Riding Lessons

by Jane Smiley

  At lunchtime, I sat with my usual friends—Todd, who lives in a house that backs up to the Murphys’, and Ann Aiello, who is in the other fourth-grade class, but was in my class in kindergarten, first, and second. We like to eat lunch together because she moved over the summer, and now her house is too far for me to walk to. The whole time we were eating lunch, I was looking at Ruthie Creighton. I mean, I knew she usually ate alone, and if she has a friend, I guess it is Linda Loring, who is very thin, and who my mom says has a hole in her heart, and so she can’t go out for recess or do anything active. My mom says she is waiting for an operation. She is nice to Ruthie, but she doesn’t come to school every day. Finally, Ann stopped talking about playing five-card stud with her cousins and winning three dollars and thirty-five cents, free and clear, and said, “Why are you looking at her?”

  Since Ann isn’t in my class, she didn’t know about my report. So I said, “In our class, she said she was adopted.”

  Ann said, “She must be Catholic, then.”

  Now Todd put down his egg salad sandwich and said, “I’m Catholic.”

  We both looked at him. Ann said, “Duh. You go to my church.”

  Then he said, “My two cousins are adopted.”

  “See?” said Ann.

  “They don’t live around here, though. They live in Michigan.”

  I imagined two little babies being rescued from a frozen pile of snow and being laid in front of a big fire and brought back to life.

  I said nothing about me being adopted. I figured Ann would learn soon enough and then she would tell Todd. Todd is in my class, and he would have heard me, but you have to tell him everything twice.

  On Thursday just before dinnertime, the phone rang. It was Abby. She said that Blue had an abscess in his foot, and could not be ridden this week, so would it be all right for me to come to the ranch again on Saturday? “I’ll ride Sissy before you come, and I promise she will behave herself. In fact, if you want to, your dad can drop you off, and then you can have your lesson and stay for lunch, and we can bring you home, because my mom wants to go shopping at the department store where your mom works.”

  When you are talking about horses, an abscess is not such a bad thing. When they have one, they walk around as if they can’t bear to put their foot down, but it goes away in a day or so. This happened with the pony. He looked like he had broken his ankle, but then two days later, this little tiny sore that’s called a gravel appeared above the top edge of his hoof. The abscess happens when something gets inside the hoof. After that, he was fine, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

  I asked her to hold on, then found Dad, who was taking a nap. He wasn’t happy about making that long trip again, but believe me, I could read his mind—he was thinking, “Better give her what she wants for another few days, because after that, things will be really busy around here, and she might never get what she wants ever again.” Well, maybe he wasn’t thinking exactly that, but something like it, and so he said, “Sure.” Abby said to be there at nine, which was fine with me, because I get up early anyway, Saturday, Sunday, every day.

  That night, I tried to talk to Ned again, but he wouldn’t do it. He just stood there in my head, not saying a thing. In the morning, I looked in the refrigerator for carrots and I found two. I broke them in pieces, took them up to my room, wrapped them in a washrag, and put them with my riding clothes so that I wouldn’t forget them. In the meantime, more baby stuff kept appearing—a high chair, a baby carriage (this I recognized as a hand-me-down from the Murphys). When I said I had seen them pushing Brian in it, Mom said, “Honey, people are so generous when you are going to have a baby!” But our house is really small, so pretty soon everything was in the way, and there were two boxes, one of clothes and one of toys, that had to be stashed in my room.

  Was I excited about the baby? When Mom asked me, I always said yes, but what I don’t understand is how to be excited about someone you have never seen before. I knew enough about babies from walking around our neighborhood to understand that there would be crying and diaper rash and, in a year or two, running into the street. Ann has two sisters, but they are eleven and seven—she doesn’t remember about babies. Todd is the youngest of six brothers. According to him, all his brothers talk about is cars and fishing. Even so, I did like saying her name, Joan Ariel, Joan Ariel, Joan Ariel. And I did imagine that someday she and I would be friends.

