Sunset Ranch (5 page)

Stephen was starting to get red in the face and puff. “Look, Zach,” I put in, “Rick said to tie him up. We have to listen to what he says.” A note clanged in the back of my mind, though, as I was speaking. We never tied our horses up in the stall at my stable. Still, Rick must know what he was talking about—he was in charge for a reason, after all.

But Zach got up, strolled over to the buckskin, and unlatched the door. The horse rolled his eyes and laid his ears back warningly, but Zach reached in, quick as an oiled snake, and pulled down hard on the safety-release catch of the lead line.

“Hey!” Stephen raised his voice. “Put that back! That horse bites, in case you didn't notice.” A vein was throbbing in his neck.

Zach tossed the lead line, and Stephen caught it automatically. “Steve. If the horse is head shy, he's going to feel even more freaked out being tied up
by his head
. Then he'll never trust you.” He spoke slowly, as if addressing someone of limited intelligence.

“If he
bites
someone, he'll be back to the glue factory!” Stephen shouted back, finally losing it. They were facing each other now, practically nose to nose.

Then Zach turned away abruptly. “No one's giving this horse a chance,” he muttered. He strode over to the dusty window and gazed out, his hands jammed in his pockets. “He at least should have a chance.”

His words sparked in my mind. “What did you say?” I asked slowly.

Zach's dark brow was knitted. “He should have a chance to at least try for a place here; that's what I said.”

I jumped up from my mud bucket. “Do you think they'd give him an audition? If we worked with him, maybe?”

Stephen shook his head. “No. That's not the way Rick and Jack do it. It's okay. You guys haven't been around here long enough to know.”

Zach caught my gaze and held it. Then the spark in me burst into flame. “Stephen!” I burst out. “It's like you and Rick. You said he won't give you a chance to try for assistant trainer—and this horse needs a chance too.” I was pacing now, the words tumbling from me. “What if—what if this was your big break? What if we asked if we could train him up? And then Rick would see that you really do know a bunch? And he'd promote you and the horse could be saved!”

“Could work,” Zach said from the window.

Stephen shook his head. “Chloe, I don't think they'd go for it. They just don't do that around here. Rick makes up his mind and that's that.”

“But why not just try?” I persisted. “You never know until you ask. We'll all go—the three of us.”

“I'm for it,” Zach said.

“Ah . . . I don't know. I need to think about it.” Stephen strode out of the stable. Zach and I looked at each other, and then I hurried after him.

He was leaning on the pasture fence, his arms resting on the top rail, gazing out at the vast, waving grassland spread before us. Softly I came up next to him and leaned over the rail. I was silent and watched Diamond scratching his leg with his head. He switched his tail against the flies, and the breeze carried over the sweet-musty horse scent. To the west the mountains sat, calm, cool, blue-gray, and silent. Just gazing at them was restful. The grasses were rippling like water in the thin mountain air. Al was noisily slurping at the water tank, and somewhere very near my feet a cricket was trilling. I shifted slightly and the trilling stopped. I held very still. The trilling started again. A melody started in my head, combined with the cricket and the whistle of the wind—

“That guy can be kind of a jerk, don't you think?”

The words jarred me out of my reverie, and I glanced at Stephen. He was still staring ahead, hands clasped.

“Well . . .” I searched around for the right words. “I think we're all just trying to help the buckskin out, right?”

“He gets under my skin. I mean, how come he thinks he can just barge in and take over like that?” I could see the muscles in Stephen's jaw clenched tight.

I cleared my throat. “Hey, um . . .” I cast around for some other, happier topic. “Which is your favorite horse?” I indicated the herd in front of us.

“Oh, I don't know.” He furrowed his brow, thinking, and traced his thumb back and forth across the wooden rail. “Probably Hans.”

“Hans?”
I laughed. The German name sounded incongruous in this land of Jims and Big Bills and Codys. “Which one is he?”

“That one.” Stephen leaned over to point. “That little fat chestnut beside the sagebrush.”

He was very near to me now, his shoulder touching mine, and I felt his breath just touch my cheek.

“Oh yeah, I see him.” Though at that moment I cared about Hans the Horse about as much as I cared about the state of North Korean politics. “How come he's your favorite?” I pulled myself together enough to ask.

