“You know what? You are one fine-looking horse, and I am proud to know that you are mine. What do you think?” His ears flicked back and forth, and he sniffed her hands again.
Outside of his stall, in the barn alley, she snapped the cross-ties in place and began grooming the sleek, dark hide, more black than bay. With both hands occupied with brushes, she kept jerking her mind back to what she was doing when it wanted to head on over to the vet hospital and check on Major. When Herndon was so shiny he looked like he’d been sprayed with water, DJ led him out to the hot walker to burn off some energy while she shoveled out the latest droppings. She could tell Joe had cleaned the stall that morning.
By the time Herndon was saddled and she’d warmed him up, Bridget was standing at the gate, talking with Bunny.
“I will be ready in a minute, DJ. You go on and warm up over the jumping grid.”
But by the end of the lesson, when DJ and Herndon were both dripping, all she could think was how far they had to go to become a team— and how much she missed Major.
The next afternoon, before she worked with Herndon, she stopped by Bridget’s office.
“You got a minute?”
“For you, yes.” Bridget pushed her glasses up on her forehead. “What do you need?”
“It’s about this weekend. Do you think I should show Herndon or just cancel?”
“What do you think?”
“I’d rather stay here and take care of Major.”
“This would be a good first show with Herndon. As we have said in the past, the more you show, the better you will become.”
DJ nodded. “I was afraid that’s what you would say.”
“Then why did you ask?”
DJ shrugged and thought a moment. “I … I just don’t feel comfortable with him yet. Like … I’m always just a tiny bit behind.” She spread her thumb and forefinger apart about an inch. “And if he refuses a jump, I’ll about die.” There, she’d said it, one of her worst fears. The airborne feeling from Major going down shuddered up her spine. What if Herndon got hurt, too?
Chapter • 12
DJ was right. She hated to leave Major again.
“He’ll be all right.” Joe rubbed his old horse’s ears. “He’s a bit skinnier, but then, he was getting fat.”
“He was not.” DJ laid her palm on her horse’s shoulder. Still hot to the touch and tender. But at least he had quit shaking. The brief walk from trailer to stall gave him the shakes so bad, DJ’s teeth rattled. She rubbed in the liniment, murmuring comfort all the time. “Brad said he’d bring down his ultrasound machine to help reduce the swelling.”
“Don’t worry, kid, we got stuff here to help him be more comfortable.” Joe hefted the sack of anti-inflammatories and pain-killers. “And those ultrasound machines are pretty impressive. A doctor used one on me one time, and I healed twice as fast.”
Major snuffled her hair and blew carrot breath in her face. His whiskers tickled and made her smile. “You old lover, you.” She wrapped both arms around his neck and felt him sigh. He braced his weight on three legs, the front one cocked. “I wish there were more I could do to help you.” She looked at Joe. “What if he tries to lie down tonight and can’t get up? He’ll hurt it worse.”
“He’s too smart for that, aren’t you, old man?” Major cocked his head so Joe could continue to rub his ear.
“Don’t call him old.” DJ stepped back. “I’ve got to work Herndon, Major, and then I’ll be back. You be good now.”
“And I’ve got to move the truck.” Joe had backed the trailer through the barn so Major had only to hobble down the gently sloped ramp and right into his stall.
“You think we should cross-tie him so he won’t move around?”
Joe shook his head. “You’ve got to give him credit, DJ. He knows how much his shoulder hurts and that walking makes it worse.”
DJ kissed Major’s nose and gave him one last pat. “See ya, fella.”
He nickered as she left the stall. It took all the strength she could muster to go back down the aisle to Herndon’s stall inside the barn. While the big horse watched her, his nostrils never moved in either a soundless nicker or a vocal welcoming one. His ears pricked the closer she walked, and he finally reached for the treat he already knew would be in her pocket.
Don’t be stupid, her little voice reminded her. You haven’t had him long enough for him to love you like Major does. Besides, remember, some horses by nature aren’t affectionate. Just like some people aren’t.
