Catch Rider (9780544034303) (12 page)

I saw Wayne walking toward the rail with his hands in his pockets. I waited to hear what he had to say.

“Eyes up” was all he said.

So, with people staring at me and whispering, with Wayne not saying much, with Dutch not paying attention, I decided to get out from behind that blood bay horse. It looked like the faster horses were closer to the center, and they were merging with the horses coming off the jumps. So I picked up a big canter and moved toward the center. Idle Dice had such a big stride that he ate up the ring faster than all the others, and they moved out of my way. What a nice canter he had, like a rocking horse. It was impossible to look bad on him.

Suddenly, Kelly came out to the ring, ducked under the rail, and made a beeline for Dutch. Dee Dee was right on her tail, jabbering. Kelly was ignoring her. She was gesturing and upset, pointing to her eye. They all stopped and looked over at me. I wondered what on earth they could want with me at this point.

Dutch raised his hand and gestured for me to go over to them.

“Sid, Kelly's horse scratched his cornea. He can't show.”

“Oh, that's too bad,” I said.

Kelly threw up her hands as if to say, “Hello, why do you not get this?”

Dutch went on. “She's trying to qualify for Maclay, so she needs to ride Idle Dice today. Sorry about that.”

I was stunned and didn't say anything. I looked over to see Edgar holding Kelly's saddle. He came into the ring. Kelly fastened her chin strap.

“Sid, you can get off,” Dee Dee said.

I was so upset, I was shaking.

Kelly took the horse's reins under his chin and I dismounted, not because I understood what was going on—I was still in shock—but because people were starting to look. Edgar took my saddle off and handed it to me. He seemed angry but wouldn't look me in the eye. They put Kelly's saddle on, and she mounted up and patted Idle Dice's neck, talking baby talk to him. She gathered up the reins and walked into the crowd of horses schooling, and that was that.

I carried my saddle out of the ring to Wayne.

“What the devil is going on?”

“What does it look like?” I said. “Kelly just found her new equitation horse.”

We watched the show from the grandstands.

When the Maclay equitation class came up, we looked for Kelly. She had Idle Dice too tight.

“Why is she all up in his mouth?” I asked.

Wayne just shook his head. He looked really sad, and it made me feel horrible. Seeing him so disappointed nearly tore my heart out. I hadn't realized until that moment how much he wanted this for me.

Dutch started actively coaching from the rail. I strained to hear what he was saying. “Soften. Soften. Open your hands.” He was trying to be calm but he was getting emphatic. Dee Dee was right there, looking as tight as bark on a tree.

Even though Kelly was tense and hanging on his mouth, Idle Dice managed to put in a beautiful round, and Kelly got first place. Ten more points toward the regionals. One more good equitation class would do it.

Wayne and I rode home in silence.

Finally, as we were coming down the mountain, he spoke. “The right thing for me to do is to tell you that this ain't for you, that you don't have the money. If I had a conscience, I'd do that. But I don't have a conscience. So I'm going to tell you that if you work hard enough, you can beat her.”

“I don't care,” I said.

“
That's a lie and you know it. You'd like to grind her into the dirt. You're a better rider than she is.”

We pulled into my driveway and he turned the motor off.

“Listen, kid. Once you ride a horse like that, there ain't no going back.”

I got out and went inside. I could hear his truck leave.

No one was home. I went into my room and shut the door. I looked at the posters all over the wall, of the U.S. Equestrian Team, of George Morris, of the puissance classes in England where the horses jumped seven-foot walls. I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes to sleep, but I started to cry instead.

 

The next morning I got up first thing and drove to Wayne's. I felt awful and I wanted to talk to him. I knew he would have recovered from the disappointment and would have something tough and clear to say about all of it. He would make me laugh and help me get my head screwed on the way it should be.

But when I walked inside his house, I found him sitting on his bed, drinking a beer. He looked up at me. “I don't get a day off?”

“You're drunk,” I said.

“Half-drunk.”

