little bit while we do her stall.”
“It’s all done. I did it last night during chores.”
Mom hugged me. “Wonderful. Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite?”
I laughed. She got that from some sitcom on TV, and I didn’t believe her for more than a heartbeat. “You told Felicia that when she did your laundry and Jack when he changed the oil in your truck.”
“Well, to be honest, you’re all my favorites.” She stepped to Singer’s left side and began undoing the latigo. “Tell me about the horse show. Did you like it? Was it fun? What did you learn to do? How was your first day with Dr. Larry?”
Before I started chattering, I eyed her. When was the last time I’d asked her about what she and Singer did on a race? Never, I thought. I was a kid and her world revolved around me. Instead, I said, “You first. How was the race? What was the terrain like? Did you see any rattlesnakes?”
* * * *
Monday, September 30th, 7:10 a.m.
It was back to the usual routine the next day. I sat in the Commons with my mocha and a latte for Vicky, and she was late. I sighed and shook my head. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. I just hoped she made it before the bell rang and she was dead meat in Weaver’s class. Porter and Gwen showed up next, and Vicky hustled across the room just as the warning bell rang.
I passed her the latte. “Chug it,” I said. “Weaver will make you toss it if you try to take it in her class. What happened?”
“Oh, the usual,” Vicky said, peeling off the cap. “Dad returned the kids with backpacks of dirty clothes. Mom didn’t wash them, and I about had to take them to day care naked. I ran into Safeway and grabbed a big box of disposable diapers on the way for the baby.”
“Good for you,” Porter said.
Vicky took a big swallow of coffee and shook her head. “Not really. I caught hell for destroying the planet from the day care bitch because it takes a million years for the diapers to die in a landfill. I told her they weren’t my kids, and if she wanted to wash the bag full of crappy diapers, I’d bring it tomorrow. And right now, I had to get to school.”
Gwen laughed so hard that I had to grab her so she didn’t fall on the floor. “Won’t she be calling your mom?” I asked.
“Yeah, probably. And with any luck at all, I’ll be sent to the dungeon.” Vicky drained h
er coffee. “Come on. If we don’t get to Weaver’s in two minutes, we’ll all be in the office for tardy slips.”
She and Porter hurried down the hall ahead of us, and Gwen walked quickly beside me. “So, what’s the dungeon?”
“The daylight apartment in the basement,” I said. “Vicky’s dad redid it as a studio so he could get away from the kids every once in a while. And when her mom gets pissed, Vick is sent there as a punishment.”
“Well, she’d better not let her mom know that she likes being thrown in that particular briar patch,” Gwen said, as we slid into English class, “or she’ll be locked out of it.”
At lunch, Vicky was the first to arrive at my table. “I had a question that I’m supposed to ask you, but there wasn’t time before school.”
“What is it?” I looked around for Harry, then spotted him in the line at the sub-station talking to Dani while they waited for their sandwiches. “Do you want me to babysit for you again?”
“Not yet,” Vicky said. “Are you trying to give my mom heart failure? No, it’s about this Friday’s game. Jack wants you to go with us for something to eat after the game.”
“Jack and I live in the same house. Why didn’t he ask me?”
“Because fixing up his little sister on a date with his buddy just feels creepy.” Vicky opened her carton of milk. “And Bill will be coming along. So, do you want to join us or not?”
I unwrapped my sandwich, trying to figure out how I felt. It had really surprised me when Bill showed up to feed Twaziem apples last week. I hadn’t known that he liked me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about him.
“It’s not that hard of a question, Robin. Do you want to come or not?”
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