No Horse Wanted (12 page)

Somebody had to do something, and I knew
she’d be bawling in a minute, especially when Mrs. Weaver just
pointed to the door. “Oh, come on, Vicky. We all know the truth.
You can’t get here any earlier.”

“Yeah,” Porter jumped in. “You have to get
those kids to day care before you come here and some days you can’t
get the four of them moving.”

“There are five of them,” I pointed out.

“The baby doesn’t count,” Porter told me.
“All Vick has to do is load up the diaper bag, dress the kid, feed
her, grab her and go.”

“You should just drop out of school, Vicky.”
Gwen propped her chin on her fist. “You’ll never get out of this
town even with a college scholarship. You’ll be babysitting for
your folks forever. Your dad’s too busy for kids with his new
girlfriend, and your mom’s got that new job working swing or
graveyard at the casino.”

“I’ve heard nannies make good money,” Steve
said. “People are always having babies, so there’s job security.
You can wipe noses and tushies until you’re old and gray.”

Mrs. Weaver turned her glare on all of us. “I
suppose the cross-country bunch is going to keep this up until I
give in. Sit down, Victoria. You and I will meet with the counselor
and adjust your schedule after class. Now, all of you open your
writing notebooks and do a ten minute write. The topic is, what is
a hero? Pick someone in the class who exemplifies those traits and
defend your position. I want at least two full pages. Three would
be better.”

Chapter Fourteen

Wednesday, September 18
^th
, 2:45 p.m.

Rocky met us in the Shamrock Stable office so
Mom could do a new lesson application for me. Vicky’s paperwork was
already on file. I adjusted my pink equestrian helmet in front of
the mirror, tightening the chin strap. “Did Mom tell you about the
cop coming to see Twaz yesterday?”

“Dave Yardley?” Rocky asked. “He’s the local
Animal Control guy.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Do you know him?”

“Yes,” Rocky said. “Whenever someone wants to
harass a stable owner, the easiest way is to report animal abuse to
Animal Control, and then the officer has to investigate. Dave’s a
‘by the book’ guy, but he’s not the worst person I’ve dealt with in
the last thirty years.”

“Who would that be?” I asked, insatiably
curious.

“The person who runs up a big bill and then
turns me into Animal Control when I try to collect it.” Rocky
glanced at Vicky. “And you want to go into this business? Are you
sure?”

“I love the horses,” Vicky said, “and you can
teach me to deal with the people.”

“Keep that in mind when things get tense
around here,” Rocky said. “Sierra will be the third generation to
run the barn, and she still has fits about what she calls people
who are a waste of time, space, and oxygen. I save my tantrums for
deadbeat horse owners.”

There wasn’t any gray in Rocky’s bright red
hair. She didn’t look that much older than my mom, but Rocky was
tiny, barely five-foot-three in her boots and maybe a hundred
pounds sopping wet. I’d seen her handle big horses and she never
backed down, not from an unruly colt, or a snarky teenager, or the
parents of the tiny tots who came to Pee-Pee Camp and thought their
little buckaroos should be galloping all over the place even if
they couldn’t steer left or right. Sierra was my age, but she
didn’t go to our school yet. She wanted to, but Rocky said she
couldn’t afford Lincoln High tuition. And her ex wasn’t about to
pay for it, since Sierra wasn’t his ‘real’ kid.

Rocky crossed to the file cabinets behind her
desk and opened the second drawer. She removed a file. “You ride
Summer Time, don’t you, Robin?”

“Only when you make me,” I said. “I like
Prince Charming better.”

“He’s a total slug, and you never make him
work,” Vicky told me. “If you stood up to him, he’d do better.”

“I like slugs and Charming is sweet. He’s
dependable, and if I squeeze too hard with my legs, he only walks
faster. He never tries to run away with me.”

“We’re definitely dealing with some big fears
there,” Rocky said. “Vicky, here’s your first lesson. Listen to
what your customers say and try to figure out what they mean. Now,
what did Robin tell you about riding?”

Mom started to speak, but stopped when Rocky
held up a hand like a cop. “I want Vicky’s impressions, Maura, not
yours. She’s my intern and one of her responsibilities includes
choosing the right horse for a new student. We’ll use Robin as our
token new person.”