“He's kind of an oddball—he's a Haflinger, which is this Austrian breed. The Amish use them a lot. They usually pull buggies, but Jake brought this one out here a while ago because we didn't have any ponies for the kids. But he's so strong, he can carry a man too. He's just a good little guy—totally willing, never offers to bite.”

His voice trailed off and he glanced at me, then looked down quickly. He ran his fingers back and forth rapidly along the fence. “We can do it.”

“What?”

“You were right. About talking to Rick. I was just getting all bothered by Zach being the one suggesting it. It's actually a really good idea.” He smiled at me. “Sorry I was being stupid.”

I threw my arms around his neck and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you! When should we do it?”

“Morning's the best time—they're usually in the office right after breakfast. We can do it tomorrow.”

I squealed. “We're going to make him the best horse on the whole ranch—and Rick will see how amazing you are, I know it.”

“I hope so.” Then he paused and cleared his throat. “Hey, um, do you remember when we were driving in and saw the Garden of the Gods? Well, I was thinking of going for a hike out there tomorrow. We have the afternoon off. You want to maybe come with me?” The tips of his ears were bright red.

“Oh! Yeah! Yeah.” I controlled my voice with an effort.
He's asking me out! He's asking me out!

“Cool.” He cleared his throat, regaining his composure. “I know this great trail—it's not marked, so no one goes on it, but my brother showed me once.”

“I love secrets.” My jaws ached from the strain of controlling my grin. “Sounds fun.”
Or like heaven on earth. Whichever.

“Stephen!” Rick's bark came from the hay shelter near the barn.

Stephen jumped as if he'd been pricked with a pin. “I have to go.” He threw me a quick smile. “Meet you after breakfast tomorrow?”

“Sure. I'll tell Zach.” I watched as he scurried toward his brother, who was standing in a sweat-stained T-shirt, his fists on his hips.

I turned back to the pasture and rubbed my hand up and down Hans's warm nose, already wrapped in daydreams of tomorrow.

Chapter
Five

The sky was heavy
with gray-bellied clouds when I met Stephen and Zach on the porch of the main house after breakfast the next morning, still chewing my last bite of tortilla-and-egg sandwich.

“You guys ready?” Zach asked, looking from me to Stephen.

Stephen shrugged. “I can't guess what he'll say.”

“No one's saying you can, bro.” Zach's voice already held an edge of irritation.

“All right, let's go in,” I said, cutting them off. I swung open the screen door with more confidence than I felt.

Rick and Jack were sitting on either side of a battered metal desk heaped with papers, stirrup leathers, bits, and hay samples. In the corners of the stuffy little office, feed buckets were stacked five high, and the walls were hung with old and out-of-service bridles. I half admired a silver mounted one as we crowded the doorway.

Jack looked at us over his glasses. “What is it, folks?”

We wedged ourselves into the cramped space. Rick pushed his chair back with a scrape. “You hands need to get to your work.”

“We have a request for you first,” Zach said. He sounded so calm and direct.

“We were wondering if you'd let us work with the buckskin horse,” I said. “I know you said he's only here temporarily, but we were thinking that maybe if we trained him up some, he could be a good ranch horse—and he could stay.” I stopped, my breath arrested in my throat.

“No.” Rick didn't even bother to look at us. He opened a file folder on his lap and took out a schedule and handed it to Jack. “Get to work.”

That was it. Dismissed. Impotent anger choked me. He wasn't even going to offer an explanation.

“That horse deserves a chance!” Stephen suddenly burst out. I could feel his arm trembling against mine. “No one's sending him away without at least giving him a chance.”

Jack put down the schedule.

“What did you say?” Rick asked slowly. Dangerously.

Jack stood up and pulled three feed buckets from the corner. “Sit down, you three.”

We sat.

“Now, tell me what's going on here.” Jack spoke to all of us, but he was looking at Stephen.

“We feel like the buckskin could be a good horse, sir,” Zach jumped in smoothly. “He has potential. Chloe, Stephen, and I can school him every day. If he's not doing good in a month or two, send him back to the auction then. That's our proposal.”

“I can do this,” Stephen broke in. He was talking to Rick. “Just wait. He'll be the best guest horse on the ranch.”

“If you're looking to be assistant trainer because of this horse, there's no promises.” Rick spit the words out like apple seeds.

