Colt Page 6

A week later Lauri gave him his share of her pay. “What are you going to do with your wealth, moneybags?” she teased.

  “Christmas is coming,” Colt told her. “Hey. What do you think I ought to get your dad?”

  “Gee, I dunno. I haven’t thought much about Christmas yet.”

  But Brad must have been thinking about it. Or rather, Brad seemed to have an uncanny ability to know what Colt was thinking. That Saturday, while Colt was watching cartoons, Brad wandered into the living room. “Colt,” he proposed, “how’s about I give you a few dollars every week for doing some things around the house?”

  Colt tore his attention away from the TV and blinked at Brad. He had always considered the house his mother’s responsibility, because she seemed to think it was. “I am such a mess,” she would declare, as if the clutter surrounding her was all her fault. But Brad seemed to think otherwise.

  “Thing is,” he was saying, “we should all lend a hand. But Rosie and Lauri just aren’t home as much as you are, and neither am I. And your mom is going to be working overtime now that Christmas is coming. If we’re going to get this place cleaned up for the holidays, you’re the one who’s going to have to do a lot of it. And it seems to me that if you’re going to do more than the rest of us, I should pay you.”

  “Sure,” said Colt. “Okay.” Though in fact he was not sure how much he could do around the house. He had never tried.

  It turned out he could do plenty. A kid on a scooter board, he discovered that weekend, can sweep and wash a kitchen floor with a lot less back strain than a standing-up adult. A kid in leg braces can push a vacuum cleaner. A kid in a wheelchair can carry junk mail to the trash. Colt could clear the table, even set the table. About the only thing he couldn’t do was climb on a stepladder to wash windows.

  By the time Christmas came, Colt was smiling again. Sometimes.

  He hadn’t seen much of his mother and Brad for most of December. They were working hard, and (he sensed) busy with their own secrets. But of course they had taken him shopping, and he had had a wonderful time trundling all over the mall in his wheelchair, spending his wealth. He got Brad some really good fur-lined leather gloves, and Rosie a brand-name sweat suit (along with a rubber snake to surprise him when he opened the package), and Lauri special socks guaranteed to keep her feet warm no matter what sort of ridiculous weather she was delivering newspapers in. He got his mother a fuzzy bathrobe and a cuddly plush unicorn to sit on her pillow. Everybody liked the things he got them, and he liked all the things he got, including the rubber snake Rosie had put in his package.

  Christmas afternoon after dinner Brad came out of the kitchen carrying an apple and a carrot and said, “C’mon, Colt. C’mon, everybody. We’re going to wish Mrs. Reynolds and Liverwurst a Merry Christmas.”

  Colt looked at Brad, feeling the old ache in his heart. It had never been gone, not really. Maybe it never would be. Though Christmas or something seemed to have made it ease up quite a bit.

  “Don’t you think Liverwurst should have a Christmas treat?” Brad asked him.

  “Yeah,” said Colt, “sure,” and he wobbled to his feet. No need to switch from braces and crutches to wheelchair, as he usually did when he would be riding so he didn’t have to struggle out of the braces before he got on the horse. No need, because he wouldn’t be riding.

  Four Flowerses and one Vittorio piled into the car to go out to Deep Meadows Farm, and it didn’t occur to Colt to wonder why everyone was coming along. It was Christmas, a family day. Naturally this family would do things as a family.

  Colt forgot he had ever felt angry and hurt at Liverwurst the moment he saw that familiar ugly head thrust out over the stall door. “Hey, Liverwurst!” he called in greeting, and he walked, crutches whirling, at top speed down the stable aisle. It was good to be standing up, to be able to cuddle Liverwurst’s head against his chest and lean his cheek against Liverwurst’s wisp of a forelock. He slipped off his crutches so he could use his hands, steadied himself against the stall door, and rubbed Liverwurst’s cheekbones. Liverwurst smelled the apple in his jacket pocket and nosed at it, hinting. Colt fed it to him, and then the carrot. “Merry Christmas, Liverwurst,” he said huskily. “How you been?”

  “He’s been fine, but he’s missed you.” It was Janet Reynolds, in blue jeans even on Christmas day, smiling at him across the stable aisle. “How are you, Colt?”

