Emma and the Cutting Horse (7 page)

An idea percolated in Emma’s mind as she
thought back on her disastrous first ride on Miss Dellfene. She had
ridden young horses for her father for years, but had never trained
one herself from the beginning. And Camaro was a two-year old and
ready to begin training. She waited until an evening when her mom
had prepared her father’s favorite dinner of pork chops and
dressing, and then cleared her throat nervously over dessert.

“Would it be okay for me to start Camaro
under saddle by myself?” she asked, toying with her lemon pie. “I
know that I didn’t do so great with Miss Dellfene, but I think I
could do better with Camaro. I’ve worked with her all her life and
she’s really gentle...”

Silence descended as her father caught her
mother’s eye, and then sipped his coffee thoughtfully.

“The problems we’ve had with Miss Dellfene
were not your fault,” he explained. “You had better luck working
with her than I did. She’s just an unusually temperamental horse. I
can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t start Camaro, as long
as I’m there to watch the first time you saddle her and the first
few times you get on her.”

A rush of relief swept over Emma. Secretly,
she had worried that her father thought the problems with Miss
Dellfene were at least partly her fault and that he wouldn’t trust
her with young horses anymore.

“I thought I might be able to use some of the
tricks I’ve seen Gary use on Miss Dellfene when I start
Camaro.”

“Good idea,” her father said. “Be sure to
turn her out in the arena to burn off energy before you work with
her the first few times.”

“I will,” Emma promised.

* * *

Emma’s parents called her in to the den for a
family conference after supper the following week.

“I called John Brown a few minutes ago to ask
him what he charges for training a cutting horse, and he told me it
was usually four hundred dollars a month plus expenses. Expenses
would include feed and hay, veterinary care, shoeing and a goat or
cattle charge for livestock to train her with. I told him that was
impossible for us. Then he said that he has always wanted to win
the NCHA Futurity, and Miss Dellfene was the only young horse he
had looked at this year that had the potential to do it. He offered
to ride her for two hundred dollars a month if we furnish the feed.
If she does well, it will be good advertising for John as a
trainer. We can bring our own feed over for her to help keep the
cost down. She would need to be shod, and for now he would be
starting her on his own goats. It’s not totally impossible, but it
would sure suck the extra money out of our budget. So what do you
think?”

Long seconds of silence passed before Emma’s
mom spoke.

“I think we’ll probably never have an
opportunity like this again, and if we don’t go for it, we’ll
always wish we had. I could give up movies and getting my hair
frosted for a year. I say let’s go for it!”

“What about you, Emma?” he asked. “Do you
want to cut corners to give Miss Dellfene a chance? If we do this,
she will never be a family horse, and you will probably never get a
chance to ride her, at least not until the Futurity is over. With
all that in mind, what do you think?”

“Would we be able to go to Ft. Worth and
watch her at the Futurity?” Emma asked.

“Absolutely! We wouldn’t miss it. I guess we
might even take you out of school for a day or two
if
she
gets that far; but there’s still a good chance that she won’t turn
out to be good enough.”

“Let’s do it!” Emma said. “I can’t think of
anything more exciting than watching our own horse at the World
Championships!”

“Okay,” her dad said. “I agree with both of
you. I’ll call John back in the morning.”

That night Emma filled her diary pages with
paragraphs of excited speculation about Miss Dellfene and the
Futurity. All she had seen when they brought Miss Dellfene home
from the sale was a hardheaded little mare with crooked knees. Now
they might be in for the most exciting year of their lives. She
knew that her father was secretly excited, too. What had he seen in
that plain little mare that hinted at the ability Emma had not
known was there? She couldn’t wait to tell Kyle.

* * *

At school, Emma told Hannah and Katie about
Miss Dellfene and the man who wanted to train her to be a cutting
horse. She was careful not to talk about it where other kids could
overhear and looked over her shoulder often to be sure no one was
listening. She was having enough trouble with Candi and her friends
without giving them more to talk about. No more graffiti had
appeared on the bathroom walls or drawings on her locker door, and
Emma was beginning to hope that Candi’s interest in tormenting her
was winding down. In whispers, other kids described their own
harassment at the hands of Candi and her friends.

