The Grave Maurice

Maurice’s voice was strangely lacking in expression when he said, “I don’t think there was a big battle between them over it.”

It was a sad pronouncement. “But I imagine you’d much rather be here than anywhere else.”

The boy nodded and snapped a twig as if it were an icicle. “Things change.”

With that rather inscrutable comment, they got up and went to their horses.

They got Aggrieved-a patient animal, considering what it did for a living- into the trailer, and Melrose said good-bye to Arthur Ryder and Maurice, saying he would surely see them again shortly.

Of that, he was certain.

TWENTY-FOUR

Mr. Momaday would keep Aggrieved’s stall mucked out, and the rest of the small barn which he had managed to lather into excellent condition, making minor repairs to doors and posts. He had done as Melrose had instructed-he had gone to a saddlery in Sidbury for supplies. The hay net was up, the salt lick affixed to the wall, maize and bran and roots and fruits sitting about in tubs.

Melrose told Momaday that he would do morning stables and he, Melrose, would do evening. He wasn’t absolutely clear as to what that involved; he just liked the sound of “evening stables.” He pictured it as a Stubbs painting, or else one of the Romantics’ featuring a thatched-roof cottage and a lot of heavily leafed trees.

Momaday instructed Melrose that it was only the one horse, so “stables”-plural-wasn’t it.

“You want to call it ‘evening stable’? Think about that. Does it sound quite right? I prefer the plural and it’s my stables, so don’t argue. Furthermore, Momaday, you cannot go around here with your gun shooting at anything that moves.”

Momaday’s insubordinate mumbles were somewhat mitigated by the fact he’d never killed anything.

Ruthven and Martha were by turns hugely impressed and hugely perplexed by the horse’s presence, the presence being quite imposing. Aggrieved was a handsome horse, with his glowing reddish-brown coat and black mane. Martha made tiny clucks and cooing sounds as she would have done had Melrose brought round a bird or a baby. Ruthven went on about the color, Momaday saying the horse was chestnut, Ruthven saying he knew a bay when he saw one, Melrose not knowing the difference. Ruthven went on to inform the little group, stiff as the starched collar he wore, that Melrose had been an excellent horseman in his younger days.

“Younger days?”

“When you were five or six, m’lord.”

“My God, Ruthven, I wouldn’t even have fit on this horse then.”

“I’m thinking of your old pony.”

“Ruthven, somehow I don’t think ‘excellent horseman’ is an accurate description of a kid on a pony.”

Momaday thought this was rich and juggled laughter around, largely through indrawn snorts and said, “Prob’ly fell off that, too.” Snort, snort.

“What? Too? Where do you get ‘too’?”

“Ah, ya remember that big gray over to your friend’s house? Climbed up one side and fell right over t’other.” A succession of snorty breaths accompanied this nugget.

Melrose had, at the time when this happened, thought it a good joke; Momaday thought it a better one and told everyone who crossed his path about it. No matter how self-deprecating Melrose could be, Momaday could deprecate him even more. Momaday intuited that his boss would never fire him, and he was right. Melrose had never fired anyone. He had wanted to, he had tried to. But an image of the ex- servant and present wretch filled his field of vision, calling up a picture of this poor devil fighting his way through snowdrifts with nothing but a dry loaf to nibble on before complete snow blindness felled him where he stood. This person would have a faithful dog struggling beside him and when the old ex-retainer froze the dog would sit atop the snowy grave until it, too, froze. It was like that.

Melrose thanked his staff (for what, he wasn’t sure) and told Momaday to lead Aggrieved (whose patience was monumental) to his stall. As they walked away, he heard the undertones of man talking to horse, with a lot of snorty laughter, possibly on both sides.

He waited for Momaday to leave the barn and go about whatever his business was. Melrose was eager to saddle up his horse and walk it around. He realized he was giving Aggrieved short shrift, a horse that the trainer Davison had said could beat “anything on any track-slow or fast, turf, muddy, dry.” “Determined” is what Davison had called Aggrieved. “Determined.”

The horse was chomping away, his nose near the hay net. Melrose wondered about all the other stuff, the succulents and barley and so forth. He wondered how they were to be fed. He picked a nice apple from a bucket and tentatively held it. He was still trying to remember about looking at a horse straight on. He moved to the horse’s side and held the apple out, nearly under Aggrieved’s nose. The horse muzzled it up and chomped. Really, he was so easy-going in the benign setting of this stable that it was hard to picture him in the competitive world of racing.

Melrose looked about to see if Momaday was lurking, then took out his book Riding for Beginners. The “beginner” didn’t bother him; it was the cartoon figure of a very young girl, in jodhpurs and riding jacket, with her sappy smile, who was to put him through his paces. My Lord, were there no adult beginners? Did all beginning occur around age seven? By the time this child got to be his age she’d have won the Olympic Gold for dressage twice over. Her name was Cindy Lou. She was from Kentucky (naturally). But he supposed riding was the same, here or in the States.

Cindy Lou showed him how to get the bit in a horse’s mouth, and having done that successfully, Melrose led Aggrieved out of his stall so that he could saddle up. Ah, he liked the ring of it! “Saddle up.” It put him in mind of old American Westerns, which he had, actually, never seen. But one still knew the drill and the climate and the tone. Of course, he had seen High Noon, but that was much more than just a Western. As he was fastening the strap beneath the horse to secure the saddle, he replaced the image of Cindy Lou with Gary Cooper. He would like to adopt Gary Cooper’s elegant insouciance, his shy forbearance, to wit, his persona. That, of course, could only come with practice.

Melrose looked outside again to make certain no one was about, that Ruthven, for instance, wouldn’t come rushing up with a pot of tea and a carrot. Then he positioned a large wooden box by the horse’s side. Left foot in stirrup; hoist and swing right leg over. Those were the instructions from wall- eyed Cindy Lou, who, he was sure, could get to be a pain. Okay, he was ready: one two three hoist and there he was sitting in the saddle! Actually up on one of the country’s premier racehorses and sitting! Oh why hadn’t they all been here to see this smooth-as-silk move?

Melrose shook the reins a little and they were out of the barn and walking through the grounds, which were extensive. Next, through the woods, by way of the public footpath. Aggrieved walked and Melrose swayed. The horse, he thought, was taking in the sun-dappled scenery, for his head moved up, down and around.

A narrow road ran between Ardry End and Watermeadows, a vast Italianate estate, gorgeously decayed, where lived the charming Flora Fludd. He would have a good reason to wind up over there at Watermeadows, now he could ride. Melrose gently pulled back on the reins, amazed again that the horse responded to his fingers. He considered a canter along this narrow road. He thumbed the book to see what