Part 2
“A little,” Caleb said. “I thought she’d quit once it was snug.”
Ruth didn’t answer. She went to call Dr. Shaw, and Caleb swung the gate wide. He stepped away from the opening. Tess remained by the rail, her head turned toward the yard without moving into it.
The veterinarian found no clear sign that the fall had caused a new injury. That was as much reassurance as she would give. Pain could still be part of the mare’s reaction, and the tack was to stay off until they understood more.
Caleb put the saddle away. When he brought Tess hay, he set it down well short of her and left the pen before she approached.
At supper, Ruth moved his history teacher’s note away from a damp ring on the table. The account book was beside it.
“I agreed to this because you were going to take care,” she said.
“I was trying to.”
“Then what did the shaking tell you?”
He stared at the edge of his plate. “I saw it. I went ahead.”
Ruth ran her thumb over a frayed corner of the book. Caleb nearly mentioned the horses Walt had misjudged. His grandmother had helped care for those animals too. He put his fork down without saying it.
For eight days he fed Tess, cleaned her paddock, and watched from outside the fence. He didn’t bring out a blanket to see whether she had changed her mind.
His schoolwork took longer to straighten out. He fell asleep during history and missed another algebra assignment. One afternoon he arrived home to find his books arranged at the cleared end of the kitchen table. Ruth had already carried the first water buckets.
He finished the work she had set out. Then he caught up with her at the last paddock and took the full bucket from her hand.
Amos’s hay truck arrived in November, leaving deep tire marks beside the barn. Before they unloaded, he walked Caleb along the fence that needed rebuilding in exchange for part of the feed. Several corner posts were rotten below ground; the work would have to be done before a hard freeze.
Back in the yard, Jasper approached the barn and stopped. Caleb waited at the entrance with an empty pail.
“Your granddad didn’t keep at a thing just because he’d started,” Amos said.
“I’m not pulling on him.” Caleb tightened his fingers around the wire handle.
Amos studied the horse, then reached for a bale. “All right. What’s your next idea?”
Caleb helped lift the hay without answering.
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Russell brought a map to the kitchen. He spread it beside Ruth’s account book and traced a proposed entrance from the township road to his stable property. To build it, he wanted to buy the Mercer farm.
The written offer would pay Ruth’s debts and leave enough for a modest house in town. Russell had also included an offer of work for Caleb after graduation. There were trainers at his place who could teach him the business.
Ruth asked about the boundaries, the timing, and the amount. Russell answered without hurrying her. He didn’t suggest that the horses outside would soon support the place.
“You don’t need to decide today,” he said. “I can leave it open through February.”
After he drove away, Ruth put the paper beneath the flour canister. Each morning, when she moved the canister to make room for her book, Caleb saw the corner of the offer.
He quit taking a halter when he visited Jasper. Out in the field, the gelding would walk over and stand while Caleb rubbed the base of his mane. Beside a stall, he kept his distance.
Caleb began changing one thing at a time. He stood farther from the doorway. He moved a feed pan. He left gates wide instead of catching them halfway on their chains.
One morning, Ruth was bringing hay through the barn with both aisle doors open. Jasper followed the smell toward a bucket beyond the far entrance. He ventured into the shade, stopped, and looked behind him. There was room to turn, and no one stood at his shoulder.
The next morning, with the far end shut, he wouldn’t cross the first threshold.
Caleb sat on an upturned tub and opened a school notebook. He couldn’t write down what had happened to Jasper before the sale; he didn’t know. He could write down where he himself had stood and when he had shortened the lead. Until then, most of his thinking had started with the moment the horse refused.
When Dr. Shaw returned to check Tess and the sorrel, Caleb handed her the notebook.
She read it leaning against the feed-room door. Then she had him watch the sorrel while she examined his movement. There was soreness in the front foot, but holding it off the ground also shifted more of his weight onto a tender shoulder. She showed Caleb how to care for the foot without requiring him to hold that painful balance.
Tess offered no equally tidy explanation. Dr. Shaw wanted more observation and no saddle.
“Don’t cross pain off your list because fear is on it,” she told him.
For several weeks, Caleb gave none of the horses a formal lesson. He watched them turn in the paddocks and cross the uneven ground near the water tubs. He noticed which side they offered when a person approached, and how far away that person was when they stopped eating.
The notebook filled unevenly. A description of one afternoon ran over a whole page. Beneath another date he wrote only that Tess had stood still, and he had nearly counted that as being comfortable.
Ruth started carrying a folding chair to the fence after her diner shift. She sat with her coat buttoned and her hands tucked under her arms while Caleb did chores.
Once, he lifted a lead from its hook and headed toward Jasper. Ruth pointed across the paddock. The gelding had hay hanging from his mouth, but his jaw had stopped moving.
Caleb returned the rope to the hook. After a while Jasper began chewing again.
Feed bills continued arriving through December. By Christmas, Dr. Shaw was pleased with the weight on the two thinnest horses. Neither was ready for riding, but their remaining needs were manageable enough to discuss homes where they wouldn’t be asked to carry anyone. Ruth knew one family who might be interested. Amos knew another.
He also offered a separate paddock at his larger place for two of the other horses while they searched for homes. The board was less than a commercial stable would charge. It still went into Ruth’s book as a bill.
Nine of the original eleven remained at the farm.
One evening Caleb found Russell’s offer lying on top of the accounts. Ruth had placed a pencil across the page.
“Were you going to tell me?” he asked.
“Tell you what?”
“That you might take it.”
“I said I’d consider it.”
“We were supposed to talk about the horses in January.”
“And we will.” She moved the pencil. “The land is mine, Caleb. That decision comes in February.”
Outside, the horses stood along the fence waiting for evening feed. He had brought them home on her signature. Amos sent his bills to her. Dr. Shaw called her when something went wrong.
“I didn’t know enough to give you spring,” he said.
“No, you didn’t.” Ruth opened the book to a fresh page and pushed it toward him. “Let’s use what we know now.”
In January, Caleb carried a small forkful of hay to the far end of the barn and opened both aisle doors. Jasper was loose in the fenced yard. Caleb took a place along the wall, well away from either exit.
The gelding reached the near doorway and put one forefoot onto the packed aisle. He stayed that way long enough for Caleb’s toes to grow cold. At last he stepped in, crossed the barn, and went out through the other end.
The following day took less waiting. On the third, Jasper came halfway in, turned, and walked out the way he had entered. A few minutes later, he tried again.
Ruth watched from the yard. A lead hung beside Caleb’s shoulder, untouched.
That afternoon, a truck eased off the township road and stopped at the fence. Russell sat behind the wheel while Jasper wandered out through the far door and eventually returned through the near one.
Caleb came over to the truck.
“One horse,” Russell said. “There are eight more here, two at Amos’s, and February’s coming.”
“I haven’t forgotten her deadline.”
Russell’s hand tightened briefly on the wheel. “Make sure you remember her bills.”
He pulled back onto the road before Caleb found an answer.
Ruth had the newest county notice waiting at supper. They had been allowed to pay the overdue taxes in installments, and the first payment would soon be due.
“Jasper went through three times,” Caleb told her.
“I watched him.” She laid the notice between their plates. “Which horses could leave by February? Give me the truth…”
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