But Drew swung the rope too hard, making a wide, threatening arc. The horse threw his head up, afraid of getting hit by the blunt end of the rope, and jerked away. He bumped into Jordan’s horse, surprising him. Loco Roco instinctively threw his ears back and shot out a warning kick. The kick barely missed Drew’s horse, but it left a dent in the arena fence.
“Drew!” said Fletch, jogging over to take the lead rope from him. “I said swing it lightly—not try to lasso him.”
“She was in my way,” said Drew, pointing at Jordan, who had been minding her own business. Jordan said nothing, but put more space between Loco Roco and Drew’s brown bay horse. He was such a jerk, Ella thought.
“Regardless of where everyone else is, it’s your job to keep an eye on yourself and your horse,” said Fletch. “But I don’t think that’s the problem here. Remember, horses are flight animals. They need a calm, collected rider to be constant and trustworthy, not shouting and flailing around. That will only frighten him and make him want to run away from you.”
“I wasn’t flailing,” said Drew.
“You were totally flailing,” said Kim with a laugh. Ella wanted both of them to shut up so they could get back to the lesson.
Fletch turned. “Thank you for the input, Kim, but it’s unnecessary.”
“Whatever,” said Kim. He tried to get his own horse to back up, obviously trying to show off, but his motions were erratic, and the horse flattened his ears and stamped. When Kim saw he was only humiliating himself, he grew annoyed and swung the lead rope faster.
“Controlled, confident motions,” called Fletch. “You don’t need to make yourself louder for your horse to hear you.”
“I wasn’t saying anything,” said Kim, scowling.
“But you were,” said Fletch. “When you fling your lead rope around like that, it’s like you’re yelling at your horse, ‘Back up!’ But you don’t need to yell. You can whisper, and he will still hear you. He’s listening.” Fletch took the lead rope and, gazing directly at Kim’s horse with a gentle, patient look on his face, he said, “Back.”
He only had to give a tiny flick of the lead rope for the horse to take one polite step back. How was Fletch so patient? Ella would have screamed at Kim by now. She already wanted to knock him flat on his back.
Kim snatched the lead rope back. “I can do that.” He tried to mimic what Fletch had done, but his energy was anything but gentle and patient. Instead of backing up as Kim threw the lead rope around, the horse let out a nervous whinny and tossed his head. Kim snarled, “What’s wrong with you, horse?” He flung the lead rope on the ground and crossed his arms. “I shouldn’t be sentenced to this just for cussing a little on paper. Horses suck!”
Ella turned to Jordan.
“I don’t think your horse is the one who’s loco around here,” she said, as Fletch retrieved the lead rope and tried to talk Kim down.
But Jordan just shrugged.
So much for girl kinship.
Chapter Four
They didn’t get to ride at all their first day of lessons, which Ella felt was gravely unfair for a place calling itself a riding camp.
At lunch, Ash started to tease Kim about his outburst in the arena. “So you got sent away to camp for writing cuss words?” asked Ash. Kim gave him the stink-eye.
“It was a letter.”
“To who?”
“Some girl. She dumped me.”
“Hoo!” said Ash, slapping his thigh. “You wrote a girl a mean letter because she dumped you?”
Kim looked like he was about to snap back when Fletch let out a weary sigh. “Let it go, Dallas.” In his impatience, Fletch had even adopted Drew’s silly nickname. “You’ll all have another chance at horses again tomorrow.”
“And you’ll get to ride then, too,” Madison said brightly.
“Why didn’t we ride today?” said Ella. “All that stuff we did seemed pretty useless. I want my money back.” But she smiled.
Ash and Kim chuckled at her joke.
“Learning proper handling is anything but useless,” said Mr. Bridle gruffly from the other end of the table. “You need to be able to completely control your animal, even when you’re not riding. You won’t always be on a horse’s back. How can you get on a horse you don’t even have a relationship with yet, and expect him to trust you?”
Ella fell silent. No one at the table had a smart-aleck response for Mr. Bridle.
