Emma and the Cutting Horse (5 page)

“Hi Darla,” she said. “I’m Emma. You’re safe
now. Do you want a drink of water?”

There was no response from the girl, who
looked tiny and helpless curled in the mud and shivering in her
father’s coat. She had lost one shoe at some point, exposing the
red sock that had caught Emma’s attention. Emma could see
purple-black bruises along the left side of her face and dried
blood clung to several scrapes and scratches on her forehead and
neck. Emma’s father lifted the girl’s head slightly as he examined
the injuries and spoke to her.

“Where does it hurt, Darla?”

Emma could not hear the whispered reply, but
her father stood and lifted the girl in his arms. His short-sleeved
uniform shirt revealed ropy arm muscles and large capable hands
that cradled the limp girl gently. Emma was overwhelmed with
thankfulness that he was here. He moved the girl closer to the
bank, to a spot where the dirt was dry and relatively smooth and
turned up the collar of his coat so her head rested on it.

“I’m going to have to go back up the bank to
get reception on the walkie-talkie,” he told Emma. “Can you stay
with her for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” Emma said, although she noticed that
her own hands were trembling and tears of worry pushed against the
backs of her eyes. She sat down beside the silent girl and took her
hand. It was freezing. Remembering the gloves in her pocket, she
pulled them out and slid them onto the girl’s hands. They were
dirty and much too big, but at least they would keep her hands from
getting any colder. The temperature had to be near forty
degrees.

“Did you fall down the bank?” Emma asked.

The girl nodded. Tears leaked in a steady
stream from her eyes and her nose was running. Emma dug a tissue
out of her jeans and wiped it gently. The girl looked faintly
familiar although she couldn’t place where she had seen her before.
Her father’s voice came from above on the bank as he spoke into the
walkie-talkie. Static erupted when he stopped talking, but soon she
could hear someone responding.

“I’m so cold,” Darla said. Her blue-gray eyes
looked unfocused.

“I know you are. Don’t worry. Dad and I are
going to get you out of here and back to your parents.” But as she
said it, she wondered how they would manage to get this injured kid
up the riverbank and onto one of the horses. A red glow shone in
the western sky between the trunks of the trees. The clouds must be
breaking up, but soon it would be full dark. There was no way for
an ambulance to reach them in the tangled brush and trees and no
room for a helicopter to land.

Long minutes passed before her father
appeared again. He had found a place to come down the bank a bit
upriver where it wasn’t quite as steep and carried an armful of dry
weeds and small branches along with his canvas bag.

“They’re going to send a small boat up the
river to get her,” he told Emma. “It will take a while to get here
but it will be easier on her than trying to ride out in the dark.
In the meantime, we’re going to build a fire so they can spot us
easily.” He piled the sticks and weeds nearby, crushed it down and
lit a tuft of dry grass with a small propane lighter he took from
his canvas bag. The dry grass and weeds flickered and caught and a
warm, crackling glow lit up part of the riverbank.

“Are you doing okay, Darla?” Emma’s dad
asked, leaning over the girl and feeling her forehead with the back
of his hand the way he did when Emma had a fever. She could not
hear Darla’s whispered reply.

“Talk to her, Emma,” he said. “I’m going up
for more wood.” Emma desperately wished he’d stay, but she
nodded.

* * *

It seemed like hours before they heard the
sound of a small motor and saw a bright spotlight appear around a
bend in the river. Two paramedics came ashore from a low green
johnboat and brought a backboard, strapping Darla to it and
wrapping her in blankets. They took her blood pressure and handed
Emma’s father his coat before pushing the boat back into the river
and heading upstream.

“This was probably more than you bargained
for Emma,” her father said, pulling his coat on gratefully and
draping an arm across Emma’s shoulders. “Thank God you came along
with your sharp eyes. I might have missed her entirely.”

Now that Darla was on her way to safety,
exhaustion washed over Emma and she realized her hands and feet
were cold.

“How are we going to get home,” she
asked.

“The same way we got here. Help me put out
this fire so we can get started.”

