The Horsewoman(39)

Not tonight.

Takeoff. Landing. Takeoff. Landing.

Perfect.

Yeah, I thought. Yeah.

Now you’re riding.

Two jumps on the tent side of the course. Gave him the right distance on both. Felt him clip the second jump. Closest I’d come yet to putting a rail on the ground. The rail stayed up. Into the far corner now, underneath the big screen, going into the second half of the course. Running easy. But running hot, too.

First tough rollback for us. Cut the turn as sharply as I could. Knife through butter. Squared him up. Cleared the jump with plenty of room to spare.

Two more jumps before the most dangerous double. Got over them clean. Now the double, the two jumps so close to each other riders thought of them as one piece. Like 15A and 15B.

I was talking to Coronado now.

“Hey…hey…HEY!”

Landed the first jump clean.

“Up!”

Nailed the second.

No thinking now. Just reacting to what was left. Just looking at the last jump. Focusing on the line. Seven strides in it.

Focus.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Into the air one last time. Over the jump. Feeling a slight chip on the rail, but knowing he hadn’t hit it hard enough to knock this one down, either.

Still not done. Knowing there were a couple of strides left after the jump to where the timer was, before the round was officially over.

Finish the round, Daniel always told me.

I rode Coronado as hard those last few strides as I had anywhere else on the course. We finished the round strong. He did. I did. I hadn’t heard the crowd the whole way around. I’d only been hearing the sound of my horse. But now I heard an explosion of noise from the stands and the announcer saying our time was 79.2 seconds. The great Matthew Killeen went next and was a full second slower. I was in first place, at least for now. It wouldn’t matter in the jump-off, when all the horses who made it would start even. A whole different competition.

Slowed Coronado down to a walk, then brought him over to where Daniel was standing. Daniel’s face was totally blank. No reaction from him at all.

“You got nothing?” I said. “I’ve got the best time so far.”

“Night’s not over,” he said, and headed back to the schooling ring to wait for the jump-off.





FORTY-TWO

Daniel



DANIEL WAS GOOD at waiting by now. Waiting to feel like a real American. Or be treated like one someday. Waiting to feel safe again, someplace outside the ring.

In his heart he felt that there was no better trainer in the business. But if they didn’t have a horse good enough to make it to Paris, Daniel’s ability might not matter in the end.

Still, he could barely breathe as he watched, from the time the buzzer started as Becky approached the first jump until it sounded again, after she had pushed herself and the horse, pedal to the metal as she liked to say, past the timer set in the dirt, a few strides after the last jump.

Tonight while she was in the ring he did not need to call out to her a single time. Maybe he would tell her later that he had never seen her ride better.

But now there was still work to do. Emilio helped her down off Coronado and then Daniel and Becky watched his video of the jump-off course. He kept pausing it, showing her the places that he thought would make all the difference if she could go clean, particularly a rollback as tough and tight as he’d ever seen on a championship course.

“As good as you just were,” he said, “you have to do even more now.”

He saw her smile.

“Damn,” she said, “I was afraid of that.”

“You have to go inside on that turn,” Daniel said.

“If I can,” she said.

“There is no if,” he said. “You do not play it safe. You go inside. Absolutely.”

He put his phone away and looked at her. As nervous and scared and excited as he knew she was—all the things that he himself was feeling—her face was suddenly calm.

“Okay,” she said.

Then he helped her back into the saddle, and she took Coronado around the schooling ring, once, then twice, then letting him rest on the side. From inside he heard the announcer saying the jump-off was about to begin.

Then Daniel saw Tyler Cullen walking his horse, Galahad, in Becky’s direction. Cullen’s back was to Daniel, so he didn’t see him jogging to catch up and get ahead of the horse, putting himself between Tyler and Becky.

“You’re in my way,” Cullen said.

“I wouldn’t,” Daniel said.

He did not say it in a threatening way, or in a loud voice. This wasn’t the playground and trying to show another boy how tough you were. Daniel knew he could do nothing to distract Becky in this moment. So he had kept his voice low. He had even forced a smile onto his face. Daniel was sure no one in the ring, not even Becky, had heard what he had just said to Tyler Cullen. He just stood there with his arms casually in front of him, staring at Cullen as Cullen stared back at him, hoping that things wouldn’t escalate with the jump-off just moments away.

Unsure what would happen next if they did.

Then Cullen said, “I’ll see you later, dude,” turned his horse, and walked it away.





FORTY-THREE