Miracle Beach (14 page)

Throughout that afternoon she had found herself entranced by the cuts of muscle on his beefy, freckled arms, his crooked smile, the way he put his hand on her knee without thinking and without any reservation, as if he had been doing that his whole life. But when Nash sat down on a hay bale in front of Gounda’s stall, patting the space next to him and saying that he was really into her handsome horse—not pretty, but
handsome
, which fit Gounda like no other word—Macy forgot all about her reasons and rules and reservations. Because right about then, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

 

“Madame Armstrong!
What
is the matter?” Martine, who had never made the switch to Macy’s married name, stood in front of Gounda, hands on hips.

He looked perplexed, not angry. Even so, without warning, Macy started to cry. The whole thing felt wrong. Just like in Victoria. Only this time she had played chicken with Ian Painter and Rosetta and had made a complete heel out of herself in front of a whole long list of premier riders.

Macy shook her head. She didn’t know how to explain it to Martine. She couldn’t see a distance to save her life. Riding up to the practice jumps she would count down, three-two-one, and Gounda would take off on two or zero, leaving her behind, her hands catching him in the mouth midair. Each time they landed he wrung his tail and kicked out just a little. It was the most subtle of protests, but Macy was used to the two of them operating as a single unit, her thoughts melding seamlessly with Gounda’s actions. The disconnect between them panged her. And it was solely her fault. Macy was sure it would be only a matter of time before she crashed them through a fence.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she finally said. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Martine shook his head. His perplexed look had morphed to disappointment. “Just because of that little thing that happened in there?” He said
zing
instead of
thing
.

“That was not a ‘little thing.’ And yes. But no. I mean, I’m just not up to this right now.”

“Sure you are,” Martine said.

“What I am,” Macy responded, “is a danger to myself and—clearly—to others.”

Martine shook his head again. Then he turned and walked toward the ring, calling over his shoulder, “Come with me.”

“No,” Macy said. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”

Martine changed course and walked back toward Macy and Gounda.

“Madame Armstrong, I do not say this to be angry, but it needs saying. It is not ‘cannot’; it is ‘will not.’ If you want to be a professional, you must start acting like it.” He gave her boot two quick pats, said, “Now, come,” and walked off again.

Macy followed. Her hands shook.

“We will take a step in reverse and do preliminary work, yes?” Martine said. He stood in the middle of the sand exercise ring, next to the oxer of her and Ian Painter’s fateful initial meeting. Another jump stood adjacent to the oxer, a plain and simple vertical. Martine lowered both to standard “hunter”—which, along with “jumper,” formed the two parts of any over-fences division—height. At about two to three and a half feet, the hunter courses were meant to simulate the types and heights of jumps one might find on a foxhunt, while the obstacles in the jumper classes trended toward bright and high: every color of the rainbow and five to six feet in height.

Riding jumpers was harder, yet simpler. Larger and more difficult jumps required horses who threw their entire being into getting over them, and as such, those same horses tended to be both more fun to ride and a bit tougher to control. They weren’t willful, just athletic and talented, with only two main modes in the jumping ring: standing still and full speed ahead. Macy found that riding jumpers required a delicate partnership of constant communication: asking and telling that went both ways. The larger and more difficult jumps—along with tighter and more technical angles, and a timed jump-off to crown the winners—also tended to weed out anyone who couldn’t really, truly ride.

Today, that happened to be Macy.

The practice ring had mostly cleared, and she no longer had to worry about running into other riders and dodging traffic. Those who were jumping that evening were at the tail end of their warm-ups, needing to finish up and walk the course before it closed. Martine instructed Macy to take the two jumps in a nice, easy circle.

Macy cued Gounda into a canter, but on the approach to the first jump, she couldn’t find a pace she liked. She legged him on, then judged the distance they had yet to cover to the base of the jump; then she checked him back. Then, estimating that there were either two strides or four before takeoff, she legged him forward again, but too hard. The poor horse got in two strides and a quick stutter step before lurching over and taking a rail down with his front legs in the process.

