Catch Rider (9780544034303)

by Lyne, Jennifer H.

  “I think they’re the ones who are lucky.”

  I was kind of embarrassed after I said this.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  The waitress brought the check. Wes grabbed it and pulled out his wallet. “My treat.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I wondered if this was a date. I sure wanted to think so.

  We got in his truck and went back to the barn. Dutch was hauling a sale horse up to The Plains and no one was around, so we decided to go on a trail ride. I got to ride Cherokee. The second I got on his back and sank my weight down into my stirrups, he took off. I gathered up the reins while he was running through the parking lot.

  Wes nearly fell over laughing. He climbed onto his gelding and threw his leg forward in front of the saddle to tighten the girth.

  “I told you! I told you he was crazy! He loves trail rides,” he said.

  We trotted down the edge of the field and cut through the woods. Cherokee knew which way to go, so I got in front. You’re only supposed to let a horse run when you’re heading away from the barn—otherwise they get in the dangerous habit of taking off for the barn when you head home—so we skirted the edge of the field and let them tear. Cherokee was running so fast that tears streamed out of my eyes from the wind. We cut into the woods where Wes said there were some jumps set up. Cherokee tore down the trail and jumped over those coops and gates like they were nothing.

  It was so damn fun to be on a horse with no one watching what you were doing, knowing the horse was going to go over the fence because he wanted to.

  We walked home to let the horses catch their breath. I wanted to ask Wes about Kelly. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out what he would want with her. But it didn’t come up.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  WHEN WE GOT back to the barn, I heard Kelly in the tack room arguing with Dee Dee and crying.

  “But she’s my best friend!” Kelly said.

  “I don’t want you sharing a trainer with her anymore. Dutch gives her too much attention and it’s going to cost you.”

  They were talking about Margaret, the girl I’d seen with Kelly on my first day. I knew she and Kelly were best friends. Margaret boarded her horse there.

  Kelly begged her.

  “It’s always ‘The Margaret Show,’” said Dee Dee. “She needs to find another trainer.”

  Dee Dee was making the girl leave a few weeks before the finals. Wow.

  “She’s pretending to be your friend but she just wants to beat you,” Dee Dee said.

  “She is my best friend.” Kelly was still sobbing. “You’re making her move Limestone? He loves it here!”

  “I have to talk to the vet. I don’t have time for this,” Dee Dee said.

  “You only have horses because you hate people,” Kelly said as Dee Dee walked away. “And they hate you back.”

  I saw Dee Dee’s face, and she was hurt. She saw me and tried to hide it. I wished I hadn’t heard any of that. I didn’t like either of them, but I felt bad for both of them. Kelly was right—Dee Dee liked horses more than she liked people. She had horses around because she was lonely.

  Then I felt a cold shiver as I wondered if I rode horses because I was lonely, too.

  Wes and I just stood there. Finally, Kelly came out of the tack room, saw us, and dried her face off on her sleeve. “Where’ve you been?”

  “We just took a short ride,” Wes said.

  “Sid, you left Gee Gee’s stall unlocked, and she got into the tack room and cut up her leg.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. Immediately I assumed it was my fault. Then I realized that it wasn’t—I hadn’t been near Gee Gee’s stall all day. Why did everyone blame me for everything? Did everyone hate me that much?

  “The vet is sewing it up,” she went on. “Twelve stitches.”

  Wes went to help.

  “I wasn’t in there,” I said.

  “Everyone knows you were. You were cleaning her stall this afternoon.”

  “I was not in there today. It must have been someone else.”

  “Like who?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Well, we know it wasn’t your uncle. He’s sleeping under a bar somewhere.”

  That was it. I didn’t care how upset she was—she wasn’t going to insult my family.

  “I have news for you, sweetheart,” I said. “If I want to knock your teeth out, Wes ain’t going to stop me.”

  “You’re fired,” she said. “If you want to get paid for the day, you better finish cleaning stalls.”

  “Screw you,” I said.

  “Just get out.”

  Everything was happening so fast, I didn’t have time to think. I got my chaps and my saddle from the tack room and went outside.

  As I loaded my tack into my car, a big silver Range Rover pulled into the driveway and a lady got out wearing jodhpurs and rubber boots. I recognized her as an official I’d seen at the horse shows. What in the hell was she doing here?

  Martha came out to meet her.

  “Hello, Madeline,” she said.

  “Good evening, Martha.”

  “Is everything okay? Is this a USEF business call?” Martha asked.

  “Actually, it is. Your granddaughter is a beautiful rider. I’m so happy for her that she qualified for the finals.”

  God, it was so insincere. These old horse biddies were nice to their horses, even nicer to their dogs, but not so nice to each other. I was getting to the point where if I saw a lady over the age of forty-five in riding clothes, I wanted to run for my life.

  “Oh, we’re so happy, too. Thank you. She’ll be taking the horse Idle Dice.”

  “I see. I’m actually here to talk to the girl who rode Idle Dice a few weeks ago. Is she here today?”

  Martha paused.

  I held my breath. What else was I going to get in trouble for?

  “She should be.”

  Martha didn’t know what had happened.