“Everyone hates her,” Barbara Anderson told
Emma. “Even her so-called friends hate her, but they’re afraid if
they don’t go along, her poisonous tongue will turn on
them.
” Barbara was overweight and shy and had taken her
share of abuse until Candi and her friends grew tired of her and
selected another victim.

* * *

“Emma Dean...please come to the office,” a
voice over the intercom announced just before school was out. Emma
was just finishing a test over
To Kill a Mockingbird
, a book
she had loved. The essay questions had been a breeze, and she
quickly finished her conclusion and turned in her paper. On the way
to the office she worried about the possible reasons for this
summons. She was sure her mom wasn’t picking her up early for a
dentist appointment, and the messages in the restroom flitted at
the back of her mind.

“The counselor wants to see you,” the school
secretary said when Emma arrived at the desk.

“Hi, Emma,” the counselor said. “Have a seat
for a minute; I want to talk to you about something.” Her sculpted
hair and stylish clothes made Emma uneasy. What could this perfect
fashion-plate of a woman possibly want with her? She
self-consciously straightened her faded jeans and slid her feet
under the chair to hide her stained sneakers.

The counselor got up from her desk and closed
the office door.

“I hear that some remarks about you have
appeared in the girls’ restroom. You know, they say that in high
school you’re nobody until your name has been immortalized on the
restroom wall. Have you seen it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Emma answered.

“Do you know who’s doing it?”

Emma stared at her scuffed shoes for a
minute. “I think so,” she said.

“Do you want to tell me who it is?”

“I...I...guess not,” Emma answered.

“Emma,” the counselor said. “I already know
who did it. Someone else told me. Someone who thinks you’re getting
some unfair treatment. This person saw Candi Haynes stick a drawing
on your locker door. You’re not the first person Candi Haynes and
her friends have tried to intimidate. She always picks on girls who
are too nice to fight back, that way she’s sure to win. But you’re
stronger than some of her other victims. If it continues and you
decide you’ve had enough, please let me know. I’d love to make that
girl wash the bathroom walls.”

“Okay,” Emma said, issuing a silent thank you
to Mrs. Killen, who must have been determined to help even without
Emma’s cooperation.

* * *

Emma cleared the table that night while her
mom loaded the dishwasher.

“Mom...” she began, “Did you ever get teased
by other kids in school?”

“Sure I did. Why?” her mom asked. “Is
somebody teasing you?”

Emma told her about bumping Candi Haynes with
her backpack and the messages on the wall in the bathroom. She felt
tears stinging behind her eyes as she described the pictures on her
locker door.

Emma’s mom put down the dishtowel and gave
her a long hug.

“Girls like Candi have always been around,
Emma,” she said. “It makes them feel important to ridicule somebody
else in public. What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” Emma said. “I’m afraid if you
get involved it will just make things worse. I’m too old to go
running to my mama with every problem. That would give them one
more thing to tease me about.”

“Sometimes girls like Candi lose interest if
you can pretend not to care what they’re saying about you,” Emma’s
mom said. “If you want me to help, you know I will; but I agree
that it might just make things worse if I called her mother or went
up to school to discuss it with the principal. And I’m absolutely
sure that if we talk to your father about this, he’ll be at school
that very day defending you against the injustices of the
world.”

“Katie thought I should get Dad to drag Candi
Haynes off to jail,” Emma said, “but that would probably stir up a
whole other set of problems.”

“You’re right about that,” Emma’s mom said.
“I hope you’ll tell me if anything else happens though. If that’s
the case, we’ll need to fill your father in. It stinks to be teased
at school, and girls like Candi shouldn’t be allowed to get away
with it.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed.

“What did you say the girl’s last name
is?”

“Haynes,” Emma said.

“Does she have a younger sister?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Well...it might be a coincidence, but the
girl you found in the woods, Darla—I think her last name is
Haynes.”

