Colt Read online

“Hey!” Rosie protested from the ground. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to stand her practically on top of you. Grab the girth and see if you can stand up.”

  “Just what I’ve always wanted,” Rosie complained, “a horse in my lap.”

  Colt positioned Bonita, and then halted her. “All right,” he told Rosie, “try it. I hope you cinched the saddle tight.”

  Rosie had. He pulled himself up, hanging on first to the girth, then to the leather saddle skirt, crawling up Bonita as if scaling a wall, and the horse stood like a stone. “Good girl,” Colt told her. “Okay, Rosie, if she walks slow and you lean on her, do you think you can walk?”

  “Guess I’m going to have to.” It was not likely that anyone else was going to come along and help. There were few people in the park so early in the year. Colt and Rosie had not seen anyone since they started down the lakeside trail.

  “Okay. Hang on.” Colt eased Bonita into a slow walk.

  Without much guidance from Colt the Paso Fino kept her pace very slow, very smooth. Bonita seemed to understand that something was wrong, that extra cooperation was required of her.

  “How you doing, Rosie?”

  “Not—too—good.” Clinging to the saddle near Colt’s knee, Rosie was beginning to pant with pain. His face had gone white. Colt stopped the horse.

  “You can’t walk. Sit down before you fall down.”

  Rosie stood where he was, hanging on hard. “Maybe—if I could get on her behind you …”

  Colt considered. He had to help Rosie somehow.

  “You weigh almost as much as your dad, right?” he asked slowly. Bonita was too small to carry Mr. Flowers. Bonita would be too small to carry Colt and Rosie without hurting herself.

  “Right,” said Rosie. “I forgot.”

  “But if worse comes to worst …” Colt felt his eyes stinging at the thought.

  “No way,” Rosie told him. “Forget it. We’re not going to hurt your horse. I’ll crawl first.”

  Colt knew he couldn’t crawl all the way back to the stable, not really. He said, “Let’s see if we can get you just a little farther, just down to where you can put your feet in the water.”

  Rosie shifted his grip so that he held onto Bonita’s silky mane, then hobbled on. Twice he had to stop. The last several yards he crawled. Already his feet had swollen so badly that he could not undo the knots of his running shoes. As Colt watched anxiously, Rosie sat on the lakeshore and swung his feet into the cold water, shoes and all. He bent over and splashed water on his knees.

  “All right,” Colt told him, “stay there. I’m going to find us some help.” He sent Bonita toward the stable. If he was lucky, one of the other riders would be there. If not, he hoped at least he could reach the phone.

  Hang on, Rosie.

  There really was no choice but for Colt to go off on his own, and Rosie knew it. “Be careful!” he called after him.

  “Got to, man,” Colt called back cheerfully, but he meant it.

  He walked Bonita most of the way back. It seemed to take forever. Thinking of Rosie sitting there hurt and alone in the middle of nowhere, once in a while he risked a cautious paso corto. He did not dare go faster, because now and then Bonita shied at something along the trail, and he felt worried, though not for himself—if he fell off and got himself hurt, nobody would know where to look for Rosie.

  He met no one at all in the park, not a hiker on the trail, not a boat on the lake. Leaving the park, turning onto the roadside, he saw a car coming and lifted a hand to flag it down, but Bonita stiffened, ready to spook, and quickly Colt returned his hand to the reins. The man in the car waved at him and kept going.

  Stupid! Can’t that guy see I’m in trouble? What would a handicapped kid be doing …

  And then Colt realized: The man did not know he was handicapped. He was so used to thinking of himself in a certain way that for a moment it was as if his world had flipped, had spun upside down, but it made sense. He wore no braces to ride horseback, no crutches, no wheelchair, and his helmet looked much like anyone else’s riding helmet. Unless someone really paid attention to his thin, undeveloped legs, when he was on a horse he just looked like—

  Jeez, I just look like a kid on a horse.

  A kid who was old enough to handle things on his own. And he was going to have to. Already Colt had a feeling what he was going to find at the stable.

  Sure enough. Nobody.

  No cars were parked in the stable lot but Rosie’s. Mr. Reynolds was not back from wherever he had gone, and no other riders had arrived. Colt rode Bonita into the barn to be sure. No one was there to help Rosie.

