A Horse to Love

by Nancy Springer

  Erin.

  She was in there, running the vacuum cleaner, down on her hands and knees with her skinny hind end in the air, fishing things out from under the furniture.

  “Erin Laine Calahan!” Tawnya was too startled to be very angry.

  Erin came up with a jerk, bumping her head against the coffee table. She rubbed it with her left hand, still clutching the vacuum with her right. She was fully dressed, and by the looks of things had been at work for some time. The tall clock over the fireplace said quarter past six.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to wake you.” Erin looked guilty. “Go back to bed.”

  “I’m up now.”

  “I thought I could get this done early. I’ve already changed my bed and scrubbed the bathroom, and dusted, and—”

  “Turn off the vacuum cleaner,” said Mrs. Calahan, “and go back to bed yourself. It looks as if it’s raining, anyway.”

  Erin gasped and jumped up to look out the picture window. In the pale light before sunrise, big splatters of rain could be seen coming down, polka-dotting the driveway.

  “Oh, no!” Erin wailed. “Everything is going wrong lately.” From sheer tiredness, she started to sniffle. Sighing, her mother came over and gave her a hug.

  “Go back to bed,” she ordered, and Erin did.

  Shortly after nine Erin was awakened by a gentle shaking. Her mother stood over her.

  “It’s stopped raining,” Mrs. Calahan said.

  Erin struggled, getting tangled in the sheets in her hurry to lift the window shade. Outside, grass and leaves were wet, but the sun was shining. Already in her clothes, Erin made a dive for her riding boots.

  “All right!” she exclaimed. “I mean—can I go?”

  “Yes, you may go. By the way, you did a nice job on the bathroom.”

  Erin was already out in the garage, getting her bike.

  “Just do it in daylight the next time!” her mother yelled after her.

  Erin pedaled off at top speed, pretending not to hear.

  “Blast,” said her mother to herself. “I forgot to make her eat.” She stood watching the bike sail away down the road.

  Aunt Lexie was working a colt in halter on the driveway, and Erin slowed her bike to a crawl so as not to startle the youngster.

  “So there you are,” Aunt Lexie remarked. “Sleep in?”

  “Sort of. I mean, my mother wanted some help aound the house.”

  “Huh. Yes, I guess she would, now and then. She should see mine.”

  Erin smiled. She had been inside Aunt Lexie’s home a few times, briefly, and the place was like a jungle. Dirt and clutter, and cobwebs hanging down in loops Tarzan could swing on, fuzzy stuff growing on surfaces like moss. Wild. The tack room in the stable, with its own sink and small refrigerator, its heater, cot, and the framed hunting prints on the walls, seemed far more homelike. It was not hard to tell where Aunt Lexie really lived.

  “Ready to ride? We’ll try her in the ring.”

  Not the small canter ring, but the larger training ring behind the stable. Erin went to Spindrift’s stall. The mare, as usual, turned her back. But while she refused to come to Erin’s call, she could be bribed.

  “Come get your oats,” Erin told her.

  She swung around slowly, came over with supreme slowness and lipped the handful of oats. Erin took hold of her mane with the other hand and slipped the halter on her when the oats were gone. Spindrift swung her head sideways in bored protest.

  “Grouchy mare,” Erin accused.

  She groomed her, and Aunt Lexie brought several saddles. The one that fit William sat up too high on Spindrift, who was rounder. The oldest, most dried-up saddle fit best.

  “You take that home and mink oil it,” Aunt Lexie ordered.

  More work.

  The girth was a problem—since Spindrift was so hay-bellied, it had to be very long. Finally Aunt Lexie found one that fit, not a leather one but one made of strands of cotton cord, dusty from being hung on a hook in the loft.

  “Don’t recall when I got it, or what for,” Aunt Lexie muttered with a puzzled look.

  Erin buckled it on. She tugged and strained at the billets to pull it tight. This was something she always had to do for herself—Aunt Lexie could not manage it since she had hurt her back.

  “Got it good and tight? All right.” Aunt Lexie brought a light bridle with a plain eggbutt snaffle. “I don’t think she’ll need a noseband,” she said, more to herself than to the girl. Erin slipped the bit into Spindrift’s mouth, and Aunt Lexie showed her how to adjust the cheek straps so that the bit sat correctly in the horse’s mouth.

