The Amish Blacksmith (31 page)

My little lecture complete, I stared at the woman on the other side of the fence.

She peered at me in return and then slowly began to shake her head.

“Don't you understand? Figuring out
why
they are afraid is every bit as important as knowing
what
they fear.”

“I know why January is afraid right now, Priscilla. Because there's a crinkly plastic thing waving in front of her face! What else do I need to know?”

“You just don't get it,” she said, shaking her head sadly, as if she pitied me in my ignorance. “Horses are emotional creatures, Jake.”

“I never said they weren't.”

“But until you connect with their emotions, you haven't helped them at all. And you don't deserve their trust. You're not
listening
to them!”

I couldn't help but laugh. It just sounded so silly. Connecting with a horse's emotion. Listening to them. So it was back to that again.

Her expression soared right back to anger. I had laughed at her, and now she was mad at me again.

“Look, I think maybe you should go and let me get back to work,” I said, weary of it all.

Priscilla stared at me for a long moment. Then, without a word, she let herself in through the gate, strode over her to horse, and led him back out. “You can be as heartless as you want to me, Jake. I don't care. But there's one thing you need to know about that horse you're working with before you go on tormenting her this way.”

Had this woman not heard a word that I'd said about what I was doing for January? “Priscilla, I'm not—”

“January's problem is not that she's scared.” She looked past my shoulder to gaze at the animal behind me.

“Oh? And did she tell you this herself?”

“Not in so many words,” she replied, ignoring the sting of my barb.

“Okay, then. If she isn't scared, what is she?”

Priscilla continued to look at January a moment longer and then turned her eyes back to me.

“She's sad.”

“Sad.”

Priscilla nodded. “I don't know why or what it's about or where it came from, but I do know this. January may seem scared to you, but there's another emotion behind all her fear, and it's sadness. Do with that what you will.”

T
WENTY
-O
NE

S
adness.

In the broad range of possible responses to a situation, sadness had always seemed to me a waste of time. Not only was it draining, it was fruitless. It accomplished nothing, gave nothing, fixed nothing, changed nothing. Anger or frustration I could understand, or at least tolerate because action usually followed. But sadness was one of those feelings I just didn't see a purpose for. The best way to handle sadness, in my opinion, was to move past it and make room for something more useful.

These were the thoughts rolling around in my head after Priscilla and Voyager walked away. Returning to January and again taking her lead, I tried to pick up where we left off. As we worked, though, my heart was no longer in it. I should have been angry at Priscilla for ruining what had started out to be a very promising session, but the most I could summon now that she was gone was a vague, unsettled irritation—along with the needling notion that what had happened here today between us had to do with far more than just horses.

I could tell January was picking up on my mood, so finally I decided to call it a day before I made things not better but worse. The gathering clouds were also an indication that it was time to wrap it up. I pulled the bag loose from the stick, which I tossed to the side, and then I crushed the crinkly
plastic back into my pocket. I decided we would end today's session with a final lap or two around the ring. We started off, her lead rope in my hand, walking at a regular, steady pace.

As the horse and I moved along side by side, I prayed for insight, after which I began to sense that I should go back over Priscilla's words, hoping to look beyond my own aggravation to the core of what she'd been trying to say. She had been right about Patch. Was there at least a kernel of truth in what she was saying about January too?

The problem was, even if I gave her the benefit of the doubt, her theory made no sense. What on earth would a horse—especially this well-cared-for, physically-healthy horse—have to feel sad about?

In my mind, I went over what I knew of January's life, but there just wasn't much to work with. Sure, her problems had begun once she moved to a new home, but why should that have made any difference? It wasn't as though horses became homesick, was it? The fact that I was even asking myself that question made me groan aloud.

So what else could it be?

One of Natasha's kids had suggested that maybe January missed competing, and perhaps somewhere inside her tiny apple-sized brain she did. But I refused to believe that something as basic as that could cause a horse to be sad. Horses retired all the time and probably enjoyed their life of leisure far more than they ever had their time in the ring.

As horses did not mate for life, I doubted she was missing an old boyfriend.

I supposed some horses developed deep bonds with their humans and would feel sad if those bonds were broken, but January hadn't been the beloved pet of some little girl whose whole life revolved around her pony. January had been a show horse, which meant that even if she'd only had one previous owner, she'd probably lived through a series of handlers and trainers and riders, with none of them around her long enough to ever form that kind of bond. Natasha had specifically said that January's owner wasn't involved in her day-to-day care at all.

As my mind pondered these thoughts, I noticed movement off to my left and turned to see Stephen heading my way. Glancing at the diminishing sun, which was now low in the sky, I realized it was time for our chores in the barn. January and I finished out our loop, and I rewarded her with one final carrot. Then I led her from the paddock, waited as Stephen took Willow, and we started across the grass together.

When we reached our destination, we put the horses away and got busy, starting in on the Kinsinger side of the barn and methodically working our way across, cleaning the stalls while Comet played nearby with a cricket he'd discovered among the hay. I could hear thunder off in the distance and knew the rain was finally rolling in. Natasha had told me that bad storms were one of January's triggers, so a part of me was glad. I'd been working with the animal for less than a week, but if we really had made some progress, as it seemed, then this coming storm might provide the perfect proving ground. Better yet, Priscilla couldn't accuse God, as she had me, of heartlessly sending a trigger January's way just to scare the animal into submission.

