School had started up again which meant I saw Gretchen less than usual. Over the summer I had helped her as a Vet tech assistant at a small clinic. I walked puppies, washed dirty blankets. Helped out with a surgery with a cat who had an abscess on his skull (I passed out after the second tube ((used to drain out puss)) was put through the cat's thick skin). I cleaned out the vet's horse's water trough. I felt as though Gretchen and I were family, we would spend a good part of the day at the clinic then she, Derek, her big clumsy great Dane and I would load into her car and go up to the barn.
One time when we got there I found some baby birds that had fallen into the hay and Gretchen and I drove all the way back down the mountain to leave them at a vet clinic.
I was taking on more responsibilities at the barn, since Gretchen and Resa's budget was becoming strained. I would go up on certain days and feed all the horses and clean out the stalls and pens of manure.
Elfie left us, with the end of summer her owner had come and collected her. Gretchen and Resa needed more income so Gretchen started given more lessons, even though now she only had one school horse, Adam. Sarah's friend Daren started boarding her horse at the barn, a petite Arabian mare named Barbie. Sarah and I were drifting apart, she and I had not been trail riding for a while, something always seemed to pop up last minute, or Sarah was spending time with her boyfriend. But now with Daren at the barn I was sure I'd see more of her, and I was right. She called to ask me to come on a trail ride with Daren and herself as soon as Twilight was sound.
Once Gretchen gave me the clear Twilight and I saddled up for our first ride in a month. I was tickled to be riding with two other girls on the trail, but as we wandered down the hill towards the gate to the cow pens, I began to realize a new circle had been woven, and I was not in it. Sarah tried to include me, but she and Daren just had so much in common, that it was difficult. They shared stories of cantering through the mountain pasture bare back on their mares, something I couldn't do because I was not skilled enough, and Twilight wouldn't canter.
I was bitter about us growing apart, I remember Sarah envying me for being the courageous one, the first to canter bareback on Sting so many summers ago. Where had the time gone? Daren chattered about the bond she had with Barbie and Sarah quickly joined in with the story of how she found Penelope after riding three horses. "Something just clicked, and I new she was the one!" Sarah beamed. "I'm really excited soon we are going to start jumper training!" she added.
We reached the cow pen and as usual the beast rushed at us in a mad frenzy, one cow in the back of the herd hobbled after the rest, his front leg swollen with pus. "Oh that poor cow!" Sarah cried.
I knew that kind of wound, I had seen it on a cat just a few weeks ago, "He's got an abscess." I said.
Silents followed, "Is she like really smart or something?" Daren asked pronouncing 'smart' as though the word had spoiled on her tongue.
"Yeah!" Sarah had said shaking her head at me, beautiful hair bouncing round her freckled face. It was then that I noticed that both girls had immaculate manicured nails, eyeshadow accenting their thick black lashes, lip gloss shimmering on pursed lips. I realized something had changed, Sarah had grown up, she had reached adult hood, while I was still in Never land.I was not polished, a hair doo for me was a pony tail, makeup even if I had wanted to wear it would of made my acne covered face even more blotchy. Social life was not as important to me a grades.
I wanted desperately to go back to our vigilante games in the hills, but obviously that path had closed forever. Not only that, but she and Daren were part of a club, they owned their own horses, I didn't know what that was likes I didn't know the feeling one felt when they saw a horse perk their ears in the pasture and to know that that horse was perking their ears just for that person. What was it like to see a horse and say the intimate word 'mine.'
I was falling down a hill, I'd lost my purchase, tumbling away from Sarah was only the start.
In the end it really didn't matter, Penelope went away for jump training, so Sarah couldn't ride anyways, she wasn't interested in Carita or Lacaro. So she just went and spent more time with her boyfriend.
Daren lost interest in horses, and ended up selling Barbie.
Eventually Penelope came back, but the farrier shooed her wrong and she became lame in her front two hooves and to wear special rubber encased shoes for three months before she could be ridden again, but by then I would already be gone.
It was raining, but that wasn't going to stop Gretchen, Resa, or me from going up to the barn. Resa's trainer was coming all the way from Sun Valley to work with her and Carita.
Gretchen and I sat huddled on camp chair as the rain came down in sheets, and the world was covered with a layer of steel and cold. We bundled in rain slickers, worked our toes in our boots and fingers in our gloves to stop them from freezing, but still Mary road, undeterred by the rain, smiling and talking optimistically about the intelligent red mare, and chiding Resa for not riding her enough. I liked Mary, she was a wiry woman, and tough, but happy.
She talked to me while watching Resa ride, her eyes never leaving them, even though she was conversing with me. "I have a track at my stable," she said. "When I was working with Navarre I'd take him out and let him run, he loved it!" she said.
"I didn't know you worked with Navarre," I said, glancing at Gretchen who frowned to herself.
"Oh yes," Mary said, "Now I've got his son Noah, and his such a bright boy I like him."
Gretchen inquired about Noah, and it was not hard to see how protective she was of him, and how much she wanted him back.
I briefly wondered, if she would ever consider letting me have Mateo, but the thought quickly fluttered away.
"You know," Mary said turning back to me, "In the summer time I give one student the opportunity to come train with me. You would live in a trailer out back, and work with the horses and me every day. Of course I'd allow you to bring your own horse with you. Gretchen seems to think that you would like such an opportunity."
I turned to Gretchen speechless, I didn't know she though so highly of me.
"Gosh I'd love to!" I said
"You could take the mare," Resa said, riding over to us.
"Twilight? Why?" I asked.
