Pie in the Sky: Book Four of the Horses of Oak Valley Ranch

by Jane Smiley

  “Well, it starts in twenty minutes, but it’s a big class. It could go a half an hour or more.”

  I halted Blue, took my feet out of the stirrups, and jumped off. I said, “I think I would like to take him somewhere quiet and do some ground work.”

  “Do you mind if I go have some lunch while you’re doing that?”

  In fact, I preferred it.

  She pointed me to the lunging area, and we parted. I looked at Blue as we were walking through the riders and horses and trainers and dogs on leashes and said, “Are you making me nervous, or am I making you nervous? I wish I knew.”

  We walked along. Blue looked here and there, his ears pricking but not arrowing forward. He blew out some air. He lifted his head and put it down again. We came to the lunging ring, and it was empty. I unfastened one rein from his bit, so that I had a longish line, and I stood beside his head, facing backward, one hand on the rein down by the bit and the other on his shoulder. Then I lifted the rein so that his head turned and came up, and I pressed a little bit on his shoulder. He curved away from me. I didn’t push him or cluck to him or anything; I just waited. Finally, he stepped the hind foot on that side underneath his body and across the other hind foot, and his body curled away from me. I did it again and again, and after a few times, we had made a little tiny circle, and were facing the same direction again. Then I let the rein slide through my hand and also lifted my crop. He moved forward, then away from me, curving his body and stepping around me. He did this twice, and then I had him walk and then trot in a tiny circle, making sure that he was stepping under and under and under. His mouth was soft. Then I did all of these things on the other side. Then I had him back up. I said, “Back!” and he started backing. He could have backed all the way to the railing, no problem. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to do what I wanted him to do.

  I attached the rein and tightened the girth, then mounted him. We did all these same exercises with me on his back, and I would have said that he was ready for anything, so I turned him toward a little jump that was set up in the middle—really not more than two feet. About four strides out from the jump, I could feel his weight shift. I could see his ears go up. He did go over the jump, but awkwardly. I thought maybe he just wasn’t a jumper, but then I thought, How could a horse with such a beautiful canter and gallop not be able to jump? A jump is just a big canter stride—that’s what Black George would say. Then Jane appeared and waved me to the regular warm-up. As I was passing her, she looked up at me and said, “Don’t forget to ride the course, not the jumps.”

  That was exactly what I had forgotten to do. When I was first riding with Jane, I had made a list of rules for jumping, and Daddy and I would go over them almost every day. They were: ride the course (not the jumps), keep the horse level (especially through the turns), look ahead ten strides (not two or five), ride to the middle of every fence, wait (or don’t hurry, but I guess it’s better to think about what you should do than about what you shouldn’t do), maintain a rhythm in your canter, and look up (never down).

  I could recite these in my sleep, so it was amazing that I was breaking so many rules riding these jumps. I mean, these courses. In the warm-up ring, with Jane watching, I made myself concentrate on looking ahead ten strides, and we got over all of the practice fences pretty well. At least Jane said, “Much better, Abby!”

  I watched the second-to-last rider go, and walked my fingers along with her around the course. I was concentrating on my fingers. I could not have told you anything about the rider.

  Then I went into the arena. I said to myself, over and over, “Ride the course, not the jumps.” We did our circle. Blue took the proper lead, and we headed down to the first jump. Four strides out, he shifted his weight backward and arrowed his ears at the fence. I could feel him looking right at it, his nose tipping downward as we got closer, and I said aloud, “Look ahead Blue. Look at the next jump.” I even lifted his nose a little with the reins, and kicked him on. He jumped the fence and headed for number two. This time, as we approached the jump (a triple bar), I said, “Look around the turn, Blue. The next fence is around the turn.” We jumped the fence, staying level, and that third fence wasn’t out of my sight until it was time to look ahead to the fourth fence. And so it went, eight fences in all. The in-and-out pointed toward the gate, and I just looked ahead at Jane, who was standing there, until just before the last fence, when I turned my head and stared beyond that one. As we approached the last fence, I stared at the barns, our goal, the place where we would go when this torture was over.

