by C. S. Adler
He nodded. “Whiskey’s limit’s the same both ways.”
She was disappointed, “Well, what should I try, then?” she asked.
Half his thin mouth lifted in a smile. “Try riding another horse,” he said and continued on his way to the barn.
She sat up straight. So what if Lopez didn’t think she could do it. He might know horses, but he’d tried and failed with this one. Whiskey was different, and it was just a matter of figuring out how.
Whiskey turned calmly to the pressure of knee and rein and walked along the road to the right even though it was an unusual direction for him. There were no riding trails that way. He seemed so accepting of Lainey’s control that she even risked stopping him so that she could adjust her left stirrup. She’d been too anxious when she mounted to notice it was a little short.
“Come on, Whiskey, you’re doing great, boy.” She nudged him in the ribs with her heels to get him started again. He walked so sedately that she could relax and notice a late-blooming cactus whose startling red flower hadn’t completely laded yet. The morning sun massaged her shoulders gently. Only an occasional commuter vehicle to Tucson sped past, kicking up loose gravel at Whiskey’s legs.
“Isn’t this fun?” she asked him. “Aren’t we having a good time? And if you’re real good, I’ll give you some oats when we get back to the corral.” Oats were a special treat. Mr. Dodge didn’t dole them out unless a horse was off its feed for some reason.
When they got as far as the hotel—that would be a mile—she would turn around, because riding on the shoulder of the road wasn’t all that much fun. She would walk Whiskey back past the stable and—
In the middle of her thought, Whiskey began turning.
“Hey, what are you doing?” She pulled the reins against his turn. Ignoring the pressure of reins and her knees, he kept going until he was facing back the way they’d come. A quarter of a mile, she realized, that’s what he had done. That’s what he would do—no more. He wasn’t obeying her at all. He was doing what he wanted to do.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, and insisted with the rein and her legs that he turn back to go toward the hotel.
Whiskey tossed his head to get rid of the pressure of the high arched bit in his mouth. He snorted and tossed his head again, moving in the direction she wanted. But he continued in a circle right into the middle of the road and swung around until he was heading back to the ranch.
“Whiskey, you stop that now.” She fought him until he broke out in a surge of power and galloped for home.
Standing in the stirrups on the runaway horse, with one hand grasping the reins and the other clutching the saddle horn, Lainey felt as if she were on the edge of a diving board and about to fall off. Holding the horn also put her out of sync with the wild rhythm of Whiskey’s gallop. Neither reins nor horn was firm enough to keep her from flying off Whiskey’s back. One unexpected jerk and she’d be thrown onto the roadway. It took all her willpower to squeeze her fear into a hard little ball, let go of the horn, and pull back on the reins with both hands.
“Whoa, Whiskey. Slow down. You can’t gallop on this highway. It’s against the law.” Her shoulders ached, but she kept sawing on the reins. Finally, he slowed into a fast trot the last hundred feet to the ranch. To Lainey’s dismay, as she came bouncing in, Lopez just happened to be on horseback near the corral. He was talking to Chick, who had come back from leading the sunrise trail ride.
With a big grin, Chick opened the latch on the corral gate for her. He bowed mockingly and said, “Here she is, the horse trainer. How’d you do, Lainey?”
“Well, I kept Whiskey from galloping all the way back,” she said.
“No kidding! Guess you showed him who was boss, huh?”
Lainey bit her lip, refusing to respond to his mockery, but she couldn’t keep her face from flushing.
“Face it, kid,” Chick said. “That horse won’t give in lessen you can beat him to his knees or starve him, and you haven’t got the guts for that.”
“I don’t think breaking a horse’s spirit is the way to tame him,” Lainey said.
“You don’t, huh? What do you think of that, Lopez? Think this girl knows something we don’t know?” Chick was leaning toward Lopez as if hanging on his answer.
“I think Whiskey’s the wrong horse for you, Lainey,” Lopez said.
