Bea and the New Deal Horse: Chapters 22–30

Money out their ears. They throw outrageously lavish parties—backgammon gambling, boxing matches to entertain guests, thirty-piece orchestras, tamed monkeys to pet.

A groom, wearing starched khaki pants and a pressed white shirt with a fancy seal stitched into its breast pocket, brought out a gorgeous bay thoroughbred, perfect in her proportions, with those long, lissome legs that give the breed such speed.

Their burly horses stood placidly, glad to rest, stamping to rid themselves of flies swarming their thick legs.

Across the sun-burned grasses, at a considerable distance from the farmers, were a handful of men in linen pants and jackets, bright-polished shoes, their neatly shaven faces shaded by dapper straw boaters.

They leaned nonchalantly against gleaming-clean cars.

He kept his gaze downward, toward the ground, too embarrassed to look up at his neighbors.
I heard Mrs. Scott groan at his conspicuous, heartbreaking sadness.

Reading off his clipboard, the auctioneer announced, “Eleven-year-old mare, completely sound except for an accidental wire cut to her hock from loose fencing. Foals well.”

As one, the farmers swung their heads round to glare at the gleaming-car contingent.

I could negotiate that only when Mr. Berryman agreed to build coupes along his fence line for the hunt to jump and granted them unrestricted access to ride across his acres—which placated the banker, since he’s such an avid foxhunter himself.

At first, a long lunge line coiled in one hand, Mrs. Scott walked the width of the ring, following us as the chestnut cantered. I knew why. She was keeping abreast of us to safeguard me if something went wrong—but honestly it made me nervous.

In the approach, it’s my job to help the horse prepare by gathering him into a balanced gait with even tempo and stride, and then find my line and the right takeoff point in front of the fence.

What could be a better display of Caspian’s and Cloud’s gentle dispositions and suitability for the fox hunt than their performing without the slightest fuss for a green teenager...

No trainer can put jump into a horse, can she, old boy? It’s either there or it isn’t—that inborn bounce and courage. A good trainer merely hones and schools what is innate.

It wasn’t just about her being all uppity and bossy and opinionated.

“Shoo. Get off my property, you charlatan.”

Humbug. Fake. Swindler.

I’ve read about you in the newspaper—bamboozling farmers to pay you fifteen cents an acre on the promise you’d bring them rain for their dying crops.

But Dr. Chatman kept talking, brandishing his weather-vane spear.

“Why, ma’am, I’ll tell you. By my expert knowledge of thermurgy, pneumaturgy, meteorolurgy—”
“Those are nonsense words,” Mrs. Scott tried to interrupt.
“—by firing barrages to concuss the very clouds of heaven. Impellant, propellant, and disruptive charges on the proper angles according to the declination and inclination of the meridians, datum elevation, topography and geological strata, and astrophysical coordinates—”

A king has vision, dreams for his people, the fortitude to discount and dispel the doubts of the fearful.

The rainmaker made an elaborate bow. “I don’t stay where I’m not wanted or not understood. Your wish is my command, ma’am.”

He stayed bent over and added, “But...perhaps I should share that I was sent by a man at the bank and some of his fox-chasing brethren.”

These influential...and rather important gentlemen I mentioned—I’m sure you know them well and that they believe in making things happen when they’ve come to a decision—these respected gentlemen have asked me to construct a series of apparatuses. Towers. Like radio aerials, with wires strung down to low-lying earth and grounded with iron bars and plates of copper and zinc.

She wore a chemise dress of pale-blue chiffon, decorated all over with clusters of crystal beads in little reflective starbursts.

And the name his previous owner gave him—Vulcan—is rather unfortunate as well. I suppose the man chose it out of some misguided machismo—for all his ill-temper, Vulcan was the husband of Venus.

You know him the best. Think of his attributes.

If I had learned one thing, it was to try to savor every fleeting moment of happiness for all it was worth, as spiritual vitamins against the soul-sickening hard times.

I swung myself onto his back, and he walked on with a buoyant prance.

Da-da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum.
We waltzed around and around, his cadence unwavering, steady, fluid—graceful and stunningly athletic at the same time.

“You should have seen her,” Vivian blurted, “she was furious and acting all unhinged. Dr. Liburn says she was in shock, but I’ve never seen—”

Vehemently, I shook my head, and then had to put my hands to my forehead to stop the clanging inside.

Marjorie rode tentatively. And that chestnut—your Sunup—sensed it. A horse will refuse if he doesn’t trust his rider to take him to a fence in a way he can safely clear it. Both the horse and rider have to believe in one another.

Stubbornness? Was that all bad? If it meant staying strong in the face of terrible things and not giving up, it seemed a pretty good trait to me. One that had kept me kicking and swimming against tides that were doing their darnedest to drag me and Viv under. And one that obviously had kept Mrs. Scott resilient and tenacious during her hard times.

In that oppressive heat, she wore even fancier formal attire than I did—a short-waisted and buttoned jacket that had tails like men wore to black-tie balls, a jabot at her throat, and a top hat.

He’d actually hung up a chandelier above his racks of saddles and covered the walls with brocade fabric and paintings of foxhunting and English setters carrying dead quails in their mouths.

Any of your horses available? My wife loved that mare we procured from you.

Don’t look back, don’t look back, another fence is coming, I chided myself.

The horses and riders kept meandering.
“Are we waiting for the announcer?” I asked.

But Sunup kept snorting belligerently, pawing the ground, backing up, pulling her along, then lunging forward, pushing her around dangerously.

Sunup swaggered in, head high, elated, full of happy anticipation at jumping anything the world put before him, just like the day he chased Charity and launched himself over stone walls for fun.