He shifted his weight and there was a loud clunk that made me jump. He reached under the bed and pulled out his .44 magnum, a big silver pistol with a long barrel.

“Good Lord,” I said. “Are you Yosemite Sam or what?”

I reached out to touch it and he handed it to me carefully, barrel down.

“It's loaded?” I said.

“Of course it's loaded. Why the hell anyone would have a gun in the house that isn't loaded is beyond me.”

I pretended to tuck it into an invisible belt and then whipped it out, cowboy style, pointing it at the wall.

He laughed. He knew I could handle a gun. Wayne, Jimmy, and I had spent many afternoons shooting bottles off a log with Wayne's old single-shot Winchester rifle.

“Can I take this home?” I asked.

“What for?”

“'Cause Donald has one in his truck, and Melinda doesn't have one at all. Do you really think Donald should be the only one with a gun?”

“Take it home but don't say anything. And don't shoot yourself by accident.”

I put it on his bureau and stared at it. Just looking at it made me feel better.

“Don't you tell him you got it. Hear?”

I nodded.

Wayne went to the kitchen and opened another beer. It was only seven thirty in the morning.

When I got home, I tucked the pistol under my bedsprings. I felt like someone had been in my room, looking through my things. Melinda would never do that.

I heard Donald talking on the phone, and I realized he didn't know I was there.

“I know, Mr. Sheffield, I'm sorry. I thought . . .” Someone on the other end was yelling at him. “I know, sir, I'm sorry. I'll be there tonight and I'll work a double shift, and I'm sorry.” The man yelled again and hung up. Donald cursed and grumbled to himself. I hid in my room without making a sound, scared as hell he was going to find me, until he left.

M
ONDAY MORNING
I stopped by Ruthie's house to pick her up for school. I drove up the dirt driveway and honked as her daddy was coming out in his work clothes, ready to go to the mill. He waved to me and walked over to say hi. I loved Earl. He had this big head and big smile, meaty cheeks, and a dimple in his chin.

“Mornin', girl. You up all night doing that history paper?”

“Yeah,” I lied.

“You girls are too smart to stay around here all your lives. You'll wind up working in the mill, like me.” He grinned.

Why did people always say this?

“I don't think I could work in the mill,” I said.

“That's what I used to say.” He chuckled and tapped on the roof of my car, then walked to his truck. “You girls mind your manners and do your homework.”

Ruthie and her sister, Dorine, who was eleven and went to junior high, came out and got into the car.

“Does your daddy know I don't really have my learner's permit?” I asked her.

“No. But now he will 'cause of Dorine's big mouth.”

“I won't say nothing,” Dorine said. “Damn, Sid, I thought you was fifteen.”

“I'm almost fifteen. Who's counting, anyway?”

“Why are you so grumpy?”

I guess I looked as worn out as I felt. “I'd like to tie a couple of sandbags to Donald's ankles and shove him over the Gathright Dam, for one.”

“Just shoot him and tell God he died,” Dorine said.

“It's tempting.”

“I'll be damned if I'd let some lady sleep over at our house and start bossing us around,” Dorine went on.

Ruthie's mouth fell open at the thought.

“Can you imagine that?” I asked Ruthie.

“No. You put it like that and I can't,” she said.

“I'd kill her myself,” Dorine said.

Ruthie turned around and stared at her sister. “Dorine, I better not be fishing you out of juvenile hall in a couple of years.”

“Did Ruthie tell you she's applying to a private school?” Dorine asked me.

Ruthie looked horrified. “See what I mean about a big mouth? Nobody has any privacy.”

“A what?” I asked. “A private school? Where?” She'd been hiding something from me.

Ruthie glared at Dorine. “I'm applying to the Madeira School up near Washington, because that old bitch guidance counselor is making me.”

“What do you mean, she's making you?” I asked. Ruthie was bullshitting me and we all knew it.

“I couldn't afford to go there anyway,” she said.