  Just inside the tack-room door hung the wall phone. He had to reach it.

  He could not.

  Whoever had put away the boxes of hard hats and the mounting block the autumn before had set them beside the door, exactly in the wrong place beside the door. Bonita could not stand close enough. Colt stretched, until he was afraid he would fall, and could not reach even the doorknob so that he could open the door and head Bonita into it. Another rider, someone who could lean his weight in a stirrup, might have been able to manage. But Colt could not quite do it.

  He hated being handicapped, he hated it, he hated it! Anybody else could have just stepped inside the tack-room door, dialed 911 for help, and here he sat, couldn’t do the simplest thing … Tears coming. Colt gulped them back.

  Grow up, Osvaldo. Smarten up.

  Things went wrong for regular people sometimes too. Like, what if the phone was out of order? What would he do then? If he couldn’t help Rosie one way, he’d have to help him another way. There had to be one. Handicapped people can do things too.

  Like think. You gotta think.

  He backed Bonita out of the barn and rode her in a slow circle in front of the stable, considering the possibilities. The nearest houses were half a mile away, along the paved road. Ride Bonita out there, shout at doors, try to find someone home? Very risky, with cars whizzing past. Bonita would get used to cars probably in a few more rides, but for today she was going to spook at them, and if Colt got thrown, there would be nobody who knew where Rosie was. Try to flag down another slow-moving car along the dirt road? Same problem. Wait around the stable for somebody to come? Sure, but absolutely the last choice on his list, with Rosie sitting out there hurt.… The alternative was for Colt himself somehow to get Rosie out of the woods. All right, so for a long time he had been used to thinking of himself as pretty helpless, but sitting on top of his horse he knew: There had to be something he could do.…

  Liverwurst stuck his head out over the paddock gate and whinnied at Bonita.

  Horses.

  Liverwurst.

  Half a minute later Colt had Bonita back inside the barn, where the halters and lead ropes hung from a harness hook just inside the big sliding door. Liverwurst’s bridle was safe in the tack room, he couldn’t get it, but a halter would be better than nothing. He selected the largest one, and a long lead rope. After a moment’s thought he took two lead ropes and clipped them one onto each side of the halter, like reins. Then he laid the things across the saddle in front of him and headed Bonita toward the paddock gate.

  Liverwurst had ambled away. Of course. Horses were like that, Mrs. Reynolds said. Never handy when you wanted them. “Liverwurst!” Colt called.

  The Appaloosa raised his big hammer head from his grazing and gave Colt an owlish stare.

  “Liverwurst!”

  The new spring grass was more important. The gelding lowered his nose to the ground again.

  “Aw, Liverwurst!” Everything was going wrong—

  Wait. Calm down. That’s no way to think.

  It was not such a big deal after all, just a matter of getting the gate open and going in to catch him. And Colt would need to get the gate open anyway, to get Liverwurst out.

  He maneuvered Bonita until she stood close alongside the gate, then backed her up until he could reach the sliding metal latch. “Good girl,�
�� he murmured to her. Maybe she was a little nervous about cars at this point, but she did at once what most horses for some reason would not do at all: She stood by the gate where he wanted her, and then stayed there while he struggled with the latch.

  Which I can’t seem to get open …

  The latch was stiff. All the weight of the gate pulled down on it, making it bind. Mrs. Reynolds, when she opened it, lifted the gate with one hand and muscled the latch with the other, but Colt couldn’t do that, not while keeping his balance on Bonita, who had to stand sideways to the gate in order for him to reach it at all. Colt set his teeth and grimaced, tugging on the latch handle as hard as he could without pulling himself out of the saddle. “You butthead!” he yelled at the latch, but it did not care. It would not move.

  “Aw, crud!”

  Once again he sat blinking back tears and trying to think. A person with legs that worked could walk right up to that gate and lift it and slide the latch open.… So what? Being handicapped just meant he had to do things differently—his way.

  Under him Bonita stood patiently waiting.

  Colt smiled. He lifted one of the lead ropes from his saddle and put a loop of it around the latch handle. The other end of it, halter and all, he hooked around the high pommel of his Spanish saddle. “Walk, Bonita,” he ordered, signaling her with his seat.

