Scarecrow on Horseback (8 page)

“That so?” Jeb said. “I'll try him out in the
morning and we'll see.” Mel was due to spend most of Saturday with
Denise, but she had time before breakfast to watch Jeb ride
Colby.

As soon as the horses had run down to the big
corral the next morning and been fed, Jeb tacked up Colby. When he
tried to mount the horse though, Colby began acting up. He backed
away as Jeb tried to swing into the saddle. Jeb made it, but he
hauled up hard on the reins. Colby reared. Jeb brought him down and
kicked him with his spurred boots. Colby took off at a full gallop,
swerving as he ran to sideswipe the corral fence. He veered away
from it in the nick of time, slinging Jeb sideways off the saddle
and into the fence. As soon as Jeb dropped off his back, Colby
stopped and stood still in the middle of the ring like the most
docile of animals.

“That horse ought to be in a rodeo,” Sally
said.

“I'm sorry.” Jeb who was picking himself up
off the ground. “Are you all right?”

“I may be,” Jeb said angrily, “But that horse
isn't. We put a dude on his back, we're likely to get sued.”

“He's fine with me.” I've been riding him
without any trouble.”

“Yeah?” Jeb's lips were drawn white, and he
threw the challenge at her like a rock. “If he's so fine with you,
you
could lead the family trail ride around Beaver Lake on
him. How about that?”

“And you'll pay me a real salary?” she
asked.

“Yeah.” He sounded surprised at her reaction,
as if he'd expected her to back off. “So long as I don't hear any
complaints from the guests.”

“Okay,” she said. “I'll do it then.”

Mel was happy. She was on her way to saving a
pile of money. At the end of the season, she'd ask to buy Colby.
Since Jeb didn't like the horse, he might advise Mr. Jeffries to
let him go cheap. By the time school started, with any luck, Colby
might be on his way to being hers. She wouldn't let anyone else
ride him. She'd spend time with him after school every day when her
chores were finished. She'd teach him to come when she whistled.
She'd teach him. And he'd be the best horse on the ranch before
long, her horse, her very own.

Chapter
Seven

It was square dance night at the ranch. Sally
had said it was fun and that he'd be there. “I hope Jeb won't be,”
Mel said. She hadn't forgiven Jeb for dumping poor Hojo and
preferred to avoid him. But that night when she heard the lively
fiddle music start up in the barn on the other side of the road
from the big corral, she was tempted even though Sally had said Jeb
liked to dance.

Dawn was quilting in the living area of their
cabin. Mel called it the pit because it was barely big enough to
squeeze in a two-seater couch, an armchair, and an electric heater.
Dawn was squinting under the feeble light of their single table
lamp as she tried to make tiny, evenly spaced stitches in what
would become a pillow cover.

“You can't sew here,” Mel told her mother.
“You'll wreck your eyes. Why don't you go over to the Davises?”

“They went to town to visit a friend.”

Mel put down the veterinary medicine journal
she'd borrowed from the ranch library. She'd been skimming it,
looking for tips that she could use to help injured horses like
Hojo.

“This place is even smaller than our
apartment in Cincinnati,” Mel said. She meant the apartment they'd
rented when her mother was a bookkeeper in Max's business before
they got married.

“Well, but you've got your own bedroom
here.”

“Umm,” Mel agreed, “but the bathroom's
awful—that rusty metal shower—and the toilet's squeezed in so tight
by the sink you've got to watch your knees when you sit down.”

“What's making you so grumpy tonight?” her
mom asked.

“Nothing.” The bathroom
was
awful and
the cabin
was
cramped. Plus there was no closet space. Her
mother hung her good clothes on a clothesline she'd rigged up in
her room. Mel stowed her pants, shirts, and underwear into the
small battered dresser in her room. Fortunately, the rest of her
belongings consisted of a craft kit to make friendship bracelets
that she'd never opened because she'd lacked a friend to give a
bracelet to and some photographs of kids she'd known and liked. She
had several pictures of Lisa. Lisa with her waist length flaxen
hair sitting pretty on Wonder Boy. But small and dingy as the cabin
was, she didn't really mind it. Jeb was what she minded. He was a
tyrant with the power of life and death over his subjects, and as
long as she cared about the horses, she was one of his
subjects.

