Willow King Read online

  “How about it, King, do your legs bother you?” she asked as she reached over to fiddle with his forelock. “Sometimes it’s a real pain having to deal with a handicap, isn’t it? I know there are days when I don’t wear my elevated shoe, and I overdo it. Then the next day, my back hurts so bad, I don’t feel like getting out of bed.

  “But your legs are getting better, so I hope you outgrow this. And if you don’t, then that’s okay, too. We’re in this together, pal. We’re tough. We’ll show them what we’re made of.”

  Katie wished it were that simple. King had it better in one respect—he didn’t have a bunch of nasty kids to tease him. Kids could be so mean sometimes.

  It hurt to be different.

  A shout broke Katie out of her thoughts. She looked up to see Mr. Simon waving to them from the barn. “Come on up. We’re ready for you.”

  When Katie and the horses stopped in front of the stable, Mr. Simon let out a low whistle and ran a practiced eye over Willow King.

  “This is some piece of horseflesh. Who’s his sire and dam?”

  Katie shifted in the saddle. She didn’t want to lie to the man, but Mr. Ellis didn’t want her disclosing King’s bloodlines. She cleared her throat. “The breeder made me promise not to tell anyone King’s pedigree.”

  Mr. Simon scratched his head. “That’s mighty strange. You’d think with a big, good-looking colt like this, the breeder would be shouting it from the rooftops.”

  Katie proudly stroked King’s neck. “He was born with a problem. The stallion’s owner didn’t want anyone to know about it.” She understood why a breeder would want to keep the colt from the public, but it still galled her how people wanted to shut away or ignore anything that wasn’t perfect. Perfection wasn’t everything.

  “Yes, I remember you saying something about him having crooked legs. They seem to be straightening. In another six months or so, you won’t be able to tell.” He ran his hand down King’s legs, then stood. “Let’s get inside, out of this heat.”

  Katie handed the colt to Mr. Simon, then dismounted and led Jan’s mare to a stall. She removed the tack while the mare sank her muzzle into a bucket of water.

  “I’m going to take him to the wash rack. I’ll meet you there,” the stable owner said.

  When Katie arrived, King was being given a bath with the hose. She took the lead shank from Mr. Simon. “Why are you giving him a bath if he’s going into the water?”

  “I want him as clean as possible when he goes into the pool. Extra dirt is hard on the filters. We’ll want to pick out his hooves, too.”

  When King was done with his bath, they took him to the pool. Mr. Simon enlisted the help of one of the stable boys.

  “When we get him in and out of here a few times, and he’s swimming good, I’ll teach you how to do this. The first couple of swims I like to handle with just me and one of my stable hands. A lot of horses get scared and do funny things on their first try.”

  He picked up a whip and handed it to Katie. “If we can’t coax him in, I want you to make a little noise with this thing. You may have to tap him lightly with it.”

  Mr. Simon snapped a long rope to the left ring of King’s halter and ran a rope through the ring on the right side, then positioned him on the ramp. King waded in up to his knees, then stopped and pawed at the water.

  “It’s okay. Let him get used to it before we ask him to go any farther,” Mr. Simon told the stable boy.

  King lowered his nose to the water and snorted.

  “Come on, boy,” the stable owner encouraged, but King balked and tried to back up. “Get after him, Katie. Pop him with that whip.”

  Katie snapped the whip in the air behind King, and it made a cracking sound. King hesitated for a moment, then fought against the ropes. She tapped him on the rump with the whip and used her voice to try shooing him into the water.

  “Make a little more noise back there, Katie. Tap him again. I think he’s ready to go.”

  Katie snapped the whip over King’s hips and yelled, “Yah, yah!” King paused for a moment, then gathered his weight on his haunches and sprang forward. He landed ten feet out in the deep water, sinking to the bottom of the pool, almost pulling his handlers in after him.

  Katie sucked in her breath and her hands flew to her heart, but in the next instant, King shot to the surface, thrashing about and pawing the water in an attempt to swim.

