Gee Whiz (14 page)

I said, “They say that the gallop and the canter are actually different gaits, but I never saw that before now.”

She said, “Can I never do that? Can I never go that fast?”

I knew what she meant. But I wasn’t sure I
never
wanted to do it.

We watched him gallop five times around the arena. For
about three of them, he was full out, then he slowed somewhat, but he was still moving at a fast pace. Then he broke to the trot and trotted once around, then he came down to the walk and took several deep breaths, blew the air out of his nostrils, and shook his head. We were still standing in the center of the arena. When we stepped toward him, he came toward us. I said, “I forgot the carrot!”

Barbie pulled her hand out of her pocket. She had two sugar lumps. I said, “Just give him one.”

He came and took it and walked away. He went back to strolling along, checking out the arena and the views. Barbie said, “Should I walk him?”

“I don’t think you have to lead him, but you can walk along near him and cluck if he stops walking. That should keep him going.” She did this, every so often walking up to him and giving him a pat, but not trying to catch him. As for me, I built a jumping chute.

Yes, he had galloped himself breathless, but he was in good shape, and he caught his wind after four or five minutes. He was still alert and active, and didn’t look at all tired. Maybe two weeks before, he had run a race, so he was well conditioned.

The jumping chute was along the railing, only one jump with a chute made of three poles to one side and three poles to the other side. The “jump” was three poles also, in a little pyramid, two poles on the ground and one pole resting on them. Altogether, the jump was maybe four or five inches high. While I was setting the poles, Gee Whiz came over and watched me for a moment, and then sniffed the poles. I
stepped over them. He stepped over them. I turned around and stepped over them. He turned around and stepped over them. Barbie shouted, “Yay!”

He didn’t mind going down the chute, even though all I had to give him was tufts of green grass. But Barbie would hold him at one end, and I would trot down over the poles, then shout, “Gee Whiz!” He would trot to me over the poles, and I would say, “Yup!” like Ralph Carmichael, and give him the grass. He ate up the grass like sugar.

Then I made a real jump, maybe a foot. He snorted the first time and looked at it, but he did jump it, and the second time and the third time he cantered to it, bent his knees, lifted his shoulders, and went. I gave him some grass, led him back to Barbie, and said, “Okay, one more time.” She held him there while I walked to my end.

I called, “Okay, let him go!”

She let go.

I called, “Gee Whiz!”

He trotted toward me, then picked up the canter. But when he was about three strides out from the little fence, a crow flew off the railing of the arena, right at him. He threw his head, shifted his weight to the left, turned. And then he jumped the chute itself, which must have been three feet or 3’3”, in perfect form, even though he was at an angle. He landed neatly on his right lead, made a half circle around the rest of the chute, and stopped in front of me. I said, “Yup!” and gave him the grass.

Barbie came running over. She was wide-eyed. She said, “I thought he was going to run right over you!”

“That occurred to me, but Dad says if they’re coming at you, stand absolutely still so they know where to stop.”

“He knew where to stop.”

“I wasn’t actually nervous, because he wasn’t afraid. He looked like he knew what he was doing.”

“I love him!” said Barbie. “Whose horse is he?”

I said, “I don’t know.”

But I thought I knew what his next career was going to be—he had been spooked, seen the jump, and jumped it perfectly, all in about one stride. Not every horse could or would do that. We petted him, and then Barbie walked him around while I put away the poles and the standards. When her mom showed up and my mom went outside to chat, both of them asked us what we’d been doing, and I said, “Oh, just this and that.” I thought I would get around to telling about Gee Whiz’s adventure at the supper table, when everyone was eating and in a good mood. Because I really didn’t know whose horse he was.

