Just a Horse Called Sulie: And Other Love Stories

JUST A HORSE CALLED SULIE

1

The Pie was flying. On a flat saddle Lizbet clung to his back like a cocklebur, her nose in his mane, her arms bent along his neck, flexing with each thrust of his head. Beecher’s Brook sent him up over brush hiding the water, brush growing higher than trees, bare branches clutching to bring them down. The water stretched as wide as a river. Big hunters fell, crumpling on the turf, their riders sprawling. Pie surged ahead, first at the finish. Scowling spectators pointed and sneered, She’s a girl. Elizabeth Nickinson. She’s a girl! Pie had won. Everyone saw him. Elizabeth Nickinson! The words came from her mother, demanding her presence. Elizabeth meant lack of patience. Everyone said Lizbet, Andy’s baby name for his big sister.

I’m coming, Lizbet called. She left Pie at the Grand National and pulled on her jeans to see to whatever chores her mother assigned. She could still feel the horse under her, hear hoofs pounding, snorts from big hunters. If only it had been real!

For as long as she could remember, Lizbet had dreamed of owning a horse. Every time she asked, her father delivered the same lecture: everything on a farm was there to make money. The cows let down milk to sell to the dairy, the dogs chased off coyotes and bobcats after new calves, the barn cats kept mice and rats from the grain bins, and the chickens laid eggs or wound up in the freezer. Only old Buster, her grandfather’s workhorse, deserved an easy pasture for his old age. A saddle horse headed the useless category, a hay-burner who’d never earn anything for his keep. Lizbet’s mother flat out said No. Spoiled, rich girls kept saddle horses for the show ring and hired grooms for the work. Her father never said No, but he never let on her dreams could come true.

Today Lizbet turned twelve, but they weren’t going to do anything special—maybe a sheet cake for supper if her mother had time. Probably no presents since there’d been lots of doctor bills for Andy that spring. She finished drying the breakfast dishes and looked out the window over the sink. What she saw in the yard made her gasp. There stood her father, beside a bay horse. Holding her breath in case she was dreaming, Lizbet went outside. Her father said solemnly, Come meet Suleiman the Magnificent.

Ridiculous! snorted her mother on the back stoop. Too fancy for just a horse.

No doubt, said her father. Lacks Arab blood. Call him Buddy.

Too stunned by this miracle, Lizbet could barely believe what stood before her. A horse! A tall, golden-brown horse with a black mane and tail, who would carry her anywhere. Can we keep him? she whispered.

As long as you tend to him, said her father, and keep up your grades. And let your brother ride when he gets older.

And attend to your piano, added her mother.

Lizbet would have agreed to anything. She stroked Suleiman’s soft nose as his deep brown eyes looked down into hers. Such long eyelashes! Oh, thank you, she whispered. I’ll take care of him always.

Right now, said her father, he can stay in the hay barn with Buster. When I get time, I’ll show you how to saddle and ride him.

Be very careful, Lizbet, warned her mother. Horses can kick the wits out of you. You don’t want to wind up like Freddy Hostler, barely fit to pump gas. I’ve enough to worry about with your brother to be hauling you to the hospital, too.

Yes, Mama, Lizbet nodded meekly. This was no time to annoy her.

She grasped the halter and she and her father led the horse across the lane and past the milking shed. He went along calmly between them, looking from side to side at the barns and fields of his new home. When shaggy yellow Duke trotted out to inspect him, Suleiman merely bobbed his head at the dog.

Where did you get him? Lizbet wondered.

Sam Bradey’s selling out, her father answered. Their girl wanted to show him but he’s developed a string halt, so she’s giving him up since he’s not perfect.

Lizbet looked at Suleiman’s legs. His picked up his back right hoof extra high in a spasm, but he didn’t limp when he put his weight on it. Does it hurt? she asked.

Her dad shook his head. Might go away, he muttered. Been keeping him in a barn. We’ll put him out with the heifers when he gets used to the place.

