Cowgirl, Unexpectedly. Vicki Tharp

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СКАЧАТЬ a puppy. The other was the blue roan the color of cattle dogs and danced at the end of his lead as if it had mainlined a gallon of coffee minutes before.

      In fact, the animal more closely resembled a dragon as thick plumes of condensation blew out of his flared nostrils into the cold air. Twenty feet away, Hank dropped the palomino’s lead. The horse stopped and dropped his head to munch on a clump of grass.

      I realized then Hank intended for me to ride the blue dragon.

      I swallowed a lump of apprehension. It would be a real shitter to have survived my tour only to be killed by a horse.

      Though I’m confident in my abilities to do many things, riding a thousand pounds of snorting, fire-breathing flesh and blood that spent more time with his feet in the air than on the ground left me rattled. The smirk on Hank’s face said he knew I’d never make eight seconds on this horse’s back. But I wouldn’t chicken out now. I was determined to pass this test.

      Really, how hard could it be?

      Damn hard was the answer I didn’t want to hear.

      Okay, so maybe I should have given this cowboy career more consideration before I’d jumped in with both Harley Davidson boots, but a little desperation goes a long way in the job selection process.

      And it wasn’t like I’d never been on a horse before, but I don’t think a nose-to-tail trail ride in Vail as a kid or the carousel pony in front of the grocery store counted for much.

      I reached for the lead rope and tried to recall everything I knew about riding horses. Which wasn’t much, so it didn’t take long to run through the list. Something about horses being able to smell fear jumped to the front of my mind. I didn’t know if it was true or not, but I took a deep breath anyway and did my best to relax and calm my breathing and heart rate like my rifle instructors had taught me back in basic training.

      I must have closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, because as my hand went to close around the rope, my hand came up empty.

      The next thing I knew, Jenna was marching the horse backward toward the barn, double-time. As soon as Jenna stopped, the horse did too. Then he lowered his head and started licking his lips. Jenna glanced at me over her shoulder and said, “Come with me and we’ll saddle another horse. Angel has a loose shoe.”

      Hank stood with his hands on his hips, clearly annoyed with Jenna for ruining his fun.

      I glared at Hank, who sported an innocent “what?” grin.. His deep chuckle washed over me like jet fuel, and I was the match.

      Chapter 2

      Jenna wasn’t small, but this horse positively dwarfed her. I followed the two of them into the barn and stayed a safe distance away while she stripped the tack off the horse and turned him out into a small paddock.

      While she was gone, I glanced around. Wood pole barn with a metal roof. Eight stalls, concrete aisle with a wide center for saddling. Tack room full of saddles and other horsey stuff. The light grassy scent of the hay in the loft above rained down. Individual runs came off the backside of the stalls and emptied into a large pasture that disappeared over a hill.

      Jenna returned, leading a small black and white paint horse. The horse wasn’t in any particular hurry as it ambled down the aisle behind her. The only change to Jenna’s wardrobe since I’d seen her this morning was the addition of a well-worn cowboy hat on top of her head. The brim at the front and rear angled down to give her protection from the sun and the bandanna she’d had in her back pocket now circled her neck.

      The horse followed her without a halter and lead rope and when she stopped, the horse stepped forward to the rail and gave a heavy sigh as if bored with the whole ordeal.

      Jenna stepped inside the tack room, poked her head out a second later, and said, “Catch,” as she tossed me first one brush and then the other. “Use the curry comb, the round one with the metal teeth, to get the chunks of dirt off and the softer brush to get the loose stuff,” she added before disappearing inside again.

      As I loosened the caked-on mud on the horse’s right side, I realized how Jenna had been keen enough to notice I lacked horse experience. She came out with a saddle and other necessary gear and placed them on a foldout rack within easy reach. She took the soft brush from me and followed behind with short, competent strokes.

      “Thanks,” I said as I finished brushing the second side.

      “What for?”

      I jerked my chin toward the front of the barn where Hank and the other men were waiting. “Angel doesn’t have a loose shoe, does he?”

      Jenna grinned at me over the top of the horse. “I owed you one for this morning,” she said. “But in Hank’s defense, he wouldn’t have let you climb on. He was just waiting for you to call his bluff.”

      “Good to know.” I’d suspected it had been his version of a cowboy initiation, but I still would have swung my leg over that saddle.

      “Okay, so horse saddling 101,” Jenna said as she threw the thick saddle pad over the horse’s back. “Saddle pad first, bring it up over the horse’s withers, the pointy part where their back meets their neck, then comes the saddle and the cinch.”

      She saddled and cinched then bridled the horse before moving on to cleaning out the hooves. “You’ll want to check the cinch one last time before you get on. Sometimes the horses will hold their breath to expand their chest so by the time you go to get on the cinch is loose again,” she explained.

      As we led the horses to where everyone was waiting outside, she said, “The mare’s name is Sierra. She taught me how to ride, and will take good care of you on the trail.”

      Jenna positioned the horse for me to mount. The men mounted up and headed toward one of the gates, giving Jenna a chance to give me the Cliffs Notes version of Horseback Riding for Dummies.

      There was a lot more to riding than I’d ever imagined, and I only had the most basic information. It made me a cowboy much the same way as knowing the parts of a rifle made you a sniper. Still, it wasn’t like me to back down from a challenge.

      The rolling motion of Sierra’s long-striding walk felt foreign, and even though I’d been riding my steel horse for nearly a year straight, the western saddle made my Harley’s seat feel like an overstuffed recliner. Somewhere in the near future was a saddle sore with my name on it.

      Link Hardy, the foreman, was waiting on his horse by the gate with one of the other new hands. At the campfire this morning, Link had stood a little bowlegged, as if he’d been born with a horse between his legs. Unlike me, he looked at home astride the animal.

      Jenna was a horse length ahead and stopped beside Link. I tried my newfound skills to stop Sierra. I don’t know if she stopped because of anything I did or because she was going to stop anyway. Hopefully, it looked like stopping had been my idea.

      “I want you to take Parish and Santos with you,” Link instructed Jenna. “Check the fences on the west side to Harper’s Cave then cut across to the catch pens down by the creek. Repair what you can and mark the rest. I don’t want to lose any head when we round up the calves for branding.”

      Jenna’s eyes narrowed and her lips tightened into a thin line. I thought she was about to protest, but Link’s face hardened and Jenna must have decided СКАЧАТЬ