Debbie had learned to sit calmly on Rufus and say, no matter what Fiona proposed, “That would be fun.” What Fiona saw in her was a mystery, unless it was that whatever she wanted to say about the horses Debbie was happy to listen to: Prince had won three races, his racing name was Ball Four, he was by Shut Out, which meant Shut Out was his sire. One day, out fox hunting, Fiona had stayed in the front, and when they had a kill she got a pad; a pad was the fox’s foot; only grown-ups got the brush, which was the tail, or the mask, which was the head. Her boots had cost sixty dollars; her saddle had cost seventy-five dollars; it was from England. Someday she was going to hunt in England; the best hunt there was the Belvoir; she could grow up to be a whipper-in. Now she said, “Okay, I’m going to do it again. You go down the hill and wait on the flat part.” Debbie turned Rufus and went down at a walk while Fiona went up at a canter. By the time Debbie had Rufus right in the middle of the flat part, Fiona and Prince were at the top, pointed downward. Debbie waved. Fiona clapped her legs against Prince’s sides, and he started to canter. Fiona leaned back, and then she was squatting on Prince’s back, her hand still clutching the lead rope, and then Prince was galloping right at Debbie and Rufus. Fiona stood up. Debbie held the pony’s mane, bit her lip.
Prince kept coming. Fiona stood like someone in the circus, her knees slightly bent, holding the lead rope with both hands — maybe she had decided she was going too fast this time to jump off. But she didn’t look scared; she looked surprised and excited. They came on. Debbie had no idea what Rufus would do. The hoofbeats sounded loud to her, even though they were muffled by the grass and the dirt, and Prince looked enormous. They came on. Debbie tightened her legs around Rufus’s fat sides. She could see Fiona’s mouth open as she raised her right hand and straightened her shoulders, still standing on Prince’s back. Debbie’s heart was pounding. At the last moment, Rufus jumped to one side, and Prince skipped to the other. Debbie slid but hung on. Fiona flexed and kept her balance. Two strides later, she squatted down again, with Prince still galloping, put her hands in his mane, and dropped to his back. At the lower fence, Fiona brought him around in a big trot circle, then came back up the hill. Debbie fell forward onto Rufus’s neck, her face in his bushy pony mane. She did not want to be the one to faint and fall off. She closed her eyes.
Fiona’s face was flushed, but she was nonchalant about the whole thing by the time she and Prince got back to Debbie and Rufus. Rufus was nonchalant, too, but Prince was delighted with himself — he arched his neck and picked up his feet and took deep breaths. Fiona said, “Horses are really good at knowing where they are.” Then, “I’m sorry if I scared you.”
Debbie said, “You didn’t.”
But for the rest of their ride, all they did was wander around the field. Fiona made Debbie trot in a circle both ways for a few minutes, just to practice. And, of course, when the horses were cooled out and they went in the house for a snack, Mr. Cannon was home, and he said, “You girls having a good time?” Fiona shrugged. Debbie said, “Yes. I love Rufus.”
“He’s a good pony.”
After they looked at Fiona’s latest issue of The Chronicle of the Horse, Mr. Cannon drove Debbie home while Fiona took the horses their hay. All Mom said when she walked in the house was “Hi, honey. The fresh air is doing you good.”
—
JIM UPJOHN HAD his way, of course, and Frank was brought in by the board of Fremont Oil to “reorganize and redirect operations.” Frank’s “objectivity” was secured by means of a very large salary and no stock in the company. Uncle Jens had some proportion of his assets in oil, but none in Fremont. Fortunately for Frank, Hal and Friskie had already moved the corporate offices from Tulsa to Manhattan, so, when Andy and Janny went looking for a new house the better to accommodate Frank’s new position, they didn’t have to look far. Andy liked Englewood Cliffs, because she could get to the Upper West Side quite easily, and the schools, the private schools, were said to be excellent.
Frank was quite friendly with Hal and Friskie. Hal was thirty-one and Friskie was twenty-eight. Frank alternated between treating them like kid brothers and like experts. Every time Hal told him what to do, Frank smiled cheerfully and said, “I think that’s a great idea.” Friskie wasn’t much of a suggester, more of a complainer, so when Friskie came charging into his office, upset about something, Frank was sympathetic, offered him a drink (Friskie liked a straight shot of The Glenlivet). He also listened to their views about their father — that he was over the hill, that he didn’t understand the modern world, that he always acted on impulse. When push came to shove, that’s what he did — shoved them around with those big hands of his. Frank nodded and shook his head with all kinds of sympathy and said that his father had been just the same way, a farmer who had his belt off at least once a day, “The only question was, buckle end or not buckle end?” This made them laugh. They thought Frank was on their side.
Jim Upjohn had led him to believe that Dave Courtland would be buying property somewhere nearby — if not Manhattan or New Jersey, then a place in Southampton. But Dave Courtland hated the East as much as he hated the North. His favorite places were Caracas and Galveston. Frank did not mind not seeing him, because he and Jim Upjohn were in complete agreement about developing the Venezuelan oil fields to their most attractive potential, and then allowing a hostile takeover by Jersey or Getty. When Frank expressed a bit of nervousness about Dave Courtland’s reaction, Jim laughed and said, “Oh hell. Millions of bucks are a good tranquilizer. He’ll have a tantrum and then, no doubt, decide to use that money to do a little more exploring. And that will rejuvenate the old coot. We’ll buy him a nice donkey. The fellow who started a company can’t run it when it’s going strong. They get bored and cranky, so you have to send them out to start something new. Maybe he’ll get remorse, like Carnegie did, and build something for the workers.” Jim Upjohn was the only man Frank regularly spoke with who pronounced it like Eloise did, “the workers.”
Frank said, “What about Hal and Friskie?”
“They’re both engaged, as you know. Hal’s marrying into the Corneliuses, and Friskie’s got himself a Sulzberger cousin. First cousin. The fate of the company is a problem for them, not a project. The way I see it, we’re pointing them all toward a form of family happiness they’ve never experienced before.” Then he laughed. Jim Upjohn was the most casually self-confident person Frank had ever met.
—
BILLY WESTON, who lived down the street from Richie and Michael (for now, but Mommy said that they would be moving soon, and to a much nicer neighborhood), had gotten a tent for his eighth birthday, and had invited Richie and Michael to help him set it up; Billy’s dad had shown him how to pound in the stakes and said that he could work on it on his own. As far as Richie was concerned, there was only one thing wrong with Billy Weston, and that was that he didn’t have a twin. Richie had to watch very carefully to see whether Billy, who had lots of good stuff, seemed to be playing more with Michael or with him. If Billy had had a twin, then he and Michael would each have had a friend, but Billy had four sisters, who ran into the house every time Richie and Michael came over.