  I came out from behind my car.

  “This is Sid,” said Martha.

  “Hi, Sidney. I’m Madeline Cardwell from USEF.”

  “Hi,” I said. I was going to be fined or sanctioned or never allowed to show again. This day was spelling nothing but doom.

  “There’s room for one more entry in the Maclay Finals. One rider had to scratch, so we’ll take one more from the regionals, and you’re next on the list.”

  I just stared at her.

  “Sidney?” she said.

  “What?” I asked. My brain was numb.

  “You qualified for the Maclay Finals.”

  “My! Congratulations!” said Martha. Madeline Cardwell handed me an envelope.

  “Here’s your official letter. Please call me if you have any questions.”

  They were both smiling at me. I opened the letter. There was a USEF seal at the top, and sure enough, I was being invited to ride in the finals.

  Kelly came out of the barn.

  “She just qualified for the Garden,” Martha told her.

  Kelly’s mouth fell open. Then she asked, “What are you going to ride?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know,” I stammered.

  She looked at me for a long time, and I finally took a breath.

  “You know, you’re only as good as your horse,” Kelly said.

  “No, Kelly, your horse is only as good as you,” I said.

  And I got in my car and left.

  TWENTY-SIX

  IT STARTED TO pour as I was driving over Afton Mountain. I got behind a tractor-trailer heaving slowly uphill with its hazards on. The right lane was blocked off because of falling rocks—pieces of a smashed boulder lay behind orange construction webbing. I took my foot off the gas, feeling the frustration build. Couldn’t I just get up the damn mountain?

  If I’d known I’d qualified, I wouldn’t have mouthed off. I might even have sucked up a little to Martha to borrow a horse from them—that was how badly I wanted to go to New York.

&n
bsp; I stopped by my house and got some things for Wayne. I wanted to make him dinner, figured we could talk over some warm food.

  When I got to his house, he was sitting at his table halfway into a fifth of bourbon, smoking a cigarette and staring at the television. He looked horrible. This bender was getting worse.

  “I’m making you a redneck casserole—tuna fish and corn flakes,” I said, opening a cabinet.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I got fired from the barn.”

  He looked up. “What for?”

  “Mouthing off.”

  “Ain’t that a surprise.” He shook his head, getting upset. “Damn it, girl, don’t you know when to keep it shut? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. That was your chance to make something of yourself.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I said.

  I pulled the letter out of my pocket and handed it to him.

  “What is it?”

  I didn’t answer. He found his glasses and opened it.

  He read it, then looked up at me.

  “I guess I’m lucky they let me qualify.”

  “It ain’t a goddamn lottery. It ain’t luck. You earned it.”

  “I’m not going to find a horse!” I slammed the cabinet and yelled so loudly that he jumped. “I could be great if I had people helping me and if I had a great horse, but I don’t.”

  That was like a knife in his heart, I could tell. It wasn’t like he didn’t know it already, but I was sure he didn’t want to hear it out loud.

  He took a long look at me. “I can get you a horse.”

  I ignored him.

  “You hear what I said?”

  “You would, wouldn’t you? You’d sell me some old nag, and you’d let me take him to New York City. Because you’re a drunken fool.”

  Wayne looked at me hard and pointed his finger. “Oh, so now you all fancy? Well, let me tell you something you don’t know: I went to the National Hunter Finals in Atlanta, Georgia, and showed a horse myself. She was off the track six months. I was fifteen and lied about my age. I jumped that crazy bitch over four-and-a-half-foot jumps in front of five thousand people, and I came in tenth out of forty-one. Not too bad. So when that fancy coach talks about how much he knows, let me ask you how many horses he’s ridden in the middle of downtown Atlanta, half-drunk, at fifteen.”

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  “The hell I am. Rode down in a boxcar with my lunch in a paper sack. You ask your mama if it’s true.”

  I knew when he was lying, and I knew when he wasn’t. This was a true story. I started mixing up the casserole. Wayne opened a drawer, dug through some papers, pulled out a framed photograph, and handed it to me. It was Wayne as a grinning, big-eared teenager on a gorgeous dapple gray horse, holding a big ribbon. It gave me the shivers. It was just an old photo, but for some reason it made me want to cry.

  “Sidney, you’re a catch rider. We’ll find you a horse.”

  “I ain’t got a coach.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “You’re a drunk.”

  “I’ll quit.”

  “Sure you will.”

  I set the timer for thirty minutes and put the dish in the oven. I got my coat. I knew if I stuck around, we’d fight.

  “You be here tomorrow, rain or shine.”

  I walked out and the door slammed behind me.

  I didn’t want to go home, but I had to. All afternoon, along with everything else, I’d been thinking about Melinda and worrying that Donald was going to hurt her. I couldn’t turn my back on her, as mean as she had been to me the night before and as much as it broke my heart. I was just too loyal, kind of like a dumb old dog. Between her and Dee Dee, it seemed mothers were put on this earth just to torture their kids. To find the softest spot in your heart and jam their thumb into it. I knew that all mothers weren’t like this. I knew my mother hadn’t always been like this. Jimmy never would have married her if she had been. I felt like Donald and I were fighting for her soul.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I SPENT THE NIGHT at home, went to school the next day, and dragged through my classes. I decided to go to Wayne’s, like he’d said, and see what he could come up with. The drunk he was on had to be over by now.

