Jeannette Walls - Half Broke Horses

The first day back, I went out to see Patches, who was standing by herself in the pasture. She was a little whiskery, but she seemed to have aged better than anyone else. I saddled her up and we rode out into the valley. It was late afternoon, and the long purple shadow we cast dipped and swelled across the rolling grassland. Patches was a good seventeen years old, but she still had the juice, and at a rise I clucked her up to a gallop, her hooves clattering over the hard ground while the wind whipped my hair back and whistled in my ears. I hadn’t been on a horse since leaving for Chicago, and it just felt right.

I was a mite concerned about Helen, seeing as how she was not the most self-reliant creature in the world, but Mom, to my surprise, had encouraged her to go to Los Angeles, insisting that with that pretty face and those delicate hands, she was sure to be discovered, and if not, she could find a rich Hollywood husband. Mom also hinted a couple of times that it was good I was going on to college, since with one failed marriage behind me, I’d have trouble landing a good husband and would need something to fall back on. “A package that’s been opened once doesn’t have the same appeal,” she said.

Unlike the last time I came home, no one begged me to stay. Even Dad acted as if he assumed I’d be moving on, and that was fine by me. I didn’t belong in Chicago, but it had changed me, so I didn’t belong on the KC, either. I even felt out of place sleeping in my old bed. Also, if I was going to stay put, I’d need to pitch in on the chores, and after all those years of maid work, cleaning the chicken coop and mucking stalls didn’t exactly call to me. I left early for Flagstaff.

Although I was older than most of the other students, I loved college. Unlike many of the boys, who were interested in football and drinking, and the girls, who were interested in boys, I knew exactly why I was there and what I wanted to get out of it. I wished I could take every course in the curriculum and read every book in the library. Sometimes after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it.

My only concern was how I was going to pay the next year’s tuition. But after I’d been at the university for exactly one semester, Grady Gammage, president of the college, asked to see me. He said he’d been contacted by the town of Red Lake, which was looking for a teacher. He’d been following my performance because he’d also worked hard to put himself through college and admired others who did the same. The folks in Red Lake remembered me from the time I’d taught there. They were willing to sign me up, even though I had just begun college, and Mr. Gammage thought I had what it took as well. “It’s a tough choice,” he said. “If you start teaching now, you’ll give up school, and a lot of people find it hard to come back.”

It didn’t seem a tough choice at all. I could either pay money to go to classes or get paid for teaching classes.

“When do I start?” I asked.

I WENT BACK TOthe ranch to get Patches, and for the third time that horse and I made the five-hundred-mile journey between Tinnie and Red Lake. Patches was out of shape, but I easied her along, and she toned up pretty quick. We both enjoyed being on the move in open country.

I ran into more people than I had last time, and every now and again a car would barrel past, the driver white-knuckling the wheel as he bounced over the wagon ruts, trailing a cone of dust. But there were still long stretches of solitude, only me and Patches ambling along, and as I sat by my little fire at night, the coyotes howled just like they always had, and the huge moon turned the desert silver.

The town of Red Lake still felt like it was located at one of the world’s high points, the range land sloping away on all sides, but it had changed since I first saw it almost fifteen years before. Arizona, with its wideopen spaces and no one peering over your shoulder, had always been a haven for folks who didn’t like the law or other busybodies to know what they were up to, and there were more scoundrels and eccentrics around-Mexican rumrunners, hallucinating prospectors, trenchcrazed veterans still wheezing from mustard gas, a guy with four wives who wasn’t even a Mormon. One of that guy’s kids was named Balmy Gil because when he was born, the guy opened the Bible at random and, eyes closed, planted his finger on the passage about the Balm of Gilead.

More farmers had also put down stakes and more stores had opened, including a new automobile garage with a gasoline pump out front. The grass outside town, which used to be high enough to touch the cattle’s underbellies, had been grazed down to the nub, and I wondered if maybe there were more people here than the land could bear.

The schoolhouse now had a teacherage built onto the back, so I had my own room to sleep in. I had thirty-six students of all ages, sizes, and breeds, and I made sure when I entered the classroom that each and every one of them stood up and said, “Good morning, Miss Casey.” Anyone who talked out of turn had to stand in the corner, and anyone who sassed me was sent out to pluck a willow branch so I could give them a hiding with it. Kids were like horses in that things went a lot easier if you got their respect from the outset rather than trying to demand it after they’d started seeing what they could get away with.

When I’d been in Red Lake a month, I went over to the town hall to pick up my first paycheck. A corral was next to the building, and inside it stood a small sorrel mustang, all veined up and with saddle sweat still on his back. When he saw me, he gave me a baleful look, ears flat, and I could tell right off that was one ornery horse.

Inside the hall, a couple of deputies were lounging by a desk, hats tilted back and pants tucked into their boots. When I introduced myself, one of them-a skinny guy with rooster legs and close-set eyes-said, “I hear you come all the way from Chicago to teach us hicks a thing or two.”

“I’m just a hardworking gal here for her paycheck,” I said.

“Before you get it, you needs to pass a simple test first.”

“What test?”

“Ride that there little fella out in the corral.”

I could tell from the sidelong glances Rooster Legs and his buddy were giving each other that they thought they were going to play some prank on the greenhorn schoolteacher. I could tell they figured I was a know-it-all about reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic, so they were going to put this city girl in her place when it came to the fourth R-riding.

I decided to play along with them and we’d see who got the last laugh. Fluttering my eyes and acting all coy, I said this test seemed highly unusual, but I supposed I could give the horse a try since I had ridden before, and I assumed he was a gentle creature.

“Gentle as a baby’s fart,” Rooster said.

I had on a loose dress and my sensible schoolteacher shoes. “I’m not wearing riding clothes,” I said, “but if he is as advertised, I guess I could trot him around a bit.”

“You could ride this horse in your pajamas,” Rooster said with a smirk.

I followed the two comedians out to the corral, and while they saddled up the mustang, I went over to a hedge of juniper, broke off a nice limber branch, and stripped the twigs from it.

“Ready to pass your test, ma’am?” Rooster asked. He thought the impending disaster was going to be so hilarious that he could barely contain himself.

The mustang was standing stock-still but watching me out of the corner of his eye. He was just another half-broke horse, and I’d seen plenty of them in my lifetime. I hiked up my skirt and shortened the reins, twisting the horse’s head to the right so he couldn’t swing his hindquarters away.