It surprised her that he had used her name, and it pleased her that at least he wasn’t making fun of her. “Well, I’m not finished with him yet,” she said. She ignored the opened corral gate and rode Whiskey to the barn, where she tied him to the hitching rail.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lopez enter the corral and ride toward the fence at the far end with Chick following him on loot. Both men were carrying tools to repair the fence. Lainey was relieved that they’d turned their attention away from her.
For a few minutes she stood stroking Whiskey to calm him, although he seemed calm enough now that they were back. Then she brought him a bucket of oats from the feed bin in the barn. “There you go, fella. I know you don’t deserve it yet, but maybe if I’m nice to you, you’ll want to be nice to me, huh?”
When he was finished eating, she mounted him again. This time they went in the usual direction, to the left.
As soon as she saw Cobb Lane Development coming into view, she started talking to Whiskey, telling him what a basically fine horse he was, “and so beautiful,” she said. His ears turned back to listen. She talked with more animation, hoping to keep him distracted enough so he’d forget to turn around.
To her dismay, he began turning just before they got to Cobb Lane’s arch. Patiently, she allowed his turn as if it were her idea, but then she tugged him past the direction he’d meant to go and back the way they’d been heading in another 360-degree circle.
She dug her heels in and said, “Okay, Whiskey, let’s go.”
He reared and neighed and reared again. A bolt of fear split her gut as she remembered Mr. Dodge’s warning. If the horse got desperate enough, he’d rear so high he’d fall backward, hurting either or both of them.
A station wagon passed her. Children’s faces stared out the back window, goggle-eyed, as Whiskey did his Wild West act.
In any case, fighting her wasn’t what she wanted Whiskey to remember. She gave him his head, and they loped back toward the ranch. Again she managed to slow him enough so they were trotting rather than galloping when they turned in the driveway.
This time, after she tied him to the rail outside the barn, she removed his saddle. Then she went for the currycomb and brush and rags. She worked out her frustration grooming Whiskey, starting with the hot, sticky side of his neck and working back toward his haunches.
“How come you’re being so good to a cuss that done you wrong?” Chick asked. He rested the sole of his pointy, tooled-leather cowboy boot on the hitching rail.
“Just feel like it,” she said.
“Don’t make sense to reward a horse for bad behavior,” Chick said.
“So what would you do to teach him?”
“Like I told you. Tie him up, don’t give him any food or drink, use the quirt hard on him, and get yourself some spurs to dig in his hide.”
She swallowed. He was dead serious. “I couldn’t do that to an animal,” she said. Chick guffawed. Lopez, who was passing them on foot this time, raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
“Anyway, it won’t hurt to try training him my way, will it, Lopez?” Lainey asked.
“No,” Lopez admitted. “Just cost Mr. Dodge some oats.”
Chick acted as if that was the funniest thing he’d heard in a week. He reminded her of her brothers, who had enjoyed teasing her if they noticed her at all, and she was glad when he and Lopez walked on past her into the barn. It was lunchtime. They were going inside to eat.
She kept roughing up Whiskey’s dark matted hair and then using the brush to smooth it. He whisked his long black tail at the flies that had gathered and muttered to himself contentedly. Wh
en she was done, she rubbed him shiny with a rag.
“Tomorrow,” she told him, “I’ll bring you some bread. Think you’d like that? Hmmm, Whiskey?”
The intelligent brown eye with its fringe of black lashes regarded her with interest. A surge of liking for the independent animal filled her throat. Why should he obey any two-footed stranger who came along? Why shouldn’t he have a will of his own? “You want to be respected, don’t you, Whiskey?” she whispered. “Well, I can understand that all right. Yes, I can.”
As if he understood, Whiskey nudged her with his head. He was saying thank you, Lainey thought, and she smiled.
Chapter 7
Two days of getting the silent treatment from her father was all Lainey could stand. The second night when he came home with sawdust in his hair from the carpentry work he’d been doing and grunted in answer to her greeting, she went into action. She wrapped her arms tight around him and said, “Daddy, I’m not letting you go until you forgive me for cutting my hair and whatever else you’re mad at me for.”
