“I hear you walked out on Jeb,” Sally said to her the next morning. Mel was crouched beside Lily lifting the horse's hooves one by one as she used the hoof pick to dig out the crusts of dried mud. “He says you're touchy.”
“I'm not. I just won't let him push me around.”
“Yeah, well. He likes to tease. He's not a bad feller, Mel.”
“He wouldn't talk to me last night at supper. He talked to my mother, but he wouldn't even look at me.”
“Uh huh. He told me not to count on you for anything.”
“He thinks I'm unreliable?” Mel was shocked. “That's not fair. Just because I walked out on him in the barn? I'm not that great a student, but I always do what the teacher says. Always.”
Sally spat out the grass stem he was chewing on. “That's what I said, that you seemed like a dependable kid.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“But the way he thinks is that if you're too skittish to get on a horse's back, you'll likely get yourself in trouble working around horses.”
“How am I going to get in trouble? Horses like me, and I like them.” Anger made Mel's heart thump as fast as a running rabbit. She looked around the corral at the horses standing in companionable groups. She'd begun to recognize some of them—Zorro and Stilts and the two handsome bays that Jeb and Sally had test ridden. She felt comfortable amidst the horses, as if she were somehow related to them, physically different, but with the same emotions. She could get close enough to a horse so they could read each other's mind the way human friends could. Until she had tried to ride him, she'd certainly been able to read Wonder Boy's mind.
* * * *
The second morning that Mel had come to clean out Wonder Boy's stall in the little barn that had been built for him, the palomino had raised his head and studied her. He'd taken a few steps toward her and stopped to chew at something beside him, but one eye stayed on her. He'd looked a little goofy, as goofy as an animal as golden as he could look, with his jaw moving from side to side and hay sticking out of both sides of his mouth.
“Hi,” she'd said, keeping her throaty voice low and soft. “If you're looking for something better to eat, I can't help you. I'm just here to do Lisa's chores so she can sleep in. I'm going to clean up your poop and put in some fresh straw in case you want to lie down.”
He'd bumped her leg lightly with his head.
“Do horses like to be petted?” she'd asked him in surprise. “Like dogs? She'd reached out and stroked his neck. He stood still as if he liked it.
She'd brought him an apple the next morning and she made up lines in a two-way conversation for him like, “What's new with you?” Her question.
“Same old. Same old thing. Chomp my feed and hang out waiting for Lisa to ride me.
How about you?” His answer.
“Well,” she'd told him. “School's okay. I sit with Lisa's friends at lunch. They talk so much, all I have to do is listen and smile. They all like boys. Me, I prefer horses.”
He bumped her chest with his nose. “I like you.”
“Must be you think I smell good,” she'd said. “Maybe you like the soap I use, huh?” And she'd told him he was a good boy, and she scratched under his chin and around his ears, which he seemed to like.
All Lisa's free time went in training Wonder Boy. There never was an hour to spare for Mel to ride him. “Why don't you bug my father about leasing a horse for you, Mel?” Lisa had asked her. Mel didn't have the nerve. She'd already been given so much—her own room after having slept on a folding cot or in the same bed as her mother for years, not to mention the luxury of calling Max's spacious house home. Just the year before in fifth grade, a girl had asked Mel why she kept wearing the same shirt so often. And in fourth grade in a different school in Arizona, Mel had been the only one not to go on the field trip to Sea World in San Diego because she hadn't asked Dawn to sign the slip and give her the money when she saw how expensive it was going to be. To have so much and to have Wonder Boy like her was enough to make Mel happy even if she didn't have a horse to ride.
* * * *
“What happened, Mel?” Sally broke into her thoughts to ask. His voice was buttery. “You have a bad fall?”
“Sure,” she said to put him off. “Once I fell off a horse and banged my butt and got scraped up.”
Sally shook his head. “No, uh uh. That wouldn't keep you from riding. You got more guts than that.”
His faith in her pleased her. “Look,” she said. “You're right. Something happened, but I don't want to talk about it. Really. I don't.”
“All right. I'll stop bugging you. Only I got to say this. Jeb can be pretty hard- nosed, and if you won't ride like he wants, he just might bar you from the corral to show you who's boss.”
“But I need to be here with you and the horses, Sally. Can't you talk to him?”
“Jeb don't take much advice from me. You think it over. Maybe you should talk to him yourself. ” Sally turned to go and then looked back at her to say, “If you change your mind about riding, Lily, I'll meet you in the big barn when I'm done work. That'll be about four. I'll stay right with you, Mel.” And he added, “Because I'd hate to lose my new assistant when I just got such a good one.” His grin spread his potato face even wider. His eyes above the grin shone with kindness. Before she could react though, he'd gone off to work on another horse.
Mel stood riveted in place while Lily buried her nose in the feed bucket and munched noisily. The pointy- headed mountains peering down at the ranch below the sun-washed sky seemed to mock Mel as she laid her cheek against Lily's neck. She didn't doubt that Sally would have something to teach her about riding if she showed up at the ring at 4:00 p.m. She and Lily would do okay together maybe, as long as Sally was with them. But then what? She imagined Jeb's disgust when he saw her flopping in the saddle.
“You're the worst rider I ever saw,” Lisa had screamed at her. “You even made Wonder Boy look bad. He would have won if it hadn't been for you. Scarecrow! You ruined him.”
Scarecrow, too tall, too thin, awkwardly doing everything wrong. It really had been her fault that Wonder Boy hadn't won. Mel shuddered. If only Lisa hadn't broken her arm. If only winning hadn't meant so much to her.
* * * *
One of Lily's hooves still needed to be picked clean. Mel bent and gently pinched Lily above her fetlock. “Jeb won't bar me from the corral. Will he, Lily?” she asked the horse. Surely, he wouldn't.
Lily snuffled contentedly as Mel got the brush from her jeans pocket and massaged Lily's smooth neck with it. Telling Jeb she was sorry might not be that hard. She was sort of sorry. But Sally would be waiting for her in the big barn at 4:00 p.m. Mel had no doubt he would wait for her as he had promised. What she didn't know was what she would do about it.