(11)A Lesson

Sarah stood for a moment before the O’Briens’ front door, her heart thumping heavily, before she dared to knock. Mr. O’Brien answered. “Hi, Sarah, come in. Missy’s in her room—I’ll call her.” He led Sarah into the living room, where Mrs. O’Brien sat in her chair, the black cat on her lap. A rocking chair was pulled opposite her, and a half-finished game of checkers sat on the coffee table between them.

“Hello, Sarah. How are you?”

“Fine, thanks, How are you?”

“Oh, very well.” Mrs. O’Brien’s broad, happy smile was new to Sarah. “Missy tells us you’ve been having problems with Barney.”

Sarah flushed. How had Missy told it? she wondered. “Yes, I have, a little.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s pretty set in his ways, I guess. Probably should have warned you, but it’s been so long since we brought Missy through her growing pains with him that I didn’t think of it.”

“He gave Missy trouble?”

“Endless trouble,” said Mrs. O’Brien with a fond smile. “He was … oh, Missy, darling, make sure you wear a heavy coat. Dad says it’s cold out.”

Missy nodded, and crossed over to pat the cat in her mother’s lap. Velvet stretched luxuriously, made a whirring sound, and forced her chin over Missy’s fingers; while she was occupied scratching the cat, Sarah studied her closely for the first time. Somehow, before, she’d missed the prettiness, the intelligence, the determination in Missy’s face. She’d seen only her rival—now she was seeing another person, an interesting one.

“Sorry, Velvet, that’s enough,” said Missy, moving away from the unsatisfied cat. “Well, let’s get going, Sarah.” She went into the kitchen, got sugar lumps and a ragged denim coat, and led the way to the barn.

They went in through a small side door, and a dark, cluttered storage area. Somewhere farther on, Barney nickered, a hard, impatient sound. “Coming, Bear,” Missy called. He nickered again. They rounded a corner, and there he was, looking eagerly over the stall door. He stretched his nose out to Missy, who grabbed the twitching upper lip. She held it, laughing, while Barney wriggled. He freed himself and nosed her pockets.

“Pig!” She slapped his neck affectionately, making the dust fly. “All you think about is food.” Barney swept the sugar cube off her palm. He chomped twice, nodding his head thoughtfully each time, and reached out his nose again, first to Missy and then to Sarah.

“No more till you’ve done some work,” Missy told him firmly. She led him out, tied him in the aisle, and handed Sarah a brush. While Sarah groomed, she picked out his hooves. Sarah watched, fascinated by the ease with which it was accomplished.

“He picks them up when you say ‘Foot, please’?”

“Usually; but he never lifts the right front without a fight. You just learn to live with that.”

Sarah’s brush reached the ticklish spot over the hip. Barney jerked his foot up warningly, and Sarah flinched back as she always did. Then she caught Missy’s frown, and flushed.

“Don’t do that,” said Missy quietly. “Barney never kicks, and you must never seem afraid of him. Besides, if you were dealing with a kicker, stepping back would be the worst thing to do. You stay close to a kicker; that way, they can’t get much of a swing, and the blow is softened.”

“Oh.” Now that Missy reminded her, Sarah remembered reading that somewhere. She finished brushing Barney’s plump quarter, and went up to get his forelock. He decided what he wanted more than that was to rub his head on her shoulder, and did so with his usual vigor, almost knocking her down.

“Cut it out, Bear,” said Missy, coming up to catch his halter. “It’s my fault he does that, I’m afraid. I used to rub his head after a ride, when he was sweaty under the bridle, and now he thinks it’s OK any time.” She took the brush and went into the little room beside the stall. Peering in, Sarah saw a warm, glossy grain bin, and the bridle and saddle hung on pegs just like hers. Missy brought the tack out, and settled the saddle on Barney’s back.

“I suppose you found out about his bloating?”

Sarah’s mind flashed back to the first day, and the ridiculous image of herself sitting on the sideways saddle. “Oh, boy, did I!”

