CALEB PROTESTED LOUDLY enough to turn the heads of fellow drivers as Bonnie O’Hara towed Silver Rock’s horse trailer up the thruway. I followed behind with my car, much of the way resisting the tears that kept blurring the view through the windshield.
Earlier that week, I had presented my decision to Laura as a fait accompli: “The Bridgmans say they will work with him. I need to focus on work this summer. I don’t have time.” Laura had met my announcement with a nod. “I just need to find transport for him.” After a minute’s hesitation, she volunteered the use of the stable’s horse trailer and Bonnie’s help if I would pay expenses.
Two contradictory fears had wrestled across my brain during the long drive: that Caleb would perform like a perfect angel and we could turn right around and drive 325 miles back to New York, only to watch him turn on me again; or that he would do his usual — meaning his worst — and prove to the Bridgmans what an incompetent owner I was. Well, that was old news. I was well beyond attempting to save face.
Six hours later, we delivered a trailer-traumatized, sweaty donkey to the farm. It was as muggy there as in New York City. Farley showed us to Caleb’s stall before shooing us away with a short “Leave him rest until tomorrow.” Not much of a welcome, no offer of a much-hoped-for lite beer on that hot summer afternoon, but no more than I expected.
We stopped off at the nearest café for an early dinner. I’d liked Bonnie the first time I met her when she had helped Laura transport Caleb home that long-ago winter’s day. When I got to know her better, I found out that she rescued dogs and horses, one at a time, and nursed them along toward health or at least a comfortable end full of love and affection. In my eyes, Bonnie was the saint of lost causes. I was feeling somewhat lost myself.
I especially liked that her compassion was coupled with a keen sense of humor. If anyone could help reduce my anxiety and pain, Bonnie could.
Over tuna melts and iced tea, I extracted a deck of colored 3 × 5 cards. “Okay. On the pink cards I wrote down behavioral problems that occur in the ring; blue cards for general issues Caleb has with everyone, including staff; green for what I am doing wrong; and yellow, I guess. . .” In my professional life, categorizing and analyzing rocks came naturally. But Caleb was not a rock.
Bonnie wasn’t listening. “Want a beer?” She waved at the waitress.
I dropped the cards onto the tabletop and started to cry. Wiping my nose on a wad of napkins, I said, “I’m afraid he’ll try to kill me again.”
“So, how will you resolve that?”
I looked out the window as the waitress dropped off the beers. “I dreamed of a gentle trail buddy. . .” Tears spilled over into my beer as I raised it to my lips. I set down the glass and pressed my eyes against my palms to block the flow.
The bruises and scrapes from his hooves, even two weeks after his assault, forced me to shift in my seat to find a comfortable spot. I swigged the beer and signaled for another round.
I gathered up the cards and wrote on a blank pink card: “He stalks off when I try to mount.” On a blue card, I wrote: “He nips and kicks me — hard.” I scribbled it out and wrote the same observation onto a green card. When I realized that I couldn’t even keep the color codes straight, I flung the pile back down onto the damp tabletop. Anyone could see that I had long since slipped over the edge. Way over. I was losing my grip.
Bonnie placed her hand on top of the soggy cards: “Farley’s doing the evaluation tomorrow. She’ll know what’s what.”
“Could you stay for the test? You could watch and write down anything you see about my posture, et cetera, or about Caleb’s reactions. You can use these cards.”
“Well, I told Laura I’d return the trailer tomorrow. And it’s a six-hour drive.”
“I know, but could you just stay an hour and help observe?”
“Okay, I’ll write down a few comments.”
“Thanks. Anything will help.” Her opinion as an instructor at Silver Rock was only one reason why I hoped she could stay longer. Quite frankly, I was afraid to face Farley alone.
The next morning, we pulled into the stable’s parking lot, accompanied by the sounds of a deranged orchestra of foghorns and cracked bassoons. “Sounds like Caleb is leading the mules in a sing-along,” Bonnie said with a chuckle.
Farley barged out of the house, holding the side of her head, squinting red-eyed into the sunshine. I handed Bonnie the card deck and a pencil.
Farley barely acknowledged us, grumbling, “That goddamn donkey better not make a racket like that every morning. He gets the mules started, too.”
