"Then come down the line to Gahato with us tomorrow, if the rain lets up," I said.
The rain did let up, so next morning found us at Seymour Green's stable. McGill and his wife were in jeans and sneakers, which are poor riding shoes because they lack heels. I wore the boots and breeches I had ridden in for twenty years, although Denise had let out the pants.
I am no cowboy or Cossack. Still, I have ridden a fair amount, starting at a fancy prep school my parents sent me to, before the Great Depression took us down several financial pegs. At that place, equitation was on the curriculum. I have even jumped a few times without falling off.
"Hey!" said McGill, "I want that one!" He pointed to the huge black that had stepped on my foot.
"Okay," said Green. "He won't give you no trouble; he's too lazy. Saddle him up, Jim."
Then McGill started to mount Darius from the wrong side. The horse shied away, and Jim corrected McGill.
"I never can remember which side is the right one," he said.
"Imagine you're wearing a sword on your left side," I said. "Then, if you tried to mount from the right, the scabbard would poke the horse in the rump and make him shy."
"But I'm left-handed, so I'd wear my sword on the right!"
I did not try to answer that one. Green handed McGill a switch cut from a tree branch to wake up Darius if the horse ignored its rider's heels. We started out along the trails.
Darius gave no trouble at first, but the McGills caused me apprehension. In conversation, they had given the impression of being old horsepersons. But the way they sat, and McGill's ideas of mounting, did not confirm that impression.
Furthermore, the deer flies bothered them, so that they were always slapping. They had come out bareheaded, not knowing that a deer fly goes for anything that looks hairy. Then you suddenly feel as if somebody had stabbed you in the scalp or neck with a hot needle. McGill rode with his knees sticking out, so that one could see greenery between them and the horse.
"Malcolm," I said, "how much riding have you actually done?"
"Oh, I've been on a horse maybe twice."
I gulped. "Well, if you want to stay on, press your knees hard against the animals's sides and keep them that way."
"Oh," he said. He tried to comply, but the knee grip is tiring when one is not used ot it. Soon his knees were sticking out again.
Still, he managed until we came to an open space, near the Gahato airstrip. Jim began a canter. McGill survived Darius's first few shambling bounds. Then McGill's saddle began to tip from side to side, going a little further each time as he swayed his body to compensate. Having no knee grip, he could not hold the saddle in place by main force.
I started to calclass="underline" "Hey, Malcolm! Watch—"
Over he went. The saddle slid until it was under the horse's belly, and McGill landed on his back in a mass of raspberry bushes. Darius stopped to eat the vegetation.
The rest of us pulled up. Jim handed his reins to me, vaulted off, and helped McGill to his feet. McGill limped, and his hands and face were scratched by the raspberry thorns.
"Oh, boy!" he said. "I think I busted my big toe in pulling it out of the stirrup."
He was lucky at that. A fall from a horse may look funny but is no joke. If he had landed on his head on something hard or had caught his foot in the stirrup, he could have been killed. In one of my few falls, I hurt my shoulder in a way that took a year completely to heal.
Examining Darius, Jim said: "He's pulled that goddam trick again. The smart ones learn to take a deep breath when you go to tighten the girth. Then, when they let it out, the girth gets loose. Damn your hide, hold still!" This was to the horse, whose girth Jim was ferociously tightening. "Now it won't come loose. This critter's lazy, but he's the smartest damn horse I ever seen. Seems almost like he's got a man's brain. Can you get back up, Mr. McGill?"
When McGill was again mounted, the rest of the ride was made in a subdued and cautious spirit.
Wisely, the McGills elected to go boating on their second day, so Denise and I did not ride again until they had left. This time, I took Darius.
"Sure you want to?" said Seymour Green. "He don't like you."
"We'll see about that," I said. "I think I can handle him."
"Oh, Willy!" said Denise. "You have one of your tetu— your stubborn streaks on again."
"Yep," I said. "Saddle him up."
When the black was ready, I stepped towards him. Darius bared his teeth.
"None of that," I said. Then, not so loudly as to be overheard: "Tell me, are you really Henri Michod?"
Darius threw up his head and gave his thunderous whinny.
"And you've been laying for me for the last quarter-century, eh?"
He whinnied again.
"How'd you know me? By hearing Green say my name?" The horse nodded.
"Well, you'll have to behave yourself."
I walked to the animal's nigh side and put my foot in the stirrup. Darius reached down and back and tried to bite my foot, but I got up without damage.
I watched Darius, lest he lie down and roll or try to buck me off. Luckily, he was too lazy to lie down, because that meant that he had to get up again. With his weight, that was a job. As for bucking, perhaps he did not know how.
"Be careful, darling!" called Denise. She was up on a docile little mare.
We rode with four other summer people. Jim led us. It was one of those beautiful summer days that you get now and then in the Adirondacks, if you don't mind waiting through a week or two of cold, overcast, fog, and rain.
Then the Gahato fire-house siren went off, out of sight but plainly audible. All the horses danced and fidgeted. I leaned forward to pat Darius on the neck to gentle him down. I did not quite know whether to deal with the creature as a man or as a beast.
Darius chose that moment to throw up his head, so that his great skull hit me in the face. I heard my sun glasses go crunch. A little dazed, I lost a stirrup but got it back before Darius could take advantage of me.
"Are you hurt, Willy?" said Denise.
"Don't think so," I said, "except for having these glasses pushed into my face. Probably have a black eye tomorrow."
I took off the glasses and examined them. The frame was cracked, so the glasses would have to be replaced. I put them in my pocket, resolving never to wear glasses of any kind on horseback again.
For a while, all was peaceful. We walked, trotted, and cantered. None of the other riders was such a tyro as the McGills had proved.
"All right there, Henri Michod," I said to my horse. "You see, it's not so bad when you do what you ought—"
We were trotting along one of the dirt back roads and came to a fork. One way led to Gahato; the other, to the Lower and Upper Lakes. As Jim pulled up to collect his riders, the whole Gahato high-school track team—a score of youths in fluttery running gear—came racing towards us along the road from the village.
"Yippee!" yelled one of the youths. "Ride 'em, cowboy!"
That was all we needed. The horses spooked. Denise's mare whirled and started back for Green's stable at a dead run; so did those of the other riders.
Darius headed into the other fork of the road, towards the lakes. I leaned back and hauled on the reins, but the accursed beast had clamped the bit in his big yellow teeth. There was no holding him.
On he went. I heard yells behind me but was too busy keeping my saddle and stirrups to pay heed.
The dirt road petered out into an old logging road, partly overgrown with saplings. Darius pounded on through the saplings, which lashed my legs. I grabbed the horn of the Western saddle and hung on, glad there was nobody to see me commit such an unhorsemanlike gaffe.
"God damn it, Michod, use some sense!" I yelled. Darius merely whinnied and thundered on.
The logging road in turn began to peter out. Trails, on which we had ridden before, branched off. Darius raced along one of these, up and down and then, leaving the trail, cross-country. We came to a place where no trees had been cut for many decades, so that the area was almost like a virgin forest. Darius aimed at a big beech, whence a massive horizontal branch stuck out at just the right height to scrape me off.