After lunch, Fletch and Madison handed out chores. Ella ended up walking the whole pasture fence with Ash, checking for breaks and weaknesses. He talked incessantly about football and his beloved Cowboys.
“I already told you that I have zero interest in talking about football,” Ella said, turning on him. “So shut it, Dallas!”
After that he sulked, which was fine with Ella, because it meant he was quiet.
But by afternoon free time, all that walking had made her calves ache. Dinner was a mess of food and noise as the boys argued about football teams, whose horse was cooler, and the proper amount of condiments to go on the Polish sausages that Ma Etty had served. It escalated to shouting, until Ma Etty let out a loud whistle.
Everyone stopped talking.
“I know it was a big day,” she said, “but around the dinner table, I expect better. If you have a lot of leftover energy, there’s always more work to do around the ranch that I can assign to you during your free time tomorrow.”
The kids around the table stayed quiet. At this rate, the three boys would lose all their privileges, probably for the rest of camp.
Ella couldn’t believe she was stuck with these people for the next month and a half.
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When Ella got up the next morning, Jordan was gone again.
Putting on her sneakers as quietly as she could to avoid waking Madison, Ella slipped out of the bunkhouse into the cool morning air. Sunrise hadn’t been that long ago. What was Jordan getting up to do at dawn every morning?
After half an hour scouring the ranch, birds singing their morning songs in the rustling trees, Ella still hadn’t found Jordan. It was almost time for breakfast. In a last effort, Ella went inside the barn and wondered why she hadn’t checked here first.
Loco Roco’s stall door stood slightly ajar, just enough for a slender girl to slip through. Inside the dark stall Jordan stood by Loco’s side, stroking his neck as he ate some hay.
Ella felt like an intruder in the cool morning silence. She kept out of sight, and it didn’t appear that Jordan had heard her come in. The quiet girl was engrossed in her own thoughts, sliding her hand from Loco Roco’s forehead down to his wither, ruffling his mane as he worked through his meal.
Backing away, Ella treaded silently out the way she’d come in, not feeling any more enlightened about the mystery that was Jordan McAdam.
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Even breakfast couldn’t be a peaceful affair. Kim refused to eat his waffles on the notion that the holes made them inedible (though pancakes were apparently acceptable), and when Ma Etty suggested he fill the gap in his stomach with more sausages and fruit instead, Ash pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Kim was already farting all night,” he said, “and now you’re giving him fruit? Do you hate us?”
“That was Drew,” said Kim, not even looking up from his plate.
“Nice try!” Drew barked out a laugh. “Passing the blame on to me—really, a solid attempt.”
“Oh my god.” Ella set her fork down on the table with a resounding noise. “Do you guys ever stop? Ever?”
“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed,” said Ash. He was probably still bitter at how she had shut him down yesterday.
“I got up on the perfectly right side of the bed until I came in here and had to be around you idiots!”
“No one at my table is an idiot,” Ma Etty said. “And I don’t appreciate name-calling.” Ma Etty was chastising her, not them?
“It’s
not name-calling when it’s true,” Ella snapped, getting to her feet. The burning thing under her skin grew hotter. “I’m just defending myself!”
“Okay, okay,” said Fletch, raising his hands. “Ella, sit back down and finish your breakfast.” He turned to the boys. “What you said to Ella was pretty rude, too.”
“She told me to shut up yesterday,” said Ash. Ella clenched her hands under the table.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Fletch, and even his endless patience seemed to be running thin. “Eat. Then we’re going to go ride some horses.”
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But breakfast couldn’t ruin the excitement Ella felt as she found Figure Eight in her stall again, all fifteen hands of muscle and beauty just waiting to carry Ella off into the sunset.
She remembered Jordan in that stall with Loco Roco this morning, silently stroking his powerful neck. They’d looked so peaceful, so lost in their own shared universe. Ella paused long enough to give Eight a few pats of greeting before putting on the halter and leading her out of her stall.
“Eight is such a pretty paint horse,” Jordan said, approaching with Loco Roco.
