One Unhappy Horse Read Free

talking about boys and how stupid they could be.
    "Do you have a boyfriend?" the girl sitting next to Jan asked her. The personal question surprised Jan because she didn't know this small, intense, freckle-faced girl who was new in their school.
    "No boyfriend. Not me," Jan said.
    "Did you ever have a boyfriend?" the girl persisted.
    "She has a horse," smart-mouth Barbara said from across the table. "They're going steady."
    "Oh," said the girl, leaning toward Jan. "I had a horse for a while, but I got tired of getting up early to take care of it before school. Does your father make you do that?"
    "No," Jan said. She wasn't about to confide to a stranger that her father was dead. To distract her, Jan asked quickly, "Do you ride much?"
    "Well, I used to ride in Connecticut. That's where I lived," the girl answered. "But that was English saddle. You know, posting and that stuff? I've never ridden western style."
    "It's easy," Jan said. "You just sit the saddle and put pressure on your toes instead of with your knees."
    "So what's your horse like?" the girl asked.
    Jan stiffened and answered shortly, "He's lame right now."
    "Is that why you're so grumpy?" The girl asked it with a smile that took the sting off her words.
    Jan didn't know what to answer. She took a bite of her apple and munched, fixing her eyes on the table. The girl inched away from her then and turned to face the other end of the table where they were talking about a rock star who was coming to Tucson. Jan felt bad. The new girl had just been trying to be friendly. If only she had her father's knack with people! "Nothing to it," Dad would say. "Just smile, and most folks will smile right back." She hadn't smiled. If she had, would the girl have become her friend? Probably not. The ranch was too isolated. Besides, she didn't have time for a friend now with Dove sick.

    Dove's head came up expectantly when he saw Jan coming toward his corral that afternoon. He nickered, tossing his head and showing his teeth in his funny smiling way.
    "So did the medicine work?" Jan asked him. She patted his neck and knuckled him under the ear the way he liked. Taking her time about it, she went about cleaning up the dirty shavings and shoveling in fresh.
    Dove butted her in the rear end with his head, nearly knocking her into the soiled shavings she was piling into the wheelbarrow. It had been a favorite trick of his when she first got him, and she'd worked hard to break him of it. But now she was glad to find him so frisky. "If you're feeling so good, how about a little exercise?" Jan asked.
    The sun blazed in a pale sapphire sky, scouring the desert with its heat even though Halloween was only a few weeks off. Jan was happy because Dove finally seemed to be walking better. She decided to try mounting him and
see how he did with her on his back. If she kept to the dirt road inside the ranch and stopped when he showed signs of tiring, it should be all right.
    She was riding Dove bareback, leaning over his neck to tell him how glad she was that he was fit again, when she spotted the tiny curly-haired lady who had helped her rescue the wanderer yesterday. The lady—what had she said her name was? Mattie? Yes, that was it. Mattie was walking with another old woman as tall and thin as a crane. Jan had seen people from the home out walking before and had deliberately avoided them. Today she meant to pass them on the opposite side of the road. Should she say hi since Mattie wasn't quite a stranger anymore? But if she did, and Mattie didn't recall her from yesterday, it would be embarrassing.
    While Jan was still trying to make up her mind whether to pass in silence or not, Mattie stopped short and grabbed her companion's arm to halt her.
    "Look there! It's the girl who saved Sadie," Mattie said. Her high, quick voice carried easily in the still air. "Our hero—or is it heroine? Heroine, I guess, seeing she's a girl. Right, Amelia?"
    "Correct," Amelia said. She stood statue-still