14

Barney and Jill

The next morning dawned clear and crisp, and Sarah could hardly believe how wonderful it felt. She got up early to check on Goldy, who was lying in the straw with a bright expression. “Meh,” she said when Sarah spoke, but she didn’t get up.

It was actually chilly out. The outlines of the house, the fences, the leaves on the trees, and even the separate blades of grass were clean and sharp. The sky was brilliant blue, instead of the muddy grayish color it had been for so long. The air felt good to breathe, and for the first time in ages Sarah felt like doing something.

She felt like going riding.

If only Beau—no, Thunder. If only Thunder were already here! She could saddle up and ride out before breakfast, the way Albert must be doing this very minute.

But there was Barney. Come over and ride, Missy had said.…

After breakfast Mom went off to her tutoring. Sarah cleaned the kitchen. There was actually dried mud on the floor this morning! Then she made an olive and cream cheese sandwich and packed it, with a bottle of juice, in her knapsack. She wrote a new note to prop between the salt and pepper shakers: “Gone to Missy’s to ride. Back by supper.”

Then she was off, swooping down the hill with a cool breeze on her face. For the first time since June she wasn’t even sweating.

Barney greeted her with a loud, greedy nicker and willingly let himself be caught. When he worked, he got treats, and treats were very important to him. He strode eagerly toward the barn, hurrying Sarah along.

“Wait up, pig!” Sarah turned him around and hooked him in the crossties, then went into the tack room for a handful of grain.

She hadn’t been alone with Barney since spring, when Missy had taken him back. It felt wonderful to think only of grooming or saddling and not have to worry if she was doing it well enough to please Missy. Right now Barney was the only one she was responsible to. She felt competent and in control, the way she had all summer with Herky—but excited. This was Barney, and anything could happen.

Sarah knew about only one trail over here. Missy had pointed it out, from their beaten circle in the pasture. She had no idea where the trail went or what the terrain was like. That didn’t matter. Barney knew, and Sarah would soon find out.

Barney swung along happily, ears pricked. He was looking for something to shy at, and he soon found it—a large granite boulder, crouched beside the trail in a menacing way. He must have passed it a hundred times. The boulder must have been here since the glacier dropped it at the end of the last Ice Age. But Barney stopped dead in the path, snorting theatrically and tossing his head. Then he started to turn: terrified, ready to flee.

Sarah let him turn and kept him turning with a strong pressure of her legs. When he was facing the boulder again, she banged him sharply with her heels. Barney went forward in a crouching trot, tucking his haunches, curving his body away from the boulder, and snorting out every breath. As soon as he was past, he started banging down the trail in his own version of a road trot.

“Massage his mouth!” Sarah could almost hear Missy yelling. But she didn’t feel like controlling Barney that much. She booted him into a canter, and they swept uphill—around a corner, through a grassy birch grove, and straight toward a large fallen tree.

There was no time to think, and Barney’s stride was quickening. Sarah leaned forward and grabbed two handfuls of mane. Barney arched himself over, jumping twice as high as necessary, and the log passed beneath Sarah in a white blur, like Nancy Page’s flower barrel. Barney landed with an exuberant snort, and Sarah’s rump slapped back in the saddle. “Sorry,” she gasped, and patted Barney’s neck. Suddenly she was seeing the fat man on the Morgan jump the log again, feeling the thrill and astonishment he must have felt. “Good boy,” she said. “Good bo-oy!”

The trail dipped downhill and became stony. Sarah felt a second’s worth of panic. This was how Barney had given her that concussion, galloping downhill. She sat harder in the saddle and tightened the reins. “Whoa, Barney. Walk.”

Barney walked.

“Oh, Barney, you’re so wonderful!”

Carefully and thoughtfully Barney picked his way down the slope and across a natural stone culvert. Ahead was a gentle rise cushioned with dead pine needles, and he was ready to canter again.

