One Unhappy Horse (7 page)

Jan hated calling her grandmother in the best of circumstances. That imperious lady spoke in such an accusing way that right after "Hello" she could make Jan feel guilty. When Dad was alive, he'd called his mother dutifully, but he'd spent as little time in her presence as possible. "She hated ranch life, didn't think much of my dad or me, either," he'd said once. Jan had no doubt Grandma felt the same way about her and her mother.

She punched in the little-used overseas telephone number and perched on a kitchen chair, gripping the receiver while the phone rang.

"Yes?" Grandma's voice answered on the third ring.

"This is Jan. How are you, Grandma?"

"Jan? Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me." And because she couldn't think of any other small talk, she repeated, "How are you?"

"Not too well, if you really want to know. It's hard to get
up in the morning, and I can't find a way to lie in bed that doesn't pain me. What are you calling about?"

Jan swallowed and persisted in being polite. "I'm sorry you aren't feeling well. How's your husband—I mean, Grandpa?" She disliked using the term for a man she barely knew, but it was what her grandmother had asked her to call her new husband.

"No worse, no better."

"That's too bad," Jan said inadequately.

"Yes, it is," Grandma said. "And how's school? You're not in trouble, are you?"

"No. I'm fine. And so is Mom. I'm passing my courses okay. But ... It's my horse."

"Horse?" Grandma snorted. "It would be a horse. That's all you people out there care about. Well, what's the problem with your horse?"

"This is Dove, the horse Dad gave me? He's got a bad leg and he needs an operation."

"How unfortunate. I suppose that means money."

"Yes. Mom asked the bank, but they won't lend it to her."

"And no doubt you've already spent what I sent you for your birthday and Christmas."

"No, Grandma. But I had to pay for the x-rays, and that took all I had."

Grandma made a sound of disgust. Then she said what she'd said many times before. "It's time you and your mother realized that horses are for rich people. You can't afford to
live on a ranch. She can't make a living trying to run one. Even your father couldn't make a profit from that dry-bones little place. And now you're in trouble and you expect me to bail you out?"

"I need a thousand dollars, maybe more," Jan admitted.

She wasn't surprised when her grandmother answered promptly. "Don't expect to get it from me. I haven't got money to waste. And fixing up that animal just means something else will happen to it to cause more expense. Sorry." But she didn't sound sorry.

"I hope you feel better soon, Grandma," Jan said quietly. And she hung up.

When her mother asked her if she'd made the phone call, Jan nodded. "You were right. She wouldn't lend us anything—not for a horse." And probably not for us, either, Jan thought privately.

On Monday in school, Jan found Brittany talking animatedly to a group of kids perched on desks around her. Timidly, Jan tapped Brittany on the shoulder and said, "I'm sorry I didn't get to your party Friday. I really wanted to come. But something happened with my horse, and I just had to deal with it."

The minute Brittany looked up at her, Jan could see by the coldness in her eyes that any liking Brittany had had for her was gone. "Well, you missed a good party," Brittany said. She paused and added with disdainful emphasis, "because of your
horse." Then she turned her back on Jan and leaned toward her group. "Wasn't that hysterical when Mark's wig dropped in the punch?"

The others laughed with her.

Jan backed away. It hurt to have lost the one friend she'd had in school. Although there was still Lisa. But Lisa wasn't in homeroom, and Jan didn't know where she might be. If she could just find Lisa and explain what had happened, it might put things right again between them. Last Friday night, Jan had been too upset to explain anything.

Lisa walked in after first-period class had started and handed the teacher an excuse slip about a dentist appointment.

"I need to talk to you," Jan said to her in the hall during change of class.

"I don't have time now," Lisa said.

At lunchtime, Jan got in line behind Lisa to buy milk and an apple. Lisa turned and said accusingly, "My mother was mad at me for making her drive so far out of the way to pick you up—and then you didn't come. What's wrong with you? Is it me you don't like? Or are you just antisocial?"

"I couldn't—I just couldn't go to a party that night, Lisa. I'm sorry. It wasn't you. I mean, you've been very nice to me, and—" Jan swallowed and got stuck in the knot of excuses.