  Coming from her, this was not just a polite thing to say. She was really asking. “I’m okay,” Colt said.

  And then he saw.

  In the stall beside her, a horse he had never seen on her farm before.

  Even though he could see only the head and neck, it was, he knew at once, the prettiest horse he had ever seen off a TV screen. It had a delicate, gentle face the color of old gold, with a wide starred forehead between eyes like the nighttime sky. Over the eyes cascaded a silver waterfall of forelock. A mass of mane of the same brilliant silver flowed down the horse’s neck, and in it Colt saw stirrings of red and green where thin Christmas-colored tendrils of ribbon were wound into the forelock and mane and tied in tiny bows at the horse’s arched crest. It looked like a horse out of a Christmas dream, all gift-gold and moon-silver and starlight sparkle in the eyes—so beautiful Colt gawked and leaned against Liverwurst for support.

  “What—what horse is that?” he gasped.

  Instead of answering, Mrs. Reynolds opened the stall door and led the horse out with just a rope looped around its neck. She brought it over to where it could snuffle Colt. It was a small horse, not much bigger than a big pony, and its body had a soft, round, graceful look. Even in velvety winter fur, its brown-gold haunches were faintly mottled with dapples. It was all of that rich color except for its heavy silver mane and tail, its star and its small hooves. They were clay-gray and unshod, and Colt noticed that when the little horse walked, it seemed to glide like a dancer, nearly crossing its feet in the front.

  “Her name is Bonita,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “She’s a Paso Fino. The color is called ‘chocolate palomino.’”

  Colt’s mother and Brad and Rosie and Lauri were standing in a cluster not far away, all watching, all smiling, looking content just to let Colt pat a horse on Christmas—which was all he was ever going to be able to do with horses again: pat them.

  Bonita smelled the carrot juice on Colt and nuzzled his hand. He felt sorry he did not have a treat left for her.

  “She’s beautiful,” he told Mrs. Reynolds. “Is she yours?” She might have belonged to someone else. Mrs. Reynolds kept a few horses belonging to other people at her farm.

  “If you want to see whose she is,” said Mrs. Reynolds, “you’d better read the card.”

  Card? She pointed it out to him. Tied onto a ribbon, it hung nearly hidden in Bonita’s thick mane.

  If this is some kind of joke …

  Colt didn’t dare look at anyone as he reached for the card with a shaking hand, trying not to think what he knew had to be impossible. This horse was a Christmas gift? For him? But that couldn’t be. They wouldn’t give him a horse. They knew he wanted to ride, and he couldn’t ride after the damage Liverwurst had done by trotting with him just a little. He was handicapped, and he had to remember that.

  I’m being stupid, I’m missing something. I can’t ride horseback. It was dumb ever to think I could ride horseback. Stupid even to think this horse might be for me.

  “Come on,” his mother urged, “open it!” She was standing close by, smiling, and Brad had his arm around her and was grinning like mad.

  Got to be some kind of joke. Try to be a good sport. Try not to cry or do anything dumb….

  Colt had to lean against Liverwurst’s stall door while his shaking hands tore at the card. He felt weak all over.

  It just couldn’t be …

  It was.

  The card said:

  To Colt,

  Merry Christmas!

  Happy Trails!

  THIS HORSE DOES NOT TROT!

  Love,

&n
bsp; Mom, Brad, Rosie, and Lauri.

  Chapter Seven

  “We would have told you sooner,” Colt’s mother explained to him after the hugging and laughing and sniffling and more hugging were over, “but we didn’t want to get your hopes up. We weren’t sure it would work out. It had to be a very special horse.”

  “Mom, thank you so much.” Tears wet Colt’s cheeks, but for once he didn’t mind. “I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

  “Thank Brad. I had never even heard of a Paso Fino.”

  Brad had gotten him Bonita? Colt looked at him, and Brad looked away, embarrassed. “It’s just that when I was in the service in Puerto Rico we used to ride these incredible little horses. They don’t ever trot, or even gallop unless you make them. They just walk faster and faster.”

  “I couldn’t believe it until I saw it,” Colt’s mother put in.

  “Anyhow, when my old C.O. moved back to Ohio, he took a few Pasos with him, and now he raises them. He always was quite a horseman.”