They led him into the bottom level of the old barn. The opening split the hayloft on the upper floor and went clear to a pigeon roost on the roof. On the east side at ground level, the tractor, a truck, and the hay baler rested out of the weather. On the west side, four standing stalls lined the aisle that ended at two square box stalls, reserved for cows with new calves. The sweet dusty scent of alfalfa hay in the air smelled better to Lizbet than the dull old corn flakes in her cereal bowl.

Lizbet tied Suleiman in the first standing stall where he could look out a high little window. Talk to him, said her father, so he gets used to your voice. You know how to behave around animals. He’s no high-strung, spooky Thoroughbred.

Talk softly and make no sudden moves, said Lizbet, and her father nodded.

Feed him a section of hay, he said, and a couple ears of corn. You can take on feeding Buster, too. Keep their water buckets full and clean out the stalls every day. Don’t want hoof rot from standing in wet. He’s not a young gelding, and I’m not paying a lot of vet bills for a hay burner that don’t earn his keep.

Two stalls away Buster snorted and Suleiman gave a little squeal. Buster, there, said her dad, he’s earned his retirement, but this guy’s been a rich girl’s pet. Just remember, you’re no rich girl. If he gets down, he’s going to the glue factory. He smacked Suleiman’s rump as he left Lizbet with her horse.

She broke open a bale of alfalfa and gave a chunk to Suleiman and another to Buster. Then she went to the corn crib and brought back a sack of ears to store near their stalls. As she watched the horses chomping on corn, she warned herself to be extra wary of annoying her mother. How had her father talked her into letting a horse come in the first place?

Leaning against Suleiman’s neck with her face tucked into his shoulder, Lizbet stroked his smooth coat and whispered, Is it all right if I call you Sulie? You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted, and I’ve waited forever for you to come. I’ll take care of you always. Sulie nodded his head, pulling a mouthful of hay from its tangle

That first morning Lizbet stayed with Sulie in his stall, brushing his brown coat and running her hands down his legs, breathing in the warm dusty scent of his hide. When he’d finished eating, she put her arms around his neck, and he rested his head over her shoulder and wiggled his chin on her back. She kept her voice low as she told him, You don’t have to be a show horse just going round and round in a ring. We’ll go down the lane and then far out in the hayfields. We’ll go to the river and up on the hills. Just you and me, Sulie. I’ll bring you apples and carrots and you can run with the wind. He listened, she knew he listened, and she believed he understood.

Finally, after shoveling out gutters in the cow barn, her father came back to the stall. You should be helping your mother at the house, he said. He wasn’t cross, but her mother was when Lizbet came into the kitchen.

I smell horse, sniffed her mother. Go change your shirt, wash your hands, and then peel these potatoes. I’m making my special potato salad for the church pitch-in.

At first that’s how it went. Lizbet’s mother found all kinds of things she had to do that kept her from Sulie. At the church in Corley Mills Lizbet’s mother always talked a long time to her sisters and their friends. She wanted Lizbet and her brother to go to Bible Camp and sing in the youth choir, but when little Andy got down with his lungs, sometimes they didn’t have to go. After Sulie arrived, Lizbet’s mother began making her come shopping on Friday nights when stores stayed open late. During the week she took Lizbet with her to visit old Mrs. Grunner, even though she had called her a persnickety old prune. She signed Lizbet up for Girl Scouts and Leadership Camp and 4H, but she couldn’t find anyone to bring her daughter home after meetings. Mrs. Grunner finally died, and Lizbet told her mother all those meetings were too much if she was going to keep up with the piano. By the end of the summer, Lizbet got to stay home with Sulie more often, except for the choir and school.

