Chapter Five
Amir took to Horseshoe Cliff like a fly to washed-up seaweed. It was hard for me to believe that before we met, he’d never ridden a horse, or held a just-laid egg, or eaten something pulled straight out of the dirt. He’d never evenplantedsomething in the dirt.
When we walked around the property on his first day, he kept stopping to crouch down and examine things. We saw all kinds of rocks and sticks and plants and bugs that day, including a small, strange, gold-winged bug that I’d never seen before. Amir didn’t say a lot, but his eyes shone with curiosity. Everything was new to him, everything a discovery.
When we stopped at the pasture, Amir looked up at the mural on the side of the horses’ lean-to.
“My mom painted that,” I told him.
My father had told me the story. He’d worried about my mother standing on a ladder because she was pregnant with Bear at the time, but she’d said a little daring made a baby strong. And then Bear had turned out to be as big and stronga baby as had ever existed, and by the time he turned one our mother could barely carry him.
“My mom was a painter, too,” Amir said. His accent made his words sound even and pure. It reminded me of rain falling into a half-full barrel.
“I wonder if our moms became friends because they both liked to paint,” I said. “Or if one of them taught the other how to do it.”
Amir stared off for a moment, thinking. “Maybe they met each other in a class.”
I threw a stick in the air but didn’t manage to catch it. Pal scooped it up and shook it a few times before stretching out in the dirt to gnaw on it. I looked up at the mural.
“My dad wanted my mom to paint the solar system,” I said. “He said if you linked all the peace signs in Osha, they could circle the planet. He thought we should be different, but my mom said that someday someone was going to paint the peace sign that did the trick. The peace sign that worked. What if that person was her? My dad couldn’t argue with that.”
Amir stood very still as he listened to me. I could tell that he liked this story as much as I did.
The horses had been walking lazily toward us from the far end of the pasture.
“How about I teach you how to ride?” I said. It would help us become best friends like our mothers had been if Amir liked horses as much as I did. I climbed the rails of the fence and paused at the top, waiting for him to join me. The horses snorted warm bursts of air onto my legs, saying hello. “You canride Old Mister, the bigger one. He’s my dad’s horse. Guthrie’s mine.”
As soon as Amir climbed up beside me on the fence, I grabbed a fistful of Guthrie’s gray mane and swung my leg over the pony’s back. I pressed my leg into his side to move him toward Old Mister, corralling the horse closer to where Amir sat on the fence. “Go on,” I said. “Grab his mane. He won’t stand still forever.”
Amir grabbed Old Mister’s mane and swung his leg over the horse. Seated, he grinned at me.
I laughed. I was a little surprised by how easily he’d done it. “There! Now all you need to do is hold on. Old Mister’s in love with Guthrie. He’ll follow him anywhere.” I pressed my sneakered heels into Guthrie’s sides and made little kissing noises with my mouth. For as long as I could remember, Guthrie had been my pony, but my father had once told me that Guthrie used to be Bear’s. Only Bear never liked to ride him. He didn’t like any animals, as far as I could tell, not even Pal, who was the most likable animal in the world.
I planned to ride down to the beach, but when I turned Guthrie toward the paddock gate Rei and my father were standing there, watching us.
“Rei!” I hollered, waving. Her face was pinched under her big hat. She was a terrible worrywart. For a moment, I forgot that Amir was behind me on Old Mister. I squeezed my heels into Guthrie and trotted across the paddock, dodging the gopher mounds below as best I could. Pal ran along as though onsprings beside us, tail going in circles, barking even with that stick still in his mouth.
A quick tug on Guthrie’s mane was all it took to bring the pony to a halt right in front of Rei and my father. I was proud of my clean, rein-less stop, but Rei wasn’t even looking at me. I turned to see Old Mister hurrying toward us. Amir looked loose on the horse, his elbows jangling at each bounce, his body slipping from side to side, but his expression was set with determination and he managed to keep his seat. His shaggy black hair rose and fell around his big ears. When Old Mister stopped behind Guthrie and gave the pony’s rump an annoyed nip, Amir laughed. His laughter was a full, rich sound, and his eyes were so bright with joy that it seemed to me you could have seen them in the dark.
“You’re taking to this place like a fly to seaweed,” my father said. I must have learned the saying from him.
“Where is your helmet? And the bridle?” Rei asked. The way she spoke was the thing I liked third best about her, after her pumpkin pies and the books that she gave me. Rei was from Japan. Each word she said was as crisp as a bite of fresh cucumber.
“We’re fine,” I assured her. “I’m teaching Amir how to ride.” I tried to make my voice sound low and calm like my father’s. Rei never scolded my father.
“You just sprinted across the field without the boy!”
“‘Sprinted’!” I laughed, already forgetting to keep my voice low. “Rei, you’re so funny! Horses don’t sprint.”
Rei huffed. She turned her attention to Amir. “It’s you I came to see, young man. Are you all right up there? Would you like to come down?”
“No,” said Amir.
Rei frowned. “No,thank you.”
Amir nodded, but didn’t repeat her words. Later, I would have to tell him what my father said about Rei, which was that she’d never had time to have her own children because she was too busy raising everyone else’s. My father had said this with a smile because he loved Rei just as I did. At dinner one night back when Bear still ate with us, Bear had said that Rei was in love with Dad and the idea of this had made Dad laugh so hard that I was surprised his chair survived the meal.
“Rei lives in Osha, the nearest town,” my father told Amir as he gave Old Mister’s forehead a massage. “She brought over a bed she wasn’t using. I set it up in Merrow’s room for you.”