"Then why didn't you call or something?" Lisa asked. "You made me get yelled at. My mom hates driving at night. I only offered because I thought—Well, you live near me
and nobody much else does. But I guess you don't need friends."

Jan caught her breath. "Yes, I do," she said, but not soon enough for Lisa to hear her. She had handed the cashier her money and bounced off toward Brittany's table.

Jan ate alone at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria. She felt like a pariah. Well, she deserved to be. If only she had her father's skill with people! He would have sweet-talked Lisa out of her anger. Of course, Dad wouldn't have closed the door in Lisa's face Friday night, either. He had been graceful in social situations. He wouldn't have tromped all over people's feelings the way his daughter did.

That night again Jan couldn't sleep. She pulled on her boots over her bare feet, to protect against any scorpions still aboveground now that the summer's heat had gone, and went out to the barn. The air was thick with the ripe smell of manure and hay and warm horseflesh. Jan breathed deeply, straining to hear in the stillness the sounds of animals muttering and sighing in their sleep. Few things made her feel more peaceful than a barn full of horses at night.

She walked out the door and there was Dove lying under the shed roof at the barn end of his pipe corral. She slipped between the bars and went to him. Normally, he'd get up to greet her as soon as he sensed her presence. Tonight he just lay on his side with his hurt leg stuck at an awkward angle
across his other front leg. She touched his head, afraid that he might not be breathing, but his eyelashes tickled the edge of her palm as he blinked.

"Dove," she said, "Dove, what am I going to do? There's got to be a way to get money for you, if only I could think of it. Too bad you don't have a rich owner. If you were our prime boarder, you'd get that operation." She thought of Mom's leasing idea. Hateful as it might be to share Dove, it
was
a way to bring in money. Tell Mom she'd relented? But even so, they couldn't lease Dove until he was well. First they had to borrow the money for the operation. And who would lend them money if the bank and Grandma wouldn't?

Jan laid her head against Dove's smooth, warm neck and let the tears leak hotly onto him. He took a deep breath and let it out in a shuddering sigh. She closed her eyes wearily and dozed and woke and finally returned to bed.

Mattie and Amelia came walking down the road the next afternoon. With Mattie leading the way, they swerved and came straight to Dove's corral.

"How're you doing?" Mattie asked Jan, who was raking up the soiled shavings. It was a task she should have done that morning. But she'd awakened shivering and headachy, and by the time she'd taken a hot shower and pushed herself through the motions of dressing, she'd barely made the school bus. Then she'd endured another long school day of being one alone among many.

"Not so good," Jan said. She greeted Amelia with a "Hi," and got a wave of the hand in reply.

"When's the operation?" Mattie asked.

"No money. No operation," Jan said. "The bank refused Mom."

"Oh, honey, that's terrible. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Kill myself, maybe." Jan spoke without smiling.

"Now, that's no way to sound. There's always something you can do," Mattie said.

Amelia snorted. "When there's no money, there's no money. You should understand that. You gave all yours to your daughter, and now you're stuck rooming with me. Can't even have your own room because she won't pay for it."

"Oh, what do I need my own room for?"

"Because you want it bad. Admit it, Mattie, you know you want it."

"Well, there are other things more important. Besides, what'd you do without me?"

"I'd get along," Amelia said.

"Anyway, I didn't give my daughter everything," Mattie said. "I still have my emerald ring."

"Right, and she's probably aiming to get that away from you as soon as you land in the nursing home or you give her some other excuse to call you incompetent."

"My daughter's not nasty like you make her out to be,"
Mattie said angrily. "She's a good girl, and she and I have always been that close." She held up her crossed fingers to show Amelia. "It's just—I don't know. She's scared because I forgot to turn off the stove and like that. That's all it is."

"You mean she only loves you when you're useful to her?"

Mattie was bristly with distress. "Valerie's busy," she told Amelia. "She's got a high-up position in her company." Mattie stopped and looked startled as if she'd remembered something. Her eyes focused vaguely on Jan, who was stroking Dove's neck as she listened. Once again, Mattie had forgotten that her daughter had quit that job and was working as a consultant now, Jan thought.

