They Said I Did Not Belong, So I Won Anyway novel · Chapter 3 of 5

Chapter 3: The Yard That Still Says My Name

Mara visits Ike at Peregrine Hill, settles a rejected young horse, and earns his trust before he shows her an old Blackthorn feed log.

Ike threw a curry comb at my chest before I could say hello.

I caught it against my jacket.

'Mara Quinn,' he said. 'If you still have hands, meet the bay in stall four.'

The comb smelled of old leather and horse sweat. The handle had split near the teeth and been wrapped with black tape.

Peregrine Hill had never owned anything that matched.

'Good morning to you, too,' I said.

'You can have manners after he stops trying to remove people's fingers.'

Ike turned toward the barn, already moving in his cracked paddock boots. He had worn those boots since before I was old enough to drive.

The yard sat forty minutes from Blackthorn, past two tobacco fields and a church with a crooked sign. The gravel was wet from last night's rain.

I followed him inside.

The barn smelled of hay, mud, and the warm bodies of horses waiting for breakfast. Three young thoroughbreds watched us through the bars.

The bay in stall four stood with his head high and his ears flat.

A strip of blue tape covered the latch where somebody had tried to fix it.

'He has bitten two riders,' Ike said. 'The first one quit. The second one says the horse is dangerous.'

'Was the second one any good?'

'He had a large opinion of himself.'

That meant no.

Ike slid the stall door open and stepped aside.

The bay pressed his hindquarters into the far corner. His right eye showed white. His mouth worked against the bit hanging from the wall.

He was afraid of the doorway.

'You told me he was dangerous,' I said.

'I told you what the second rider said. I also told you where he is.'

I looked at the horse's front feet. His left hoof carried more weight than the right. His right fetlock was clean. No swelling. No heat.

The problem was higher.

'He doesn't want hands over his head.'

'Neither do I. Still happens.'

Ike put the lead rope in my palm.

'No saddle,' he said. 'Walk him first. If he tries to bite, let him miss.'

I stepped into the stall.

The bay threw his head toward me. His teeth snapped shut beside my sleeve.

I did not jerk away.

His nostrils widened. He smelled the rain on my jacket, the other horses, and the oil from the barn door.

There was a pale mark under his jaw where a tight halter had rubbed him raw.

'Easy,' I said.

'He doesn't speak English,' Ike said from the aisle.

'He understands bad timing.'

The bay shifted his weight again. His right hind leg trembled once, then locked.

He expected pain.

I lowered the rope and turned my shoulder toward him. I gave him room to see my hands.

He watched the left one.

I let it hang.

His head came down a fraction.

I waited until his front foot touched the straw, then moved one step toward the open door.

He followed with his eyes but kept his body still.

'You are going to make me stand here all morning?' Ike asked.

'You have tea in the office. It will survive.'

'It has already survived your opinions. I am less confident about the morning.'

The bay took one step.

I stopped.

He took another, then swung his head toward my shoulder. His teeth caught the leather strap instead of my arm.

The strap tore.

Ike did not move.

I released the broken end and picked up the spare rope from the hook.

'He bites when the line goes tight,' I said.

'He bites when people pull.'

'He bites when people pull before he knows where they want him.'

I threaded the rope through the halter and left a long loop. The bay shook his head, but the pressure disappeared.

His ears came forward.

I walked backward into the aisle.

He came after me.

The other horses started kicking their doors. He flinched at the noise and lifted his head again.

I turned him toward the wall before he could spin.

His shoulder brushed my ribs. The impact pushed me into the boards.

I kept my hands low.

He had room to run. That was the part he needed.

He stopped trying to leave.

Ike rubbed his jaw with one finger and looked at the horse instead of me.

'What do you see?'

'Fear. A sore mouth. A rider who kept asking for a turn before he had one.'

'And the leg?'

'Right rein is stiff. He is not lame.'

Ike's eyes moved to the bay's right shoulder.

'You found that from the ground.'

'He is protecting the turn. He does not trust the bit.'

'You want to ride him?'

'I came here to work.'

Ike reached for the saddle blanket hanging outside the stall.

'You came here in a leather jacket.'

'It was raining.'

'It is still raining.'

'Then he can be grateful I wore boots.'

Ike gave me the blanket.

I rubbed it along the bay's shoulder and stopped before the sore patch under his jaw. The horse stretched his neck toward my hand.

His teeth did not show.

The first lesson Ike had given me was not to win a horse's trust. It was to stop making the horse spend it.

Ike brought out a plain saddle and set it on the stall door.

'No Blackthorn tack?' I asked.

'Peregrine Hill cannot afford to insult you with clean equipment.'

The girth had been mended with a strip of old canvas. One stirrup leather was longer than the other.

At Blackthorn, a groom had checked my boots before letting me near the tack room. The race secretary had checked my license twice and charged me two hundred dollars for entering an injured rider's place.

Here, Ike handed me a saddle that had already failed inspection somewhere else.

I preferred it.

'He will buck when you mount,' Ike said.

'Probably.'

'He will do it harder if you expect him to apologize.'

I carried the saddle into the stall.

The bay raised his head and backed away.

I set the saddle down.

Then I stepped out and waited.