As Stephen finished with the last of the Kinsinger stalls, I moved to my side of the barn. The storm was growing ever closer, and it sounded as if we were in for a drenching tonight. January was already acting anxious, hoofing the ground and shaking her head, sure signs that she wasn't too happy. Now that I was here, however, if my presence served to calm her, then that would be a good indication of her newly blossoming trust.

Even Willow was a little bit antsy, though, so I went to her and gave her some long, soothing pats down the line of her neck. Then, after a carrot and a “Good girl,” I returned my attention to January. As the first of the rain began to fall, I positioned myself just outside the closed door of her stall. Resting my hands casually across the top rail, I spoke in low soothing tones to the frightened animal, assuring her it would be all right, that I wouldn't let anything hurt her.

She didn't seem to get the message at first, especially once the steady patter of rain was followed by a solid boom of thunder. In response, she tossed back her head, her eyes wide with fear. Though I would have preferred being in the stall with her, where I could better provide the soothing comfort of touch, I knew that wouldn't be safe. A frightened horse can be a dangerous horse, so the best I could do was to remain just outside her reach and try to get her through this ordeal with only the sound of my voice and the assurance of my presence as protection.

It didn't seem to work at first. The louder the storm grew, the more frantic her behavior became. By the time Stephen had finished with Big Sam's stall and come over to my side to join me, January was so agitated that I feared for her safety. What a disappointment. Apparently, we hadn't made any progress yet after all.

Then again, I told myself as I looked out through the open door at the rain,
this was a doozy of a summer storm, made worse by the fact that it was passing directly overhead. Maybe I was being too impatient, and if I just stuck it out a little longer, I would see some results after all.

I heard a whimper nearby and looked over to see that even Comet was a bit rattled. He had come in from the other side of the barn and was now standing at Stephen's feet, looking up at him with sad eyes. Obviously, Comet didn't like this weather any more than the horses did.

“Hey there, fella,” Stephen said, pausing in his work and setting the pitchfork aside. Then he bent down and put his arms around the dog who was almost instantly comforted in the safety of his master's embrace.

“If only I could get my arms around you,” I cooed to the large, frightened horse in front of me. In a way though, I told myself, I
was
holding her, by staying close until the worst of the storm had passed.

Ultimately, my plan seemed to be working. When the next loud clap of thunder came, I braced myself for January's reaction. And though the whites of her eyes still showed from nervousness, her muscles were no longer trembling and her feet remained firmly on the ground.

Could it be possible? Had she really been taking something from our lessons after all? I nearly held my breath until another clap of thunder came, so eager was I to prove our success. This time, when she barely reacted, I felt like jumping for joy.

We had done it! Though January still had a ways to go, it was clear now that she felt safe with me, at least to an extent. Eventually I hoped we would reach the point where she was secure and confident in every case, no matter the threat, whether man-made or flashed across the sky by God.

Now that she was calm, I turned my attention to the work that still awaited me in the barn. The good news was that even when I had to move farther away from her and my attention was distracted by other things, she still remained reasonably at peace. Every time I glanced back at her, a part of me wanted to point all of this out to Stephen and share with him about my success, but I knew I wouldn't be able to resist gloating, so in an attempt to stay humble, I kept quiet and just smiled to myself, the proof of my technique standing quietly in her stall nearby, munching on hay.

Eventually, the worst of the storm had passed, though the rain lingered and we could still hear distant rumblings in the sky. Once the dog stopped whimpering, Stephen got back to work, too, but soon all that remained was
to clean out the stall I'd been using to house Patch. As that arrangement had had nothing to do with the Kinsingers, I told Stephen I would handle it myself and sent him on home.

That ended up being easier said than done. In fact, Stephen had such a hard time coaxing the rain-shy Comet to leave the dry safety of the barn that I was nearly done cleaning the empty stall by the time they finally left.

In the quiet, I exhaled slowly, allowing myself the smile I'd been stifling since January first calmed down. Feeling deeply pleased, I reached for the fattest, juiciest carrot in the box, a reward for my star pupil: January the palomino, picture of peace.

Except that she wasn't acting so peaceful anymore. The last time I had looked over at her, minutes before, she had simply been standing there, chomping at the fresh hay, the whites of her eyes no longer even visible. Now for some reason, though the worst of the storm had passed, she seemed nervous again, her nose twitching, and her muscles tense. Another low murmur of thunder sounded in the distance, the storm's rumbling farewell. In response, January tossed her head and suddenly began pawing the ground.

I was confounded. For a guy who claimed to read horses pretty well, I hadn't figured this one out at all. Calm one minute and terrorized the next, January was challenging everything I thought I understood about the gentling of horses. As I stood there, hands on hips, surveying the situation, I began to wonder if perhaps she had some sort of physical issue, something that wasn't behaviorally related after all. Then again, Natasha had talked about how thoroughly she had been checked out by experts, so I doubted that was it.