Chico's Challenge

by Jessie Haas

  “Chico’s getting braver,” Sierra said.

  Mom said, “I’m trusting you to look after your sister, Sierra. Ride slowly and take it easy around the cattle.”

  “We’ll take it easy,” Sierra replied. The girls rode out through the pasture gate. The broad meadow spread before them, inviting Chico’s legs to run.

  “You don’t need to take care of me,” Addie said. “I’m a good rider.”

  “I know,” Sierra said. “But Mom’s watching.”

  Addie looked back. “I don’t see her.”

  “Even if you don’t see her, she’s watching! And Dad is even worse!”

  Talk talk talk. Chico snatched at the bit. Sierra let him jog, then lifted into a gentle lope. The queen kept pace. They headed toward the line where grass met sky. Gradually, another rolling swathe of grass appeared behind it, rimmed by rocky mountains. Beasts looked up as they passed.

  Finally, Sierra swung Chico around to face the way they’d come. He saw only horizon. The ranch buildings were completely cut off from view. Chico couldn’t even smell home; the wind was blowing from the wrong direction.

  Sierra took a deep breath. “Addie, I want to try something. I have to find out. Do you promise not to tell Mom?”

  Addie didn’t answer, but she did stop chattering.

  A small group of Beasts grazed nearby; four of them side by side. Sierra turned Chico toward them and asked him to walk.

  His heart thudded. They outnumbered him! What was she thinking?

  He felt the rein on his neck, turning him slightly to one side; zig.

  Rein on the other side; zag.

  Zig, zag, zig, zag; very slowly Sierra was riding him closer, and still closer. There came a moment when all four Beasts stopped grazing and bunched together, staring at him, pointing their paddle-shaped ears. Their breathing sounded deep and emotional.

  Chico braced and stared back. Sierra put her hand on his neck reassuringly. Beasts didn’t seem to make her nervous, but what did she know? She wasn’t even an adult. Could he trust her?

  Her legs squeezed his sides. Another step forward? No way! What if he couldn’t be good anymore? What if he had to run, duck out from under her, and just bolt for the horizon? She could be hurt, and she was small. Young.

  Bossy. Her legs squeezed again, and without meaning to, Chico took a step. Sierra squeezed again. Another. One more and he was going to blow!

  The Beasts flapped their ears, tossed their heads.

  Then they all turned toward each other, each trying to get into the middle of the group. There was no middle left, and they walked away.

  Chico stopped in disbelief. Away? They were walking away? He felt suddenly larger, filled with energy. He snatched for more rein. Make ’em go faster!

  Sierra gave a high-pitched yip of delight and turned him away from the retreating Beasts. “Yes! You like that, Chico, don’t you? Good boy!”

  “You moved them just the way Dad does,” Addie said. “Only he walks.”

  “We didn’t chase them!” Sierra said quickly.

  “I know!” Addie said. “Dad hates anything chasing his cows. Chico looks proud.” She hesitated. “So—do you like him now?”

  Sierra reached down and hugged Chico’s neck. “I like him a lot! That was the problem. I was worried he wouldn’t be able to do cutting, but—wow!” She sat up straight in the saddle again, laughing. Everything about her felt light and breezy again, like when Chico first met her.

  They turned back toward home, both girls chattering. Chico matched his steps to the queen’s, eyeing the groups of Beasts they passed. Now he saw them in a whole new way. They could be chased! Big as they were, they were afraid of him!

  Chico knew all about power. The horse that can make another horse move out of the way is the boss. He could do that with his brothers, even though he was the youngest; never with his mother or sister, certainly not with the queen. But he’d just moved four Beasts at once! Could he move every Beast?

  They came over the big rise and a large cluster of Beasts were right in front of them. Let’s get them, he suggested, dancing, bobbing his head, and pricking his ears at the creatures.

  Sierra laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry, hotshot! We’re in sight of the house.” Instead of moving toward the animals, she swung Chico toward the edge of the woods, letting him lope to vent his feelings, outdistancing Addie and the queen.

