That Horse Whiskey! Page 9

  A rabbit started up behind a yucca. Whiskey ignored it.

  They stopped for a red light. When it changed, Whiskey again started easily at Lainey’s signal.

  “There it is,” she said, pointing. “You can see it.”

  “That little span?” Ryan asked. “That’s what you’re worried about?”

  “Um-hmm.” Her throat was too dry to keep talking. Still she made herself chatter on to Whiskey.

  “I wonder how you got your name, anyway? I bet some fool cowboy named you. But you’re too dark a brown to be the color of liquor, except when I brush you up real good. Then you gleam red in the sun, don’t you?” She brushed a fly off his neck. “Tomorrow for the parade, I’ll come early and curry you and brush you and rub your hair and comb your mane until you shine. Tonight I’ll even oil the saddle we’re going to use, and I’ll brush my hair until it shines, too. And—”

  Whiskey’s hooves touched the metal mesh and rang out tinnily as she had expected, but his stride didn’t change. He walked calmly onto the deck that was laid like a hall runner over the roadway. Though his hoofbeats made a hollow noise on the deck, it didn’t seem to bother him.

  Midway across the bridge Whiskey stopped. Lainey’s heart gave a jolt and stopped, too. He leaned his head over the railing and looked down.

  “Oh-oh,” Ryan said.

  Lainey clucked at Whiskey and said, “Come on, now, there’s nothing interesting down there, and it’s much too far to jump.” As if he agreed, he continued walking placidly alongside Chester.

  And then they were back on a normal roadway.

  “Let’s turn around and do it over again,” she said.

  “It sure doesn’t look as if you’re going to have any problem with him,” Ryan said. “You’ve really got that horse trained, Lainey.”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  It thrilled her when Whiskey returned the way he’d come without even bothering to peer over the railing this time.

  Halfway back to the ranch, Lainey was rocking peacefully in the saddle, thinking that she would iron her white cotton shirt and tie a red bandanna around her neck to go with the green riding pants Amber had lent her for the parade. She was dazed with the heat and half asleep when, without warning, a carload of teenage boys whizzed by, blowing a horn that sounded like a bellowing bull. The boys hiked up in their seats and turned to see if the blast had made the horses bolt.

  At the sound, Whiskey had jerked his head and danced sideways, but he settled quickly to Lainey’s pull of the reins and her voice saying, “It’s okay, Whiskey. Nothing bad’s happening. It’s okay, boy.”

  It was Chester who reacted violently. He gave a high-pitched whinny and dashed off the road across a bare field studded with creosote bush and cholla. Ryan was in danger of losing his seat. His arms were flapping like wings, and his reins hung loose. Lainey gave chase. It didn’t take long for Whiskey to pull abreast of Chester.

  “Tighten up your reins and pull back on them,” Lainey told Ryan. Whiskey ran in step with Chester, slowing as Lainey sat back in the saddle and drew back on her reins. Chester slowed too, first to a trot and finally to a walk. He was foaming at the mouth and dripping sweat. Terror showed in the whites of his eyes.

  “Wow, that was some ride!” Ryan said. “If you hadn’t rescued me, we’d be in the next county. Thanks.”

  “That’s okay. You stayed on fine, Ryan. I guess you can sit a horse now. Maybe you ought to ride in the parade with me.”

  “Me? No way. I only stayed on to avoid another butt full of cactus spines.”

  She laughed. Ryan put himself down a lot, but he was capable of more than just reading books, she’d noticed. They turned the horses and trotted them back toward the road.

  “What now?” Ryan asked in alarm as Chester halted for no reason in the middle of the field.

  “He’s urinating. You should stand up in the stirrups to relieve the pressure on his kidneys.”

  Ryan groaned and said, “He runs away with me, and you want me to worry about his kidneys? Give me a break, Lainey.” But he stood up as she’d suggested. “You know, I’d like to come and watch you in that parade,” he said. “Unless my father has other plans. He did say something about a surprise for me on Saturday.”

  “It’d be nice to have my own cheering section,” Lainey said, delighted at the hope of seeing Ryan again.

  “Oh, there’ll be plenty of people cheering you,” he said. “Your parents will come, won’t they?”

