The rodeo for the special-needs kids was to take place on the last Thursday of the month, just before Leeann had to leave for Charlotte. Her friends were so involved in planning for the rodeo that it was all they talked about when they were together, as if her leaving weren't going to happen, or as if it didn't matter.
Zach was in charge of events. Kristen was doing signs and publicity. Joy was seeing to refreshments. Leeann had the responsibility for the horses and equipment, and she was the liaison with the people at the ranch. That meant she had to speak to Amos, which turned out to be easy. Now that she was leaving, Amos seemed to have accepted her. He even promised to have the three horses she needed back early so that she'd have time to groom them. And he agreed that it was all right if her friends helped her with the grooming, since there'd be less than an hour to get the horses read}'.
"I'll be around if you need me during the rodeo," he offered.
Leeann thanked him. And when she noticed that he was moving stiffly, as if his arthritis had its claws in him, she made herself useful by taking the tack from the horses he was unsaddling and hanging it back up in the barn for him.
Mr. Holden had agreed to preside as ringmaster for the rodeo, so long as he could invite his guests to come down to the corral and watch if they wanted to. When Mrs. Childs and the other parents got involved, the adults uncovered a dozen new details that needed pinning down. The logistics became so complex that Leeann was glad nobody had realized beforehand what was necessary. They might never have undertaken the project.
In the excitement of rodeo day, even Leeann stopped thinking about having to leave that weekend. Attracted by the colorful signs and strings of balloons and streamers, guests from the ranch lined the ring. A stiff breeze made the sun's heat pleasurable.
Several families Leeann didn't know arrived with their special-needs children. From the quick course of training Mrs. Childs had given the volunteers, Leeann could identify two wheelchair-bound girls as having cerebral palsy. Mrs. Childs had said the next step in the program was to include wheelchair-bound kids. Leeann was sorry she wouldn't be around to see how that would go.
The three rodeo contestants arrived in costume. Joey was dressed as a jockey in red and green riding silks. Little Brent was Superman, with a red cape, blue tights and shirt, and a red S on his narrow chest. Barbara was a princess, a pretty one, if a little awkward in her movements. Ail three children wore their regulation hard-topped riding hats.
Alan and Zach had on cowboy hats and boots and wore the red bandannas Mrs. Childs had purchased to identify the volunteers. Leeann was wearing a straw hat since she didn't own a cowboy hat. Joy looked like a Barbie doll in her white stetson and a white western shirt. But Kristen had a red and white bicycle helmet to go with her red bandanna.
"I wanted the kids to see me wearing safe headgear for riding even if it looks weird," Kristen said.
"You don't look weird and you're right," Leeann told her. "I'll go borrow Hanna's motorcycle helmet."
"No, don't leave now." Kristen grabbed her arm. "It looks like Mr. Holden's starting us off on time. I hope nothing goes wrong. I hope our kids don't fall off or cry. I didn't sleep last night thinking about all the things that could go wrong."
Leeann laughed. "It's going to be great," she said.
At that moment Zach appeared beside her. Something sad about his eyes made Leeann ask, "How's your mother doing now that she's out of the hospital?"
"Not too bad. She smiled at me this morning."
"Good," Leeann said. She hoped his mother had lots of smiles left in her for Zach.
Mr. Holden had climbed on top of a picnic table in the center of the ring. He spoke through a bullhorn as he explained what a therapeutic riding program was. He said he was proud that Lost River Ranch was involved in this very special rodeo, first of its kind in the area, maybe the first of its kind anywhere for all they knew. He asked the audience to begin by giving the contestants—none of whom had been on a horse until a couple of months ago—a big hand. The audience clapped and whistled enthusiastically.
"All rodeo riders are required to walk their mounts around the ring and return to starting position," Mr. Holden said, and then sounding like a real ringmaster, he announced, "And here comes our first rider, happy cowboy Joey Childs, riding Sassy."
Joey, as the most experienced rider among the special-needs kids, rode in on Sassy without a leader. Joy and Leeann were his sidewalkers. He waved grandly at the audience with one hand and held onto his saddle horn with the other. "Hi, hi, hi!" he yelled happily.
"Hi," the audience chorused back, as ebullient as the balloons and flags tossing in the breeze over their heads.
Into the ring following Joey came Brent, who had flopped backward in the saddle so he was lying along the horse's back. Kristen was talking at him determinedly as she walked alongside him. His mother was on the other side of him, and Hanna was leading the horse.