“Sally says the fiddlers at the dance tonight
are really good,” Mel said.

“Well, go ahead if you want to go,” her mom
said.

“I don't want to go alone.”

“Mel, it's fifty feet down the road. You can
walk over, look in, and if you don't want to stay, come home. The
music's so loud we're practically in on it anyway.”

“We never do anything together anymore.”

“Honey, I'm tired. I've been working all day,
and I'd just like to relax tonight. I'm going to quilt a while and
go to bed early.”

“Please, Mom, Sally'll be there. You'd like
him if you got to know him.”

“Come on, Mel. He's a nice man, but all he
talks about is horses.”

“So? What's wrong with that? I wish you'd go
to the square dance with me.”

“Oh, all right.” Dawn tucked her quilting
into the makeshift sewing basket Mrs. Davis had given her. “I'll
put on some jeans and we'll go.”

“You should wear that squaw skirt you never
wear.”

“Why? I'm not planning to dance. You wear the
skirt. It would fit you.”

“You know I hate skirts. I'm going in my
jeans.”

“Okay, I'll wear the skirt. Anything to
please my darling daughter,” Dawn said.

Dawn liked to dance. Mel hoped that if she
danced with Sally, they might get friendly. Very friendly? Sally
had gray in his wavy black hair and a lumpy face, but he had a
great smile and probably wasn't
that
much older than her
mother. Of course, they didn't have anything in common, but Sally'd
certainly make a great father, better than Max, who had never
looked at Mel as more than an add-on responsibility. Ty was a
stepfather too, but he treated Denise like he really cared about
her, the way Sally acted toward Mel and he wasn't even her
stepfather. Mel wondered if Sally had ever been married.

She considered changing her T-shirt. It had a
hole near the neck. But her favorite black shirt with the wild
stallion painted on the front was in the wash. She might as well
keep on what she was wearing. Smelling of horses had to be okay on
a guest ranch.

Outside in the dark under the evergreen
trees, a rasping chorus of night birds and insects serenaded Mel
and Dawn as they walked up the road. The moon seemed to be lying on
its back on a cloud. Only Venus was visible so far.

“I'm glad you've found a friend here,” her
mother said. “I was worried that there wouldn't be anyone for you
on the ranch.”

“Umm. I like Denise a lot. We're going to
open a stable together when we grow up.”

Her mother laughed. “Is that before or after
you become a vet? That's what people on the ranch are saying, that
you're sure to become a vet the way you can get those animals to
hold still to be medicated or whatever.”

“I can't be a vet, Mom,” Mel said seriously,
“I'd have to go to college, and I don't like school. I hate sitting
still and having to learn stuff that bores me. I work harder
getting a stupid “C” than other kids that get “A's”. I'm not even
good at sports or music or art. The only thing that sticks out
about me is my legs.”

“Oh, Mel,” her mother laughed. “Don't put
yourself down like that. You should hear the way the staff talks
about you. You have their respect.”

“Because I fit in better here than in
Cincinnati. There they were all so ‘TV special’.”

“Hmm?” her mother questioned.

Mel shrugged. “And besides, Denise, I've got
the horses and Sally here.” She caught her breath. “You like it
here, don't you?”

“So far. I like the pace. It's relaxing. It's
like I'm on vacation.” Dawn took a deep breath of the piney
air.

“It smells good, doesn't it?” Mel said.
Mountains made a great backyard, and she didn't mind chilly
mornings in the spring and a short summer. She imagined it would be
neat to be snowed in with the horses after the guests had all left.
Could she be happy here forever? If Jeb didn't yank any more horses
away from her she could be.

They'd arrived at the open door of the barn
and were enticed inside by the music and the bright lights. Straw
bales had been used as building blocks to make a stage for the
musicians and the square dance caller. Most of the guests were
already standing in a big circle holding hands with each other. Not
many of the staff were present. Two of the kitchen workers who hung
out together and ignored everyone else were there. Mel spotted
Sally in the circle of dancers. He broke away from the people whose
hands he was holding and came over to pull her and her mother into
the circle with him.

