Scarecrow on Horseback (16 page)

The hum, click, and whirr of the insect
chorus and the wind playing zither with the trees entertained Mel.
She stared up at the stars until they started swimming through the
sky. Then she closed her eyes enjoying the warmth of her horse's
body against her own. It came to her that Sue might be the right
wrangler to lead trail rides with Cheyenne next spring. Sue was
gentle with horses, a really nice girl. Yes, Sue would be Mel's
first choice.

“But Cheyenne,” Mel said. “Even if I have to
let some other wrangler ride you, you'll still be mine, won't
you?”

He sneezed. “I take that as a yes,” she said,
and with a final pat, she left him so that she could make it back
to bed before midnight.

* * * *

On Saturday, the cook set out a lunch of
salads and cold meats for the staff. Then a baker's dozen of them
walked over to the small arena. Cheyenne stood at alert watching
the herd of humans arrive and settle, some in the stands and some
leaning on the fence.

“I'll tack him up,” Mel said.

“Sally can do it,” Jeb said.

“No. I know the best saddle for him,” Mel
said. Without waiting for Jeb's okay, she ran across the stream to
the small barn.

Sally was in the corral talking to Cheyenne
when Mel came back, lugging saddle and bridle and blanket. The
horse looked wary. His eyes were opened wide, and he leaned away
from Sally as if he meant to cut and run at Sally's first move
toward him. But when Mel threw the blanket over his back, Cheyenne
stayed still, and he cooperated nicely as she fitted the bridle
over his head. He even took the snaffle bit in his teeth for her
with ease.

“Looks like you already got him tamed,” Jeb
said. And he asked suspiciously, “You try riding him yet?”

Mel shook her head and went about tightening
the cinch.

Sally put his hand on Cheyenne's neck, still
soothing him with his low, mellow voice. The horse danced sideways
away from him, but he tolerated the man's hand as Sally followed
him. Someone whose boom box was shredding the air with country
western music shut it off. Everyone watching grew so quiet the
crickets and katydids took over. They were briefly accompanied by a
jet whining over the mountains.

Then Sally said, “Okay, here goes.” He put
his foot in the stirrup and was mounted in a second. It took
another second for Cheyenne to react. The mustang exploded. He
jumped so all four feet were in the air and his back was arched.
When he landed with Sally still on his back, he bucked and bucked
again. Next he shook himself, and when he still hadn't gotten rid
of Sally, he took off at a gallop and ran, just as he had with
Grant Hogue, straight at the fence.

“Sally!” Mel screamed in horror, seeing
calamity rushing her way again.

But Sally saw what was coming and pushed
himself off the horse sideways into the ring. He landed on his
shoulder and hip and rolled. The horse thundered past him. Mel ran
to her friend.

“I'm all right,” Sally said. She gave him her
hand, and he took it and got to his feet.

“That horse is gonna take some time to
train,” he said.

“That horse is still wild,” Jeb said, his
face taut with fear. “No way
he
can be used for trail
riding. You better see if Jeffries will trade him in for another,
Mel.”

“There isn't a better horse than Cheyenne,”
Mel said.

“He's dangerous, and he don't belong on a
guest ranch,” Jeb said. “You saw the trouble we had with that fella
that broke his arm. And if Sally can't ride him—”

“Cheyenne can be ridden,” she said. “Watch.”
And she ran to the far side of the corral where the mustang had
stopped as far from people as he could get. Without a backward
glance, she threw herself up over the saddle, then sat straight up
and slid her feet into the stirrups.

“Mel!” she heard her mother screech. And
again, “Mel, don't,” echoed by Denise who had just appeared outside
the rail.

“Come on, Cheyenne,” Mel said. “Show them how
good you are.” She touched him with her heels, and he started
walking, hesitantly at first, and then more smoothly.

With her heart racing like a fierce warrior
riding into battle, she leaned forward and loosened the reins
slightly. Cheyenne began to jog. She touched him with her heels,
and he moved into a canter. She could see them all as she circled
the inside of the ring past them. They were standing up in their
seats or leaning into the rails, their faces registering fear and
shock and wonder. Her mother was gripping her own cheeks with both
hands as if she were cutting off another scream. Denise was crying
and jumping up and down so her bush of black hair bounced with her.
Sally stood frozen in place with his hand up and out as if to catch
her.