  A strong Beast-scent emanated from the trees. Chico sensed movement. A second later, the woods erupted in a crash of brush and cracking branches. Chico whirled as a great black Beast emerged from the pines, head lowered, charging straight at the queen.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE QUEEN SHIED. ADDIE SHRIEKED.

  Chico felt the reins on his neck and Sierra’s smooth boot heels driving into his sides, jumping him back there, toward the charging Beast.

  He leaped without thinking. He didn’t need to think. His queen. His human! They were part of his new herd, and just as he’d once charged the pit bull back at Dean’s, and just as he’d faced down a blowing, crinkling monster—which had turned out to be an empty trash bag, but no one had known that at the time—he flung himself between his herd and the threat. That’s what young male horses were for; to fight, sometimes to die, for the herd.

  The Beast stopped in its tracks, blinking. Chico stopped, too, facing it down. It was uncertain, he realized. It was of two minds. How did he know that? He didn’t know how—he just did. He took a fast step forward, ears laced back in a menacing expression.

  The animal gave an uneasy moan and turned, trotting back toward the woods. Chico lunged after it, jaws wide. His teeth closed sharply on the boney base of its tail. Sierra’s surprised shriek was dim in his ears. He leaned on the reins, biting again, urging the beast ahead of him into a lumbering gallop. They crashed into the woods, and a small shape staggered upright from a bed of ferns, bleating. The Beast moaned again, in a different tone of voice, and rushed to it.

  Now Chico felt legs and reins and bit again, all urging him to turn, get out of the woods quickly. He loped back into the open, back to the queen. She stood with head high and ears flat, the picture of offended dignity. On her back, Addie clung to the saddle horn with her mouth hanging open.

  Chico’s whole body tingled. He felt twice his normal size. Amazing! It ran away! Actually ran! If Sierra hadn’t stopped him, he could have chased it farther, much farther. He gazed across the pasture at the others. Beasts? No more. They were only cows. He could chase any of them, all of them, and he would again, the moment he got the chance.

  Why hadn’t he known about this before? Why had he wasted his life chasing stray dogs and garbage bags? All along, cows had existed, and he was born to chase them.

  Sierra stroked Chico’s neck again and again. “Chico, you were wonderful!”

  Addie said, “You guys looked just like Misty Lassiter on one of her horses!”

  Sierra heard a sound and looked toward the ranch house. Far off, the four-wheeler came bounding over the grass toward them. Dad’s hat lay back on the grass, and the dog was even farther back, chasing the vehicle intently and silently.

  “How does he do that?” Sierra asked. “Remember, Addie—you can’t get away with anything on this ranch. Dad sees everything!”

  Dad slowed down when he was still a good distance away, so as not to frighten the horses. Chico stood rock still, completely unconcerned. Sierra’s heart swelled with love. He was so steady, so cheerful. A perfect horse …

  “You girls all right?” Dad asked. “I was just coming out of the barn, and I saw what happened.”

  “The cow has a calf in the pines,” Sierra said. “It looked pretty new.”

  “I wonder which critter it is. I don’t mind a cow being a little aggressive about a new calf—that’ll save it from coyotes. But if she’s going to make a habit of charging people, we can’t have that.”

  “She charged me and Queenie,” Addie said. “But Sierra and Chico chased her away.”
<
br />   “I saw that, too,” Dad said. He reached up, felt for his hat, and, not finding it, rumpled his flattened hair. “Your mother thought he’d come around.”

  Sierra felt her face turn red, but she didn’t say anything.

  “I’m no horseman,” Dad went on, “but I remember Pop telling me how they used to start colts when he was cowboying. They’d ride them at the drag end of a trail herd, so every cow they saw was moving away from them. By the time they got wherever they were going, there wasn’t a cow those horses wouldn’t chase. I’m bringing some stock in for Misty tomorrow. Maybe you girls could ride along behind?”

  Sierra nodded.

  Dad smiled at her. “Stars in your eyes again, kid. It’s good to see!”