“Glad you came,” Sally said.

“I don't know a thing about square dancing,”
Dawn replied..

“No problem. It starts off easy. Just slide a
few steps to the left and then to the right, take your partner, and
promenade.” He gave her a lopsided grin.

When the music began, Sally coached them on
how to dosi-do and swing your partner.

Mel had a stranger for a partner, a woman who
was one of the guests.

“Isn't this fun?” the woman said. “I've
always loved barn dancing.” She swung Mel around, showing her how
to lean back and pivot on her right foot. It
was
fun. The
caller told them to break into sets of eight, four couples facing
each other across the set. Mel found herself with Sally as a
partner. And there was Jeb in another set with her mother
somehow.

“Why'd he have to
come?” Mel muttered to Sally.

“Nowhere else to go while his girl's off
seeking her fortune,” Sally said. “Now to allemand left you give
your left hand to your corner and then turn and give your right to
your partner. There, that's it.”

Concentrating on square dance steps made Mel
lose sight of her mother and Jeb. Sally swung her hard enough to
get her dizzy. She fumbled her way through a ladies' chain and
began to sweat. Two dances later, she was breathless, and Sally led
her over to the counter where pitchers of beer and lemonade had
been set out along with some chips.

“Don't you want to dance with my mother?” Mel
asked him.

“Looks like your mother has found herself a
partner,” Sally said.

“Not the one I want her to have. Jeb's mean,
the way he gets rid of any horse that isn't perfect.”

“Yeah, well, you got to remember, Mel, his
job is to see to it the guests get good horses to ride. That's what
they're paying for after all.”

She grunted. No doubt Sally was right, but
that didn't make her like Jeb any better.

The barn was full of people milling about now
that the musicians were taking a break. Finally, Mel spotted her
mother and Jeb talking to each other near the open door.

Tall, muscular Jeb was bending attentively
toward her mother whose face was animated as she listened to him.
Oh, no
, Mel thought. Her mother was making friends with the
enemy. Mel turned her back on them so as not to see it happening.
She wished she hadn't talked Dawn into wearing that squaw
skirt.

“You're older than Jeb, aren't you, Sally?”
Mel asked her friend who was frowning at her as if he was trying to
read her mind.

“Yeah, almost old enough to be his
father.”

“Well, how come you aren't the head wrangler
then?”

“I didn't want the job.”

“They offered it to you?”

He sipped the lemonade in his paper cup and
thought before he answered. “I had a go at it. But I got other
irons in the fire.”

“What other irons?”

“It's a long story, Mel.”

Meaning he doesn’t want to tell me, she
thought. “I don't see how you stand taking orders from that guy,”
she said.

“I told you, Mel. I don't let him bother me.
I don't let much bother me. I just enjoy the horses and watching
the sun rise and set. I like hearing rain pinging on the roof of
the barn, and I like being holed up somewhere warm in winter. I got
simple tastes.”

“And you never wanted to get married and have
children?”

Sally's face closed down. “Mel, the music's
starting up again. You want to find yourself another partner?”

“No.”

“Well, then, come on. Let's get into a
set.”

When the dance was over and, as Mel walked
back to the cabin with her mother, Mel asked her how come she had
spent the whole evening with Jeb.

“He's a really nice guy,” her mother said.
“Thanks for talking me into going, honey. I enjoyed myself
tonight.”

Worse yet, that weekend, Mom went to a
restaurant in town with Jeb, and she made light of whatever Mel
said against him.

Chapter
Eight

Once Mel began leading the family rides, Jeb
began acting more like an indulgent big brother to her then, as if
she was an unpaid servant. Mel didn't know whether his change in
attitude was because she was doing her job well or because he'd
become friends with her mother. He could be trying to please Dawn
by being nicer to her daughter. When a week passed and she hadn't
received a pay check, she asked him, “How much does a wrangler
make?”

“Enough to starve on,” Sally said over his
shoulder as he lugged the last of the tack into the small barn.

“Nobody starves on this ranch,” Jeb said.

“True enough,” Sally said. “It's the good
cooking keeps us all here.” He disappeared through the open barn
door carrying a saddle.