“You can get financial aid! You got a single dad who don't make no money,” said Dorine.

“Dorine, shut up!”

We rode along in silence, me considering what it would be like if Ruthie left. I wished I'd never gotten out of bed.

T
HE NEXT COUPLE
of days, I went to school and then to Wayne's afterward. He was drunk the whole time. I felt like I should be there so the house didn't burn down. I did my homework, or at least some of it, in his living room while he snored on the couch. I called the barn and told Edgar that Wayne was sick, so he had someone cover for us.

I drove to the barn myself one day after school. If I'd gotten caught on the interstate, I would've been in trouble.

I was cleaning stalls when Martha sneaked up on me. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Would you like to show Idle Dice this weekend?”

“No thanks.”

“Kelly is showing a horse we're trying to sell.”

“Which classes?” I asked.

“Something easy,” Martha said.

I wasn't sure why she said that—easy for me or easy for Idle Dice. “I thought you said Idle Dice likes a challenge.”

“Well . . .” Martha hesitated.

“You don't think I'm ready for an equitation class?” I asked. I must have been losing my mind, talking to her like that. But I figured I might get to show Idle Dice only once, and I wanted to make the most of it.

“It's really hard,” Kelly said, walking over to us from the wash stall.

“Jumping ten fences is really hard?” I asked.

She sighed. “Sid, it's not just ten fences—it's broken lines, and weird distances, and the jumps are three six.”

“I've been setting up courses like that since I was nine years old,” I said.

I was talking too much, but I couldn't stop. Kelly was making me mad as hell and I wanted to make her sorry.

Martha shrugged. “You can take him in an equitation class.”

“Which one?” Kelly was obviously upset.

“Maclay,” I said, upping the ante as far as it would go.

“You want to take him in a Maclay class at an A-rated show,” Kelly said, laughing. She looked at her grandmother for help.

“Then do it,” Martha said. “But you need more polish, and I want you to research some old Maclay courses online so you know what you're getting into.”

She turned to Kelly. “Loan Sid your old boots, and help her find a better jacket.”

As soon as they were out of earshot, I tried to call Wayne. His phone rang and rang, but he never picked up.

A truck pulled up behind the barn with a load of pine shavings and dumped it out, spilling everything into the parking lot. While Edgar and I were shoveling it into the shavings stall, I told him what had just happened. He raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“How does Maclay qualification actually work?” I asked him. “Not that I'm going to place in this class, but if I did, what would happen?” I had never paid attention to the technical part.

“There are Maclay equitation classes all over the country,” he said. “You need to compete and place in a certain number of classes to go to the regionals, and then you need to place at a certain level to go to the finals. If you compete in a zone with a lot of other riders, you need to place higher in the classes to get more points.”

I was already lost.

“What are the classes, exactly? Just a tough course? How do you qualify?” Maybe I should have asked these questions before I said I wanted to do it.

“Hang on,” he said, and he went to the tack room. He came back with a piece of paper and we ducked into the shed to look at it. He'd ripped it right off the tack room wall. I read: “All contestants are required to perform over at least eight fences at three six with or without wings. To be judged on seat, hands, guidance and control of the horse.” There was a complicated point system based on how many riders there were and where they placed.

I realized I was holding my breath. “How many kids make it to the finals?”

“Two hundred,” he said.

“How many are competing in Maclay classes all over the country?”

“Thousands. Go straight home and tell your uncle. I can send in your registration to Maclay so that if you place this time, you get points. Who knows—on a horse like that, you could make it to the regionals.”

I just stared at him, wondering if he was kidding, and he took the pitchfork out of my hands. I jumped into my car without taking off my coveralls.

The police on the Allegheny side of North Mountain never go over the top of the mountain, and the police on the Rockbridge side don't, either, so for a while I was in a no-man's land. As I was coming down the mountain, I was going about eighty, and as soon as I crossed out of the free zone, I hit radar and a sheriff's department car came shooting up from a service road behind me.