I
WAS READY FOR THE WEEKEND TO BE ALL
C
HRISTMAS
. A
FTER
Barbie left, I went upstairs to change clothes and wash up. When I came down, the cookie factory was set up. The dough was made. We buttered the pans, and then Mom’s job was to press out the little trees, the little snowflakes, the little stars, the little wreaths. My job was the sprinkles. When the sprinkles were on, we put them in the oven, and started on another set of pans—Mom had lots of pans. After not very long, the kitchen table was covered with baked cookies cooling, and Mom was getting out the cookie cutters for the gingerbread men. This dough was made also—it had been chilling all day, and once she got it out, she had to work fast to roll it and cut it. My job was to butter the pans, put red hots on the
gingerbread men for eyes and a row of buttons down the front, and then take a spatula and very carefully put the little men onto the pans. While the gingerbread men were baking, we put the spritz cookies in boxes for the brothers and sisters, and then, after the gingerbread men had cooled, we set a few of them in each box as well.

Always on the twenty-third of December, Mom had us eat leftovers so that there would be plenty of room in the refrigerator once she started cooking, both for church on the twenty-fourth (turkey and stuffing) and for our own Christmas dinner on the twenty-fifth (Danny was coming, so she was planning pot roast and pecan pie). Some of the leftovers were from the back of the refrigerator—old meat loaf, a wrinkled baked potato, nine string beans, two pieces of fried chicken (a wing and a leg), six Brussels sprouts, stuff like that, but we did get to finish the apple pie, because she needed the pie plate. After dinner, we washed all the dishes and set out the pots and pans she would need to start cooking, and Dad even defrosted the freezer, which he hadn’t done in six months. I brought my stereo down from my room and set it on a table in the living room, right outside the kitchen doorway, and we put on an album of Christmas carols. Mom and Dad sang along, and I did, too, once in a while. In the meantime, Dad was breaking ice out of the freezer, the water was running in the sink, dishes were clattering, and the teakettle on the stove was whistling, because Dad was using hot water to help his defrosting. The only thing we could hear was ourselves, until the record came to an end and Mom realized that Rusty was barking.

As a rule, Rusty was a quiet dog. She had her business keeping an eye on things, and she had her other business, following
Mom around, hoping for a scratch around the ears or a stray scrap. She had done some pretty amazing things—bring us a kitten, chase away coyotes, kill a young bobcat that was in the horse pasture—but she almost never barked while performing them. So when we heard her barking and barking and barking, all three of us stopped what we were doing and listened. Dad said, “It sounds as though she’s out back.”

I opened the back door.

There were horses everywhere.

Dad turned on the porch light, but that made it hard to see into the yard, so he turned it off again. We could hear Rusty barking out in the dark somewhere. And then my eyes adjusted. Blue and Lady were the nearest. They were about ten feet from the porch, nosing the ground for bits of leaves or grass. They looked up when I said their names. Behind Blue was a dark-colored horse, who I realized was Lincoln, and not far from Lincoln, maybe halfway to the barn, was Marcus, who snorted when Dad went down the steps. Very dimly, off in the distance, I could recognize Oh My from her white parts. Gee Whiz was standing behind her, also white in the starlight (the moon hadn’t risen yet). Dad moved smoothly over toward Marcus, who snorted and backed up, but let himself be caught. Dad took hold of his forelock, then eased a piece of baling twine out of his pocket and wrapped it around Marcus’s muzzle and his poll as a makeshift halter. He then led him back toward the barn. I had no trouble catching Blue—he just followed me—while Mom used a twisted dish towel around Lady’s neck to lead her. At the barn, we put those three horses in stalls.

Rusty had prevented Nobby and Morning Glory from
getting out—she was sitting in the gate opening, barking at them. They were staying far from the gate, but Rusty seemed to think they would storm her if she gave them the chance, and it is true that horses like to be with the other members of their herd. Dad ran to the gate and closed it, and Rusty stopped barking. Then we took some halters and approached Gee Whiz and Oh My. They curvetted away from us and trotted off. I stood still—it wouldn’t work to chase them—and Dad went into the barn. He came out with two little buckets, and he was already shaking them to show the horses that he had some oats. I wasn’t sure it would work—they had gotten their hay only a couple of hours before, so I didn’t think they were hungry. However, oats were always interesting, since they were sweet and the horses didn’t get many oats (the sleek ones didn’t get any oats). I didn’t see Beebop anywhere, but he was a dark-colored horse with no white markings. I told myself not to worry, at least until the current problem had been taken care of.