“Awww. They can’t be sisters,” Emma said. “No
way could someone as mean as Candi be related to that sweet little
girl.”

* * *

Climbing down the steps of the bus the next
afternoon Emma could see that Kyle was already down at the horse
pens filling water troughs. She dumped her backpack on the kitchen
table and ran down to tell him the news about Miss Dellfene.

“Hi, Francine,” he called out cheerfully when
he heard her coming. “Is there a fire or something? I’ve never seen
you run so fast.”

Listen, Stinker,” Emma gasped. “I have to
tell you a story about the society horse!”

When she had finished the story, Kyle dropped
the hose, put his arms around Emma’s waist, and whirled her
around

“That’s fantastic, Josephine,” he hooted.
“Just think, I ran water in the celebrity’s trough! I’ll bet your
dad is almost as excited as you are!”

“You got that right!” Emma answered. “Of
course, he’s worried about how much it will cost. His favorite
pastime is worrying about money.”

When the weekend finally arrived there was a
hint of spring in the air and tiny blades of new grass were pushing
up through the brown stubble in the pastures. Emma’s mom was in the
garden wrestling with the roto-tiller, and Emma strolled
reluctantly out to see if her mom had any chores for her to do.

“Is there something you want me to do to
help?” she yelled above the hiccupping roar of the roto-tiller.

Her mom let go of the clutch so the tines
stopped turning and throttled it down to an idle.

“Not right now, honey,” she said. “I need to
get it all tilled up first and throw out some fertilizer, but this
afternoon I’m going to the nursery and get tomato plants and some
pretty, spring flowers, and I’d like you to come along to help me
pick them out.”

“Okay,” Emma answered. “Is it alright if I
ride Ditto down to the front pasture while you’re finishing?”

“Sure,” her mom said. “If you promise to be
careful, and don’t stay too long!”

Emma had always loved riding in the pastures
by herself. From the top of a horse she saw things she didn’t see
from the window of her dad’s pickup. Once, as she sat quietly under
a shade tree on Ditto, a red fox had come within a few feet of
them, its bottlebrush tail matted with burrs. Wild animals were
used to seeing horses in the pasture. Several broodmares lived at
the ranch and raised colts every year. When the colts were two
years old, Emma’s father began training them, and moved them to the
pens below the house. Camaro was the only two-year old this year,
but there were two yearlings in the pasture, three older mares, and
two new colts were expected to arrive in March. Thoroughbred
breeders wanted their colts to arrive soon after January 1st, the
official birthday of all registered horses, but Emma’s father
didn’t want to have to deliver colts in winter weather and thought
they did better if they didn’t arrive until the grass began to
green up.

Emma cleaned Ditto up and threw her saddle on
him. He was in the mood for adventure, too, and started down the
pickup trail to the front pasture, nodding his head in rhythm with
his swinging walk. They crossed the long front pasture to the far
tank and rode along the edge of the water, making the bullfrogs
jump in with loud splashes. A few wild ducks had taken off from the
water when they saw her coming, making her glad again that her
parents had decided not to lease their ranch for hunting. She rode
Ditto out into ankle-deep water and loosened the reins so he could
suck the cold fresh water in around his bit. As she sat on his
broad back, she imagined how exciting it would be if Miss Dellfene
won the NCHA Futurity. It would make the front page of the paper in
their small town. Candi Haynes and her carbon-copy friends couldn’t
help noticing that Emma’s parents had won some serious money with
one of their horses. Emma wouldn’t look like such a backwoods
hillbilly then. She couldn’t help grinning at the prospect.

On the way back, she rode up a dry wash.
Ditto climbed the bank with powerful lunges and then settled into
an easy trot heading for the house. The last half mile she pulled
him back to a walk so he wouldn’t be too warm when they got
back.

Kyle was scooping out the shed where the
weaned calves were kept. He came over to where Emma was unsaddling
Ditto.

“Hi, Marilyn. Did you have a nice ride?”