Thunder probably wouldn’t be ready so soon, Sarah thought. Maybe he’d be ready to trot.…

He hasn’t been used in a while, she told herself. I’ll get him in shape.… But she felt herself heading toward that log on Thunder, and she didn’t feel sure he was going to jump it. She didn’t feel sure she should ask him to.

There was an opening through the trees ahead. The sun was brighter there, and Sarah could see that they were approaching a dirt road. She slowed Barney down to a trot. This time she could feel how much control she had and how much she’d learned from Missy. Her reins and her legs and her back all worked together in a way that had been mysterious at the beginning of the summer, and slowing down seemed almost effortless. She brought him down to a walk to turn out onto the road, trying to remember: Had she ridden this well on Roy? Or had she been too distracted and afraid?

And why was she thinking about Roy anyway?

Where road and trail came together there were bike tracks in the sand, leading from one to the other. This must be the shortcut to Jill’s house.

But it rained last night. Had Jill come over to Missy’s again this morning?

They could be someone else’s tracks, of course, but it would take a dedicated biker to brave that steep washout and the slope on the other side.

And why would Jill be biking over to Missy’s anyway, when Missy wasn’t home?

I’ll go ask her, Sarah thought, if this is the right road.

Barney walked with a bounce to his step, pricking his ears toward every fresh sight and sound. Raindrops still sparkled on the pine needles, and the surface of the road looked cool and damp. There was even a puddle. Sarah tried to walk Barney through it. He shied and sidestepped. Could be quicksand!

“I wish I could just have you!” Sarah said suddenly. But the tone of her own voice didn’t quite convince her. The truth was, she had given up Barney long ago.

Too complicated! Sarah tried to clear her mind and just be here, riding Barney in the cool sunshine. But behind her the herd of dream horses pushed and nipped and jostled for position.

The place where the dirt road came out on pavement was familiar, and in a few minutes Sarah heard coon-hounds baying. They would have been excellent watchdogs, except that nobody paid attention to them anymore. They were the Boys Who Cried Wolf.

They were wolves, in Barney’s opinion, and no power on earth was going to get him down into that yard with them. He froze in his tracks, and when Sarah urged him forward, he swung his rump out into the traffic lane. A car came up behind and stopped, worried and polite. A pickup stopped behind it, and the man in the pickup blasted his horn.

Red-faced, Sarah dismounted, just as Jill came around the corner of the house. She looked astonished, and Sarah saw her lips move. At first she heard nothing. Then Jill’s voice cut through the dogs’ noise. “You guys shut up! Quiet!”

For a few seconds the dogs were shocked into silence—long enough for Sarah to lead Barney out of the road and down into Jill’s yard. Then one or two of the bolder dogs started barking again. Barney buried his nose in the grass and ignored them. “Faker!” Sarah said bitterly.

“Did you come over on the main road?” Jill asked.

“No, I found your shortcut. Did you go over there this morning? I thought I saw bike tracks.”

“Somebody should check on him while Missy’s away,” Jill said. “In case he gets hurt or something. Anyway, I like getting up early.”

“How early did you go?”

Jill shrugged. “I don’t know—five-thirty. It’s a nice time of day.” She didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so Sarah didn’t mention that the neighbors were also checking on Barney. It wouldn’t hurt him to be checked twice.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” she said, sweeping her hand wide to take in the blue sky, the sparkle, the cool breeze.

Now Jill’s smile appeared, wide and unwary. “I’ll say! And Mom took the boys to get school shoes, and she took the little ones, too, to get shots—”

“So you’re free!”

“Free as the breeze!” said Jill. She spread her arms and twirled, setting the hounds all baying again.

“Then I know what!” Sarah said. “Let’s go riding!”

“How?” asked Jill, her face darkening a little.

“Simple! I’ll ride your bike and you ride Barney. We’ll take him back home.”

“Will Missy mind? I mean, I’ve never ridden him.…”

“Missy won’t mind,” Sarah said. Whether that was true or not, she wasn’t exactly sure, but she did know that no harm would come of it, and she had been in charge of Barney for nine whole months last year. She thought she had the right to make a decision about him once in a while.

