One Unhappy Horse (3 page)

"I'm sorry, Dove. I shouldn't have tried to ride you. You hurt, don't you? I wish you could tell me what's wrong."

She would get out her bankbook as soon as they got home and slap it down on the kitchen table and tell Mom she had to get a vet to look at Dove
now.

When Jan returned to the casita, Mom was on the phone trying to convince a man that he still had to pay his horse's boarding bill even if he didn't want the horse anymore. She wasn't sounding very persuasive. Dad had always been the one to charm people into paying. Better wait until suppertime to confront her mother, Jan decided.

She began as soon as Mom finished microwaving their frozen pizza. "Mom, Dove's worse, not better. You said—" "I said we need to give him time to heal himself. You only gave him the Bute this morning," Mom interrupted her.

"But I just know he's got more wrong with him than a stone bruise. I want to pay the vet to look at him."

Mom swallowed and surprised Jan by saying, "All right, if your money's burning a hole in your pocket—Dr. Foster's coming tomorrow to see a boarder's horse for a bad infection. I'll ask her to look at Dove while she's here."

"Thanks," Jan said with relief. She wasn't about to question why Mom had suddenly given in. She was just glad her mother had.

They finished their pizza slices in a silence that made Jan aware of every chewing and swallowing noise. Dad's cheery dinner-table conversation used to cover up such noises. Jan looked at her mother's tired face and tried, "So how was your day, Mom?"

"Same as always." Mom's eyes met Jan's. She swallowed and offered up in return the question that Dad had always put. "How was school?"

"Fine. I sat with some kids at lunch and met this new girl. She was friendly, but I didn't get her name."

Mom nodded and dropped her eyes to her pizza again. Subject ended. Jan tried a new one. "I keep bumping into this old lady who moved into our house." Briefly, Jan described how she'd met Mattie and how the wanderer they'd rescued had ended up in a nursing home.

"That's too bad," Mom said. "Poor lady."

Jan finished her iced tea. She left the crusts of her two pizza slices on her plate, while Mom chewed away patiently on her own crusts. Mom's family hadn't had any food to waste, she had told Jan more than once.

"Mattie's one of the ladies that get assisted, I guess." Jan was thinking of the term "assisted living facility," which she'd heard applied to their old house. "But I don't see why she needs help. She seems fine."

"You like her? I thought you were mad that old people took over our place."

"Well, I was, but I sort of like Mattie, even though she's ancient.... I've never known anyone really old."

"Me, neither," Mom said. "Nobody lives long in my family."

"There's Dad's mother," Jan said. "But she dyes her hair and she married that man after Grandpa died and moved to England with him. That doesn't seem old."

Her mother gave a wry smile. "Age is supposed to bring wisdom. In your grandmother's case—" Mom broke off, unwilling to speak outright ill of anyone.

"Grandma's too bossy," Jan said because she was glad to agree with her mother on something. "She's so sure she knows how everybody should live."

"She thought your father made some bad choices," Mom said. "And she may be right."

"What do you mean?" Jan asked.

"Well, this ranch. I'm working as hard as I can and we still can't seem to pull up even, much less get a penny ahead."

Mom's eyes were so sad that Jan felt an urge to comfort her. Dad would have slung an arm around his wife's shoulders now. He would have said something about things getting better. But Jan and her mother avoided touching each other. And what could Jan promise that wouldn't be false? The best she could offer was, "I'll get up early tomorrow and help you with the horses, Mom."

"That's okay," her mother said. "I can manage the twenty boarders we've got."

"But I want to help you," Jan said.

"Well, if you wake up in time, and you feel like it, that would be nice." Mom gave Jan a shy smile. Jan smiled back. It struck her that Mom had lost even more than she had when Dad died. He'd been the only one Mom could talk to, as well as her business partner and beloved husband. And Mom didn't even have Dove to fill in for him.

"Do you hate it that we don't live in the big house anymore?" Jan asked.

Her mother considered for so long that Jan thought she wasn't going to answer. Finally, she said, "I hate it that your father died before me. My parents died in their forties, so I was sure I'd go first."

"Well, you'd better not die in your forties. I'd be a total orphan then," Jan said.

