The Georges and the Jewels Read Free

the valley, nice horses and pretty enough so that he could get a little extra for them. He always said, “Even the most dried-up old cowboy will pay for a good-looker, and don’t you let them tell you different. You could have the greatest horse in the world, and if it had a head like a bathtub, I couldn’t sell it for beans.”
    But only one of the Jewels was standing by the gate. That was a bad sign, and I was glad that it was starting to get light in case there was something out there in the paddock that I had to look for and report back. I threw down the hay in three piles, the way you’re supposed to, one more than the number of horses so they won’t fight over it, and then I climbed the gate. Most of the mares’ pasture wasn’t visible from the gate—it ran in a gentle slope down to the crick. For a while I didn’t see anything. Then, over to one side, I saw the second mare, standing under a tree. She turned her head toward me. She wasn’t down and she didn’t look like she was in trouble. When I got a little closer, I saw that she had something with her, and then, when I got closer than that, I saw that that something was a foal. The foal was standing next to the mare, and when it saw me, it skittered around to the other side of her and peeked at me under the mare’s neck. When I got even closer, I could just see its legs and its nose.
    You never know with a mare, no matter how friendly she is on her own, how she will react to you when she has a foal at her side, so I stopped and stood there. After a minute or two, the foal came around the mare again, gave me a look, and then began to nurse, his back end to me and his little tail switchingback and forth. He looked to me to be at least six or eight hours old, which meant that maybe he was born before we went to bed and we just missed the mare in the dark. When you don’t know a mare is pregnant, I guess it never occurs to you to wonder whether she is having a foal.
    This Jewel was one of three horses Daddy had bought right after Thanksgiving. One he had sold already, and the ornery George was the third one. What with Christmas and all, we hadn’t done a lot with her or even paid much attention to her, though I thought she was nice, and I always gave her a few extra pats. She was pretty without being distinctive—no white on her at all, not too big, not too small, good head, decent feet.
    Now it was getting to be day. I took one step toward the mare, watching her, and then another and another. She looked at me, but she didn’t pin her ears and start switching her tail, and so I took another step. The foal kept nursing, his tail turned to me. He didn’t have any white stockings that I could see. I took another step. The foal’s head popped up and he ran around the mare again, so that she was between the foal and me. Now I was fairly close, close enough to lean forward, stretch out my hand, and touch the mare on the neck. I watched her, though, before I tried. She still gave no warning signs, so I stretched out my hand, leaned forward from my hips, and touched her, then I touched her again, just a little stroke, down her neck. I took one step closer. Then I was very still. The mare’s tail moved slowly back and forth, and the face of the foal appeared. Its little dark ears were pricked and its nostrils wide, and it was staring at me. No white on the face. Prominent forehead. “Hey, baby,” I said softly.
    And now there was a shout from up the hill—“Abby! AAABBYYY!” Daddy’s voice. “Ruth Abigail! You out there?” He only calls me by my full name when he’s worried or mad.
    I was backing slowly away from the mare and foal, not wanting to shout and startle them.
    Daddy appeared on the brow of the hill. I could see him out of the corner of my eye. Surely from there he could take it all in—me, mare, foal. I backed up two more steps. There was a silence. Then I heard him say, “What the—” He never finished this sentence, because he never