The Amish Blacksmith (27 page)

“And her transportation to you from her old home? That went well? No accidents or near misses or squealing brakes or anything?”

Natasha shook her head. “No. Eric drove her for me himself. It was a long trip, but an uneventful one.”

“Maybe she misses being in the shows!” Samantha said.

Natasha smiled down at her daughter. “Maybe she does, sweetheart.”

As if she knew we were talking about her, January swiveled her head around to look at the five sets of eyes trained on her.

Then the kids ran over to Willow's stall next and began trying to pat her on the head. From his pocket Stephen produced sugar cubes, and soon the girls were squealing and laughing at the feel of Willow's velvety lips on the palms of their open, sugar-cube-bearing hands.

“I hope I didn't make a mistake buying January,” Natasha said as we watched them play. “I paid a lot for her, maybe more than she was worth considering her number of wins and her early retirement.”

“Why did she retire early?”

“Her scores started to taper off, and her owner felt it best to quit before the drop in her standings became noticeable to everybody. It happens all the time. She's still a beautiful horse.”

“That she is,” I replied, taking in the graceful line of her crest and withers.

“And it's not as though I plan to show her or anything. I bought her for breeding purposes.”

“Right.”

“Anyway,” Natasha said, suddenly all business again. “How long are you thinking this might take?”

I shook my head. “As I said the other day, let's start by giving it a week and then we'll see. What I can tell you is that if I've made absolutely no progress at all in that time, I may not be the one to help her.”

“But you think you will, don't you? Make progress, I mean?”

I smiled. “I'm optimistic. I've seen this kind of behavior in a lot of horses.”

She turned her gaze to January again. “She's such a lovely animal. And from good lineage. I just know she'd have beautiful foals.”

We stood there a moment longer, but the girls became bored once they had used up all the sugar cubes. They scampered out of the barn, the dog happily barking at their heels, with Stephen following them. Natasha and I made our way back to the trailer, and together we unloaded the feed she had brought for January, as well as the tack supplies she had tucked inside a gray Rubbermaid tub.

“Well, I guess that's it then.” She cast a glance toward the barn where her troubled horse now stood out of her line of sight.

“For what it's worth, I haven't met a horse yet I haven't been able to help,” I assured her. “And I don't mean to sound prideful. Horses will let down their guard when they trust the person in charge to be their protection.”

Natasha brushed a strand of hair from her face and furrowed an eyebrow. “Not
all
horses, though.”

I shrugged. I had meant what I said. “I'd say all horses.”

She cocked her head and laughed, but there was no amusement behind it. “Clearly you haven't met Duchess,” she muttered, almost under her breath.

I was instantly curious to know more about the beautiful white horse that Eric wouldn't elaborate about over the phone and that Ryan had said had issues. Whatever those issues were, my desire to fix was instantly on supercharge.

“May I ask what's wrong with her?”

Natasha turned her head toward me. “She's fine. She's perfect—at home. It's when I take her to competitions that she goes nuts. The crowds make her crazy. She's a show horse, so that's a huge problem. Huge.”

I wanted to know more, but my follow-up questions stuck in my throat when I saw the look on Natasha's face. Clearly, this was a topic not open for discussion.

“Well, I would help you with her if I could,” I said, knowing full well she would never bring a horse worth more than two hundred thousand dollars to this place—nor that I would want her to.

She cast another glance toward the open barn doors. “Tell you what, Jake. You figure out what's bugging January, and I just may take you up on that.”

I quickly replied that I was only kidding, but she swung her head around to face me. “Well, I'm not. I have to find a solution by the time the horse show rolls around in September or everything's going to fall apart. And I mean everything.”

Before I could respond, the girls came running toward us with Comet happily chasing after them. Stephen was not far behind.

“All right, girls. Time to head home,” Natasha said brightly, as though we had just finished up a conversation about equine hoof health.

The girls both frowned.

“We want to stay and play with Comet!” Samantha whined.

“You've been playing with the dog since the moment we got here. We need to get home, and these people need to get on with their day. Come on. In the truck.”

Natasha's daughters grudgingly obeyed.

I suddenly remembered I had made an estimate of what I was planning to charge Natasha for January's stay. I had settled on a hundred and fifty dollars for the week. That seemed like a fair price considering January had her own food and I wasn't a professional. I was planning on giving Amos a third of that. I felt fifty dollars was fair compensation for the use of his stable and pastures.

“Oh,” I said, pulling the sheet of paper from my pocket. “Here's what I am suggesting as a fee for January's stay here. I probably should have shown that to you first.”

Natasha took the piece of paper and barely glanced at it. “That's fine.” She shoved it in her pants pocket and then gazed back toward the barn, a slightly concerned look on her face.

“I will do my best to help your horse, Natasha,” I said. When that didn't seem to reassure her, I asked, “Would you like to see her one more time before you go?”

She shook her head. “No. I don't want to mess anything up. She was okay when we left.”

“You can call anytime. We're not always in the shop, but when we are, someone usually answers the phone. Or just leave a message if they don't.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that. Okay, then.”