The first time she turned Sulie and Buster out with the heifers, Lizbet worried she’d never be able to climb on his back. When she let go of his halter, Sulie ran all the way down the fence line to the creek and stayed there. Old Buster pounded after him and all the heifers bunched up and stared. Nothing is more beautiful than a horse running for the joy of it, his mane flaring on the wind and his tail streaming behind him. Sulie ran as if that pasture was heaven, the sun glinting golden-red ripples from his hide. When Buster finally reached him, Sulie tossed his head and danced away, but he didn’t kick or bite and eventually lay down to roll over, all four feet in the air. He rolled over twice, a sign of spunk and good health, Lizbet’s father had told her. Then the two horses began grazing by the trees near the creek. Lizbet wondered if she’d ever catch Sulie again, but Buster must have told him to come when she brought corn to the gate in the evening. Eventually they both came when she called, so Duke and Wooly gave up trying to herd them. After all, they weren’t cows. Lizbet found a spot down the creek bank where nobody could see her and stayed there for hours with Sulie, just watching him graze or doze in the shade, head to tail with Buster, tails keeping flies off their faces.

Sulie had come with a flat English saddle, just a little scrap of leather like the one in her dream. Lizbet knew not to bother her father with extra chores, but she grew more impatient each day he didn’t give her riding lessons. Then one Sunday after church, Lizbet’s father found time to show her how the saddle went on Sulie’s back and how to tighten the girth around him and buckle the straps. Sulie puffed out his chest, so she had to buckle the girth twice to make it tight enough to keep the saddle from slipping. The bridle was more tricky. When her father took off the halter, she worried he’d have no way to catch Sulie, but the horse quietly lowered his head to take the bit in the gap in his teeth and let the straps go behind his ears. The bridle had two sets of reins and the bit bumped up in the middle. A chain ran under Sulie’s chin that clamped down on his lower jaw and the bump on the bit pushed against the roof of his mouth. But after her dad rode him a little, he said Sulie didn’t need a curb chain. He had a gentle mouth and had been taught to neck rein, so she shouldn’t pull hard to make him stop. He’s been well trained, said Lizbet’s father. I doubt he’ll give you much trouble.

Lizbet climbed on. Her dad shortened the stirrup straps to fit her legs and she stuck her feet through the metal hoops. Her dad showed her how to thread the reins through the fingers of her left hand and how to keep the reins loose enough so that they didn’t pull on Sulie’s mouth. Keep your legs forward with your knees bent and your heels down, said her father. Squeeze in with your knees so you don’t bounce around. Lift the reins to make him go forward. Pull back easy to stop. Don’t yank his head around. If he feels the reins on his neck, he’ll turn away from that side. Walk him down the field a ways for a start but don’t make him run.

Lizbet did everything her father said, and Sulie walked them along the fence line, Buster following close beside. Maybe Sulie felt the huge bubble inside Lizbet’s chest and didn’t want it to burst if he jumped sideways or dumped her off. She wasn’t afraid of falling, more of displeasing her father, but Sulie carried her as if she were precious and fragile, now in his care instead of the other way round. She held herself rigid, trying to do everything right while her father was watching. What if he said she was no good on a horse? What if he said she couldn’t ride unless he was there? He had too many chores to give her much time. What if her mother said a horse was too dangerous to ride outside of the pasture?

But when Sulie brought her back to the gate, Lizbet saw her father smiling. Good girl, he said. Go slow at first until he gets to know you, and loosen up. You’re as stiff as a board. Try a trot this time. Post from your knees. Lift yourself up a bit from the saddle so you don’t bounce around.

Lizbet knew what he meant although she had never done it. She had seen National Velvet twice and almost memorized Equestrian Training, her father’s old college textbook. But at the start, when she raised the reins and urged Sulie faster, she began bouncing around. She held to the front of the saddle until she learned how to match his rhythm, letting his gait bounce her up but using her legs muscles to sit down. Sulie slowed his trot until she learned enough to let go of the saddle. She bounced only a little bit on the way back to the gate.

Not bad for the first time, said her father. Practice that before you try a canter. I got chores in the barn. Give a holler when you’re ready to quit.

