The Georges and the Jewels (18 page)

“What’s that?”

“When you’re working with an unbroke horse, never be too lazy to get off.”

I laughed.

Jem smiled, but then he got serious and looked me in the eye. He said, “I mean it, though. This horse gave me a sign. I
felt it. His back is still tense and he’s still distracted. Instead of being lazy and thinking that I’ll ride him through it, I made up my mind to get off and do a few more things with him before I try him again. Sometimes I don’t get on a horse at all during a session. It doesn’t do me any good if he hurts me, and it doesn’t do him any good, either.”

“Daddy says they have to know who’s boss. If you get off, then you’re giving them their way.”

Jem asked George to step over and then step back, then step over the other way, then step forward. George kept looking off toward the gelding corral as if he didn’t care one bit about Jem Jarrow, and then Jem raised his hand and made him speed up, and George suddenly tucked his head, curved his body, and looked really beautiful. It was startling. Jem let him come to a halt, and then he gave him a pat. He said to me, “I don’t get into a fight with them just to let them know who’s boss. Most horses, if they win a fight, it scares them, and if they lose a fight, it makes them resentful.”

“After George and my uncle Luke had it out, George was worse.”

Jem Jarrow didn’t say anything to this. He didn’t seem to be an “I-told-you-so” sort of person. After a bit, he got on George again, and this time the horse did all his movements with his ears up and his head and neck relaxed. Also, his hocks were under him, and his response to all of Jem’s signals was practically instantaneous. I realized that I had never seen him before without that grumpy look on his face. Jem never let him do the same thing for more than ten or fifteen steps. He turned or halted or cantered or trotted or walked with long steps or made
a little circle or figure eight or galloped off and came to a sliding halt or did a neat rotation around his hind feet, first one direction, then the other. He cantered from the halt without bucking.

After they had done all of these things, Jem walked George around, and George continued to look pleased with himself. When they passed me where I was sitting on the fence, I said, “He’s a well-trained horse.”

Jem said, “He knows a lot of things, yes, but he isn’t a well-trained horse until it’s his second nature to soften as soon as he’s asked to do anything.”

“At which point a little girl will be able to ride him.”

“I expect a little girl will be able to teach him to do that.” He pushed his hat back on his head. He said, “You like that dark one?”

“Yes. That’s Black George.”

“Well, why don’t you go get on him and let’s see how he does.”

“It’s been forty-five minutes.”

“Has it? That’s fine. Let’s try him out.”

I put the western tack on Black George, which I hadn’t done in a month and a half.

I would have said that Black George was a very good horse. He never bucked or spooked, much less reared or bolted. But after I had taught him, with Jem telling me what to do, to step under in both directions and to drop his nose to the inside and quietly bring his hip around, it was like I was riding a different animal. At the walk, his body was relaxed and loose and I could feel his stride lengthen or shorten every time I asked. At the trot, it was as if the saddle rode his back
like a little boat, and I could feel each of his hind legs step under my seat like a little wave. He covered a lot of ground, too. But the canter! The canter wasn’t like anything I had ever felt before, rocking and comfortable, but strong and dynamic. I knew that what made it good was right in the shoulder, right in front of my hands. And when I looked at his head, I could just see the bulge of his inside eye; I could also feel his inside hind leg stepping underneath me and launching us, and yet all of these little bits of things I noticed came and went in what seemed like a whoosh of speed. I made small circles and large circles; I asked for a gallop and he leapt forward; I asked for and got a neat halt. The feeling in my stomach had vanished, and school seemed very small and far away. It seemed like I would never make a big deal about anything at school ever again.

Daddy was standing by the fence with Jem. I waved. They talked.

I went over to them. Daddy said, “That looked very nice, young lady.”

“He’s so comfortable.”

“Music to my ears, darling.” He shook Jem’s hand and walked away.

After Jem left, I tried what he’d taught me on Socks George and the two mares, but what he had taught me, even though I could remember a lot of the very words he had used, was like a refreshing fog that slowly lifted and wafted away. After a while, I had no idea whether I was doing the right thing or not. But he was coming back the very next day. With luck, I thought, Jem might stay two hours.