  Sierra rode home, considering the strangeness of getting horse advice from Dad. He was firmly attached to his four-wheeler, his dog, and his own ways of moving cattle; mostly on foot, using the slow zigzags to gather the cows in and nudge them in the direction he wanted. Dad read books about it, and with his methods, he could do almost everything he needed—except bring stock in from the mountain pastures. Mom used to do that on Scout, and last fall when Scout was too old, Dad borrowed a cowboy from another ranch.

  But though other ranchers raised their eyebrows and sometimes laughed at him, Dad was as good a cowman as any of them. His father and grandfather were ranchers, too, and to Sierra, this felt like a bit of horse wisdom passed down from them. Ride a young horse behind a herd. Let him watch cows going away from him. It made a lot of sense. Thank you, Dad! Thank you, Grampy.

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, THE HORSES FOLLOWED the four-wheeler to the high pasture. It stretched halfway up the mountainside. Large gray rocks loomed up out of the grass like lurking predators. The cattle up here were smaller, with only nubs of horns. They were more skittish, too, bunching in alarm at the sight of the horses.

  “Stay back,” Dad told the girls. He poured the contents of a couple of buckets of feed onto the ground, and backed the four-wheeler out of the way. Chico smelled grain and sweet molasses. The dog whined. Dad put a hand on his collar, and he hushed.

  The young cattle crowded and jostled around the grain. Dad edged the four-wheeler closer. He released the dog, pointing him to a parallel spot on the other side of the bunch. He pointed to Addie and Sierra, too, showing them where he wanted them to go. Every move was slow and quiet, and the cattle didn’t raise their heads.

  When the cattle finished eating and began to look around, Dad gently moved the four-wheeler even closer. On the other side, the dog crept forward on his belly. The queen took a step, too.

  So slow! Chico couldn’t stand it. He danced, jigged, sidled, snatching at the bit, pushing his head low, throwing it high in the air. Come on! Let’s move these babies! The cattle turned their ears toward him nervously, and Dad said, “Keep him farther back, Sierra.”

  “I’m trying.”

  The reins were tight now. The bit felt hard and strong in Chico’s mouth. But he could ignore that. He was much stronger than Sierra, and he knew what he wanted—

  She did something with one rein. Chico found himself facing the wrong direction. How did she do that? He whirled after the cows—and there he was, facing the wrong way again.

  He put his head down, leaned hard on the bit, and charged after the slow-moving herd.

  Ow! She did it again, and this time it stung. It looked like he’d have to do what she wanted.

  But he didn’t have to make it easy! Chico shook his head, even hitched up his back end and threatened to buck. He’d never been this bad before, ever, even in the earliest days when Dean was teaching him to be ridden. But he’d never wanted to do anything as much as he wanted to chase those cows.

  Dad looked back in concern. The queen flattened her ears and swung her head at Chico, showing her strong yellow teeth.

  The four-wheeler dropped back. Dad said, “This isn’t working. Take him home, Sierra, okay?”

  Sierra turned Chico around and pushed him into a lope—away from the cows. What was she? An idiot? Chico thought. Sierra headed him down a trail among the tall dark pines. He listened to the herd moving above him on the mountainside, glimpsed them through the jack pines, then left them behind as he picked his way down the foothills, bright with mountain flowers, fragrant with sage brush. A cool dry wind bent the grass stems. The wide sky curved above. It was the vastness he’d sensed and craved in his cramped paddock at Dean’s, and now Chico had to leave that openness—and the cows—behind.

  It was so unfair!

  Back in the horse corral, Sierra said, “You’re all lathered up, silly!”

  She got a bucket of warm water and washed Chico’s back and chest and belly. He stamped at the droplets that tickled his legs like flies. He flattened his ears when Sierra sponged his face. He’d never felt this frustrated in his whole life! At last he’d found the thing he truly wanted to do, and this girl wouldn’t let him do it.

  The cattle trailed off the mountain in a long, slow-moving line, and they finally reached the corral next to his. Addie and the queen drove them through the gate at a snail’s pace.

  Sierra turned Chico loose. He rolled in the dirt, until he was crusty and coated, stood up and shook himself, and trotted to the fence. He put his head over the top rail. The cattle retreated to the far side of the corral.

