A Kingdom in a Horse (5 page)

“Oh, Gypsy! “ she cried and gently kissed the horse on its smooth neck. “I’m not afraid of you. I couldn’t have hugged you if I were! ”

It was true that she had not yet entered the stall; the planks of wood still separated them. But Sarah was very happy about her impulsive gesture. It was a beginning, she thought as she sat down on her rocking chair to rest.

“You must be patient with me,” she said to her horse. “Give me a little time to get used to you. Why do you frighten me so? Is it your size? I don’t know why I should be so afraid of getting near you. But I’ll get over my fear. You must be patient. And I do promise you exercise! No matter how frightened, I shall ride you. And you are the most beautiful animal I’ve ever seen. I hope that one day you’ll be as happy to have me as I am to have you.”

The old woman’s eyes closed for a minute, and when she opened them the horse was still looking at her.

“I’m so tired,” Sarah said. “Would you mind if I took a little nap, right here? Maybe you’d like to go to sleep for a little while, too? We’ve had a big day already, and it’s not even noon.”

She watched the horse go back to its hay. She must have dozed off, because she did not hear the car drive up. What woke her was the sound of the horn and a voice shouting: “Hey, anyone home?”

She recognized Lee Earl’s voice and got up fast. She would have hated anyone to see her asleep in the middle of the day and in a stable at that.

“Thank God!” she said in greeting. “I didn’t even dare hope you’d come so soon. Oh, I do need you! ”

“I gather the mare’s here and you’re frightened.”

“Yes,” she said, grateful that he had guessed. “The man who delivered her said that she might come down with shipping fever, and I don’t seem to do anything right, and—”

“Let’s take a look at her. By the way, did you find a name for her yet?”

“I called her Gypsy. Do you think it’s appropriate?”

“Sounds like a fine name to me.”

They walked together into the stable. She would ask this man about everything she could think of. She would ask him to show her how to saddle and how to ride the horse and how to take care of it.

“She’s fine,” Lee assured her after looking Gypsy over. “She won’t get the fever.”

“Thank God,” Sarah whispered.

“It’s a beautiful stable,” Lee was saying, “and the stall is nice and large, but we must knock off this bench.”

There was a long wooden bench along one of the sides, and she had planned to sit on it, once she got used to the horse.

“Why should we knock it off?” she wanted to know.

“Lots of horses like to lie down when they sleep. If this one does, then she might get hurt on the bench. She’d be getting up, and she’s liable to scratch herself badly, or even break a bone. Do you have a hammer?”

“Yes, in the house.”

“Before we get it, let’s look around. You’ll be needing other things in here. Pliers to open the hay bales with if they are tied with wires, and large scissors or a knife for those tied with strings. You will also need a sponge to rub Gypsy down with, some soap, disinfectant, and deodorant to clean the stall with. By the way, do you have any water here?”

“No, but I’ve got a well just a few steps away. And then of course there is hot water in the house.”

He leaned over the partition and looked into the stall.

“That bucket is too small. You need a wider one. How about the barn? There are probably some things in there that we can use.”

They started walking toward it together. Sarah was surprised to see that David was sitting in the truck. She could barely see the outlines of his rather stubborn face, at once the face of a naughty child and a disappointed adult. He was leaning low over something she could not see.

“I didn’t know David came with you.”

“He did, but he didn’t want to get out of the truck. He’s got homework to do.” Lee sighed. “I’m sorry for the way he behaved last night. I asked him about giving you horseback riding lessons, but he won’t do it. He claims that he’s got too much homework. But it’s not that. He doesn’t want to be around horses. You see, this year would have been the year we’d be working the rodeos together. Except, the last time I got hurt, David jumped in. That was the first time he’d ever done that.”

He stopped for a moment, and his face turned away from her. Although his features were much sharper than his son’s, the expression of his face was soft. She had not understood about David jumping into the arena, but she felt that Lee was telling her something very important.