Mel brought Cheyenne back into a walk and
turned him around and rode him across the ring the other way. She
stopped him and made him back up. Then she turned him and turned
him again and kicked him directly into a full gallop and stopped
him short in the center of the corral and turned around to face
them all.

“See,” she said. “He's a great horse.”

A spontaneous clapping began in the stands
and was taken up by everyone on the staff.

“Way to go, Mel!” Denise yelled.

Amidst the whistles and cheers, Mel's cheeks
widened into a self-conscious grin, and she waved like a rodeo
queen at her audience. When the ovation had ended and the staff
began drifting away to enjoy the rest of their time off, Mel
slipped from Cheyenne's back. She kissed his nose to thank him and
told him what a fine fellow he was.

Sally put his arms around her shoulders and
hugged her, “I'm so proud of you,” he said. “You rode him, Mel. You
rode him like a champion. You're some rider.”

“No, I'm not,” Mel said, remembering what
Lisa had screamed at her. “Denise,” she asked, as her friend threw
her arms around her and hugged her hard. “Did I look okay?”

“You looked great,” Denise assured her. “But
I was so scared I nearly died.”

Strange
, Mel thought. She hadn't been
scared really, thrilled, but not scared that anything bad might
happen. She shook her head at herself. Then she looked over at
Jeb.

He was studying her as if she had surprised
him.

Her mother hugged her next. “That was crazy,”
Dawn said. “Why did you try that, Mel? You could have been
killed.”

“He's a good horse, Mom,” Mel said.

“For
you
, he is,” Denise said.

“But he's trouble for anyone else. He don't
belong here,” Jeb insisted.  “I don't dare even put him in
with the other horses, wild like he is. He's likely to kill one of
them.”

“He's
not
dangerous,” Mel said.

“I'm sorry, Mel,” Jeb said. “But you better
talk to Jeffries. Maybe he'll let you keep the horse down there.
Anyway, he can't stay on this ranch.” He turned on his heel and
walked off.

“Sally!” Mel cried. “What am I going to
do?”

“I don't know, honey girl,” he said. “I just
don't know.”

And from her high of triumph, Mel fell
straight into a pit of dismay.

Chapter
Eighteen

During Sally's last days on the ranch, Mel
tagged after him, helping him with whatever chore he was doing,
sometimes just standing and staring at him.

“Stop looking at me like that. You're gonna
make me cry,” Sally said.

Tears immediately brimmed in Mel's eyes.

“Oh, for Pete's sake,” he said. “You'll be
fine, girl. It's going to work out right.”

“Not without you,” she said.

“You pay attention to your schoolwork and do
what you've been doing around the ranch, and you'll be too busy to
miss me.”

“But what about Cheyenne?”

“See if Jeffries will let you over-winter him
with the other mustangs down there. You asked him yet?”

“No. And even if he lets me, how do I get to
see Cheyenne down there?”

“You'll figure something out, Mel,” Sally
said. He looked embarrassed, as if he were ashamed not to be more
helpful. “Meanwhile, you wormed that horse yet?”

“Not yet.”

“I got some paste ready here. You want to mix
it with a little molasses so he don't spit it out. He'll take on
some weight and be healthier if you worm him. My guess is he's
gotten so used to carrying around a bellyful of worms he don't even
notice he's got them.”

Dutifully, she prepared the worming paste and
squirted it into the top corner of Cheyenne's mouth. He put his
ears back and shook his head in surprise as he backed away from
her. “What did you do that for?” his expression said.

“For your own good,” she told him. “Because
Sally says you need it.” She put her cheek against his neck as she
stroked him. His thick winter coat was coming in early, a good
thing, too, because when the snow came down heavy and temperatures
slid below freezing, he'd need it. Even if Mr. Jeffries let
Cheyenne stay in his pasture and didn't charge her much for his
winter feed, the horse was going to miss her. Getting five miles
down a mountain road and back without transportation after school
and before dark in deep snow would be hard, maybe impossible. By
spring Cheyenne probably wouldn't even recognize her. He'd be a
wild horse again, unused to human companionship.

