I´ve been working hard with Hero and The Bay. Hero´s taught me a lot, and I´ve passed it along to The Bay. I brought Sarah home for dinner a couple of times, we all had a good time.
“Mary, when are you going to try some competition?”
“I thought I´d enter the State Western Horse Show. It´s in a couple of weeks. I called and got the paperwork. Okay if I ride Hero?”
“Good. What´s your plan?”
“I´ll just do my best. From the shows I´ve been to so far this spring, I might place as high as 6 or 7, depending on who shows up.”
“We´ll see.”
I had told my Saturday class about the scheduled events and we were working really hard on preparation. Rudy Self said he was going to try a non-sanctioned show the next week. We wished him luck. I thought he´d do well.
When I went back to the stable with Hero, I saw someone sitting on a hay bale. Looked almost like they were hiding. I went and looked. It was Jane Pinski, the girl I´d worked with last fall. She was huddled into a space in the bales, crying. She really didn´t hear me coming and her head was in her arms. I went back to Hero, took off my saddle and hooked his bridle to a ring outside his stall.
“Jane, when you have a minute, would you help me out?”
I saw her legs twitch, and after a few moments of furious activity, she slid out of her hole and came over, her eyes mostly dry but still red.
“Will you help me with The Bay? I´ll bring him out in the aisle. Just hold his head for me while I check his hooves.”
The Bay still had a reputation among the kids, even though he was now a completely reliable horse. Jane was excited I´d asked her to help with him, not knowing I had been doing this little chore without help for months.
I took my time, hoping she´d calm down, get herself together. Then I started saddling him up.
“I´m going to take him out through the woods. You want to ride Hero and come with me?”
We put her saddle on Hero, mounted and rode out of the barn and down the track. She´d learned a lot, handled Hero quite well.
When we could ride side by side, I said, “How do you like riding Hero?”
“He´s wonderful. I like him a lot.”
“What´s the trouble? Home? Or school? Both?”
“Guess you saw me hiding in there. I´ve been crying so much lately – just can´t seem to stop.”
“Have you thought about asking for help?”
“From who? School? My folks? Don´t make me laugh.”
“Boys after you?”
“What else? I´m so scared, I can hardly go to school every day. They keep bumping into me, feeling me up, telling me what they´re going to do to me. I feel so dirty.”
“Why do you feel dirty? Just because they touch you?”
“No. I mean, they wouldn´t do that if I weren´t like what they say.”
“Are you? Are you like that?”
“No... I don´t know why it makes me feel so ashamed.”
We walked up the path and down the ride, taking our time. By the time we´d gone around a couple of times, she was calm and could talk about her fears. I tried to help her deal with her shame; reassure her the fault wasn´t hers, suggest how she could avoid her tormentors.
“Think about how you work with horses,” I said. “They´re about as smart as the boys in your school. How would you handle a horse that was trying to bully you?”
“Oh, come on, Mary. Boys aren´t horses. They´re mean.”
“Well, sometimes, but they react to you the same way. If you can make them think you´re not afraid of them they leave you alone.”
“I am afraid of them.”
“How big is Hero?”
“I don´t know, about 16 hands?”
“That´s about right. Weighs about a thousand pounds. You´re telling him what to do. Not afraid. ‘Course, he doesn´t have hands to grab you with, can´t talk back... When I helped you with that horse last fall, how did you make him behave?”
“I told myself I was the boss, and he had to obey me. I let him tell me what he knew and I told him what to do with it. Boys won´t cooperate with you like that.”
We talked about how she could avoid the group that was harassing her, how to reduce their opportunities to touch her.
“I don´t have any solutions for you, Jane. But we can talk sometimes, okay?”
“Thanks Mary, it helps.”
“Can you talk to your folks?”
“Not much, they don´t understand what it´s like. They seem to think that somehow I´m doing something wrong.”
“I don´t. You´re okay. Hang in there.”
We cantered the horses back and put them up. She gave me a hug. I went over to the office.
“Sarah, you still want me to teach teeny-boppers?”
“What happened, you get a sudden attack of insanity?”
“No. Just had a long talk with Jane Pinski. She´s a mess. Getting harassed at school, good target for rape, if you ask me. Just thought there might be some way to teach riding as a guide to handling boys.”
“Good luck. Tell you what. Give it some thought and tell me what you come up with. I think you´re on the right track, I just don´t know how you´re going to make it work.”
,oOo.
When the Saturday for the state show came along, Sarah and I put Hero in Sarah´s trailer and set off. We arrived in good time and got Hero unloaded and watered.
Sigrid drove in with her van and all the others. And surprise, my Western Pleasure Riding class showed up, too. Rudy had placed fourth in his show, so I hoped I wouldn´t totally disappoint them.
I planned this to be a learning event, and that´s how it turned out. Some pretty good riders I hadn´t counted on showed up, and I didn´t really expect much. At the end of the day, Sigrid had a sunburn, Will had filled two sketch pads, and I had won third place – to my total astonishment.
“Blame it on Hero,” I said. “He just carried me around.” It wasn´t totally true, but close enough.
Driving back with Sarah, I said, “The guys who won had really good, range-savvy horses. What would you say if I wanted to take Hero and The Bay out to Colorado for a while this summer and let them find out what a cow is?”
“I´d say, ‘How you going to get them there?´ I can´t let you take this trailer, and I need the truck.”
“I´ll think about it. You really don´t mind?”
“Mary, you´re their main rider anyway. If Hero gets better and if The Bay can do shows at all, I´m ahead. Are you going to be away all summer?”
“No, we´re all taking the summer semester. I´ll go out for a couple of weeks. I don´t know exactly how it´ll work yet.”
“Well, let me know.”