But Mattie had hit her stride again. "And anyway, Amelia," she boasted, "the ring is still mine, and it's valuable. So I'm not poor."

"A lot of good that ring does you," Amelia said. "I put all my jewelry in the safe deposit box. Nothing to wear it for around here."

"I'll tell you what this ring'd be good for. It'd be good for a loan if I hocked it," Mattie said.

"Oh, pshaw!" Amelia said. "As if you need money."

"Well, I don't, but my young friend here does." She turned to Jan and said earnestly, "That's what we could do. We could hock this ring to get the money you need for the operation."

Jan's heart leaped at this spark of an idea and sank in the next instant as Amelia put it down.

"Are you crazy, Mattie?" Amelia said. "If you pawn that ring, where are you going to get the money to redeem it?"

"Don't you think this child and her mother would pay me back? Of course they would. You don't trust anybody, Amelia, but I do." She drew herself up tall as she could and narrowed her eyes as she considered. "Now," Mattie said, "likely they won't give full value, so I won't get as much as the ring's worth. But I bet it would cover the operation." She frowned determinedly.

Amelia said, "You're an old fool, Mattie. I don't blame your daughter for taking your money away from you."

"I couldn't take your money," Jan put in. But neither woman seemed to hear her.

Still directing her remarks at Amelia, Mattie said, "The ring's mine, and if that's what I want to do with it, who's to stop me?

If only Mattie were her grandmother, Jan thought wistfully.

"Your daughter'll be sure you're crazy if she finds out you pawned it," Amelia warned.

Mattie paused to think, her eyes wide and her lips pursed with concentration. Finally, she said, "What if she doesn't find out? What if I say I lost it again?"

"Last time when you thought you lost it, she sounded ready to send you to the nursing home for being senile."

"She was just upset. She loves this ring, and it'll be hers
for sure when I die. Meanwhile, I don't see why it can't be of use to someone else."

"Mattie!" Jan raised her voice and touched Mattie's shoulder to make her listen. "I couldn't take your ring."

"Oh, no? What else are you going to do?" Mattie asked feistily.

Jan chewed on her lip in silence. She had no answer to that. She only knew it would be wrong to let Mattie pawn her ring. That wasn't a solution to consider. Resolutely, Jan put it out of her mind even while she said, "I guess I'll think of something." Her remark was sheer bravado. She knew her brain was squeezed dry of ideas.

When Jan went to take care of Dove before school Friday morning, he didn't bother to greet her. He didn't even show an interest in her presence. Worse, when she tried to coax him to get up so she could brush and curry him, he wouldn't budge.

"I know what'll get you up, Dove," she said. She raced to the casita, grabbed a slice of bread, and ran back to hold it out to him. Years before, when he'd nipped a sandwich right out of her hand, she had discovered how much he liked bread. Now he stretched his neck toward the treat without moving his legs. When he couldn't reach it, he pulled his lips back over his teeth in that horse smile that always made her smile back.

"Oh, Dove," she said, her voice choking with feeling, "you just have to move around more." She could hear Dad's voice warning of respiration problems if she let him lie there for too long. "Come on. Stand up, or I'm not giving this to you."

Finally, he heaved himself upright and took the bread. But
he rested all his weight on his three good legs while she groomed him.

"Things are bad enough without you developing any more ailments," she told him.

He bumped her shoulder playfully when she'd finished. "You know, we still haven't figured out how we're going to afford to get your leg fixed," she said. "But we will. Don't you worry, we will."

Maybe his leg would start healing by itself, she thought. After all, minor miracles did happen. Why not to Dove and her?

A pink sunrise lingered in the east and the air was still a chilly fifty degrees when she'd finished watering and feeding Dove. Jan just had time to use the bathroom before leaving for school. While she was sitting on the toilet, she saw evidence that her mother had taken to wishful thinking, too. In the wastebasket under the sink was a ripped-up lottery ticket. Mom never bet, but now she'd put good money down on a long shot, and Jan had no doubt for whom she'd done it. Mom, who had always been the realist in their family! Jan got tears in her eyes at this new sign of her mother's affection for her.