“Yeah,” said Ella, nodding vaguely. “A pretty paint horse, all right.” She didn’t know what a paint horse was, of course, but she had an idea there was one standing right in front of her, covered in brown splatters.
Out in the arena, Madison did a small demonstration on saddling and bridling with her horse, Snow White, a beautiful little white Appaloosa with black spots all over her rear end. Then the kids saddled their own horses, and it was time to ride.
Fletch walked them through the basics—getting the horses walking, good saddle posture, neck reining. “Pull the reins in the direction you want to go,” Fletch instructed. “Right across the neck.” Ella didn’t understand how this could tell a horse where to go, but it seemed to work if she tugged hard enough.
Remarkably, everyone appeared to be on good behavior. Ella was grateful; she didn’t want any distractions keeping her from paying attention and cataloguing all the advice Fletch gave them so she could master this riding thing as fast as possible.
“Okay,” said Madison, raising a hand for attention. “I want everyone to start into a walk. Keep your horses along the rail—that means, as close to the fence as possible. Don’t let them cut corners.”
The first few laps around the arena, Figure Eight kept close to the rail, staying at an even walk. Ella let the reins hang loose, as Fletch had instructed.
This was a breeze. Elation raced through Ella’s nerves. She could do this, no problem! Eight’s even, smooth gait felt like a dream.
On the third lap, Madison called out to them. “When you reach the far end of the arena—see the letter ‘A’ hanging from the post?—I want you to turn your horses to the left at the ‘A,’ toward the inside of the arena. Make a figure eight, please.”
Ella grinned at the request. She’d make a figure eight on Figure Eight, all right!
Up ahead, Drew, who walked at the front of the line on his bay horse, reached the “A.” He pulled his reins across his horse’s neck and the horse turned, albeit slowly and stiffly, toward the middle of the arena.
Ash, who also struggled a little, went next, and then Jordan. She and Loco Roco moved through the turn flawlessly. This was obviously child’s play for Jordan. Then Ella reached the “A.”
Before she could even move the reins, Eight turned, following the path of the other horses, and headed across the arena. Ella frowned. She hadn’t given Eight a signal of any kind—the horse seemed to be mimicking the others.
Ella let it go. It looked like she had done something, anyway, now that Eight was heading successfully through the figure-eight pattern. Neither Fletch nor Madison seemed to have noticed, because neither said anything to her.
“Hey!” Drew hollered from the other end of the arena. “Watch it!”
Ash, who’d been behind Ella, had cut completely across the arena and reversed. He passed Drew going the wrong way, bumping their legs together.
“You watch it,” said Ash as he passed.
“You’re going the wrong way, Ash,” called Madison. “Turn around!”
Ash jerked his reins across his horse’s neck, executing a sloppy turn.
When things were moving smoothly again, Fletch asked them for another figure eight at the opposite end of the arena. Again, before Ella and Eight had even reached the “C” sign on the far fencepost and Ella could tell her what to do, Eight was already turning. She headed smoothly across the arena and curved around the opposite end, making a perfect figure eight.
“Don’t do that,” Ella told her horse, quietly enough that nobody could hear. “Wait for me to tell you what to do.”
Eight snorted as if she’d heard and didn’t particularly care about Ella’s preferences. Up ahead, Jordan rounded the curve and started to turn, gently pulling on the reins. She received an immediate response from Loco Roco, who coasted through the figure eight. Jordan said something to him, leaned forward, and patted his neck in praise.
A stone settled in Ella’s stomach.
“Let’s talk about using your body to help you turn,” said Fletch. “Reins are only part of the bigger picture. The direction of your gaze, the angle of your body, and pressure from your legs all tell your horse what you want.”
How could a horse tell where Ella was looking, when the horse was down there and she was up on its back?
“Everyone reverse at the ‘A’ again,” Fletch continued. “But use your reins as little as possible. Look with your eyes where you want to go, angle your body, and apply a small amount of pressure with your outside leg.”