I cringed. Stephen looked straight ahead, where there was a yellowing poster of shoeing procedures. Zach whistled a little between his teeth and leaned back against the wall, supremely unconcerned.

“It's up to you,” Jack said to Rick. “Their daily work won't suffer much. I'm willing to give the old boy a chance if these three think they can train him up.” He smiled at us.

“All right.” Rick looked us over as if we were destined for the auction mart too. “Here's the deal. We're short horses for the pack trip. You get that buckskin ready in time. If he can do the trip, he can stay.” He turned his back without waiting for a response.

The conference was over, and we hurriedly got off our buckets. “We'll see about assistant trainer,” Rick called after Stephen as we were leaving. “We'll see how that horse does.”

Back on the porch, I let out a big breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. “We did it!” I clapped my hands together. Zach gave me a high five.

“You were awesome!” I hugged him, and he lifted me off my feet and twirled me around.

Stephen was standing quietly to one side, watching us. I felt a sudden flush of guilt, as if I'd been caught. I laid my hand on his arm. “Aren't you happy? This is your chance at assistant trainer. We'll show Rick how great the buckskin can really be.” My voice was uncharacteristically bubbly.

“Yeah. Yeah. We will.” Stephen smiled, finally.

Zach slapped Stephen's shoulder. “Come on, man. We're driving out to the west pasture to scrub water troughs.”

“I'm supposed to turn out, so I'll let you guys know how it goes,” I called over my shoulder as I hurried across the wind-whipped grass toward the stable.

I examined the chore chart pinned to the dusty bulletin board by the door.
Auction horses—halter, lead line, pasture,
it said. Perfect. That meant I was supposed to work on the ground with the new horses, getting halters on them, leading them around, making sure they had good ground manners—no biting the lead line, or trailing behind, or stopping to snatch grass. Then I would have to take them out to the pasture, make sure they knew how to go in and out of the gate, introduce them to the other horses. General getting-to-know-your-new-home activities. I could start working with the buckskin this morning.

I took down a lead line from the wall. “Hey, good ­morning, guys,” I greeted the black and the paint, who were hanging over the half doors of their stalls, ears pricked, clearly waiting for visitors. I gave the black a scratch on the star on his broad forehead, and the paint poked his nose over. “You want your share too, don't you?” I rubbed his velvety nose, pricked with stiff whiskers.

The buckskin wasn't hanging his head over like his friends. Instead he was huddled at the back of his stall, as far from the front as he could get. I peeked over the door, and as soon as the buckskin saw me, he rolled his eyes and pressed himself against the back wall. My heart ached for him—he was so afraid of ­people, there was no doubt he'd been abused. I stood for a moment, thinking, then went down to the feed room and returned in a moment with a scoop of sweet grain in a bucket. No horse could resist this mixture of oats, wheat, and corn coated with a layer of sticky molasses. I gave the black and the paint each a handful in their feed buckets so they wouldn't feel left out, then shook what was left enticingly at the buckskin. “Here, boy,” I crooned. He could hear the others crunching now. I dumped a handful into his feed bin. “Here, come get a snack, boy.” Then I casually strolled down the broad aisle to the front doors, where the dust motes danced in a beam of sunlight.

Behind me I heard more crunching. I turned around. The buckskin was eating his treat, ignoring the questing noses and eager snuffles of his neighbors. I smiled to myself. The first hurdle crossed.

Slowly, casually, I strolled back to the stall, as if I were just stopping by. The paint saw me coming and gave an eager little whicker, hoping for more snacks, no doubt. This time the buckskin remained at the front of the stall. I gave them each another small handful. The buckskin needed no encouraging now that he saw I was going to give him treats and not yell at him or yank his head around.

This time I stayed in front of his stall as he crunched his grain. I chatted with him softly, just meaningless words, giving him a chance to get used to the sound of my voice. Meanwhile I took a currycomb and rubbed it up and down the paint's throat, which one of the horses at my old stable used to love. The paint loved it just as much and half closed his eyes, raising his head up very high and swaying back and forth, pressing against the currycomb. Then I casually moved on to the black, rubbing him softly behind the ears with my fingertips, like a horse massage. He liked that, so I began stroking his ears very softly with both hands. It relaxed him so much that he dropped his head lower and lower, his ears relaxing out to the sides until he looked like a donkey.

