A Kingdom in a Horse (6 page)

“But she seems so exhausted,” Sarah protested. “Look, she’s sweating so.”

“That’s good!” Lee said. “They all sweat after a little exercise. And mind you, this is just a little exercise that I’ve given her. In her condition you can ride her two, three hours and she’ll he fine.”

It was no use. She went toward the house to change. On the way she stopped by the truck.

“Hello, David,” she said warmly to the boy who was pretending to read his book.

“Hello,” he said and looked at her. “That’s a mighty nice horse you have.”

“Oh, David, I’m so happy you think so too.” She was glad to see that he didn’t look quite so dismal. His face was still set in hard lines, but his eyes were not as somber. “I called her Gypsy but what I actually wanted to do was ask you about naming her. I wanted to do that last night at the auction, but you went away without even giving me a chance to thank you for the demonstration.”

“Gypsy’s all right for her name,” David said. “I’m bad at naming things, anyway.”

“I want you to know that you can come and ride Gypsy any time you wish. Each day, if you want.”

“It’s your horse,” he said. “You shouldn’t want anyone to ride her.”

“But I do. I do want you to ride her!”

“I wouldn’t,” he said and looked down at the book, and then again at her. There was a sudden, unexpected warmth between them; his face relaxed com-, pletely and he looked like a little boy rather than a young man. “I mean, I’d rather not fool around with someone else’s horse. One day I might have a horse of my own.”

He didn’t know why he had said this. He hadn’t meant to say anything at all and he felt strangely confused, especially because the woman had smiled at him and then, without another word, walked away.

Somewhere in her closet there was a pair of old slacks she hardly ever wore. Her husband hadn’t liked to see a woman wearing pants and used to say, “Practically every female born has a good pair of legs and only the foolish ones would want to hide what nature took a long time to perfect.”

While she was changing, Lee walked Gypsy over to the truck. David pretended he didn’t see his father come up.

“You won’t change your mind?”

“About what?” He knew very well what his father was talking about.

“About giving Mrs. Tierney some lessons. She sure could use some. It will be very easy for her to ruin this good horse if she don’t know what to do. I know she’ll spoil her in the worst way, and if she don’t know how to ride, then Gypsy will take over completely and within two months she won’t be the same horse.”

“I’m sorry,” David said.

“How about a reason?” his father asked. “Don’t you even want to give me one? ”

“I’ve got homework to do,” David said impatiently, his eyes on the book. “You don’t realize how much I have.”

“And that’s it?”

“Sure, that’s it.”

His father stood by the side of the truck for a while and then walked slowly away, Gypsy following him.

Sarah’s heart was beating furiously and her throat was parched with fear. Lee was shortening the stirrups for her, and she wished she could tell him how afraid she was.

“You’ve got yourself a fine western horse here,” Lee said. “Get yourself some western gear—blue jeans and cowboy boots. You can skip the ten-gallon hat.”

“I’ll do that,” she managed to say.

“I won’t be around to give you a leg up, so let’s see if you can make it up all by yourself.”

He told her how to approach the horse always from the left side and how to swing herself up with the help of the saddle horn. She was surprised that she managed to get on quite easily. He had held on to the reins while she was mounting, but once she was seated, he gave her the reins and Gypsy started to walk away down the road.

“You seem to have a good pair of hands,” Lee said as he walked beside her.

The fear had not left her, but she knew this was the time to try her horse out, with Lee around. She loosened the reins a little, and the second she did, Gypsy took off at a fast canter. Sarah was petrified by the speed and her distance from the ground, and she held on to the horn with one hand. Off they went, faster now, at a gallop, down the dirt road.

I’ll never be able to make her stop, Sarah thought. We’ll be galloping down the highway for the rest of our lives. But it was Gypsy who slowed down before reaching the road. She turned around, fast, and Sarah managed to keep her seat. On the way back, at a canter, she even let go of the horn and began to enjoy the ride. Gypsy stopped in front of Lee and stood shaking her head proudly.

“I don’t think,” Lee said, “that I should worry about you two females. You did fine.”

“But I was terrified,” Sarah said laughing.

“Everyone is, at first.”

Sarah leaned over and patted Gypsy’s neck.

“And I didn’t do anything at all. It was she who took me for a ride.”

“Well, don’t let her get into that habit. You must let her know who is master.”

“I’m afraid she already does know. She is.”

“No!” Lee said firmly. “You are. And talk to her. That’s the best way I know of to get a horse used to you. And you should use your reins, across her neck for directions, and slack when you want her to run, and tighter when you want her to walk.”

“How do I stop her?”

“Pull up on the reins, then slacken them, then pull again, and if you must, say Whoa.”

Sarah got off by herself and stood proudly looking at her mount.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Lee said, “she is a wonderful horse. But now we must walk her to cool her off.”

He told her how she should check by feeling under the horse’s chest whether the horse had cooled off, and he told her other things: about putting a blanket on Gypsy on a windy day, about picking her feet for stones, how long and how often to groom her, why she should never be fed after being ridden, and how much water it is safe to give a horse when it is still warm.

When they left, Sarah was alone with Gypsy. She stood for a long time leaning against the fence, looking at her horse grazing on the new grass. And in the newness of the spring, the newness of her possession, she felt the renewal of her own life. Her world was once again complete. She belonged to someone and someone belonged to her.

Waking up, Sarah Tierney was aware of having dreamt about her horse. Lying in bed trying to recall what it was that she had dreamt about was no use. She never was able to remember dreams, and she had always envied people who could. Dressing hurriedly, she wondered how Gypsy had spent the night. She had said a long good-bye to her horse, unwilling to leave her alone for the night. And now she was eager to see her again.