"Sit up, Brent. Can't you sit up? You're on parade," Kristen begged in dismay. But the audience, thinking Brent was doing some kind of trick, cheered and clapped for him warmly.
Barbara came next. She sat beautifully straight-backed, gripping the saddle horn and smiling proudly with Zach and Alan on either side of her like courtiers, and her mother leading the horse.
"Nice job, princess," someone in the audience yelled and someone else whistled. Barbara laughed out loud.
The next event was the rings. Each rider had to approach Leeann, who held a ring up where it could be reached easily. When Barbara's hand didn't connect with the ring, Leeann slipped it onto her wrist. Then each rider had to direct his or her horse to the other side of the corral, where Mr. Holden received the rings and thanked each child.
Brent sat up on his horse this time, but he wouldn't let go of his ring no matter how Kristen tried to persuade him to. Mr. Holden finally had to let him keep it. Kristen looked as if she might burst into tears.
Joey, with just Joy as his sidewalker and no leader, managed to walk Sassy around a barrel and under a string of balloons for the next event.
He was supposed to be the only contestant, but Barbara wanted to go too, so she was allowed to try it. She walked her horse twice around the barrel and nearly fell off when she suddenly reached up to grab at a balloon. Zach caught her just in time as the audience cried out in alarm.
Carrots figured in the next event. Each child had to dismount onto the mounting block with as little assistance as possible, take a carrot from Leeann, feed it to his horse, then pat the horse and thank it for the good job it had done.
Brent, who had never uttered anything but unintelligble cries as far as Leeann knew, drew himself up straight in the saddle at the mounting block and said, "Ho." Loud and clear.
His horse stopped instantly and Kristen yelled, "Brent, you talked!"
Her excitement alerted the audience to the uniqueness of the happening, and they whistled and clapped. Kristen grabbed Brent when he got off Sassy and hugged him. He pulled away. But then he turned back, and Leeann saw him sign something to Kristen.
"What did he say?" Leeann asked after she'd given Brent his carrot and he'd properly fed his horse.
Kristen was so moved that she had tears in her eyes and could hardly speak. "He said 'I love you,'" she choked out. "It's the only sign I've learned so far."
For the last exercise Zach had labeled one of the big trash barrels "The Wishing Well" and decorated it in bright red crepe paper. He set the barrel in the arena, and Mr. Holden explained through his bullhorn that each child was to whisper a wish to Zach, who'd write it on a slip of paper. Then the child was to lead his horse to the barrel and drop the slip of paper into it.
Barbara whispered something when she had lurched beside her patient pinto to the barrel. "Sure, your wish could come true," Zach told her.
Music had been provided for the final ride out of the arena. As "Happy Trails to You" sounded on the tape deck, each child mounted his horse again and rode it once around the arena and out through the gate.
"Bye, bye, bye," Joey shouted.
Brent went around with his head buried in his horse's mane this time. Nonetheless, the audience called goodbye to him, and Kristen waved shyly at them in his stead.
Barbara was tired. She didn't want to remount her horse. She clung to Alan, so he got on her horse and Zach lifted her up in front of Alan. Alan held the exhausted child in his arms while she waved goodbye at her appreciative audience.
"Bye princess," someone called out. "Bye, bye, bye."
"The rodeo was a smash hit," Enid Childs said to Leeann and Zach as they stood holding the gate to the ring open. "You'll never know how much it did for these kids! It was wonderful. You were wonderful. Thanks." She gave them each a kiss on a cheek.
"Nice lady," Zach said when Mrs. Childs had gone off to where her car was parked. He held out a piece of paper still remaining from the sheet he'd torn up. "One wish left for you, Leeann. What's it to be?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said distractedly. She was watching the people straggling off to their cars, or back to the ranch house, with relief that it was over and satisfaction that it had been a success.
"Well, I know what you wish," he said, and he scribbled something on the paper. "Here, go put it in the wishing well."
She took the folded sheet with a smile and peeked inside it before dropping it into the barrel. "I wish for a horse of my own," he had written for her.
"Did I get it right?" he asked when she returned to him.
She shook her head. "No. Believe it or not, I haven't been thinking about that for a while."
"So what's your wish, then?" he asked.
"That we could all stay as happy as we were this afternoon. The rodeo was a great idea, Zach." She smiled at him.
And that was when he kissed her, soft and sweet.