Scarecrow on Horseback (3 page)

Had Lisa been able to ride Wonder Boy, Mel
had no doubt he would have won. They would have stood out together
with Lisa's waist length flaxen hair in its French braid matching
Wonder Boy's braided tail and the tight straw colored braids in his
mane. They would have been the most elegant horse and rider amidst
the thirty parading around in a circle to the judge's commands. But
Mel had ridden Wonder Boy, or she had tried to until her foot
slipped out of the stirrup. She'd leaned to one side in the saddle
and Wonder Boy shied. When she tried to sit upright and drew back
hard on the reins, he moved backward against the flow of the other
horses and got bumped. When he reared, Mel had promptly slid off
his back and onto her butt on the ground.

The next thing she knew, Lisa was screaming
at her in the arena in front of everyone in the stands, “You
scarecrow. You stupid scarecrow. You ruined my horse.” Mel
shuddered remembering the utter humiliation of it, the shame that
she still couldn't shake. Her skin burned with it. Her stomach
knotted up at the memory.

* * * *

The morning of her second day on the ranch
Mel dressed in her worn jeans, oldest sweatshirt, and winter jacket
to report for work in the big corral. Sally was already there
filling feed buckets. The sun was just peeking through the V in the
mountains to the east, but the horses' hefty rumps were already
arranged in a semicircle inside the fence as they waited for
breakfast.

“Sorry I'm late,” Mel said. “But anyways I'm
here. So what should I do?”

“Late? You're early. What's the matter with
you, girl? I thought teenagers liked to sleep in.” His grin
signaled that he was teasing.

“I saw lots of horse poop on the road. Want
me to clean it up?”

“Trying to show me what a glutton for
punishment you are?”

“I like to work.”

“Yeah, me, too. Well, get the wheelbarrow by
the barn. You'll find the square-edged shovel we use for poop
scooping next to it. Leave the barrow beside the gate for me to
dump. It'll be too heavy for you. When you're done, you can tack up
that Arabian there. Her name's Lily, and she's a real sweetheart.”
He indicated a delicately boned white horse that looked to Mel like
an equine ballet dancer. “Jeb's using her for some five-year-old
kid coming in today.”

“Okay,” Mel said agreeably. But as she turned
to go, she stopped to ask, “When does Jeb show up? Do I have to do
what he tells me, or can I just work for you?”

Sally laughed. “Jeb's boss. We both do what
he says. As for showing up, he comes when he wants.” Sally
hesitated, then he advised, “Jeb's a little off his feed lately,
Mel. Had a big fight with his girlfriend. She took off just before
you came. Be smart if you sweet-talked him some.”

“I don't know how to sweet talk,” Mel said.
“Why's he 'off his feed'?”

“Well, for one thing, Joy, his girl, was one
of our regular wranglers and now we're short-handed.”

“Good. Then you really need me.”

Sally laughed, and she went to work on the
road filling the wheelbarrow with horse dung in short order. Then
Sally showed her what tack to use for a small horse like Lily.

“She's not that much bigger than a pony,” he
said. “Less than fifteen hands high. That's about five feet. A
hand's four inches.”

“Yes, I know,” Mel said. She could hear Lisa
giving her that same bit of information in the shrill voice that
rang out like gunshots. Mel went about tacking up the white horse
while Sally watched approvingly. He left to work elsewhere when he
was satisfied that she knew what she was doing. Though Sally hadn't
told her to do it, Mel got out a brush and comb and began teasing
the tangles out of Lily's white mane and tail. Lily muttered at her
as if she liked the attention.

“Don't you hold your head high and proud,”
Mel told her. “I guess you know you're pretty special. Some people
say Arabians are the best. Think you are? Want to be my horse,
Lily, my special horse?” She stroked Lily's smooth, long neck, but
then the gelding next to Lily reached over with teeth bared to nip
at the mare and Lily shied away.

“It's okay. I won't let him hurt you,” Mel
said. She patted Lily's shoulder, and the mare settled with a sigh
and touched her nose to Mel's ear. That was the instant Mel fell in
love with Lily.

Jeb appeared behind Mel then. “Don't be
thinking you can ride that horse,” he warned. “She's assigned to a
guest.”