“Keep Ditto right behind Scout,” Emma’s
father said as they started back through the dark woods. Scout’s
white spotted rump was easy to see in the dark, and Ditto seemed
perfectly happy to trail along behind him. Emma’s father had a
small flashlight with a powerful beam in his canvas bag, but he
only turned it on when Scout stopped at an obstacle. Emma looked
around her but had no idea where they were; the towering live oaks
all looked the same. She had to keep a constant lookout for low
limbs that might scrape her off her horse. Once Scout crashed into
dead limbs lying on the ground, falling to his knees, but Emma’s
dad kept his seat and they backed away from the spot and went
around it. In the next clearing, her father dismounted and shined
the flashlight on the big horse’s front legs, running his hand down
them.

“Doesn’t seem to be any major harm done,” he
said, handing Emma a bottle of water. “Drink,” he instructed.
“We’ve been out here for hours and I don’t want you to get
dehydrated.” Emma drank. She needed to pee, but there was no way
she was going behind a tree in this dark woods.

When the horses finally came out of the woods
they were just a few yards from where they had entered. The people
were gone, probably to the hospital to see about Darla, and the
only person left was the game warden who was sitting in his truck
with the engine idling. His horse was already loaded in the
trailer.

“Everybody all right?” he asked as they
dismounted.

“We’re fine,” Emma’s dad said. “Thanks for
waiting ‘til we got back.”

“Wanted to be sure you didn’t get lost in the
woods,” he said. “It’s great that you found her.”

“Emma found her,” her father said. “The
girl’s got x-ray vision. Must be all those carrots she eats.”

“Dad,” Emma protested.

“Good job, Emma,” the game warden said and
gave her a thumbs up. “It’s so much nicer when searches turn out
like this.”

Emma dozed in the truck on the way home but
awoke as her father turned into the drive to find the porch lights
on and her mom standing in the driveway. She still wore her cartoon
character scrubs. Her dad stopped at the house.

“Go on in and let your mom clean that cut on
your face,” her father said. “I’ll unload and feed the horses and
be right there.”

Emma’s mom put her arm around her as they
walked to the house.

“I called the sheriff’s office and they told
me what happened,” she said. “You must be exhausted, it’s almost
midnight. I made some potato soup in case you’re hungry. Had to do
something with my hands besides wring them while I waited for the
two of you to get back...”

She stopped talking when she saw the blood on
Emma’s face. “What happened?” she asked.

“A branch whipped back and scratched me,”
Emma said. After a trip to the bathroom, her mom sat her down at
the kitchen table and cleaned the scratch gently with wet paper
towels. Fresh, red blood smeared them as she wiped at it.

“This is more of a cut than a scratch, Emma,”
she said. “It needs stitches. As soon as you eat a little
something, I’ll take you to the emergency room.” She placed a
steaming bowl of soup in front of Emma and sprinkled cheese on
it.

“Aw, Mom. I’m too tired,” she protested. “And
there’s school tomorrow. Just put a band aid on it.”

When Emma’s father came in, her mom wrapped
her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his lips.

“I was pretty worried about you two,” she
said, “and I have to admit that I was surprised you took Emma along
for this. She’s still a kid...”

“It’s lucky I did,” Emma’s father said. “The
kid’s the one who found the missing girl.”

“You should get some sleep, Justin,” Emma’s
mom said as she hurried Emma into her coat for the trip to the
hospital. “You’ve got to go to work early, and I’ll bet they’re
going to expect you to fill out a small mountain of paperwork
tomorrow.”

“Yep. But I’m going to the hospital,” Emma’s
father insisted. “I’m going to hold the kid’s hand while they
stitch her up.”

Chapter
Five

The sun was much too bright when Emma opened
her eyes the next morning, and she realized that her mom had let
her skip school and sleep in. She touched her cheek where the five
tiny stitches the doctor had put in were covered by a light gauze
bandage. It was still pretty tender.

A note was prominently displayed on the
kitchen table.

Emma,

I called the school and told them you
weren’t feeling well this morning. There’s leftover soup in the
fridge if you get hungry. Call me at work if you need anything.
I’ll find Darla’s folks at the hospital sometime today and see how
she’s doing.