Her mother's smile didn't reach her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere soon that I know of," she said.

As usual, Mom got busy with her paperwork after dinner. Jan washed and dried their two dishes and glasses, careful not to waste precious water. She was wiping the table when she realized that her mother hadn't exactly answered her question. Or had she? Probably what she had meant by her comment on dying was that Dad had been the most important person in her life. Next would probably come Jan and the horses. The house would be down at the bottom of Mom's list. She'd never cared
about domestic things. A beautiful saddle had always excited her more than any couch or dish or chair.

And what was on
her
list, Jan wondered. Mom and Dove ... and then? Then nothing. She wished she hadn't been so awkward when that new girl tried to be friendly.

At lunchtime in school the next day, Brittany grabbed Jan's shirttail as she passed with her tray. "Sit with us. There's still room," Brittany said.

Jan squeezed in at the table and found herself next to the new girl again. "Hi," Jan greeted her with a grin.

"Hi. How's your horse?"

"I don't know. The vet's going to examine him today."

"Uh-huh," the new girl nodded and looked away.

Now what? Jan threw out the first question that came to mind. "Do you have a grandmother?"

"Well, sure," the girl answered, as if she expected everyone to have a grandmother. "Mine lives with us. She takes care of the house and my brother and me so my mom can do her volunteer jobs."

"Boy!" Barbara said, joining in the conversation uninvited. "That's pretty good. I mean, a grandmother who does something useful. All my grandma does is take ballroom dancing lessons and shop for sequined gowns and fancy shoes."

"Are you talking about grandmothers?" Brittany asked from where she presided at midtable.

"Yes," Barbara said. "I was just telling them mine's a dancing maniac." That got a laugh, which seemed to satisfy Barbara.

"My grandma travels all the time and sends me neat things from all over the world," Brittany said.

"So what about your grandmother?" the new girl asked Jan.

"I don't know her very well," Jan said. "She lives in England. On my birthday she sends a check. But I never get to see her."

"Better than my grandma," Barbara said. "On my birthday she gives me something awful that I can't wear, like a vest with cats painted all over it."

"What's wrong with that?" the new girl asked. "I like cats."

"Pink and purple cats with evil grins?"

Everybody laughed.

The conversation moved on to Halloween costumes and whether they were too old to go trick-or-treating. Jan had never dressed up and gone trick-or-treating. The two houses within walking distance of hers were forlorn places whose owners wouldn't have known what to do about a trick or treater at their door.

She wondered if the vet had come yet. What if Dr. Foster said she didn't have time to look at Dove? Worse yet, what if she found something awful wrong with him?

Closing her eyes, Jan set herself to wondering something
neutral. Like how old Mattie was. Mattie and the other old lady with her, Amelia—they didn't sound like the grandmothers these girls had been talking about: lively grandmothers who were active and traveled and had boyfriends. Mattie and Amelia were past grandmother age. "Come see us," Mattie had said. No, Jan wouldn't go into the house that used to be hers. It would be too awkward and depressing. There might be other people in it, like the wanderer whose mind didn't work right anymore. Being that old would be awful. It would be better to die before needing assistance with living.

Jan sighed and scolded herself for being morbid. Wonder about something else now, she told herself. Immediately, she returned to worrying about what the vet could have found wrong with Dove.

Jan rushed off the school bus and ran past Dove, who was standing at the far side of his corral waiting to greet her, without even stopping to say hello. She found her mother in the tack room at the far end of the barn. "What did the vet say?

Mom heaved a saddle blanket onto the top of a stack and turned to face Jan. Bad news was written in every line of her long, thin face. "She said she'd have to come back with the x-ray machine to tell for sure, but it's more than a stone bruise."

"So when will she do the x-rays?"

"I told her I'd think about it and call her."

"Mom! Call her right now. We can pay for the x-rays. I've got nearly two hundred dollars in my savings account."

"But what if Dove needs an operation? Where would we get the money for that?" Mom asked.

"I don't know. I guess we could borrow it," Jan said. "You paid back the bank, didn't you? After you sold the main house? So we can borrow from them again."

