Dare to Dream, page 4
Cruise stood stock still, tense but not upset, as Marley rubbed her hands up and down his solid neck, praising him effusively. After a few moments, she picked up the leadrope and clicked her tongue to tell him that she wanted him to go forward. He knew that command, and tentatively took a step.
“Good boy,” Marley told him. “You’re a star. Good boy. Just walking, nice and easy.” Cruise lived up to his name, taking very little time to settle into a steady walk. Marley gently steered him around the arena, across the middle and changing the rein, even directing him over the poles on the ground. Cruise was calm, responsive and eager to please. Marley sat up and put a gentle pressure on the reins, saying “Whoa” at the same time. Cruise halted, and Marley patted him again.
It was so easy it was almost ridiculous. Van did most of the initial breaking-in around the farm, although sometimes they got small ponies, too small to carry Van comfortably, so Marley had been the first one on them. She’d always had Van at the pony’s head leading her, and been wearing a helmet and proper boots. But today, Marley sat on Cruise’s back in shorts and sneakers and an old grey polo shirt, and the brown and white hairs on his back stuck to her legs and made them itch slightly as he walked. He was warm and solid and every bit as wonderful to ride as she’d known he would be.
“Wanna try a trot?” she asked the pony. She squeezed gently with her legs and clicked her tongue again. Cruise hesitated, and she asked again gently.
“Trrrrrot on,” she told him, using the voice she’d trained him to respond to on the lunge. It was as though a lightbulb went on in his pony brain, and he picked up a trot, smooth and effortless, floating across the ground. Marley’s years of bareback riding and jumping paid off as she sat easily to his stride. Cruise jogged happily around the arena, ears pricked and eyes shining, and Marley found herself smiling so hard that her face started to hurt.
“Marley!” The voice called from a distance, searching for her.
With a surge of guilt, Marley pulled back on the leadrope. Cruise shook his head, resisting the sudden pressure across his nose from the halter, and Marley gentled her touch.
“Ho buddy,” she said, and he came back to a walk. “That was Kris, she’s home. She’ll come looking for me in a minute, and I don’t think she’d be too impressed to find me doing this. I’m not supposed to be riding you yet.”
She brought Cruise to a halt, and leaned forward to gently stroke his neck. “You are a superstar,” she told him. “How on earth have I lived without you all this time?”
Sliding from his broad back, she untied the halter reins and led him towards the arena gate. Moments later, Kris appeared around the corner and saw her.
“There you are.” She smiled at the pinto pony as Marley led him up to her. “How’s the new boy doing?”
“Wonderful,” Marley said, suddenly aware that her bare legs must be covered in his hairs. She made sure to stay on the other side of the pony, hoping Kris wouldn’t catch her out. “He’s so smart, and responsive. We did some trotting poles on the lunge, and then I free-lunged him and he followed me over a couple of jumps. I think he’ll make a super show jumper.”
“That’d be nice,” Kris said, patting the gelding’s neck. “The better he jumps, the more he’s worth, and if he’s that quick to pick up new ideas, he’ll be saleable in no time. God knows we need the money.” Her words sent a shiver down Marley’s spine. She tried to fight it off, reminding herself that their ponies were there to be sold, not kept. But Cruise was different, Marley already knew. Cruise was too special to sell.
Kris was still talking. “But Mar, you shouldn’t be out here by yourself with him. He’s adapted well, but he was practically wild only a couple of weeks ago, and he’s still unpredictable. What if something happened to you while we weren’t around?”
“Sorry,” Marley apologised swiftly, not because she meant it but in order to keep the peace. “But he was in the paddock looking bored, and I was in the house feeling bored, so I thought we may as well do something fun.”
Kris nodded understandingly and started to walk towards the house. Marley led Cruise behind her sister, using her free hand to try and rub the pony’s hair off her legs while her sister’s back was turned, still troubled by the thought of selling Cruise.
Kris turned around suddenly, and Marley jumped, stumbling into Cruise’s shoulder and spooking him. He spun around, almost knocking Marley off her feet. Kris was at his head in an instant, taking hold of his halter and speaking softly to him. The pony blew out hard through his nostrils, his body still tense.
