Riding Lessons, Page 8

  "You did it before, didn't you? Tranquilizers. Darts. Whatever it takes. All I know is I want him. Now."

  "Annemarie, I just don't think--"

  "I don't care. I want him, and if you haven't promised him to anybody else, there's no reason for you not to let me have him."

  I can see that he's wavering. "I want to be the one to work with him," I continue. "I want to be the one that brings him back. I'll pay for the auction fee. I'll pay you to transport him."

  "It's not about the money."

  "You bet it's not. I want that horse, Dan."

  Behind him, Eva is staring at me with something almost like respect.

  Dan continues to search my face, and I lock eyes with him. I feel my chin jut slightly, setting like Mutti's. My lips harden into a thin line.

  "Okay," he says, nodding softly. "Okay then. I guess I can't say I'm surprised."

  At dinner, Eva grills me about why I wanted the horse so badly. When I tell her that his markings are almost identical to Harry's, she looks at me blankly. Is it possible that I never told her about Harry? This seems incredible, unbelievable.

  "You never heard about Harry? The horse I lost in the accident?"

  From the corner of my eye I see Jean-Claude look up quickly.

  "He's the one in the pictures at the barn, right?" asks Eva.

  "Yes."

  "Isn't that why they thought your uterus ruptured?"

  I suck in my breath. That is one of the theories, but that's surely not the only context in which she's heard about the accident?

  I look at Jean-Claude, who is looking discreetly at his plate.

  "Your mother was a world-class rider, Eva," says Mutti, reaching for a plate of pesto gnocchi. She passes it to Eva, and then reaches for the bowl of plum tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

  "Really?" says Eva, looking at me in surprise.

  "Olympic bound," says Pappa proudly, pulling the edges of his mouth back into a lopsided smile.

  I brace myself for the inevitable inventory of accomplishments, but Pappa stops, because Mutti lifts the wine to his lips. Everyone resumes eating, and for a moment, I think it won't come.

  "Olympics, eh?" Jean-Claude finally says, taking a large sip of wine. He leans back to look at me, crossing his arms on his chest.

  "She made the Claremont National," says Pappa. "Next stop, the Rolex-Kentucky, and then, who knows?"

  "And it was at the Claremont, this accident?" asks Jean-Claude.

  "Yes," I say, staring at my plate. I'm dreading the next question.

  "And the horse you were riding was striped?" asks Eva.

  "Yes," I say.

  "So that's what Dan was talking about when you first saw him. You should have seen her today," says Eva, turning to Mutti.

  Mutti raises her eyebrows. "I can only imagine," she says.

  "Dan said she couldn't have him, and she just kept right on at him. Didn't you, Mom?"

  "I guess," I say, embarrassed.

  "So he finally gave in. Not like he had a choice," beams Eva. "So what are you going to name him?"

  "Uh," I say. "I don't know. I really haven't thought about it."

  "Harry?"

  "No," I say, offended by the very idea.

  "Well, I still think the whole thing is a bad idea," says Mutti, looking imperious. "We have plenty of horses already."

  "Not like that, we don't," says Eva. "So are you going to ride again?"

  "No!" I say loudly. Then I realize everybody's staring at me. "No, of course not," I say, in as calm a voice as I can muster.

  "Okay Mike, back her up," shouts Dan, waving his arm in a circle. The man in the truck revs the engine and backs it slowly to the gate of the paddock.

  "That's not a horse trailer," says Eva.

  "No," says Dan. "It's a stock truck. There's no way anyone could lead this guy onto a horse trailer, and there's no way I'd let anyone try." He turns to me and frowns. "You really want to do this?"

  I nod.

  Mutti and Pappa are thirty yards off, waiting in the van. The plan is to follow the truck back to our place after the horse is loaded.

  The brindled chestnut is on the far side of the paddock, against the fence, watching with great suspicion.

  "Did you tranquilize him?" I ask.

  "You don't see him tearing around, do you?" says Dan.

  "Okay," Mike says, climbing out of the truck's cab and crossing the gravel. He claps his leather work gloves together in front of him. "Let's do this."