As I well knew, Caleb would out-blast the trumpets on Judgment Day. I made no promises. I retrieved my halter, bridle, and light saddle from my car and followed them into the barn. With the halter in one hand and a carrot in the other, I sidled up to the stall gate. Caleb inserted his mug into the straps.
At the grooming station, I groomed and tacked a swirling mass of hooves and teeth. Bonnie looked on from a distance. All my life, when I made a mistake or embarrassed myself in front of people, I tended to become flustered and make even more mistakes. A therapist once pointed out: “If you stumble on the top step, you don’t have to throw yourself down the stairs.” I sometimes did, anyway. I was already a bundle of nerves and we hadn’t even started. With the saddle and bridle in place, Bonnie swatted Caleb’s rump all the way to the ring. Just inside, I lined up the mounting block, and we repeated the same old mountain-to-Mohammed nonsense three times before I got into the saddle. Even this most basic step seemed doomed.
Caleb plowed into the center of the ring, where he tipped over a barrel before picking up a cone, which he then used to batter yet another barrel. On the return lap, he deliberately swerved and nearly collided with Bonnie and Farley. He finished up by prancing around the center of the ring, shaking the traffic cone that dangled at a rakish angle from his mouth.
Farley snatched the cone from his mouth and said, “Go around again, this time on the track.”
Right. When we reached the far end of the ring, I pulled on the left rein. Instead, the donkey veered hard right, scraping my injured leg against the concrete wall. I shrieked in pain. On the return loop Caleb went straight enough — right toward an open side door. Bonnie grabbed his bridle just in time. “That’s enough for today,” Farley said.
Struck dumb, I looked at my watch. Ten minutes? That’s it? I slid off his back and walked him down the ramp. He pranced around at the end of the lead rope and head-butted me all the way back to his stall.
“Life for you, you flaming jackass, is fun, fun, fun,” I said, “isn’t it?”
After I secured the lock on his stall, I walked Bonnie to the truck. “So, what did you think?” I asked.
“Well, at least Caleb’s acting his normal self.” She sighed and handed me back the multicolor deck of index cards. “I didn’t write anything down. Farley can see what’s wrong.”
And with that Bonnie hugged me and set off down the road.
I had stowed my bridle and saddle into the trunk of my car and opened the car door when Farley stormed past. “You know what? You’re a wimp!” Her roar swept across the parking lot. “That donkey has absolutely no respect for you. He walks all over you. And you let him!”
Alone and exposed in the harsh sun, I nearly doubled over in shame. “I don’t know what to do,” I wailed at her retreating back. The Bridgman family had no doubt expected to see some progress since they had trained Caleb and me three years earlier. Instead, I had brought him back in a last-ditch attempt to save him from the glue factory. I leaned against the car and waited.
Farley reached the back door of the house before turning. “I’ll work with him this afternoon,” she said in a quieter voice. “Tell you what I think.”
“Okay. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning before I hit the road.” Just as well Farley hadn’t offered a lengthy debriefing, because halfway down the road I burst into tears. Without Lou’s soothing, gravel-filled voice or Jack’s wisecracks to make the hard lessons easier to bear, I couldn’t wait to reach the musty motel room, where I could hole up for a good cry.
That evening my department chair called me. Cell coverage had improved since I had last been here. But, given my mood, I wished it hadn’t. He announced that the date for his knee-replacement surgery conflicted with a mandatory retreat for senior administrators and department heads. As assistant department chair, I had to attend in his place. All senior staff, up to and including the president and his scheming provost, he said, would be there. Two days of sharing meals and discussions with top officials frightened me, but I had to go.
Putting college-related concerns aside, I ruminated over what Farley would say in the morning. I had asked for the truth but dreaded hearing what I already knew — that not only was I a hopeless rider and trainer but my donkey was now unpredictable, “spoiled” in the worst sense of the word. Therefore, dangerous. I still shuddered when I recalled the full weight of each of his granite-hard hooves when he’d trampled me.
Underneath the turmoil I felt about what I was going to hear from Farley, I realized my chest was loosening up. Other, wiser minds would decide his fate. But, at the same time, I reminded myself that it was his life that was on the line, not mine. The problem was, Caleb didn’t know it.
As I turned into the driveway and parked next to the Bridgmans’ barn, I steeled myself to listen to Farley’s judgment regarding my donkey’s future.