*  *  *

In the morning, as soon as we got off the bus, the principal, Mr. Canning, sent us into the lunchroom to have a look at the missions. He and Miss Rowan, the art teacher and Mr. Jarek, the history teacher, stood at the end of the table by San Francisco Solano, smiling and clapping and exclaiming that we had all done a wonderful job, the best ever. The display was more elaborate now—the sixth graders had added some things to the map, just as we had done the year before, when we were in sixth grade—mostly cutouts of cattle and sheep and some fish and whales out in the ocean, as well as two models of sailing ships. The photos of the missions “as they are today” were taped to the wall. Miss Rowan had brought a plate of peanut butter cookies, and we all had one.

Out by the lockers, while we were waiting for the bell, Stella looked happier than she had looked in weeks. And she was also nicer to me. While she was smiling at me and asking how my horses were (she never asked this, normally), her eyes kept drifting toward Brian, Joan, and Mary A., who were talking about bologna sandwiches in loud voices. I said that the horses were fine, and then I said, “Stella, listen to them! Why do you even care?”

“Care about what?”

“About him. Or them. Any of it.”

“What makes you think I care?”

“You’re looking at them.”

“He’s just wearing a very strange shirt is all.”

He wasn’t, though.

At this point, one of the eighth-grade boys walked by, a kid I’d been riding the bus with since kindergarten, named Dougie Wilder. Stella gave him a big smile and said, “Hi, Dougie!”

He looked at her and walked on without saying anything.

I said, “Why do you speak to them?”

“Why not? I’m a friendly person.”

“You say hi to them and they don’t answer back.”

She waved her hand, then she said, “My mom said I could have a party. A boy-girl party. But I have to invite everyone in the class. Can you come?”

“My mom will say yes and my dad will say no, so it depends.”

“On what?”

“That’s what I don’t know.”

“Your family is so weird, Abby.”

“Well, yeah,” is what I said.

“Anyway, if you come, you have to wear something nice” is what she said. She made her voice sound like she was telling me a friendly secret, but I knew she was being mean.

After lunch, when we were at our lockers, Kyle came up to me and said, “You got any glue or Scotch tape or anything like that in your locker?”

I had some Elmer’s. I handed it to Kyle. He said, “Some of those trees you made fell over. I’m going to make little stands on the bottom of them. I already colored them brown, but I want to glue them, not just slot them in.”

“Okay. But what about your next class?”

“It’s gym. I hate gym.”

“Don’t they care if you’re late?”

“Not if you’re working on your mission.” He took the glue and turned away.

I went to science. We studied barometric pressure. After science, I went back to my locker, thinking solely of showing Jack to Jem Jarrow and finding out how to make him perfect
starting right now. I was rummaging around in the bottom of my locker for my colored pencils, and someone bumped me from behind and made me hit my head on the back of the locker. I stood up. Kyle said, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to run into you. Here’s your glue.” He held it out to me, then he said, “I worked on those trees until they were practically growing, waiting for her to go away. She walked all over the place and looked at every mission about six times. I reset the bells. I did everything I could think of.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m thinking she was going to spill her root beer all over it.”

“Who?”

“Your friend Stella. She kept walking around with it and taking tiny little sips and looking over at me, but I didn’t look at her, I just kept doing stuff.”

“What happened?”

“Well, the bell rang, and then she stood around for a while, and then she left.”

We looked at each other. I’m not sure that Kyle and I had ever looked at each other for more than half a second, but now we were both thinking about the same thing, so we looked at each other. Then he said, “But the evidence is only circumstantial.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we could report her only if she really spilled her root beer.”

I got that feeling in my stomach again. I said, “What about Gloria? Was she around?”

“No.” Then he shrugged. “I did reset the bells. They ring good now.”

Jem Jarrow was already there as soon as I got off the bus, and the first thing he said to me was, “Mind if we have a look at the colt?”

Of course not. Jem already had his rope halter out, and he followed me to the pen.

Jack had his head up and his ears pricked, looking right at me. He always did when I came down the road from the school bus. Most of the time, he whinnied or squealed, too. What I did first when I saw him was to pet him on the head and neck, both sides. No treats. Almost every adult in the world that I knew said that treats make a horse nippy, though Daddy would give a trained horse a bit of something once in a while. Sometimes, I picked a handful of grass and let Jack take that between his lips, especially if it was green and moist.

Jem said, “Show me what you do with him.”