It was a lot to keep in mind. Ella tried to remember it all as Eight reached the “A” sign. Before Ella could give any commands, Eight did a flawless reverse.
“No!” cried Ella.
Madison glanced over. “What’s wrong, Ella?”
“She’s not listening to me.”
“It looks like she reversed just fine,” said Madison.
“But I didn’t tell her to do it!” Ella’s voice cracked with frustration, but she breathed deeply to calm herself. “Figure Eight did it on her own.”
Madison considered that and then raised her hands. “Everyone, please stop for a moment. Remember, sit back in your seat, say ‘Whoa,’ and pull back on the reins.”
The second Madison said “stop,” Eight ground to a halt—before Ella could put any pressure on the reins at all.
Ella frowned. Sure enough, Eight was listening to the trainers, not to her. Not in the least.
Chapter Five
“Everyone stay stopped for a moment,” said Madison in the center of the ring. She gestured to Ella. “Ella, tell Eight to go forward.”
Before Ella could kick, Eight started to walk forward.
“Stop it,” said Ella, yanking back on her reins. Eight kept walking. “Whoa! Whoa!”
Eight did finally stop, three steps later.
“Ask her to back up,” said Madison. “Those same three steps.”
But Eight was already backing up before Ella could ask for it.
“Agh!” cried Ella. “She keeps doing it!”
“It’s okay, Ella,” said Madison. “I won’t speak this time. Wait a moment, then ask again for the three steps.”
After Madison had been quiet for a while, Ella pulled the reins tightly, sat back in her saddle, and shouted, “Back!”
Eight jerked her head, trying to free herself from Ella’s iron grip on the reins. But Ella wasn’t going to let her get her way that easily. “Back!” she said again, tightening her hold and pulling even more against Eight’s mouth, and following it up with a firm kick.
“Not so forcefully,” said Madison.
“But she won’t do it otherwise,” said Ella. The frustration grew and blossomed, turning her chest hot.
“Your arms are too high,” said Madison. “Keep your elbows level with your hips. Pull straight back with
the reins, not up by your shoulders.” She turned to Jordan. “Could you demonstrate for us, Jordan?”
Jordan nodded. She dropped her elbows down by her sides, holding the reins in her fingers the way Ella’s dad held the brakes when he took out his road bike. She gave a tiny tug, saying, “Back.”
Loco Roco immediately took a step back.
“See the way she gives the command?” asked Madison. “Gentle tug with the fingers, elbows down.”
“Sure,” said Ella, but she had only half been paying attention—too mad at Figure Eight to focus. Ella was going to make this horse listen to her.
Squaring up her shoulders, Ella yanked back on the reins, saying louder, “Back up!” Figure Eight resisted again.
“Back up!” Ella cried.
“Take it easy,” said Fletch, approaching. “No need to yell.”
“She’s not listening!” Tears of frustration filled Ella’s eyes. She couldn’t cry. Just thinking about crying in front of everyone, on the first day of riding lessons, made anger boil up again.
“Let’s let it go, then,” said Fletch gently, and even the calm patience in his voice made Ella angrier, like he was condescending to her. “Everyone, resume a walk. Remember to stay on the rail.”
Again, before Ella could even give the command to start again, Eight began walking.
“NO!” Ella shouted, yanking hard on the reins. “STOP!”
Then the angry tears broke loose.
“Ella, calm down,” said Fletch again, then immediately looked like he regretted saying it.
“You calm down!” Ella roared at him. Then she turned back to Eight’s reins in her hands and started yelling, “Back!” Now that she understood this was a remedial tactic for a horse that overstepped, she was going to use it. “Back!”
“Ella!” Fletch was at her side before she could blink and grabbed the reins away from her. “Stop right now. I will not allow you to treat your horse this way.”
“She’s the one who won’t do what I tell her!” Tears rolled down Ella’s face. The humiliation made her vision red. Even Jordan looked horrified, perhaps even ashamed for her.
At Top Speed (Quartz Creek Ranch) Page 3