The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley Page 0,43
gait normal. Then she came back into the kitchen, where I sat reattaching a shirt button. She picked up the lantern that sat next to me and held it out at arm’s length. “If I drop this and break it, I don’t have a lantern anymore. It is broken. I’ll have light, but not the kind of light I want. Just fire. When they break a horse, they break it. The horse is gone. Gone.”
She was magnificent, her face flushed, her arm steady. Gently, she lowered the lantern back to the table. “They go around on horseback, but they are not with the horse. The horse is gone. Conquered, not led.” Her voice was low, normal now.
That was the beginning for her. She read everything she could find on horses. She rode every chance she had. For weeks, she carried around a book, old and yellowed even then, written by an Englishwoman, on gentle methods of “sweetening” horses. She and Cole spent hours that fall discussing the best ways to train a horse. They went to horse shows and auctions, much to the chagrin of his new girlfriend, Eloise, who tagged along with them.
They talked long and hard to convince me to move the kitchen garden and make way for a new corral adjacent to the barn. As soon as they finished building the corral, Cole brought a colt over to sweeten, away from his father’s watchfulness. Within a day, they were on its back.
One Sunday, an old farmer from Stanley showed up with a tall, lean white mare. “Some damn geese landed last spring when I was turning the field. Whole cloud of ’em landing all of a sudden. Not more than twenty feet away.” The old man swept his hat through the air. “She nearly dragged me to my death getting away. Now she won’t go near fowl of any kind and I got forty laying hens. When the rooster starts in the morning, no one can get near this one.” He stroked the horse’s mane. “The coop is near the barn. She won’t go near the barn or take the harness now.” His shoulder was bandaged and the horse had fresh whip marks. His wife wanted the horse shot, but he couldn’t bear to do it, he admitted.
The mare became the first test of Cole’s and Addie’s new methods—their first job, though there had been no discussion of payment. They agreed that the horse would stable with us and Addie would do the initial daily work with the mare, “sweetening” her to the chickens. Cole would advise and cheerlead until the horse was ready for a test rider. I knew Cole needed to be careful with his bad leg, and it made sense that he be the second rider. But I knew plenty of young men who would not have been so comfortable letting a girl take the lead, regardless of their admiration of her skills.
Addie did not force the mare into the barn or near the chickens, but rose earlier every morning to turn Becky and Darling out into the corral with her so she would have some calm company when the rooster crowed. During the day, Cole and Addie groomed and rode her as much as they could.
The third morning, Addie saddled the mare for the big dawn event and leaned over the mare’s neck, soothing her in the predawn darkness. They were barely visible in the middle of corral. I heard, then very faintly felt, that familiar low drone vibrate from Addie. My part was to rouse the chickens and get the rooster going. He was on his third morning chorus when I made it back to the corral. The mare flinched and tossed her head, but did not buck or pull back.
“Cock-a-doodle-do!” Addie crowed and laughed.
After that, Addie wore one of Eva’s big aprons when she was in the barn or the corral, a couple of chirping biddies in each pocket as she combed the mare down.
By the end of the week, it was Cole’s job to hold one of the chickens as Addie rode the horse around the corral, passing within a few feet of him. I contributed by providing Cole with hot coffee.
“I sure feel stupid being the chicken-holder,” Cole said. “But it’s working. Look at her.” Addie and the mare trotted, steady and calm, bright in the first of the day’s light.
When she reached the opposite side of the corral, Addie gave a signal and Cole held the hen up