When I arrived at home, a horse trailer was pulling out of the driveway, and I realized Voyager must have just been delivered from the Stone Road Auction. Sure enough, as I climbed from Ryan’s truck and thanked him for the ride, I spotted Amos and Priscilla leading the animal to the back paddock, probably to let him stretch his legs after his transport to the farm.
Though I would have liked to get a closer look, I figured Priscilla would appreciate some time alone to get to know her new horse. So instead of following them, I headed for the main house. I needed Roseanna’s help with an idea for Patch I wanted to try. After that, my plan was to call Eric from the phone in the shop to find out what it was he needed to tell me.
First things first. I found Roseanna in the kitchen, kneading a bowl of bread dough, and I asked her if they had any old, used hats they could spare.
“What’s wrong with the one you’re wearing? It’s in a lot better shape than any I may find around here.”
I explained I would be using them to help train a horse who had a fear of hats, and thus old and bedraggled was fine. That seemed to be enough for her. She finished up with the dough and covered it with a towel, and then she asked me to set the bowl on the back of the stove while she washed her hands. After drying them on a towel, she left me alone in the kitchen and then returned a few minutes later with one very tattered black hat and three straw ones. I thanked her profusely, especially when she said she didn’t need them back. Taking all four hats from her, I went back to the barn.
I rooted around in the storage closet until I came up with three garden stakes and a small tarp. Next came a quick detour to the tool bench, where I nailed each straw hat onto the end of each of the three stakes. Outside at the pen, I set the three hat-stake creations on the ground beside the fence, added to that the old black hat plus the hat from my own head, and then I covered everything up with the small tarp. I needed to keep it out of Patch’s sight until I was ready for it.
Finally, it was time to get him. I went to his stall in the smaller barn, glad to find that he seemed to be in a docile mood. He didn’t flinch as much at my approach as he had the last time I took him out, which told me we had made some progress already.
I grabbed some carrots on our way, and it almost seemed as if the horse knew exactly what we were about to do. I could feel him leading me to the pen, and once I latched the gate and led him to the center, he tossed his head as if to say, “Okay, I know the drill. Go ahead and drop the rope.”
This I did, freeing him to trot around the circle and work off some nervous energy. When he finally came to a stop, I just let him stand there for a few minutes, catching his breath as I spoke in calm tones, showing him by my voice and body language that there was nothing to fear.
He seemed to relax—until I reached for a carrot, which he clearly took as a signal that I was about to approach his flank. Smart fellow, good memory.
I hesitated long enough for him to calm back down, and then I continued forward.
Walking toward him, I noticed several important cues that allowed me to gauge his fear level. Not surprisingly, his tail was down, his nostrils quivering, his eyes wide—all signs that he was preparing for flight—but beyond that he didn’t skitter or jump or paw the ground as he had in our last session. It was as if he wanted to bolt but was willing to wait and see first whether that would be necessary or not.
I reached him without incident and he snatched the carrot from me, chomping away on it as I stood there at his side and slowly ran my hand from poll to dock.
“Good boy,” I cooed. “Good, good boy.” And I meant it. I was proud of him. We really had made progress.
Returning to the fence, I retrieved another carrot and tried again, and then again, both to reinforce the behavior and to convince myself that he was ready for the next step.
Once I was satisfied, I crossed over to the pile I’d left by the fence, reached under the tarp, and came out with the old black hat. So far, this animal had only been tested with straw hats, but that didn’t mean he feared all hats. My first objective here was to see how he reacted to the black one instead.
I gave a cluck to catch Patch’s eye and then held up the hat for him to see. So far so good; he didn’t react to it at all. Next, I tried approaching him with the hat in one hand and a carrot in the other. That, too, was a success. It wasn’t until I took that black hat and placed it on my head that he seemed to grow tense. Though his reaction was nothing like it had been with the straw hat that first day, a few signs of increased anxiety were there, most notably the dropping of his tail.
That was fine. I felt sure that his little black hat problem would go away if we managed to solve the much bigger straw hat one. I returned the black hat to the pile and pulled out one of the hat-stakes. Thanks to this morning’s rain, the ground was soft, and I pushed the bottom of the stake down into the dirt as far as I could.
Patch didn’t seem too happy about sharing his pen with a straw hat, even if it was on a stick and not on a man’s head. His eyes showed white and his mouth took on a new tightness as he scampered toward the far side of the pen. Moving easily and speaking calmly, I retrieved another stake, walked a third of the way around the circle, and pushed it into place as well. Once I had the final stake in the ground—so that the three stakes with hats on them stood like points to a triangle—I grabbed a few carrots, broke them down into smaller pieces, and dropped those pieces at the base of each stake.
Patch didn’t know what to make of my activities except that he wanted nothing to do with any of it. Finally, I removed myself from the pen, latched the gate, and simply stood and watched for a while.
Though he was free to move around the area as he wished, he remained frozen in place for a long time. Finally, he took first one tentative step and then another—ears pricked, nostrils sniffing—toward one of the staked hats, which told me he knew the carrots were there but that he was trying to weigh whether it was worth the risk of retrieving them or not.