  When we left through the gate, Jane said, “You got around. Not bad. A little slow, and he got that one rail with his back hoof, but a big improvement.”

  I hadn’t even noticed the rail. That was good. That meant I was riding forward, not looking back.

  I said, “I wasn’t looking at the jumps, but he was. Every time we approach a fence, he starts shifting his weight backward and staring.”

  Jane said, “Hmm.” But then there was the jump-off for the four horses who had gone clear. While Jane watched them, I led Blue back to his stall. He had done a lot today, and even here, by the coast, it was getting warm. I took off my hard hat, then untied my stock and patted my face with it.

  One good thing about not having a groom is that you can talk to your horse while you are taking care of him. And so I talked to Blue. When I took off his saddle, I said, “Blue Blue, how are you?” He sniffed my hand for a bit of carrot. I scratched the top of his head and stroked his face. I took off the bridle and said, “There you go, much more comfortable.” I put on the halter—he stuck his nose right into it. I cross-tied him. Then I pulled off my boots with the boot jack, not without saying to Blue, “Is it the boots that are bad luck?” I put on my old rubber boots, then I snapped the lead rope to the ring of his halter, took him off the cross-ties, picked up the scraper, and walked him over to the hose and hosed him all over. I scraped him down—he acted like I was tickling him, but politely. I said, “You’re a good boy. There you go. I have two flakes of hay left, and you must be hungry.” Blue shook his head when I gently hosed his face. Back at the stalls, I put him away, then found his lightest sheet and put it on him. I refilled his water bucket. I had never known a horse who felt as much like a friend as Blue.

  Now I was on my own. I had three dollars in my pocket; it was lunchtime; I was finished showing. It was a wonderful feeling.

  If you have school all day and horses to ride in the afternoon and on Saturday, homework in the evenings, family dinner, and church all day on Sunday, basically your time to yourself is while you are asleep. And my dad is always worried that time is being wasted. There is plenty to do on a ranch, even a small ranch like ours, and if you are sitting around, then maybe you should be cleaning tack. He doesn’t even like me to read books while not doing anything. He says, “You could prop it up over the sink and read it while you’re washing the dishes.” I could. But here I was, no homework, no horsework, and no housework, wandering around the show grounds, knowing that my horse was happy eating his hay and I was free—I could do one thing at a time.

  For that reason, I didn’t find Jane. I watched the jumpers in the main ring while eating my hot dog, and I sat quietly with my lemonade, drinking it and then sucking on the lemon wedge. It was a jumper class, not terribly high—3′9″, but that would be high to me now. The thing about jumping is that the jumps grow and shrink depending on how dependable your horse is. Black George—Onyx—had taken me over the giant ditch in the outside course, which was fifteen feet across, and it had felt simultaneously like flying and like no big deal. But that was Onyx. I had really enjoyed that horse, but there was a moment when I knew that I was just another human to him. I was training here at the stables, and the jumps got over four feet, and I lost my nerve. I dismounted and Sophia got on, and as they went into the ring, Black George didn’t look back even once. I always had the feeling that Blue and Jack would have looked back, though I never said anything about that to
Daddy, who was carrot-and-stick all the way, or Jane, who would surely tell me I was being sentimental.

  And here was Sophia—speak of the devil. She was on the chestnut and they went around the course fairly smoothly. The only thing I saw that was wrong was that every so often he shook his head as if he was mad about something. Sophia was scowling when she left the ring, even though they had a clean round and were within the time. Then that boy Andy came in on the Appaloosa. The Appy was a nice type—bay with a white blanket over his haunches and spots on both hips, and a black tail. He didn’t look like the other horses standing around—he was much flashier. The announcer said, “Now we have number three forty-five, Rascal, with Andrew Carmichael in the saddle.”