  On Saturday, I had eaten my toast, which I made myself, and was dressed and ready to go by seven-thirty. Dad did get up in time, but he had to bring his second cup of coffee along. The good thing was that we were out early enough to miss all the traffic, and to get to Abby’s by eight-thirty. She hadn’t even been on a horse by the time we got there. She was still cleaning stalls, so I put my carrots in a place that I knew I would remember, and I helped her, which I don’t mind doing—I think horse manure smells very nice, thank you. Most of Abby’s horses stay outside, but two were staying in and the stalls are big. I was careful to use the fork to pick up the pieces of manure, and to shake the fork as I was lifting so that the straw would fall between the tines, because straw is expensive, and you want to save it. After I’d picked up the manure, I sifted through the straw and picked up the wet bunches. Horse pee is stinkier than manure, I think. Then we threw down some new bedding and tossed everything around with the forks so that the stall was all fluffed up and comfortable in case the horse wanted to lie down. Horses only sleep lying down a couple of hours a day, and some have their naps during the day, all stretched out in the straw or under a tree. By the time we were finished cleaning the stalls, Abby was laughing. She said that I should write a how-to book on cleaning stalls—all I would need to do is have someone take down everything I say when I am doing it and talking about it at the same time. I said, “Abby, half the time I don’t even realize that I am talking,” and she laughed again.

  When I go to the stables and ride Blue, I know that I’m supposed to help Rodney groom Blue and tack him up, and I do help him a little bit, but Rodney knows exactly what he’s doing, and has been doing it for his whole life, because he started working as a groom in a steeplechase barn when he was thirteen years old, which was in 1933, the year a horse named Kellsboro Jack won the Grand National in record time, and also the year that a horse named Golden Miller won the Cheltenham Gold Cup for the second time out of five. The next year, Golden Miller won both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National, the only horse ever to do that, and Rodney was at both races, because he worked for a trainer who had horses running. If I keep quiet and let Rodney tell me whatever he wants to about the old days in England, he does all the grooming and tacking up much more quickly and smoothly than I can. I just say, “Wow! Wow!” And I mean it, too. Rodney has seen a lot more races and places than just about anyone else, but he always tips his hat to everyone and says, “Thank ya, miss,” as if you are the important one and he is not. So grooming Sissy and Gee Whiz (I had to help with that, too) was hard work, and then we walked to Abby’s arena and I stood in the center, holding Gee Whiz while Abby worked Sissy.

  I hadn’t noticed on the way out to the ranch or in the barn, but the weather was cold and windy, almost as if winter were back. The hillside above the arena was scattered with poppies and lupine, and they were whipping around in the wind. The wind across the long green grass made wavy shapes against the hillside, and the branches of the trees were creaking, too. Sissy was not misbehaving, but she seemed much more wide-awake than she had the previous week, and Abby had her trot in a bunch of circles, as well as move from side to side at the walk and the trot, and step over behind in both directions. I can’t say that Gee Whiz was bad, but he was alert. He looked up the hillside, and he looked back toward the pasture, and he looked out toward the road. One time, he tossed his head and pulled the reins out of my hand, but I said, “Hey!” and so he turned to look at me, and stood there quietly. He said, “Sorry. But there is a lot going on
.” He put his head down and I stroked him on the nose.

  Right then, Ned and another horse galloped across the pasture, throwing their heads, bucking, and kicking. I would have thought that would excite Gee Whiz, but he just looked at them and turned away. He said, “Pip-squeaks.”

  I laughed, then I said, “You should be nicer to Ned. He doesn’t like you.”

  Gee Whiz didn’t say anything. He lifted his head and looked over me at Abby and Sissy. After fifteen minutes of work (I looked at my watch), Abby walked Sissy to us and dismounted. She said, “She seems fairly relaxed. I think she’ll give you a good ride, but it’s too windy to go on the trail.”

  I led Sissy to the railing, sided her up, and climbed the fence. As soon as I was ready to get on, she moved away, so I climbed down, put her back in position, and climbed the fence again. This time, she pivoted her hind end away from me. And she was looking me right in the eye. She didn’t say anything, but her look said, “I have had enough.” I put my hands on my hips. Abby came over to help me, leading Gee Whiz, and as soon as Sissy saw them heading our way, she pivoted back into position, and waited while I sort of jumped onto her.

  I sat up straight, lowered my heels, turned my thumbs up, loosened my elbows, and made my butt as heavy as I could. No one tells you to do this, but that’s what they mean when they say “Sit deep.” I gave Sissy a good kick, out, in, and she walked forward. The first two steps were balky, like the week before, but then she must have decided that she had better get her work done, and so she stepped out, started swinging back and forth a little, and did what I told her to do. Since she doesn’t jump, we practiced all those boring things that you have to practice when you aren’t jumping.