Apparently not. To my disappointment, after just one step closer, he turned and darted away. Unfortunately for him, that move brought him over to a second hat, which startled him into another bolt. Fearing I had pushed him too far too fast, I was about to go back into the pen and remove all but one of the stakes when I heard Roseanna’s voice behind me.
I turned to see her coming my way, a bucket in her hand.
“Maybe the old fellow just needs a better enticement,” she said.
She presented me with the bucket, which contained a few bruised apples, a pear, some figs, chunks of rind from last night’s watermelon, and a big spoon. Everything seemed to be covered in some sort of sticky glaze, and when I asked what it was, Roseanna explained that the entire mess had been drizzled with honey. “That’s why the spoon’s in there, so you won’t have to touch it and get all sticky.”
With a laugh and big thanks, I took the bucket from her, slipped back inside the pen, and made quick work of scooping the messy concoction onto the ground in front of two of the stakes. Just to make things a little easier for Patch, I removed the third stake, which gave him a larger hat-free zone to which he could retreat as needed. The whole time, the horse hovered at the far side, watching my every move. When I was finished, I used the toe of my work shoe to mush a bit of the fruit, releasing its smell, and he whinnied.
By the time I was out of the gate and standing next to Roseanna, Patch was already advancing toward the nearest pile. Together, she and I watched as he debated with himself for a few long, agonizing minutes and then finally, slowly gave in. Feet planted as far away as possible, he stretched out his long neck and head, nostrils still quivering as he leaned down and wrapped his big square teeth around a chunk of watermelon rind.
Roseanna and I cheered, though not so loudly as to disturb him.
“Looks like your special mixture saved the day,” I told her, handing back the empty bucket and spoon. “You’re a genius.”
She let out a laugh. “Oh, it wasn’t me. This was Priscilla’s idea.”
Priscilla. I turned my head toward the back pasture, expecting to spot her there with her own horse, observing us from a distance. But the field was empty.
“Is she in the house?”
“No, she’s walking her new horse around, showing him the farm. They’re probably up at the silo by now. She stopped by the kitchen for few minutes to put all of this together. Then she asked me if I’d mind bringing it out here to you.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Roseanna looked over at Patch and then back at me. “It was fun. Did you know horses shouldn’t have tomatoes or broccoli or potatoes? While Priscilla was throwing this together, I was trying to help, but half the things I offered she didn’t want. Said they could cause intestinal problems.”
I knew about tomatoes and broccoli—and cauliflower and peppers and onions and a few other things, for that matter—but potatoes were a new one on me. Then again, when it came to horse treats, I rarely deviated beyond carrots, apples, or pumpkins anyway, so what did it matter?
Once Roseanna was gone, I decided to call it a day and put Patch back in his stall. But before I could even get the gate unlatched, I realized he was now standing right next to one of the staked hats, his body fully relaxed, chewing away contentedly on the grass underneath. The special mixture I’d put there was all gone, and at this point he was likely just trying to get every last drop of the honey that remained.
I took in a deep breath and held it for a long moment, watching him. Priscilla’s gesture had been a kind and generous one, not to mention clever. More importantly, it had worked.
I decided the horse could use a little more time in the pen before being put away, so I left him there and headed for the blacksmith shop instead.
At nearly six p.m. on a Saturday, the place was empty and quiet. Moving through the shadowy room, I realized that with the forge off and not putting out any heat, it was a lot cooler than usual in here as well. I wasn’t sure if this would be a good time for Eric to talk, but I would give it a try. The phone was over on the desk where Amos handled the paperwork side of the business, so I took a seat in the empty chair next to it, pulled Eric’s card from my pocket, and dialed the number he’d written on the back.
He answered on the second ring, saying my name instead of hello. It startled me for a second until I remembered that with cell phones, you often knew who was calling. We chatted for a few minutes about the tennis game he’d just played and the dinner his girlfriend was cooking for him tonight, and then we got down to business.
“You must have done something right, buddy,” he said, “because from what I hear, not only did Natasha hire you to unspook her horse, she’s going to let you do it at your own farm.”
I didn’t clarify that it wasn’t my farm. Instead, I told him I had a feeling that was thanks more to him than to anything I had done. “What did you tell her about me, anyway?”
Eric laughed. “Oh, I might have laid it on a little thick—made you sound like Robert Redford in that movie or whatever—but I wasn’t lying. I remember how you interacted with the horses at farrier school. I’d never seen anything like it. Even the instructor recognized how good you were and said you had a special gift, remember? That’s all I told Natasha, really, that you were gifted with horses. Oh, and that you were trustworthy and dependable. That sort of thing.”
“Well, thanks. Thanks a lot,” I said, uncomfortable with the high praise but deeply appreciative just the same. Eric was a good guy, the kind who was always doing for others.
“You’re welcome, no biggie. It’s just that our conversation this morning before the auction got me thinking. In my opinion, the best way to establish a reputation as a horse gentler is to succeed at it with somebody important.”