I remember it was night, we'd just finished cleaning, up the stalls and feeding, and the tension was nearly tangible. It seemed to crackle in the air. Gretchen was silent, and Resa's mouth was firm. We had gone to the tack room and Resa yanked open the fridge and grabbed the box of fig newtons. "Cookie" she offered coldly, "No thanks." I wasn't sure where this was going.
Gretchen spoke first. "Gabbie we've had Twilight over 3 months now, and the cost of keeping her is getting to be to much. The dentist has not paid me a cent for her feed or board."
"We saved that horse for you," Resa butted in, "There have been several opportunities where we could of had other people ride her but we saved her for you."
"I never asked for you to!" I snapped suddenly feeling like an animal trapped in a corner, suddenly seeing where this conversation was going.
"I never said I wanted her, I never said I would own her." I added.
Gretchen suddenly looked crush, I hadn't realized it was her plan from the start that I would own Twilight, that she had picked us out to be a pair from the beginning, though I should have seen the signs.
"What about me, Gabbie? I've put so much work into her, who's going to reimburse me. She has potential, she could be a great horse, I'd even contemplated keeping her as a school horse if I didn't think you'd want her."
The furious part of my mind screamed oh yeah like you could turn Twilight into a school horse, she doesn't even canter. You can't even get her to canter.
"Why do you think we only has you ride her?" Resa asked incredulously. "Why do you think we had you name her, take care of her?We need the money for all the work that's gone into that mare, and she's been practically your horse."
"You think this economy has been easy on my family?" I said, "I never asked for any of this."
"Oh you think this economies been easy on us!" Resa said. "My husbands rel estate business has not been doing well either, and we've invested a lot into the horse riding business to!"
"Regardless, Twilight is not my horse, neither of you asked me if I ever even wanted her, and I can't believe you've waited till now to corner me, a girl against two women and try to railroad me into this!"
"Its okay!" Gretchen said, her voice rising and creeping on the edge of tears, "I have another rider, her name is Claire, I could easily sell Twilight to her."
I don't know why but that felt like a cold slap to the face, it was like Gretchen had given up on me in that instant, moved her devotions onward to Claire. I'd seen Claire ride Adam, she was good, she was very good, a little timid but that could change. She was pretty to, angelic in appearance, golden perfect curls and light blue eyes, on thin creamy skin.
"Claire did say she was in the market." Gretchen added.
I was now on a role, "I don't even know if Twilight is healed all the way yet, I was reading up on puncture wounds and I read that some wounds near the joint will make a horse lame for life! I don't want my first horse to be unridable."
"That's another thing," Gretchen suddenly burst, "That hurt the most, why don't you trust. You don't trust what I told you about Twilight, about treating her wound, you go behind my back and add different treatments."
"Is it a crime to do a little research! I just wanted to learn what was going on with her!" I snapped. We were all on the verge of tears now. This was an issue of trust, of harbored emotions but more than anything, this was finances, money was tearing us apart, the worries of not having enough to get by. The economy had just started its downward spiral and everyone was feeling it. My parent's had done their best during my life to shelter me from economy, from our status as people of wealth versus some of my not so fortunate friends. But even my horse back riding lessons were straining our ever shrinking budget, suddenly two lessons a week was a luxury we could not afford, and I began to see and understand of our standard of living, of the state of the economy, of the adult world.
My parents were furious that Resa and Gretchen had cornered me, my mother went and screamed at them, and they screamed back at her, then my dad went in a settled the situation, or reduced the boiling tempers of three tearful, upset women as much as he could.
He and I sat in the truck looking at the barn. "Do you want her?" he finally asked, after we'd sat in silence for a while. "I don't know!" I cried, "I honestly don't know. She's not what I pictured my first horse to be, I love Mateo more than I love Twilight, but I don't want her to go back to Chad (the dentist) I couldn't live with myself if they sent her back to that Hell because they can't afford to keep her." I sobbed.
"They won't send her back to the dentist," Dad tried to sooth me, but I was inconsolable.
"And I don't want to loose Gretchen dad, she my friend, she's like family to me, I know mom thinks she's a flake, but I don't know what I would do without her, without Adam, without Mateo, if I say no to Twilight what if I loose them forever? I can't live with that they are my key to the horse world. They are the keys to my sanity, the only reason I'm not still in UNI right now is because of these horses!" It was a hard subject to breech, but it was true, my sanity was dangling in the balance.
After I'd had a good cry, and my breath was still hitching I said, "I want a chance to look around, see what else is out there, on the market. If they sell her why I'm looking fine, then we weren't meant to be."
Dad went back into the tack room and talked to Resa and Gretchen for a bit, they all calmed down enough to agree that what they all wanted was what was important for me to be happy. I had a month to decide, my parents would pay the board for that month while I looked to see what I wanted.
But I was now troubled, I'd been looking at horse advertisements in the paper ever since I was old enough to read, I was constantly browsing classifieds Mustangs, Arabians, Quarter Horses juicy, tantalising ads for my dream horse. Any horse I rode I could picture as my own, Miss Ali, Sting, Adam, and Mark I could have seen myself owning any of them at one point or another, but never with Twilight. Never with this worn out cranky horse who looked so old, so tired with life, but suddenly she was on the edge of being taken away from me. And the horse I thought I had no feelings for was now a heavy weight in my mind, something I wasn't sure if I was willing to loose.
Now my dream of owning a horse, something I'd waited for my whole life had to be condensed into a month of searching, of racing time of stress, of fighting a battle I was sure I had already lost.
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