“See what I mean?” Kris said, and Marley nodded unwillingly. Kris released Cruise’s head and patted him gently, wincing slightly at the sharp pain in her back that had come from reaching up and grabbing him so swiftly. But she’d reacted instinctively, to protect her sister. Marley was her responsibility now, and she didn’t want to see her get hurt.
“Put him away and come help get dinner ready,” Kris told her. “Van’s already doing the night feeds.” Marley nodded and started leading Cruise forward as Kris turned up the dirt track that led to the house.
“Oh, and Marley? Next time you get bored, clean some tack.” She walked on up the hill, ignoring the nagging pain in the centre of her back that stabbed her with every stride.
Marley stuck her tongue out at her sister’s retreating form, then slid her arm over Cruise’s neck and walked by his side back to the yards.
“Don’t worry about her, Cruise,” she told him. “We are never ever selling you. Not ever. We can sell all the other horses before we’d ever sell you. We could be flat broke and we’d never sell you. We could live off eggs and rice, and milk from the farm next door. I would wear all of Van and Kris’s hand-me-down clothes, and not care if they didn’t fit me, or had holes in them. No matter what it takes,” and she halted the pony and looked him in the eye. “I will never let them sell you.”
She spoke the words out loud, not only for Cruise’s ears but for everyone else in the vicinity. She said it for the benefit of the chicken scratching around under the apple trees, for the rabbit ducking back into its warren in the sandbank, for the birds twittering in the treetops and the cat dozing on the corrugated iron roof of the tractor shed. But mostly she said it for herself, to make herself sure, to make herself believe.
“Besides,” she told Cruise as she started walking again. “You’re not worth anything yet. You’re just an unbroken half-wild pinto pony. You’re as ordinary as they come.”
But in her heart, Marley knew that Cruise was anything but.
Van scooped out a half measure of pellets and dumped them into Breeze’s feed bucket. Half a scoop for Daisy. Quarter scoop for Pluto, he’s fat at the moment. A big scoop for Covergirl, she worked hard today. The pellets rattled from the scoop into the buckets. Van dipped her deeply tanned arm into the bin and took up another scoop. Three-quarters for Normandy. Quarter scoop for Nim, he doesn’t need energy feed while he’s out of work. She’d give him extra beet pulp to compensate.
She heard Marley come into the other end of the barn and rummage around in the tack room. Moments later, footsteps padded down the aisle and her sister’s head appeared around the door.
“Feed for Cruise?” she asked, and Van added a quarter scoop of pellets to a bucket of feed and kicked it across the floor to her sister. Marley took it away as Van threw the scoop into the grain bin and fastened the lid on securely. She looked up at the grey tabby cat perched on the cover rack above her head, who had been watching her serenely the whole time.
“If you were better at your job, I wouldn’t have to clamp this down so hard,” she said. The cat, optimistically named Mousetrap, yawned indifferently and stared vaguely up at the swallows nesting in the rafters above her head.
Van stepped out into the aisle and watched Marley walk towards the barn doors, silhouetted against the fading light. Cruise was nickering greedily, and Marley dropped the bucket in front of him and draped an arm over his withers as he ate.
Funny little pony, Van mused. He was so wild when he arrived, but now that he’d decided to trust Marley, he had done so whole-heartedly and without reserve. She could already do practically anything with him, and Marley had high hopes for the pony’s future. But he was still young and unpredictable, and only time would tell what he’d become.
Van called her sister’s name, and Marley turned around. “Come help me feed the rest of them, would you?”
Kris stood by the stove and stirred the cheese sauce, pretending that the ache in her back was no big deal. She’d taken several painkillers when she got back to the house, but they hadn’t seemed to make much difference. Either it was actually a lot more painful than it felt right now, or she was becoming immune to the drugs that she took so often. She tried not to think about that possibility.
