The Horsemaster's Daughter (35 page)

E
liza set out some of last autumn’s apples she’d preserved in a charcoal barrel. In the morning she slipped out early to find that they’d been eaten. She tried to quell a surge of excitement, reminding herself that her father’s first rule was to work at the horse’s pace, peeling away his fears layer by layer rather than trying to rush things. There were more good horses ruined by haste than by any sort of injury, she reminded herself.

In the half-light she inspected the training facility that had been the hub of her father’s life. It was sad, seeing it like this, broken, burnt and neglected. He had died here, she thought with a shudder. He had died for doing the precise thing she was about to do.

The area inside the pen was overgrown with thistle and cordgrass. She would have to spend the day clearing it. Backbreaking but necessary work. Perhaps Hunter Calhoun would be of some use after all.

The thought of her unexpected visitor seemed to have summoned him, for when she untied the halter and turned to pull the gate, he stood there, behind her.

He discomfited her. There was no other word for it. Wearing his own clothes rather than the ill-fitting ones he’d worn yesterday, he managed to appear as broad and comely as a storybook prince, with the breeze in his blond hair and his sleeves rolled back to reveal the dark sun-gold of his forearms. On closer inspection she saw that a golden bristle shaded his unshaven jaw, but that didn’t make him less striking. It only served to soften the edges of his finely made cheeks and jaw, and added to his appeal.

She had never heeded her own looks. She’d never taken the time to make sure her dress fit nicely or her hair was properly curled and pinned. Living on the island with her father, and lately all on her own, made such vanities seem unimportant.

But now, feeling the heat of this man’s stare upon her, appearances were everything. Absolutely everything. She wanted to shrivel down into the ground like a flower too long in the sun. She found herself remembering a group of gentry that had accompanied the drovers to the island to buy ponies from her father one year. They’d made a holiday of it, much as people did on penning day up at Chincoteague to the north. She was twelve, and until that day she had not known a girl wearing breeches and haphazardly cropped hair would be considered anything unusual.

But as she walked past the freshwater pond where the herd of ponies grazed, she became aware of a hush that swept over folks as she walked by, followed by a buzz of whispers when she passed.

“I never knew Henry Flyte had a boy,” someone said.

The dart had sunk deep into the tender flesh of her vanity. She recalled actually flinching, feeling the sting between her shoulder blades.

“That’s no boy,” someone else declared. “That’s the horsemaster’s daughter.”

That day, Eliza had stopped wearing trousers. She had painstakingly studied a tattered copy of
Country Wives Budget
to learn how to make a dress. She let her hair grow out and tried to style it in the manner of the engraved illustrations in the journal. In subsequent years, visitors to the island still whispered about her, but not because she looked like a boy. It was because she had become a creature recognizable as female no matter what she wore. The stares and whispers carried quite a different connotation. But she never managed to fix herself up quite right. Never managed to capture the polished prettiness of a girl gently raised. And in truth, it usually didn’t matter.

But when she brushed the tangle of black hair out of her eyes and looked across the field at Hunter Calhoun, it mattered.

“I was just thinking about you,” she confessed.

He propped an elbow on the rail and crossed one ankle over the other. “You were?”

“This area needs clearing.”

One side of his mouth slid upward. She couldn’t tell if it was a grin or a sneer. “And why would that make you think of me?” he asked.

A sneer, she decided. “Because it’s where your horse is going to be kept.”

“I told you yesterday, I want no part of this idiotic scheme. I plan to leave—”

“You’re not going to get away with just leaving him.” Her thoughts, of which he could have no inkling, made her testy. If he wondered why, she’d just let him wonder. “I didn’t ask you to bring him here, but now that you have, you’re going to see this through.”

He spread his hands in mock surrender. “It
is
through. Don’t you see that? The horse is vicious, and he’s scared of a flock of damn birds. Sure, you did a little parlor trick with him down on the beach, but you’ll never turn that animal into a racehorse.”

She glared at him. “Get a shovel.”

“I just said—”

“I heard what you said. Get a shovel, Calhoun. If I’m wrong, you can—” She broke off, undecided.