  “Just one wrinkle at the corners of her lips.…”

  Erin led her horse out to the ring, nearly skipping with happy anticipation. Her very own horse to ride. Soon they would be cantering across the countryside.…

  “Now,” said Aunt Lexie, flatly, as she said everything, “you ride at a walk today. Maybe next week we’ll try for a trot. You won’t get to canter her for a month or two.”

  Erin gaped. Another dream shattered. “Why not?”

  “Because she’s not in condition. Yet. Not supple. Or strong. It’s dangerous to ride at speed on a horse that’s not fit. Next week I’ll show you how to longe her up there in the canter ring, and after maybe six weeks of that, three times a week, she’ll be ready.”

  Speechless, Erin pulled her stirrup irons down the leathers and mounted. Spindrift started to move off, then stopped.

  “Did you tell her to go?” Aunt Lexie asked.

  “No.”

  “Make her whoa if she walks off. Did you tell her to stop?”

  “No.”

  “Huh.” Aunt Lexie gave a puzzled shrug. “Well, get your heels down. Stirrups the right length?”

  They were. Erin checked her seat, let her weight settle into the saddle, looked out wide-eyed over white ears. Time to ride. She signaled for the walk.

  Spindrift swung her head up and down but refused to move.

  “She’s balking,” Aunt Lexie said. “Strange place, maybe. Try again.”

  Erin tightened her legs and clicked her tongue to send Spindrift forward. The mare flattened her ears back against her neck and stepped backward.

  “Give her a good kick.”

  Erin did. The mare started forward with a jump, then walked, but her ears were still back, she swished her tail angrily at every step, and Erin could feel how tense she was under the saddle. The walk was stiff and jolting.

  “Keep your hands real soft,” called Aunt Lexie. “She has to learn she can trust you not to hurt her.”

  Erin made two circuits of the ring, hoping Spindrift would relax, but if anything the mare grew more nervous. She speeded her walk into a rough, jarring trot.

  “I said walk her today!” Aunt Lexie yelled. “Keep her at the walk!”

  Erin signaled the mare with her back muscles and gently tightened her reins. Spindrift tossed her head and fussed.

  “Keep your hands light!”

  “They are,” Erin muttered, too softly for Aunt Lexie to hear. Concentrating on following the mare’s abrupt movements with her hands, she felt as if she were losing her seat, as if every jolt threatened to throw her off.

  “Do some circles!”

  Erin pressed with her inside leg and hinted with the right rein, trying to guide her mare in a circle to the right. Spindrift balked, stopping where she was.

  “Keep her moving! Use leg!”

  Erin tightened her legs on Spindrift, nudged with her heels. Spindrift only rounded her back, bunching to buck. Just as Erin lifted her legs to give a sharp kick, Aunt Lexie shouted again.

  “I said use some leg on her!”

  “I am!” Erin yelled out loud. She had never shouted at Aunt Lexie before, or so much as answered back, but it had been a hard week. “I am using leg, and I am keeping my hands soft, and I never told her to trot! She’s all fussed up! She’s about ready to toss me!”

  For a moment Aunt Lexie looked s
hocked and furious. Erin stiffened, certain she was doomed to die. But then, sheepishly, the old woman smiled.

  “That’s my girl,” she said. “When I’m out of line, you stand up to me, Erin.” She walked over to the balky mare, took hold of the cheek strap. “Okay, get off her. Something’s wrong. We’ll have to start over, try another bit, maybe.”

  They walked back to the stable in silence, with Erin leading Spindrift by the reins. They put the mare between the cross ties, and Aunt Lexie slipped the bridle off the mare, looking carefully at her lips and mouth. “Nothing wrong there that I can see,” she said. “You might as well halter her and get the saddle off her. No use riding her anymore today.”

  Erin did as she was told. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Dunno, kiddo. I have to think.”

  But as the cotton-cord girth fell away from Spindrift’s side, a tuft of hair came with it. Erin ran her hand along a raised line, like a welt, on Spindrift’s side and belly, and Aunt Lexie whistled.

  “Wheeee-oo! So that’s it. Son of a gun.”

  “What happened?” Erin asked, trying to stroke the crimped hairs flat.

  “Fold of skin caught between the cords. Stupid me. I just remembered why I stopped using that girth. Try the soft brush, Erin.” Aunt Lexie strode off toward her house.