Mel couldn't stop brooding. Sally was leaving
and as if that wasn't bad enough, she was in danger of losing
Cheyenne. Besides, another school year had started, another year of
struggling to learn material so she could spew it back on tests and
avoid embarrassing herself by outright failure. Denise was there
for her at lunch, but not in any of her classes as it turned out.
They didn't even ride the same school bus. The bus Mel took to the
regional district schools was packed with chattering elementary
school kids. Her homeroom teacher ran a strictly quiet,
business-only first fifteen minutes of the day. Mel had tried
smiling at a couple of her less intimidating female classmates, but
so far, no one had done more than smile back briefly. She told
herself it was just as well, that she wasn't in the mood for
socializing. She needed to figure out what she could do about
Cheyenne. Denise had offered to let Mel keep Cheyenne in her small
paddock, but Ty had pointed out that the paddock was barely big
enough for one horse, and if Cheyenne chose to, he was powerful
enough to kill Lily.

Dawn had an afternoon off and wanted to take
Mel to the mall, thirty miles away, to buy her some new school
clothes.

“I don't need any,” Mel said. “I just wear
jeans and a sweatshirt anyway, and the ones I've got are good
enough.” They were standing in the lobby of the dining hall by the
registration desk. Now that the season was about over, the stuffed
deer heads on the walls looked down on a deserted room that loomed
too large.

“Looking like a homeless kid in worn-out
clothes isn't going to help you make friends in school,” her mom
argued.

“New clothes aren't going to make kids here
like me any better,” Mel said.

“Maybe not, but you're getting some even if I
have to buy them without you trying them on.”

“You'll be wasting your money, Mom,” Mel
said.

“Can't think of anyone I'd rather waste it
on,” Dawn told her cheerfully. “I'll see you at dinner. I'm going
to the mall.”

“You buy anything pink or baby blue and I
won't wear it,” Mel warned.

“Expect I know that much about you,” Dawn
said and walked outside.

The growl of the car engine started Mel
thinking. Jeb and Sally kept telling her to talk to Mr. Jeffries
about Cheyenne. Mr. Jeffries was rich. Would he care if she
couldn't afford to pay Cheyenne's board and feed bills? Maybe she
could impress him with how she'd tamed his wild mustang. If he saw
what a good horse Cheyenne really was—

On impulse that afternoon, Mel went to the
barn, picked out a light-weight saddle, a blanket, and a bridle and
carried them to the small corral. She was going to do it. She was
going to ride Cheyenne on the road down the mountain. “It'll be all
right,” she told herself out loud. “Cheyenne knows me. He trusts
me, and I trust him. I rode him in the ring and nothing happened.
Why should walking him five miles down the road to Jeffries' ranch
be a problem?”

Of course she could lead Cheyenne on foot the
five miles down to Jeffries' ranch. She could do that, but what was
she proving then about how well trained he was? Jeffries had to see
that Cheyenne behaved himself, at least with her he did. Risk.
Sally said you had to take risks. Okay. She'd take one more.

Cheyenne raised his head at her approach and
whinnied as if he were asking what she was up to now.

“No more medicine. Don't worry. Today, we're
going on a long ride,” she told him as she went about saddling him.
“Remember how we walked on the road? And cars went by and you
didn't get upset or anything? Well, today I'm going to ride you the
same way, but further. All the way to Jeffries' ranch.” Her
heartbeat was registering her fear, and she fought to keep it from
ruling her judgment.
Just once
, she told herself. Just once
she would ride Cheyenne five miles down the mountain to show Mr.
Jeffries how good a horse he was. She only had to do it once.

If anything, Cheyenne seemed eager to leave
the arena. She could feel his muscles tensing with enthusiasm as
she tacked him up. His ears poked forward. He kept his head high
and faced the gate expectantly. She hoped he couldn't sense how
shaky her legs were, how her muscles had turned to jelly. She
chattered to him, as much to calm herself as to keep him interested
in what they were doing.

“You must get awfully bored alone all day in
this little corral, huh, Cheyenne? You miss your buddies? Feel like
a little horsey companionship now and then? You might
like
spending the winter with your friends, especially while I'm in
school all day. There's kids here in this school that care about
horses, some of them have their own horse. I can talk about you,
and they listen like they're interested. Well, of course, anyone
would find
you
interesting.”