Emma and the Cutting Horse (10 page)

“Great!” she muttered to her reflection in
the mirror. “Now Candi Haynes will have another reason to laugh at
you.”

After school, she hurried down to the pens to
ride with Kyle.

“Have you taken up boxing?” Kyle asked,
taking a long look at her as she reached for a halter.

“No. Why?” Emma asked.

“Your eyes are black.”

“Oh!” Emma gasped, covering her eyes. She had
forgotten all about her new raccoon look. “It’s mascara,” she
admitted. “I guess I need some lessons in putting it on.”

“You look fine without it, Samantha,” Kyle
said. “You don’t need to paint yourself up. It might be a good idea
if you went up to the house and washed it off before your mom gets
home.”

* * *

Semester tests were scheduled for the first
three days of the last week of school. Emma noticed during the
testing that Candi Haynes was conspicuously absent. Even Hannah and
Katie commented on the peaceful atmosphere that prevailed without
Candi around. Her friends at the snobby table in the cafeteria were
unusually quiet; without their leader they seemed unable to
generate any rude remarks.

On the last day of school Hannah grabbed
Emma’s arm in the hall between classes and dragged her into the
restroom.

“You won’t
believe
this,” she
whispered, bending down to look under the stalls to see if anyone
was close enough to hear. “Barbara said that Candi Haynes’ father
has been arrested and charged with child abuse. His picture was in
the newspaper this morning. That’s why Candi hasn’t been here for
the last few days.”

“Oh, my God,” Emma said. “What did he
do?”

“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “Barbara didn’t
know, either. I guess he abused a child, but Barbara didn’t know
what child. I can’t wait to get home and read the paper.”

Emma was relieved that she wouldn’t have to
worry about being teased anymore, but she had a hollow feeling in
the pit of her stomach when she tried to imagine what was going on
at the Haynes’ house. The story made her wonder about Candi’s
caked-on makeup and wrinkled clothes.

The rest of the day dragged on as each class
passed back exams and played games or watched movies. Emma was
happy with her test scores, although she was two points below an A
in Algebra. Relieved that tests were over, she was anxious to have
this school year behind her. Next year she wouldn’t be a lowly
freshman anymore. She remembered that when she started high school,
the upperclassmen seemed mature and worldly. She sure didn’t feel
very mature and worldly yet.

The day ended amid shouts of joy and tears of
farewell. Emma hurried to the bus, dodging the flying notebooks and
papers in the schoolyard. The kids on the bus were having a raucous
celebration and the trip home seemed to take forever. She was one
of the last students to be dropped off since she lived near the end
of the bus route.

Emma’s mom had made it home from work before
the bus arrived and was starting to put together the evening meal.
Her Elvis Presley album was playing softly on the stereo, a daily
event since Elvis had been found dead in his bathroom.

“How does it feel to be free at last?” she
asked.

“Great,” Emma said.

“Why aren’t you dancing for joy then? Did one
of your tests give you trouble?”

“No, it’s not that. I found out today why
Candi Haynes missed the last few days of school.”

“She came down with a chronic case of
meanness?” her mom guessed.

“Her dad got arrested. For child abuse. It’s
in the paper.”

“Good Lord,” Emma’s mom said, putting down
the potato peeler. “Let’s get the paper and have a look.”

The story was in the local news section.
Local Businessman Arrested for Child Abuse
the headline
read. Above the article was a picture of a well-dressed man with
vacant eyes. The story was short and offered few details. It said
that William T. Haynes had been indicted by the grand jury for
assault on his wife and abuse of his fifteen and ten year-old
daughters. He would appear before a judge the next day and bail
would be set.

Emma’s spine prickled. Darla, the girl Emma
and her father had found in the woods, must really be Candi Haynes
little sister. The red sock flashed through her mind again and the
angry purple bruises on Darla’s face.

“Candi must not know that Dad and I found her
sister in the woods. She sure hasn’t ever said a word to me about
it.”

