The Georges and the Jewels (19 page)

He handed me the rope and said, “Jake seen the colt?”

“I think he’s coming this week.”

“Good, because you got to keep a colt’s feet in good trim so his feet and legs will develop right. Let’s pick his feet up.”

“Sometimes I do that when I’m rubbing him down. I rub the chamois down his legs to his feet and then I pick the foot up.”

Jem did the same thing, only with his hands—he rubbed from the shoulder downward, down the forearm and then over the knee. When Jack seemed uncomfortable, he stopped his hands moving, but he didn’t move away, and then Jack would relax, and Jem would move his hands downward again. He didn’t get all the way to his feet at first, just a little closer every time, until after a few tries, he reached a foot and asked Jack to pick it up and stand for a moment on three legs. It was a short moment, though. And then he would drop the foot.

Jem stood up straight and looked at me. He said, “Now, you don’t put the foot down. That can be irritating to him. You just let the foot go and he’ll stand up on it.” He worked his way around the colt, doing this with each foot. I think because of what I’d done with the chamois, Jack didn’t mind, really. By the time I did it myself, Jack was standing up like a pro and letting me hold his foot up for maybe thirty seconds. Thirty seconds is a long time when you are holding up a horse’s foot and waiting to drop it.

After that, we petted Jack and let him go. Jem said to me, “You’ve done a good job with him so far, Abby, because he likes you and he lets you be around him. He’s half doing what you say because you say it and half doing it because it’s interesting to him. That’s not bad. But soon he’s going to be a big fellow, and you’re going to want to rely on him to behave
himself—not to get distracted or worked up about things that happen. So you need to work with him every day and give him good habits.”

I nodded.

“Let’s put him in with the geldings and see what happens.”

I must have looked shocked, because he smiled and said, “There’s only three of them. If they seem overbearing, we’ll grab him and take him out. But he needs to understand other horses, or he’ll live a sad life.”

I could see this all too well. It was rather like seventh grade.

All we had to do was stand there in order for Jack to come back to us, looking for something, as always. When Jack got to me, I patted him while he snuffled my hands and my hair. Then I slipped the halter on, showing off a little that I could do it smoothly rather than roughly. Then I turned and walked away, and Jack walked along with me toward the gate. Jem said, “Pause, just because you feel like pausing. He should pause, too.” He did. But when we went out of the gate, the colt was all eyes. And when he saw that I was leading him toward the gelding pasture, I felt him fill up, sort of like a balloon, and begin to jog. Jem said, “Turn him. He doesn’t get to do the most interesting thing unless he can contain himself.” As we were passing the hay barn, Jem grabbed a few flakes of hay.

The three geldings were maybe a hundred feet out into the pasture, nibbling grass, but they looked up as soon as they saw us coming, and Socks George threw up his head and gave a whinny. Jack answered. Luckily, though, they just stood there staring as I brought Jack to the gate, and Jem opened it. Jem said, “Pretend there’s nothing important going on. Just walk
him through the gate and out a ways, and then turn him and get him to lower his head so you can take off the halter.” I did.

Jack stood staring at the big horses, his ears pricked, and then, when they came toward him, he started smacking his lips together, which made a little noise. His ears went from being pricked to simply flopping to the side. He dropped his head a little. Jem said, “See what his lips are doing, the way he’s showing his teeth a little? He’s saying to them, ‘I’m a baby.’”

“He never seems to think of himself as a baby.”

“Well, he is, and he knows it. And they know it, too, so they expect him to act like a baby.”

“What do you mean?”

“Low man on the totem pole.”

“Oh.”

Now the geldings came over to him, Black George in the lead and the other two right behind him. Then Black George first, Ornery George, and Socks George sniffed noses with him. They sniffed the rest of him while he stood quietly, occasionally flapping his lips. He didn’t jump or move or kick out. He tried to sniff their noses, too, but carefully, so as not to cause offense. Ornery George gave him a little bite on the neck. I gasped, but the bite didn’t seem mean exactly, more like he was trying it out. Jack flicked his ears backward, but he didn’t pin them, as if he were saying, “Okay, bite me if you have to.”

Then he made a wrong move, as if he couldn’t contain himself and just didn’t know what he was doing. He leapt up and struck out with his front hoof. Black George squealed and his ears went back. Jack lowered his head immediately. I said, “They’re kind of bossy.”

Jem said, “Not really. The three of them, it’s more of a club
than a dictatorship.” We continued to watch, but Jem made no move to go in or rescue him.

As for me, I did want him to fit into the club, but I knew that the club could change—would change, if Daddy had his way, and that the members of the club could get meaner. One thing I loved about Jack, and one of the reasons that I watched him sometimes, was that he didn’t know what the rules were. He ran, he leapt, he snorted, he stared at geckos and ground squirrels, he pawed things and investigated. He whinnied and squealed and came running, or went running. He was willing to try anything out, and he looked beautiful doing it. His neck arched, his feet lifted, his tail went up, his nostrils flared. A breeze might get him going, or a bird taking off from a branch, or the sight of the other horses galloping. He was by himself, so he had to make his own fun, and we all knew that the fun that kids sometimes make for themselves isn’t that good for them. Still, he was the only creature on the place who did what he wanted to when he wanted to do it. I liked watching.

Jem said, “Well, it’s going pretty well, I think.”

Black George seemed to lose interest. He walked away. The others followed. Jack stood there, then he followed.

Jem said, “If he follows, he’s saying that they are the bosses. And that’s what we want him to say. The bosses pretend not to notice the underlings, and the underlings show that they are always aware of the bosses. That’s how horse herds work. So you watch for a bit. You’ll see that now they will all pretend to ignore him, but they’ll test him a little bit to see if he’s paying attention.” And it was true—just a bit after Jem said that,
Socks George trotted past Jack, kind of close to him, in fact, without seeming to notice him, and Jack stepped back to let him go by and then turned toward him. Jem said, “The chestnut just showed who was boss, and Jack just showed that he understands that.”

