High Hurdles (58 page)

Much later with Major wearing ice boots on both hot legs, DJ allowed Joe to take her home to Gran’s. Brad and Jackie were still there—she could tell by their car in the drive. Robert’s car was there, also.

“Life sure can change fast, can’t it?” She looked over to Joe as he turned the key and pulled it out of the ignition.

“Yeah, sometimes things happen out of the blue. All you can do is get through.”

“Joe, I felt Jesus with me up on that cliff.”

“I know He’s the one who set a bug in my ear to skip the opera. I just knew we had to get home.” He shook his head. “Any other woman would have made a fuss, but not your grandmother. She just said, ‘Can’t you drive faster, darlin’?’ And to a retired policeman—can you beat that?”

“Well, I’m sure glad you were listening.” DJ glanced up to see the twins come barreling out the door. “Uh-oh, better go.”

They each glommed on to a leg. “DJ, we was missing you! You okay? Is Major okay?”

“He’ll be okay in a couple of days, and you can see I’m fine.” She bent over and hugged each of them. “Now, hang on.”

She groaned as she lifted each loaded foot.

“DJ, you gonna be our sister for real?”

“Soon, guys, soon.”

A wedding coming up. Not out of the blue, but another big change nonetheless. DJ stopped her straddle walk and grinned.

“Race you to the door!”

To Aunty Bobby and my mother,

who read to me when I was little,

thus beginning a lifelong love of words,

reading books, and now writing.

Who ever knows how God

will use our efforts!

Thank you—

small words that convey

a lifetime of gratitude.

Chapter
•
1

“Major, I’m so sorry you got hurt.” DJ Randall leaned her head against her horse’s dark neck. The blood bay turned his head to nose her shoulder. “Yeah, I know
you
forgive me. It’s forgiving myself for doing stupid things that’s hard.”

Major snorted and pushed his head farther into her ministering fingers, making it easier for her to reach his favorite places. At five feet seven, DJ had no trouble reaching to scratch his ears or his white blaze, but Major had clearly learned that the simpler he made it for his human friends, the more often they obliged him with a rub.

“You’re going to spoil that horse rotten.” Joe Crowder, DJ’s grandfather now that he had married her widowed grandmother, leaned on the aluminum bars separating his horse’s stall from Major’s. Grandpa Joe, whom DJ had fondly nicknamed GJ, stabled his new cutting-horse-in-training, Rambling Ranger, next to Major, his old friend from the police force.

“Hey, you scared me! I didn’t know you were here.” DJ straightened up so fast, she clipped Major’s muzzle with her shoulder. The horse threw his head back, returning the favor by knocking her across the stall. She grabbed the stall bars with both hands to keep from smashing her face into the wall. DJ glared at Joe, who was trying not to grin. “Thanks for nothing.”

“Far as I’m concerned, it was a good show.” He reached out to stroke Major’s nose. “Hey, big fella, you sure are easy to spook today.” Joe had taken his aging Thoroughbred-Morgan horse with him when he retired from the San Francisco Mounted Police Patrol. Learning how badly DJ wanted a horse, he had offered to let her buy his friend.

“You don’t seem too concerned about your granddaughter’s health.” DJ rubbed her shoulder and made a face at her grandfather. A second look was directed at Major, who was enjoying his nose rub so much that he completely ignored her.

“Hey, you two, remember me?” She planted her fists on slim hips. At fourteen, DJ was stick straight and flat in both front and back, to quote one of her frequent complaints. Her sun-shot honey blond hair waved past her shoulders when it wasn’t in a ponytail—which was almost never. This rainy mid-January day, she wore long jeans with both a sweat shirt and a Windbreaker—unusual garb for a girl living in supposedly sunny California.

“You think she’ll go away if we ignore her?” Joe asked Major in a stage whisper.

“Fat chance.” DJ grinned up at him. “Unless
you
want to teach Andrew to ride. He’s supposed to go on the lunge line today, but you know him—he backtracks more than he heads forward.”

Andrew, an eight-year-old with a belly-deep fear of horses, was one of DJ’s newest students. Slowly but surely, thanks to her patient coaching and Bandit’s gentle manner, the shy boy was coming around. She’d led him around the arena on the dapple-gray pony for their last lesson to the cheers of everyone around. That major accomplishment had taken six months.

