Chico's Challenge

by Jessie Haas

  Their voices came to Chico as if from behind a windowpane. More important to him were the strange animal and other shapes scattered across the plain. So many of them. He barely noticed the hay Sierra tossed into the rack, though the delicious scent drew him unthinkingly closer. When he got near, a low shape startled him and he leaped back.

  Sierra said, “Now he’s scared of a water tub?”

  “This is a big day in his life, Sierra. He’s just left everything he’s ever known. He’ll settle down—”

  The mare neighed again, so shrilly this time that she pierced the fog of Chico’s fear. I said, Come here!

  She was older. She was a mare. Maybe she was in charge. Chico trotted over to her. Arching their necks, the two horses mingled their breaths, nose to nose, forehead to forehead.

  The mare let out a tremendous, deep bellow. QUEEN! I am QUEEN! At the same time, she struck out with one front foot, narrowly missing the fence.

  Something inside Chico relaxed at that. This was like home. There his mother was queen. She rarely had to say so. All her children had been raised to understand it. If there was a queen here, too, then maybe things would be all right. Chico squealed and struck out, too, just to show that he wasn’t a total pushover. Then he pressed his face close to the mare’s again. Her sweet horse breath washed over him. Normal. Normal seemed so good right now.

  After a few more sniffs, the mare turned away, as if she’d seen all she could stand of him. Chico followed her along the fence line, discovering as he did that the low shape was only a tub, with water in it. He was thirsty, but too keyed up to drink. He nosed the hay in the rack; just like what he’d had in the trailer. He took a wisp. Then one of the Beasts moved, out on the plain. Chico jerked his head up and let the hay fall.

  “Do you think he’d settle down more quickly if they were in together?” Sierra asked.

  Her mother considered. “Good idea. He’s used to being with other horses, and he’s used to being the youngest in a herd. Queenie should be able to boss him around just fine.” She drew back the bars of the gate.

  The mare trotted through, neck arched and tail carried high. Chico stood stock-still near the hayrack. The mare came close, and they sniffed and squealed and struck again.

  Queen!

  Yes, you’re the queen.

  Queen! Queen!

  You bet!

  His new queen was three inches shorter than Chico, with hollows over her eyes and patches of grizzled hair at the corners of her mouth. Little. Old.

  Queen!

  Chico let the Queen drive him from the hay. That brought him near the water tub, and suddenly he did feel like drinking. Four deep swallows—it was sweet water, cold water. She drove him from that, too, just like his bossy older sister would have done.

  Chico took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. He felt much better, much. He sauntered into the other corral for a look-see. The mare pursued him at a walk, ears flat back.

  At the edges of his vision, Chico sensed the man, the young girl, the dog, coming closer. “Funny!” the man said. “Is she chasing him, or is he leading her around?”

  “He’s pretty,” Addie said. “But Queenie’s prettier.”

  The dog made a disapproving bark. Too much fuss. The horses should shut up.

  Chico explored along the fence line, sniffing. There was the scent of another horse, but not fresh. That horse hadn’t been around in quite some time. He paused when he came to the toes of a pair of cowboy boots. He raised his head and looked at Sierra, sitting on the top rail. She smiled, then frowned. She smelled upset, and still excited, and maybe a little scared—just like Chico.

  Feeling that way himself was bad enough. He didn’t want to hang around a human who felt the same way. Besides, the queen was probably about to bite him in the butt. Chico moved on.

  Someone put in a second pile of hay, but by dusk that wasn’t necessary. The two horses munched side by side. The queen ate with her head down. Chico’s head popped up at every mouthful. As he chewed, he gazed across the darkening plains. He smelled the wild, the grass, the snow, the vastness.

  But he also smelled the Beasts. They moved. They ate the grass. Sometimes they bellowed uncouth noises, like trucks or motorcycles, across the great distances. Then Chico was glad for the warmth of the mare beside him, the sound of other chewing besides his own.

  SIERRA COULD HAVE DONE WITH A LITTLE LESS closeness. At supper, the whole family seemed to be looking at her, and pretending not to. Even Addie, clopping a horse model across her plate, seemed to have noticed something wrong.

