A Good Horse (26 page)

“Lot of that going around,” said Daddy.

I didn’t want to know how that mare died.

“I can call you before I leave in the morning.”

“Please do,” said Daddy.

Everyone sat around the table for a few moments after that, the way grown-ups do, as if somehow they will start getting along if they just don’t stand up right away, even though they want to. Finally, we walked him to the white Cadillac. It took him a while to turn that car around, and then he gave us one of those one-finger waves good-bye. I walked to the gate and opened it and closed it for him.

All the way back to the house, I thought how the hole in the gelding pasture would get as big as the universe once Jack was gone, at least as far as I was concerned. I went over to the gate to pat him, and he looked at me, but the geldings were busy eating their hay, so he didn’t come over to the gate.

It took me a while to get into the house and hear the bad news.

Mom was making pork chops for supper, with home-fried potatoes and green beans, all things that I liked. She had them on the table by the time I opened the door (I had stopped to pet Rusty for a while before I went in, and also to straighten the row of boots on the porch, and also to wind the hose by the side of the house—I would have raked the front walk if there had been a rake). I got some dishes and started setting out the plates without her telling me. I wasn’t trying to be good; I was just trying not to think about Jack getting on some van and heading off to Texas all by himself. Sure the farm was the lap of luxury, as Daddy would say. “Gold-handled faucets and silver-plated hay rakes.” Other colts to play with, too—that was good. Yeah, that was good.

Mom said, “Abby, we’ve made up our minds about something.”

I nodded.

Daddy said, “Your mom and I talked about it before, and we talked about it again just now. The colt is expensive. I have to say that I had no idea what stud fees were for horses like Jaipur. It boggles the mind.”

“But,” said Mom, “we have prayed about this more than once, so Mr. Matthews’s visit didn’t take us completely by surprise.” She looked at Dad and then patted his hand, as if to say, You can do it.

And he did. He said, “Thanks to Black George, and you, we can pay what Mr. Matthews asks and keep Jack on the ranch.”

What was wrong with me? I didn’t even say thank you. I just sat down at the table, not able to say anything.

There was one of those silences that is really full of noise—the birds outside the window, Rusty on the porch, a horse whinnying, the house itself creaking.

Mom said, “Abby? You okay, honey?”

I said, “Oh yeah. I’m fine.”

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let Daddy give that man our money. I didn’t know why. I wanted Jack more than anything in the world. I loved him, and if you’d asked me while I was standing at the gate of the gelding pasture what I wanted above all things, I would have said, “To keep Jack.” But now, as Mom dished out the potatoes, I wasn’t seeing Jack, I was seeing Raymond Matthews in the white Cadillac, and it seemed to me that giving him five thousand dollars was a wrong thing to do, as wrong as anything could be. And when I opened my mouth to thank them, that’s what I said.

“Oh, Abby!” said Mom.

“Are you sure?” said Daddy. “Are you one hundred percent and absolutely sure?” He held up his hand. “You need to pray for guidance about this. You don’t have to tell me until tomorrow morning.”

But I said, “Yes, I am sure.”

And I was. But I couldn’t say why to save my life.

I
MADE IT THROUGH THE SCHOOL DAY
. S
OMETIMES, YOU HAVE TO
make it through the school day even after your dad tells you that Raymond Matthews has said, over the phone, that a van will be at the ranch to pick up your horse the following Monday. Monday is five days away. Five days is much more than one day or two days. Five days is a pretty long time when you come to think about it. I got through the school day even though Alexis Goldman asked me if I was okay, and my algebra teacher came over and snapped his fingers right in front of me and said, “Are you with me, Abby?” and I had to say, “No,” which made the other kids laugh.

Of course, if you have read
Great Expectations
and
Julius Caesar
and your class is just starting a book about three people
who are lost at sea on a raft, you are supposed to understand that having a van pick up your horse the following Monday is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Assassination is worse. Being jilted at the altar and wearing your wedding dress for the next fifty years is worse. Sharks swimming around your raft is worse. But if losing your horse is the thing that is happening to you, those other things seem pretty far away.

Raymond Matthews said that the van driver would call us Friday or Saturday, that he made a regular run from Golden Gate Fields, up by San Francisco, down to Santa Anita Park. Jack would go there and then get on another van to Texas. That afternoon, I took Happy up into the hills for almost two hours. She was good. It didn’t seem long enough, but it was dark when I got back. The weird thing was that I didn’t work Jack. You would think that I would spend every possible moment with him, but I could hardly look at him.

The next morning, I felt different. I got up really early—before dawn—and put on my clothes and went outside. The horses were up (horses are early risers), and they nickered to me (“Hay! Hay! Don’t forget the
hay
!”). So I didn’t forget the hay. I also got out my chamois, and while Jack was eating from his flake and the sun was coming up, I rubbed him down until all the dust and dirt was smoothed away and his coat was shining again. He kept lifting his head from the hay and looking at me, checking my hands for carrots or bread, but he wasn’t spoiled. He wasn’t pushing at me or insisting, just checking as if maybe he’d missed something the last time he looked. Lincoln came over then and pinned his ears at Jack to chase him off his hay. It’s a thing that horses do—they always suspect that
someone else’s hay is better than theirs, and they need to sample it. Jack was low on the totem pole and moved off to another pile. With three horses, you put out four piles. They might end up moving around a lot, but they all get their share. I followed Jack to his new pile and stood there with my hand on his withers.

