A Horse to Love

by Nancy Springer

  “Dipstick,” Mikkie Orris suddenly accused from across the aisle. “How’s the horse, Dipstick?”

  Feeling good, Erin just smiled at her. Lucky as she was, she couldn’t blame Mikkie too much for calling her names. After all, she had a horse, and Mikkie didn’t.

  Springtime days, each one a little longer than the last. Erin was dreaming of summer days, when she would be able to spend hour upon hour with her beloved horse. She worked Spindrift at walk and trot in the training ring, feeling the mare respond more willingly to her touch on the reins, to her signals with the leg. Twenty minutes of longeing three times a week, plus Aunt Lexie’s careful feeding, had already reduced the hay belly. Erin knew it when she was able to start using a shorter girth, a good leather one, instead of the cotton-cord one in its fuzzy cover. And Spindrift’s shoulders and hindquarters were already showing some muscle, and her neck was beginning to arch.

  The farrier came to shoe Spindrift Thursday evening. Erin watched in awe as he rasped her hooves level, measured their angle with his gauge, fitted and nailed on the shoes. The farrier said Spindrift was a nice horse. He probably said that to nearly everyone, but Erin felt proud.

  Friday after school, then, was the time for her to ride Spindrift out.

  It rained in the morning, to Erin’s mixed dismay and relief—she was still a little bit afraid. But it cleared by afternoon, and she discovered that she very much wanted to ride. She ran home from the bus stop and rushed through her chores, but made sure she did them all—these days she always made sure she emptied the dishwasher and set the table. At the stable, Aunt Lexie was waiting.

  “You know you’re likely to have some trouble with her,” the old woman warned. “She’ll remember the last time you rode her out. She’s had plenty of time to think about it.”

  Erin shrugged. Best to meet trouble head-on. She planned not ever to let fear get the better of her again. She sweet-talked Spindrift out of her stall, patted her, then groomed and tacked her up in silence. In a short time she led her out and mounted as Aunt Lexie stood at the mare’s head.

  “Keep her to the walk when you go out alone, for now,” said Aunt Lexie, looking worried. “You have your headgear?”

  Erin just nodded, although the bicycling helmet was right on top of her head for anyone to see.

  “Safety bars open?”

  Erin nodded again. They always were.

  “Don’t go anywhere except where you told me.”

  “I know,” said Erin, losing patience.

  Aunt Lexie stepped back with a sigh. “I wish I could go with you,” she said. “It would be so much easier. But my confounded back … Well, be careful.”

  “Off we go, girl!” Erin signaled for the walk. Spindrift lifted her head and planted her feet, swaying backward.

  “Leg!” Aunt Lexie shouted, and Erin kicked. Spindrift started off, but slowly, weaving from side to side of the lane.

  “What did she do that for?” Erin called. But Aunt Lexie was out of earshot.

  “Are you sick?” she asked her horse. The mare’s ears were tilted at an odd angle, as if she was listening back over her shoulders, and there seemed to be a catch in her walk as they reached the end of the lane.…

  Without any reason or warning that Erin could see, Spindrift shied hard, spun around, and started back for the barn at a headlong gallop. Erin was flung up over her neck, standing in the stirrups. She grabbed hold of the mane to stay on. “Whoa!” she shouted, pulling back hard on both reins with her one free hand. But Spindrift, if anything, ran faster. Still jerking at the reins, Erin tried to settle her weight in the saddle, but she was jounced about crazily. The mare was paying no attention to her at all. Fence posts whirled by at a dizzying speed. Aside from sheer terror, Erin felt all the angry shame of being run away with, and another rule, perhaps number millihundred, flashed through her mind: Never let your horse canter back to the barn. Though what Spindrift was doing could hardly be called a canter.

  “Aunt Lexie,” Erin yelled, “look out!”

  The mare was trying to run right into the stable, right into her stall! Erin ducked, lying low on the horse’s neck. But Aunt Lexie was ready for her, and closed the big door with a rumble. Spindrift slid to a lurching stop as it banged shut—if Erin had not been lying on her neck already, she would have been over it and off, for sure. The mare sidled right up to the stable wall, pressing Erin’s leg against the brick. Erin kicked angrily, with no result, as Aunt Lexie stood with her knuckles on her hips.

