SIX WEEKS LATER on a steamy morning in late August, I headed north toward Bridgman Stables. The month Caleb had spent at “boot camp” had been extended to six weeks. It marked our longest time apart in three sometimes-fraught years together. I needed to decide Caleb’s fate in the next two days, as my fall classes started the following week.
The day before I got on the road, to forestall any final decision on Caleb, I had left a message on the Bridgmans’ phone to add on yet another two weeks of training. The last time Farley and I had spoken face-to-face, she had declared Caleb “ruined and vicious.” So what was left to decide? I could have avoided the long trip altogether simply by telling Farley over the phone to find Caleb another home. But I knew full well that that would be chickening out. I needed to hear her verdict in person. There would probably be papers to sign and his tack to sell or give away. I would need to say goodbye to him.
During Caleb’s absence, Laura had wooed me back to riding lessons at Silver Rock. Although it took several calls from her before I showed up, the woman never quit. Once again, I started with old Patches on a lunge line. After three lessons, at least I was no longer trembling and gasping for breath. She soon had me riding other horses — gentle ones, to be sure — without the lunge line. More than anything else, it was Laura’s unspoken optimism — or was it determination? — that brought me back twice a week. She recognized and praised the tiniest improvement.
Time spent at Silver Rock around gentle horses and the people who loved them proved a soothing antidote to the nearly nonstop meetings, official and otherwise, about the fate of our own department. If we didn’t identify classrooms and labs that could be leased out, others would do it for us. Already the provost, accompanied by a locksmith, had let himself into various labs. When he found one unoccupied lab just a few doors from mine, he seized it. Never mind that it was summer and the professor was on sabbatical. Even full professors like me felt helpless. So much so that people were afraid to go on vacation or to work at home. Instead we had sweated it out in the stuffy, un-air-conditioned rooms, clinging to our spaces like barnacles.
By some unspoken agreement, neither Laura nor I mentioned Caleb. At first, I avoided passing his stall, but when I finally did, the deep chocolate face of a large horse appeared over the gate. The sight took me aback until I noticed that the brass nameplate with CALEB’S DREAM engraved on it, though tarnished, was still affixed to the door. But Laura had told me more than once that if I moved Caleb upstate for training, he couldn’t return. The nameplate would be removed later. Maybe I would ask to keep it. The thought of removing it, though, brought a wave of despair.
So I was surprised when Laura asked me one day, “How is Caleb doing?” I had to tell her, “I’ve called Bridgman several times, but no one ever picks up the phone or calls me back.” Various dire possibilities had flooded my head: Caleb had died; Farley had shot him for waking her up; he had harmed someone and was sent to the knacker’s. Would she do this without bothering to tell me? Farley just might.
As we walked a horse back to his stall, Laura said, “Are you going up to see Caleb?”
“Yeah. I have to go up next weekend. Sign some papers, I assume.”
“When you see him, let me know if he’s doing better.”
I waited for her to continue, but she headed toward the dressage ring at a fast clip. What was she thinking? Something told me to let Laura’s thoughts evolve on their own.
The drive to Bridgman provided the space I needed to stow the insane worries about work into the back of my mind. I was feeling almost serene until I steered the car into the farm’s gravel drive. Adrenaline instantly shot through my veins. “Calm down,” I warned myself. When I opened the car door, I was hit by a blast of heat. I stood in the yard for a few minutes; no sounds of humans or other animals issued from the barn or paddocks.
Over at the picnic table on the shady side of the house, Farley sat with two young men, all sipping beers, almost as if they hadn’t moved since I’d last seen them. As usual, no one made note of my arrival, so I sat down at the table uninvited. I got right to the point: “How’s Caleb doing?”
Farley flung her hand in the air as if to repel a mosquito. “Fine. Just fine,” she said. “The little kids are riding him, too. Even took him on a trail ride.”
“Wow! That’s great to hear!” Farley had worked a miracle. My next thought was: I was the failure, after all. Of course I was. I already knew it. I slumped on the bench.
Farley tossed her beer can into a barrel and stood up. “Ready?”
I had just driven six hours in the heat with nothing to eat. Yet, hungry as I was, I followed her into the barn. I walked down the silent aisle until I spotted the tips of white ears above the high gate.
“Hi, Caleb. How are you?” I was used to one-sided conversations, but usually Caleb supplied his own snuffles and snorts in response. His silence bothered me. I picked up a halter and rope and unlatched the gate, bracing against his explosive launch, but he moved placidly off to the side. My hands shaking, I slid the halter over his ears and closed the buckle.
“Walk on, Caleb.” He followed me to the grooming area, his head down, ears askew. I drew the brush through his short soft summer pelt, all the while watching his ears, tail, and hooves for warnings of impending kicks or bites. He stood still as a statue and stared at the wall. Was he sick? He hadn’t been this docile since he had had colic.