I said, “What if they gang up on him—”

“My thought is that these horses aren’t going to do that. They’re pretty consistent, and they have a pretty stable group—”

“Club.”

“Yeah. I don’t think they’ll kick him—that’s why I didn’t put him in with the mares. Mares kick more than geldings. He looks like he knows his place. That’s not to say that later he won’t decide that he isn’t a baby anymore. But he knows he’s a baby now, and they will remind him of that fact with a nip here and there, so don’t be surprised if you come out and find a few bites on him.” He turned and looked at me. He said, “The geldings are doing a job that you would have to do, Abby. It’s a job that has to be done, especially with a bright colt like this fellow.”

“Like school.”

“Like school.”

He said, “Okay, now let’s give everyone some hay. It’s almost feeding time, and at feeding time, horses get a little worried. Once they all have plenty of hay and the colt doesn’t bother them at theirs, then everyone will settle down.”

We set out five piles. Jack started out at the farthest-away pile, mouthing the hay and eating a little. Then he moved to the next one closest to the other geldings. Ornery George looked at him once and flicked his ears backward, but then they all settled to eating, and I let out that long breath I had been holding.

J
EM LEFT SHORTLY AFTER THAT, AND
I
FELT HIS REASSURANCE ALL
through supper and all through my homework (and anyway, I went out to check on the geldings two or three times before I went to bed). After she fed Jack his bran mixture, Mom came in and told me they would be all right, and Daddy said that if I was worried, then I should turn it over to the Lord, because then the best thing would happen. I nodded, but we both knew that the “best thing” could always be a trial of some sort, which I frankly didn’t think I was ready for. But even in the morning everyone was fine. I got up early and watched them before school. I saw that Jack did his romping and playing a little off by himself, but the geldings watched him with pricked ears, like indulgent uncles. He watched them, too. When they got
their hay and settled down to eat it, he stood in the line like they did, switching his little tail (I always set the hay piles out in a long line, each pile about ten feet from the others). Perfectly relaxed.

But I was so tired from waking up in the night and worrying about him that I fell asleep on the school bus, which I would have thought was an impossible thing to do. When we got to school, I woke up, but I was sleepy all through homeroom and first period. And it wasn’t until I went to the girls’ bathroom during the break that I realized what I looked like. My hair was flat on one side and sticking out on the other side and my blouse was wrinkled, too, because I had picked it out of my closet without really looking at it in the dark. What a mess. No wonder Stella wanted to make sure I would wear something nice to her party.

By lunch, I had more or less fixed myself. At least Stella and Gloria didn’t say anything. They were talking about the mission open house and potluck that night. Gloria’s mom was going to bring steamed artichokes with a special sauce and Stella’s mom was going to bring the safest thing, chocolate chip cookies. Stella told Gloria that her mom was weird and Gloria shrugged, as if to say, Well, we all know that. Then Stella got up to go to the girls’ bathroom to do something, and even though I expected Gloria to follow her, she didn’t. She leaned toward me and said, “Guess what?”

“What?”

“Remember that ink thing? When Joan got the ink on her skirt?”

I sat very still and said, “Yeah, sure.”

“Somebody sent Joan an anonymous note and said it was Stella, that she did it on purpose with the cartridge from her pen, and Joan’s mom showed the note to Mr. Canning.”

I decided to be very careful. I said, “Do you think Stella did that? It’s a really mean thing to do.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Gloria, tossing her head. “I bet Joan wrote the note herself and sent it to herself, then showed it to her mom to blame it on Stella. That’s what I think. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

She sounded like she believed that, but really, I didn’t feel like I could figure anything out anymore. I said, “Don’t you think things were easier before Stella came into our class?”

Gloria shrugged. She said, “Not as fun, though. More boring.” We got up, put away our trays, and went into study hall. While I did my work, I thought about the fact that Jem Jones would be coming for one more day, on Saturday. It seemed like a treasure to know that.

Everything was normal that night, which was a Wednesday. We went to our chapel, and I gave thanks that I didn’t have to talk to Daddy about the missions and whether I had witnessed to Kyle and the other kids about the wrongful history of the Catholic Church and all of that. That Wednesday, we happened to sing a lot. Daddy sang one of my favorites, one called “Deep River,” that he didn’t sing much. Then Mr. Hazen sang one called “Lonely Road” that I hadn’t heard before. And we all sang all the verses of “Amazing Grace,” including the one about the earth dissolving like snow. On the way home in the car, Daddy and Mom did a duet of “How Can I Keep from Singing?” which is one of my favorites of all time. When we
checked on the horses before going to bed, everyone was quiet and happy, and Black George was standing by Jack, as if he had decided the colt was his boy.

No one was happy when I got to school in the morning, though. The Big Four were gathered around Joan’s locker, gossiping in low tones, Brian Connelly was absent, and Stella and Gloria didn’t have much to say. I went to algebra, then we had assembly, and in assembly, I found out what was wrong. Joan had worn her add-a-pearl necklace to the potluck. It had thirteen pearls on it and was very valuable, though Mr. Canning didn’t say how much it was worth. Joan had been careless with the necklace, Mr. Canning admitted that—she hadn’t noticed until she was in the girls’ bathroom that it was no longer around her neck. Everyone had looked high and low. The necklace could not be found, and so it could only be assumed that someone had picked it up. That someone was expected to turn it in. Once again, I was glad I hadn’t gone to the potluck.

For lunch, I had a sandwich made of a slice of the pot roast Mom had made for the prayer meeting. That was good, too.