Keeping Barney Page 7

  “He’s full of beans today,” she said, looking satisfied. “Just as well. I want to see him at his worst with you.”

  And me at my worst with him! But admiration won out over jealousy. “I couldn’t tell he was feeling that way. You made it look so easy.”

  Missy glanced at her sharply. “Don’t let appearances fool you. You have to work hard to make it look that easy.” Sarah’s heart sank. Missy seemed suddenly very stern. “Mount up. You’ll work in the middle of the field, in a circle around me. Let’s go.” She started out and Sarah followed, trying to relax tense arms and follow the motion of Barney’s head.

  Missy stopped. “All right, walk him in a couple of circles around me.” But Barney didn’t want to move away; Sarah had to pull him. “Use your legs,” came Missy’s quiet, inflexible voice. “Outside leg behind the girth, inside at the girth. Bend him, don’t pull.”

  Legs! Of course! In all her agonizing over her hands, she’d let her legs hang practically idle. Disgusted with herself, Sarah applied leg pressure as she’d been taught long ago, and Barney turned. She put him on a circle around Missy.

  “Your form’s good,” Missy commented after two turns. “Wider circle now, at a sitting trot.”

  Sitting to Barney’s trot was never easy, and Sarah concentrated on relaxing the small of her back and deepening her heels to absorb the jolts. Barney started speeding up, a little more with each circle. At first she did nothing, hoping he’d slow by himself—she didn’t want to pull and show Missy how bad she was. Finally, though, his speed made it impossible to sit. Sarah gave a hurried little tug. Barney stuck his nose out and went faster, and Missy shouted, “Whoa!”

  Barney stopped dead, and Sarah rocked forward on his neck. Missy stalked out to them, her face smooth and dangerous. “I saw that coming. Sarah, you simply must check him, constantly. If you’d just lightly fingered the reins when he first speeded up you’d have been fine. Instead you let it go, and he decided to see how much he could get away with. Now try going the other way, and this time pay attention!”

  Deeply mortified, Sarah turned around and trotted again. This time Barney tried earlier, one ear cocked back cannily. Sarah fingered the reins, bouncing a step as she forgot to concentrate on her seat. Barney steadied, but almost immediately tried again. She slowed him, and this time he accepted the verdict, at least for a while.

  “That’s better,” Missy called. “You’re getting the idea, but you could still be lighter. Remember, he’s only as light as you are. If you use a light signal early enough, he’ll respond lightly. If you pull, he’ll pull. Turn around and work it the other way.”

  And so it went, for another hour. The moment Sarah relaxed, Barney would try something. Sarah would correct him, and looking at Missy’s face, know she’d still been too harsh. She struggled to stay one thought ahead of him, and in the end it seemed to be working, but she couldn’t tell. He might just have been tired.

  Missy called it quits when Barney started to sweat. “He’s even harder than other horses to cool out in the winter, ’cause of all that hair. You want to be careful of that.”

  Then she would be having him in the winter! Missy was going to let him come back to her! Sarah’s heart did cartwheels all the way to the barn.

  They unsaddled him, blanketed him, and walked him till he was cool. Missy was quiet now, withdrawn. She didn’t speak again until they were back in the barn, taking off the blanket.

  “Well, Sarah, I think all you need to do is keep your mind more on your riding. Barney isn’t the kind of horse you can moon around on. He demands your attention. You’ll find he’s absolutely trustworthy when you’re in trouble”—Sarah remembered the docile horse who’d carried her to the Joneses after her fall—“and if you’re not in trouble he’ll get you there fast, unless you watch him.”

  “Can’t you ever relax with him?” Sarah asked despairingly.

  Missy smiled. “Yes, of course. He wouldn’t be a good horse if you couldn’t. But you have to learn when you can, and when it would be dangerous, and the only way to do that is by observing him.” Barney pushed her, impatient with all the talk.

  “Yes, Bear, I’ve got your treat.” She gave him a sugar cube. “Sarah has one, too—here, Sarah, he always has a treat after he works. C’mon now, into your stall.” She took off the halter and Barney walked in obediently, checked out the feed box and hay rack, and turned back to them. Missy rubbed the wet patch below his ears.