“She wouldn’t have had a way of knowing,”
Emma’s mother said. “Your dad asked that your name be kept out of
the paper and news reports when it happened. He thought it was best
that reporters not approach you for interviews. They can be so
intrusive. And I agreed with him. Besides, there were some strange
aspects of that case that puzzled your father. The doctors thought
that the bruises on Darla’s face might have happened before she ran
away. We just didn’t want you involved.”

“That’s unbelievable,” Emma’s father said
when he got home from work. “Bill Haynes owns a car dealership and
makes lots of money. But I guess money doesn’t have much to do with
that sort of thing.”

“No,” Emma’s mom agreed, “but it might
explain why Candi picks on other kids.”

“Man, I wanted bad things to happen to Candi,
but I wouldn’t have wished
this
on her,” Emma said.

* * *

The arrival of summer vacation provided time
in the early mornings for Emma to work with Camaro before the heat
of a Texas summer day settled in. Most mornings she saddled the big
buckskin and took her into the arena where there was more room to
get the kinks out. The first time Emma started her trotting in a
large circle with the saddle on Camaro tossed her head playfully
and tried a couple of experimental crow-hops. Emma clucked to her
and kept her moving. Her father had helped her rig up a flag on the
end of a flexible pole, which has actually an old fly-fishing rod.
Without the line and reel and with a small triangular plastic flag
attached to the end, it was easier to keep the mare, which was
intrinsically lazy, moving out. She flicked it in the direction of
the mare’s haunches when she began to run out of steam and it
worked perfectly without resorting to punishment.

Emma practiced voice commands until Camaro
understood “whoa” completely. The success of the first few rides,
when Camaro would feel the unfamiliar pull of the bit in her mouth,
would depend on this ingrained knowledge. She walked, trotted and
cantered on the lunge line going in both directions, but Emma could
soon tell that her favorite command was “whoa.” Camaro’s body type
was completely different from Miss Dellfene’s. Her square shape and
heavier frame didn’t allow quite the same grace as Miss Dellfene’s
fluid movements, and Emma wondered if Camaro’s trot would be rough
to ride. She ached to find out and was sorely tempted to swing
aboard, but her promise to her father forbade it. While her parents
were at work and she was home alone during summer days, Emma was
forbidden to ride, but groundwork was allowed.

The excitement over Miss Dellfene and the
Futurity escalated when the lawyer from Washington D.C. who had
raised the mare, called one evening.

“He asked if it was true that we had entered
a mare we bought at his sale in the NCHA Futurity,” Emma’s dad
related. “When I said that it was, he wanted all the particulars.
He wrote down the name of her trainer and the dates of the
Futurity, and asked if he could call the trainer occasionally to
check on her progress.”

“Wow,” Emma’s mom said. “I wonder how he
heard about it.”

“I have no idea, but he said he was going to
be there to watch, and that he was glad somebody bought her who
would make the most of her abilities. I didn’t tell him that her
Futurity appearance was almost an accident or that her owners were
in danger of running out of money.”

Emma and her parents made regular trips to
watch Miss Dellfene’s training throughout the summer. Kyle came
along whenever his summer work schedule permitted, and Emma could
tell that he was soaking up lots of information about cutting
horses. More people were present to watch the training sessions
than there had been earlier in the summer. John had lights around
his arena and many of the training sessions took place after dark,
when the heat of the day had dissipated. Other riders began to
station themselves in the arena when Miss Dellfene worked.

“They’re herd holders and turn-back men,”
John explained when Emma asked about them. “I want her to get used
to ‘em, so she won’t get distracted by ‘em during the Futurity. The
herds of cattle will be bigger during the real competition, and the
herd holders keep the calves from scatterin’ all over the arena
while a horse is working. Turn-back men stop the ones who try to
run off to the back of the arena to get away from the cutting
horse.”

Emma was beginning to be able to tell when
the workouts were going particularly well. The mare seemed to ooze
confidence and her tap dance routine was becoming a regular part of
her performance. John rode her with the reins “thrown away,” let
out to a length where they swung loosely in the air. He told Emma
that this was to show the judges that he was not giving her signals
with the bridle.