Ike watched from the aisle.

'You can leave,' he said. 'The horse has already rejected you.'

'He rejected the saddle.'

'That is a technical distinction.'

'It is the only kind that matters with horses.'

I went back in without the saddle. I touched the bay's shoulder, then his ribs, then the place where the girth would sit.

His skin twitched under my fingers.

I stopped before the twitch became a kick.

The bay looked at me.

I moved away first.

That earned me three steps from him.

Ike brought the saddle closer. We stopped whenever the horse's feet went stiff. We started again when the stiffness left.

No one hurried us.

That was the difference between a training yard and a room full of men watching a woman fail.

By the time the saddle settled against the bay's back, his ears had stopped flattening.

I tightened the girth one hole at a time.

He blew through his nose and stamped once.

'He hates you,' Ike said.

'He has standards.'

Ike's mouth shifted. It was not quite a smile.

I took the bay to the small round pen behind the barn. The mud reached over the soles of my boots.

A broken rail leaned against the fence. Someone had tied a feed sack over the gap.

I mounted from the block.

The bay dropped his shoulder before I had both feet in the stirrups.

I kept my hands low and gave him the rein.

He surged forward.

I let him move.

His first buck came near the fence. His back rose under me, hard and quick, but he had nowhere to throw his head.

I did not pull.

He landed and ran.

I stayed centered, following his neck instead of fighting it.

Ike stood outside the rail with his arms folded.

The bay tried again at the far end.

I gave him more room.

He ran three strides, found no pain, and slowed on his own.

His right rein stayed tight. I did not force the turn.

I rode the larger circle until his mouth softened.

Mud struck the back of my legs. My jacket picked up the smell of wet horse.

The bay lowered his head.

I shortened the rein by inches.

He turned right.

Then left.

The movement was ugly, but it was clean.

'Bring him down to a walk,' Ike called.

I did.

The bay's ears turned back toward me.

He was listening.

I slid from the saddle and kept hold of the reins. He stood beside me, sides moving hard, his nose close to my shoulder.

Ike opened the gate.

'He will do that again tomorrow,' he said.

'Then I will ride him tomorrow.'

'Blackthorn may not give you a horse tomorrow.'

'Blackthorn does not decide what I can ride.'

'Victor does.'

'Victor decides what gets entered. He does not decide what I understand.'

Ike took the reins from me.

The bay did not bite him. He tied the horse loosely and checked the sore mark beneath the jaw.

'You settled him,' he said.

'I gave him time.'

'You read him before he moved.'

'That is the job.'

'No. That is the part most riders never learn.'

He led the bay back into the stall. The horse turned once and put his nose against my wrist.

I scratched between his eyes.

'He has a name?' I asked.

'His papers say Morning Debt.'

'That is terrible.'

'He was born during tax season.'

'That is worse.'

Ike poured water into a dented metal bucket and pushed it beneath the horse's muzzle.

The bay drank.

I watched the bucket, the horse, and the dark wet mark along the feed line.

'Have you seen a Blackthorn horse come through here recently?'

Ike kept his hand on the bucket handle.

'You are asking about a horse.'

'Yes.'

'You have questions about the stable.'

'I have questions about a horse.'

He looked at me then.

I let the silence stay where it was.

A truck passed on the road beyond the paddock. The barn windows shook in their frames.

Ike turned back to Morning Debt.

'One came here in spring,' he said. 'Blackthorn sent him for conditioning after a bad race.'

'Was he lame?'

'No.'

'Was he treated?'

'He had a faint medicinal smell on the feed bucket.'

I kept my hand on the bay's warm forehead.

'You remember that?'

'I remember anything that makes a horse refuse grain.'

'What happened?'

'Blackthorn picked him up before I could get a vet out.'

Ike wiped his palm on his trousers.

'People with money dislike questions that cost them time.'

The smell after my win had been bitter and thin. It had clung to the empty cup Celeste handed me before the photograph.

I had thought the cup was another small insult.

Maybe it had been close to the horses first.

Ike walked to the office at the end of the barn.

'You want the plan?' he asked.

'I want a ride plan.'

'You ride Morning Debt here before dawn, twice a week. I will put his times and feed changes in writing. If Blackthorn wants you for the championship, you bring this horse's notes with you.'

'You are giving me a horse.'

'I am giving you work.'

'People at Blackthorn call that a distinction.'

'People at Blackthorn call many things by the wrong name.'

He opened the office door.

Inside, the walls held old race charts, farrier invoices, and a kettle stained brown around the rim. A stack of feed logs leaned against the filing cabinet.

Ike pulled out the oldest one.

'Before you ask,' he said, 'I am not telling Victor anything.'

'I did not ask you to.'

'You were about to.'

'I was about to ask if the entry had a date.'

'It has a date.'

He set the log on the desk and opened it with both hands. The pages were soft from use, their corners dark with dust and feed.

My name was still on the Blackthorn schedule in my phone. My sister's tuition deadline sat beneath it.

Six weeks. One full season. No suspension.

Ike pressed a finger to a line halfway down the page.

The Blackthorn horse's name was written in blue ink beside the feed change, and beneath it someone had circled the words that should not have been there.

The paper carried the same faint medicinal smell.

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