“But, she didn’t say anything about riding,”
Vicky said. “She just said she liked Charming because he’s slow and
steady, and she doesn’t want Summer because he’s a goer.”

“Now you draw an inference from that,” Robin
said.

I groaned. “She sounds like Weaver. I hate
drawing those, and writing conclusions are even worse.”

Vicky giggled. “She was really nice to me
today, and she totally helped me with the counselor after you guys
let her know what was going on at home.”

Catching Rocky’s frown, Vicky changed the
subject back to horse assignments. “Okay, what if I know that Nitro
running away with Robin and dodging cars and trucks on Highway 9
majorly freaked her out? And that isn’t something she said today. I
just know because she vented to me lots of times. Can I use that to
assign her a horse?”

“Believe me, any detail helps,” Rocky said.
“And sometimes you kids share feelings with each other that you’d
never tell an adult. So, now what horse does Robin get?”

“Charming,” Vicky said with absolute
certainty. “She needs to build her skills and confidence. She
trusts him. And if she gets scared and clamps her legs on Summer,
he’ll think she wants to gallop and that will make it harder for
her to relax.”

“And when would you switch her to Summer?”
Rocky asked, still holding the file.

“When she told me she wanted to get off a
slug,” Vicky said, avoiding me when I tried to elbow her in the
ribs. “Speaking up would make her braver, too.”

“Okay, then you both have horses to groom and
saddle,” Rocky said. “But, first I want you to look at this file
and tell me what you see.”

“Well, it has Summer’s name on it,” Vicky
said, taking the folder. “Do you have one for Charming?”

“I have one for each horse who lives here.”
Rocky turned back to the drawer and removed another manila file,
passing it to me. “What does it tell you about the horse,
Robin?”

I opened the folder and looked inside. Two
photos stapled to the inside cover immediately caught my attention.
One was of a little bitty brown colt standing next to a big bay
mare in the round pen. “Oh wow. It’s a baby pic of Charming with
his mommy. When did you take this?”

“When he was three days old and could come
outside for the first time.”

The next photo was of Charming this past
summer when he turned seven, all decked out in lesson gear with me
holding him for class. He looked exactly like his mom, reddish
brown with a black mane, tail, legs—a classic bay. “Okay, so
there’s a grown-up picture too. Then, there’s a description of him
on the next page, including his height and weight.”

I flipped through the papers, skipping over
the copy of his pedigree and registration as a half Morgan, half
Quarter-Horse. The next two pages detailed all of his veterinary
treatments from the time he was a baby through adulthood. Another
sheet listed hoof trims and shoeing. More records of deworming,
delousing...everything appeared to be here. Then, I saw records for
his training and what he knew how to do from the first halter class
all the way up to learning how to do games like barrel racing and
pole bending.

“It’s like a school report,” I said, “only
it’s everything about Prince Charming.”

“And mine’s all about Summer,” Vicky said,
“from the time he was donated three years ago.”

“Okay, now if Dave Yardley walked in here and
wanted to see either horse, what would be the first thing I’d show
him?” Rocky asked.

I stared at her. “The paperwork you keep on
the horse. It has the height and weight up through the last time
you dewormed two weeks ago, and you even listed the kind of
dewormer you used. I so need to do this for Twaziem.”

“That’s right,” Rocky said. “It not only
helps you and the veterinarian know what your horse requires, it
also shows people who spend most of their time in offices that you
can keep records.”

“Or as Grandma says, ‘if you can’t dazzle
them with brilliance, baffle them with—’”

“We can figure out what your grandmother
says,” Mom interrupted me with a smile. “My mother-in-law’s been
married to a Marine a long time, and as your grandpa says, ‘once a
Marine, always a Marine.’”

“My files impress lawyers and judges,” Rocky
went on. “They’re sure that if I keep these kinds of records for my
horses, I also have detailed ones on my customers.”

“Weird. Do I have a file?” I asked, passing
back Prince Charming’s.

Rocky nodded, pointing to the top drawer of
the cabinet. “Yes. It’s where I keep your application and what you
learn in each lesson. Then when I hire an instructor, she looks up
what your skills are and the horses you can ride.”

“Only Charming,” I said, picking up my bag of
carrots. “I won’t ride anybody else. He’s my fella.”