“His favorite trick. He even catches me sometimes.” With just as much effort as Sarah usually had to put into it, she girthed him up. Then she bridled him, led him outside, and tightened the girth another notch. “I’ll just take him around to see how he’s going to behave.” She swung into the saddle, lightly and gracefully. Sarah saw a subtle change in her face as she settled herself, a combination of contentment, fondness, and firmness.

She spoke to Sarah and they set off at a brisk walk. Sarah angled around to see Missy’s hands; light, following hands, the kind she had always been praised for. Easy enough at a walk, she thought. Let’s see how you do when he wants to get back to the barn.

Barney was trotting now, a long sweep across the field and back. In the middle again, they slowed slightly, to circle at a sitting trot. Sarah was surprised. She hadn’t seen a signal, and her admiration rose again. To circle at a trot, she always had to pull very obviously. But how did Missy do it?

Barney dropped back to a walk. This time Sarah saw the signal, but it was very slight. And how freely he moved, dropping his nose softly to the bit and slowing in balance! Missy walked him to one end of the field, turned, and lifted him into a canter.

They made a lovely picture, Barney’s mane and Missy’s hair flying in the wind he made, Missy rocking, supple and close to the saddle. She took him in a large circle back to the center of the field and guided him through a figure eight, with a smooth flying change of leads. At the completion of the last loop she brought him back to the middle and halted, with only one walking step. He stood quietly, though the wild swiveling of his ears betrayed his excitement. Then, the final touch to a beautiful performance—show off, Sarah thought enviously—Missy backed him, six calm steps. She turned him then toward the barn and Sarah. His steps quickened eagerly, but Missy held him to a walk in some soft, unseen way. She halted him beside Sarah, and dismounted.

“He’s full of beans today,” she said, looking satisfied. “Just as well. I want to see him at his worst with you.”

And me at my worst with him! But admiration won out over jealousy. “I couldn’t tell he was feeling that way. You made it look so easy.”

Missy glanced at her sharply. “Don’t let appearances fool you. You have to work hard to make it look that easy.” Sarah’s heart sank. Missy seemed suddenly very stern. “Mount up. You’ll work in the middle of the field, in a circle around me. Let’s go.” She started out and Sarah followed, trying to relax tense arms and follow the motion of Barney’s head.

Missy stopped. “All right, walk him in a couple of circles around me.” But Barney didn’t want to move away; Sarah had to pull him. “Use your legs,” came Missy’s quiet, inflexible voice. “Outside leg behind the girth, inside at the girth. Bend him, don’t pull.”

Legs! Of course! In all her agonizing over her hands, she’d let her legs hang practically idle. Disgusted with herself, Sarah applied leg pressure as she’d been taught long ago, and Barney turned. She put him on a circle around Missy.

“Your form’s good,” Missy commented after two turns. “Wider circle now, at a sitting trot.”

Sitting to Barney’s trot was never easy, and Sarah concentrated on relaxing the small of her back and deepening her heels to absorb the jolts. Barney started speeding up, a little more with each circle. At first she did nothing, hoping he’d slow by himself—she didn’t want to pull and show Missy how bad she was. Finally, though, his speed made it impossible to sit. Sarah gave a hurried little tug. Barney stuck his nose out and went faster, and Missy shouted, “Whoa!”

Barney stopped dead, and Sarah rocked forward on his neck. Missy stalked out to them, her face smooth and dangerous. “I saw that coming. Sarah, you simply must check him, constantly. If you’d just lightly fingered the reins when he first speeded up you’d have been fine. Instead you let it go, and he decided to see how much he could get away with. Now try going the other way, and this time pay attention!”

Deeply mortified, Sarah turned around and trotted again. This time Barney tried earlier, one ear cocked back cannily. Sarah fingered the reins, bouncing a step as she forgot to concentrate on her seat. Barney steadied, but almost immediately tried again. She slowed him, and this time he accepted the verdict, at least for a while.

“That’s better,” Missy called. “You’re getting the idea, but you could still be lighter. Remember, he’s only as light as you are. If you use a light signal early enough, he’ll respond lightly. If you pull, he’ll pull. Turn around and work it the other way.”

And so it went, for another hour. The moment Sarah relaxed, Barney would try something. Sarah would correct him, and looking at Missy’s face, know she’d still been too harsh. She struggled to stay one thought ahead of him, and in the end it seemed to be working, but she couldn’t tell. He might just have been tired.

