Scarecrow on Horseback (5 page)

* * * *

The next morning, Mel avoided having to ride
tail on Lily by keeping away from the corral when the horses were
being readied for the family trail rides. Then Lily was assigned to
another small child for a week. Meanwhile Sally kept complimenting
Mel on her work as she helped him with his chores.

“Seems like you got a special feel for
horses. You sure communicate with them better than most folks,” he
said.

“Well, I've got a special feel for Lily. I
wish she was my horse, like Rover is yours.”

“You planning on riding her?”

“No, but I could take care of her and watch
over the little kids who ride her and like that.”

“Might work,” Sally said. “Whyn't you check
with Jeb?”

“Would you ask him for me, please?”

Sally grunted, but he complied.

The next morning in the corral, Sally
informed her, “Jeb says you're in charge of Lily.”

Mel beamed.

Every day that Lily was free, Mel exercised
her on a lunge line, putting her from a trot to a lope. Mel liked
working alone in the small outdoor ring on the other side of the
brook. There no one could laugh at her for talking to the mare and
pretending that Lily was answering her.

“Ever think of joining a circus, Lily? You
could have a beautiful lady standing on your back as you circled
the ring while everybody applauded.”

And Lily's answer. “I'd rather be here with
you.”

“Well, the mountains are great and the air is
so fresh.”

“Food's good, too,” Lily might say.

“So do you like it when the day's over and
you go up in your mountain pasture for the night?”

“Yes, I like relaxing up there, but I'm glad
to come down in the morning to be with you.”

“You're a love, Lily.”

“I love you, too.”

The small ring was next to a so-called
petting zoo that the ranch maintained for the guests. The petting
zoo was just a fenced-in area with a shed where a few sheep, a baby
calf, and a lively miniature goat were penned. The goat bleated and
baahed and cavorted to get her attention whenever Mel passed by.
She often stopped to pet it through the fence.

When she wasn't working at scooping horse
poop from the road, or currying Lily, or throwing saddle blankets
and tack on horses' backs to get them ready for trail rides, Mel
enjoyed taking guests' children to visit the animals in the petting
zoo. The children loved to feed the calf. It bawled like a baby and
sucked on a bottle, slobbering milk bubbles. The sheep were
unfriendly and avoided being touched, but Mel's favorite was the
goat. He hopped and skipped around the yard, trying hard to get out
and often succeeding when the guest children left the gate open by
mistake. The goat was lovable and funny, if pesty. He'd run at and
butt little kids. Sometimes he frightened them and they didn't want
to go near him.

* * * *

One afternoon, Mel had charge of Lily's
current rider, a petite blonde girl named Paris. Paris was
practicing her riding skills in the small ring. She had kicked Lily
into a smooth lope. For once the horse was circling the ring
without dropping back into her bumpy trot, the gait Lily was most
often called upon to do other than walking. Next Paris began
directing Lily between the rusty metal barrels in the middle of the
ring in a figure eight pattern. Suddenly Mel heard the goat
bleating loudly. She looked up in time to see twin boys chasing
after the agile black-and-brown creature. All three were heading
right for Lily and Paris.

“Whoa, Lily!” Mel yelled. But it was too
late. She ran to intercept the goat, but it was faster. It skipped
sideways away from Mel, and kept running, right past Lily, who was
loping dutifully around the second barrel. Lily neighed and reared.
Paris dropped the reins and clasped the horse's neck. Lily came
down, twisting to the side and hitting the sharp edge of the
barrel. The mare crashed onto the ground, and Paris rolled off her.
Meanwhile, the goat had slipped under the rail, out of the ring,
and was gone into the dark evergreen woods that furred the
mountainside.

“You all right?” Mel asked as she knelt
beside Paris.

“I don't know. I think so,” Paris said
gravely. She had banged her arm and was rubbing it, but it didn't
seem to be broken. Then Mel looked toward Lily and screamed. The
mare was trying to right herself and blood was pouring from a wound
between her udder and rear. Lily's squeal was pathetic. Mel covered
her ears to shut out the sound of the mare's pain.

“Stay here, Paris. I've got to get help,” Mel
said. She went racing back across the brook, glad not to have to
witness any more of Lily's struggle to stand upright.

