Gib Rides Home (12 page)

Picturing a woman, a woman as beautiful as Mrs. Thornton but with light-colored wispy hair, riding on the black mare made Gib feel almost paralyzed with excitement. “What did she—” he was beginning to say when a loud jangling noise that came from someplace nearby made him gasp and jump.

It was only the telephone. Although Gib had read about telephones and had seen the one on the headmistress’s desk at Lovell House, he had never before heard one ring. Nor had he ever heard anyone talk on one. He watched, fascinated, as Mrs. Thornton rolled her chair nearer to the desk, lifted the hearing horn down from its hook, put it to her ear, and spoke into the cup-shaped mouthpiece.

“Yes ... Yes, of course, Ellie,” she said. “Put him on.” Then she said, “Hello, Henry.” After that she listened for quite a while saying only “yes” and “I know” now and then, but with her face changing slowly, going from warm and smiling to something quite different. Her voice had changed too when she finally said, “All right ... All right. You’re right. I did promise.” Then she said “Good-bye” and hung the earpiece back on its hook.

Gib had tried not to listen, both because he felt he shouldn’t and because what he was hearing, and sensing, made him uncomfortable. But even while he was trying not to listen he didn’t forget what they had been discussing before the phone rang. He was just starting to say, “About my mother, was she—” when Mrs. Thornton interrupted and said, “Something has come up, I’m afraid, Gibson. So we’ll have to cut our conversation short for now. Perhaps we can have another visit someday. There are still so many things I want to find out about.”

Gib felt the same way. There were so many things he wanted, desperately needed, to ask about. As he got to his feet Mrs. Thornton said, “About school, Gibson. Since summer vacation will begin so soon, there wouldn’t be much point in your starting here in Longford just now. But next fall ... She paused, breathed deeply, and then went on, “But next fall—well, we’ll have to decide what to do by next fall, won’t we?”

That was all, except just before he went out the door she called him back to give him the gloves Miss Hooper had found. They were beautiful gloves, made of thick, soft leather, with air holes on the back and two white buttons at the wrists. They looked like they’d just about fit him, but they weren’t men’s gloves, and they weren’t meant for shoveling manure, that was for certain.

“I know,” Mrs. Thornton said, smiling ruefully. “They’re ladies gloves. But they’ll have to do until Hoop can get into town to do some shopping for us.”

As Gib stared at the gloves she added, “And tell Hy that if he teases you about them, I’ll have his hide. You go on down to the cabin now and you can also tell Hy that you aren’t to do any more shoveling today. Tell him I said so.”

Gib said thanks, put the gloves in his pockets, one on each side, and went out. But on the way down to the cabin he took them out and held them in his hands and thought about how Mrs. Thornton had worn them when she rode Black Silk. And how his own mother, Maggie Whittaker, had also ridden the beautiful black mare. The thought made his breath come faster. Closing his eyes, he made a picture of it, of his mother on Black Silk. The image of the mare was bright and sharp while the woman rider was blurred and distant, but there was a new and exciting certainty that everything would be much clearer very soon.

G
IB LEARNED AN AWFUL
lot during the next few days, but only about some subjects. Mrs. Thornton hadn’t invited him back for another visit, so he hadn’t learned anything more from her, and after that first day Hy had pretty much refused to talk about past history. At least about Gib’s history. But among the subjects Hy didn’t seem to mind talking about were some things about his own past. Like how his leg got busted.

“Durned motorcar did it,” Hy said when Gib finally got up the nerve to ask.

Gib was impressed. “You were ... No, it couldn’t be. “You weren’t driving one, were you?” He’d heard all about motorcars, of course, and how dangerous they could be. And he’d even seen a few in Harristown, sputtering down Main Street, amazing all the people and scaring horses right out of their wits. But Gib couldn’t imagine that Hy would have anything to do with a newfangled thing like that.

Hy snorted. “Not on your life,” he said. “Wouldn’t catch me touchin’ one of those devil wagons with a ten-foot pole. But Edgar Appleton, down at what used to be the Longford Livery Stable, he’s been tryin’ to sell them noisy, stinkin’ machines lately, and he’s been thinkin’ to get the boss to buy one. Been workin’ on him for a long time. I reckon he’s got it in his mind that if a big-shot Longford banker like Henry Thornton was to start ridin’ around in one of them contraptions, everybody in the county would buy one, even if they had to sell off half their stock and five or six kids to do it.”

