Part 5
Lou called the next morning. The sponsor had offered to proceed with a shorter presentation: Sam could speak beside the arena while Mae, once her ankle healed, brought Rook briefly into view. They would use the old clip on a screen. It would keep the contribution in place.
“Mae doesn’t want to lead him there,” Sam said.
“I haven’t asked her to. I could handle him.”
Sam looked at his notes spread across the desk. On one page, Mae had marked the day Rook stood for a stranger at the fence. On the next, Sam had written that Rook refused the same fence when three visitors came at once. Both observations belonged to the horse Lou was being asked to present.
“What would you tell them the clip shows?” Sam asked.
“That he approached you.”
“With all those people watching, they’ll think he’ll do it again.”
Lou was quiet. Through the phone, Sam could hear a horse moving in a stall and the low scrape of a shovel.
“We can explain it,” Lou said.
“Some people will hear you.” Sam turned over the page of notes. “I helped make it look simple. I don’t want to do that again.”
Lou told him the contribution mattered. Without it, he would have to send Rook to High Basin when the foster period ended. Rook would be cared for there, but Sam would not be able to visit after school.
Sam had known about High Basin for weeks. Hearing the name as a real destination was different. He looked at the Thursday notes he had not yet finished. Mae had wanted the banner elsewhere. He had wanted it in the picture.
“I’ll help you with the event,” he told Lou. “I can talk about the other horses. Leave Rook out of it.”
The sponsor wanted Rook. Lou did not pretend otherwise.
Sam’s mother drove him to the barn that afternoon. He asked her to wait until he had spoken with Lou, then changed his mind as they reached the office. “Come in,” he said.
Lou had the event plan on his desk. Sam asked him to remove both his name and Rook’s from it. Lou pushed the paper aside and explained the quieter version once more. Sam listened. It was safer than the rehearsal had been, and Lou had put thought into it. Sam still remembered how easily the first clip had traveled without its fence.
“I won’t be in it,” Sam said.
Lou sat back. “I wish you’d told me that before I spoke to them.”
“Me too.”
There was no anger in Lou’s face, which made the disappointment harder to bear. Sam had wanted this man to see him doing something well again. Lou had given him the chance to return, even after the video drew more attention than either of them expected.
His mother waited beside the office door. Lou looked at her but addressed Sam. “High Basin has room. I’ll call them tonight.”
On the way out, Sam stopped at Rook’s stall. Mae was seated on a stool outside it, cleaning a brush with one foot propped up. She listened while he told her what he and Lou had decided.
“You talked to him yourself,” she said.
“You were right about the August event. I told Lou not to put Rook in it.”
Mae put down the brush. “I’m glad. Rook doesn’t need me pretending I can take him anywhere yet.”
Sam offered her his notes for High Basin. She asked to read them first, then took the pages inside to add her own observations. When she came back, she handed him a copy.
His mother was waiting by the van. She watched while he transferred into the passenger seat, then asked whether he wanted help bringing the chair in. Sam said yes. She folded it, loaded it, and came around to the driver’s side.
Lou held the August open house without them. Sam did not watch the photographs as they appeared online. A week later, Mae sent him a picture taken at the barn before Rook left: the gelding standing at the open side of the trailer, with room to look into it and room to back away. Her message said he had taken his time…
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