Missy called it quits when Barney started to sweat. “He’s even harder than other horses to cool out in the winter, ’cause of all that hair. You want to be careful of that.”

Then she would be having him in the winter! Missy was going to let him come back to her! Sarah’s heart did cartwheels all the way to the barn.

They unsaddled him, blanketed him, and walked him till he was cool. Missy was quiet now, withdrawn. She didn’t speak again until they were back in the barn, taking off the blanket.

“Well, Sarah, I think all you need to do is keep your mind more on your riding. Barney isn’t the kind of horse you can moon around on. He demands your attention. You’ll find he’s absolutely trustworthy when you’re in trouble”—Sarah remembered the docile horse who’d carried her to the Joneses after her fall—“and if you’re not in trouble he’ll get you there fast, unless you watch him.”

“Can’t you ever relax with him?” Sarah asked despairingly.

Missy smiled. “Yes, of course. He wouldn’t be a good horse if you couldn’t. But you have to learn when you can, and when it would be dangerous, and the only way to do that is by observing him.” Barney pushed her, impatient with all the talk.

“Yes, Bear, I’ve got your treat.” She gave him a sugar cube. “Sarah has one, too—here, Sarah, he always has a treat after he works. C’mon now, into your stall.” She took off the halter and Barney walked in obediently, checked out the feed box and hay rack, and turned back to them. Missy rubbed the wet patch below his ears.

“I don’t know if I’ve explained it very well, but I hope you understand a little better. It won’t be easy at first, but it’ll be worth it. He’s a great little horse.”

Sarah thought so, too, and aching to try out what she’d learned, she had a hard time getting through the rest of the week. She read every book she owned, had Jill over to make fudge, trained the hapless Star to stop barking on command—she couldn’t be taught not to start barking—and went to Albert’s for supper, getting her first look at how a dairy farm works. But it was a long time till the Thursday afternoon when Missy brought Barney back.

She rode him over through a light sleet, looking tense and sad and worried. Silently she unsaddled him and turned him into his stall.

“You be good,” she said, stroking the little dents above his tricornered eyes. “Mind Sarah, and don’t do anything stupid like break a leg.”

A horn blew in the yard; Mr. O’Brien had come to drive Missy home. A last, desperate hug for Barney, and she was gone.

Sarah went to Barney’s head. He was gazing after Missy, and hardly seemed to notice her. She scratched the itchy spot under his mane. Absently he responded, scrubbing his lip on the top of the half-door, his attention still on the yard. With a sudden fury that frightened her, Sarah slapped his shoulder.

“Darn you, Barney, look at me! You’re my horse now!” He flicked an ear at her. “Maybe you don’t think so, but you are! And you’ll like me just as much as her. You’ll have to, ’cause sometime she’s going to decide she likes some guy more than you, and then I’m going to buy you and you’ll be mine!” Barney lifted his head and neighed toward the yard. Wearily, Sarah turned away.

By the next afternoon it had warmed up, and the glaze of ice melted. Sarah rode; how much better the world looked from horseback! A hard bubble of happiness formed in her chest. She relished the perky bob of his head, the awareness of each foot touching the ground, even the pressure on the reins as he bore toward the barn door, hoping to dash through. Gently, she corrected him before he could even get near. He made sour ears at her. “Sorry, Bear.”

Barney kept on testing his luck, but riding him was easier today than it had ever been. Even out in the pasture, where he usually staged a pretty good exhibition of educated disobedience, Sarah felt securely in control. Almost always, she caught him before his naughtiness could get far, and returned him to the straight and narrow without taking drastic measures.

It wasn’t until she was unsaddling that she realized why it was so easy today. Today there were no daydreams, no distracting thoughts. After a week on the ground, riding Barney again was all the daydream she needed.

And that was the key to riding. You had to be in it fully, savoring all the details the way you did to make a daydream real. You had to ride for riding’s sake, and not for the dreams it carried you to.

“Oh, Barney,” she cried, hugging his sturdy neck joyfully. “That’s it! I understand—and boy, are you in for some trouble!”