DJ stroked Major’s shoulder and down his injured leg. Every minute of every day, she wished she had never gone riding up in Briones State Park that terrible afternoon. A mud slide had carried her and her horse over a cliff. It was a miracle they’d survived. Her Gran said it was the grace of God that had protected them, and DJ fully agreed. She’d pleaded for God to send help, and He had. Now they were both well and healthy—well, at least one of them was healthy. Major’s leg was taking its own sweet time healing.

She chewed on her lip and shook her head as she felt the heat that persisted in spite of ice packs, massages, and liniment. It had been ten days since she’d ridden him, and it might be ten more. Sighing, DJ rubbed both hands up and down over the swollen muscles of his leg again, feeling him flinch when she went too deep.

“I’m going for the ice boot.” She gave Major a pat on the cheek. “Go back to your first love, you big fake.” He nuzzled her ponytail before she got away.

“He loves you, too, you know,” Joe called after her.

“Right! See if I come back with any carrots for him.” DJ trotted down the aisle to the room set aside for the ice machine, the locked medicine cabinet, a sink for washing wraps, and other equipment needed for the health of the horses stabled at the Academy. She scooped out a bucket of ice, grabbed the canvas wrap that covered shoulder to hoof on an injured horse, and headed back to the stalls.

“You riding today?” Amy Yamamoto, petite as DJ was tall and her cohort in hundreds of escapades since they were five, called from her gelding’s stall.

“Later. Bridget had an appointment and won’t be back as soon as she’d thought.” Bridget Sommersby, who owned the stable and riding school, was also DJ’s coach, mentor, and encourager. DJ owned a solid case of hero worship for the former Olympic competitor from the French National Equestrian Team, who never accepted excuses or sloppy work from her students. To DJ’s unending excitement, Bridget agreed with her that, a few years down the road, there might be a place on the U.S. Equestrian Team for a girl with big dreams.

DJ marched back to Major’s stall, which was housed in the open stalls with corrugated roofing at the west end of the long red barn. Academy boarders could be kept inside the barn, in the outside stalls, or on pasture, depending on how much their owners wanted to spend.

DJ stopped a moment at Patches’ stall to palm him a carrot piece. “You put on your willing hat now, you hear? I don’t want any surprises.” Patches nodded as if he agreed and searched her pocket for more. In truth, Patches would be better known as Trouble. A smart rider never took her mind off the sneaky gelding when riding him. As his trainer, DJ had learned that the hard way.

Back in Major’s stall, she wrapped the boot around his leg and Velcroed the straps in place before pouring in the flat ice cubes. As the cold penetrated the boot, Major wrinkled his skin, as if shrugging off flies. “I know it’s freezing, but you’re tough—you can stand it.”

“If that’s the worst that ever happens to him, he’s home free. Let me tell you, when he took a bullet meant for me and the vet threatened to put him down, I lived in his stall for days.” Joe shook his head. “That was a bad time.”

DJ stroked the shoulder scar that had never regained its hair covering. She wrapped her arms around her horse’s neck and squeezed, and Major sighed as though he liked hugs as much as she did. “You big sweetie, you.” She inhaled. “And you smell so good, too.”

Life according to DJ meant horses were the best smelling creatures on God’s green earth. Unfortunately, her mother did
not
agree.

“You better hustle, kid. I just saw Bridget pull in.” Joe ran his rubber currycomb over his brush and banged the two together to clean them. “You want a ride home later?” He raised his voice because DJ had ducked under the web gate across her stall door and was heading up the aisle.

“Yes, please.” DJ dogtrotted to the far corner of the building to Megs’ stall. Bridget had ridden the Thoroughbred-Arabian in world-class dressage competitions, retiring the horse two years earlier. DJ felt privileged that Bridget allowed her to ride the well-trained animal, even though dressage was not her idea of fun. It was jumping that made her heart beat faster and her dreams soar.

Lessons on Megs were a sign that Bridget believed in her.