“When he did that,” Lee continued, “when he jumped in I shouldn’t have even seen him. I had a job to do, and yet that’s all I could see, and I almost got killed because I was looking at him and not at the bulls. In the hospital I realized that it would never work, our being together. Next time I’d watch him instead of the animals it might be one of the riders who’d get killed. I had to quit. It wouldn’t be honest of me to let him come in with me. And he wasn’t cut out for it either. He doesn’t know fear, for one thing, never did, and that’s bad. That would make him misjudge his chances. Well, when I quit I was doing it for both of us.”

Again he stopped and Sarah waited for him to go on. They were inside the barn now, and Lee began to look around it.

“Anyway,” he added, “now he hates everything—the school, our house, his whole life—and he blames all his misery on me. And he can’t even bear horses because they remind him of the life he isn’t leading anymore.”

“Do you think,” she asked, “it would be all right for me to tell him that he is welcome to ride Gypsy any time he wants to?”

“That’d be mighty nice of you.”

David, sitting in the truck, did not look at them when they passed him. He had brought his homework along, for he had to study for another test. It was important to him. If he flunked this one he’d have to go to summer school. Besides, he was sick and tired of other kids thinking he was stupid. But he couldn’t concentrate. He was filled with self-pity, the kind that made his throat hurt and his eyes smart. And he was pitying himself because nothing at all was going right for him.

He had to study three times as hard as anyone else in school to keep up with the kids a year younger than he. While traveling with his father, he had learned how to read and write, and sometimes they would even buy some schoolbooks and he would study from them, but not really hard. Sometimes there would be a month or two when they would not have to go to rodeos. Then his father would send him to a school, never telling the principal that it would be for only a little while. During those times, David realized how much studying he had missed and how hard it would be to start going to school on a regular basis. But he never thought that he would have to do that. He’d be a clown soon. And knowing this was reason enough not to worry. He was frightened once when a truant officer talked to his father and told him about the law that a kid had to go to school. But no one could have caught up with them, traveling as they did. And no one asked questions after that one time.

But now, to keep up, he could never play baseball after school or hang around with other kids. Not that he really wanted to. It was only that he would have liked to have had a choice. But there was no choice. The other boys didn’t even ask him, and he had to study—all the time, from the time he got home and made himself a sandwich, until past his bedtime, reading under the sheets by the beam of a flashlight, so his father would not know how hard it was for him.

And now the old woman and her horse! He had thought of them last night. He had promised himself that he would not hate the woman just because she had bought the horse he wanted. And he had promised himself that he would not think of the mare as
his
horse. But he thought that he might ride his bike over at night, when the moon was full, and give the mare a try. He’d like to do that often and in secret. Just because he didn’t own the horse shouldn’t prevent him from loving it. And besides, now his whole life was a secret one. He never talked to anyone. Least of all his father.

He bent down and read off the capitals of South America. Why did they have to study that? Did they have rodeos there? How thoughts like that made him mad! If he could only concentrate!

In the barn Lee and Sarah did find a box with some useful things, things which must have once belonged to her brother when he had a horse. There were a scraper, a hoof nail, and half a dozen folded feed bags, which Lee told her were the best things to rub a horse with to give it gloss. There were also a bottle of dried-up liniment, a jar of vaseline, and best of all, an old leather halter with a lead line. By the time they left the barn, Sarah had learned a lot about taking care of the horse, about grooming it and feeding it, and the general care of the stable. In one corner of the barn they found a bucket, just right for Gypsy. It hung on a bucket post, which also yielded a measuring cup for the oats. They took back a pitchfork, a shovel, pliers, and a wheelbarrow, which they filled with Gypsy’s things.

Back in the stable Lee showed Sarah how to clean after the horse, removing the minimum of straw with the manure, and airing and drying the wet straw in the sun so that it could be reused. Outside of the stable they discovered an overgrown compost hole. While she went to get the hammer Lee brought out of his truck a gift for her, two leather straps, which he attached to the side of the stable door.

“That’s so you can saddle her comfortably. The straps snap on both sides of the halter, and she won’t be shaking her head away when you fit the bit in her mouth.”

“What would I do without you?” she said gratefully.