  “Not both of them. Saturdays are a busy day for them. But Mr. Dodge may be there. Anyway, I hope Whiskey behaves as well as he did on this ride.” She patted Whiskey’s shoulder and asked with pride, “Wasn’t he a trouper on the bridge, and when those kids tried to spook us?”

  They were close to Cobb Lane when Whiskey suddenly neighed and began rearing.

  Out of the corner of her eye, as she fought to master Whiskey, Lainey saw her father’s truck. He was coming home early. “Oh, no,” she said out loud. What a disaster to have Dad see Whiskey going loco! Lainey was gripping hard with her knees and trying to calm Whiskey down with her voice while she hung onto the saddle horn and managed the reins. She was too busy to worry about being thrown.

  Ryan rode Chester out of her way onto the verge of the road and stopped. Dad pulled the truck off the road and leaped out to run to her.

  Desperately, Lainey begged, “Down, boy. Easy, Whiskey. Whoa, whoa.”

  The sound of her voice had no effect on him, nor did her attempt to rein him in. He plunged into the roadway and began bucking. Then she saw it! A bee was biting Whiskey’s haunch and driving him crazy. She reached back and smacked the bee hard with her bare hand. She’d hit it; she could feel the lump of its body before it fell to the ground.

  “Lainey!” Dad was reaching for the reins, standing close to Whiskey’s head. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. Just then Whiskey reared up, neighing in panic as Dad laid a hand on him. The next instant Lainey lost a stirrup and fell off, hitting her shoulder on the roadway.

  “Lainey!” her father shouted. Ryan cried out something, but what she heard was Whiskey’s frenzied hoofbeats retreating in the distance as he galloped back to the ranch.

  Her father lifted her off the road and out of the path of the oncoming traffic.

  “She shouldn’t be moved if she broke anything,” Ryan said.

  “You want her to get hit by a car instead?” Dad growled.

  “I’m okay. I just slipped off. I didn’t break anything,” Lainey assured him. She pushed her father away from her and stood up to prove it. Her shoulder ached fiercely and so did her hip, but she said, “Really, I’m fine. It was just—”

  “That’s it,” her father interrupted her tersely. “You will not ride that horse again—ever—for any reason.”

  “But Dad, it wasn’t his fault.”

  “Not much it wasn’t.”

  “He got stung by a bee,” Lainey shrieked to make him understand.

  “I don’t care. He could have killed you.”

  “Dad!”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want to hear another word. Come into the house, Lainey. I want your mother to look you over.” He marched off without waiting to see if she’d follow his order and without any farewell niceties to Ryan.

  “Oh, boy,” Ryan murmured. “I guess Whiskey’s not going to be in that parade after all.”

  “Yes he is,” Lainey said with icy certainty. “When Dad calms down, he’ll realize it was the bee’s fault. Whiskey’s okay. Everybody jumps around when a bee stings them.”

  Ryan was grinning. “You and that horse are some pair, Lainey.” He shook his head and remounted Chester, who was chewing on the thin branch of a paloverde tree in front of the Cobb Lane arch. “Well, I’ll go see if Whiskey made it back to the ranch. Good luck with your father.” He saluted her and rode off.

  She should have given him her address, Lainey thought, but she had more important things to think about
. Like convincing her father that he had to let her ride Whiskey in the parade.

  Chapter 12

  “Mom,” Lainey cried as she ran into the kitchen, “where did he go?”

  “Who?” The potato in Mom’s hand halted in mid-peel.

  “Dad. He saw my horse acting up, so he came rushing over and scared Whiskey so I fell off, and then—” Lainey gulped for air. “And then he said I couldn’t ride in the parade, which is just—”

  “I’m here,” Dad said. He stepped into the room, somber as a thundercloud, obviously having overheard every word.

  “Dad, you can’t mean it about the parade. Whiskey got stung by a bee. Anybody jumps around when a bee’s stinging them. And then you scared him because he doesn’t know you.”

  “Any horse that startles that easily isn’t fit to ride in a parade.” Dad folded his arms across his chest. His lips set in a grim negative.

  “Mom!” Lainey turned to her mother, who was getting on with her potato peeling.

  “Calm down, Lainey. Arguing in the state you’re in won’t win you anything.” Mom’s eyes were sending a warning that Lainey was too keyed up to heed.