“I’m not mad at you, Lainey.”
“Yes you are. You won’t talk to me.”
He took a deep breath and said without meeting her eyes, “I just don’t much feel like talking these days.”
“Then smile at me, at least, so I know you’re not mad.”
He gave her a smile so sad it pained her. “You doing okay with the horse?” he thought to ask.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m trying.”
He nodded. “Well, let’s hope you have better luck than your father’s having.”
It was a comfort to know she wasn’t the main cause of his blue funk, but she blamed herself for some of it anyhow. When Lainey had asked Mom why she was having such a hard time getting along with her father lately, Mom had said, “Your father just doesn’t like the idea of you growing up.” But she had to grow up, didn’t she? Was she supposed not to try being independent because it pained him when he was already hurting? She hadn’t come up with an answer to that yet. She only knew that being a good daughter was not as easy as it had been when she was little.
The third time that Lainey arrived with a couple of slices of dry bread and whistled for Whiskey, he actually left the company of two other horses to saunter across the corral to her.
“Good boy, Whiskey,” she told him with delight. “You’re beginning to know me, aren’t you?” She fed him the bread with one hand and stroked him with the other.
“Nice-looking horse,” a male voice said behind her.
She turned to see who belonged to it. “Ryan! What are you doing here?”
“Came to do some riding.”
“Oh.… Not to work?”
“Me, work?” He mimicked horror. Then he grinned and said, “Anyway, not outdoors in this climate. No, my father’s planning to take me on a weekend ride to see Indian rock paintings in some canyon. He wants me to get my butt in shape for it. Also, I’m supposed to learn how to care for my own mount so he doesn’t have to do it for me.”
“You and your father must be getting along, then.”
“Well, we’re sniffing around each other. How are you doing?”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry I took your job away from you. I mean, training me.”
“Oh, that’s okay. Mr. Dodge gave me a better deal than earning free rides.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m training this horse.” She patted Whiskey’s neck. “When I get him tamed so he can be sold, I’ll get part of the profit.”
“He looks pretty tame to me.”
She smiled, knowing better. “So who are you riding?”
“I don’t know. Any suggestions?”
“Ask for Lady maybe, or Shiloh. They’re easy to handle and give you a really smooth ride besides.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I have to find Chick. Dodge says he’s the only wrangler around this morning.”
“Chick was in the barn last I saw him.”
She watched Ryan go. He was easier to talk to than any boy in her school, more like an adult than a kid, and he was likable. But no way could she understand anyone who took pride in being lazy. Dad wouldn’t know what to make of him either. Unless Ryan was just striking a pose. That could be, Lainey thought.
She went about the business of saddling Whiskey. “Now this morning, no foolishness. We’re going for a real long ride, okay?” she told him.
He stood patiently while she mounted him, which didn’t mean a thing, as she knew from experience.
Ryan came back out of the stable lugging a saddle and blanket on one hip and wearing a bridle over his other shoulder.
“Chick claims he’s busy,” Ryan said. “He says I should get you to help me saddle Chester. Lady and Shiloh are out on the trail with Lopez already. Is Chester a killer?”
“Chester? He’s safe, just kind of—” Lainey wrinkled her nose. “Goofy,” she finished.
“Sure, just what I’d expect Chick to give me. That guy doesn’t even know me and he hates my guts. ‘City boy,’ he called me.”
“He was being polite. He could have called you worse.”
Ryan arched an eyebrow and sighed. “Yeah, well, he’s taking a group out in half an hour. He said to get Chester ready and walk him around here while I wait. So which is my goofy horse?”
She pointed to the large, angular, reddish brown animal. This morning he was busy gnawing on the manger. “You want to approach him on the left side. That’s the side where the horse expects you to be when you’re on the ground. They like things to be the way they expect,” she said.
“Who doesn’t?” Ryan fumbled with the latch on the corral gate, complaining, “These saddles weigh a ton.”
“That one’s maybe thirty-five or forty pounds,” she said. “Mine’s lighter because I’m smaller.”