“Important?”
“You know what I mean. Not merely rich but connected. Natasha Fremont is a real insider in the Chester County horse crowd. She’s like the head cheerleader in high school, the one everybody’s always flocking around and wanting to be with and talk to, you know?”
I hadn’t had experience around cheerleaders, but I understood what he was saying.
“She’s on boards and donates to all the right groups and attends all the functions and everything, sure, but what makes her stand out are her skills as a rider. There are plenty of women—and men—throwing their money around on horsey stuff and acting like big shots outside the ring, but they never get their hands dirty. Either they’re mediocre riders, or they don’t ride at all and just hire other people to do it for them.” With another laugh, he added, “Most of them wouldn’t know a caracole from a capriole.”
I’d never heard of either, though I assumed they were terms related to the sport of dressage. I kept quiet as he continued.
“Anyway, unlike those kinds of people, Natasha is the real deal. She walks the walk, everyone knows it, and they all respect her for it. Do you understand what I’m getting at here, Jake? I’m telling you, if you can fix just one horse for her, you’ll have twenty more people the very next day asking you to fix their horses too. If you really do want to expand the horse-gentling side of your business, she’s the one to know.”
I sat back in the chair, considering his words. Was it possible that one woman could have so much influence on others? Certainly, there were people in my world who folks tended to emulate, or from whom people sought opinions on various matters. An endorsement from a respected source was always a helpful and valuable thing. On the other hand, this tendency to follow in the wake of trendsetters seemed to be far more common among the Englisch than the Amish, perhaps because our lifestyle emphasized consistency rather than change—not to mention we weren’t always searching for prestige or status or the next big thing. Quite the opposite, in fact. We placed our values on such principles as humility and community and simplicity.
Eric asked for my version of how things went at the stables today after he left, and I described my encounter with January. I also told him about seeing Duchess, and that she was the most beautiful horse I’d ever come across.
“Yeah, she’s been Natasha’s big ticket for a while now. She’s the offspring of the horse Natasha took all the way to Grand Prix Champion thirteen years ago. Duchess has every bit of her father’s talent, or at least everyone thought she did. But something’s been off with her for a while, and Natasha’s running out of time. Bottom line, if Duchess doesn’t advance at least one level at this year’s Dressage at Devon, then Natasha may have to get out of the horse business entirely.”
“What? Why?”
“Long story. It’s hard to explain, but bottom line, she’s invested everything she has in this horse. If Duchess fails, her value as a show horse or even a breeding horse will plummet so far that Natasha may lose it all—not just the massive amounts of money she’s put into things but also her time, energy, reputation, everything.”
Though this was foreign to my own experience, business was business, whether showing horses or shoeing them. When an investment went south, sometimes you had no choice but to fold.
“So when is this big competition? I thought the Devon Horse Show was in the spring.”
“The big one is. This is a more specialized show, solely dressage, held in September.”
“Is the prize money big?” I asked, assuming that a win would not only increase Duchess’s value but would also provide funds to infuse back into the business.
Eric snorted. “Nah. Winning at dressage is about the title, not the money. I mean, the highest purse there is only ten K or so. Natasha’s attire alone costs more than that.”
I blinked. “You’re kidding, right?” I hated to sound naive, but I couldn’t imagine such a thing. “A ten-thousand-dollar riding outfit? How is that even possible?”
“Well, boots are a thousand, coat’s nine hundred, pants four hundred,” he said, going down the list and adding in top hat, silk tie, and gloves until the total was closer to twelve thousand. “And that’s just the rider. Then there’s all the stuff the horse needs, starting with the saddle, which can run into the thousands as well. There’s also training, upkeep, transportation, and on and on. It gets a little ridiculous.”
I listened as Eric rattled off more types of expenses, more numbers, but I found that it all kind of blurred together—until he just happened to mention the cost of the horses themselves. Apparently, after her last win, Duchess had been valued at two hundred thousand dollars—and if she did indeed “rank up a level” at Devon in September as everyone hoped, that value would more than triple.
I let out a low whistle. “No wonder, then. It’s all coming clearer now.”
“I know, right? We’re not talking chump change.”
I thought about that, remembering what Natasha had said earlier about January, that she could afford the risk, relatively speaking, of sending her off with me. I shared her comment with Eric, adding, “Now that I know the kinds of numbers we were talking about, her words make a lot more sense. Of course January would seem cheap compared to Duchess. Most other horses would.”
“Yeah, seriously. She paid twenty thousand for January, from what I recall. Compared to two hundred thousand, that is a big difference.”
His tone was matter-of-fact, but I sucked in a breath, my heart giving a heavy thud in my chest. I was going to be taking delivery on a twenty-thousand-dollar horse? Unbelievable. If I’d had to guess, I would have put her price tag at a fourth of that at most. No wonder Natasha needed the animal gentled. Even if she did own other horses worth much more, twenty thousand dollars was nothing to sneeze at. It was time for January to start earning her keep.
Which meant it was time for my skills to be put to the test, now as never before.