“Only him,” Rocky agreed. “And before you
ask, I wouldn’t have sold him to you. He’s still a mama’s boy, and
it would break Lady’s heart to lose him. So, that’s why Dani keeps
Lady here instead of taking her home. It was part of the deal I
made with her folks when they bought Lady last year.”

“That’s awesome.” I grinned at her. That’s
why I liked Rocky so much. She put her horses first, and while some
trainers might say that a mare wouldn’t know her foal after it was
grown up, Rocky never would. “Okay, I’m going to saddle up. I’ll be
ready to ride in about a half hour.”

“Me, too,” Vicky said.

“Okay, that works. I’ll meet you in the
indoor arena. Robin, if you need help, Sierra’s in the top barn
tacking up horses for her beginner lesson. You should be fine.
Summer camp was only a month ago.”

That made sense. I nodded and headed for the
barn and Prince Charming. His stall was next door to his mother’s,
or dam’s. He stuck his head over the door as soon as he saw me and
nickered. I handed him a carrot. Lady was quick to put her head
over the nearby wall and nudge me for a treat.

Normally, I’d have just given her one, but
Dani was in the stall grooming her horse and she could be
hypersensitive about stuff like that. “Okay if I feed your horse a
carrot?”

Dani came to look and I held up the carrot
for inspection. Mom had pulled them out of the garden, but she’d
washed off all the dirt, too. Dani narrowed baby blue eyes. “Are
those organic?”

“That’s all my mom grows,” I said.

“Okay.” She watched me suspiciously while I
fed Lady a carrot, then one to Charming again. Petite, blonde and
curvy, Dani looked more like my sister than Felicia did.

“So, what’s up with the treat thing? I’d
never give a horse something bad for them.”

A long stare and then she said, “My last
horse died of colic. I guess I’m a bit paranoid.”

“I know how that feels. My pony did too. Some
jerk threw grass clippings from a lawnmower bag over our fence. We
lost him after three days.”

“We were at Lake Chelan for a family
reunion,” Dani said. “The owner of the barn where I had my first
horse called and told us she had colic. It was a weekend, so it was
like impossible to get one of Dr. Larry’s associates, and he was
out of town too. And the owner of the stable didn’t walk my horse.
She was going to a party, so she just went...”

“And left your horse alone?” I opened the
stall door and went in with Charming. “That totally sucks. My whole
family tried to help save Cobbie, but he was old and we didn’t find
him in time. Now, my mom only turns the horses out to pasture when
she’s going to be home to watch them.”

“It took us hours to get home and by then it
was too late,” Dani said, petting Lady’s brown neck. “I told my dad
I’d never keep another horse there, and when Rocky said Charming
couldn’t be without his mom, this worked perfectly. I can take Lady
to shows, fuss over her and if we go somewhere, I don’t have to
worry. Rocky and Sierra take awesome care of her.”

“They take great care of all the horses.” I
haltered Charming and attached his lead. Having some kind of handle
to make him focus was one of Rocky’s rules. Now, I could grab his
head if he started to walk off while I groomed him.

Holding my hoof pick in one hand, I ran the
other down his left front leg and picked up his foot. He pulled it
away. “Oh, come on,” I said. “You know the routine.”

“Here. Let me help.” Dani came out of her
horse’s stall and into Charming’s. “Sierra showed me this really
great trick for hoof cleaning. Do you still have a carrot?”

“Sure, but he can’t have it when he won’t let
me do his feet.”

“Yes, but he can still smell it.” She grabbed
the lead rope. “Now, start again. Clean his foot. When you finish,
give him a little piece of carrot. Then, do the next hoof. When
it’s done, he gets another piece...”

“And I keep doing the same thing until all
his hooves are cleaned. Great idea, Dani.”

“You have to remember that he may be seven,
but his brain is still maturing, and even when he’s full grown,
most experts agree he’ll only have the intelligence of a
three-year-old human being.”

Chapter Fifteen

Wednesday, September 18
^th
, 4:00 p.m.

Dani joined us for our class, which was okay
with me, but I saw Vicky roll her eyes. Once Rocky checked our
saddles, she had us mount up and then warm up. Stops, starts,
turning circles, balance exercises, Charming was his usual calm
self. Lady could have cared less, and Summer thought the whole
thing was boring so he should dance sideways instead of waiting for
the next cue. I was glad Vicky had him, not me.