  Brad seemed talked out. Audrey prompted, “So after we talked it over, Brad wrote him—”

  “And I gave Daddy some of my newspaper money,” Lauri put in. “And Rosie gave him some—”

  “Shut up,” Rosie grumbled. He looked as sheepish as his father.

  “And we asked him to find us a very gentle, well-schooled Paso at a price we could afford,” Brad continued. “Not asking much, huh? But he managed to do it.” Colt stood rubbing Bonita’s starred forehead, and Brad grinned at him like a shy kid. “Turned out he was looking for a good home for Bonita all along.” Brad pulled a much-folded letter out of his shirt pocket and passed it over for Colt to read:

  Dear Brad,

  Good to hear from you after all these years! I am glad to hear you have remarried and you’re happy with your new wife and family.

  I may have the very horse for the little guy you mention. A mare with some age on her, Bonita, a Splendifico daughter. Beautiful conformation. We thought we were going to make a show horse out of her, so she has been very well trained, but she had such a quiet disposition even as a filly that she never placed well. No brio. No fire. She’s a wonderful pleasure Paso, stays in frame under any rider, so I could have sold her to someone for trail riding, but I would have taken a licking. She’s small, too small for a big rider, and all people can think about these days is size, size, size! Anyway, I wanted some foals from her. Turned out she’s no good as a brood mare either. Doesn’t “take.” But I think she might be perfect for your youngster. She’s unusually quiet, dead safe with any rider, and smooth as silk in her gait. Give me a call and we’ll make arrangements to send her to you for a month’s trial. I’ll pay the shipping. As a matter of fact I’ve got half a mind to give you the horse outright, since it’s for such a good cause, but I know you’re too dam proud. Once you’ve tried Bonita, if she suits you, just name your price and whatever you say will be okay with me. And send me a few photos of the kid on her.

  The letter was signed “Tick” and was on the stationery of the Ticknor Family Paso Fino Farm. Colt decided that he profoundly liked Mr. Ticknor. He would write Mr. Ticknor a letter before anyone had to tell him to do it.

  “Wow,” he said. He looked up to pass the letter back to Brad, and found himself facing a camera lens. All the questions he had been going to ask focused into one: the one big question.

  “Can I ride her?” he demanded, his voice rocketing out of control. “Today?”

  Everyone was smiling, and he knew the answer was yes—with one condition.

  “Only if I walk beside you, Colt,” Mrs. Reynolds spoke up. “You’re going to have to start from scratch. You’ve let yourself lose all your riding muscle!”

  Half an hour later, after helping to saddle and bridle Bonita and after shedding his leg braces, Colt was on Bonita having his picture taken for Mr. Ticknor. He knew he was wearing a big, undignified grin under his helmet, and he didn’t care. It was the best Christmas ever.

  January and February went by in fast-forward for Colt. He had work to do, and he was happy to do it. Newspapers to rubber-band for Lauri; housework to keep up with; schoolwork (He tried hard to pay attention in school, knowing that if he got behind he would have to spend extra time with homework and tutoring, which was time he would rather spend with Bonita); and exercises. Every day he did exercises to strengthen his back and legs. In the spring, once the weather had warmed up and Mrs. Reynolds felt sure he was strong enough, he would ride Bonita out on the trail.

  Weekly he had lessons on her in the ring. He had to learn to ride all over again. Everything was different with the little Paso Fino.

  “Whoa!” he yelled the first time she scooted six feet sideways with him. The motion, though smooth as glass, frightened him breathless.

  “You touched her with your right leg,” Mrs. Reynolds explained. “She’s trained to move away from the slightest pressure. Your legs are getting stronger than they were before, and she thought you wanted her to side-pass.”

  “Wow,” said Colt. If he had touched Liverwurst accidentally, Liverwurst would have done nothing but twitch as if a fly were itching him.

  “It’s good she’s so sensitive,” Mrs. Reynolds added, “because your signals will never be strong, no matter how much you exercise those legs of yours. You just have to learn how to ride her, that’s all. She’s like a fine-tuned machine.”

  Colt rode Bonita forward. Her side-pass had made him a little nervous, because it felt like being shied with. That was one thing he was afraid of: What might happen if a horse shied with him? Would he be able to stay on? Or would he fall?