  But when I got to his house and opened the door, I found him lying face-down on the floor. I put my hand on him—he was unconscious but breathing. His feet were pointed in, pigeon-toed, and he looked like a doll someone had thrown across the room. Boy, it was horrible seeing him like that. I called 911, and then I just waited, holding his hand and listening to the pot of water sizzling and popping on the wood stove. The fire was about two hours old, but I didn’t know how long he’d been lying there.

  An ambulance pulled into the muddy driveway. It looked so wrong there, its lights flashing as it drove past the tractors and wheelbarrows. Two men got out—one I knew from church and one worked at the farmer’s co-op. They came in and checked him out, put an oxygen mask on him. They said his heart rate was slow. The older one said he was dehydrated and started an IV.

  “This Wayne Stewart, the horse trader?” the boy asked. The other fellow nodded but let me answer.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “He went to school with my daddy. Tough as a mule. They used to bootleg together, but don’t tell no one.” He smiled.

  “He going to be okay?” My voice caught.

  “He looks right frail. We’ll see.”

  I drove to the hospital behind them. Inside, I followed the gurney down the hall and sat in the waiting area.

  A few minutes later, Melinda came flying in the door. “Why didn’t you call me? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I didn’t want you to bring that dirtbag,” I said.

  “Well, it’s a good thing Sandy heard it over the scanner.”

  “Good for her.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Don’t know.”

  She sat down and stared at me.

  A doctor came out and told us we could follow him into Wayne’s room. Wayne looked awful, but he was awake.

  “Your liver ain’t getting any better,” the doctor said.

  “I just quit drinking,” Wayne rasped.

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Should have done it thirty years ago.”

  “So now I just lie here and die?”

  “Don’t be getting mad at me, Wayne. I been telling you for a long time. You might drop dead in a month, you might live ten years.”

  The doctor left, and we all just sat there awhile without saying anything.

  “You know, I been making casseroles for you for forty years,” Melinda said finally.

  “Maybe that’s what did it,” Wayne said without missing a beat.

  She stood up. “I been waking up every day wondering if you fell asleep with a cigarette and burned the house down!” she shouted. “Or if you finally drunk yourself to death. You’re so lucky to be alive, and you just want to die.”

  He reached over slowly and took a sip of water from a plastic cup. “We was born to a mom and dad who didn’t want us,” he said. “The fact that we survived is lucky enough.”

  “We didn’t survive,” she said. I felt kind of bad hearing that. Then Melinda turned to me and said, “You need to stop wasting your time shoveling shit and get a real job.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I said.

  “Horses are the biggest money pit God ever created. How many times did your father say we were broke, then spend his paycheck on a load of hay? Sidney, you need to get to school and make something of yourself.”

  “So I can take care of you?” I asked her. “Is that why?”

  “I’m going home.” She put her coat on and grabbed her purse. “You know, I had dreams, too, Sidney. In case you forgot, the night Daddy died, I was going to sign a lease to open a sewing store, remember?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  She left. I did re
member the sewing store.

  Wayne and I were silent for a long time. I counted the drops of fluid in his IV so I wouldn’t cry.

  Wayne opened his eyes and looked at me, then closed them again. “We’re going to the Garden,” he said.

  “Shut up.”

  “We’re doing this for you.”

  “I could give a shit about the Garden.”

  “I’m going there, and you’re going with me. You got a chance to win the National Championship, girl.”

  I didn’t say anything. I hoped I wouldn’t die like that, lying in a hospital bed with everybody fighting and telling me how dumb I was for doing the things I did. All the people Wayne knew, all the horses he had, all that knowledge he had, and one day he’d just die and all of it would be gone. It couldn’t happen to me. I didn’t think I’d mind being dead—it was the dying part that scared me.

  Wayne had opened his eyes and was staring at me. “Sidney, I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be around. I ain’t in good shape.”

  “You better not drop dead and leave me here alone with these people. I’ll kill you myself.”

  And then, goddamn it, I started to cry.

  “You can’t leave me, Uncle Wayne.”

  “Let’s go to New York,” he said. “We got three weeks.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE NEXT DAY, Ruthie came out to Wayne’s to help me feed. She’d been there a couple of times to watch me ride. We were walking through the deep mud carrying hay. She was grossed out because her feet were making sucking sounds in the mud.

  “How’s he live like this?” she asked me.

  “He could live in a hollow log. Give those horses a bale, too, but break it up so they don’t fight over it.”

  “Okay. You heard about Eileen Cleek?” she asked.

  “What about her?”

  “She dropped out of school to work in the mill.”

  I stopped in my tracks. It had to be a joke.

  “Is that sad or what?” Ruthie said. “She was the last real farm girl, except you. I heard some girls saying she would either be pregnant or cooking meth by the end of the school year.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I know it isn’t.”

  Ruthie threw a clump of hay into the paddock. The horses fought each other for it, ears pinned and teeth bared.