  Erin brushed anxiously at the line. There was no blood or anything like that, not even bare skin that would start a girth gall, but she still felt awful. She thought, I was the one who tightened the girth, I should have noticed. “Poor Spindrift,” she said aloud.

  After several minutes Alexandra Bromer returned, rolling her eyes. “I was using it as a draft doggie,” she said. “Clean forgot what it was for in the first place.”

  She was carrying something that looked like a piece of bathroom rug.

  “Girth cover,” she explained to Erin. “Should have thought of it before,” she admitted. “You’ve got a super nice little horse there, kiddo. A lot of them would have reared up under you. Gone over backward, even. The way we had it, that girth pinched her every time she took a step.”

  “Oh, no!” Erin wailed. “You mean I hurt her the whole time?”

  Aunt Lexie gave her a surprised look. “It didn’t take us that long to catch on. You’re bound to make mistakes, Erin. Only way you learn. Let’s get this girth cover on that excuse of a girth and try it again.”

  The fuzzy piece of cloth Aunt Lexie had brought fit over the girth like a sleeve. Erin saddled and bridled Spindrift again, and this time everything worked nicely. During the next hour, with Erin keeping her hands soft and quiet, Spindrift made a start on learning to relax her jaw, yield on the bit, and respond to English reining.

  “She’s smart,” Aunt Lexie said. “Loads of sense, that horse.”

  “How’s the horse?” Mr. Calahan asked at supper.

  “Okay. Aunt Lexie says she has a nice pleasure walk,” Erin reported proudly. “Says she might have some Arabian blood in her, as pretty as her head is.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Don Calahan, eating. Arabian blood meant nothing to him.

  “She learns fast.” Erin gulped a huge forkful of spaghetti.

  “Aunt Lexie says we have to have the vet up,” she added as an afterthought. “Spindrift needs her teeth floated—that’s part of the reason she’s not in better shape. And she might as well have her worm shot and her five-in-one shot at the same time.”

  “Good grief,” said her father, looking dazed, understanding none of this except his part in it. “Another bill.”

  “What do you mean, teeth floated?” asked Mike.

  “That’s when they file down the sharp edges of the teeth so the horse can chew better.”

  “Poor horse,” Mike sighed. “How did she ever get along without you?”

  Erin did not bother to answer or scowl at his teasing tone. She was still astonished that she was alive, that she had talked back and Aunt Lexie had not killed her.

  Chapter Six

  “How’s the horse?”

  It was Marcy Gilmore, taking a seat next to Erin on the school bus, Monday morning bright and early. Erin looked at her with a sidelong, uneasy glance, as if she were a shying horse herself. Marcy had been part of that shouting crowd on Friday, had she not? But come to think of it, she had not done any of the shouting that Erin could remember. And she looked friendly.

  “Okay,” Erin said. “We have to have the farrier out sometime soon.”

  “The what?”

  “The blacksmith. The horseshoer,” Erin explained. “I won’t be able to ride her much until we do.”

  And even then, she thought with a pang, only to go around a ring at walk and trot, until Aunt Lexie gave the word. A far cry from her dreams of cantering across the countryside.

  “But Aunt Lexie wants to show me how to longe her,” she added bravely.

  “Lunge her? You mean, make her jump?”

  “Nuh-uh. It’s when they make the horse go around in a circle, on a long line—”

  “Oh yeah.” Marcy sounded interested. “I’ve seen them do that. What’s it for?”

  “To build up Spindrift’s muscle and make her supple. That means make her bend—”

  “Spindrift?”

  “That’s what I named her.”

  Erin began to feel dizzy with delight. Here, at last, was a person who really wanted to hear about her horse. Really! She could tell. Eyes wide and happy, she settled back and talked about Spindrift. Marcy nodded and listened and asked questions. When the bus pulled up in front of the school, Erin was still talking and Marcy was still listening.

  “Back of the industrial park,” Erin was saying, “where it turns to country, there’s miles of good riding trails, Aunt Lexie says. Once school’s over I’ll be able to go riding all day.”

  The other kids were piling off the bus. Marcy and Erin blinked, and Erin realized that she had been chattering nonstop for almost half an hour.

  “Hey,” she said lamely as they got up, “it’s been nice talking to you.”