Just as I slipped the bridle over his ears, Farley entered the room with a Western bridle. “Put this on. Your rig is hopeless.” I wasn’t about to argue: just as riders at Bridgman wore cowboy hats and chaps instead of helmets and jodhpurs, their choice of bit seemed to be part of the “Western” look.
Groomed and tacked in record time, the spiritless donkey followed Farley and me up to the ring. Inside, three girls stood in a shady corner near the double-wide door that opened to a slight breeze. Farley surprised me when she said, “First, let the girls ride him.”
Loren, a slim, ponytailed teen, mounted Caleb without any problem. On command, he stepped forward. “Whoa,” she said in a clear, light voice. He halted. After one perfect circuit of the ring, he returned to the block and stopped, and the girl slid off.
A shorter girl stepped up to the block and climbed aboard. Like a little windup toy, the donkey trotted gamely, no collisions with walls, no crashing into barrels. After two rounds, she dismounted, and an even smaller girl replaced her.
What were they doing to keep Caleb moving, turning, and stopping right on cue? One big difference, of course, was the harsh bit they used. As I well knew, my Myler Comfort Snaffle bit provided no leverage whatsoever. Perhaps a donkey needed this brutal-seeming apparatus, after all. Was this the secret of their success: just a different mouthpiece? No, it was more than that: I was certain that Farley’s alpha presence made all the difference.
The smallest rider completed a nice circle and jumped off. Now it was my turn. I took the reins from her and said, “Hi, Caleb.” With his head lowered and eyes focused on the ground, he looked a lot like my old outlaw but with the personality removed. With me on board, he moved forward, albeit clipping the corner and passing through the center of the ring. I signaled a left turn and he turned left, but not quite sharp enough, and carried me toward the wall. I jerked on the reins hard to correct him. Suddenly he leaped, all four hooves in the air, as if a wildcat had pounced on his back. He bucked, swerved, ran, and scraped the wall, with me leaning back, yanking on the reins with all my weight, yelling, “Whoa, whoa, damn it!”
Farley shouted, “Loosen the reins!”
The significance of her urgent command slowly filtered into my brain. The Western rig is so harsh that even the slightest tug on the reins causes jaw-squeezing pain. Chastened, I dropped the reins altogether. Caleb trotted around the ring, faster and faster, this time weaving through the barrels, kicking each one aside with a skillfully aimed hind leg. Then, in the center of the ring, he stopped dead. He dropped his head to sniff at something in the sand.
Her reputation as donkey trainer on the line, Farley charged toward us with a long whip. Caleb laid his ears back and dodged behind the nearest fallen barrel, deviating left-right-left, but before Farley swung the whip, he sidestepped and returned to the track.
As soon as she turned her back, Caleb edged off the track and skimmed the wall. I braced for the loud scraping sound from the outside stirrup as it gouged the paint. Farley strode over, her lunge whip poised to strike. Caleb returned to the track and trotted around like a show pony. For a few minutes, anyway. Then, as usual, he veered off again. Near the mounting block, I said, “Whoa,” and to my amazement he stopped. I quickly removed my feet from the stirrups, swung a leg over, and slid to the ground. The mount and dismount, at least, were flawless.
Farley stood silhouetted in front of the open doorway, impossible to read. The girls had their hands clamped over their mouths, their squinting eyes betraying their mirth. Farley said, “See you tomorrow.”
Caleb and I were out the door when he suddenly became the affectionate head-butting donkey I once knew so well. Alternately pulling and pushing him away, I wrestled him down the long ramp. Outside his stall he rubbed his furry ear against mine and sneezed wet goop in my face. When he hitched the back of my shirt up, I said, “No!” His head jerked up at the unexpected force of my command. I, too, was surprised by the sharpness of my voice. Caleb backed away and lowered his head, abruptly reverting to the dull-eyed zombie I had encountered when I had led him out.
When double bolts on the stall gate separated us, I exhaled and fled the barn. I was faint from hunger and the muggy air, and glad to escape from my latest failure in the ring. At the Warsaw café, with sandwich in hand, a glass of iced tea pressed against my forehead, I ruminated about my dilemma. Our brief lesson that day had proved that Caleb had no intention of changing on my behalf. Indeed, it seemed there was something about me, specifically, that set him off. Of course, part of it was my yanking on the cruel bit, but even with slack reins he hauled me all over the ring, just as he had done on our first lesson. And our hundredth. Would two more weeks of training make a big difference? Not likely.
I drove to the motel and flopped onto the bed. Grim reality pointed in only one direction, I knew. Caleb needed a firm, competent rider. And I wasn’t it. I drifted off to sleep filled with sadness.