Girl and Five Brave Horses, A by Sonora Carver Read Free Book Online

side or you’ll get your nose broken.”
    As Al coached me, the odds between me and the hospital seemed to get smaller, but it turned out that I rode Klatawah a second time and a third time, and each time I came out unwounded. In fact, I rode him twice a day for the next three weeks, and by the middle of May I had made twenty-one dives from the low tower.
    The morning after my twenty-first jump, as I walked away to my dressing room, Dr. Carver announced without any preamble, “You’re ready for the top.”
    My face burst into a big smile. I had been waiting for this! Then, as if afraid he might say something congratulatory, he turned around and walked off.
    Still, his grouchiness could not dampen my spirits. I was delighted with myself and waited for the following morning with an almost childish impatience. When it came finally I got up and shot out of the park and put on my suit.
    Until then I had had to wear the army riding pants over my suit, but now I was able to shed them. There would no longer be the danger of a friction burn, at least not as much as there had been within the narrow confines of the low tower, so for the first time I wore the trade-mark of my act— a modest red wool bathing suit with a rounded neck and a long torso.
    I put on heavy socks to protect my ankles and over them canvas swimming shoes. I also had my helmet, which was a “must.” Dr. Carver insisted his riders wear one in order to prevent serious injury should they get kicked by a horse. This could happen if a rider fell off in the tank and got caught beneath murderously thrashing hoofs.
    I looked around for the groom, who should have had Klatawah harnessed, but neither horse nor groom was in sight. Searching further, I walked around to the barn, where I found Al and Dr. Carver deep in conversation. Al was sorting brushes and scrapers, and as I walked up I caught the last of Dr. Carver’s words, “. . . get a new rider.”
    For a moment I was jolted, thinking he meant someone to replace me; then I realized that he meant someone to replace Lorena. She had gone to see her doctor in New Orleans shortly after we arrived in Durham and had written her father the week before, saying that the doctor didn’t want her to ride for another year.
    They continued their discussion even though I stood close by, and neither of them acknowledged my presence by so much as a lifted eyebrow. I stood first on one foot and then the other and finally blurted out, “When are you going to harness my horse so I can ride from the high tower?”
    Dr. Carver looked at me as if I had just dropped off the moon. “When you make your first ride from the tower,” he said, “it will be for the benefit of an audience.”
    It was my turn to be astonished. “But that’s seven days away!” I said. “The park doesn’t open until the twentieth. I’ll forget everything I’ve learned!”
    “No, you won’t,” answered Al. “It’s like riding a bicycle or swimming. It’s not something you forget. Believe me. I know.” But for all his sympathetic words, his face had taken on the same lines as his father’s. I could see he was equally implacable.
    For a moment I stood looking from one to the other and then turned and walked away. There was obviously nothing I could do.
    I spent the next week roaming the lot all by myself and silently hating everyone. I brooded over Dr. Carver’s thoughtlessness and told myself he had no right. Not that I was afraid I’d be hurt; I was afraid I’d look like a fool. I didn’t care what I maimed or broke, just so I looked as if I knew what I was doing. And how could I, if I’d never done it before?
    This was a bad time for me, made worse by the fact that Al left two days before we opened. He had to see to the setting up of a platform and tank in Texas, where he would do his first show. With him gone and Lorena still in New Orleans, I was left alone with Dr. Carver. Communication between us, which had been sputtering on and off for