  “I don’t know if I’ve explained it very well, but I hope you understand a little better. It won’t be easy at first, but it’ll be worth it. He’s a great little horse.”

  Sarah thought so, too, and aching to try out what she’d learned, she had a hard time getting through the rest of the week. She read every book she owned, had Jill over to make fudge, trained the hapless Star to stop barking on command—she couldn’t be taught not to start barking—and went to Albert’s for supper, getting her first look at how a dairy farm works. But it was a long time till the Thursday afternoon when Missy brought Barney back.

  She rode him over through a light sleet, looking tense and sad and worried. Silently she unsaddled him and turned him into his stall.

  “You be good,” she said, stroking the little dents above his tricornered eyes. “Mind Sarah, and don’t do anything stupid like break a leg.”

  A horn blew in the yard; Mr. O’Brien had come to drive Missy home. A last, desperate hug for Barney, and she was gone.

  Sarah went to Barney’s head. He was gazing after Missy, and hardly seemed to notice her. She scratched the itchy spot under his mane. Absently he responded, scrubbing his lip on the top of the half-door, his attention still on the yard. With a sudden fury that frightened her, Sarah slapped his shoulder.

  “Darn you, Barney, look at me! You’re my horse now!” He flicked an ear at her. “Maybe you don’t think so, but you are! And you’ll like me just as much as her. You’ll have to, ’cause sometime she’s going to decide she likes some guy more than you, and then I’m going to buy you and you’ll be mine!” Barney lifted his head and neighed toward the yard. Wearily, Sarah turned away.

  By the next afternoon it had warmed up, and the glaze of ice melted. Sarah rode; how much better the world looked from horseback! A hard bubble of happiness formed in her chest. She relished the perky bob of his head, the awareness of each foot touching the ground, even the pressure on the reins as he bore toward the barn door, hoping to dash through. Gently, she corrected him before he could even get near. He made sour ears at her. “Sorry, Bear.”

  Barney kept on testing his luck, but riding him was easier today than it had ever been. Even out in the pasture, where he usually staged a pretty good exhibition of educated disobedience, Sarah felt securely in control. Almost always, she caught him before his naughtiness could get far, and returned him to the straight and narrow without taking drastic measures.

  It wasn’t until she was unsaddling that she realized why it was so easy today. Today there were no daydreams, no distracting thoughts. After a week on the ground, riding Barney again was all the daydream she needed.

  And that was the key to riding. You had to be in it fully, savoring all the details the way you did to make a daydream real. You had to ride for riding’s sake, and not for the dreams it carried you to.

  “Oh, Barney,” she cried, hugging his sturdy neck joyfully. “That’s it! I understand—and boy, are you in for some trouble!”

  (12)The Hunter

  The Sunday after Barney came back, Sarah and Albert planned a long ride. For Vermont, it was being an unusually mild winter, but this might be their last chance to get out before the ground was covered with snow. Jill couldn’t go, and Sarah was guilty of feeling a little relieved. They could go much farther if they didn’t have to wait for short-legged Ginger.

  Once he was sure he was going to see his friends, Barney strode briskly along the road. His ears shifted interestedly, noting every noise and movement. Sarah pulled him well off the road whenever a c
ar passed, and still he danced.

  There were a lot of cars, because today was the last day of hunting season. Mom had warned her to be careful, and made her wear a red shirt of Dad’s over her jacket. Now, seeing the cars bristling with guns, and the way the men looked out the windows, she was glad she had it. Stories flew around school of the dogs, cows, and people that hunters had mistaken for deer; they’d been careful to keep Star close to the house since the season started.

  Mr. Jones was just leaving the barn when she arrived. He waved and called, “How d’you like this weather? S’posed to have gotten three feet of snow last night, but I’m not complaining.”

  “Me either.”

  Albert came around the corner leading Herky. Mr. Jones paused on his way to the house. “Where you kids headed?”

  “Up the Woodfield Mountain Road. We won’t go all the way, though. Too cold.”