  He and Dan climb the paddock fence and open the gate inward. Then they drop the truck's ramp.

  The horse backs into the far corner and stands with his left side toward us, pawing intermittently at the ground.

  "Hey Chester...Chester!" shouts Dan to a man coming out of the quarantine barn. "Get Judy. I think we're going to need help."

  With Chester and Judy standing at either side of the truck's opening, Dan and Mike approach the gelding from opposite sides. He remains absolutely still, with his head raised to the wind. I can see the white of his one eye.

  "Come on, baby," I whisper to myself. "Nobody's going to hurt you."

  When Dan gets within a dozen feet of him, the horse throws his head into the air and bolts. After he passes Dan, he slows to a fast trot and circles the paddock with his tail on end, throwing his head. Then he comes to an abrupt stop, locking his legs in front of him and disappearing in the resulting cloud of dust.

  Dan and Mike approach again, slowly. As they get closer, the horse pins his ears against his head, pivots on his hind legs, and again springs past them.

  As he passes the opening of the truck, Mike lunges forward, flipping the lead rope, but the horse simply changes direction, loping back toward Dan.

  Dan shakes his head in frustration. A moment later, he and Mike resume their original positions.

  Each time they try to round the horse into the trailer, he lets them get within a dozen feet and then bolts. The final time, he barrels past close enough that Mike has to jump onto the fence to get out of the way. It's not the horse's fault--Mike was on the side without the eye.

  "This isn't working, Dan," Mike says, dropping to the ground on the other side of the fence. "I'm grabbing a couple of carrot sticks."

  "Carrot sticks?" says Eva, turning to me. "If they could get him using carrot sticks, why didn't they just do that in the first place?"

  "It's a kind of whip, honey," I say.

  "They're not going to hit him, are they?"

  "No, of course not."

  A few minutes later, Dan and Mike return, carrying short orange whips. They move slowly, silently. When they get into position, they are as still as statues until the horse stops moving. Then Dan gives a curt nod.

  They leap the fence and charge. The horse bolts to the far end, near the open truck, and then swivels, ready to dart past. Dan and Mike each hold their arms out, blocking the way with whips. The horse rears and shrieks, and the men lunge forward, shouting, waving the whips in front of them.

  Finally, in a series of events that feels like a single, fluid movement, the horse gallops up the ramp with an enormous clatter, Chester slams the wooden gate across the opening, and Judy throws its bolt.

  Through the metal slats, I see flashes of red and white as the horse moves around inside, a glimpse of haunch rising and falling, a shoulder disappearing from view as he rears, pawing at the air. There's one long, desperate whinny, and then the sharp crack of horseshoes against the metal side. It starts in a flurry, like popcorn in a microwave, and then drops off to the occasional crash.

  Chester and Judy raise and secure the ramp. Dan stands watching, shaking his head.

  "Damn, Annemarie. You sure about this?"

  I nod my head.

  "You don't have any idea what you're getting yourself into, do you?"

  "Okay," I say, rubbing my hands in front of me. "Let's get him home."

  Eva, excited, runs ahead of me and clambers past Pappa into the back of the van. As I approach at a wa
lk, I see Mutti in the driver's seat, shaking her head.

  "Waste of a good pasture," mumbles Mutti, as Mike and Dan prepare to release the horse into a small field next to the stable.

  "It's not a waste, Mutti," I say irritably. "It means he won't need extra hay."

  "But the other horses can't use it, can they? It can't be used in the rotation anymore, can it?"

  "No, not right away. But we don't know that he won't get along with the other horses, do we?"

  "You are not turning that horse out with the herds," says Mutti sharply.

  "No, Mutti. I'm not going to do anything right away. But let's not rule out the possibility that he'll eventually settle down and be okay in a herd."

  "Huh," sniffs Mutti. "And all this because he's brindled?"

  Dan and Mike have the trailer backed through the opening of the pasture now, and are preparing to drop the ramp.

  "Oh, I don't know, Mutti. I guess so."

  "Perhaps we should have got that other one after all," she says, pivoting on her heel and walking away.