“I don't want to ride,” Mel reminded him.

“Why not?”

She shrugged, not liking him well enough to
explain that having made a fool of herself doing something, she
knew better than to give a repeat performance.

“It don't take much to trail ride. You just
hang loose and stay on,” Jeb said. “We could use your help with the
littlest kids. We got a four-year-old girl coming next week. Her
mama insists the kid can ride, but I'm not about to send her out on
a trail.”

“I could just walk around a ring leading her
on Lily, couldn't I?”

“Not likely. The mother would feel she wasn’t
getting her money's worth that way. Why don't you show me how you
ride, and maybe we can figure out something. You've ridden, haven't
you?”

“Sort of, but not western saddle.”

“So what happened? A horse throw you?” His
grin was knowing.

Mel shrugged again. Let him think she was
scared to ride. Let Jeb think what he wanted.

Sally assigned her two other horses meant to
be ridden by children. The horses were old, slow, and tractable
horses. When she'd finished saddling them and was fussing with
their manes and tails, she noticed that Jeb and Sally were mounted
on a pair of strong looking bays.

“We're going to test ride these new horses to
see how they do on the trails. You could ride along with us on
Lily. We're not going far,” Jeb said.

“No, thanks.” Mel tensed, fearing that he was
going to try and bully her into it.

“Suit yourself,” Jeb said. “We'll be back
soon. Think you can manage to lead Lily into the big barn at
eleven? That's when we lay out our riding policy to the new guests
and match them up with horses.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“Well, maybe you better practice walking Lily
around the corral. Give her some exercise anyway.” Jeb turned his
horse and led the way to the road. Sally winked at Mel and followed
Jeb.

Mel released Lily's lead line from the
railing and clucked at the mare. Lily dipped her head gracefully,
stepping up next to Mel at once. Mel stroked her mushroom-soft
muzzle with one finger. “You are a sweetheart. I wish I could ride
you. Maybe if we end up alone somewhere and no one's watching. What
do you think? Think I'm hopeless?”

Lily's curled lip made Mel laugh. “Obviously,
you do.”

* * * *

Later that morning an announcement came over
the loudspeaker that new guests were invited to attend a trail
riding orientation in the big barn. By then, Lily had become so
comfortable following Mel around the corral that Mel could drop the
lead line and Lily's head would still be at her shoulder. The
horse's trust was touching. How could the big animals have such
blind faith in the weak, two-legged creatures that fed and groomed
them? Well, Mel meant to deserve that trust. Proudly, she walked
out of the corral and across the road with Lily poking along at her
side.

They entered the main barn and moved to the
shadows at the far end where Jeb's pointing finger directed them.
Only a few guests were in the stands on the side of the barn
opposite the doors. Mr. Davis had said that snow still blocked some
high mountain passes, but few of the riding trails were
passable.

A family with three teenagers straggled in
and crossed the scuffed dirt floor to climb into the stands. Mel
spotted a small boy already seated up there with another set of
parents. They were all in jeans and T-shirts.
Good
, Mel
thought. At least she'd fit in around here clothes wise. Jeans and
T-shirts were about all she owned. She'd already grown out of the
few fancy outfits Lisa had chosen for her.

Jeb stood in the middle of the big, empty
arena—an oval formed by the railings inside the squared off walls.
He was dressed like some ideal model of a wrangler in a white felt
cowboy hat, jeans with a big silver belt buckle, leather chaps, and
a plaid shirt with pearl buttons.
Well, he was
sort of
gorgeous
, Mel thought. She wondered what his girlfriend had
been like. Would she return to him when she got over being angry?
Mel hoped so. He'd be easier to get along with if he weren't 'off
his feed.'

“Now,” Jeb began, his ocean depths voice
carrying without need of a microphone, “we're going to introduce
you to your horse. We already matched you up with one according to
those forms you filled out and mailed in, so you shouldn't have any
problem, except maybe you might hit some ice on a trail. We're so
high up in these mountains it don't warm up till late June.”

Finally Jeb said, “Now here comes Sally with
the fool horse he favors, name of Rover—the horse's name that is.
Sally may not look too sharp but he knows horses, probably got the
smarts of one. He'll demonstrate how to mount and direct your
horse. That is, if him and Rover are up to it today. They're both
kind of geriatric, old that is.”