She heard Van and Marley come in through the back door, chatting and laughing loudly. The sound of their mirth eased Kris’s pain as nothing else could, and she smiled as they burst into the kitchen, preceded by the dogs. Tucker, a Huntaway-Lab cross, went straight to his blanket in the corner and curled up peacefully, but the little wire-haired terrier Dash ran immediately to Kris’s side and sat up on her hind legs, begging for scraps.
“I wish you hadn’t taught her to do that,” Kris complained to Marley, who collapsed into the nearest chair with a sigh.
“It’s cute,” Marley replied.
“It’ll be real cute when she trips me up and I accidentally pour a pot of boiling water on her head,” Kris replied.
Marley rolled her eyes and called Dash, who came running over and leapt into her lap. She rubbed the dog’s small ears as Van set the table, and Kris dished out their meal.
“Nim’s looking better,” Van said, when they had all started to eat. “He’s still very sore but the wound looks like it’s healing. It’s going to scar pretty badly though.”
“When’s Mike coming back to check on it?” Kris asked.
Marley grinned at Van and started fluttering her eyelashes and fanning herself until Van kicked her under the table.
“Wednesday,” she muttered in response to the question, and glared across the table at Marley, almost daring her to comment. Marley opened her mouth, and Kris swiftly butted in, changing the subject.
“Marley, how was school?”
Marley pulled a face and stabbed her fork into her cauliflower. “Entirely as predicted. About as much fun as a trip to the dentist.” She fed the vegetable to the terrier still in her lap, who gobbled it down and then put her head into Marley’s plate, trying to get more.
“Gross Mar, put her down,” Van snapped. Marley scowled at her, but reluctantly lowered the dog onto the ground and pulled her chair in closer to the table. The girls ate in silence for a time, all lost in their own thoughts.
After a time, Van felt bad for being so grumpy. She tried to think of something that would cheer Marley up. As they scraped their plates and Kris got to her feet to clear the table, Van nudged Marley’s shin with her toe.
“We should break that pinto pony in soon.”
Marley’s head shot up and met her sister’s eyes. “Okay.”
“Bet you’re dying to get on him,” Van smiled, expecting a delirious response, but Marley just nodded.
“Yeah, it’ll be good.” She stood up and stretched. “I need a shower.” She headed out of the room with Dash at her heels. Kris frowned suddenly.
“Were you riding this afternoon?”
Marley spun around, her heart thudding. “What?”
“You’ve got bareback butt,” Van pointed out.
“Oh. Um, yeah. I just rode Breeze,” Marley said, hoping that the brown hairs were the only ones her sisters could see.
“I hope you wore a helmet,” Kris said, then turned away and put the jug on to boil. Marley fled.
“Take it easy,” Van told Marley as she held Cruise’s head. He had a saddle and bridle on today, and Marley was wearing her helmet and proper riding boots. She checked the girth, then picked up the reins in her left hand and faced the saddle.
Van held Cruise’s rein gently but firmly in her left hand as she used her right to give Marley a leg-up. Like the day before, Marley lay over top of his back for a moment before swinging her leg over. Cruise’s ears flickered back and forth, but he stood like a rock as Marley sat up and slid her feet into the stirrup irons.
“Good boy,” she told him, rubbing his neck.
Van stood at his head, nodding her approval. “He seems chill. It’s almost like he’s done all this before, and he’s remembering it rather than learning it.”
Marley bit her tongue. It had been a week since she’d first sat on Cruise, and she had ridden him in secret almost every day since. He was now walking and trotting happily around bareback, but this was the first time they’d had a saddle between them. Marley closed her legs against the pony’s sides and clicked her tongue, and Cruise walked forward. Van stayed at his head, keeping a close eye on them.
“Try a halt,” she told Marley, who sat up straighter and gently closed her fingers around the reins.
“Ho,” she said and Cruise halted immediately. Van frowned in surprise, and looked at him.
“He’s quick,” she said. She soon had Marley stopping, starting and turning across the arena. “Try a trot,” she said eventually. “Just a short one, see how he goes.”
