Champion Horse by Jane Smiley Read Free Book Online Page B

honest, I was afraid to pick it up and open it. Then I saw the lady who ran the tack tent looking at me, and I realised that maybe I wasn’t supposed to read the books without buying them. I stacked them the way I had found them, and wandered out of the tent. Danny would get there in about an hour. I didn’t feel as happy as I had before I’d read that book.
    When the clock said almost four, I made my way back to Blue’s stall. He had finished the hay and was just standing there, resting. He stood up straight and nickered when he saw me. I still hadn’t run into Jane, but maybe she had been looking for me, because there was a note in her handwriting, pinned to Blue’s stall. It said, ‘For Tuesday. See you then. Call me if you need to’, and underneath that, a typed sheet that said, ‘Peter Finneran Clinic, 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, August 9, 1966. Horse: True Blue. Rider: Abby Lovitt. Morning clinic will last ninety minutes. Please dress in high boots, canary breeches, formal shirt, hard hat, gloves. No coats necessary. In the event of foul weather, the clinic will proceed. Please bring raincoat and crewneck sweater. Be prepared to jump; however, Tuesday’s clinic will concentrate on flat work.’
    I pulled out the drawing pin, wrapped it in Jane’s note, and carefully put it in my pocket. You do not ever want a drawing pin lying around where horses might walk – it could go right up into the sole of a horse’s hoof. Then I found the bandages and went in to wrap Blue’s legs for the trip home. Danny showed up when I was starting on the fourth one, the right hind. He said, ‘Hey. I’ll take this stuff out.’ There wasn’t much. Once I had finished with Blue and opened the stall door, all we had to do was load him into the trailer, close it up, and leave. By now it was a really beautiful day, so probably at home it was ninety-five. Whatever it was, Mom or Dad would be sure to tell me.
    Blue, of course, loaded right on, and Danny closed his window while I closed the back door and latched it. Then we got into the truck. Danny was still wearing his swimming trunks, though with a regular shirt and his cowboy boots. He looked sort of weird, but I didn’t say anything. His jeans were folded up on the floor by my feet and his hair was a mess. I guessed he had gone swimming, probably more than once. I had never gone swimming in the ocean. I could swim in a pool, but I would need a lot more practice to swim in the Pacific, which was cold anyway, and the thought of it did not make me want to try.
    The radio was tuned to a rock-and-roll station, not Dad’s usual mumbly talking. When Danny turned on the engine, the Mamas and the Papas soared out of the speaker, singing ‘I Saw Her Again Last Night’. That was a good song. Then the DJ spoke, then there was a weird one that I hadn’t heard in a while, called ‘Eight Miles High’, and then one about not bringing me down, which Danny sang along with as we drove through the pine forest. He even opened the window a little wider and sang it out the window. I was laughing .
    As we were coming to the main road, a strange thing happened. This woman came on with a really good voice, and she was singing a song I had heard before, though I couldn’t remember when, and Danny’s eyes started to water. The song was something like ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You’, and I wondered if Danny was thinking about Leah. It was a sad song, and after a little bit, I started feeling like crying myself. But we did not talk about it. It was a good thing that another loud song came on right after – ‘Yellow Submarine’. When that came on, Danny turned it up even higher. I rode along with the wind in my face, and that was fun, too. When we were about a mile from our place, Danny turned the radio down, and then changed the station back to the mumbly talking. It was a good thing he did, because Dad was standing right there when we pulled up to the gate. 

Chapter 4
    Saturday night was