If the verdict was that he had been irreparably harmed, then no one would fault me for getting rid of Caleb now, since he had injured me. I could pretend the whole donkey fiasco was just a three-year bad dream. Or a midlife psychosis. So, I didn’t buy a red convertible sports car or a sailboat in midlife but a donkey. Why not?
I rushed inside the barn and up to Caleb’s stall to squelch his foghorn greeting before it woke the dead. I strode up the dim aisle to the familiar white nose twitching in anticipation. “I’m sorry, Caleb,” I whispered, “but I can’t do this anymore.” He munched on the carrot I offered, unaware. Or maybe there was something: As soon as I turned my back he started to snuffle softly. Not in his usual boisterous or demanding tone. He sounded sad, as if he sensed I wasn’t coming back.
I left the barn and joined Farley and two young men at an outside picnic table. No one offered a breakfast beer, so I ducked into the cool, dark kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee.
As soon as I slid onto the picnic bench across from Farley, she slammed her can onto the table. Annoyance seemed to be her default mode, at least in my presence — pissed off alternating with short bouts of really pissed off. The gritty red eyes of the humans at the table suggested another reason for their bad moods: too much partying the night before. No one offered any introductions, so I gazed out over the lower pasture, where a light haze promised a steamy day. I let my mind wander to the Doctor Zhivago vistas of that winter at Bridgman Stables. It seemed longer than three years ago when I had brimmed with happy dreams about riding across the snowy hills on my new donkey. And we had lived that dream, once.
Not wanting to rush the subject, I listened to their comfortable buzz about the animals, the weather, the price of hay. Without warning, Farley started in, addressing me: “I rode Caleb yesterday evening. Or, I should say, I attempted to ride him. The damn donkey tried to throw me. I gave him good for that, believe me. But he just fought all the more to scrape me off.” She shook her head in wonderment. “He’s a mess. Bit me real hard and tried to run over one of my students. He’s done.”
Although his behavior confirmed the worst, still, I was surprised that even Farley couldn’t control him. All traces of his former self were gone. Before I could turn away, my eyes filled with tears. The men stood, mumbling something about “things to do.”
Farley sipped her beer and sighed. In a softer voice than I had ever heard from her, she said, “I talked to my folks on the phone this morning. You know, we’ve got some good mules for sale right now. Remington and Winchester. Both proven in shows, easy to handle, well trained. Heck, they’re broke to death.”
“Yeah,” I said into my coffee cup. “I’ve seen them in the ring. They’re magnificent.” Huge half-Thoroughbred mules with glossy deep brown coats that young girls steered effortlessly around the ring. But “broke to death” rankled right down to my innermost core.
“We could arrange a good price. Go ahead and ride one of them today.”
As I didn’t answer, she continued, “We could maybe find someone to take Caleb.”
There it was. She echoed what Jack and Lou Bridgman had said at the outset: a green rider required a well-trained animal to ignore her mistakes — in other words, a bombproof horse or mule, like the horses Laura used for beginning students. Likewise, an untrained donkey needed an experienced trainer.
I said in a whisper, “Caleb needs a good home. He needs to be loved.”
Farley stubbed out her cigarette and stood. “Up to you.”
I looked down at the cream curdling in my stale coffee. A few yards away, Farley spun around and raised her voice to penetrate my brain fog. “Well, what did you want, huh? A well-trained, safe trail partner? Or a useless, spoiled pet?” The last word was spit out like an expletive.
It was the same question she had asked three years ago. I sipped the lukewarm dregs of the bitter coffee and stood, repeating the same sentiments I expressed last time. “Um. I, uh, I wanted both: a trail buddy and a pet.”
“What do you mean?” Farley rolled her eyes.
“Not a spoiled pet. I mean I hoped to learn how to handle him. I hoped he would learn.”
I caught myself using the past tense. All during the previous night at the motel, I had attempted to visualize a Caleb-less future. One thing became clear: I didn’t want any other horse, mule, or donkey — no matter how well trained. It was Caleb, or I’d give up on the whole idea of owning an equine for good. I didn’t even want to ride again.
I stood up and an unexpected wave of energy shot through my veins. It felt like the desperate surge of a drowning person refusing to let go. Farley had reached the entrance of the barn when I shouted at her back, “I don’t want to buy another mule or donkey.” I paused to catch my breath. “It’s Caleb or nobody.”