“I can what?”

“You can shoot
me,
not the horse.”

He laughed, but to her relief, he picked up a rusty shovel and hefted it over his shoulder. “You don’t mean that.”

“There’s one way to find out.”

“Damn, but you are a stubborn woman. What the hell gives you the idea you can turn this horse around?”

“I watched my father do it for years, and he taught me to do it on my own.”

“And just what is it you think you can do for that animal?”

“Figure out why he’s afraid, then show him he doesn’t need to be afraid anymore.” She eyed him critically. “It would help if you’d quit spooking him every time he twitches an ear.”

“If it’s so simple,” he asked, “why don’t all horsemen train by this method?”

“I don’t know any other horsemen,” she admitted. “My father showed me the ways of horses by taking me to see the wild ponies, season after season, year after year. If you watch close enough, you start seeing patterns in the way they act. As soon as you understand the patterns, you understand what they’re saying.”

“You claim to know a lot about horses, Eliza Flyte. Sounds like you gave it a fair amount of study.”

“It was my life.”

“Was?”

“Before my father passed.”

“What is your life now?”

The question pressed at her in a painful spot. She braced herself against the hurt. No matter what, she must not let Calhoun’s skepticism undermine her confidence. The horse had to learn to trust her, and if she wasn’t certain of her skills, he’d sense that. “You ask hard questions, Mr. Calhoun,” she said. Then she froze, and despite the rising heat of the day felt a chilly tingle of awareness.

“What is it?” he asked. “You’re going all weird on me again—”

“Hush.” She carefully laid aside her rake. From the corner of her eye, she spied the stallion on the beach path some distance away. “There you are, my love,” she whispered. “I knew you’d come.”

“What?”
Calhoun scratched his head in confusion.

Eliza stifled a laugh at his ignorance, but she didn’t have time to explain things to him right now.

Hunter held out for as long as he could, but at last worry got the better of him. Taking the shovel in hand to use as a weapon, he followed Eliza’s footprints in the sand. No matter what she said, her scheme to pen the horse and train him was as insane as the woman herself. He had no idea why she thought she could tame a maddened, doomed horse that the best experts in the county couldn’t get near.

A sharp, burning tension stabbed between his shoulders as he quickened his pace. He kept imagining her broken, bleeding, maimed by the horse. Before he knew it, he was running, and he didn’t stop until he saw her.

As she had the day before, Eliza Flyte walked barefoot down the beach. And, just like yesterday, the stallion followed her. He was skittish at first, but after a while he started moving in close. She repeated the ritualistic moves—the turning, the shooing away, the staring down.

Hunter was intrigued, especially in light of what she had said about knowing what a horse was thinking by watching what he did with his body. Perhaps it was only his imagination, he thought, arguing with himself, but the horse followed her more quickly and readily than he had the day before. He stayed longer too, when she turned to touch him around the head and ears.

The docile creature, following the girl like a big trained dog, hardly resembled the murderous stallion. The horse that had exploded from the belly of the ship with fire in his eye. The horse they all said was ruined for good.

Hunter caught himself holding his breath, hoping foolishly that the girl just might be right, that Finn could be tamed, trained to race again. The notion shattered when the horse reared and ran off. This time the trigger was nothing more than the wind rippling across a tide pool, causing a brake of reeds to bend and whip. The stallion panicked as if a bomb had gone off under him. Eliza stood alone on the sand, staring off into the distance.

A parlor trick, Hunter reminded himself, trying not to feel too sorry for Eliza Flyte. Maybe she had put something in those apples she’d set out for the horse. Hunter wanted to believe, but he couldn’t. He’d seen too much violence in the animal. Letting her toy with him this way only postponed the inevitable.

“I can’t stay here any longer,” he informed her that evening. He stood on the porch; she was in the back, finishing with the cow. A cacophony of chirping frogs filled the gathering dark. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked, raising his voice.

“I heard you.”

“I have to go back to Albion,” he said. “I have responsibilities—”

“You do,” she agreed, coming around the side of the house with a bucket of milk. She walked so silently on bare feet, it amazed him. The women he knew made a great racket when they moved, what with their crinolines and hoop skirts brushing against everything in sight. And the women he knew talked. A lot. Most of the time Eliza Flyte was almost eerily quiet.