  Sierra wished she could put a good face on this. If she could just say something light and casual, about anything! But no words came. She caught Mom and Dad exchanging questioning glances. Dad opened his mouth to say something. Mom shook her head, so slightly the motion was almost invisible. He sat back, looking baffled, then said, “He sure is a good-lookin’ horse.”

  Sierra nodded, staring into space.

  Suddenly the beeper on Mom’s belt went off. With a well-practiced sigh, Dad reached for Mom’s plate and cut her steak with swift slices of his knife. He got a plastic container and scooped the steak bites into it. Meanwhile, Mom took her phone to the window and listened.

  “Uh-huh … Uh-huh. Uh-huh … Okay, I’m on my way—have him keep pressure on that leg.” She beeped the phone off and turned, just as Dad snapped the lid shut on the plastic container and handed it to her.

  “Thanks. It’s Misty—a coyote got into the goats. It’s a stitching job.” She banged out the front door.

  Dad said, “Sierra, run after her. Tell her to eat that steak before it gets cold.”

  Sierra bolted out the front door. She heard a small squeal from the horse corral as the mare asked Chico: Who’s queen?

  “Mom!” she said. The truck was starting, lights coming on. Sierra pounded the driver’s side door. “Mom! Dad says—”

  The window rolled down. “Eat it before it gets cold,” Mom said with her mouth full.

  “Mom, don’t … say anything to Misty yet. Okay?”

  Mom stopped chewing, maybe stopped breathing for a second. She swallowed audibly. “All right, if that’s the way you want it.”

  Sierra stepped back while Mom turned the truck. The headlights shone for a moment on the horses. Sierra saw Chico’s lightning-streak blaze, his curiously pricked ears. For a second, her heart lightened. What a handsome horse!

  But how can he be a cutting horse when he’s afraid of cows?

  Sierra went indoors, bypassing the kitchen on the way to her room. By the soft light from the hall, she gazed at the Misty Lassiter pictures on her bulletin board.

  Carefully sliced from magazines, they showed Misty on a bay horse, a chestnut, a palomino, facing down a cow. Each horse looked different. Some worked the cow with ears pricked intently forward. Others pinned their ears in a threatening expression. Some crouched so low, Misty’s boot nearly scraped the ground; their front legs sweeping out in front of them. Others worked more upright.

  Misty looked the same in all of them—serious, alert, deeply focused—at one with the horse beneath her and the cow in front of her. She dressed plainly, usually in a dun yellow shirt almost the same color as Chico, a brown cowboy hat, and chaps. In most pictures, the fringe of her chaps stood straight out, snapped to one side by the wind or the horse’s turning. And she usually wore a broad silver belt buckle, a trophy from one or another of her championship rides.

  Would Sierra ever do that on Chico? A few hours ago she’d been sure of it. Now doubt gnawed at her.

  Physically, he was everything a working quarter horse should be. So athletic! Look at the way he’d tried to dodge that cow. But that was exactly backward. He was supposed to make the cow dodge. How could Chico do that if cows terrified him?

  How come Mom didn’t get the problem? She had just kept chattering on about what a nice horse Chico was—what a brave horse he was, for heaven’s sake! How could she be so blind?

  Maybe she coul
dn’t afford to see what was happening. Though no money had changed hands, Chico didn’t come free. Dean had owed Mom’s vet practice a lot of money, and money was hard to come by on a backcountry cattle ranch, even for a veterinarian. Taking a horse instead of cash was a sacrifice.

  So it had to work, Sierra told herself. It just had to.

  She wished she felt more hopeful.

  CHAPTER 3

  ALL THE NEXT DAY, CHICO OBSERVED HIS wide, new world. He’d never seen this much space all at once. What lay over the horizons? His senses told him more meadows, more horizons, on and on almost forever. It all felt perfectly right.

  Except for the Beasts. No stretch of grass was free of them. Once, a large one and a very small, wobbly one came out of the pines. All the other Beasts trotted toward those two, and the large one shook the two sticks on its head at them. The sticks looked menacing. Deep in his bones, Chico knew they were dangerous. The bellows of the Beasts reached the horse corral, where the queen, Chico noticed, paid absolutely no attention. She didn’t even flick an ear toward the commotion.