“I'll secure the trailer door.”

As she got inside her truck, I closed the door, lowered the latch, and set the pin. I stepped away so she could see I was finished.

“You have plenty of room to turn around,” I called. I moved to the edge of the barn to help her with clearance, and a few moments later the truck was making its way down the gravel drive to the street.

Natasha honked once, and then they turned onto the road.

E
IGHTEEN

I
t seemed best to let January have some time to recover from her trip from Chester County, so I didn't attempt to work with her after Natasha and the girls left. The horse seemed a bit uneasy when I brought in her feed and tack, and she kept an ear trained toward the open barn door as though she expected something or someone to come running through it. I distracted her by offering her a few carrots, and then I took Patch out to the round pen for what I hoped would be my final session with him.

This time instead of hats on stakes, I held one in my hand, waited for Patch to stretch out his neck to smell it, and then touched Patch lightly with its brim. I started with his neck, then moved down to his midsection, touching and releasing and waiting for Patch to stand perfectly still as I moved about him with the hat. When my hat-touching elicited a calm response, I rewarded him with a carrot chunk. When he startled, I waited and tried again. After an hour of this, he was allowing me to touch my hat to his face and neck with only a slight swish of his tail—a huge improvement and proof to me he was ready to go home. It would be easy to show Trudy how to do the same pressure-and-release technique with her father's hat so that Patch's “trust conditioning” could continue.

I was getting set to lead him out of the round pen when Roseanna showed
up at the rail. Judging by the basket of carrots on her arm, she'd been pulling up the vegetable component for tonight's supper and had decided to check on our progress on her way back to the kitchen.

“Looks like you won't need another bucket of goodies for that horse,” she said, smiling at me.

“You were watching, eh?”

“It's pretty amazing how you did that. I once saw Mahlon try to calm a horse spooked by its own blanket—but with completely different results.” Roseanna laughed. “He was running around behind that mare, trying to get close enough for her to see it was nothing to be afraid of. The horse wanted nothing to do with that blanket. It was pretty funny to watch.”

I laughed too as I walked Patch toward the pen gate. “I can imagine. Guess Mahlon didn't know that horses are more inclined to go toward something that's moving away from them rather than coming at them, especially something they would prefer to avoid.”

Roseanna swung the gate door open for me. “Funny what horses will fear, isn't it? Like this horse here. Imagine an Amish driving horse being afraid of a hat.”

I patted Patch's neck as we moved past Roseanna. I reached for my own hat waiting for me on the fence post and slowly put it on my head. Patch faltered for only a moment.

“Actually, it wasn't about a hat. It was about what the hat represented. Same with the blanket and Mahlon's horse, I'm thinking.”

“Interesting,” she said, closing the gate behind me. “I have never really thought much about why horses spook so easily.”

We started for the barn, and I liked it that Roseanna fell in step with me, obviously wanting to learn more.

“Horses tend to react to whatever is happening around them or to them with an eye to flight mode. When they see or hear or feel something, that stimulus becomes information that they must naturally react to. They're wired to react. We humans do the same thing, except that we have a capacity for reason a horse does not. A horse will see a dark spot on the road and think it is a hole he could fall into, break his leg, and then be unable to flee from danger. The dark spot might be just a puddle of water or a patched piece of tarmac that's a different color than the rest of the asphalt, but to the horse it looks like a hole, so it's a hole.”

“How do you tell a horse that a patched piece of tarmac isn't a hole?” she asked as we neared the barn door, where she would likely leave me.

“A horse must learn to put his confidence in his owner or handler in such a way that he will respond in obedience rather than react in irrational fear. It's a matter of patience and consistency. And a little ingenuity, I guess.”

“You make it sound simple, Jake, but I'm sure it's not,” Roseanna said, smiling. She patted Patch's neck, a silent gesture I found very affirming. “If only people were that easy to train.”

I smiled ruefully. “Funny, I was just thinking that same thing earlier.” With a glance toward Roseanna, I lowered my voiced and added, “About Priscilla.”

I didn't want to overstep my bounds here, but Roseanna looked curious, not offended, so I kept going.

“The more I get to know her again, the more it seems to me that she has the same problem many of these horses have, that she's mentally stuck on something and can't move past it. I'm trying to coax her into trusting me to be her friend in the hope I can help her move past what she fears. Like I did for Patch, but in a different way, of course.”

“Do you think fear is the real problem here, not just grief?”

I shrugged. “At least part of it. Fear of trusting others. Fear of letting go of the past. Fear of believing she's not entitled to happiness.”

Roseanna's eyes took on a deep sadness as she nodded. “I see your point.”

“To be honest, to me Priscilla just seems kind of locked up inside, you know? As though she's chained to the past and can't find a way to forgive herself and move on. It's so sad. I wish I could help somehow.”

Our eyes met, and Roseanna gave me a look of gratitude as she reached out with her free hand and patted my arm.

“I think you already have, Jake. You've helped her more than you know.”