  “Pull him around, Davie,” Mr. Simon yelled to his helper.

  Davie ran ahead of King on the outside of the pool, pulling the colt around to the exit. Mr. Simon stood on the platform at the center and kept him steadied. Then together they pulled King up the ramp. The colt walked shakily up the incline. He was blowing hard. His nostrils flared as he sucked in great lungfuls of air.

  “Boy!” Katie said. “That was really something. Is he okay?”

  Mr. Simon leaned over to pat the colt on the neck. “He’s fine, just a little shook up. We’ll give him a second to catch his breath, then we’ll try him again. When he goes in quietly and swims strongly, we’ll pull the outside rope through the halter and swim him with just the inside rope. It’s just like longeing a horse, except that he’s in water.”

  They did two more test runs with King going in and out of the pool before they let him swim on his own around the pool once. When he reached the ramp, he pulled against the rope, trying to get out. Mr. Simon held him steady, forcing him around again. After three times, they allowed King to exit.

  King stepped from the water on shaking legs. His nostrils flared and every muscle in his body quivered.

  “He looks exhausted,” Katie said.

  “He is.” Mr. Simon picked up the sweat scraper and scraped the excess water from King’s coat. “Swimming is difficult exercise for a horse.”

  King staggered forward a couple of steps, his legs threatening to collapse.

  “I think you’d better hand-walk him till he’s cooled out. I’ll fix you a stall so he can stay here tonight. It doesn’t look like he’d make the walk home.”

  Katie appreciated Mr. Simon’s kind offer. “Thank you. I think you’re right about that. Will he always be this tired?”

  “No. It’s usually just the first couple of swims. They get nervous, and it takes more energy out of them than they would normally use. A couple of days from now, this colt will be swimming like a champion. He’ll put on a lot of muscle. We can build his endurance up without putting unnecessary pressure on those legs.”

  Katie walked King until he was dry, then put him into the stall that had been prepared for him. When she rode off on Jan’s mare, he nickered at their departing forms, but he was too tired to put up much of a fuss.

  The next day, Mr. Simon taught Katie how to swim a horse. He started her with one of the older horses that loved the water. She stepped onto the walkway that led to the center platform and coaxed the horse down the ramp. The big gelding walked into the water and pushed off into the pool, his powerful legs churning the water.

  At Mr. Simon’s instruction, she picked up the longeing whip that was used to discourage the horse from coming in too close to the platform.

  “We’ve hung pieces of carpeting down from the platform to make the horses think it’s solid, but if one of them ever gets up under there, he could wrap himself around that pole and drown, or at the very least, crack his legs against the hard metal and hurt himself,” the stable owner said.

  Katie noticed that when the horse grew tired, he tended to angle in toward her. Several times she had to slap the whip against the water to keep the horse in the center of the pool. When the gelding was finished, Mr. Simon brought King out.

  “I’ll get him started, but I want you to come out on the platform so you can take over for me,” he said.

  Katie helped get King into the water, then ran to take over at the center of the pool. The colt could only endure one minute in the pool, but he behaved perfectly for Katie.

  By the end of the week, King was up to three minutes, and
Katie finally had the hang of getting him in and out of the pool. King even had enough energy to pony home and kick up his heels along the way.

  Once school started again, Katie had so much homework that she had to cut their trips to the pool down to once or twice a week. When the weather turned cold, they would have to stop altogether. But by then King’s legs would be strong and straight enough to endure more ground training.

  In October, she ponied King to the Simon ranch for the last swim of the season. The rain-swollen clouds hung low in the sky and threatened to burst. Katie hoped they would hold off until she was safely home and King was tucked into his cozy stall.

  As she snapped the swimming rope onto King’s halter, her thoughts wandered over the school day and all the homework that awaited her when she returned home. She wondered how Jason was doing in his new school. She led King into the water and walked out onto the platform. The colt was up to ten minutes now, and was a joy to swim.