Twice more Lizbet trotted the length of the pasture until she thought she had almost learned how to post. But the third time when she turned Sulie toward the gate, he broke into a canter. She hadn’t lifted the reins higher or touched his sides with her heels, but he jumped into a run so quickly that she grabbed the saddle again to hang on. The ground sped under his hooves, his dark mane blew into her face, but his gait rocked along gently, almost like the swing on the front porch. He didn’t swerve or toss his head and carried her past the gate before he slowed, turned around, and stopped with his nose beside the top rung. Lizbet swung down, surprised at how sore her legs felt.

Her father had said not to run and she hadn’t urged Sulie faster. Maybe Sulie liked to run. Maybe he had decided she knew enough to stay on. Maybe he was teaching her how to ride so they could get out of this flat, boring pasture When she unbuckled the bridle and pulled the bit from his mouth, Sulie rubbed his head against her and gave her a little shove. She fastened the halter on his head and then undid the girth buckles, thinking she should have tied the reins to the fence and taken the saddle off first. But Sulie didn’t move until the tack rested on top rung, and then he merely shook himself so that his mane flopped on both sides of his neck. Thank you for the ride, Sulie, Lizbet whispered, reaching past the fence post for the apple she’d hidden. Here. she said. I brought you a present. Sulie took the whole thing from her flat hand and chomped down, his tongue slurping juices.

Every day that summer and after school in the fall, Lizbet rode Sulie, sometimes at a trot but more often a canter, loping up and down the heifer pasture without losing her seat. Buster gave up following them and waited at the gate or grazed under the trees near the creek. Lizbet brought him apples, too, so he didn’t feel neglected or jealous. Once as she and Sulie were walking near the creek, her horse stopped and stretched out his head, pulling at the reins with the bit in his teeth. Then without warning, he dropped his nose to the ground. Lizbet clung tight to the reins as they pulled her down his neck until she landed in a heap on the grass. Sulie looked down at her, rolling his eyes and waggling his ears. Lizbet thought he might be laughing at her, lying there by his feet, but he let her climb into the saddle again and went along slowly as before. She scolded herself: Legs straight from the knees with my heels down. Let the reins slip through my fingers. I wasn’t paying attention and Sulie knew it. He is teaching me how to ride!

As the summer days passed, the cottonwoods by the creek began to turn yellow and the winds grew colder at evening The heifers bunched up near the calf barn to keep warm and sometimes Lizbet found Sulie and Buster among them. Their coats had grown longer and thicker, but she worried they were going to suffer if they stayed outside in the cold. She began looking for horse blankets in the farm equipment catalogues, until her mother scoffed, Oh why don’t you just bring him in the house! He can stay in the front parlor while you practice the piano.

He’ll be okay, said her father. If snow’s coming, put him in the barn. Their coats keep’em warm. Buster’s never had no blanket.

Any blanket, his wife corrected.

When the first blizzard hit, Sulie and Buster were in their stalls and the heifers inside their rickety calf barn. In the morning, Lizbet bundled up in sweaters under her jacket, put on tall, rubber boots, and headed into strong winds still blowing drifts through the barn lot. Ice crystals stung her face and she barely saw the buildings through flying snow. Wading through drifts, she fell twice, but when she came into the hay barn, both Sulie and Buster chuckled, their breath coming like steam.

Breaking ice on the water buckets and filling them full, she assured them, I’d never forget you guys. It’s really cold out there, but in here you’re out of the wind. I’ll bring extra bedding. Maybe cook up some warm mash for your dinner. But how could she keep mash warm if she had to bring it from the house? She imagined her mother’s protests about using her pots for the horses. Maybe their thick coats kept them warm enough. Maybe she was trying to coddle them, and coddling just made you sick. Her mother made that claim often enough, even though Lizbet thought her brother got coddled. She stayed in the barn a long time, rubbing the horses with burlap feed sacks to keep their blood moving. How could they stand all day in those stalls and still keep themselves warm? How could she exercise Sulie in the deep snow?

After he finished milking, her father came into the hay barn. Hoh!’ he snorted. You got here. That’s snow’s pretty deep. Thought you’d stay up to the house so I came over to feed ’em."

You came out for milking, Lizbet said, so I had to get here for Sulie.