  Andy looked like he had all the time in the world. First they walked, then he shortened his reins, looked around, smiled, and picked up a trot. He settled in his saddle, and Rascal began to canter. It was a don’t-mind-if-I-do sort of canter, easy as you please, and Andy looked like he was enjoying himself completely, not nervous in any way. They cantered down over the first coop, then turned back toward the second jump, an oxer, and looped around toward a line of three jumps, an in-and-out and then a brush. Rascal folded his legs neatly, but he was pretty flat over the fences, as if he didn’t have to do much to accomplish his task. The last four jumps were a vertical, another oxer, another brush, and a gate. Rascal jumped all of them nicely and, you could say, exactly the same no matter what they were. The two of them came down to the trot just the way they had done everything else, easy as you please. And they, too, were within the time. When they left the ring, Daphne met him. They walked to the center of the warm-up, and Andy did a funny thing—he pushed himself backward off the saddle and slid down over Rascal’s tail. Rascal didn’t flick an ear. I laughed.

  After the jump-off, Andy was fourth and Sophia was fifth. I thought that surely Andy should get the prize for having the most fun of anyone in the class. When he was around, everyone else looked too serious and worried by comparison. I watched the three of them, Andy, Daphne, and Rascal, walk back toward the barns.

  By the time I had watched the 3′3″ hunters, I was almost dozing off, and then I remembered the tack tent. The tack tent was where they sold all sorts of things for horses and riders—boots and breeches and saddles and bridles, brushes, blankets, shirts, saddle soap, belts with horseshoe buckles, hairnets, leather halters and brass nameplates, horse bandages, and also books about riding. That’s what I thought I would go look at. Blue needed that, maybe. I got up and threw away my paper plate and my lemonade cup.

  The weather was now perfect—the pine trees around the show grounds were brilliant green in the sunshine, and their tops were swaying slightly with the ocean breezes. The air was fresh and smelled of all sorts of things—pine needles, horse manure, the ocean, some sort of sweet flower (Mom would have known but I didn’t). It was Thursday afternoon, and more horses were arriving for the weekend—glossy bays and chestnuts, a few grays and blacks. Not a single buckskin. We had had a buckskin, Daddy’s favorite horse ever, Lester, but he’d sold him, just like he sold them all.

  The tack tent was not far from the barns, so I checked on Blue. He was working on his hay. He looked up, nickered once, and went back to it. I said, “Good boy.”

  I knew that the saddles and bridles and boots and breeches in the tack tent were none of my business, though I did let my hand run across the saddles just a bit.

  The books were in the back, on a table. There were only about ten of them, and three of them were stories, not how- to books. I picked up the next one, which was called The Cavalry Manual of Horsemanship and Horsemastership. It was the official manual of the United States Cavalry School at Fort Riley. Colonel Hawkins, Jane’s boss, who ran the barn, had gone to that cavalry school. It was in Kansas somewhere, which is right above Oklahoma, where my grandparents live. The front cover had a pretty drawing of a horse’s head at the top. I saw that it was illustrated by an artist named Sam Savitt. I had never heard of him—the books I had at home were illustrated by someone named C. W. Anderson.

  All the drawings in the book were of soldiers on horseback—they were wearing billed caps and light-colored jackets and ties, and they were sitting up as straight as could be. They were also all riding Blue, only as a bay or a chestnut, it looked like (they were pencil drawings, so they had no color). It really was strange to look at the pictures, especially the one that illustrated how you were supposed to sit—the horse had large eyes, forward ears, graceful neck, head a bit long but slender. Blue’s spitting image. I, of course turned to the section about jumping, and then to the section about refusing, running out, and rushing. It wasn’t very long. Right at the beginning, it read, “In order to stop at a jump, if he is going along at a good pace, he must lower his head.” That seemed true, though I had thought Blue was lowering his head because he was staring at the jump, not to get away from my hands. The next words were in italics, so I knew they were important: “Therefore with a refuser, contact must never be lost.” Okay, I thought. “It is, however, very necessary that the hands follow the mouth while maintaining the heavier contact.” I opened the front cover of the book and looked at the price. Five dollars. I had a dollar. I went back to reading. The part I didn’t like, on the next page, was about punishing the refuser. “The moment after a refusal occurs, the offender should be faced squarely up against the center of the obstacle and punished sharply, just in the rear of the cinch, with the spurs or on the croup with the riding whip.” I had not punished Blue after his refusal; I had just turned him around and headed him back over the fence, and he had jumped it. I couldn’t imagine jabbing Blue with spurs (I didn’t even wear spurs with him) or smacking him hard with the whip, but maybe I was going to have to do that.