The next approach replicated the first, only this time Gounda somehow—through his own sheer will and skill—avoided knocking a rail, though the result was not significantly more attractive, nor any less tenuous.

Already Martine was calling, “ ’Top! ’Top!” Macy pulled Gounda to a stop.
Please, God, just let him admit I was right and we’ll both be done with this
, she hoped, now that Martine had seen for himself what a total and consistent mess she was.

He walked over to Macy, stopping even with Gounda’s neck. His chest faced the front of her boot. He placed his left hand on the crease where Gounda’s neck met his shoulder, and placed the other on Macy’s calf. Tears had started to stream down Macy’s cheeks again. She hated herself for the weakness they represented, and pretended they weren’t there.

“This horse, right here,” he said, shaking Macy’s calf. “This horse is
très
talented. And you . . .” Martine shook his head.

“Are riding like a moron?” Macy finished.

“No,” Martine said. Then, cocking his head, he reconsidered: “Well, actually, yes. Yes, you are.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” Macy said.

“There is no need for embarrassment, madame.”

“No need? Come on. You’re probably right now regretting that you ever even talked to me on the ferry.”

“Madame Armstrong, you are a spectacular rider. And you have a spectacular mount.”

Now it was Macy’s turn to shake her head.

“You won the Young Riders competition. You’ve been on the short lists for the Talent Squad. These are not levels just any rider can reach. I don’t need to tell you that you harbor immense talent. Or perhaps I do. Because today it is like someone has borrowed your body. Things are not quite right—this I know. You must focus,” he said.

Only focus came out
fuckus
. Unfortunately, it was Martine’s favorite word, his favorite thing to yell out to Macy across the warm-up ring at shows—“Fuckus, fuckus, fuckus! You must fuckus as hard as you can. You cannot stop!”—much to the amusement or, if children were in range, occasional embarrassment of onlookers. “This is the very best preparation you will get before qualifiers next month,” he added.

He was right. The qualifying show for Jump Canada’s Talent Squad was only a handful of weeks away. Last year, when she didn’t make the cut, she had promised herself that this would be the year. No excuses, no holds barred. But that had been before. Long, long before.

“So is that a yes, then? You want to try once again?”

Every fiber of her being wanted to say no. But she nodded.

“All right, madame. You listen: Gounda would jump a bus on fire if this is what you ask of him. But you are squeezing him too tight between your fists and legs, like a vise. You are leaving him without options. And you know better. You cannot force him to do what you wish, and you must quit overthinking. Get out of your own way and start feeling. That is all. Okay?”

Macy nodded a third time.

“Okay. We go.”

Martine instructed Macy to canter along the rail, following it counterclockwise. ’Round and ’round they went, lap after lap. “Now clear your head, loosen your reins, and just breathe,” Martine told her. “Inhale, one-two. Exhale, one-two. Feel that rhythm. One-two, one-two, one-two.” Martine’s voice was like a metronome, and Macy matched her breaths to Gounda’s footfalls, concentrating on nothing else. Gounda’s four legs found a steady beat and kept it, all flow and rhythm. It seemed as though Gounda could have gone on like that all day, and, after the first lap, Macy along with him.

“Now, on the next corner, you’re going to turn left and take this
petit
oxer, and you will not change a thing. You will not squeeze your legs. You will not pick up your reins. You will breathe and count and count and breathe, and you will trust your horse. Understand?”

At the corner, Macy did as she was told. The worst that could happen, she figured, was that Gounda would slam on the brakes and send her flying—and if that happened, perhaps she’d break something, which would allow her to put this whole charade to an end. Macy cleared her mind of everything except that one-two beat. She didn’t move her hands. She kept her legs steady. And then, as if after an eternity, she felt Gounda lift up through the shoulders, preparing to carry them safely over the jump. Macy leaned forward, closing the angle between her torso and her hips, and ran her hands up either side of Gounda’s neck, the reins slack beneath it.

As soon as Gounda’s front feet touched down, Martine said, “Reins loose. Breathe! One-two,” launching Macy right back into the familiar pattern.