  “Well,” said Aunt Lexie, “you didn’t go where you told me after all.”

  “What is the matter with this horse?” Erin cried. “She ran away with me!”

  “Barn sour.” Aunt Lexie came up and took hold of the bridle by the cheek strap. “I told you you’d have trouble. Think she has her monthlies, too. That makes them touchy, mares. Just like us. You all right?”

  Erin scarcely heard. “How could she do that to me!” she wailed.

  “She didn’t do it to you,” Aunt Lexie said. “Nothing personal. She just did it, and you happened to be on her at the time.”

  Erin stared. “Sheesh,” she said more calmly. “It’s like my dad said. One thing after another.”

  Aunt Lexie smiled. “Yup,” she agreed. “You stayed with her very well,” she added. “Now listen, in case that happens again …”

  She was to pull the horse’s head around, making her circle. Or jiggle the bit, two-handed, rocking it from side to side, since a horse tends to lean against a bit that is pulled straight back. Or pulley rein—strictly an emergency measure, as it hurts the horse. Even angry and frightened as she was, her heart still pounding, Erin wondered if she could ever hurt Spindrift.

  “Now,” said Aunt Lexie, her tone growing stern, “you take her in the training ring and work the buns off her. An hour, two hours, until she figures it’s not worth her while to run back to the barn.”

  Erin signaled the horse to walk. Spindrift pinned her ears back and stood where she was, by the stable, looking like a small white mule. Chewing her pipe, Aunt Lexie strode into the tack room, coming out a moment later with a riding crop.

  “You know how to use a stick? Behind the saddle, no harder than you have to, but hard enough to make her do what you say. Now ride her into that ring.”

  It took ten minutes. Spindrift moved once the crop was in Erin’s hand—she had seen it. But she scooted backward, danced sideways, balked and spun in her efforts to stay by the barn. Once forced near the ring, she refused the gate until Erin sent her through with a hard kick, a lick, and a yell. Erin had never fought with a horse before, and the whole process was against her way of thinking that the horse should be her friend, friend, friend—but anger helped her. Blast Spindrift, anyway, the stupid, stuck-up, grouchy mare, she would show her. She owned her, and she would ride her, and phooey on her. Aunt Lexie closed the gate behind the mare’s flying tail, then stayed by it to coach.

  “Trot her out! Eight, ten times around. Keep her going when she wants to stop.”

  Erin trotted her, posting until her legs ached. Fully roused, Spindrift kept trying to break into a gallop. The training ring slowed her, and Erin would bring her back with a rocking bit, make her go in circles until she was dizzy.

  “That’s it.… Go the other way now.”

  Erin was sweating nearly as hard as the horse. She brought a hand up to wipe her forehead, glanced at Aunt Lexie, then peered. Someone was standing beside the old woman, someone young—Marcy? No. Hi yi yi, it was Mike.

  Spindrift took advantage of the moment’s break in her concentration to dart toward the barn.

  “Circle!” Aunt Lexie yelled.

  “Check it out,” said Mike in an awed tone. “That Spindrift is spinning for sure.”

  “And drifting toward the barn,” Alexandra Bromer snapped. “Erin! Straighten her out! Kick her up toward the other end.”

  Spindrift lifted her forelegs in a low rear.

  “Hands low! Stay with her! Crop! Leg!”
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  “I don’t believe it,” Mike breathed. “She can really ride!”

  “That she can,” said Mrs. Bromer curtly. “She has a good seat and first-rate hands. All she needs is some experience. Erin! Make her do figure eights!”

  They watched awhile longer as Erin struggled with the mare.

  “That’s it!” Mrs. Bromer hollered at Erin after a while. “Keep her busy. Turn her around. Now back her up. Okay, do some serpentines. After that, diagonals. Whatever it takes to get her listening to you.”

  The serpentines were ragged, the diagonals bent toward the barn. But within an hour Spindrift was walking quietly around the training ring and yielding on the bit.

  “Show’s over for today,” said Aunt Lexie to Mike. “Tell your mother that Erin will be late, please. That mare is going to take a lot of cooling.”

  “Check it out!” Mike murmured as he left. “Awesome.”