“Okay, girl, let’s get you groomed and out there to warm up.” DJ took her grooming bucket in the stall with her and, after giving the dark bay mare a carrot, took out her brush and rubber currycomb. Using both hands and the flick of the wrist she’d learned from Bridget years before, she had the horse groomed in record time. She picked the hooves with the same quick motions and had Megs tacked up and walking toward the arena in minutes. On the way past the tack room, DJ snagged her helmet off the rack, then mounted up and trotted across the puddle-pocked parking area to the covered arena.

The outdoor arena looked like a small lake in spite of the tons of sand that had been dumped in the ring. Most of the jumping lessons were held in the outdoor arena, so it was DJ’s favorite of the Academy’s two arenas. In spite of the landslide, her most favorite place in all the world to ride was still up in the hills of Briones State Park.

She walked the horse one circuit of the covered, lighted arena, then trotted, her posting as natural as breathing. They spent the next twenty minutes at a walk, trot, canter, and reverse, repeating the maneuvers before working large circles and figure eights, half halts and halts, all to limber up both horse and rider.

When Bridget, wearing a yellow rain slicker, opened the gate and entered the arena, DJ turned Megs and trotted over to stop in front of their trainer.

“You reviewed your last lessons?” Bridget asked after greeting both horse and girl.

“Yup. Working on the bit is so easy on her. Makes me aware how much training Major and I need.”

“Good. I am glad you finally agree with me.” Bridget stepped back. “Next time you will not argue, right?” Her arched eyebrow said she was teasing. DJ had been as excited about learning dressage basics as she was about math. As a freshman at Acalanese High School, studying algebra never made it to even the bottom of her fun list, while anything to do with horses or art flew to the top.

DJ nodded. “I’ll try not to.”

“Try?” The eyebrow disappeared under Bridget’s Australian hat brim.

DJ flinched. She knew better than to use that word. “I won’t argue.” Try was not an acceptable answer around Bridget. You either did or did not. You didn’t just
try
. All Bridget asked was that her students do their best—at all times.

“Go on now. Review for me.”

DJ took Megs through all she’d already done, making sure her transitions from gait to gait were smooth.

“Deeper in the saddle.” Bridget called when they cantered past. “Use your seat and legs to drive her into your hands and onto the bit. Shoulders. Elbows. Eyes.”

DJ checked each area of her body that Bridget mentioned. Looking straight ahead and sitting perfectly straight with relaxed shoulders, so deep in the saddle that she felt the horse’s movements with her seat bones, should have been natural by now. At least that’s what DJ told herself. Since she usually leaned forward slightly for jumping, sitting deep and straight took concentration.

She ignored the others using the arena and focused on both her own body and what Megs was doing. Around and around she went, obeying the commands of her trainer, rejoicing in the round feel of the horse under her. She glanced over at a shout from one of the other riders, and Megs faltered. DJ winced, hoping Bridget had been looking the other way.

Hope wasted. The trainer motioned her over. “Now, what did you do wrong?”

“Broke my concentration and looked off to the side.”

“And?”

“And relaxed my seat and legs so I was no longer driving her forward. Megs felt it and slowed.”

“Right. Now go again. Same routine.”

DJ nodded. When she started to yell at herself, she cut off her words. Bridget stressed positive self-talk—no one was allowed to get on anyone’s case, including her own. DJ squeezed Megs into a canter, and the driving power of the horse’s hindquarters lifted Megs’ head and neck right up into DJ’s hands.

By the time the lesson was over, both girl and horse wore drops of sweat in spite of the chilly, damp weather.

“Good. You are improving daily.”

“
Merci
.” DJ and Amy had started using some French phrases to get ready to take French classes at school next year.

Bridget smiled up at her. “You have Andrew on the lunge next?”

“Hope so. With him off for two weeks, you never know.” DJ patted Megs’ shoulder. “Thank you for letting me take lessons on her.”

“
De rien
. You are welcome.”

Back in the arena half an hour later, with an extremely reluctant rider on Bandit, DJ prayed nothing would happen to spook the pony and scare the boy. His lower lip already stuck out about as far as the end of his nose. With Andrew, the fear wasn’t pretend. She admired him for working hard to overcome it so he could someday ride with his family.

“Okay, Andrew, how does the horse feel beneath you?” She kept her voice gentle and a soft smile on her face.