  Chico stepped back to get a bite of hay. The cattle relaxed. One or two took a step toward him. It was as if he had been pressing on them somehow, and now they had a tiny bit more space.

  He took another few steps back. More cattle drifted in his direction.

  Chico stood with his head down, watching them. He was perfectly quiet. The cattle seemed to forget him. They explored their new surroundings. When one neared the fence, Chico stepped decisively toward it.

  The cow shied to the left. Chico pounced in that direction, mirroring the cow’s move. She gave him a bug-eyed stare and trotted back to the group. Chico took up his stance again, waiting until another cow approached the fence.

  What a great game!

  He didn’t spare much attention for the people watching from the porch, but after a few minutes Sierra came to the corral with an apple and Chico’s halter.

  “You’re sleeping in the barn tonight,” she told him. “Dad doesn’t want you bugging his cows—but you’re really starting to act like a cutting horse!”

  Interfering again. But the apple was good, as always, and he was tired.

  After breakfast the next day, Chico was allowed back in the horse corral. The young cows had done all their exploring. They clustered at their hay rack with their backs to Chico, then lay at the far end of the pen and chewed their cuds at him. The constant grinding of their jaws, the pause and gentle belch as the cud came up, was all fascinating. These animals belonged to him. He was born to manage them, boss them, take care of them, and though he longed to gallop into their corral and scatter them in all directions, too, Chico also felt profoundly content to just be near them.

  That afternoon, just after Sierra and Addie got home from school, a truck and stock trailer came along the dusty road. It was the first strange vehicle Chico had seen since he came here. A young woman got out. She was slim, straight, hatted, and booted. Testing the air, Chico caught a scent from her: horses and dust and some kind of flowers.

  Dad came out of the barn, and they talked. People always talked so much! All the faces kept turning toward him, and the group drifted toward the horse corral. The queen bustled to the fence and thrust her head between the rails, with a warning swish of her tail at Chico. Who’s queen?

  The young woman patted the queen and climbed up on the rail to look at Chico. “That is a nice quarter horse! How long have you had him?”

  “A couple of weeks.”

  “How come I haven’t heard about it? Is he your cutting-horse prospect?”

  Sierra hesitated. “He’s supposed to be, but he was afraid of cows—”

  “Not a problem. A lot of real cowy horses are scared of the first cow
they see.”

  “Oh,” Sierra said. “Anyway, he’s over that. Now he wants to chase them all the time.”

  “That’s worse, actually, but we can deal with it. Tell me about him.”

  Sierra talked. The young woman listened, with her eyes focused on Chico. She gave him a funny feeling, confident and edgy at the same time—like nothing he could do would surprise her, but that she might surprise him. He drifted closer to Sierra. She’d surprised him a few times too, especially yesterday, but he knew she was on his side.

  Sierra could tell that Misty liked Chico. But something was bothering the trainer. Sierra could tell that, too, especially when Misty deliberately changed the subject and started talking about the cattle with Dad.

  Misty leased young stock from him to train her cutting horses with. That was a stretch for Dad, who believed in a stress-free life for cattle. But he also believed in caring for his land, and grazing some yearlings at Misty’s preserved his own grass and soil. So far the heifers were thriving, and the extra money helped. Ranching was a hard way to make a living.

  Mom came home, and everyone settled down on the porch; drinks, chips, feet up on the rail. “I love when you come over,” Mom said to Misty. “I practically never sit on my own porch like this.”

  “I never sit on my porch either,” Misty said. “It’s a strange life, being a horse trainer.”

  “Try being a large-animal veterinarian!” Mom said.

  The adults talked about this, that, the other. How important the cattle were to Misty: “Because it’s weird, you know? This sport is getting huge, and at the same time, there’s fewer and fewer cattle ranches in this country. It starts to feel artificial sometimes.”

  The talk finally circled back to Chico, and Misty put her soda can down.

  “I blame myself,” she said.

  Sierra’s heart did a double-thump. Here it comes!

  “When I said I’d help Sierra get into cutting, I was assuming you’d find a horse that had some cutting experience. Novice teaching novice isn’t a good combination.”