I went and got the halter and the chamois. Jack stood nicely for putting on the halter. Once he had it on, I started leading him around, and he was okay for the first while, but then he got balky and distracted. I turned him and led him a little bit more. He stopped, threw his head up, and started backing up. Then he came with me again, but when we got back to the gate, I was disappointed and thought that he could have behaved himself better, but then I thought the other thing I always thought, which was that he was just a baby and he would get better as he got older. I held the lead rope with one hand and rubbed the chamois over him with
the other, first one side, then the next. He stood quietly for that.

Jem said, “How old is he now?”

“Almost three months.”

“He’s a big colt.”

“He might be a Thoroughbred.”

“Looks like it. Why don’t you let him go for a minute.” This was not a question. When I let him go, he trotted off, his neck arched and his ears pricked. All of a sudden, he reared up a little and pawed, as if he had an imaginary enemy to scare away. He leapt into the air and ran a few strides, then he kicked out. A lot of his foal coat was gone now, and the dark, shiny coat underneath looked sparkly in the sun.

Jem said, “It’s going to be a big job, raising this colt.”

“That’s what everybody says.”

“His dam would normally be doing a lot of the work for you.”

“I know.”

“My suggestion, you turn him out with the geldings.”

“I’m afraid he’ll get hurt.”

“He might, with the mares. Less likely with the geldings, but there’s always a risk. First thing, though, he needs to know what they all need to know—how to step over and get out of your space when you ask him to.”

Jack had by now come back over to us, his neck arched and his ears pricked, just as interested as he could be. Jem let him be close but not too close. If Jack pressed into him, Jem lifted the halter in his hand and waved it a bit. When Jack then backed up a step, Jem stepped toward him and gave him a pat. Two times, he made the colt back up three or more steps, then
he gently touched the side of his face and asked him to turn his head. When his head had turned pretty far, Jack unbent by stepping over. Jem gave him a pat. He said, “One good thing is, if a horse is curious, a colt is twice as curious. If a horse wants to play, and horses do, because otherwise why would they do most of the things we ask them to do, a colt wants to play all the time. Your job is to teach him not to play rough. That’s what his dam would do.”

I said, “I never thought of what horses do as playing.”

“Sure it is. You seen a horse work a cow? That horse is going to tell that cow what to do, pretty much the same as two kids playing tag. My feeling is, the more the horse likes the game, the less the cow does.” He smiled and waved Jack away more energetically. First, Jack threw his head up, snorting, and pricked his ears, then he spun and galloped across the pen with his tail curled over his back. After that, he arched his neck and trotted around in a circle, snorting even more loudly and staring at Jem and his rope. He lifted his feet high, then halted again and whinnied. He was tremendously cute. Jem said, “Every move that colt makes, he makes because he enjoys it and it expresses something. He wasn’t afraid of the rope when I shook it—he took the shaking of the rope as a reason to move, and then he enjoyed himself moving.”

“And we enjoyed watching.”

“Well, there you go. Showing, going in parades, working cattle, racing, you name it, if the horses didn’t enjoy it, they wouldn’t have given humans any ideas about what a horse could do for them.”

“Plowing?”

Now Jem really laughed. He said, “Oh, you are something, Miss Abby. You make me laugh. But who says a plow horse doesn’t enjoy pulling the plow? How are you going to make him if he doesn’t want to do it?”

I was sure that there were ways, and of course, I had read
Black Beauty
, but I liked the way Jem thought of it, so I didn’t talk back.

In the meantime, Jack returned to us as if pulled on a rubber band, and this time, Jem put the halter on him while I went and stood outside the gate. Jack acted as if he were a little insulted by the halter and started trotting away, but Jem held on, and Jack came around. Jem waved the end of the rope at him as he got close, and Jack went on past him, pretty soon taking some steps in a circle around Jem but still tossing his head a little. Then, very easily, Jem put some pressure on the rope, and Jack, without even seeming to realize what he was doing, stepped his inside hind leg in front of his outside hind leg and turned smoothly inward. His ears were flicking back and forth. He hesitated. Jem now lifted his left hand, and when Jack moved away from that a little, he found himself going the other way, trotting to the right around Jem’s little circle. I saw right away that with a colt even more than with a horse, your job was to give him a little suggestion more than a strict command. If he was playing a game, then you wanted the game to be fun but to also have rules. Jem did this with him for only five minutes or so, just as if it were a game. When Jack was standing quietly, Jem called me over. I opened the gate and closed it behind me.