A hot rage rose in Mel at Jeb's put-downs of
Sally. But Sally walked in smiling, leading Rover, who, on command,
bent one front leg and drew back on the other three in a sort of
bow. Then Sally tickled Rover under his jaw and Rover gave his
horse smile. The audience laughed obligingly.

“Now there's a few rules to follow,” Jeb
droned on, after he'd talked about the mandatory riding helmets for
kids being optional for adults. “You always approach a horse from
his left side, and don't walk too close behind him where he can't
see you or he might kick. You stay with the wrangler leading your
ride and let him or her deal with any problems, like dropped water
bottles or lost hats.” His list of rules made the children fidget
on the narrow benches, and still, Jeb talked on. He reminded Mel of
last year's seventh grade social studies teacher, nicknamed Mr.
Sandman because he put half the class to sleep.

“You folks are going to use mounting blocks,
so there won't be any problems getting up on the horse,” Jeb said.
“Remember you approach from the horse's left.”

Sally put the mounting block down on the
wrong side with a one-handed flourish. He stepped onto it,
pretending to teeter on one foot. When a child in the stands
yelled, “Oh oh!” Sally, waved, grabbed the mounting block, scooted
with it under Rover's belly and hoisted himself gracefully into the
saddle from the right side.

“Well,” Jeb said, “at least he got on facing
the right end of the horse today. Once you're in the saddle, a
wrangler will adjust the stirrups and tighten the cinch. We'll stop
again soon after we start out to check that the cinch is tight. If
Sally's your wrangler, you might have to remind him about that. At
his age, he don't always remember so good.”

Sally kept smiling through the remarks. Mel
had realized the clown act was to amuse the guests, but she didn't
like it or the part Sally played in it. He illustrated, as Jeb
explained, how to start and stop and turn the horse. To Mel, Sally
looked like a centaur, as if horse and man were one, as he had
Rover walk to the left and the right and around and back up and
then jog and lope and stop.

“So if old Sally can do it so good, you're
not going to have any problems, right?” Jeb asked the audience.

“Right,” a short, eager boy yelled out. The
guests clapped politely at the end of the exhibition. Sally doffed
his cowboy hat and jogged out of the barn on Rover, bouncing in an
exaggerated way.

Jeb called down the smallest boy first. Mel
led Lily over to the mounting block and Jeb strapped a riding
helmet onto the boy and helped him into the saddle. “Just kick your
horse to start her walking,” Jeb told him. In short order, he had
the boy reining to the left and to the right and stopping Lily.

“See how easy it is? Bet you could do it,
too,” Jeb said to Mel, loud enough for his audience to hear.

Her face got red hot at the remark, and her
stomach clenched. For fear of more public embarrassment, she said,
“I'm out of here,” turned on her heel, and ran out of the barn.
Halfway back to the corral she began to regret walking out on Jeb.
What if he barred her from the corral? What if he forbade her to
come near Lily again? He was the boss. He could do it.

She wished she'd listened to Sally and tried
to sweet-talk Jeb instead of getting mad at him. Why did she always
mess up? She needed Lily. She needed Sally and the feeling of being
useful and belonging somewhere.

Chapter
Three

“I hear you walked out on Jeb,” Sally said to
her the next morning. Mel was crouched beside Lily lifting the
horse's hooves one by one as she used the hoof pick to dig out the
crusts of dried mud. “He says you're touchy.”

“I'm not. I just won't let him push me
around.”

“Yeah, well. He likes to tease. He's not a
bad feller, Mel.”

“He wouldn't talk to me last night at supper.
He talked to my mother, but he wouldn't even look at me.”

“Uh huh. He told me not to count on you for
anything.”

“He thinks I'm
unreliable
?” Mel was
shocked. “That's not fair. Just because I walked out on him in the
barn? I'm not that great a student, but I always do what the
teacher says. Always.”

Sally spat out the grass stem he was chewing
on. “That's what I said, that you seemed like a dependable
kid.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“But the way he thinks is that if you're too
skittish to get on a horse's back, you'll likely get yourself in
trouble working around horses.”