  While she waited for the timer to announce the end of the workout, Katie mentally ran over the notes for her upcoming history exam, but thoughts of Jason kept edging out facts about the Lewis and Clark expedition. She remembered the day in the field when he had tried to teach her to line dance. How could she have been so clumsy? She’d actually stepped on his foot!

  The memory embarrassed her all over again. She should have known better than to try. She couldn’t dance. She was an accident waiting to happen on the dance floor, but she had let Jason talk her into trying it. Never again. One good dose of humiliation was enough. At least it hadn’t taken place at a school dance, where there would have been a hundred witnesses.

  The rope in her hand grew slack, alerting her to the fact that King was growing tired and starting to drift inward. “Get up there, boy. You can do it. Just three more minutes to go.”

  At the sound of her encouraging voice, King picked up the pace and swam back to the center of the pool. Katie studied the colt, and an uncomfortable thought crept into her mind. She and King had a lot in common. They both had obstacles to overcome. Every time King made progress, she was thrilled for him. They made a great team. But there was one area where King excelled: King was no quitter. No matter what it was he faced, he never gave up. She could learn a good lesson from this colt.

  Her mind returned to Jason. She remembered how much fun dancing had been at the start—before she had trampled on his foot—when they had stood side by side in the sweetheart position and laughed as he ran her through the steps. She mentally ran through the steps again, then performed them on the platform grate to the rhythmic blowing of King’s breathing as he chugged around the pool. She could do it. Maybe if she practiced really hard, she could have it down perfectly, so when Jason finally came home …

  Katie didn’t notice that King was swimming toward her until she heard the muffled scrape of his halter on the rugs that encircled the platform. Her heart lurched as she picked up the whip and poked him with it, trying to get him away from the platform. She quickly pulled in the excess line to keep it from becoming wrapped around his legs, but it snagged on the back of the carpet barrier.

  Unable to return to the center of the pool, King swam back toward the platform.

  Panic took hold of Katie as she dropped to her knees, trying to untangle the rope from the carpeting. The metal grate bit into her knees and palms. She leaned forward, tugging at the rope. King’s heavy breathing echoed in her head as he thrashed around the platform, looking for her to help him. Her heart beat so hard, it seemed ready to leap through her chest. She splashed water at King to keep him from coming any closer. “Help!” she yelled, but no one was within hearing distance. There wasn’t time to run and get someone. King was tiring fast. The timer had already gone off, and he was past his normal amount of exercise. If she didn’t do something soon, he would wrap himself around the pole and drown.

  Saying her prayers, Katie balled the rest of the rope into one hand and leaned way over the side, pulling the excess length of the line free of each of the hanging pieces of carpet. She worked quickly, trying to ignore the pain in her knees and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. When she had untangled the last length of rope, she jerked it from between two of the rugs and shooed King out to the middle of the pool. He finished the round and walked up the ramp, staggering out of the pool.

  King shook the water from his coat, then stood with his chest heaving. Katie burst into tears, ran off the platform, and threw her arms around his neck. “I almost got you killed!” she sobbed. King nickered and poked her with his nose as if to assure her that he was fine. She stroked his wet head. “I’m so sorry, boy. My daydreaming got you into trouble. I’m glad this was your last swim, because I don’t know if I would trust myself again.”

  It seemed it didn’t matter if Jason was here or not. Just thinking of him made her do stupid things.

  With shaking hands, she scraped the water from King’s coat and put him on the hot-walker to cool out.

  Mr. Simon walked into the barn and took in her soggy appearance. “What happened to you? It looks like you went for a swim with him.”

  “Uhh, n-nothing,” she stammered. She didn’t want Mr. Simon to know what a fool she had been. She had learned her lesson; a horse required one hundred percent of a person’s attention, and anything less could result in disaster. She’d never let it happen again. “I just want to say thanks for letting us use your pool. This will be our last time. King looks great, and he’s really developing. The swimming has done him a lot of good.”