  Mr. Jones frowned for a moment, considering. Then he shrugged. “I guess it’s all right, if you stick to the trail. Just be careful. Last day of the season, woods’re full of trigger-happy fools ready to shoot at anything to get their deer. And mind the horses don’t spook, too.” He slapped Herky on the rump. “Go on, then, and watch out.”

  The road over Woodfield Mountain, once well traveled, had dwindled to a treeless strip through the woods. A carpet of brown leaves rustled under the horses’ hooves. Albert took the lead, because he knew where the rocky places were. Not that Herky cared much about the footing; he rolled over all kinds of terrain like an agile tank. Barney had to scramble to keep up, and as usual, this kept him out of mischief so Sarah could think of something else. Ah, what had Missy said: “You have to know when you can, and when it would be dangerous.”

  Other than the noises of their passing, the woods were oddly silent today. Only the jays were out, their voices unusually raucous as they flitted through the treetops, like bits of fallen sky. Occasionally a shot sounded, far away, and Sarah would say, in the most irritatingly righteous voice she could manage, “I hope that deer got away.”

  Albert had created a small rift in their friendship by getting a deer the first week of the season. While Sarah knew, deep down, that the Joneses could use the meat, and that their brand of hunting was different from the sports hunters’, she wouldn’t let herself forgive him.

  Twisting and drifting to find the easiest slope, the road wound gradually up the mountain. It had been built for a slower, horse-drawn age, so there were places to rest, and a watering trough halfway up. Albert was very enthusiastic about it, and scornful of the modern roads that took the direct, dull route.

  Sarah, in an argumentative mood, said, “I thought you’d be all for progress, with all your science fiction. Isn’t that what it’s all about, making things easy and dull?” Albert made no answer; probably because he couldn’t think of one, Sarah smugly surmised.

  A lone squirrel scuffled in the leaves beside the road, and Barney lunged forward, crashing into Herky’s rump. Herk shifted his hips, threatening to kick, and Sarah and Albert found unity in scolding their mounts. After that, an unspoken truce prevailed.

  They were a little more than halfway to the top, with cold hands and noses, each wondering how to suggest turning back without seeming cowardly, when they saw the deer. A young buck, it was feeding in an abandoned orchard beside the trail. Every few seconds it flung its head up, ears twitching, to stare off toward the stone wall that bordered the orchard. Its tail stayed at half-mast, ready to snap up into the white danger signal.

  Sarah and Albert pulled up to watch. For a minute or two the deer eyed them suspiciously, but despite its jumpiness, it didn’t seem alarmed. It turned its attention again to the woods beyond the wall. Its nervous glances became longer in duration. Once it trotted off a few steps, head and tail high, but circled back to the tidbit it had left. It only looked their way if one of the horses stirred.

  With a shriek, a jay rocketed out of a tree beyond the wall. The deer froze; only one ear twitched, like an independent thing. Then it took a small, jerky step, lifting its knees high. Another—the still air exploded with the gunshot.

  Barney leaped almost out from under her. Sarah’s mind caught at tags of sensation; his odd little grunt, hauling on the reins, dancing white deer tail bounding away—branches slashed her face—ouch, one in the eye—tears—“Whoa, Barney! Whoa!”

  Barney stopped on his own, circling around to crash against Herky. Albert never even noticed the squashing of his leg. He was screaming after a red-clad, running figure beyond the stonewall. “Goddam you, come back here, you goddamed idiot! You come back here!” Sarah was astonished to see tears on his face.

  As Barney pressed closer to Herk, she said, “The deer got away, and we’re OK. Don’t get hysterical, Albert.” She made her voice as scornful as possible, hoping to get his attention. He turned, his mouth squared like that of a child crying.

  “You don’t understand—it’s Barney! He hit Barney!”

  “No,” said Sarah faintly, her mind refusing to grasp it.

  “Yes, he did. I saw blood fly!” Albert was already wrenching his leg from between the horses and dismounting. Sarah sat shaking her head, too dazed to follow. Then Albert groaned. The sound released Sarah from her frozen sickness, and she tumbled out of the saddle.

  Albert, his face old and weary, was staring at Barney’s chest. Cringing, Sarah looked. Her eyes flinched away, carrying only an impression of red wetness. She gazed desperately at the ground, at the blood dripping on the brown leaves.