Again they did this. And again. Occasionally Martine would raise the height of one jump, then the other. Again and again.

“That is it, madame! Yes, this I like very much. Very much!” Martine, standing in the middle of the arena, made a grand sweep of his arms. Even though he hadn’t ridden in years, he still wore a button-down or polo shirt, jodhpurs, argyle socks, and paddock boots. So proper. Macy always thought that he flat-out
looked
French, far before he ever opened his mouth to speak.

“Please let Monsieur Gounda walk now,” he said. “That is enough.”

Macy nodded, lowered herself into the saddle, scootched her seat underneath her, lowered her heels deep into the stirrups, and closed her fingers loosely, yet with purpose, around the reins, like someone might around a pen. And when Macy sat, Gounda slowed gently and came to a walk. They were so in sync, her movements so subtle, that an onlooker might have thought she had communicated to him through ESP.

Finally, Macy released the reins completely, holding them on the buckle with one hand to let him stretch his neck out and down. Macy rolled her own neck from side to side and let her body sway with Gounda’s sure-strided march.

“How do you feel?” asked Martine.

“Better,” answered Macy.

She always forgot how good this felt—the catharsis that came from placing herself in the care of her horses. Even being near them helped. Straddling an overturned bucket in the tack room, dipping a moist sponge into the saddle butter, working it until she felt the leather grow soft and supple between her fingers. Even those times when she wasn’t on horseback, the mindless circles soothed her in ways that not much else ever could.

She didn’t need a shrink or pills. Saddle oil and sweet hay. The feel of dusty sweat on her skin. The rhythmic thud of hoofbeats in her ears. These were enough.

 

Macy heard the call for her class, which meant it was time to change into her show clothes and put the finishing touches on Gounda.

In the tack stall she swapped jeans, ankle-high paddock boots, and leather half chaps for white breeches and knee-high boots that she pulled on with the help of a generous dusting of baby powder and two large-handled hooks that fed into notches located inside each boot. She pulled a sweaty polo shirt off over her head and replaced it with a crisp white hunt shirt, fumbling with the buttons on each cuff and, at the end, fastening the matching choker embroidered in light blue cursive with her initials in its center. Over that she layered a black hunt coat and buttoned it. She put her helmet on, but left the chin strap unfastened for now, and secured a few wayward wisps of hair with extra bobby pins from her jacket pocket, ignoring her still-shaky hands.

She was, if not ready, at least dressed properly.

Macy ran through the course in her head. She thought through each of the thirteen jumps, the distance between them, what she’d have to do to prepare for each—leg Gounda on through the corner for a strong approach to one, balance him back onto his haunches to round out his frame over another, try to add a stride onto one line, and see if she couldn’t get by with a straighter line and dropping a stride going to another jump.

This was the part of the game that had always intrigued her, excited her: the strategy of it all. It was, she often thought, like a moving game of chess. You not only had to think about the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors—the line and jump choices they might make—but you had to honestly evaluate your own and come up with a workable game plan. And after the second jump, you might have more horse under you than expected, or it might start raining and slick the footing, and you’d have to recalculate on the fly. You just never knew. And the not knowing never failed to send little sizzles of excitement through Macy. What tests would the riding gods throw at her during each go-round? Would she and Gounda pass them?

Macy edged Gounda’s stall door aside and entered. She patted him on the neck and scratched a knuckle across his muzzle. She inspected his mane braids, which she had plaited that morning—forty-two of them—twisting one errant nub that had gone horizontal back to its proper vertical position. Then she brushed out his tail, picked his feet, and ran a soft brush over his whole coat. Next she fastened leather splint boots to each of Gounda’s four legs to support his tendons, protect the splint bones, and guard against debris like rocks being kicked up, or his striking himself with a hind leg. Only then did she saddle him, slipping the breastplate over his neck like a yoke and running the loose end through the girth on the saddle, which she tightened enough to hold it in place but not too much, so that Gounda could still relax. Right before mounting outside of the show ring, she’d tighten it fully.