Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [17]
ABOUT TEN DAYS into working for Sandman, Kathy got sick and couldn’t come in. Sandman said it was time I got on a horse, he needed a bunch ridden and James couldn’t do it all and Sandman didn’t ride anymore, his bones were too brittle.
They started me off on Bethany, an old chestnut quarter horse mare that Sandman had bought cheap somewhere and hoped to sell as a starter horse to someone just learning to ride. Bethany was big and gentle and lazy and didn’t care at all that I didn’t know what I was doing up there. No matter what kind of signals I attempted to give her, all she did was walk around slowly, with her head down low. Once in a while, she’d stop and graze a little before eventually deigning to move forward again. I talked to her some while I was up there and she flicked her ears around a little, listening to the sound of my voice, deciding what she thought of me. I guess the verdict was good. She took care of me and made me feel safe. Within a few weeks, I was riding a lot. I fell off every other day and got knocked unconscious once but I didn’t mind. When I wasn’t riding I was busy mucking out stalls as well as feeding and grooming. I started feeling at ease. A lot of things that had bothered me for years started slipping away. All I cared about were those horses. I thought less and less about my mother. For a long time, I had carried her with me every day. I guess I felt like not having her in my head would be killing her all over again. Now though, with all the horses to think about, my mother went somewhere else.
I’d developed a strong bond with Darwin, the yearling, the one Sandman had been trying to sell off to some racing people. No one had bought him because he was still too wild, and by that age, if a horse was going to race, he needed to know how to get tacked up and handled a lot. And Darwin was a demonseed. Sandman put me in charge of him. I had to get him manageable and then Kathy would start riding him.
I spent hours each day teaching the little guy basics like how to pick his feet up so I could get in there and clean them out—and eventually the farrier could put shoes on him—and pretty soon I got him to take a bit and to stand somewhat still as I put a little saddle on him and tightened the girth.
I started sleeping on some blankets outside Darwin’s stall at night. Mostly because I just didn’t have any reason to go home. I lived in my uncle Edgar’s house even though I’d never felt at home there. Edgar had up and moved a few years after my mother’s death, leaving me to fend for myself. He hadn’t known what to do with the house so he’d just let me stay in it while he’d gone home to Kentucky. Now, though, Edgar had called the real estate lady in town and had put the house up for sale. There were people tromping through it at the oddest times. I didn’t feel safe in there. I had gone and gathered some of my clothes and a sleeping bag and I kept these at Sandman’s stable and pretty soon, that was it, I never left.
Sandman knew, I guess, but never chose to address the situation. I availed myself of the hoses in the grooming stall sometimes when I got to stinking. It was fine. There was warm water. And I’d heard how horse shampoo was good for human hair and this proved to be true.
Days turned to weeks turned to months. Kathy was riding Darwin now and we all realized Sandman had been right. The little guy wanted to race. I’d get on Murmur, a big brown gelding that had raced until he was six but now had James working with him trying to turn him into an eventing horse. We’d put Murmur on the makeshift half-mile track Sandman had in one of the fields and he still had the instinct to go. I wasn’t by any means an experienced rider and I’d never yet been allowed on a real racetrack but I knew enough to balance and keep out of