Rodeo Rocky (8 page)

“This is so I can get up on your back,” she told him, keeping her voice calm and cheerful. “Sure, I know it’s a whole lot of fancy stuff and you’d let me on without it, but it helps me stay up there, believe me!”

“Try riding him,” Charlie urged.

Kirstie glanced at her mom, who hesitated, then nodded.

So Kirstie slid her left hand down Rocky’s neck and took hold of a bunch of coarse black mane along with the slim rein straps. She bent her left leg and hooked her foot into the stirrup, then, holding onto the curved back of the saddle with her right hand, she heaved herself off the ground and slung her free leg over.

“Yes!” Charlie breathed.

She was in the saddle, looking down at Rocky’s broad shoulders and long, coppery brown neck. He was skittering sideways, dancing a little, but not seriously misbehaving.

“That’s excellent, Kirstie!” Sandy called across the pen.

“Cool.” Matt nodded his approval.

Hadley said nothing, as usual.

But as the old wrangler called Charlie to help him saddle the other horses in the corral, Kirstie could tell that even Hadley was impressed by the progress she’d made with the wild horse.

Taking a deep breath of fresh mountain air, she tightened the reins and tilted her heels down in the broad stirrups. Settled and balanced, safely astride, now she felt ready for whatever Rodeo Rocky might throw at her.

7

“You make the right things easy for the horse and the wrong things hard,” Sandy Scott told Kirstie. They were working with Rodeo Rocky in the round pen five days after the stallion had been successfully saddled and ridden. It was late evening: a time when tiny bats flitted overhead and the mule deer wandered down from the high slopes, stalked by shadowy gray coyotes with their telltale howling.

“Meaning?” Kirstie left off teaching Rocky to respond to the reins and walked him quietly over to where her mom stood.

Sandy tilted her hat back and began her explanation. “Well, you make the right things easy by making them fun. When Rocky obeys the rein to the right, you rub his shoulder and scratch his neck, do all the things he likes.”

“And if he gets it wrong?” Kirstie couldn’t imagine that her mother was telling her to hit or punish him in any way.

“You hold back the praise and the fun. A horse likes the games you play with him when he gets it right. He likes them so much, it feels bad for him when it doesn’t happen. So next time, he’ll try to understand what you’re asking him and do his best to get it right.”

“But I don’t have fun with him until he does.” Kirstie set off with Rocky around the pen to try the reining technique once more. This time, the horse responded well, so she leaned forward to praise and pat him.

“That’s real good.” Sandy, too, was pleased. She stood back and watched Kirstie work on until the light got too bad. Then together they unsaddled Rocky and led him out to the meadow, where Lucky stood at the gate waiting for him, his pale mane and tail picked out in the deepening dusk. Kirstie let Rocky loose and the two horses greeted each other then loped the length of the field.

“Happy?” Sandy asked Kirstie as they walked back to the ranch.

“Yep.” They crossed the bridge, noticing the lights go on in the cabins, hearing Hadley play his harmonica in the bunkhouse doorway. “How about you?”

“Yep,” Sandy replied.

“So can I ride Rocky on the trail?” Kirstie waited for the reply for what seemed like ages. She felt he was about ready to try to begin work as a ranch horse, but would Sandy see it that way?

Her mom stepped onto the ranch-house porch, took off her hat and shook her hair loose. “Why not give Lisa a call?”

Kirstie ran ahead of her. “Mom, what kind of answer is that? I was asking about trail riding Rocky!”

“Sure.” A smile played about Sandy’s lips. “That’s why I said you should give Lisa a call.”

“Huh? What’s the connection?”

The smile broadened. “I’m thinking Lucky and Rocky. They like to be together. And that makes me think you and Lisa. You get along pretty well, too. So if Lisa can make it tomorrow, and she wants to ride Lucky …”

“… That means I could ride Rocky and we could all go out on the trail!” Kirstie jumped in. “Great idea, Mom!”

Flinging her baseball cap down on the porch swing and dashing into the house to grab the phone before Sandy could have second thoughts, she went ahead with the arrangements for Rocky’s biggest test of all.

“Excuse me, ma’am, can I get your horse for you?” Charlie came up behind Lisa as she stood in line in the corral the next day. He grinned sideways at Kirstie.

Lisa turned around. “Hey, Charlie, it’s me!”

Kirstie jerked Lisa’s arm to pull her out of line. “He’s fooling. Come on, we’re going with Hadley on the advanced ride.”

It was all arranged. Lisa’s mom had driven her daughter up before opening time at the diner. Lisa had arrived in new jeans and boots, wearing a Native American necklace made from leather and tiny turquoise, white, and black beads. “We’re not going on a fashion shoot!” Kirstie had cried. “We’re trail riding up to Bear Hunt Overlook, remember?”

That morning she’d pulled on an old checked shirt belonging to Matt. It was faded and torn. Her jeans were worn at the knees and rolled up at the bottom. “It looks like those are mine, too,” her brother had grumbled as she’d whipped up a breakfast of waffles and chocolate sauce.

“Don’t mess up your new jeans!” Bonnie had called to Lisa from the old Ford pickup truck she drove. The warning had drifted off on the breeze.

And now Kirstie was hurrying her friend over to the post where Lucky and Rocky were tethered because Hadley was ready to head his group of experienced riders out on the trail. There was no time to talk or worry about the ride ahead as they quickly mounted and followed the line of guests out of the corral and over the wooden bridge.

As the horses’ hooves clattered, then came back onto solid ground, Lisa saw that Rocky was edgy and urged Lucky ahead. “He’ll follow if Lucky leads,” she called over her shoulder, urging the palomino into a trot and rising neatly in the saddle.