  Except that since Sissy had decided to do her job, and maybe to enjoy it, riding her was fun. She had a nice, loose walk. I held the reins as lightly as I could, and her hips seemed to swing back and forth. I could feel each hind leg stepping through, which means that with each step, the horse puts her hind foot down in front of where the front foot had been. When a horse does that, even the walk is fun and not lazy. The horse seems to be going where she wants to go, but not to be rushing there. Abby had me do a movement she calls the snake dance—lots of S-turns back and forth, back and forth, down the long side of the arena—asking Sissy to bend her body first to the left and then to the right, with always an absolutely straight step in between. It is pretty easy to do at the walk, harder at the trot. I can’t do it at the canter, because it involves a series of flying changes, but I have seen Abby do it on Blue, and it is very beautiful to watch, and always makes Abby grin when she is doing it. After the snake dance at the trot, we did the bow: you walk down the long side to the end of the arena, loop around, walk back to the center of the long side, go the other way, loop again, walk back, then do it at the trot. Sissy seemed to like this exercise. The next level, which Abby showed me on Gee Whiz, includes something called a leg-yield, which Abby learned about in a book she’s reading. After the horse loops around, he stays pointed forward as if he were going to go straight, but steps to the side so that his back legs cross each other. Gee Whiz was quite good at this. Another thing we did was a weaving exercise, where I would trot in front of Abby and pass her, then she would trot in front of me and pass me, back and forth. This was sort of hard to do, because Gee Whiz has a much bigger trot than Sissy, but Abby said that it was good for them to pay attention and rate themselves. For the canter, we played follow-the-leader—first Abby leading, and then me. We had to go around in circles large and small, change leads, go faster or slower, but never stop cantering. Sissy turned out to have a nice canter, so that was the most fun part. I have to admit that I enjoyed myself so much that I stopped watching Ned, or waiting for him to say something to me, and I made up my mind that one of the carrots had to be for Sissy.

  By the time we had the horses cooled out and untacked, the wind had blown the clouds in and it looked like it might rain, which was a disappointment, because where I live it rains a lot more than where Abby lives, so I always expect sunshine when I go out there. We put Sissy in with the other mares and Gee Whiz in with the other geldings, and then Abby said, “Come here,” and we went into the gelding pasture and stood quietly. Ned and the other horse, a buckskin, were grazing over in the corner, maybe ten feet from each other, not like they were friends, but like they were getting used to each other. I said, “Where is the bucking bronco?” This was a horse who lived here over the winter. His owner was a friend of Abby’s brother.

  “He’s on the circuit, doing his job.”

  “Doesn’t all that bucking hurt those horses?”

  “Not if they don’t get jolted or prodded. If they just buck for the love of bucking, like Beebop, they can last a long time. I’ve never seen Beebop at a rodeo in person, but in his pictures, his face is relaxed even when his back hooves are practically over his head and the cowboy is flying through the air. Anyway, I don’t know what they would do with him if he didn’t go to rodeos. He can’t be ridden.”

  I said, “They should teach him tricks.”

  Abby looked at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ned heading our way, but not quickly. I had the carrots in my pocket, but my hands were empty. Abby glanced in his direction, too, then said, “Let’s think of a trick. Close your eyes.”

  I closed my eyes.

  It wasn’t hard to think of a trick, because while we were riding, Abby’s dog, Rusty, a big wolfy type of dog, had trotted by the arena with a stick in her mouth, not as if she was fetching, but as if she had a project. If I were to have another dog, I would want one like her. I opened my eyes and said, “Fetching. I would teach the horse to fetch something like a hat. Like my dad’s hat. What about you?”

  Abby said, “Finding something is fun. I taught Blue to look at a treat and then find it. He got to be very careful with his lips. I could put a cube of sugar on the top of a fence post, and he could find it without knocking it off.”

  Ned bumped into me from behind, just very gently. I hadn’t realized that he was so close. Abby looked at me and said, “Turn around and tell him to back. He shouldn’t get that close to you. Put your hand up, with your palm facing him, and tell him.” So I turned slowly around, lifted my hand, and said, “Ned, back!” We waited. Ned flicked his ears and said, “What in the world are you talking about?”

