Borrowed Horses (37 page)

I picked my moment and opened the door, my arm raised in defense as she rushed me. She lunged forward and grabbed my arm with her teeth, swinging me up and out of her way. I struck wood and metal. The sound of the stall walls reverberating mingled with her galloping hoof beats. I blinked, trying to clear the clouds away. I felt for my arm. My shirt was torn and my arm was bleeding, but I could still move my fingers. Nothing was broken.

Zephyr had nowhere to run but into the indoor. Even over the ringing in my ears, I could hear a woman shouting. I hoisted myself up on unsteady legs and went after her. In the arena, Zephyr had run the woman and her horse into a corner. She reared and struck at them. I threw the lead rope around her neck and pulled her down to get her haltered.

“That animal is a menace,” the lady said. “It should be shot before someone gets hurt.”

“I’ve thought the same thing myself.” The world was still hazed with the blow and my head was aching. “She’s been abused and we’re trying to rehabilitate her.”

The woman only glared at me. “If she so much as touches me or my horse, I’m calling my lawyer. You’d better think long and hard about how much that horse is worth to you, especially if you can’t control it better than that.”

I walked away before I could say something I would regret, Zephyr fighting me every step. One day in, and already we’d be in danger of losing our spot at Ferndean. I popped the halter against Zephyr’s nose, hoping to still her, but she merely pinned her ears and lunged for me again, adding another bruise.

I was angry: angry at the woman, angry at Zephyr, angry at the reporters and how they’d told my story. Anger needed to be turned into something functional. I held the show in mind and grabbed Eddie’s brush box.

Eddie left a note:
Call me when you’re done. Don’t worry if it’s late
. I snorted and stuffed it in my coat pocket. He was checking up on me. This was a test, and I had nearly failed. My head throbbing, I flicked the dust from Zephyr’s coat, trying to avoid her teeth in the front and her hooves behind. I wanted to beat her, to make her the outlet of every aimless frustration, to exhaust my arms with whip strokes as I had exhausted my legs in running. Instead, I slid the crop into my boot and cursed. The bleeding on my arm had nearly stopped, but it throbbed steadily.

When we entered the arena, the woman coughed and pointedly dismounted, muttering something I chose not to hear. The field was ours, but Zephyr was no better under saddle. It was like trying to ride a fury. In theory, we were working on flatwork: transitions and circles. In fact, I was doing little more than staying on as she catapulted through a series of acrobatics. She reared and kicked, bucked and lunged. I barely had more than four good trot strides at a stretch, those coming late in the night when she’d exhausted herself.

I returned her to her stall without carrots, slamming the bolt home to show what I thought of this evening’s performance. She pinned her ears, struck the walls, and tossed her head as I swept the barn aisle and returned the tack and brushes to Eddie’s locker. At least there would be no complaint about my cleanliness. The truck roared to life, and I went home.

Torn and stained with blood, my shirt was fit only for the trash. Everything hurt. I called Eddie.

“How’s our girl?” he asked, the same tired question.

“She rode like shit. Worse than shit. She ran me over when I was getting her out and attacked some lady on a Quarter Horse. Rearing and striking. We’re wearing out our welcome pretty fast.”

Eddie considered this. “She needs more time out of the stall. We could lunge her first thing and turn her out in the bull ring until after you get off work, but I don’t have time to get over there in the morning.” He was fishing.

I sighed, picking up the Mason jar and turned it round in my hand. The bulb looked like nothing would come of it. “I can do it.”

“It’ll make an early morning for you.”

“What else am I going to do with my time?”

“Good. With the boys’ basketball season starting up, I’m going to have a hard time getting over to Ferndean, and Connie’s asked me to help her start Bill over some fences. If you have the time, I’d like to turn Zephyr over to you to train exclusively for a while.”

“We’ll still have our weekly lesson?”

“Yes.”

“But other than that, I ride and lunge her every day, almost like she’s mine.”

“Yes.”

I prodded the bulb on the corner. The water level hadn’t changed; it had to be dead. “Are you doing this because of Foxfire?”

Eddie considered this a moment before answering. “In part.” When I didn’t respond to this, he added, “You need to be on a horse, Joannie, and Zephyr needs consistency.” He changed the subject. “I’ve picked your classes for the schooling show. English Pleasure, Hunt Seat Equitation, two-and-a-half foot Hunter, three foot Hunter and three foot Jumper. The two flat classes are early, so if things look bad, we can pull the jumping classes.”

“Jesus.” Except for the last, the classes worked against Zephyr’s strengths. Hunters were judged on form and manners. They were to jump in a clean, round, cadenced style making the trip look effortless and stylish rather than fast, but at least for those, we’d have the ring to ourselves. The flat classes, pleasure and equitation, would put us in amongst other horses and riders, everyone trying to show how well they sat and their horse moved, everyone concentrated on the judge. I hoped they’d stay clear of Zephyr’s teeth.

Eddie said, “I want to see if you two can work together.”

I rolled back my sleeve and passed my finger over the circle of teeth on my arm. Always circles. “Will you sell her to me if we can?”

“Let’s see how the show goes.”

“But if it goes well, then the answer is yes?”

Again, he changed the subject. “Jenny called yesterday to say she’s planning to show as well. She and Hobbes are doing the flat classes and the two-and-a-half foot with you. I’d been worried after I saw the paper, but she said it won’t be a problem for her if it isn’t for you.”