Sure enough, Rocky picked up his pace, ears forward, concentrating on Lucky, as Hadley took a trail that led to one side of Hummingbird Rock and on through Fat Man’s Squeeze to the giant overlook beyond.

Kirstie took care to praise him for settling down. Instead of pulling at the reins and dancing sideways, he went willingly, picking up his feet and choosing the surest, safest way through the bushes and between the rocks. Soon he was confident enough to put on speed and stride out alongside Lucky, catching up with the rest of the group just as the head wrangler was instructing them to split up and lope on past Hummingbird Rock.

“Meet up at the bunch of ponderosa pines,” he told the visitors. “After that, there’s a steep climb until we get to a narrow gully. We do that part of the ride together, OK?”

The half-dozen riders nodded and went their separate ways, giving their horses their heads and loping cross-country. They ducked and dodged branches, jumped fallen logs, sometimes staying in the saddle by grasping the horn and clinging on as the horse charged ahead.

“You think you can do this?” Hadley stayed behind to ask Kirstie and Lisa.

They nodded and reined their horses around to face the slope. Kirstie could feel Rocky’s eagerness as he scented the keener air blowing from the mountaintops. When she squeezed his sides and let him go on, he surged away without even waiting for Lucky.

And they were off up the hill, thundering across the ground. Kirstie ducked to miss an overhanging branch, swept by the side of another, swayed in the saddle as Rocky swerved around a rock. Behind her, she could hear Lisa and Lucky close on their heels. Ahead, the dude riders had fanned out, each taking a different track to the finishing point by the pines. Like them, she arrived breathless and pleased.

“OK?” Lisa checked with Kirstie. The wind had blown her hair into unruly curls, the pretty necklace was crooked, but she had a huge grin on her face.

“Great. Rocky is fantastic!” She kept her voice low in case Lucky got upset and jealous. “And so are you, too!” she told him. The two horses jostled in the shadow of the pine trees, then got into line as Hadley checked that everyone was there.

“We’re gonna go through the squeeze,” he reminded them. “It’s a gully between two cliffs. Some of the horses don’t like it, but you let them know who’s giving the orders and they’ll do it, no problem.”

Kirstie knew the place. It was only wide enough for one horse at a time. To either side, the pinky-gray granite rocks rose sheer and bare. As she held back and set Rocky on the trail last in the line, she began to worry, and her edginess was picked up by the smart horse.

“OK?” Lisa turned to check again.

Rocky was falling behind, shaking his head and flattening his ears.

“He doesn’t like the cliffs,” Kirstie answered. The shadows from the tall rocks had closed in, and by this time the first riders had entered the squeeze. “Tight spaces remind him of the rodeo chutes, I guess!”

“You want to turn back?”

“No. Let’s try,” she decided. How would it look if she and Lisa rode back to the ranch early? They would have to give Sandy and Matt the reason and admit that Rocky wasn’t going to make the grade as a working horse after all. Not yet, at any rate, and time was short.

So they rode on into the gully, Lucky stepping out first as if there was no problem, picking his way over the rocky ground, sure-footed and confident as ever.

Rocky watched him every inch of the way. Where Lucky went, he could go, too. Though he was tense and tight, he battled with his fear and went on.

“Easy, boy!” Kirstie soothed him with her voice and helped him along. The track narrowed, the rocks rose high to either side. Inside the squeeze, the light was gloomy, the air damp, all sound deadened.

But Rocky made it through. Hating every second, flinching as he went, he came out the other side to join the group. Hadley gave Kirstie a keen, questioning look. She nodded, and without a word he carried on.

“Rocky’s a grade-A student!” Lisa sighed happily as the riders tethered their horses to tree branches on Bear Hunt Overlook. The others went ahead to sit at the edge of the rock and take in the spectacular view down the valley during their ten-minute break. “He just took his first exam and passed!”

Kirstie slid from the saddle and led Rocky to a vacant tree. The ride had taken more out of her than she was ready to admit. Her mind had been full of questions that she’d had to keep hidden, and the effort of telling Rocky not to worry, of keeping him on the trail with the other horses, had been hard on her. Now she felt pleased but tired, glad of the rest as she unhitched Rocky’s tether rope and began to tie it to a low branch.

She was hurrying with the slipknot in order to retrace her steps across the flat top of the overlook to rejoin Lisa and Lucky when a sudden noise in a bush on a steep slope to the side of the tree stopped her. Rocky heard it, too, froze, and stared up at the rustling branches.

“Come on, Kirstie!” Lisa yelled, wanting to climb to the top of the overhang and join the rest of the group.

Her voice must have alarmed the creature crouched under the bush. The leaves shook, the branches parted, and out crawled a gray, silent shape.

“Coyote!” Kirstie cried. She recognized the wild dog in an instant, with its thick fur and long, bushy tail, its thin, pointed muzzle and slanting amber eyes that stared down at them from the rocky slope.

Before she knew it, the startled animal had crept free of the bush and started to advance. It was coming at her, lip curled back to show vicious canine teeth, a low growl deep in its throat.

“Get out of there!” Lisa yelled. Then she called for Hadley. “Kirstie’s in trouble!” she cried. “Coyote!”

Shock rooted Kirstie to the spot. She heard her friend’s cries, but the creature’s white fangs seemed to mesmerize her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t defend herself as it crouched above her head, ready to leap.

It snarled and launched itself, flying through the air in a rush of gray and fawn fur; would have landed on top of her, its teeth snapping and tearing, if it hadn’t been for Rocky. The horse’s head went up, he pulled at the half-tied rope and broke free. Then he whirled around to rear up between the coyote and Kirstie, so that the doglike creature came down on his back, across the saddle. The sudden movement knocked the coyote sideways onto the ground at Rocky’s feet, where it lay winded.