I still didn’t understand why I did what I did, but even though I was too upset to sleep in the night, I still could not stand the idea of giving Raymond Matthews five thousand dollars. I tried to think that it had to do with Jack’s future. If he went back to Wheatsheaf Ranch, maybe he would go on to be a great racehorse like Jaipur, and maybe that was the best thing for him. If you had a great racehorse, how could you keep him on the ranch, working cows or going in local horse shows? If you owned Man o’ War, didn’t you want him to get to be Man o’ War? But even though that was a nice argument, and I used it on the school bus to distract myself from Jack’s actual departure (now four days away), I had made up my mind before I thought of it.

When Gloria asked me during recess (which had now turned into volleyball) what was going on, all I said was “Jack’s going back to that ranch in Texas,” and I walked away. Then the volleyball game began, and I didn’t have to say anything more. One thing I always liked about Gloria was that if you didn’t want to talk about something with her, you didn’t have to.

We got through the afternoon, which included making tapioca pudding in home economics. I hated tapioca pudding.

It was when I was going to get on the school bus that I saw
Mom and our car and realized something more was happening. The thought occurred to me to just pretend I didn’t see her and get on the school bus, anyway, but she smiled when she caught my eye and ran over to me. In front of all the kids, she gave me a big hug, and just as she was saying, “Oh, Abby, you won’t believe—” Alexis and Barbie came over and exclaimed, “Mrs. Lovitt! How are you?”

“I’m fine, girls. How are you?”

“We’re fine, too!”

Barbie said, “I hope to see you again. We had fun the last time,” and held out her hand so Mom could shake it, and I thought about what a bore good manners are, but I had to smile and all of that.

In the car, Mom said, “You aren’t going to believe this.”

“What?”

“Guess who’s at our house?”

I shrugged.

“Raymond Matthews and his father and Howard Brandt.”

“He’s back?”

“No.”

I rolled my eyes.

Mom laughed. She said, “That person who was here Tuesday was not Raymond Matthews. He was some kind of impostor. This Raymond Matthews is completely different, kind of tall and thin.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Abby! You were right! You were right about not trusting that Raymond Matthews! Apparently, he had forged all those things, like his racing license. He was just trying to get money
from us. Somehow he heard about Jack and the story of the mare, and he was trying to swindle us.”

“How did he know we had any money?”

“I don’t know that.”

All of a sudden, I knew something. It was like I had a rat by the tail, and I had a good grip, and all I had to do was pull it out of the hole. I pulled. I said, “Rodney Lemon.”

“Who is that?”

“That’s the groom out at the barn. Colonel Hawkins’s groom.”

“What would he have to do with it?”

“Well, he knew we had some money, because he knew all about Black George.”

“But why—”

“I don’t know. All I know is …” I pulled a little more. I could barely remember for a moment, then I did remember. I remembered Rodney Lemon standing by the gate of the gelding pasture and saying, “So that’s the colt,” as if he were putting two and two together. As if the colt were his business.

Mom said, “But how would Rodney Lemon know about the colt?”

“Well, I told Jane about him. That day when I went to the show and you and Daddy were at church. I was talking, and we turned into the barn aisle, and I kept talking, and he was right there, cleaning tack. I had a bad feeling, but I let it pass. I’m sure I said something about the letter, and Jane might have talked about it.”

Mom shook her head. She said, “Amazing. But you were right!”

Raymond Matthews, Howard Brandt, and Warner Matthews were not driving a white Cadillac; they were driving a blue Chevrolet. It was parked by the gelding pasture, with the passenger door open. The three men were looking at the horses, and I could tell from a distance that Daddy was chatting away with them—everyone was smiling and throwing their hands around, as if they were interrupting one another. Then they all laughed. Most important, in a way, they all had cowboy hats on—not new ones, old ones, just like Daddy’s. Just then, one of them saw me, then all of them turned to look. They were all smiling. But you never know what grown-ups mean when they are smiling. Lots of times they smile when they are about to tell you something for your own good.

Daddy introduced me around. Mr. Brandt was short and looked like he had never ridden a horse in his life. Raymond Matthews was about Daddy’s size and shape, and Warner Matthews was old—white hair, kind of bent over, nice cowboy boots, too. He had sunglasses on, but he took them off as he said, “Well, Abby, nice to meet you,” and shook my hand. His hand was dry and hard. I was sure the reason that Daddy was having such a good time with these men was that they rode horses, roped cattle, and lived on a ranch, and for the time being, it didn’t matter in any way that our ranch was twenty-six acres and theirs was twenty-six thousand acres.