But the urge to return to Major made her grit her teeth.
“I do think you should go ahead with Saturday’s show,” Bridget said later. “The more time you spend with Herndon, the better.”
Guilt made her stomach twinge. Major needed her, Herndon did not. Afraid that all her thoughts were like a video across her face, she nodded. “I will. Who else is going?”
Bridget handed her the day’s schedule. “At least you will not have to leave at daybreak. And you can come home as soon as you are finished.”
“I guess.”
“DJ, Major will get better.” Bridget’s voice took on a softer note. “I know you are concerned about him, but you cannot let that interfere with your work.”
DJ nodded and let out a sigh that made her shoulders slump. She nibbled her bottom lip, then looked up at her coach. “You think I will ever love Herndon like I do Major?”
“I think so, yes. But there is something special about the first horse you ever own. And that is good. Major has a unique place in your heart, but with love, there is always room for more. And the more you give, the more you get.” She leaned forward. “Give it time, DJ. Give it time.”
The show on Saturday went okay. At least she didn’t end up on Hern-don’s neck, and the ribbons they brought home from Hunter on the Flat and Hunter Over Jumps did help her feel a bit better. Herndon had class, that’s for sure, and he loved the show-ring. The low bars on the jumps hadn’t bothered them much, but she could still feel him hesitate. Not trusting her horse gave her a headache by the end of the day. This, too, will change. She repeated the promise to herself several times in the hopes she would begin to believe it.
“We’s going to see our pony, we’s going to see the pony.” The boys’ chanting when DJ came in the door after the show didn’t help her headache any.
“Okay, okay, give me a minute.” She knew by the hurt looks on their faces that her tone had been sharper than she intended. “Sorry, guys.” She ruffled their hair and touched their noses with one finger. “Let me put my show stuff away and I’ll be right back down.”
“We was waiting for you.” They wore matching kicked-puppy looks.
Guilt again. This time it tightened the vise around her head.
“DJ, what’s wrong?” Lindy strolled out of the living room, her finger holding the place in the book she’d been reading.
“I’ve got a headache, that’s all.” DJ rubbed her neck.
“That’s not like you.”
“I know, but …” DJ scrinched her eyes closed. “Let me get something and I’ll be ready to go.” The thought of all the homework piled on top of her desk made her groan inside. She’d planned to get that paper that was due Monday done last night, but it was taking a lot longer than she thought.
“I’ll sit in back with you and rub your neck. That might help,” Lindy called up the stairs after her daughter.
DJ swallowed a pill and changed her clothes, eyeing both the bed and the Jacuzzi. No time for either, but they sure looked appealing. She and late nights just didn’t do too well, but she didn’t dare tell her mother that.
Once they were all in the car and on the way, Lindy did as she promised. With strong fingers she massaged the tight cords in DJ’s neck and down into her shoulders. “Let your head fall forward,” she said softly, all the while working out the kinks and knotted muscles.
“Oh, Mom, that feels wonderful.” DJ let her eyes drift closed.
“Better?”
“Mmm.”
DJ woke up again when the car stopped. She raised her head from off her mother’s shoulder and blinked at the downing sun shining in her eyes. “Where are we?”
“To see our pony.” Bobby leaned over the front seat. “Come on.”
The pony was everything Bridget had said: good confirmation, friendly and well trained. Thirteen hands tall.
“Our daughter showed him for years, but now she has graduated to a larger horse and we want a good home for him.” The woman patted the black-and-white paint pony.
“We were told he’s Welsh and Arab, but we’re not sure what gave him the paint coloring,” she said in answer to DJ’s question. “General is smart and loves little kids. I’ve never had a moment’s worry when Janny was with him.” She raised her eyebrows. “With her horse now, though, it’s different. He’s a handful.”
The boys took turns riding with DJ leading, then DJ let out the stirrups and rode General herself.