  She almost choked on her last few words. The pool work had done him good, but her lack of attention had almost cost King his life. She snapped the lead line on King and led him out of the barn. “It’s been quite a day, boy. Let’s go home.”

  Winter came with its pouring rains, and Katie was forced to stay inside most of the time. On the few dry days they had, she worked with King, reinforcing the lessons he had learned. He grew tall and straight. There was little evidence of his formerly crooked legs.

  In late spring, when the grass grew thick and wildflowers covered the pastures, Mr. Ellis phoned to say he had King’s registration papers and that he would drop them by her house. He hadn’t seen the colt since King had left the farm shortly after his birth.

  Old John had advised Katie to say nothing specific about the colt until after she had the papers safely in her hands. She never asked why but suspected that Mr. Ellis might want to change his mind after he saw the awesome horse King had become.

  No longer was he the weakling colt with the crooked legs. He was just over a year old, and already he stood just shy of fifteen hands high. With one hand being equal to four inches, King was five feet tall at the withers—taller than the top of Katie’s head.

  His legs were straight and sturdy, and the time spent walking, swimming, and exercising had developed his muscles. He had taken on the true bay coloring of his father, and his coat was sleek with good health. John assured her that King was far superior to the colts at Willow Run Farm.

  Mr. Ellis arrived just after lunch.

  “Here’re the papers, Katie.” He put the blue-edged, folded paper from the jockey club into her hands.

  Katie traced the lettering with her fingers. Willow King out of Grey Dancer by Beau Jest. He was now officially hers.

  “I’d like to see this colt if I could. John says his legs have straightened some.”

  Some? Mr. Ellis was in for a big surprise, she thought as she tucked the papers into a drawer, then led the way to the barn.

  “If you want to wait by the front paddock, I’ll bring him out for you.”

  She led King from the barn and turned him loose in the pen. The colt bowed his neck and held his tail high, prancing around the field as if to mock his breeder.

  Mr. Ellis tipped his hat back and let out a low whistle. “This is the colt I gave up?”

  “The one and only,” Katie said, feeling safe now that she had his papers.

  “Can you get a lead rope on him so
I can have a look at those legs?”

  “Sure.” Katie caught King and brought him to stand in front of Mr. Ellis.

  The stable owner ran his hands down the colt’s legs, checking the bone formation and testing the tightness of the tendons. “If he didn’t resemble his sire so much, I’d say you’d run a ringer in on me. It’s hard to believe this is the same colt that could barely stand and nurse. Turn him loose and let me see him move again.”

  Katie unsnapped the rope and shooed King away. He obliged by taking a running start and speeding his way around the paddock.

  “Look at him go,” Mr. Ellis said with a smile, then his tone grew serious. “Would you be interested in trading him back for Jester? I know you miss him, and Cindy hasn’t had much luck with him since that first show.”

  Katie tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. Mr. Ellis hadn’t wanted the colt when he was born, but now that he’d grown into the horse his bloodlines had foretold, he wanted him back.

  “I would love to get Jester back, but I’ll have to wait until your lease on him expires. This colt and I have come too far to give him up now.”

  “So you do intend to race him?” Mr. Ellis sounded relieved.

  “Oh, yes. You’re looking at the future winner of the Portland Downs Futurity!” Katie smiled proudly and called King over to the fence.

  “I’m glad to hear you say that. He’s too much animal to make into a saddle horse. This colt belongs on the track.” He turned from watching Willow King, and his tone was all business. “Katie, when the time comes to start training this horse, I’d love to have him in my stable.”

  He must have seen the apprehensive look in her eyes because he rushed to reassure her.

  “No, Katie, this colt is yours. You had faith in him when no one else did, and you’ve turned him into a fine piece of horseflesh. But you’re going to need someone to help with getting him to the track. We’ve got everything you need at Willow Run. I’m sure John would love to take you under his wing and teach you how to train a racehorse. You’re there almost every day anyway. We’d be proud to have you two as part of our racing stable.”