  “But what Dad saw was just a—just a fluke,” Lainey insisted. “Whiskey’s been so good in traffic. He didn’t even jump when a car full of kids blasted their horn in his ear today. And he walked over the bridge that I was sure would spook him without acting nervous at all. He’s as safe to ride as any horse in the world. It’s just that he got stung by a—”

  “Bee, I know. I heard you, Lainey,” Mom said. She looked at Dad, who seemed to have turned to stone, and back at Lainey. Very quietly, Mom said, “We’ll discuss it after dinner, okay?”

  “No,” Lainey said. “I’m just upset because Dad’s being unfair, and I want to talk about it right now.”

  “You say any more and you’ll make matters worse,” Mom warned. She kept peeling away as if that homely chore would immunize her from the emotion charging around her. “As things stand right now, your father saw the incident and he thinks your horse isn’t safe to ride.”

  “Because he saw me fall. But so what if I fell off? Riders fall off horses all the time, and nobody stops riding because of it.”

  “That horse could kill you, Lainey,” Dad said.

  “Whiskey loves me. And I love him. And I have to ride him in the parade Saturday. I have to or he’ll be sold for dog meat.” She glared at her father with clenched fists.

  “I can’t let you risk your neck just because you’ll be mad at me if I don’t let you,” Dad said in a sorrowful voice. “What kind of a parent would I be if I gave in to that kind of blackmail?”

  “But Dad, why can’t you let me risk my neck? You let Lon and Pete risk theirs. If I were a boy, you’d let me ride in that parade, wouldn’t you?”

  He hesitated. “Seems to me we’ve had this discussion before, Lainey. You’re not a boy.”

  “But I can ride as well as any boy. Ask Mr. Dodge, ask Lopez. Lopez knows more about horses than anybody. He’s Mr. Dodge’s right-hand man, and he thinks I’m doing great with Whiskey.”

  “Let Lopez ride him in the parade, then,” Dad said.

  “But I trained Whiskey, and I’m the one he’ll show his best for. Please, Dad. It was just a bee.” She hated the tears filming her eyes, but she couldn’t hide them because she needed to latch eyes with her father.

  He looked at his wife. “Tell her, Connie,” he said.

  “Tell her what?”

  “That I’m right.”

  “I’m not sure you are, Randall.”

  “Why can’t you ever back me up in these things?” he snapped.

  Mom stopped peeling to stare at him.

  “You better look your daughter over to make sure she didn’t break any bones,” he added before he stomped out of the room.

  “I don’t know, Lainey,” Mom said. “They told me girls were a lot harder to raise than boys. Now I’m beginning to believe them.” She set the potatoes aside, washed and dried her hands, and said, “Come in the bathroom and let’s see what you did to yourself.”

  Lainey’s shoulder was bruised and scraped under her shirt. Mom put antiseptic on it and said it would be sore for a while but nothing seemed broken. “We better get some ice on that shoulder, and on the hip, too,” Mom said when she saw the bigger bruise spreading on Lainey’s hip. “You aren’t going to feel much like riding in that parade Saturday.”

  “You’d let me go, wouldn’t you, Mom?”

  Mom thought about it before nodding. “Probably,” she said. “You know, as a kid I resented being told I couldn’t do something as well as a boy. But I never was one to fight the system, and I’m happy being the kind of woman my parents expected me to be. You, though, I can see you’ve got more of your father in you than you have of me—more than your brothers have in some ways.” Mom ran a knuckle tenderly down Lainey’s cheek. “But battling your father head-on is no way to win,” she admonished. “Try being patient, Lainey.”

  “I don’t have time to be patient. The parade is Saturday.”

  Mom stood up. “All right,” she said. “I know that horse means a lot to you. I’ll see what I can do with your father…after we give him some time to get over his scare. Meanwhile, go lie down and I’ll bring you some ice packs.”

  Dinner was eaten in a brooding silence. In silence, Dad helped Mom with the dishes. In silence, he left to watch his news program. He sat in his favorite chair across from the TV. Lainey settled on the couch with the ice bag on her hip and ice wrapped in a kitchen towel on her shoulder. She did ache, but she knew that no matter how bruised and sore she felt, it couldn’t stop her from riding Whiskey—not when his fate was in her hands.