“Janny rode him both English and Western, and he’s flashy enough that he did well.”
“We’ll talk it over and get back to you,” Robert said when DJ dismounted. After her own horse, she’d felt as if she was on a tricycle.
“D-a-d-d-y.” The boys groaned at the same time.
Robert looked at DJ. “What do you think?”
“I think he’d do fine. Bridget thought so, too.”
Robert gave Lindy the same questioning look. She nodded and shrugged.
“For what I know about horses, why not?”
“I guess we all agree, then.” He dug in his pocket for his checkbook to the shrieks of delight from the boys.
“My dad will be back tomorrow to pick him up.” Robert paused before writing any more. “Are the saddle and bridle for sale, too?”
“Sure, and his blanket if you want.” The woman named another figure.
Robert nodded again. “Good, might as well get it all.”
DJ looked at her mother, who gave a slight shrug. I’ll never get used to this, buying something without having to save and work extra hard. You’d think the boys would be spoiled rotten, but they’re not.
Lindy, having read DJ’s thoughts, put her arm around her shoulder. “It’s nice, though, isn’t it?”
DJ nodded.
With the boys finally settling down, halfway home they stopped for ice-cream cones. “To celebrate,” as Robert said.
“Celebrate what?” Lindy asked around licking her pistachio almond cone.
“We’ve got lots to celebrate. DJ, what about you?”
She thought a moment. “Major is doing better.” Another thought. “And I didn’t end up on Herndon’s neck today.”
“Or the ground,” her mother added with a shudder. “I’m glad I wasn’t there last week. Just picturing you flying through the air almost makes me throw up.”
“Everything makes you throw up.” Robert gave her a teasing glance.
Lindy punched him in the shoulder. “I didn’t this morning. I can celebrate that.”
“We’s gots a pony.” The boys bounced on the car seat as they said it together.
“So what are you celebrating?” Lindy looked at Robert and licked a dribble off her finger.
She’s so different. The thought made DJ realize she had that as something else to celebrate.
“I’m celebrating my family, a wife who throws up when I kiss her in the morning, a daughter who takes headers off horses, two boys who out-do the Energizer Bunny, and a baby on the way. What more could a man ask for?”
“D-a-d!”
“Daddy!”
“Robert!”
They all answered at the same time. DJ couldn’t believe she’d said that. But he was her dad, and it felt good to call him so. She looked up to catch his gaze in the mirror. His eyes were shining.
“Thanks, DJ.”
Lindy reached across the back of the front seat and patted her daughter’s knee.
When DJ pleaded to be able to stay home from dinner out and a family drive in order to work on her homework after church Sunday afternoon, things weren’t quite as sunny.
“Are you behind?” Lindy asked.
“Not really, but I’ve got a paper to write and a book report to finish. Plus regular stuff. Finals start in a week.”
“Sorry, DJ. We’ll miss you.” Robert tossed a jacket to his wife. “I’d like for you to plan on time with all of us on the few Sunday afternoons you aren’t at a horse show.” A frown formed a V between his eyebrows. “Your grades are holding up, aren’t they?”
DJ nodded. “And I’m trying to keep them that way.” She wasn’t even riding today. Didn’t they understand that? “Sorry.” She felt like she’d kicked the puppy again at the looks on the boys’ faces.
Brad called that evening. DJ had been attacked by the groggies by that time.
“So what have you decided about the horse camp in New Jersey? We need to get on that.”
DJ rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want to go?”
“Yes, but …”
Brad waited. “But?”
“I don’t know how I’m going to get it all in. Summer school, art school, all the shows, Mom and Robert want me to go on a vacation with the family, the USET, how do I do it all?”
“Guess you’ll have to pick and choose. Let me know as soon as you can.”
“Okay.” She hung up feeling Brad wasn’t too happy with her right now. But then, what was new? At the rate she was going, she had everyone but Gran upset with her, and if she decided not to do art classes in summer school, that would change, too.