  Then I read about running out, which was a type of refusing where, instead of stopping, the horse ducks to one side, left or right. According to the book, whichever side your horse ducked toward, you would never turn that way—you would always turn him back the way he didn’t want to go. While you were doing this, you were supposed to punish him with the spur on the same side you were turning toward. So let’s say Blue and I were cantering down toward a brush fence and veered to the right. I would turn him back to the left and punish him behind the girth with the left spur. If I had a left spur. I was glad that Blue did not run out, at least so far.

  The rushers were the scary ones. These were horses whose riders held them too tight as they went toward the fence, so the horse sped up and pushed forward in an attempt to get over the fence. Apparently, the worst thing you could do to a horse was hold him tight and kick him on, because he would get a little frantic. Then if you let go of his mouth over the fence, he would (or could) fall forward. If he was used to this, then in order not to fall, he would go faster. Even the thought of this made me nervous. I read, “To jump a rushing star-gazer is a dangerous ordeal. If he is rated, he cannot always see the jump, and if turned loose too late, a calamity is always imminent.” I guessed that “rated” meant held too tight. I slammed the book shut and thought of my list of rules. The fact was that jumping was fun, but it was also a lot harder than I had thought it was. What in the world was I doing, teaching Melinda and Ellen? Well, this was what—I was relying on Gallant Man always to be a good boy. I set the book down. I touched the one beside it, called Schooling Your Horse, but to be honest, I was afraid to pick it up and open it. Then I saw the lady who ran the tack tent looking at me, and I realized that maybe I wasn’t supposed to read the books without buying them. I stacked them the way I had found them, and wandered out of the tent. Danny would get there in about an hour. I didn’t feel as happy as I had before I’d read that book.

  When the clock said almost four, I made my way back to Blue’s stall. He had finished the hay and was just standing there, resting. He stood up straight and nickered when he saw me. I still hadn’t run into Jane, but maybe she had been looking for me, because there was a note in her handwriting, pinned to Blue’s stall. It
said, “For Tuesday. See you then. Call me if you need to,” and underneath that, a typed sheet that said, “Peter Finneran Clinic, 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, August 9, 1966. Horse: True Blue. Rider: Abby Lovitt. Morning clinic will last ninety minutes. Please dress in high boots, canary breeches, formal shirt, hard hat, gloves. No coats necessary. In the event of foul weather, the clinic will proceed. Please bring raincoat and crewneck sweater. Be prepared to jump; however, Tuesday’s clinic will concentrate on flat work.”

  I pulled out the thumbtack, wrapped the tack in Jane’s note, and carefully put it in my pocket. You do not ever want a thumbtack lying around where horses might walk—it could go right up into the sole of a horse’s hoof. Then I found the bandages and went in to wrap Blue’s legs for the trip home. Danny showed up when I was starting on the fourth one, the right hind. He said, “Hey. I’ll take this stuff out.” There wasn’t much. Once I had finished with Blue and opened the stall door, all we had to do was load him into the trailer, close it up, and leave. By now it was a really beautiful day, so probably at home it was ninety-five. Whatever it was, Mom or Dad would be sure to tell me.

  Blue, of course, loaded right on, and Danny closed his window while I closed the back door and latched it. Then we got into the truck. Danny was still wearing his swimming trunks, though with a regular shirt and his cowboy boots. He looked sort of weird, but I didn’t say anything. His jeans were folded up on the floor by my feet and his hair was a mess. I guessed he had gone swimming, probably more than once. I had never gone swimming in the ocean. I could swim in a pool, but I would need a lot more practice to swim in the Pacific, which was cold anyway, and the thought of it did not make me want to try.