  The little horse was puzzled, feeling no contact on her reins. Hesitantly she took a few steps forward. The lead rope tightened, metal screeched against metal, the gate latch shot open, and the gate swung wide.

  Liverwurst looked up and came trotting over, eager and interested.

  “Good boy! C’mere, atta boy …” From Bonita’s back Colt slipped the halter onto Liverwurst, snapped its throatlatch in place, and gathered the lead ropes into his right hand. “Good old Liverwurst. Come on, big guy. Let’s go get Rosie.”

  Eagerly he sent Bonita up the farm lane.

  He had to ride with only one hand on the reins, the left hand at that. No problem. Bonita did not seem to mind. Colt sent her into a medium-fast gait along the dirt road, because he wanted to get that stretch over with as quickly as possible. With Liverwurst’s sizable body out almost in the middle of the road, he did not want to meet a car. So Bonita did a quick paso corto, and Liverwurst jogged along beside the little mare, apparently thrilled to be along for the ride.… Once he turned onto the state-park trail, Colt slowed the gait. No use taking unnecessary risks. Also, he wanted Liverwurst to calm down. It was going to be trouble enough getting Rosie on top of the gelding if Liverwurst behaved himself. If Liverwurst got happy and full of himself and acted like a jerk, it was going to be impossible.

  Years later Colt still remembered that ride back to where he had left Rosie as the longest one ever. It seemed that way because he had to walk, it was safer to walk, helped the horses to be cool, calm, but it took so long.… There, ages later, finally, far ahead, was Rosie, still with his feet in the lake.

  Rosie was shivering and looked around without enthusiasm as Colt rode up with Liverwurst in tow. “Oh, maaan …”

  “There was nobody around,” Colt explained. “This is the best I could do. Can you walk at all?”

  With a groan and a grimace Rosie stumbled up. The icy lake water had numbed his feet for the time. Bracing himself against trees, he was able to walk back to the trail.

  “Okay. Now climb on something, a rock, a log …”

  It was not too hard to find a suitable mounting block. Boulders and windfalls were everywhere. Rosie got on top of a large fallen trunk, and Colt led Liverwurst up beside it. Liverwurst, he noticed, did not maneuver as well as Bonita. Liverwurst did not want to stand as close to Rosie as was needed.

  “Liverwurst!” Colt scolded, prodding the gelding in the side to make him move over.

  “And you expect me to ride that?” Rosie complained.

  “Just get on, Francine, before he moves.”

  “Shut up, Ozworth.”

  Unable to put all his weight on one foot, Rosie bellied onto Liverwurst and eventually managed to slither into riding position. Colt handed him the lead ropes by way of reins.

  “Go slow,” Rosie pleaded. “This animal is slippery.”

  They went very slowly. Colt knew Rosie would be hurting again soon. He did not want anything to joggle him. Just let Liverwurst nod along—

  From just behind the trailside bushes a few feet away, three ducks flew up, splashing, quacking, clattering the reeds. Bonita scooted sideways and stood quivering. Liverwurst plodded on with scarcely a lift of his head.

  “Hoo,” said Rosie softly. “You all right, Colt?”

  “Yeah.” He urged Bonita forward and caught up with Rosie. “I’m starting to get used to that.”

  “This big guy is a good horse.”

  “Sure is.”

  “He’s not much to look at, but he gets the job done.”

  “Sure.”

  Rosie’s long legs hung down Liverwurst’s warm, round, softly breathing barrel. With one hand Rosie stroked Liverwurst’s wispy mane.

  “He has about four or five different colors in his mane,” Rosie remarked.

  “That’s Liverwurst,” said Colt.

  “When we get there,” Colt instructed as they turned down the lane to Deep Meadows Farm, “you’re going to have to ride Liverwurst into the stable aisle and get down on one of those boxes by the tack-room door. The phone is right inside the door. You should be able to reach it in a couple of steps. Heck, you can crawl to it if you have to.” Colt had his plan all thought out.

  But none of it was necessary. At the bottom of the lane they found cars everywhere. Mr. Reynolds was home, wondering where Liverwurst had strayed to. Some of the riders had arrived. And Colt’s mother was there. She had called home to Lauri and then run out to the stable over her lunch hour, wondering what was taking Colt and Rosie so long. It seemed like half the world was there just waiting to help, now that Colt had done all the hard parts.