“You’d do all right. It would take you a little longer though.” He opened the gate of the stall and took Gypsy out. “Now I’ll show you how to saddle her.”

She watched him, and when he was done he made her saddle the horse herself. She was afraid of tightening the girth, but he assured her it didn’t hurt the horse.

“Most horses, especially mares, don’t like the feel of it, and this one snapped her teeth, but it’s not because it hurt. It will loosen up anyway, and most of the time you’ll have to dismount after a while and tighten it again. It should be tight so the saddle don’t move under you and rub off the hair on her back. The best way to see if it’s tight enough and not too snug is to put two fingers between the girth and the belly.”

She did as she was told, amazed at the horse’s patience with them and at her own ease and lack of fear. She promised herself that she would have a treat for Gypsy each time she saddled her.

“Now for the bridle,” Lee said.

When Sarah was trying to place the bit in the horse’s mouth, Gypsy raised her head and turned it away from her.

“Always be firm with her,” Lee said, prying Gypsy’s mouth open with his fingers and slipping the bar in. “Be sure you put your fingers behind her teeth so that she can’t bite you.”

Lee took the horse out of the stable before mounting her. Without using the stirrups but with the help of the horn, he lifted himself up on the saddle. He held the reins quite loosely, and the horse did not throw him or run off with him as Sarah half expected.

“She is well behaved. That I’ll say for her,” Lee said. “And she looked almost too good when David rode her in the auction barn. But you watch us now. I’ll first make her walk, then jog and lope, and I’ll see how she does on turns.”

Without knowing anything at all about riding, Sarah realized that Lee was a fine horseman. Gypsy’s eagerness to take off was equally evident, but she was being kept in check, and only her slightly tossing head and her high-stepping feet indicated that she would have been much happier if she did not have to walk. Her jog was smooth, Lee sitting firmly in the saddle, and when they did take off at a lope and then a gallop, Sarah caught her breath, it seemed so fast. It was marvelous to watch them, the grace of the horse and the ability of the man.

“She is fast!” Lee exclaimed, bringing her to a halt in front of Sarah. “She is in fine shape, much better than I thought she’d be in. Now we shall see how she does on the turns.”

He took her on the grass and, loping, made a very sharp turn to the left by using the reins on her neck only slightly. Gypsy turned, changing leads beautifully, her whole body coming around after her inside legs had made the turns.

David had been watching from the truck. Grudgingly he had to admit to himself that his father was a darn good rider. He still looked as if he were a champion bronco rider and roper. He could always do anything with a horse, whether a tame or a wild one. He remembered one day, out in Arizona, when his father was breaking in a black stallion that one of the men had caught in a canyon after a two-day chase. The stallion had already thrown and hurt a half dozen men before his father got on him. It took him less than an hour to make a lamb out of that ornery critter. He had let David ride him afterward, and the owner, having come back from the hospital with a cast on one of his arms, couldn’t get over it-how Lee could have done the impossible in such a short time.

Now with Gypsy he was making her look as good as David thought she would be. He lowered his eyes back to the book when he heard his father shout to the old woman, “By golly, the old mare must have been a barrel horse once!” That’s what David had suspected from the speed of her turns in the auction barn.

“What’s a barrel horse?” the woman shouted back, and David couldn’t help smiling at the note of pleasure in her voice.

“A rodeo horse that makes turns around a barrel,” Lee shouted as he brought Gypsy around in a neat figure eight. Then he backed her up, using a loose rein and just talking to her. “You ought to keep her trained so she don’t forget what she’s learned so well.”

It is a miraculous thing, Sarah thought to herself, for me to buy a horse like that, a horse so perfect. Lee walked Gypsy over to where she was standing. The horse’s chest and shoulders were darker now; she had sweated, and her light chestnut had become quite brown, so the cut-off mane looked twice as light against the darkened hide.

“Now it’s your turn,” Lee said, and Sarah’s throat tightened with fear.

“Hey,” Lee exclaimed, “you’re wearing a dress, for goodness’ sake! Go on and change into a pair of slacks.”