Gee Whiz had been on the far side of Oh My, but while we were doing things, he’d come around so that he was between us and her. When Dad said, “Come on, kiddos, look at this,” and shook the bucket, I could swear that I saw Oh My’s ears prick (“Oats!”) and then Gee Whiz coil his neck and nip her on the shoulder, pushing her back. Dad stopped moving. Gee Whiz was maybe twenty feet away, looking at us, his head pale, his eyes dark, his ears flicking.

I said, “I don’t think he’s going to let us catch him. I think he’s got to come to us.”

Dad let out a fed-up sort of sigh, but nothing that might excite the two horses. Mom said, “Apples? Carrots? Cookies?”

Dad said, “Do you have any apples? Those are the most fragrant.”

“There are some in the larder.”

“Well, go in and cut a couple into pieces and sprinkle on some sugar to make them juice up. If they can resist that, then they are superhorses.”

Mom went inside, and Dad stood quietly, shaking the oats. I did what Jem Jarrow would have suggested—I half turned so that I was looking away from the horses. Sometimes they’re more likely to come if you aren’t confronting them. Jack, for example, always wanted to know what I was doing if I was paying attention to something other than him.

Mom came out with the pie plate heaped with apple chunks and brought them over to Dad. Dad said, “Give them to Abby. She’s spent more time with him than we have.”

I took the pie plate and lifted it toward my nose, and said, “Mmm. Those smell good.” And they did, fresh and tangy. I rattled them around in the plate. Gee Whiz snorted and Oh My stuck her nose out underneath his neck. Without moving toward her, I held one out to her, and I think she would have taken it if he hadn’t bumped her with his shoulder and pushed her away. She certainly didn’t like it—she pinned her ears at him—but she also didn’t come for the apple. I took one small step toward them.

Mom said, “Eat one.”

I picked a piece up and made a big deal of putting it in my mouth, then slurping it down. Gee Whiz’s nostrils twitched. But when Dad shifted position, Gee Whiz backed away. Mom said, “Let Abby do it. I think he likes her.”

Dad set his bucket down where the horses could see it and
moved away. I stood quietly, only occasionally shaking the pan, not for the sound, but for the fragrance—horses have good noses, and they use them a lot, not only for deciding which little plants to eat, but also for deciding who their friends are, and what other horses are up to. They sniff noses when they meet and only then offer to be friends or enemies. Uncle Luke said a horse could find his way home with his sense of smell—if the wind was blowing from home to the horse—but I had never seen that. However, the breeze was blowing, gently, from me to Gee Whiz and Oh My, and if I could smell the apples, they could, too. I could see by the look on his face that Gee Whiz was making up his mind, and furthermore, that Oh My had already made up hers—she wanted some apples, and maybe some oats, and probably to go back into her pasture with her friends—but he wasn’t going to make it easy for her. He pushed her again, and nipped her, and she jumped out of the way. Then she trotted off, and he spun around and went after her. I shouted, “Oh My! Oh My!” and shook the pan. She pivoted to avoid him, kicked out at him, and came trotting up. As she did, he came after her, but Dad jumped out at him and waved the halter and lead rope in his face. He backed up, and I caught Oh My and gave her about half of the apples. Dad slipped the halter on her and led her into the barn. Now it was just us and Gee Whiz. He kept snorting, so Dad and Mom sort of faded away, and it was just me and Gee Whiz.

I turned and walked away from him, slowly and ostentatiously leaning down and picking tufts of grass and putting them in the plate with the apples. I told myself that I didn’t
care whether he came or not—after all, he couldn’t get out of the property, because the big gate was closed, and so what if he ate a few marigolds and some rosebushes and the grass in the front yard. I took some deep breaths. I did this because he reminded me of some of the boys at school—as soon as someone told them what they were supposed to do, well, that was exactly the last thing that those boys would do. Why they were that way, I had no idea, and Dad would have said that horses aren’t people, and it’s always the carrot or the stick, but sometimes the carrot didn’t work, and maybe that was because the horse really was reading your mind. When the plate was full of nice, moist grass and sugared apple chunks, I set it on the mounting block near the barn and walked away from it (not forgetting to take a few apple chunks with me).