  “I like hearing about horses,” Marcy said.

  “Well, hey—” Erin followed her off the bus with an armload of books. “I’d like to let you come see her, really I would. But it was dumb of me to say people could ride her, before.”

  Marcy looked at her with an odd, tight expression on her face. “I wasn’t going to ask,” she said, and before Erin could say anything, she turned and disappeared into the crowd of kids arriving for school. Erin stood feeling somehow uncomfortable, not wanting to know why.

  Nothing was ever simple.

  It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm but not too warm, with just enough breeze to keep the flies away, a perfect day for riding. The school hours dragged. Erin chewed on her knuckles and messed up badly on a math quiz. On the bus, going home at last, she tapped her fingers against the window glass as if she could somehow break out and speed to the stable on her own. Marcy was not on the bus, and Erin sat alone.

  “Dip!” Mikkie Orris jeered from across the aisle. “Hey, Erin. Are you a dip or a dumbhead?”

  Of course there was no answer to that.

  “Or a dippy pig?”

  “Don’t you know?” someone else joined in, as if it were no more than a game. “She’s a dipstick!”

  Most of the kids were full of spring fever, bored and restless. Delighted with the game, they started a chant.

  “Dip-STICK! Dip-STICK! Dip-STICK! Dip—”

  “Shaddup!” the bus driver yelled, but they didn’t. Not entirely.

  Their chanting followed her as she got off the bus at her stop and ran. She always ran, so they did not bother to chase her. Biting her lip, she let herself into the house and watched through the drapes until they were all in their homes. Then she headed off down the road to see Spindrift.

  Halfway to the stable she remembered the dishwasher.

  “Oh, maaan—” It was a plea to the heavens.

  She turned her bike around and tore back home, ran
from dishwasher to table and cupboards, found the note her father had left her, and turned the crock pot to high as he had directed. He did most of the meal planning and cooking, as her mother got tired of dealing with food at work. Erin checked to make sure she had remembered everything, then pedaled off at top speed toward Willow Hill Farm.

  Aunt Lexie was not there.

  Erin could not believe it. She knocked on the house door, even. But Aunt Lexie did not answer, and her Blazer was missing. Though it hardly seemed like her, she must have gone on some errand somewhere.

  “Oh, CRUD!”

  Erin stood thinking resentfully of all the things that had gone wrong. Parents who wanted dishwashers emptied, and the stupid math quiz, and the kids calling her names, and now Aunt Lexie, not there for her. She felt an urge to run away. She and Spindrift, galloping off into the wilderness …

  Suddenly she balled her fists and strode down to the stable. If she could not run away, she was going to at least have a real trail ride.

  Grooming her mare and tacking her up, Erin felt herself relax, as she always did. Anger trickled away, and a tingle of excitement filled her instead. Dreaming of a canter, wind in her hair, she nearly went without her hunt cap. But then she jammed the silly velveteen-covered thing on her head and buckled the chin strap. Better not be too reckless. She decided against the canter, this time. Just a nice quiet trail ride at the walk. She went over a checklist as she led the mare out.

  “Safety bars open? Check.” Better to drop a stirrup than be dragged by a runaway, Aunt Lexie said. “Reins straight? Girth tight? Check. Anybody know where we’re going? How could they—I don’t know myself!” She grinned, full of the spirit of adventure. “Off we go, girl!”

  The good, good sound of stirrup irons snapping down their leathers into place. Spindrift moved off while being mounted, instead of standing still as she was supposed to, but Erin didn’t care. It felt fine and tall to ride out all alone. Down the lane, along the woods to the path that led through them. Moving along with her face at the level of the opening tree buds, their tiny yellow-green flowers brushing her cheeks, sun warm on her back, the creak of saddle leather and the rocking rhythm of the walk … it was a blissful ride. Spindrift’s head nodded eagerly, her long mane stirring. Three deer stood back in the woods and watched them pass—Erin would not have noticed them, so still, except that Spindrift raised her head and looked. Then she saw them, every detail, their dark noses and big ears and the red sheen of their springtime coats. They stood and let her study them, not afraid of the horse. And there were birds calling and flying across in front of them, and the star-shaped spring flowers in the grass. Erin felt as if she could see everything for miles. And Spindrift was being an angel. Erin could not imagine what Aunt Lexie had been waiting for.