“No, really?” Ryan faked amazement.
She bit her lip. He might not like being told the obvious, but she didn’t like being mocked for trying to instruct him, either. She was miffed enough not to bother telling him to leave the saddle and blanket outside of the corral so that they wouldn’t be dirtied by horse droppings. That, too, was obvious.
It turned out not to be to Ryan, though.
“Now what,” he demanded as he stopped next to Chester, who ignored him and kept chewing on the manger.
“Now you put on the bridle.”
To get rid of the saddle, Ryan heaved it up on Chester’s back. That got the horse’s attention! He stopped chewing and jumped sideways. Then he did a quick dance step with his back legs. Ryan jumped out of the way, up against the manger. The saddle fell off Chester, startling him so that he sidestepped fast the other way to avoid the thing that had dropped on the ground beside him. The sight of the horse’s great round rump coming at him sent Ryan climbing into the manger. Next he started to scale the fence around the hay stored in the inner ring.
Chick’s cackling laugh broke clear above the early morning birdcalls. He was standing in the barn doorway laughing so hard he was bent double. Now that was mean, Lainey thought. She dismounted, tied Whiskey to the nearest rail, and went to retrieve the bridle that Ryan had dropped in his haste.
“Come on down and I’ll show you how to do this, Ryan,” she said.
“God, I hate being made a fool of!” he exploded.
“Everyone does,” she said calmly. “Come on, now. Hold this bit with your fingers the way I’m showing you, and stand by Chester’s head.”
Slowly, Ryan descended. He took the bridle stall and held it up. “If this horse bites off my fingers, do I get a medal for bravery or do I get scoffed at again?”
“You get scoffed at, naturally,” she said. “Come on. He won’t eat your fingers.”
Gingerly, Ryan offered Chester the bit, which the horse took as if it were a piece of sugar, barely showing his teeth. “He let me,” Ryan said. “Can you believe that? He let me do it.”
“Sure. Now slide the crown piece over his ears.” Laine
y helped him for the sake of Chester’s poor ears as Ryan struggled clumsily with the big boxy head. “Next comes the saddle blanket. Be sure it’s free of burrs before you put it on.”
“Okay, but where does it go?”
“Where do you think? Under the saddle on the horse’s back, Ryan.”
He frowned at her. “Come on,” he said, “don’t you give me a hard time, too.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re a decent kid. Or at least that’s how I had you pegged.”
She sniffed, pleased enough by the compliment to forgive him for being so smart mouthed. Patiently, she demonstrated how to put on the saddle. By the time Ryan had tightened the cinch and hoisted himself onto the horse, he seemed more confident.
Meanwhile, Chick had saddled a half dozen horses.
“If you try going it alone, City Boy, don’t blame me when that old Chester takes off for the next county with you on his back,” Chick called in his nasal twang. “You best wait for my group. You’ll fit in good with them.” He chuckled to himself. A bad sign, Lainey thought.
“I think I’ll go with Lainey,” Ryan yelled back to him. “Okay?” he asked her, his eyes pleading.
“Suit yourself,” Chick said. “But it’ll be a real short ride if you go out with Whiskey. He don’t go more’n a quarter of a mile.” Chick grinned at them both. The bashed-down felt hat he was wearing today made him look tough because it hid his baby face. All you could see of him was hat, long blond hair, and a handlebar mustache that looked fake but wasn’t.
“Come on, then,” Lainey said to Ryan. She didn’t want the distraction of him bumping along on Chester while she was trying to train Whiskey, but she couldn’t bring herself to reject Ryan in front of Chick.
She led the way down the road to the left. Once on the gravel verge of the highway, Chester poked his head companionably close alongside Whiskey’s haunches. Since Whiskey didn’t seem to object, Lainey allowed Chester to draw abreast, and they walked down the road side by side.
“So how do you like Tucson?” she asked Ryan.
“Not that much,” he said. “It’s okay at night when it cools down, but baking in a 110-degree oven every day is not my idea of fun.”