Her father clapped a hand on her shoulder. Good girl, he said. We got to tend critters no matter the weather. Can’t take care of themselves.

How can they stand there all winter? Lizbet asked. Shouldn’t they get exercise? They can’t lie down in those stalls. Don’t their legs ever get tired?

Her father wiped his nose on his coat sleeve. Built for standing, he said. Cows lay down, but not horses, not often that is. We’ll shovel the barn lot, and you can lunge him out there. I never did see a barn yet with a heater. They’ll be fine as long as you care.

Of course Lizbet cared. She cared about all the animals on the farm but not as much as for Sulie. The farm dogs, Duke and Wooly, let her scratch their ears, the barn cats let her admire their litters, the cows let their new calves suck her fingers, but Sulie was hers. He came when she called. He let her saddle and ride him. He listened to her as they went along, one ear cocked back for her words. She didn’t have to boss him around because he seemed eager to do what she wanted. He never balked or kicked or bit. Lizbet’s mother sometimes pointed out that horses kill people, buck them off and fall on them, trample them, break their heads open, but not Sulie. This big brown horse bent his head to Lizbet, did as she asked, and seemed to enjoy being with her. He must like her almost as much as she liked him. He trusted her to bring hay and corn and fresh water, and she never forgot he counted on her. She trusted him to go gently with her on his back, let her guide him away from the fence line, and stay with her when she got off. She wished he could talk to her, answer her questions, but they grew so used to each other, she seldom needed words. Lizbet wished she could live in the barn, burrow down in the hayloft to keep warm, and go up to the house only to make sandwiches. She’d feed cows and shovel gutters to earn her keep. In the barn it was peaceful, surrounded by green growing fields that changed only in the wind and the weather.

No one else kept a horse on the farms between Afton and Corely Mills. The neighbors’ corn and bean fields stretched down to the river, but Lizbet’s grandfather had always raised cows, and her father kept on, milking forty head twice a day and hauling milk into Afton. Fred Cash helped. He lived in a little house beyond the hay barn with the wife he brought home from Germany after the war. She didn’t speak much English and stayed mostly in her house, but their grubby son Carl rode the school bus with Lizbet and her brother Andy. On the bus Lizbet usually sat by herself and looked out at the green miles rolling past, wondering what lay over the horizon. She had never been beyond Afton or Corley Mills, where the railroad came through on its way west to Omaha. There must be other towns out there but nowhere she wanted to go unless she could take Sulie.

Lizbet got good grades in school, but the teachers made her an example of how to be smart, so most other kids didn’t like her. They said she was showing off when she volunteered the right answers, so she no longer volunteered. At recess she kept herself to one side, never asking to take her turn. But she learned all the ball bouncing chants—A my name is Alice, my husband’s name is Albert, we come from Atlanta, and we sell apples. B my name is Betsy . . . At lunch she ate without talking. She didn’t mean to be smart, but she read lots of her grandma’s books that filled one whole wall in the front parlor. There she had met Black Beauty, the black stallion, and Smokey, the cow horse. There were history books, too, with pictures she gazed at for hours, books about pioneers and princes and gallant knights in shining armor. She always looked for the names of their horses. Bucephelus carried Alexander the Great, but who carried King Arthur or Lancelot or Daniel Boone, or Davey Crocket? They wouldn’t be famous without their horses, horses who would give up their lives for their masters. If the housework was done, Lizbet’s mother let her curl up with a book to keep track of her inside the house. But Lizbet wasn’t really there. She was in Ancient Greece or Medieval England or America’s wilderness, where nobody told her to make beds or wash dishes or sweep carpets. For a long time she wished she’d been born a boy. They went off exploring, climbed mountains, fought dragons, and nobody stopped them. But there she was, her mother’s only daughter, almost alone in the middle of cows. Roaming the farm by herself, Lizbet had dreamed of a horse who would take her far away over the horizon.