  “I bet you were scared half to death,” Colt’s mother said to him after Mr. Reynolds had cut the seventy-dollar running shoes off Rosie with his jackknife and hurried the teenager away to the nearest emergency room, where Rosie’s father would meet them. Audrey had to stay with Colt and help him put away Liverwurst and Bonita. As always when exciting things happened, she wanted to talk, and she chattered as she worked. “All alone with a situation like that to deal with. I bet you were petrified.”

  “Nope, Mom. I wasn’t.”

  “Come on. This is your mother you’re trying to kid. I’ve known you since you were a baby.”

  “I was upset,” Colt said, “and mad, and worried about Rosie. But I wasn’t really scared.” And he felt a quiet joy, because he knew it was the truth.

  He reached through the paddock gate, and patted Liverwurst and Bonita, and knew he could truthfully say one more thing.

  “I don’t get scared of things the way I used to, Mom. Not since I’ve been riding horses.”

  Chapter Ten

  Just in time for Sunday dinner the next day Brad carefully wheeled Rosie in the front door. With one foot in a cast and the other ankle wrapped in an elastic bandage, Rosie was home to stay, but confined to a wheelchair for the time being.

  “Boy, it’s good to be out of that hospital!” Rosie looked around gratefully at the small, cluttered living room where his family smiled at him. “Where’s Colt? Hey, Ozzie!” As Colt, who also happened to be in his wheelchair at the moment, rolled toward him. “Gimme a high five, hero!”

  “Shut up.” Colt blushed. Already he had heard enough “hero” stuff to last him the rest of his life. He had been mentioned on the late TV news the night before, and the phone had rung so much all day that his mother had disconnected it. The local paper wanted to do an interview, but Audrey had vetoed that idea.

  Colt rolled his wheelchair up beside Rosie’s and gave him the requested victory salute. Muffins ran around in circles and barked with excitement. “You two guys watch you don’t lock wheels,” L
auri said.

  “Wanna race?” Rosie offered. He struggled to get his wheelchair moving on his own. “Hey, Colt, give me some pointers on how to work this thing.”

  “Want to learn how to pop wheelies?”

  Rosie was not ready for wheelies. Trying to thread the narrow path across the living room, he dodged Muffins, blundered into a pile of laundry, and got stuck. Everyone hurried to help him. “Oh, dear,” Audrey sighed, looking around the crammed house. Magazines had cascaded off the coffee table onto the floor again, as always. Muffins had dragged in Lauri’s old jump rope and left it coiled snakelike near the hassock. For some reason there was an open package of Rice Chex on top of the TV. “I am such a mess.”

  Colt said, “No, you’re not, Mom.” His mother had always taken care of him, talked to specialists, gotten him to his doctor appointments and his equipment fittings, seen that he took his medication, taken him to therapy, arranged for tutoring, attended conferences with his teachers, helped him with his homework, coached him through his exercises, made him learn to take care of himself, kept an eye on his shunt, bought braces and crutches and special shoes, and worked a full-time job to pay for everything. And made him brush his teeth and keep his nose clean and not swear more than was necessary. How could she keep calling herself a mess just because the house was a dump?

  “You’re not a mess, Mom. The house is a mess, so what?”

  “I like it here,” Rosie said, “mess and all. I don’t see why you guys want to move.”

  Brad and Audrey stood still and looked at him. “You don’t feel too crowded, sharing a room with Colt?”

  “Not really.”

  “Me neither,” said Colt. He liked having someone in his room to talk with and to play tricks on him. The night before, when Rosie had been kept at the hospital for observation and Colt was missing him, he had gone to bed to find his sheets full of potently perfumed talcum powder. Brad came in when he heard Colt laughing and had laughed with him. “Rosie told me to do that for him,” he explained, and then he helped Colt change the sheets.

  “I don’t mind us tripping over each other all the time,” Lauri said. “It’s kind of fun.” She and Colt had talked about this. Lauri had moved around so much in her life that she did not want to do it again, or not for a long time. And to Colt, having a big family, with a father and brother and sister, was all new. At first he had hated it. Now he couldn’t get enough of it. He didn’t mind being crowded.