“Responsibilities at home,” he said. He had a strange urge to tell her more, to explain about his children, but he wouldn’t let himself. She disliked and distrusted him enough as it was. And he didn’t know what the hell to think of her.

“And to that horse you brought across a whole ocean,” she reminded him. “He didn’t ask for that, you know.”

“I never intended to stay this long. I swear,” he said in annoyance. “I can’t seem to get through to you, can I?” The craving for a drink of whiskey prickled him, making him pace in agitation and rake a splayed hand through his hair. “The damn horse is ruined. You’ve managed to get close to him a time or two, but that’s a far cry from turning him into something a person could actually ride.”

She set down the milk bucket. “We’ve barely begun. That horse is likely to be on the offense a good while. His wounds need to heal. He has to regain his strength and confidence. He has to learn to trust again, and that takes time.”

“Give it up, Eliza—”

“You brought him here because you thought there was something worth saving,” she said passionately.

“That was before I realized it’s hopeless.”

“I never said it wouldn’t be a struggle.”

“I don’t have time to stand by while you lose a struggle.”

“Fine.” She picked up the bucket and climbed the steps, pushing the kitchen door open with her hip. “Then watch me win.”

“Right.”

Yet he found himself constantly intrigued by everything about her. He felt torn, but only for a moment. Nancy and Willa looked after the children, and the Beaumonts’ schoolmaster at neighboring Bonterre saw to their lessons. Blue and Belinda wouldn’t miss their father if he stayed away for days or even weeks. The truth of the thought revived his thirst for whiskey. His own children hardly knew him. It scared them when he drank, and he often woke up vowing he wouldn’t touch another drop, but the thirst always got the better of him. Maybe it was best for them if he was gone for a while.

“I’ll strike a bargain with you,” he said to Eliza through the half-open door. “You get a halter on that horse without getting yourself killed, and I’ll stay for as long as it takes.”

The stallion greeted Eliza with savage fury. On the long stretch of beach that had become their battleground, he stood with his mouth open and his teeth bared. He flicked his ears and tail and tossed his head.

She fixed a stare on him and forbade herself to feel disheartened by the horse’s violence and distrust. Patience, she kept telling herself hour after hour.
Patience.

The horse shrieked out a whinny and reared up. The sound of its shrill voice touched her spine with ice. She treated him with disdain, turning and walking away as if she did not care whether or not he followed. Perhaps it was the storm last night and the lingering thunder of a higher-than-usual surf, but the stallion behaved with fury today. He snorted, then plunged at her, and it took all her self-control to stand idly on the sand rather than run for cover.

She flicked the rope out. The horse flattened his ears to his head, distended his nostrils, rolled his eyes. Eliza stood firm. The stallion pawed the sand, kicking up a storm beneath his hooves. Yet even as he threatened her, even as the fear crowded in between them, she felt his indomitable spirit and knew one day she would reach him.

But not today, she thought exhaustedly after hours of trying to keep and hold his attention and trust. His whinny was more piercing than ever, and when thunder rolled and he shot away like a stone from a sling, she stood bereft, defeated, fighting the doubts that plagued her.

Taming the stallion became the most important thing in Eliza’s life. She tried not to examine her reasons for this, but they were pitifully clear, probably to Hunter Calhoun as well as in her own mind. It was not just Calhoun’s challenge, and her need to win the bargain they had struck, to make him stay and see this through. Nor was it any sort of softhearted nature on her part. No, her primary reason for dedicating herself to the violent, wounded horse was to bring herself closer to her father.

For some time now, she had been losing him by inches. Her father, whom she had adored with all that she was, kept slipping farther and farther away from her, and she didn’t know how to get him back. One day she would realize she had forgotten what his voice sounded like when he said “good morning” to her. Then she would realize she had forgotten what his hands looked like. And the expression on his face when he told her a story, and the song he used to sing when he chopped wood for the stove. Each time a precious memory eluded her, she felt his death all over again.