  Erin arrived home very late and smelling strongly of sweat and horse. She had to shower before she ate. Her father had cooked his specialty, chicken tetrazzini, and her mother was stirring stewed tomatoes. They’d waited for her without much complaining.

  “I couldn’t believe it,” Mike told the family over supper. “Erin really looked like she knew what she was doing.”

  Erin glanced at her brother with a frown, waiting for the other shoe to drop. So did her parents. It was not like Mike to be openly nice. He took their stares as expressions of doubt.

  “I really mean it! She looked super. And the horse was rearing and bucking and cutting the cheese and everything.”

  “Mike!” said Tawnya Calahan, shocked.

  “Spindrift was not bucking,” Erin said hotly.

  Mr. Calahan had his eyebrows raised high. “She was misbehaving?”

  “Aunt Lexie says it’s about time she tested me out. She says I won. It probably won’t happen again, or not so bad.”

  Aunt Lexie had also said something about working Spindrift at the canter within the next week. Erin smiled, then sighed. Spindrift’s headlong gallop had certainly been a new, bone-jarring experience compared to William’s floating carousel-horse gait. She wondered how long Aunt Lexie had worked with William on his canter.

  “She wasn’t even hanging on!” Mike exclaimed. “How can you stay on without hanging on?”

  “Balance.” She still could not believe he really meant what he was saying.

  “Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall off?”

  “I fell off William lots of times, learning to ride.” The hunt cap and the soft dirt of the ring had always taken the worst of it. “There’s nothing to it. So why hang on?”

  Mr. Calahan stared hard at her. “You never told me that!”

  “Well, anyway, she looked mean,” said Mike. “The Squirt can really ride.”

  “Stop calling me Squirt,” Erin told him calmly, almost relieved that he was being nasty at last. She knew he just did it to make her mad. “There’s a lot of things I never told you,” she said to her father.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Such as?”

  “Such as—” She took a huge bite of tetrazzini and chewed it thoroughly, enjoying his silent impatience, her mother’s curious look. And neither of them could order her to talk with her mouth full, after all the times they had ordered her not to.

  “Such as,” she said finally, swallowing, “if you get any phone calls for a babysitter, it’s because I went around the development and told people I would. Time I earned some money to help pay for horse bills.”

  “You what?” Don Calahan exclaimed.

  “Went around the development. Door to door. With a bunch of cards I made, sort of like business cards, with my name and phone number on them.”

  “You did that?” Tawnya Calahan sounded as surprised as her husband. “When?”

  Erin shrugged. “Different days. Whenever it rained too hard to ride in. And people were real nice. I offered to walk dogs, too.”

  “I’ll be darned,” said Don Calahan. “That was really spunky, Sq—Erin.”

  “But do you know how to babysit?” added her mother anxiously.

  “I’ll learn,” said Erin. “You know I learn real fast.” She grinned at her mother. “And I hope they ask me mostly at night. When I can’t ride anyway.”

  Chapter Ten

  Aunt Lexie told Erin to work Spindrift on the ground, with a lead chain, reviewing “whoa” and “back.” Erin kept at it until the mare obeyed without pulling against the chain. Then she would reward her with a jelly bean. After a few days of this, it was time for Erin to ride Spindrift again. Aunt Lexie sucked at her pipe for a while, then put a different bit on the bridle, a bit with a jointed mouthpiece like a snaffle but short shanks like a curb.

  “Called a Tom Thumb,” she explained briefly. “Little more severe. Make her pay attention, but keep your hands light unless she gives you trouble.”

  Erin nodded.

  “She’s been out all night,” Aunt Lexie said, “and I longed her this morning, so she’s tired. She should behave. But don’t figure on going far.”

  She gave Erin instructions. Ride halfway down the lane, then turn back. Spindrift would probably balk when walking away from the barn and try to rush coming back. Erin was to push her past the barn and take her up the driveway, to the road, and then back.

  “Do that maybe fifteen, twenty times. Keep pushing her past the barn until she doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going. Take her around the house and back, into the ring and back, wherever else you can think of. Keep her guessing. Maybe one time go all the way down to the woods, and another time just as far as the house. And keep at it until she gives up on the barn. Fake her out. The more she doesn’t know what’s going on, the more she has to listen to you. You got it?”