  I turn to ask what she meant, but am distracted by the crash of the ramp hitting the ground, and then the volley of kicks from the horse trapped inside.

  But I don't forget. Later on, when Brian is back to put Pappa to bed and Eva is watching television, I step quietly into the kitchen. I stand watching Mutti's back for a while as she finishes the dishes. Her blonde hair is pulled tightly into the same coil it's been in since the beginning of time, and her thin arms jab and jerk as she attacks the last of the dishes. Tonight, she'd made a spinach-and-mushroom souffle, had watched victoriously as Eva helped herself to thirds. Mutti, the lover of veal, the Schnitzel Queen, has capitulated.

  "What other one?" I say, coming up behind her.

  "What other one what?" she says without missing a beat. She must have seen my reflection in the window behind the sink.

  She turns sideways and pushes the sleeping Harriet aside with one foot so she can open one of the lower cupboards.

  "When you asked me if I wanted the horse because he was brindled, you said 'Perhaps we should have got the other one.' What other one?"

  Mutti takes a pile of pots from the cupboard, lifts the top three, and inserts the clean one. It reminds me of a baby's stacking baskets.

  "It doesn't matter now. It's all in the past."

  "What is?"

  Mutti puts the pots back in the cupboard and returns to the dish rack with her back to me.

  "There's no profit in examining the past," she says.

  "That's crazy, Mutti. It doesn't even make sense."

  At this moment, Brian emerges from the hallway. He crosses the kitchen, and takes his jacket from a peg by the door.

  "Anton is set for the night," he says, groping behind his back for the second sleeve. "I'll be back at eight in the morning."

  "Thank you," says Mutti, stacking plates on the counter.

  Brian opens the door and then stares through the screen. "That's some horse you got out there," he says. "A bit skinny, but, well...I guess I never knew there was such a thing as a striped horse. You know, other than zebras, of course."

  "It's very rare," Mutti answers. I wait for her to point out that zebras aren't horses, but she doesn't.

  When Brian closes the door, Mutti switches the baby monitor on.

  "Mutti, please," I say as she resumes cleaning. "Please."

  She freezes, and then after a long silence says, "Harry had a brother. A full brother, another brindled chestnut."

  I gasp as though I've been punched in the chest. "What? When?"

  "Seventeen years ago."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because they called Pappa to see if he wanted him."

  I stare at her in shock. Mutti shoots a look over her shoulder, then abandons the dishes and comes to the table to sit down. I sit next to her.

  "When you refused to ride again--"

  "I did not refuse to ride again," I protest.

  "When you refused to ride again," Mutti continues loudly, "your father thought that maybe it wasn't just fear. That maybe it was because of Harry. And so he called the breeder, trying to find another brindled chestnut. He thought that if you knew there was another one coming up that you might start riding again, so that when the horse was ready to be trained, you'd be ready for the horse. And then, three years later, there was another one--a full brother to Harry--and they offered him to your father."

  I can feel my eyes widening as she says this, but I've already projected what's coming. By then I was in Minneapolis with Roger. By then, I'd left that part of my life irretrievably behind.

  Mutti looks at me victoriously, expecting submission, perhaps even gratitude.

  "What happened?" I say quietly.

  "Well, obviously you'd made it clear you had no interest in riding again--"

  "To the horse, Mutti. To the horse."

  "He was an eventer, like Harry. Ian McCullough bought him."

  "My God," I say, stunned. Ian McCullough was in the same circuit as I was, had been my most challenging competitor for my final year. He made the Olympic team the year I was hurt. He took my place. "Harry's brother is doing Grand Prix work?"

  "Was."

  Again, the feeling of being punched in the chest. I search her face for a signal, hoping that she doesn't mean what I think she does.

  "He died a few months ago. If you followed eventing at all, you'd already know that. In fact, if you followed eventing at all, you'd already know about the horse."

  She stares at me coolly, until I turn my face away in disgust.

  I get up quickly, scraping my chair across the floor, and push the screen door open with a straight arm. It crashes shut as I head for the pasture.