Hy stretched out his busted leg and rested it on the apple box he’d been using as a footstool. He stared off into space again, leaving Gib shuffling from one foot to the other, fretting to hear the rest of the story.

Finally Hy blinked, caught his breath like someone just waking up from a catnap, and took up right where he left off. “Well sir, just last month, soon as the roads dried out a bit, old Appleton took it into his head to drive out here in one of them things and take the Thorntons for a ride. And, just my luck, when he rode that smokin’, rattlin’, backfirin’ bucket of bolts down our driveway I happened to be out in front of the house untyin’ the boss’s team from the hitchin’ rail. And you can just bet it scared the holy hallelujah out of them old buggy horses. Specially Caesar. Spooky bonehead’s always been real noise-shy.” Hy sighed again and went quiet, gazing off into the past.

“And so what happened?” Gib prodded him.

“Ran right over me, they did,” he said at last. “Buggy and all. Busted my leg in two places.”

“The team ran over you!” Gib couldn’t keep the shock and consternation out of his voice. “That’s awful.”

“Surely is,” Hy said mournfully, but then he grinned. “But on the good side”—he rolled his eyes meaningfully—“it gave us a real good bargainin’ chip for—” He stopped suddenly, shrugged, and changed the subject. And Gib wasn’t able to get him to change it back.

Gib had also learned during those first days exactly what was expected of him as a farm-out at the Thorntons’ Rocking M, or, as Hy called it, “what’s left of the Rocking M.” By the third day Gib had pretty much learned not only what chores he was expected to do every day but also exactly how to do them. Right at first Hy had followed him around, “showin’ him the ropes,” as he called it. But as soon as Gib knew where all the tools and grooming equipment were kept, and just how and when to do the feeding and stall cleaning and gardening, Hy started spending less time giving advice and more time back at the cabin resting his bad leg.

So Gib milked and watered and hoed and shoveled and fed in the morning, and then after the noon meal he did a lot more of the same. And just about when he was finishing everything up it was time to start listening for the jangle and clop that meant Mr. Thornton and Livy were returning from Longford, and there was the team to take care of.

Hy had mentioned that after his leg was broken, and before Gib had showed up, Mr. Thornton had managed to unharness the team himself for a while. But not anymore. “Don’t think the boss likes being around horses much,” Hy said. “And I reckon he figured a banker ought to quit doing barnyard work as soon as the outfit had an able-bodied horse wrangler again.” Hy grinned at Gib. Gib didn’t see what being a banker had to do with not taking care of a tired team, but to tell the truth he got a kick out of doing anything that had to do with horses, just as he’d liked taking care of old Juno back at Lovell House. And he surely didn’t mind being called the wrangler, even if Hy was only pulling his leg when he said it.

So it was a part of Gib’s job to fetch the tired, sweated-up team around to the barn, unharness them from the buggy, walk them a bit to cool them down, put them in their stalls, and get them fed. But then he was free to do whatever he wanted, right up until it was time for the evening milking.

And what Gib wanted to do, of course, was spend more time with the horses. Particularly with Black Silk. At first he just hung over the stall door talking to her, but on the third day, after he’d brought in the team and Hy had gone off to the cabin, Gib decided to start grooming the black mare just like he did the other horses, even though Hy had told him not to until they got better acquainted.

But Gib felt that he and Black Silk had struck up a pretty good understanding already and he was just about sure she wouldn’t give him any trouble. And besides, she looked like she needed grooming real bad. Like maybe no one had brushed her down real good since Hy broke his leg.

That first time Gib didn’t take his grooming stool into the stall with him, so he couldn’t reach up high enough to do a good job on her back and neck. But he did enough to find out that she liked being curried and that she could be real quiet and cooperative once she got used to you.

So the next afternoon, right after he finished bringing in the team, he got out his stool and got ready to finish the job. After pouring a little extra oats into her feed bucket, he went back out for his grooming tack. Silk snorted a little when she saw the stool, which Gib had expected, since it wasn’t likely she’d ever been groomed before by somebody short enough to need one. But when Gib put the stool down slow and easy like and climbed up on it, talking to her all the while, she quieted down right away. And when he started with the currycomb she looked back at him, nodding and doing her little half nicker.