  Erin nodded and swung herself into the saddle. “Whoa!” she ordered fiercely as she put her weight in the stirrup, and Spindrift stood perfectly still for her.

  “She learns,” Aunt Lexie said, lifting her pipe in a sort of salute. “She learns fast. All she needs is to be worked with. Now, who’s this coming?”

  A gleaming Mercedes was pulling into the driveway. Aunt Lexie shaded her eyes, peering. “Must be the buyers,” she muttered.

  “Should I go home?” asked Erin.

  “Heck, no. That Spindrift’s a credit to any stable, even as sourpussy as she is. Go ahead and take her out. Make her whoa and back up if she gets too bullheaded.”

  Erin did. It was a good two hours before the mare stopped swerving toward the stable at every pass. During that time Erin saw Aunt Lexie showing a well-dressed woman and man six yearling colts and fillies and four two-year-olds, putting them through their paces on halter and longe and driving reins. Aunt Lexie looked out of place beside her visitors in her muddy duck boots and her old army-surplus jacket. It shouldn’t matter, Erin thought. The colts were beautiful.

  When the buyers were gone and Spindrift was put away, Erin went out and found Aunt Lexie leaning against the pasture fence. Slumped, rather.

  “I don’t understand it,” Aunt Lexie said aloud, talking to the air. “Anybody with sense knows a Morgan is supposed to be a tough all-purpose horse. But these days all they think about is the show ring. Grow their hooves long, put chains on their feet, make ’em step high. Keep ’em in stalls all the time, good for nothing but showing. They’re raising them oversize and long-legged, willowy, no substance. Sissy looking.”

  “Didn’t they buy any?” Erin asked.

  “Oh, yes, they bought some. And there’s others that come, and they buy, too. Some. But never enough, and never at a fair price. ‘Old style,’ they call my colts. Ever since my old stallion died a few years back, I’ve been losing money. Heck, by the time I pay the stud fee and the feed bill and the vetting and what not, it’s not worth it.” Aunt Lexie sighed. “I tell you, kiddo, I’m going to have to give it up.”

  Erin listened silently, not alarmed. Adults often talked in this gloomy manner, she had found.

  “Mares don’t take, ha
lf the time, anyway,” Aunt Lexie burst out. “What with trailering to the stud, and foal heat, and having to take the foal along. It’s just too iffy to get them bred right, and I hate to trailer a foal to the stud. Half my mares, at any time, I’m feeding them and they aren’t producing. It doesn’t pay.”

  “Why don’t you get your own stud again?” Erin asked. “I’d like to see a mare get bred sometime.”

  “Because I’m in no shape to handle a stallion anymore.” Aunt Lexie straightened, making a face. “Ooooh, my back. I overdid it.”

  “I’ll water and feed,” said Erin, and Aunt Lexie gave her a crooked smile.

  “It’s a good thing I have you around, kiddo.”

  Within the next few days Erin started riding Spindrift down along the woods again. All went well and the rides were lovely, great clumps of phlox and crowsfoot in bloom along the trails. Within a few days, also, she began to canter her mare in the small, circular ring. The size of it, just large enough for longeing, kept Spindrift at a slow, easy canter. Those first few canters were awkward, but Erin no longer expected things to be perfect right away. After some practice, she and her mare would move into the larger ring. And then—the end of school just a few weeks away, and the whole summer before her, the world at her feet …

  The middle of the week brought beautiful May weather. Thursday afternoon Erin started off on Spindrift, trail riding. With a wave to Aunt Lexie, she took her mare at a nice jog down the lane. Everything seemed, at last, to be going right. Only a few days more of school, she was already making some money babysitting, and she was back on her horse, where she loved to be, in the warm, warm May sunshine.… The broodmares stood lazily in it, swishing flies. The foals were sunning themselves. Old William seemed to be enjoying it, too, stretched out flat on his side in the middle of his paddock—

  Erin looked again, then halted Spindrift and stared. Flies had settled all over William, and he was making no effort to shake them off. And shouldn’t she be able to see his ribs moving when he breathed?

  Erin spun her mare and sent her at a canter back up the lane, as she was not supposed to do. Aunt Lexie came hurrying out, looking annoyed, and Erin brought Spindrift to a hasty halt in front of her.