Mom's face was all hungry hollows today. "Didn't you hear me say that we're barely breaking even? We can't borrow what we can't pay back."

"There's got to be a way," Jan said stubbornly.

"Well, if I could get another boarder, maybe that'd help some," Mom admitted.

"But where would you put another horse?"

Mom shrugged. "This tack room used to be a corner stall. If I closed in the shed near the barn with some Sheetrock and siding, we could move the tack out there."

Obviously, Mom had been thinking about the problem. Jan was so grateful that her voice rang with enthusiasm as she said, "Great. I'll help you."

Her mother squinted at her. "You sure you want to spend your money on x-rays?"

"I'm positive."

"But, Jan, an operation could cost thousands of dollars. If your horse needs one, we'd still be short a whole lot of money, even with a boarder. And you're not going to like my other idea of how to bring in some money."

"What is it? Tell me." Jan braced herself. Her mother didn't usually build up to bad news. She just came right out with it, which Jan preferred to Dad's way of hiding hard truths as if Jan weren't strong enough to take them.

"Of course, we really don't need to think about it yet," Mom said. She eyed Jan guiltily.

"You're not going to say we should eat less?" Jan joked. Neither of them ate much and they never ate out. "Or buy fewer clothes?" Mom never bought anything, and the only new clothes Jan had started school with this fall were a pair of discount-store jeans and a shirt. "I already said I was willing to go to the thrift shop. You were the one who was too proud to do that."

"No, this is something I heard about. And you'd have to wait until Dove's well to do it, anyway."

Jan pressed her lips together to control her impatience. "What, Mom?" she repeated.

"It's called leasing," Mom said. "You find someone who wants his or her own horse but can't afford to buy one, and you go partners on your horse with the person."

"Share Dove?" Jan couldn't believe Mom would suggest such a thing. "Let someone else ride my horse?"

"
And
help take care of him
and
pay his expenses. It wouldn't hurt Dove, and it would bring in money."

Jan turned her back on her mother. Her heart was racing fast enough to burst out of her chest. "No," she said. "No, I couldn't do that." Then she ran to Dove's corral and threw herself at him. He backed up a couple of steps before he steadied and nuzzled her as she hugged him. She would have leaped on his back and galloped away as far as he could go if he had been able to run—but he wasn't. Instead, she clung to him until the anger began to seep out of her.

Her mother would never suggest she share Dove with anyone if Dad were alive. Dad would figure a way to help Dove that wouldn't involve renting him out to some stranger. He'd find a dozen bright possibilities where Mom saw none.

As if he sensed her misery, Dove kept nudging her. He backpedaled in a circle on his three good legs, barely letting the tip of the right front hoof touch the ground. His ears whisked one way and then the other in confusion. Jan began to feel guilty about upsetting him. To comfort them both, she got his brush out of the barn and began to groom him.

Dove stuck his tongue out to lick her neck, but she told him, "Stop that." He'd tried to lick any bare skin within reach when they first got him. Dad had warned her to break him of the habit because licking led to biting, and even a playful nip that wouldn't harm another horse could do damage to a human.

"You know, Dove," she said, "you have it better hanging out here all day than I do going to school. At least you can watch the hawks fly by and smell things in the wind." She touched his sore leg by accident, but he gave no sign that it hurt him.

"Hello, there!" The high-pitched greeting came from the road. Jan turned to see Mattie calling and waving at her. "That's a pretty horse you've got there. Is he yours?"

"Yes," Jan said. She frowned, thinking that Mattie had asked her that question before.

"Well, can I come say hi to him?"

"Sure," Jan said. She'd be glad to be distracted.

Mattie was alone this time. Her pink plaid pants matched her solid pink blouse, and her straw hat had a pink ribbon around it. "You look nice," Jan told her when Mattie had crossed the road to the corral area.

"Thanks, honey. I got dressed up for my daughter. She was going to take me out shopping, and I must have bored a hole in the front door watching for her. But just now she called to say she couldn't make it. She's so busy, you know. She's an executive at a big company here in Tucson." Mattie was stroking Dove's neck. He muttered and turned his head into Jan's shoulder as if to ask who this stranger was.