“You can say that again, Silky girl,” he told her. “Bet that feels mighty fine. Looks to me like nobody’s brushed you down real good for a long, long time.” He was running the currycomb down her short, powerful back, watching how her black hide gleamed where the dust and straw had been cleaned away, when from behind his back a voice said, “Oh!” sharply, and then, “Does Hy know you’re in there?”

Silk snorted and Gib, moving slow and easy so as not to spook the mare, turned to see a hair ribbon, a bunch of gold-streaked brown hair, and the top half of a small face above the stall door. Livy Thornton. A mouth and chin became visible a second later as Livy rose onto her tiptoes, and the bottom half of the face looked just as shocked and angry as the top. Gib nodded and smiled, but Livy went on frowning.

Gib’s grin widened. “You talking to me?” he asked, keeping his voice calm and quiet.

“Of course I’m talking to you,” Livy said. “Who else would I be talking to?”

Gib went back to the currying but then, thinking of all the times she obviously hadn’t been speaking to him, he said, “Well, I was just wondering because I’ve been thinking that maybe there was some reason we weren’t speaking.” There was no answer for so long that Gib was beginning to wonder if she’d gone away, but then the voice came back. “You didn’t answer my question, Gib Whittaker. Does Hy know you’re in Black Silk’s stall?”

“Well,” Gib said, “to tell the truth, I didn’t ask Hy about grooming her, but he’s been letting me come in here to do the feeding and watering.” There was no answer. Gib went on with the currycomb and brush until the left side of Silky’s back was clean and gleaming. Then he got down off the stool and went around behind her, gently shoving her hindquarters to make her move over and give him room to work. Now he could see the door without turning around. Livy was still there, watching with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth.

“What’s the matter?” Gib asked. “You seen a ghost or something?”

Livy closed her mouth, blinked hard, gulped, and said, “I thought she was going to kick you. When you went around behind her like that, I thought for sure she was going to kick you to death.”

Gib chuckled, thinking that Livy did sound worried but at the same time maybe a little disappointed. Like maybe she was mostly just looking for some excitement. He ran the comb down the beautifully arched neck and across the mare’s withers several times before he asked, “What made you think old Silky would do a thing like that?”

“Because ... The shakiness in Livy’s voice was sounding more like anger now, instead of just excitement. “Because she’s a killer.”

“A killer?” Gib stopped brushing. He couldn’t see how that could be the least bit true. He didn’t say he didn’t believe it, but he must have looked it because she went on, “She is. She is too. I know she is. I hate her. I don’t like any horse much, but I hate her most of all.”

Gib finished with the brush then and got down off the stool. He walked around behind Silky again while Livy went on staring wide-eyed, and gasping a little when the mare shifted her weight on her hind feet. But Gib could tell that the weight shifting had nothing to do with kicking. Outside the stall he put the brush and comb down on the stool and, joining Livy at the door, watched while Silky pushed the last crumbs of oats around with her nose and then looked at Gib, tossed her beautiful black head, and nickered softly.

“But she is a killer.” Livy’s voice was a trembly whisper. “I know she is. She almost killed my mother.”

Now it was Gib’s turn to gape. Questions raced through his mind, questions about what Silky had done—and why. If it was true, there had to be a why. And then, suddenly, an even more startling question came to mind—about the wheelchair. About whether Black Silk had something to do with Livy’s mother’s wheelchair.

But Gib was still feeling for the right asking words when Livy’s angry blue eyes flooded over with tears. “I hate her,” she gasped, “and I hate you too. I do.” She whirled around then and ran out of the barn.

T
HAT NIGHT AT SUPPER
Gib kept glancing over at Mrs. Thornton in her wheelchair while his mind turned and twisted, churning up a whole lot of questions and possible answers. Julia Thornton—or the missus, as Hy called her—smiled at him when she noticed him staring, but Livy didn’t. When Olivia Thornton caught him looking at her, she only glared and turned away, like always. But her glare was different now. A little more pointed, maybe, like it was saying, “Don’t you dare say anything about what I told you. Don’t you dare!”