  When I get there, I climb the fence and walk out toward my horse; my damaged, one-eyed, mangy horse. He lifts his head to look at me, ears flattened in suspicion. I sit down cross-legged in the grass, a good thirty yards away. After he's sure I'm not coming any closer, he returns to grazing.

  Suddenly, the loss of Harry's brother, this unseen liver chestnut brindle that I could have had and never met, makes my face contort with grief. Before I know it, I'm sobbing like a four-year-old.

  That night, I search the Internet until almost dawn, desperately seeking information about Harry's brother. I plug one string after another into the search engine--"Highland Farm Hanoverians brindled," "eventers brindled Hanoverian Grand Prix," "brindled chestnut Hanoverian"--until finally I hit pay dirt with "Ian McCullough brindled eventer."

  It's an article from an old issue of Equine World, lingering on in cyberspace nearly six years after it was written.

  "Highland Hurrah takes first at the 1994 Rolex-Kentucky," blares the headline, huge and blue across the top of the page.

  Highland Hurrah. I read the name with a rush of sickness, a feeling of falling. I read it again, and again, and again, staring at those two words until they no longer seem like words but concrete objects that float above my screen.

  My connection to the Internet is slow, and the image beneath the headline unrolls in agonizing fits and starts. First, there's a great expanse of blue sky, broken at the edges by trees and pooled into areas of similar color. Then the tips of perked ears; dark, triangular, and pointed. And then, finally, there he is, stretched over the crest of a brick wall with Ian McCullough lying flat against his striped neck, hands thrust forward as his mount takes the massive fence.

  I am frozen, blinking at the screen as a lump rises in my throat. This horse looks so much like Harry I don't know how to process it, am almost afraid to try.

  Beneath the image, the story has finished loading, and I move on to that because it's easier than looking at Harry's brother. It outlines how astonishingly close the top three contenders were, of how McCullough, in the third Rolex-Kentucky victory of his career, took the $50,000 purse and Rolex timepiece with a lead of only .4 penalty points.

  I look at the picture again, and this time I can't get enough of it. I am scanni
ng this brother-of-Harry hungrily, his markings, the shape of his hooves, muzzle, knees, and joints, because I know just how they'd feel under my hands. The sight of him takes me hurtling back, stripping away the layers to where the memory of Harry's body resides intact. The long slope of his shoulder; the warm area--soft as muzzle--between his front legs; the V on his chest where the hair changes direction; the swirling cowlick where his rib cage meets his flank. How it used to feel when I ran my hand down his leg, checking for heat. The muscular shoulder leading to long, smooth leg; the gentle, bony swell of knee; the surprisingly delicate fetlock and hard, cool hoof; the soft, warm hollow at the back of his foot, just above his heel. And although it hurts like hell, I linger here in this memory, because it feels real.

  Oh, Harry. Oh, Harry. In some ways, I don't think anything has ever felt real since. I think I've been on hold since the day you died.

  When I drag myself out to the office the next morning, I'm heavy limbed and bleary.

  Despite having spent much of the night online, the first thing I do is launch Internet Explorer and plug a search string into Google. And then another. And then another.

  Forty minutes later, one of the underlined links on the left of the screen says "Brindled Champion Dies in Tragic Accident."

  I click the link and hold my breath.

  The picture is the same as the first one I found last night, only this time it's a thumbnail version. Highland Hurrah taking a brick wall, exploding with all the energy required to propel fourteen hundred pounds of horse and man over a span of eleven feet that peaks at a height of five.

  About halfway through the text, I realize I still haven't breathed.

  He died in a trailering accident. He died because someone forgot to put the cab in gear, and the whole thing rolled backward into a propane tank and exploded.

  The text is so detached, so very matter-of-fact. As an editor, I usually applaud this, but this article is utterly insufficient. It should describe how terrified he was, tethered into his fiery hell. How his skin and flesh roasted and crackled, peeling from his still-living body as he fought helplessly against his restraints. How after struggling for as long as he could, he finally gave himself to the flames, stretching his long, muscled neck out against the molten aluminum beneath him in the resignation of the dying.