I knew the buckskin was watching us, so slowly yet firmly I reached over and patted him low down on the neck, far away from his head. “There, buddy.” He didn't flinch, so I patted him a little higher up. Still okay.

I slid back the bolts on the stalls and slipped halters onto the black and the paint—no problems there—and led them out to the pasture, where they easily went through the gates.

Now for the buckskin. He was already relaxing and I didn't want to push him, but I also didn't want to face Rick and have to tell him that a whole day had gone by and I hadn't even gotten a halter on him.

Smoothly, with no sudden movements, I unlatched his stall, the halter over my arm. He eyed me, quivering slightly, but did not back away or flatten his ears. “Hey there, boy,” I crooned. Before he had time to look at the halter too much, I draped the lead line over his neck and slid the halter up over his nose and behind his ears, then fastened the throat latch. There, I'd done it! We stood there, looking at each other, both of us equally surprised, I think. He was wearing his halter. The trick was not to make a big deal out of it or get into some kind of long buildup where he had time to think about it and get agitated.

Now came the next part: getting him out of the stall and into the pasture. I had no idea how he'd do on a lead line or what his experience had been with being led, but I tried not to let my tension communicate itself through my body. I'd learned at my old stable that horses are masters of body language. They can sense tension in your hands right through the reins or a lead rope.

So what I needed to communicate to the buckskin was that being led out to the pasture would be a pleasurable and unimportant event. You would never want him to think that this was a big deal to you in any way—that would equal tension in him, which, in a horse like this, could lead straight to explosions.

Trying to keep all this at the front of my mind, I smoothly slid back the bolt and, taking a firm grasp of the rope under his chin, with the rest looped neatly in my other hand, I led him from the stall. Not dragging, not allowing him to get ahead of me, but also not looking at him, I asked him to walk calmly beside me down the wide cement aisle toward the enticing blue-and-yellow square of the outdoors visible at the other end.

The moment we stepped out of the stall, I felt his body tense. He raised his head and sniffed the sweet fresh air. His hooves clopped a little faster behind me. I led him across the dusty, bare spot in front of the stable and across to the pasture gate. We paused at the water trough, where someone had left the hose still running. The buckskin froze, jerking his head up and snorting suddenly.

My hand tightened on the lead rope and I instinctively looked toward the trough, expecting to see a snake or a lizard near the edge. But there was only the clean galvanized steel and the clear water flowing from the hose. “What is it, boy?” I stepped closer to him, trying to calm him with the nearness of my body. The horse's eyes were wide, the whites visible. His nostrils flared, showing the edge of pink deep inside. His gaze was fixed on the trough.

“Is it the water?” I said softly. I tried to lead him toward the pasture gate. He would walk with me, but wouldn't allow his body near the trough, so he walked with his head turned as if the trough and he were opposing magnets. I led him through the gate and once more tried to lead him up to the trough. Was it the hose? The trough itself ? Holding the lead rope with one hand, I quickly turned off the water at the spigot and shoved the hose away with one foot. Now the surface of the water was no longer burbling and bubbling.

The buckskin relaxed, as if someone had turned off a switch, and lowered his head to the trough. He sucked up big mouthfuls of water with long slurping noises. I unclipped the lead rope and stroked his mane absently as he drank. It was the hose, then—maybe the way it made the water look? It couldn't be the hose itself, I decided, as the buckskin finished drinking and raised his head. It was lying right by my feet, and he was paying no attention to it. If he were afraid of the hose, like he would be if someone had beaten him with one, he still wouldn't want to come near it. It must have been the way the hose made the surface of the water burble and bubble. Or the noise, perhaps.

The buckskin raised his head from the water and turned his neck, looking across the pasture at the horizon. The other horses were just visible as specks, grazing on the vast plain of grass. I stepped back, watching, entranced. The warm wind lifted the buckskin's rough black mane, twisting his forelock off his forehead. He raised his nose and let out a little whinny. The wind carried the sound to the other horses, and faintly an answering nicker came floating back. The horse trotted toward the sound, breaking into a long, easy canter. His feet beat the ground rhythmically, and it seemed impossible that he would ever stop.
He should be called Magic,
I thought as I closed and latched the gate. He looked like magic when he ran.