  Well. That was information.

  In the afternoon, Sierra’s father started up a small motor vehicle. The engine sound felt homelike to Chico. He knew the sounds of all the lawnmowers, cars, and trucks on his old street, especially Dean’s.

  The four-wheeler started across the meadow. The dog sat beside Dad on the passenger seat, with a smug set to its ears.

  Across the meadow, all the Beasts turned and streamed toward the vehicle. The four-wheeler stopped. Dad got out and took something out of the back, which he spread on the ground. The Beasts stood watching with lowered heads, while the dog stalked up and down in front of them. Only when man and dog were back on the vehicle did they surge forward to eat.

  Kind of wimpy, then? Chico watched the Beasts eat and disperse; watched them every one of his waking moments, in fact, and even opened his eyes from sleep to watch them again.

  In the morning, Sierra and her mother came down to the corral. They caught the horses and tied them near each other, and Sierra brushed Chico. He listened with his whole body. Sierra’s hands were soft and fluttery. Chico stood rock still, as Dean had taught him, and as he’d learned in his family herd. That always calmed the others, and it calmed Sierra, too. After a bit, her hands became stronger and smoother, and her breath relaxed. “Good boy,” she murmured.

  Chico knew that. He’d always been a good boy, until Dean started riding him in circles. Even then, he’d tried.

  After brushing came a saddle, different from Dean’s. It felt strange on Chico’s back, and he turned to sniff the stirrup fender, while Sierra and her mother looked at the saddle and asked each other if it fit him.

  Then Sierra tightened the girth, tactfully, like Dean did, a bit at a time. She put Chico’s own bridle on him from back home. At the well-known feel and smell of it, he let out a sigh, and Sierra glanced at him quickly. “You like that?” She seemed like a perceptive girl.

  “Do you want me to ride him first?” her mother asked. “He might be a little different here.”

  “I’ll do it.” Sierra’s voice sounded tight.

  She mounted, and though it was a stretch, and she had to haul herself up, she barely made the saddle shift. Chico tossed his head. She was so young and light. He’d have to be careful of her.

  He waited for some signal as to what she wanted, but she just sat there. “Squeeze again,” her mother said.

  Chico felt a slight pressure against his sides. Evidently, she wanted him to move, but her legs were shorter than Dean’s, and her signals hard to detect. He stepped forward, one ear tilted to listen to Sierra. Hopefully she wouldn’t ask for any stupid circles.

  Once, twice around the corral. He felt her start to relax, and he relaxed, too. Jog? Sure thing. He had a loose, easy jog, and Sierra’s body moved fluidly along with it.

  Now she wanted a turn. She put the rein against his neck, and Chico made a decision. Lately, when Dean had put the rein on him, he wanted a fast turn, a sharp turn, something very precise. But when he’d first started riding Chico, any old turn had been good enough. If Chico changed directions at all, Dean was happy.

  Those were better days, before all the circles. Now Chico was starting fresh with a new rider; it was a good time to set some ground rules.

  He turned, rather lazily. Dean would have let out an exclamation of disgust; would have made him do it again. But Sierra said, “Wow! He’s so much quicker than Queenie!” She rode Chico in some squiggles and circles at the jog. Then she asked for a lope. Chico took up a gentle, rocking-horse gait. Dean would have criticized it. Sierra said again, “Wow!”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that!” Mom said. “And you know, he’ll get over his fear of cows. Give the poor town boy a little time!”

  “Mmm.” For some reason Sierra stiffened up again, but not as badly.

  Mom mounted the queen, and they rode out into the yard. It was bigger than Dean’s whole street! Addie waved from the porch. The dog sat beside her, watching critically. Chico could tell that it didn’t like him. Too bad! Try straying into that horse corral, mutt! He put a show-offy twinkle into his heels, and Sierra gently checked him. “Walk.”

  Side by side, the two horses went down the ranch road. Log fences gave way to wire. Beasts dotted the grassland—which smelled even more tempting today, Chico noticed. The spring sun was bringing new growth, and the Beasts, heads down, were all wolfing it down. Not fair! He jigged in protest and tossed his head, getting half a length ahead of the queen, who nipped him on the shoulder.