  Friday morning at breakfast Dad looked up from his eggs ranchero and said, “I haven’t changed my mind, Lainey, but your mother thinks I ought to see what Dodge says about that horse. If you want, I’ll take you over to the ranch before I leave for work.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Lainey said. A good night’s sleep had cooled her temper and sweetened her tongue. She smiled at her mother, who winked at her over her coffee cup.

  “That was the best I could do for you,” Mom said later when they were alone in the kitchen. “I hope it works out the way you want, Lainey.”

  Lainey kissed her mother and hugged her hard. “Did I ever tell you what a great mother you are?” Mom flushed with pleasure, as if she wasn’t used to receiving compliments from Lainey.

  Come to think of it, Lainey told herself, it was always Dad who got the compliments and kisses, and Dad to whom she attached herself whenever they went anyplace as a family. Mom had to make do with the printed message in birthday or Mother’s Day cards. That would have to be changed from now on, Lainey decided.

  In the truck she began selling her father on Whiskey’s good points. “See, Whiskey’s smarter than most horses, Dad. So he makes up his own mind about things, which is why you can’t always predict what he’s going to do.”

  “You mean he’s not reliable,” Dad said.

  “I didn’t say that. He likes me, so he does what I ask him to do. Except—”

  “Except if he doesn’t feel like it.”

  “Dad, really! Let me introduce you to him before you decide he’s no good. He’s spirited, that’s all.”

  Dad pulled the truck up to the ramada. One of the tree trunks that held up the roof had cracked, and the corner of the roof was sagging. “Dodge sure is letting the place run down,” Dad muttered.

  As usual, Mr. Dodge was sitting in his office desk chair in front of the TV. He gave a big smile when Lainey and her father walked in. “Well, look who’s here! Haven’t seen you in a long time, Randall Cobb. How’s it going?”

  “Fine, fine. Business could be better, though. How about you, Dodge?”

  “Well, I’m about done with the ranch, Randall. Best thing I got left around here is your daughter. She’s some girl. The way she’s brought that useless horse around—you know about how she’s trained Whiskey, don�
�t you?”

  “Whiskey is what I came to talk to you about.” Dad took the seat Mr. Dodge offered. He didn’t look very comfortable balancing his large body on the narrow wooden chair, with his long legs bent up like a step-ladder.

  Getting right down to business, Dad asked, “Would you say that horse is safe for Lainey to ride in the parade?”

  “Safe?” Mr. Dodge’s eyebrows went up to his hairline, stacking up ridges in his forehead. “Well, now, as to safe, I don’t know what is. Crossing the road, you’re as like to be killed by a car as not. And horses—well, there’s always something you haven’t figured on.”

  “Whiskey threw her yesterday. I happened to be coming home, and I saw him behaving like a bucking bronco.”

  “A bee stung him, Mr. Dodge,” Lainey put in.

  “There, yes, that’s what I mean,” Mr. Dodge said. “Something you haven’t figured on, like a bee sting. That’ll spook an animal so it throws you.… You get hurt, Lainey?”

  “No, I’m fine. Dad doesn’t want me to ride Whiskey tomorrow, Mr. Dodge. Please tell him it’s okay.”

  “Well now, I can’t promise it will be, Lainey.” He turned to her father. “You know, Randall, I wouldn’t have let her work with the horse if it was a mean one or if it—but there’s no guarantee that something couldn’t happen. Especially with all the goings-on in a parade.”

  “But Whiskey’s a good horse now, isn’t he?” Lainey pursued urgently. “I mean riding any horse in the parade would be the same risk, right?”

  “Well…” Mr. Dodge sat there nodding to himself in an anxious silence. Finally he bent forward and said earnestly to Lainey’s father, “I just can’t give you any guarantee, you see?”

  “I see,” Dad said.

  Lainey stood up. “Dad,” she pleaded. “Come out to the corral and meet Whiskey. Let me show you how he listens to me.”

  “I don’t have all day to spend on this, and meeting the horse isn’t going to change my mind any,” Dad said.

  “Just come with me.” She dragged him out of the office and over to the corral fence by one arm.

  Whiskey was frisking around the open shed. Trotting in and out of the sorry-looking leftovers from the sale to the hotel in Sedona, he appeared to be doing some kind of square dance all by himself. Even if he hadn’t been moving, he would have stood out among those old, swaybacked, knobby-legged horses.