  His anxious thoughts affected his hands. Instead of keeping light contact with Bonita’s mouth as he usually did, he tightened up on the reins.

  Bonita surged forward.

  Slick as a cat the little mare glided into a quick, collected, four-beat gait. Colt felt only a faint vibration, as if he were riding in the backseat of a Cadillac, but suddenly the fence posts of the riding ring were whirling past at a speed he had never experienced before. His head and shoulders and back and seat rode steady as the little horse motored along, paca-paca-paca-paca, underneath him. Bonita performed the paso corto with her pretty chin tucked, the white star on her forehead shining straight forward, the silver mane stirring on her arched neck. Colt forgot to be afraid. He felt as if he were flying, skimming the world on wings. He felt weightless. He felt—free.

  “Beautiful!” Mrs. Reynolds called. “When did you learn how to gait her, Colt?”

  “I didn’t!”

  “I see. Well, if you want her to slow down, just loosen the reins.”

  Colt did so, and Bonita slowed to the easy walk he was used to.

  “The faster you want her to go,” Mrs. Reynolds explained as he brought her to a stop, “the more you gather her in.”

  Colt blinked dizzily. Everything was backward with the Paso Fino. If he wanted Bonita to go left, he pressed with his right knee. If he wanted her to back up, he leaned forward. If he wanted her to go forward, he leaned back. If he wanted her to go faster, he tightened the reins.

  He loved riding her.

  “I want to be sure you understand, Colt,” Mrs. Reynolds said to him seriously, “that you cannot ride just any horse. Even with gaited horses, you must be very careful what you ride. Some horses might be well trained but if they have a mean streak they will still take advantage of you and hurt you. Stick to Bonita. You are as safe on her as you can ever be on horseback, and that’s not only because of her smooth gait but because she is a very gentle, responsive, good-hearted horse. She is special.”

  Colt knew that, and was grateful.

  After the lesson he helped Mrs. Reynolds groom Bonita. Sitting in his wheelchair, he could brush Bonita’s belly and legs more easily than Janet Reynolds could. He was learning to lift Bonita’s feet and remove the dirt from her small oval hooves with a hoof pick. After the grooming was done, he watched Mrs. Reynolds put Bonita in a paddock with Liverwurst.

&nb
sp; Always before, Liverwurst had needed to stay in a paddock by himself. Even though he was as big as any horse on the farm, he let himself be picked on. Whenever Mrs. Reynolds put him out in the main pasture, ponies half his size would kick him and drive him away from water and food, and he would not defend himself. If he had been kept with the herd, he would always have been covered with bites and bruises. But Bonita did not bite him, and she had become his paddock mate.

  Liverwurst trotted to meet her at the gate, nickering, nuzzling at her neck. Bonita swiveled her ears to a bored sideward position and swung her head away from the big, pesky gelding, but did not squeal or kick. She moved away from Liverwurst and started to graze, and Mrs. Reynolds laughed.

  “She’s very sweet with him. She puts up with a lot of nonsense from him. Liverwurst doesn’t know how to act. I believe she’s his first love.”

  “Liverwurst has a girlfriend,” Colt sang.

  The big, blotchy Appaloosa did not seem to mind. He poked at Bonita with his huge nose and awaited a reaction, looking wide-eyed and anxious, as always. Bonita, ignoring him, seemed, more than ever, dainty and aristocratic next to him, like a princess being pestered by a goblin.

  “Beauty and the beast,” Mrs. Reynolds remarked to Colt’s mother, who had come to pick him up. “He’s devoted to her.”

  “Poor Bonita,” said Audrey.

  “Aw!” Colt protested. “Liverwurst isn’t a beast. Well, not the way you mean.”

  Mrs. Reynolds said, “He’s a big, homely, very sweet beast.”

  One day after school there was a large package waiting along with the newspapers on the doorstep, and it had Colt’s name on it.

  “What the heck?” he remarked with interest, and then with even greater interest he saw the return address: Ticknor Family Paso Fino Farm, Bluesville, Ohio. “Oh, wow!” He knew it had to be something good.

  It was. When Lauri came home she did not mind doing her own rubber-banding for once, because Colt was sitting with one hand on his new saddle, reading Mr. Ticknor’s letter and looking dangerously wet around the eyes. The letter said,