Love, Mom.

Emma spent a lazy day falling asleep in front
of the TV. In the late afternoon she curried the burrs out of
Ditto’s mane and tail and told him what a good boy he was. The
bloody scratches on the horses’ legs looked fairly minor in the
bright light of day, but she ran the hose over them to clean them
off. Neither horse liked the feel of the cold water much, although
the weather had warmed since yesterday.

Everyone sat around the supper table that
night with drooping eyelids, resting their heads in their hands.
Even Emma’s dad, who usually seemed tireless, went to bed shortly
after supper. Over the sound of the television in her parents’
bedroom, Emma heard them talking.

“The doctors think that the bruises on her
face are older than her other injuries...she’s not talking
much...still hasn’t stopped crying.”

That night Emma’s dreams were disturbed by
visions of the red sock.

* * *

By the first warm day of early spring, Emma
had Miss Dellfene coming when she called. Standing quietly, the
mare learned to like the feel of the brush running down her back
and across her croup and to enjoy the attention Emma paid to her,
but it was still a battle to put a halter on her. Each day Emma
added something new to the routine, tossing the saddle blanket
across the mare’s back or combing the burrs out of her tail.

“Are you ready to try the saddle again?”
Emma’s dad asked as he walked past the pen tossing flakes of
coastal Bermuda hay to each of the horses.

“I think she’s ready,” Emma said. “Can I be
the one to put it on her?”

“If you think you can handle her that would
probably be a good idea. She responds to you much better than she
does to me. But I need to be here when you do it”

The next afternoon Emma started as soon as
her father finished feeding the cows. She spent an hour brushing
and talking to the mare, and when she finally tossed the saddle up
and cinched it on, Miss Dellfene looked concerned but not panicked.
Emma had worked for weeks to teach the mare to circle on a lunge
line, and when the cinch was tight she stepped back and clucked to
the mare to start her moving. She moved off across the pen in a
stilted walk, an arch in her back, but no explosion occurred. Emma
walked and trotted her in both directions, the empty stirrups
flopping against her sides. She kept at it until dark lines of
sweat appeared on the mare’s neck.

“I think she’s as ready to ride as she’ll
ever be,” Emma said, slipping on the bridle and putting her left
foot lightly in the stirrup.

“Want me to hold her?” Emma’s dad said as she
swung aboard.

There was no time to answer. Before her right
foot cleared the saddle she was already in midair, as Miss Dellfene
launched her body into space and landed on stiff front legs. Emma
came back to earth amid a tangle of sorrel legs and flinty black
hooves, landing hard on her left shoulder. Her head smacked the
dusty ground and bright lights blinked in her eyes when she opened
them. Her father bent over her, concern written across his face, as
the mare continued to buck wildly across the pen.

“Emma. Emma. Are you okay?”

Emma sat up slowly and looked around. The
world seemed slightly tilted, but everything still worked as she
struggled to her feet, her father steadying her arm. The mare
stopped in a corner of the pen and blew through her nose at
them.

“I’m all right. But I need to get back on,”
Emma said. “This time, I’m going to let you hold her. That little
performance really caught me off-guard.”

With her father holding the halter rope, Emma
swung back into the saddle quickly before her courage deserted her.
She felt like she was sitting on a bomb, and could feel the mare
trembling beneath her. Her father led the mare forward for several
steps, but she moved stiffly, as though an explosion was
imminent.

“That’s enough, Emma,” her father said. “I’d
get on her myself, but I don’t want you holding her, and I really
don’t think she’s ready to be ridden yet. You’ve worked hard with
her, but we need to go back to square one for now. Climb down,
before she puts you into orbit.”

* * *

The next weekend Emma’s dad loaded Miss
Dellfene back into the trailer and hauled her to a trainer.

“We don’t have time or enough health
insurance for broken bones,” he said, “and this trainer knows how
to deal with young horses that haven’t been handled much. He’ll
know before long if she’s worth keeping or if we just need to sell
her and cut our losses. She’s rough around the edges, but there’s
something I really like about the way she moves.”