* * * *

Jeb got Lily back on her feet and put a
temporary bandage on her wound until the vet could look at it.
Meanwhile Paris's parents came and carted her off, although she
kept protesting that she was fine.

“Why did you leave the gate open?” Jeb asked
Mel.

“I didn't. The goat got in through the
fence.”

“That horse won't be usable for riding 'till
she heals. I'm going to have to ship her back down to Jeffries'
ranch, maybe for the rest of the season,” Jeb said.

“She'll be all right though, won't she?” Mel
asked.

“That's for the vet to say. But it looks like
you're out of a job, kid. Unless you decide you can take on trail
rides like any wrangler here.”

“A wrangler gets paid. I don't,” Mel
snapped.

“Well, you would be paid if you'd do what
you're supposed to do.”

She bit her lips and turned away from
him.

That evening the goat returned by himself.
Mel sat on her bed in her dark closet of a room, brooding. Was what
had happened to Lily her fault? Jeb had made it plain he thought
so. Sally said she had a special feel for horses, but every contact
she had with them seemed to end in disaster. Now what, she asked
herself. Now what should she do?

Chapter
Five

Mr. Jeffries was a rich, retired businessman
with a much younger wife. He owned the pretty spread in the valley
below Little Creek Ranch and kept it for his own pleasure. To Mel's
surprise, she discovered that half the horses on the guest ranch
were rented from Mr. Jeffries for use during the summer when the
ranch filled up with paying guests. Lily belonged to Mr. Jeffries.
She was a rental horse.

Mel got her mother to drive her down to
Jeffries' spread a couple of times a week to visit with the mare.
Mel would bring her carrots, which Lily liked. She'd limp over to
the gate when she saw Mel there and stand patiently while Mel
brushed and curried her. Lily moved more and more easily. Soon, Mel
hoped her horse would return to the dude ranch so they could be
together again. But in the middle of June one Saturday morning,
Dawn dropped Mel off at Jeffries' field, promising to pick her up
in a few hours on her way back from shopping at the mall. That day
Mel couldn't find Lily anywhere. She approached the fancy,
two-story log house with the big front porch that was the Jeffries'
summer home and rapped on the door. Mrs. Jeffries answered in a
black velvet housecoat. She looked glamorous but sleepy.

“I was looking for Lily,” Mel said, “the
white horse that had the big wound?”

“Oh, the Arabian? Yes. The girl that bought
her picked her up this morning.”

“Someone bought Lily?”

“Yes, dear. The horse didn't seem strong
enough for hackwork. It's hard on them, you know, all those
different riders and out on the trails all day. Luckily this little
girl fell in love with Lily. Don't worry. She'll take good care of
her.”

“But Lily was mine!” Mel blurted out.

“She was?” The woman frowned in confusion.
“Not this horse I'm talking about. She belonged to my husband.”

Mel turned on her heel and walked away. She
sat down under a tree, barely able to breathe, and waited for her
mother. A hawk settled on a fence post not ten feet from her. Mel
barely looked up. Loneliness twisted her gut into a knot. Life on a
guest ranch was too unpredictable, and worst of all she'd lost
Lily.

* * * *

The next morning Mel got dressed and dragged
herself down to the corral even though Lily wouldn't be there.
She'd promised to help Sally with the horses, and once she made a
promise she kept it

Jeb was conferring with Sally about some
horse's sore foot. Jeb looked up when Mel appeared and said,
“What're you scowling about, Mel? You got a problem this
morning?”

“I'm not scowling.”

“Well, you don't look too cheerful.”

“Why should I be? You sold Lily. You said I
was in charge of her and then you sold her.”

“And what business is that of yours? You
didn't own that horse.”

“Let the girl be, Jeb,” Sally said.“She got
attached to Lily. You know she even visited the mare regularly
while it was down at Jeffries'?”

“I just wish you'd warned me that Lily could
be sold,” Mel burst out. Then to hide the tears in her eyes, she
set about filling feed buckets.

“Listen,” Sally said to her when their paths
crossed in the tack room, “it's better that Lily found a good home.
Likely her life'll be better. Anyways, she won't have to work so
hard.”