Barney decided that the bike was a great peril to him and spent a lot of the way home dancing and skittering. Jill rode out his antics well. She wasn’t the most stylish rider Sarah had ever seen, but she’d been galloping around bareback on Ginger, Albert’s pony, for years now. It took more than Barney’s current foolishness to unseat her.

Sarah was having a harder time. The bike was the one Pete had broken, and although the frame had supposedly been repaired, something was still very wrong with it. It was hard to steer, and on the dirt road it felt rough. Sarah was relieved when they reached the trail, and she had to get off and wheel it.

“Leave it there,” Jill said, looking back. “There’s no good biking up ahead anyway. I’ll just walk back to it.”

“Okay.” Sarah leaned the bike against a tree.

“You want to ride double?” Jill asked.

Sarah almost said yes. But she needed a moment to catch her breath, and in that moment she saw Jill on Barney, looking straight and strong and skillful.

“No, you go ahead,” she said. “There’s a great stretch for cantering, and you can jump that log.”

“You sure you don’t want to?”

“Yeah!” Sarah said. “Just wait for me at the other end of the trail, okay?”

Jill looked doubtfully down at her for a moment. Then Barney fidgeted. “Okay,” said Jill, turning him. “See you!” She urged Barney into a canter. A couple of things were wrong with how she did it, but the results were perfect.

It was amazing how much longer the trail seemed on foot, and what a plodding mode of travel walking was. Once Jill had disappeared, Sarah almost wished she’d agreed to ride double.

At least it was cool, and the day was beautiful. A breeze ruffled the leaves, which, after looking limp and brownish most of the summer, had now revived. They were crisp and green, and they made a lively rustling sound. As Sarah walked along, she saw mushrooms in strange colors, which looked as if they’d grown overnight. She saw a salamander, bright as a crayon on the brown trail, and she saw deer tracks.

Still, it took a long time, and it seemed quiet and lonely. So different from last fall or last spring. She’d had Barney, and Jill had been free to come over more often, and they’d gone riding with Albert, all together. This summer everything about horses—having, not having, wanting or searching or conditioning for a trail ride—seemed to push them apart. It would be easier when school started. It would be easier if it were clothes they were interested in, or boys, something they could enjoy over the telephone.…

When she came to the log, Jill was waiting on the other side.

“Jill! You should have kept going.”

“I did,” said Jill. “I went all the way, and then I came back. So now let’s ride double.”

Later, with Barney drowsing in the crossties, Jill and Sarah lounged on a hay bale.

“What a great jump that was!” Jill said when they’d been silent for a few minutes.

“Weren’t you scared?” Sarah asked. She hadn’t been scared, she suddenly realized—hey, wow! She hadn’t been scared! A little alarmed, for just a second, but that was all. The open, soaring feeling flooded back into her chest.

“I was scared,” Jill said, “but he didn’t want to stop. I just hung on and hoped, actually.”

“I wish you could have a horse,” Sarah said. “Are you sure you can’t?”

“Yes,” said Jill.

“But it isn’t fair! You’re such a good rider.”

“I’ll have a horse when I grow up,” said Jill. “I’ll have a little A-frame house just big enough for one person and a little barn out back with a horse in it—”

“But what about now? We’re supposed to be having fun now! How will we ever go riding together?”

“Sarah, quit it!” Jill sounded angry, but when she turned to face Sarah, there were tears in her eyes. “Nobody ever said we’re supposed to have fun just because we happen to be kids. Some of us do, and some of us don’t, just like regular people. But when I grow up, I will have a horse. Nobody can stop me! And if you still have a horse, we’ll go riding then.”

This was the most Sarah had gotten out of Jill all summer. She felt amazed and suddenly younger than Jill. Before, it had always been the other way around.

But she couldn’t help asking, “What if we don’t want to go riding then?” She couldn’t imagine it, but then, Missy’s friends had all stopped riding.

“I’ll want to,” said Jill. She was staring at Barney unblinkingly. “I’ll always want to.”