Read Online Dante of the Maury River by Gigi Amateau - Free Book Online

storm of force and emotion. And some of them seemed to have had anger issues.
    Well, I had issues of my own.
    Off, off, off. I wanted each of them off, so not one succeeded in staying on.
    No, sir, I wasn’t about to let a man sit atop my back who wouldn’t look me in the eye. Every one of them that tried failed because they didn’t care a lick about me. What they cared about was payday.
    So, off they went. This went on for several months. While winter turned to spring, the other two-year-olds went breezing around Gary’s track, and I fell behind. My tick wasn’t tocking.
    “Dante.” Gary shook a fist at me, more out of frustration, more to make a point, than to hurt me. He wasn’t intending on striking. He jabbed me with his words, though, sure enough.
    “You’re going to have to work this out. I’m burning through exercise riders right and left. The racing community is small and people are talking. Speculating you’ve got bad genes. A fella down in Texas says you’re a danger and that your head’s not right.”
    Now, that made me mad. I didn’t care for Gary or all that drib-drab he was spouting about the fat-cat Texan. I snaked my “not-right” head right at Gary.
    About that point in my training, I surely could have used some advice from Marey. I would have sacrificed a hundred breakfasts to visit Grandfather Dante again, and that’s no lie. I tried everything I could to imagine him standing there, off in the distance. Nothing doing. The bloodlines had left me to figure this out all by my lonesome.
    One morning, while I was resting, good old Gary started up about my being more cooperative. Truth be told, he liked to never stop.
    With his face all contorted, Gary flapped and honked like a goose. He blurted out, “You’re reflecting badly on Edensway. On your mama, too, for that matter. I’ll tell you what, Dante. That’s a crying shame because she’s a great horse. You think her foals will be much in demand if you’re a fiasco at the track? The legacy rests on your shoulders, my friend.” Then for added dramatic effect, he threw his hands up. “Here’s the deal. I got nobody else willing to even try to break you. Nobody.”
    Filipia stirred behind me.
    “Excuse me, sir, Gary,” she said from the corner of my stall. “I can do it.”
    Sour-faced Gary and me, we both whipped our heads around right fast. Neither of us could believe what we’d heard.
    Filipia stood well within my field of vision and paused her hand on my rear end, a good sign of respect. She wanted me to be one hundred percent certain of her location. There was nothing in her hand or heartbeat or her breath to make me think she was anything other than what she purported to be. A girl who loved horses like crazy.
    “You? I doubt that,” said my trainer.
    She insisted. “Dante knows me. He likes me, and I like him. I’m in here every day. I can get a saddle and bridle on him with ease.”
    “What’s your name again?”
    “Filipia,” she responded, with more than a touch of annoyance. I thought about popping Gary hard with my tail, but I didn’t want to undermine whatever case the girl was about to make.
    “You can doubt me if you want to, but I know I can ride him. Back home, on the island where I grew up, I worked with horses all the time. My brothers used to doubt me, too. But not anymore.”
    “How old are you?” Gary asked.
    Oh, glory. Did I ever feel her heart skip and her breath stop just then. A little quiver, hardly detectable to a less sensitive being, but an indisputable tremor.
    I’ve never been able to tell a person’s age — probably because I’ve never really gotten a good look at their teeth. Filipia did look fairly, what I’d call . . . youthsome.
    “Nineteen,” she finally said. She shrank back against me.
    All I could see of her was the toe of a cracked, worn-out black paddock boot beside my hoof. Now, Gary could see her the whole time.
    With those two steely, predatory eyes in the front of his