Mel swallowed hard, accepting the truth of
that, but accepting it didn't stop her from grieving for herself,
for the companion she had lost.

She was heading out of the corral when Jeb
came up behind her and said, “We got a bunch of horses here. Why
don't you pick out another one? You might find one with a better
trot than Lily so you'd feel like doing some trail riding. Then you
could make yourself useful around here.”

“I am useful,” she said indignantly.

“Not as useful as you'd be if you rode. We're
still short of wranglers.”

He left to tack up the eight horses needed
for the breakfast ride and Sally came by to coax, “I bet you
haven't noticed that little bay with the sweet disposition over
there.”

“Leave me alone, Sally. I'll do okay just
picking up horse poop.” She let herself out of the gate and went to
hide under the hanging branches of a spruce that towered over her
cabin. There she sat and brooded until the bell clanged for
lunch.

* * * *

The guest list picked up as June warmed up
and before long the season was in full swing.

One Sunday, Hojo, a huge one-time draft
horse, was assigned to a two hundred plus pound male guest to ride.
The big man complained. “This plug ugly beast is like riding an
elephant without a trunk.”

“Hojo's strong and he'll work hard for you,”
Jeb said, his tone level and polite because he was speaking to a
guest.

Reluctantly, the big man set off alone with
Sue, the eighteen-year-old wrangler from town who had returned to
her summer job now that her school term had ended. Sue and the man
were back in twenty minutes while the other horses for the day's
trail rides were still being readied by Jeb and Mel. Sally had
taken a group off on a breakfast ride with another wrangler, a
summer hire who'd just returned from college.

Hojo's right rear leg was bright red with
seeping blood.

Speaking so the guest couldn't hear, Sue told
Jeb, “He galloped Hojo over that wooden bridge down the road. Hojo
ripped open his flank on a nail at the turn. Then the guy tried to
muscle Hojo into going on, and I had a job talking him into turning
back.”

The guest had dismounted without waiting, as
he was supposed to, for a wrangler to help him. “I'm trading this
clumsy brute in,” he said to Jeb without apologizing for what he'd
done to Hojo. “I want a decent mount.”

Jeb didn't blink at the outrageous request,
but Mel muttered too low for the guest to hear, “You're the brute,
Mr.”

Before attending to Hojo's wound, Jeb found
the man another horse. When he'd ridden off again with Sue, whose
thin, freckled face was set in disapproving lines, Jeb went to
Hojo. The big animal was still bleeding. Jeb led him into the barn
and cross-tied him to posts so that he couldn't move. Then Jeb got
gauze pads and staunched the wound by pressing the pads to it.

“I guess we got to call the vet,” Jeb said to
Mel who'd followed on his heels. “The ranch owner's not going to
like more vet bills, but this wound's deep. Can you hold these pads
here, Mel?”

She took his place at Hojo's side as Jeb
unhooked his cell phone from his belt.

The horse craned his neck to look back at her
and snorted as she pushed her palm against the gauze pads. The
blood kept welling out until it covered her hand. But after
dropping a load of manure, Hojo stood still, his head hanging so
low that her heart went out to him.

The vet happened to be in the area and came
right away. “Good thing this fella's had his shots recently,” the
vet said. “That nail dug deep.” He finished bandaging the wound and
said the dressings would need regular changing.

Sally had returned from leading the breakfast
ride by then. “That'll be your job, Sally,” Jeb said as the vet
left the barn.

“Sally's already got more jobs than fit in a
day,” Mel complained on her friend's behalf.

“Why can't one of the other wranglers do
it?”

“Because Hojo could be tough to handle when
he's hurting,” Jeb said. “You take care of him if you think it's so
easy, Mel. I might even pay you for it.” His grin challenged
her.

“Fine,” she said. “I will.”

“No she won't,” Sally said. “That horse could
kill her, Jeb. She's only a little girl.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn't serious,” Jeb
grunted.

“I'll take care of him,” Sally said.

“When?” Mel asked. “You already work way past
quitting time.”

“How'd you get to be Sally's ma?” Jeb asked
her. “He's grown. He don't need you to protect him.” And Jeb walked
off, leaving Mel to fume about how he treated Sally.