The other horse Buster had been one of her grandfather’s teams. There had been four of them—Tom, Dick, Harry, and Buster—big and gentle, with hooves round as dinner plates, part Belgian her grandfather had claimed. Their horse collars and harnesses still hung on pegs in the hay barn, but now a big, red tractor pulled the corn picker, hay baler, or manure spreader. Lizbet remembered riding a wagon seat as a little kid, while Buster and Tom plodded along rustling corn rows. They went slowly enough for the men to cut stalks, using two-foot blades, curved like scimitars, and then they tossed the stalks crosswise on the wagon. In the field nobody guided Buster and Tom, their long reins looped on the seat beside her. They knew to walk slowly, turn around at the end of a row, and keep going until her grandfather shouted Whoa! Then he and her father climbed aboard, untied the reins, and chucked Giddyup! Tom and Buster headed for the milking shed where those corn stalks got chopped into silage and traveled up a conveyor belt into the tall, glazed-tile silo.

In those days a little tractor with cleats on its iron wheels ran the silage chopper and wide conveyer belt from a big flywheel on its side. It made a terrible racket and her grandfather always warned, Stay back, Lizzie. It’ll eat you alive. But Tom and Buster stood patiently until the wagon was empty and the tractor turned off. Then they pulled everyone back to the cornfield for another load. Unhitched from the wagon, they headed straight for their stalls, still harnessed with blinders attached to their bridles. They waited inside until someone came to unbuckle the straps and bring them water and hay. Buster let Lizbet brush him, but she had to stand on a bucket to clean off his back. If she climbed on that back, her legs stuck straight out, and he shuddered and shivered as if to shake off a fly. Good old Buster had never been the horse of her dreams.

When April came, the barn lot had grown too muddy for Lizbet to exercise Sulie on a lunge line so that he went round and round at a trot, while she stood still in the middle. She let both horses into the heifer pasture during the day and penned them up at night. Mud covered everyone, the cows and the heifers, Buster’s fetlocks and knees, Sulie’s flanks and hooves, and even Lizbet’s tall rubber boots, which she made sure to take off in the mud room before coming into the kitchen. Even so, her mother’s pinched face and constant sniffs told Lizbet she smelled of the barns and should leave her jacket in the mud room, too, especially after she brushed Sulie. He had begun shedding his winter coat, and Lizbet came home, covered with horse hair and mud.

Wipe your feet. Clean off you jacket. Wash your hands, her mother said automatically as soon as Lizbet came into the kitchen, even before looking to see if her daughter was dirty. Her mother complained, I spend half my life trying to keep barn smells our of this house, and now you’re tracking in everything. You’ll have to mop up the kitchen before I start supper.

Lizbet said once, You can smell lilacs by the kitchen door, and I like the way the barns smell. Grampa said barns smell like money in the bank.

Her mother scowled and then snorted, The amount of our money in the bank has never made much of a smell. Thank goodness your father doesn’t raise pigs.

If Lizbet’s mother was so persnickety, why had she ever come to live on a farm? That was one of those mysteries Lizbet never solved, but she was glad she lived on a farm, mud, smells, and all. Is there enough money, she asked her father, to have the blacksmith come out? I’ve cleaned Sulie’s hooves so they’re not full of mud, but I haven’t cleaned Buster’s. He’s walking around on big balls of mud. Maybe we should get their hooves trimmed.

Lizbet’s father cleaned Buster’s hooves and agreed that the blacksmith should check Sulie’s shoes. So one Saturday a truck with a small forge in the back arrived in the barn lot, and Lizbet called the horses from their favorite spot near the creek.

Peter O’Malley had brought his old father Seamus along, and both men watched the horses trotting across the field. Come when you call, eh? Seamus muttered. Didn’t that bay belong to Sam Bradey? Still got that string halt, now don’t he?

Lizbet nodded. But I’m not going to show him, she said. I just want to ride.

