Colt by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page B

was amazed at the results.
    â€œHis large-muscle strength in his torso has improved so much I can’t believe it,” she reported to his mother. “He’s sitting better, standing better, his endurance is a lot better, his balance is better, his walking gait has improved. I’m really hoping someday he’ll give up the wheelchair except for shopping malls and such, and just use his braces and crutches most of the time.”
    During his weekly lessons at Deep Meadows Farm, Colt practiced staying up off the saddle in “forward position” for as long as he could, at first with Mrs. Reynolds’s help and later by himself. There were problems. Because Colt had no strength or feeling below his knees, he could not rely on his stirrups to support him. Sometimes his feet dangled out of the stirrups and he didn’t even know it. He had to maintain his riding seat entirely with his upper body and thighs. This, Mrs. Reynolds assured him, was as it should be in any event. Judges at horse shows often asked advanced contestants to ride without their stirrups to show that they were not dependent on them. The lower leg was needed mostly to urge on and signal the horse. But Colt could use his body position and reins for signaling, and a stick for urging on.
    Liverwurst stood or walked patiently through all this. Good old big-headed Liverwurst. Colt had come to love the horse’s homely, anxious, hairy, snot-nosed face.
    Finally, one evening in late August, just before school was due to start, Mrs. Reynolds came over to Colt, took hold of his safety belt and said, “Okay, let’s try a trot.”
    Okay, sports fans, this is it, the moment you’ve been waiting for … Even though he tried to joke with himself, Colt felt so nervous his head throbbed.
    The hardest thing, Mrs. Reynolds told him, was going to be learning to feel the rhythm and post to it. Because of his back, she couldn’t let him just bounce around on top of the horse for a while as she did the others. She had put a fleece cover on the saddle for him, but even so, it would not be a good idea for him to bounce.
    â€œStay up in forward position for now,” she told him, and she stood beside him, her arm between him and the saddle, just in case. “This time I’ll let you cheat and use a voice command.”
    â€œTrot!” Colt told Liverwurst.
    The horse could not believe him. It had all been walk, walk, walk with Colt up until now. Liverwurst raised his head anxiously but did not move.
    â€œTry again, and tap him with the crop,” said Mrs. Reynolds.
    â€œTrot!”
    Liverwurst trotted. It was just a quiet jog, but to Colt it felt like one of the delightful, scary amusement park rides he had never been allowed on. His stomach fluttered, his shoulders tingled, and he had to concentrate on staying up out of the saddle. His knees acted as shock absorbers, and his bottom waggled in the air. Mrs. Reynolds ran alongside, keeping her arm between him and the saddle.
    â€œNeat!” Colt panted happily. His breath was being jounced out of him. From her seat outside the ring, his mother lifted her glance from her paperback romance and watched anxiously.
    â€œLiverwurst has a pretty smooth trot,” puffed Mrs. Reynolds. “For an Appaloosa. Had enough?”
    â€œNo.”
    She had him stop Liverwurst anyway, because she had had enough. But after she caught her breath, they tried it again.
    â€œNow this time try to signal with your knees for the trot.”
    A normal rider would have squeezed with the lower leg. But it didn’t matter: Liverwurst, having learned that he was allowed to trot, jogged forward happily at the light pressure Colt was able to exert on him.
    â€œTry to feel the rhythm! Go up and down! ONE-two-ONE-two …”
    It was not easy. Several times Colt bumped down into Mrs. Reynolds’s arm. Then she ran out of breath again and had to stop. By the end of the lesson all