DJ eyed the letter propped up against one of her horse statues. Ms. Isabella Gant wrote to invite her to attend the drawing seminar she was offering at the Arts College in San Francisco in July. After the fantastic time she’d had at the last one, she really wanted to do that again.
And Amy was planning on the weeklong pack trip up in the Sierra Mountains that the Academy put on every year. DJ shook her head. She could just see Herndon up in the mountains. Get real. But she could have gone with Major. At least he’d been happy to see her when she pedaled over to feed him that afternoon.
“Our pony is at Grandpa and Grandma’s,” the boys informed her when they came home. “Until Daddy finishes the barn and fences.” They stood beside her desk, eyeing the Jelly Bellys she’d stashed for homework energy.
“Help yourselves, but only a couple.”
They let the rest of their handfuls slide back into the dish.
“We missed you.”
“I missed you, too, but now I have to get this done, okay?” She waited, hoping they would take the hint.
“Bobby, Billy, you let DJ study.” Her mother’s voice floated up the stairs.
“Bye.”
“See ya.” DJ gave a sigh of relief. Searching out a tutti fruiti candy, she put it on her tongue and sucked.
She turned out her light at midnight, with the paper done, but not the book report. When did she have enough extra time to read the remaining hundred pages, no matter how good the book was?
By the time school was out Monday, the butterflies were climbing up her throat, then jumping off like kids into a lake.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Amy said with a groan.
“Me too. Let’s run away.” DJ tossed her backpack onto the floor of Joe’s car.
“You two look like you lost your last friend, but how can that be when you’re together?”
“That reporter from the paper is coming to interview us.”
“Oh, that’s right. The way you look, I’d think she was coming to shoot you.”
“Funny.”
“Might as well be.” Amy rolled her eyes. “I’d rather clean stalls any day.”
“You like cleaning stalls. I’d rather do algebra.”
A strange car was already parked in the driveway.
“Joe, please, drive us somewhere else.” DJ moaned. “Now I know I’m going to be sick.”
Chapter • 13
Worrying about something is always worse than doing it. Or fearing it.
“There, that wasn’t so bad,” Lindy said with a smile at each of the girls. The newspaper woman had just left.
“I guess.” DJ looked at Amy. “Did I sound like a complete idiot or what?”
“Me too.”
“No, you did good.”
“Sure, and the zit on my chin is going to glow like a lightbulb in that picture.” Amy, who rarely had a zit, fingered the offending swelling.
“Well, I think you did a good job, and this will be great publicity. I know businesspeople who would be willing to pay lots of bucks for coverage like this.” Lindy stood and stretched. “I think I’ll walk over and get the boys. Gran must be serving milk and cookies right about now.”
“You wouldn’t like to run us up to the Academy, would you? Amy doesn’t have a bike here.”
Lindy shrugged. “Sure, why not. Although a run over there wouldn’t hurt you.”
DJ checked her Winnie-the-Pooh watch. “I’ve got class in twenty minutes. Zowie, I better get moving.” DJ charged up the stairs to change.
Herndon didn’t like being rushed. He shifted from side to side when she groomed him and sidestepped all the way to the arena.
“Herndon, stand still.” DJ repeated the command when the gelding took a couple of steps while she was trying to mount. He moved again.
She clamped a hand on the reins under his jaw and glared at him. “You stand still, hear me?”
“He is just reacting to you,” Bridget said as she opened the gate and walked through.
DJ knew she was right. She’d been racing around, doing everything at top speed, and all it cost her was a flighty horse and sweaty armpits. She took in a deep breath herself, let it out, and stroked Herndon’s face, down his cheeks, and up around his ears. He tilted his head slightly to the side to make it easier for her to reach his favorite spot and sighed, too.
“I’m sorry, big fella. I know better, but I was running late.” Herndon’s eyes drifted closed, and he rested his forehead against her chest.
High Hurdles Collection Two Page 36