Peter O’Malley tied the horses to the gate and both men ran their hands down the horses’ legs and picked up each foot. Then Peter got out his long clippers and set to work trimming Buster’s wide hooves. Seamus squinted up into Sulie’s eyes and then pried open his mouth to look at his teeth. Sulie stood patiently for his inspection, but when Seamus let go, Lizbet’s horse lowered his head to splutter his lips on the man’s chest. Ah, ye’re a smart one, Seamus laughed, smacking Sulie’s neck with the flat of his hand. Let’s see about that spasm y’got. Can’t always tell the cause or the cure for ’em.

When the old blacksmith picked up the rear leg, Sulie lifted it high but let it drop down to rest in Seamus’ hands. The blacksmith felt along the muscles and tendons and let the leg down to rest on the ground. Where you ride? Seamus asked. I’d say he don’t need shoes if you stick to dirt roads. Might take off that spasm.

So far, I’ve just ridden in the pasture, said Lizbet, but I want to go up the lane and on the ridge near the river. I don’t ride him on the highway.

We’ll just trim’em up then and let’im go barefoot, said Seamus. He’s not a young horse, y’know.

How old is he? Lizbet asked, hoping Sulie was not nearly as old as Buster.

Seamus pushed out his cracked lips. More’n twenty, I’d say. Still got his sense of humor. He’ll carry you off on those hills to go dreamin. Lizbet rubbed her face against Sulie’s neck to hide the blush she felt on her cheeks. Ye make a good pair, said old Seamus. Bradey’s girl kept him in a stall, let hired hands feed’im. He’d probably follow you right into the house.

Not if my mother was there, said Lizbet.

Peter O’Malley agreed with his father that Sulie might benefit from bare hoofs, so the two blacksmiths pulled off Sulie’s shoes and trimmed his hoofs shorter. As Peter loaded the tools into the truck, Seamus watched Lizbet feed Sulie an apple. When ye’re ready to give’em up, said Seamus, give Peter a call. His girl Jenny’ll be about ready.

I’ll never give him up, said Lizbet.

Yes, ye will, said Seamus. Won’t be long afore ye’ll be ready for boys.

Never! thought Lizbet as she watched the O’Malley’s truck pull away.

Lizbet found her father in the cowbarn with Fred Cash and his son Carl. The men were shoveling out gutters while Carl swept the aisles. I want to take Sulie up the lane, Lizbet said. We’ve never been out of the heifer pasture and it’s dried off enough we can stay out of mud.

Her father nodded. Don’t cut across plowed fields, he said, though we haven’t yet planted the west one. Be sure to tell someone when you go off alone.

Lizbet saddled Sulie that afternoon and opened the gate. Buster snorted when she penned him in and gave a squeal when she mounted. I’ll bring him back, she said to the workhorse. You just wait for us here. Sulie’s ears pointed forward as if he was eager for this new adventure.

The lane ran from the highway between the house and the barns and led into the hayfields where it turned into ruts. To keep out of puddles, Lizbet guided Sulie along the center mound so he walked on weeds and short grass. All around them lay peace and quiet, home pastures where the seasons came and went so predictably she had hardly noticed. On the sides of the lane, wild roses and brambles grew up the barbed wire fence, and later in summer milkweed and tall yellow sunflowers would crowd the ditches. Meadow larks warbled from fenceposts, blue jays and a few ragged crows announced she was coming, but she saw no other wild creatures who were sharing the farm. There might be brown deer or a fox or a coyote in the trees farther ahead near the river. Was there a path up the ridge? She had seldom rambled through these back fields, usually stopping at the fence where the forest started. But now she had Sulie, who could take her anywhere.

They went through a gap in the west fence into a tangle of tall grass and saplings. There might have been a road here once, but where did it go? Ahead the ground began to rise in high ridges separating the lower fields from the river. Bigger trees grew there, oaks and cottonwoods and cedars that must have sprouted before her grandfather came. On this scouting trip, she didn’t intend to go that far and let Sulie choose his own way. He still headed west toward the river, the boundary between her father’s farm and the Conways’.

The Conways raised acres and acres of soybeans and cleared saplings from their fields right down to the fences, as if a few little trees were going to eat up their beans. There was kind of a contest between them and her father to