My jaw clenched and my nails bit into my palm, the fist preparing itself for a fight with no conscious effort on my part. The fences were so small, barely more than a hop.

He tried to laugh lightly. “Two weeks ago, I couldn’t convince her to sign up for even one class, and now, she’s determined to take the ribbons.”

“Huh,” I said, not trusting myself to say more.

“You don’t have a problem with her showing, do you?”

I ignored the question. “Do you want me to haul Zephyr or Hobbes?”

“We can figure that out later.” He paused. “I haven’t asked how you’re doing, Joan. I’m sorry. That should have been my first question.”

“I’m getting by.”

“You sure? You need anything?”

“No. I’m O.K.”

“You should get some sleep. I’ll let you go.”

“Eddie?”

“Yes?”

I closed my eyes. “I never said thanks for letting me ride Zephyr. I should have. It means a lot to me.”

“None of that now. You’re doing me a favor, kiddo.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve done me one as well. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

For a long time after we hung up, I sat and stared at the blank wall, slowly breathing, thinking of Jenny and Hobbes. There would be a showdown after all. Dave had nothing to do with it, and everything.

The Thickness of Blood, the Thickness of Water

F
or years, I kidded myself that I’d recovered from Mouse’s death. In the days that followed the wreck, it seemed that everyone—the kids at school, my teachers, my parents—expected me to melt into tears at every moment. I hated the way they looked at me, the way they pretended not to look. They pitied me, and even though I understood that their pity was kindly meant, it kept Mouse’s loss too fresh.
She
was the one they should be sorry for.
She
was the one who died too soon. I was alive, and I would make my life mean something—not just for myself, but for Mouse, too, since she’d never had a chance. I’d work harder than ever, and if I ever had the chance to hold a gold medal in my hand, I would turn to the reporters and tell them that this one was for Jennifer, my best friend since high school, the girl everyone at home knew only as “Mouse.” I’d make her live again. It was the one way I could make up for what I’d done.

I was glad Timothy had gone before he could see me like this. Nights, I’d eat a packet of carrots and ramen noodles, or a frozen burrito, or macaroni and powdered cheese. Stuff I could mostly buy in bulk, avoiding the grocery store. Cheap food, so I could save. I ate only to function, not to taste. What was human could feel pain. What was human was limited. If I was ever going to hold up that gold and say it was for Mouse, then I needed to be more than just human. I needed to be as strong as Timothy said I was, even if that strength was a lie.

Winter was bitter. The water I used to wash my tack each night was crusted with ice before I finished, and my hands burned with cold. I hung no lights or tinsel. Eddie put away the cavaletti and pulled out fences. Zephyr continued to fight me over striding and angles, head high and attention rapt on fighting me as we rushed toward a fence. Her antics getting no reaction, Zephyr flicked her ears forward at every last moment. Her mouth softened, and she’d reach and stretch in another beautiful arc. Electric, she surged from the pole of before-the-jump to the pole of after.

Eddie raised the fences slowly at first, careful to preserve her confidence, but confidence was never something Zephyr lacked. To test her boldness, Eddie threw blankets over the fences, added fake flowers at the base, hung jackets over the posts. She would look and make a show of spooking, then plunge forward and jump. For Zephyr, it was never about doubt or fear. She had to prove that jumping the fence was
her
decision. The spaces in between the jumps, rather than the obstacles themselves were our challenge. Down an empty line, she skittered in a rebellion of acrobatics that had its own grace. Like me, she needed fences by which to define her best self.

By December’s end, Eddie was building oxer combinations, Cheryl had shifted her attention to a suspected affair between a cardiologist and one of the RNs, I was running fifty miles a week on my treadmill, and I hadn’t been inside Rosauer’s since the barn burned down. To pass time on the treadmill, I rented
Rocky
and
Hoosiers
and every other movie that glorifies training as a valid replacement for life.

The only problem was that I couldn’t manipulate time. On film, months of training took minutes, flickering by to inspiring music. The art museum steps aren’t run, and then they are. The weight is too heavy and then it isn’t. The in-between is only alluded to in jump cuts. As much as I tried to fill my day, training left entirely too many hours.

Like the ghosts of that famous old novel, Dave came to me in a dream three nights before Christmas. I’d been standing alone in my empty white bedroom, when he sidled up in a new white Stetson and dark glasses, a different kind of Jacob Marley altogether.

“Always dressed for the part, aren’t you?” I said.

He smiled, revealing a mouth full of flame, fire licking the spaces between his white teeth. Through the dark glass, his pupils blazed. He didn’t speak, but reached out a hand and stroked my cheek. I was stunned by the soft coldness of his touch, black velvet in winter. His fingertips slid down my chin, down my neck, between my breasts. I closed my eyes as my breath came shuddering, my body filled with a sexual longing I couldn’t suppress.

His hand stopped on my chest. “You know I’d never hurt you,” he said, and it was impossible to say whether the words were a statement or a question, only that they burned in my chest where he touched me. A sob escaped and I gritted my teeth against a tide of others. He gazed with fire-filled eyes. Soft fingers pushed through my skin and broke my sternum and ribs to pull the heart from my body.

I stared at it in his flaming hand, the image that hung on the wall of countless childhood memories, the sacred heart. Only, mine was not Jesus red but black. As it beat, charred flakes fell from it. With each throb, it was greyer, diminished.