  “How bad is it?”

  “I don’t know. Darn it … we’ve got to stop the bleeding.” He threw his jacket on the ground, tore off his flannel shirt and undershirt, and packed them against the wound, covering it. Sarah could look again. “There. Maybe it’s not so bad. I don’t think the bullet went in, but I don’t know. If we can just get the bleeding stopped—But I don’t see how we’ll move him, even then.”

  “Bert, one of us has to go get your father.”

  “Oh, right. You go, you shouldn’t stay here alone.”

  “No.” She could barely speak past her chattering teeth. “Please … Barney, I can’t leave Barney. He … just go! You know the road.” She pressed her hand beside his on the shirts. “Hurry!”

  “Right.” Albert thumped her shoulder reassuringly, and struggled back into his jacket. He vaulted onto Herky. “Half an hour,” he shouted, reined around, and thundered out of sight.

  That half hour seemed to last days. Barney was frightened. He twisted his head, crying for Herky, and each time he did, Sarah felt the tightening of muscles around the wound and imagined a rush of blood. He shifted nervously on his hocks—his front feet were rooted, as though he didn’t dare move them—and was startled by the rustle of his own hooves in the leaves. Sarah’s one hand pressed Albert’s shirts to his chest, and the other clutched his bridle. She couldn’t pat him, or scratch him, or do anything soothing.

  Well, I could talk, she realized hazily. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and when she got it going it felt thick. “OK, Barney, it’s OK. They’ll be back. Herky’ll be back, poor Bear, and Albert will bring Mr. Jones, and he’ll get you all better. Steady—I don’t think you’re bleeding as much, but if you don’t hold still you’ll start again.” On and on, chatter that she didn’t think could possibly be calming; she sounded nervous even to herself. At first, head high and ears pinned back, Barney paid no attention. Then one ear came questingly forward, flicked back, swiveled forward again to listen. He lowered his head till his muzzle rested on her shoulder; she could feel teeth. It was a position he sometimes took when she was doing something he didn’t like, a reminder that he could be dangerous if pushed too far. Now, it only meant that he needed comfort.

  A dozen false alarms disappointed her: the wind, a squirrel, a blue jay, or something unknown, far away. At last, though, she heard the steady, grinding whine of a truck approaching.

  As it came closer, Barney became worried, tossing his head fretfully. But the tr
uck stopped out of sight, before it could get close enough to really scare him. A pounding, rustling noise of feet heralded Albert’s arrival. He was red-faced, and too out of breath to say anything. Mr. Jones followed more slowly.

  “Whoa, Barney.” He held out a leathery hand for Barney to sniff, and bent down to look. Cautiously, he peeled the shirts away. A thin line of blood started to trickle, but the main flow had stopped. “Looks like you were right, Bert. A glancing tear—the bullet didn’t lodge. But he’ll need stitching. Mother’s calling the vet, going to have him meet us at your place.” For the first time he looked at Sarah, with sharp, kind eyes. “All right, young ’un?”

  Sarah nodded, patting Barney’s neck with her free hand. There was a small stain of blood on the palm that she didn’t want to look at.

  The walk down to the truck was the longest of Sarah’s life. When they finally got Barney going, he moved in short, stumbling steps, shaking and snorting. Going downhill must have been torture for him, with all his weight thrust on the chest muscles. At one point, when they’d rested him for five minutes and he was still blowing and rolling his eyes, Sarah thought they’d never get him down. But at last the truck came into view.

  Herky was inside, looking huge and cozy in a red plaid blanket. He let out a great, bellowing neigh when he caught sight of his friend, and Barney’s nostrils fluttered in reply. “We brought him to keep Barney calm,” said Albert, looking anxiously at the big chestnut. “Hope he doesn’t get chilled—he was pretty hot.…” Sarah felt a stab of worry. Herky couldn’t be hurt, too.…

  Barney paused a long time at the end of the ramp, pawing loosely in the air with his right leg. He seemed afraid to step up the necessary two inches. Only desire to get to Herky finally conquered his reluctance. Albert and Mr. Jones linked hands behind him and helped him up the slope.