She noticed right away that Gypsy had been lying down during the night; straw was clinging to one side of her coat. With a shiver of apprehension Sarah went inside the stall to brush her, but realized that she should feed her first.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I will brush you as you eat. That way I don’t think you’ll object to my being so close to you.”

She got the grain and spilled it into the feeder. Gypsy ate hungrily while Sarah spoke to her gently as she brushed her coat with the curry comb and then with the large brush. When she was through, she waited for her horse to finish eating. She could not resist the gloss of the coat, and leaned against it, burying her face in the softness of it.

“I’ll put you out in the pasture,” she said to Gypsy as she was leading her out of the stall. “It’s a beautiful morning and the sun is warm. Later, in a few days, I’ll let you roam around free. You can feed then on the lawn, in front of the house, on the grass under the maple trees, and anywhere else you’ll choose to go. But you must realize that this is your home now and that you cannot run away from me.”

When Gypsy was being led out of the stable, Sarah’s fingers slipped from the halter and the horse walked off. When Sarah ran after her, Gypsy took off, cantering down the road with her mistress running behind her calling her name.

I’ll never catch her, Sarah thought desperately. She’ll be killed on the highway.

But still she ran, breathless now, and crying, when Gypsy disappeared around the curve. The driveway was long, and by the time Sarah reached the highway her heart was pounding wildly. She had been listening for the sound of trucks or cars, petrified that Gypsy would run into the heavy traffic. But there were no cars. She looked up and down the long stretch of the highway, almost flat for a quarter of a mile in each direction, but she did not see her horse. She turned around to run back to the house and get her car, when she saw the copper of Gypsy’s body, half hidden by a bush. She could have shouted for joy but controlled herself and approached the horse cautiously. Gypsy raised her head and looked at the woman with her blue eye, and did not run away but continued to graze on the grassy spot between the dirt road and the highway. Sarah got hold of the halter, very firmly this time.

Before leading her back, she rubbed her forehead on Gypsy’s neck, and half laughing, scolded her. “Don’t you know you’ve frightened me half to death? Or did you just want to give me some exercise? I’m an old woman, not a girl, and you must remember that. You must never do that again.”

Gypsy nodded her head and snorted. Sarah led her back up the road, stopping occasionally to kiss her on the neck.

They walked together, the horse alert to everything around her, moving her head from side to side, sometimes looking at the woman with a sidelong glance, her ears quivering to the sound of her mistress’ voice and the other sounds around them, the birds and the branches moving in the breeze.

With Gypsy safely in the pasture, Sarah stood leaning against the fence. She could stand for hours talking to Gypsy and watching her, but she knew she shouldn’t do that. She had a house to take care of and the stable to clean. First things first, she said to herself, going into the stable. She decided to buy some carrots and apples in town before she gave Gypsy her exercise, and reward her with them if she was good.

While trying to do her chores inside the house, she kept going to the south windows, from where she could see Gypsy in the pasture. At one point she saw her lie down, as if collapsing, and her heart came to a standstill at the thought that she had gotten sick, but Gypsy immediately rolled on the grass a few times, then stood up and shook herself like a dog when it’s wet. Sarah laughed and then, unable to resist the temptation, she ran out of the house and into the pasture to put her arms around the feeding horse’s neck.

Although reluctant to leave Gypsy, Sarah drove into town to buy a pair of blue jeans and order her cowboy boots, and pick up the apples and carrots for her horse. When she was parking her car, John Connors, the garbage man, put his head in the window.

“Hi, there, Mrs. Tierney,” he greeted her. “Hear you got yourself a horse.”

She was surprised. “Who told you?”

“Forgot who it was, but it’s true, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“My brother had a horse once,” John Connors said. “It was crazy about lettuce.”

“Oh,” Sarah said, “I’ll have to buy mine some.”

“Too expensive,” John Connors said. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you. Twice a week on my rounds, I’ll stop by your house and leave you lettuce trimmings. They throw them out in stores and supermarkets. I’ll just ask the boys to put the lettuce in separate boxes. How’s that?”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you, John,” Sarah said gratefully.

At the dry-goods store Tom Straka, the owner, said to her when she was hardly inside the door:

“Ordered you some cowboy boots. They ought to be here about the middle of next week.”

“How did you know? ”

“Word gets around.”

“I suppose”—she smiled at him—”that you also knew I needed some blue jeans.”

“There’s a couple of pairs for you to try on in the back room.”

In the grocery store where she went for the apples and carrots, Jean, the young clerk, had a big box of apples waiting for her.

“These here apples aren’t rotten or anything,” she said, “but they’re sort of spotted, so you can have the whole box for ten cents.”

Sarah laughed.

“You didn’t know I also wanted some carrots, did you?”

“Sure,” she said, “there’s a bag of them here. I asked Sam to give you a special wholesale rate on them.”

On the street she thought that everyone smiled at her more kindly than usually, and she was happy that no one laughed at her or questioned her about her horse.

It was after two in the afternoon when she finally got Gypsy saddled. She had no trouble putting the bridle on, but she had to retie the saddle knot twice before she got it right. She was nervous and scared as she got Gypsy out of the stable and mounted her.

“Now,” she said, “you’ve had one carrot and one apple. You’ll have two of each if you walk nicely.” She kept repeating the order to walk, and her horse obeyed. But she didn’t know whether the obedience was due to her command or to the path they took. It was narrow and followed a winding creek. The patches of moist grass and the stones made for careful stepping. “This is what we’ll always do first,” Sarah said, patting the horse’s neck. “We’ll walk right here. It’s beautiful and you wouldn’t want to run here. But I do hope that your feet don’t hurt because of the stones. I must ask Lee about that.”