One evening, Emma and her parents arrived to
find a small herd of cattle in the arena. They wandered around
bawling and investigating their new surroundings, while several
saddled horses waited outside the arena tied to the fence. Miss
Dellfene was one of them. John was saddling the paint.

“I’m going to work these calves with this
horse first,” he told Emma’s parents. “They’ll learn to stay
together better after they’ve been worked for a little while.”

John moved the paint through the small herd
slowly, letting the calves get used to the horse’s closeness. The
herd holders rode their horses halfway down the arena fence on each
side and stopped them facing the herd. When a calf tried to run out
of the herd, they turned it back. After a half hour of slow work,
he brought the paint out and put a bridle on Miss Dellfene.

As John led her through the gate, her ears
pricked excitedly at the cattle. He mounted and made her stand
perfectly still for long minutes. When he finally walked her
forward, she vibrated with excitement. He made her walk very slowly
into the herd and stand still until a red and white Hereford calf
began to cross in front of her. Then he turned her toward the calf,
and it moved out to the center of the arena. The calf trotted
toward the side fence, and John shook out the reins and let the
mare have her head.

Miss Dellfene danced sideways and did a
graceful pirouette each time the calf changed directions. When it
stood in one place for too long, she tapped her front feet to get
it moving, and then expertly blocked the calf’s attempts to get
back with the others. She had never worked cattle before, but their
bigger size and faster movements seemed to inspire her, and with
John sitting perfectly still with one hand on the saddle horn, she
gracefully executed turns that threw the loose dirt of the arena
floor high in the air. She crouched and spun, and Emma could hear
hoots of approval from the men standing around the outside of the
arena. She heard herself gasp, and impulsively reached for Kyle’s
hand beside hers on the fence. Up this close, she could feel the
power behind the mare’s lunges, and the creak of the saddle and the
smell of the boiling dust and sweat testified to the immensity of
the effort it took. In minutes, it was over. Outmaneuvered, the
calf turned away then John reached out and laid his hand on Miss
Dellfene’s neck.

When the Hereford had rejoined the herd, John
turned the mare back toward the cattle and rode her slowly all the
way through them to the back fence. There was no clock ticking now,
as there would be during the Futurity, so he took his time, making
a deep cut. Deep cuts, he had explained to Emma, were required for
at least one of the calves cutters chose from the herd during the
Futurity, to show that the horse could work calmly in a herd. Until
the calf had been driven out of the herd, cutting horse trainers
were allowed to cue the horse with their legs or the reins, but
once the animal was out in the open, a cutting horse must work all
by itself. The rider was a silent partner who did his best not to
interfere with the horse’s movements.

A black steer moved toward the outside of the
herd, and Emma could tell that John was signaling the mare to
follow it. At the edge of the herd, the steer tried to turn back
toward the others, but John reined the mare to block it and it
trotted into the open. Emma noticed for the first time how strong
the mare looked now. Muscles bulged in her chest and hindquarters
that hadn’t been so obvious before she began her training. John
lowered his rein hand to a spot just in front of the saddle horn,
and the steer leapt into action, darting back and forth. It moved
fast and each time the mare blocked its path it ran a little
further out into the arena.

“What’s that hissing sound?” Kyle asked. “Is
John making it?”

Now that he had brought it to her attention,
Emma could hear John hissing at the mare.

“What’s he doing that for?” Emma asked, but
before they had time to consider any longer, the steer turned his
tail toward the mare and trotted toward the back of the arena.

“That’s enough for now,” John said and turned
the mare toward the arena gate.

Emma let go of Kyle’s hand, but her heart was
still pounding as John dismounted and led the mare over to the
fence.

“What’s the hissing for?” she asked when John
got close to them.

“That’s a sign that she’s charging. Charging
is moving forward too far from the herd. She does that sometimes
with a calf that doesn’t want to work close to her. When the calf
moves farther away she wants to follow it, but when she hears me
hissing, she knows to back off. Charging is a fault. I can’t
correct her with the reins while she’s working, but most judges
don’t notice the hissing.”