Part 3
“Not one tomorrow.” Caleb drew the notice closer and read the amount. “Maybe the two that needed weight. We could ask those families to visit. But I want you there, and Dr. Shaw.”
Ruth uncapped her pen. She wrote down the names slowly, leaving space beneath each one.
“Those are calls I can make,” she said.
Each family came twice. Caleb walked the horses out, explained the injuries they knew about, and described the work neither animal was ready to do. Dr. Shaw spoke with the prospective owners herself. Both families were looking for horses they could care for without riding them.
The two left in February. Their sale covered the first tax installment and part of what they owed for hay. Seven horses remained in the Mercer paddocks, with two more still boarding at Amos’s. Caleb went there every week to see them.
The approaching deadline brought the account book back to the center of the table. Ruth included Amos’s boarding charges and the barn repairs they had put off. Caleb added the feed they would need before the grass came in. They worked through what might be possible if they placed the remaining horses carefully and didn’t fill every empty paddock again.
Ruth checked the addition twice. Then she ruled a line beneath it and called Russell.
He came on the last Saturday in February. Caleb was washing a mug at the sink when Ruth brought the offer to the table.
“I’m keeping the place for now,” she said. “If the horses haven’t begun carrying their share by next winter, you’ll hear from me.”
Russell looked at the figures beside her hand. “Suppose they do?”
“You’ll have to find another entrance.”
She pushed his offer across the table.
He folded it and put it in his coat. “I’d still be interested next year. Land prices may have something to say about the number.”
“They usually do,” Ruth said.
Caleb kept the water running until he realized the mug was clean.
After Russell left, Ruth came to the sink and shut off the tap. “I won’t carry another year like this one. If that’s where we are, I sell.”
Caleb dried the mug and put it away. “I heard you.”
The little bay needed most of his attention that spring. He had named her Clover because she would search the plants along the back fence while fresh hay waited behind her.
Dr. Shaw helped him work out what her shoulder could tolerate. Caleb walked her over easy ground, watched for a shortened step, and checked how freely she moved the next morning. On days when she was stiff, he did less. The notebook acquired grass stains from being set on fence posts.
By May, Clover could negotiate the rough ridge trail without rushing over the stones. Caleb led her first. After another examination, Dr. Shaw cleared her for brief rides that increased only as she stayed comfortable.
At the auction, people had looked past her toward taller horses. On the ridge, Caleb could duck a branch without dragging her off balance, and her small feet found places between exposed roots.
Amos borrowed her to inspect pasture six miles up the ridge. He brought her back after dark and removed the tack himself. Caleb watched her cross the yard, then ran a hand along her shoulder.
“I’d like to buy her,” Amos said.
Caleb bent to check a buckle that was already loose. He had spent months wishing someone would see what she could do.
Amos had grass, sound fences, and the sense to call the veterinarian. Caleb knew all that. He asked him to ride her once more before they settled the sale.
The check was for $3,300. Ruth applied it to hay debt and more of the taxes, then entered Amos’s address beside Clover’s name. Neither of them needed directions to his farm.
For several mornings, Caleb carried feed toward her usual place before remembering. Once, after supper, he called Amos.
“She giving you any trouble?”
“Only if you ask my old gelding. She’s decided the shade belongs to her.”
Caleb turned the receiver cord around his finger. “And she’s eating?”
“Like a horse I paid good money for.”
Later that year, the two boarding at Amos’s moved into permanent homes. Two more left the Mercer farm with owners who had spent time there learning what their care required. With Clover and the first pair, that made seven placed out of the eleven.
Jasper and Tess remained. So did the old roan, who was content keeping another horse company, and the brown gelding, whose hoof still demanded regular care.
There were fewer noses waiting at the fence now. Caleb could finish evening chores, come inside, and get through his schoolwork without Ruth carrying all the water. Sometimes, with a book open in front of him, he would hear one horse call and wait for the others to answer.
He graduated the following spring. After that, they began taking a small number of paying horses. Ruth handled the accounts and talked with owners before they unloaded. Caleb showed people his notes. He explained what he could examine and where he would have to wait before telling them more.
The first call that fall came from a woman with a mare who refused to load. There was a show in six weeks, and she wanted to reserve a place.
“I could begin with her,” Caleb said. “I wouldn’t sell you those six weeks as a finish date.”
The woman was quiet for a moment. “What date would you give me?”
“I’d need to meet the mare before I gave you one.”
She said she would think about it. The phone didn’t ring again.
Ruth noted the fee they wouldn’t collect beneath the roofer’s estimate. Caleb sat across from her, holding the receiver he had forgotten to hang up properly. She reached over and set it in its cradle.
Other owners called. Enough of them were willing to wait that the spaces gradually filled, though not quickly. When it rained hard, Caleb still moved a bucket beneath the south roof.
A gray gelding arrived in April 2013 with a clean halter and a thirteen-year-old girl walking beside his trailer. Her father, Dr. Edwin Hollis, did most of the talking while Caleb opened the pen.
The horse was called Lark. Sophie had fallen when he hurried away from a mounting block. She hadn’t suffered a serious injury, but she hadn’t ridden him since.
“He’d never done it before,” Edwin said. “I don’t want her giving up riding over one fall.”
Sophie watched Lark circle the pen. He drifted wide as he passed the block.
“He puts his ears back before anybody gets on,” she said. “Even when I’m only bringing him over.”
Caleb asked her to show him where she usually stood. She stayed outside the rail, pointing, while her father held Lark’s lead. As she approached the block, the gelding turned his head toward the gate and began to shift that way.
“Let him have the rope,” Caleb told Edwin.
The man loosened his hand. Lark took two steps away, then stopped.
Caleb moved the block aside and asked Sophie what she wanted from the time the horse spent there.
She rubbed at a dried spot of mud on her boot. “I want to get near the saddle without him thinking he has to leave.”
“We can start there.”
Edwin looked between them. “And the riding?”
“I need to look at more than what happened today. Sophie and I would both have work to do with him.”
“Are we talking about months?” Edwin asked. “Because she has school now, but we could give this a lot of time over summer.”
Caleb glanced toward the gray, who had lowered his head by the rail. He wanted the man to see a beginning worth paying for.
“I think we could manage summer…”
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