Marley had already closed her legs against Cruise’s sides, and he sprang into a cadenced trot. She sat to it easily for a few strides, then started rising and sitting in time with him. They reached the corner of their small arena, and Van called to her to come back to a walk. Marley pretended not to hear her. She already knew that Cruise could trot around a corner without breaking stride. She kept going, her heart singing as the pony swung along beneath her.
“Change the rein,” Van called and Marley shifted her weight and touched the inside rein. Cruise became a little unbalanced on the turn, but Marley steadied him easily and trotted across the diagonal before slowing him for the turn onto the left rein. She trotted him around the arena twice in that direction before bringing him back to a walk, and letting the reins fall loose on his neck.
Van stood in the middle of the arena with her hands on her hips. “This pony has been ridden before,” she declared. Marley’s heart pounded, but she couldn’t help grinning. “Someone must have backed him and then turned him out. He went a bit feral again, but he’s had the basic training.”
Marley wasn’t sure what to say. She was sure that she’d been the first person to sit on Cruise, that he had truly been an unbroken pony when he came to them. But if Van hadn’t figured it out, Marley didn’t want to tell her.
“What a pro!” The girls looked over to see Kris standing at the gate and watching them. Marley grinned as Kris shook her head in amazement. “He looks like he’s been doing this for years.”
Her sisters stood side by side and watched as Marley continued schooling Cruise. He was still unbalanced, and she hadn’t tried cantering him yet. It would take time for him to build up his muscles and develop the suppleness and balance that he needed to become a competitive jumper, but at the rate he was progressing, it wouldn’t take long. She rode him over to the gate and Kris rubbed the pony’s forehead affectionately.
“I like this one,” Kris said. “You guys look very happy out there.”
“We are,” Marley agreed, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around the pony’s neck. He turned his head and nuzzled her foot, and she scratched his dark ears.
“Well, that’s enough for him today,” Van said. “You can start hacking him tomorrow. Let him learn about hills and rivers and all that fun stuff, so that he looks forward to being ridden.”
“He already does,” Marley told her, sliding off Cruise’s back and landing gracefully next to him. “He stands in the paddock all day just waiting for me to come home, and he can’t wait until we can start jumping! He’s going to be amazing,” she told her sisters as she started walking out of the arena, Cruise happily following her. “Pony of the Year, here we come.”
“Never let it be said that our sister lacks ambition,” Van said wryly as Marley and Cruise walked away.
Kris ran her eyes over the list in her hand, mentally checking everything off.
“Have you seen Pluto’s saddle?” she called up the ramp of the horse truck, where Van was trying to squash Covergirl’s rug into the overhead rack. “It’s not in the tack room.”
“Marley was cleaning it last night. I think it’s in the washhouse.”
Kris rolled her eyes. “Typical. Serve her right if we left it behind.”
“She’d just ride him bareback,” Van grinned as she gave the rug a final shove. It was Thursday morning and they were packing the truck for a show that weekend, while Marley put in a couple of hours at school to keep the teachers happy. Not that she’d be doing any work, Van was sure. Just sitting in the classroom counting down the minutes until she could leave. Van had been there before, and she didn’t begrudge her sister the feeling at all. The horses and ponies stood in the yards with tails washed and legs bandaged, waiting to be loaded.
“What time’s Ian coming over?” she asked Kris as she started loading sacks of feed into the truck’s internal grain bins.
“In half an hour or so,” her sister replied. “I’ve left him all the usual instructions.”
Ian Rhodes was an old friend of their father’s who lived on the outskirts of town. Now in his late seventies, his arthritis had forced him to retire from farming some years ago but he was still fit enough to look after the farm when the girls went to shows on the weekends. If it wasn’t for him, they would be unable to travel and compete, and Kris didn’t want to think about what would happen when he could no longer help them out. His arthritis had substantially worsened since last year, and he was no longer able to help them to strain fences or hang gates the way he used to. These days he could only stand by and observe Van as she did the heavy work, his old hands gnarled and bent by the crippling disease. Kris sighed, uneasy now about asking for his help. He insisted that he was still capable of looking after the place, but she was unconvinced.