  I laughed.

  Abby said, “Why are you laughing?” I knew not to tell her that Ned was talking to me, so I said, “Oh, he just has a funny face.”

  “He does,” said Abby.

  He stood there for a long moment. I could tell that he was sniffing my pocket. Finally, Abby said, “I guess he needs a lesson.” She was still carrying the halter, so she put it on Ned. But she didn’t tell him to back, or back him up. Instead, she turned his head to the right and held it like that until he stepped his right back leg across his left one and moved his hind end to the side. Then she did it again on that side, and twice on the other side. Ned was saying, “What is it that I am supposed to do here?” I didn’t answer because I didn’t want Abby to think I was crazy. She did it on both sides again, and by now he seemed to understand what he was supposed to do, if not why. She said, “There he goes. He’s getting it.” I said, “Tell me again why you do that?”

  “To make him soft and relaxed in his spine. Everything is easier if he is relaxed. See? He’s taking a deep breath.”

  And he was.

  Now she stepped in front of him, about two steps out, and after standing quietly for a moment, she shook the lead rope under his chin and said, “Back! Ned, back!” He tossed his head, leaned backward, and then stepped about half a step back. Now she petted him, praised him, and put her hand in her pocket. Then she said, “Oh darn! I don’t have anything! Do you? Give him something—quick!” So I pulled my hand out of my pocket and gave him one of the carrot pieces. Then we petted him.

  She said, “He knows
nothing.”

  He said, “That’s not true!”

  I felt like I do when my mom and dad are having an argument. They never raise their voices, but I know they’re upset, and I’m stuck in the middle. Finally, I said, “He reminds me of a puppy. He’s so—” And right then, Ned snorted. I hadn’t thought I was being insulting, but as Miss Cranfield was always telling me, “Ellen, you need to think before you speak.”

  Ned said, “Puppy!” and Gee Whiz, who was still over by the gate, eating some grass, lifted his head and looked at us and said, “Yup.”

  I looked at Abby and said, “I meant that to be nice.” But I was talking to the horses. “Everybody loves puppies.”

  Ned snorted again.

  Abby got him to back up three more times, each time for a piece of carrot, and then when she was done, I petted him and gave him a whole carrot. We walked away, and I wondered if Ned would ever talk to me again. When we came back a half hour later to put out their noon hay, Ned was way over on the far side of the pasture. There was plenty of grass, since it is spring, so even when he saw the hay, he just looked at it and went back to grazing.

  Even though Abby is older than I am, and her brother is old enough to be in the army, her mom is really young-looking and hardly looks like a mom at all. She smiles as if she means it, and she doesn’t seem as though she’s always watching you to see if you are doing something wrong. Her dad is a little scary, though. He is really tall and looks like he is strong enough to throw a hay bale overhand, like a football. His eyebrows kind of lower down over his eyes. Everyone at the stables says that he is a wizard with horses. Nobody thinks I know much, but I keep my ears open even while I am talking, and I know that Melinda’s mom got lots of money for the pony. Before the pony, Abby sold Black George to Sophia for a lot of money, and Rodney says that people offer Sophia just about anything she would ask to buy him, but Sophia says that jumping a course on Black George, whom she calls Onyx, is a form of relaxation, and if she didn’t have him, then she couldn’t ride Pie in the Sky at all—she needs both of them—and when I think of her saying this, I think of the time she fell off like she was doing a cartwheel, and I believe her. Blue’s owner died a week after bringing him to the stables, and Jane sold him to Abby for a dollar or something like that, which was the amount of money she had in her pocket at the time. (Later, Abby sold him to the stable for a lot more than a dollar.) I’m sure that Mr. Lovitt was fit to be tied, as Grandma Lydia would say. Anyway, Mr. Lovitt goes every year to Oklahoma, where they once lived, and buys horses there and brings them to California. Jane told my mom that he sees something in them that no one else does, and it is a rare talent. I think all of these things as I am sitting at the table, eating my chili, which is what we have for lunch, along with corn bread and some fresh lettuce from Abby’s mom’s garden. I know Mr. Lovitt is not trying to scare me, but I jump anyway when he says, “So, Ellen, what do you think of Sissy?”