  The brown ribbon of road stretched to the far horizon, and when they got there, to another one. They were the only creatures moving on it. Chico’s nerves started to twang. From the safety of the corral, the openness felt perfect. Being out here made him feel exposed, unsheltered.

  At last, they turned back toward the ranch buildings, as small as square hay bales in the distance. Good. Chico was ready to be done with straight lines.

  But four Beasts had crowded close to the fence behind them, cutting them off from home. The sticks on their heads gleamed in the sun, wickedly pointed. There were fences on both sides. There was no way around …

  Behind his swiveling ears, Sierra said, “Uh, Mom?”

  “Don’t look at them, Sierra!” It was the calm voice Sierra’s mother used when she gave Chico a shot, telling him he wouldn’t feel a thing. “If you look, he’ll look. Just watch my back. We’ll show him it’s okay.”

  Chico knew “it’s okay.” People used those words when something alarming was happening, and they wanted to pretend that it wasn’t. The queen walked steadily on, ever closer to the Beasts. Chico’s heart raced, and his feet slowed. He felt Sierra reach for the saddle horn, which only deepened his fear. He must be good. He must be brave. But what if he couldn’t? What if he simply had to run? He sent a whinny after the queen. You sure about this?

  She ignored him. No, not ignore, exactly. Her tail flirted sassily. Her hips swayed. She arched her neck and pricked her ears. Look at me! her body said. Just look! The Beasts huddled at her approach. Their breath whooshed. A tail lifted—splat-splat-splat-splat. Then they turned, blundering into each other, and trotted away from the road.

  Startled, Chico stopped in his tracks. Wow! She just totally backed them off!

  Now the queen was getting ahead of him. If the Beasts were afraid of her, Chico’s place was by her side. She could protect him. He jogged to catch up, and she slashed her tail at him. Stay back! Who’s queen?

  You. You rule!

  “See?” Mom said to Chico. “That didn’t kill you.” That was her after-sting voice. Chico wished she’d give him a carrot like she did after the needle. He could really use a carrot right now.

  The next day they took the same ride. The Beasts kept their distance.

  Then the following morning, Sierra and Addie, carrying backpacks, walked down the road and got onto a school bus. In the afternoon, the bus came back, winding across the distan
t hills. The dog ran down the ranch road in a self-important way, and after a while, reappeared with the girls. Addie’s chatter reached Chico long before they came into sight.

  “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we could train the horses to come meet us? Then we wouldn’t have to walk.”

  Sierra didn’t answer. A glum, worried feeling radiated from her. Chico remembered how thrilled she’d seemed when they first met. Would she ever be like that again?

  The girls went into the house, came out wearing jeans and boots, and put saddles on the horses. Down the ranch road; back again. Addie talked and talked. Sierra didn’t say much. The Beasts stayed far away.

  The next day, the same ride. The day after, again. And he used to think circles were boring!

  On the fourth day, a single Beast was at the fence when they headed out. The earlier rides had been so dull that Chico was almost pleased to see it, fearsome though it seemed. He felt Sierra grab the saddle horn, but Addie gabbled on, and the queen just jogged straight toward it.

  Would this Beast run? It wasn’t moving. What if it didn’t? What if it attacked? All Chico’s muscles went hard. He could feel how his rough trot bounced Sierra, but he couldn’t help it. If he could just hold it together, if he could just scoot past the creature—

  The Beast ducked its head and lunged out of the way.

  Thank goodness! Why couldn’t it have done that right away? Chico put his ears back at the retreating hulk. If the fence wasn’t there, he’d thunder after it, give it a good scare.

  “Hey, Chico, what are you thinking about?” Sierra’s voice had a hint of that light, bright, sparkly sound from the first day. “You want to chase that cow, don’t you? I wonder if Mom could be right!”

  Two days later, the bus didn’t come, and the girls saddled up right after breakfast. Mom came over to talk to them.

  “I’m glad Chico’s bored with the road,” she said. “That was the whole idea, to get him comfortable with his new surroundings. So I’m fine with you riding in the pasture, as long as you steer clear of cows.”