Rodeo time! At last!
Rusty shone like a new quarter, bright in the morning sun, as I saddled him. I’d brushed him for an hour yesterday evening and said goodnight with strict instructions not to get dirty. Talking to your horse can have great benefits – well, if the horse listens better than Twilight anyway. She looked like a dirt ball, as if she’d rolled in the muddiest places on purpose. And maybe she had. I’d told her last night that she wasn’t coming to the rodeo with us, and she’d been enormously peeved about it. The knowledge that Tumpoo was staying home too made no difference to her mood. Neither did the facts that she didn’t like being around a lot of people and she’d have to spend a lot of the day tied up if she went. If Rusty and I were going, she wanted to go too, plain and simple.
With intermittent yawns, Mom saddled Cocoa. She was riding with me as far as Kestrel’s ranch to make sure that Kestrel’s parents, Seth and Elaine, knew I had to be home that night before sunset. When I rushed back inside the barn to say my goodbyes to Tumpoo and Twilight, Tumpoo bawled because he wanted out now and Twilight turned her bum toward me.
Riding away from the cabin and barn, I tried once more. I am sorry, Twilight, but you would not like it. Honestly.
Do not talk to me.
Yikes, she was really mad. I’d have to find some way to make it up to her later. Right now, all I wanted to think about was having the best day of my life – or best day so far!
The ride to Kestrel’s went quickly with no Twilight or Tumpoo to wait for, go find, rescue, or check on. The only unusual thing that I sensed was the mustang stallion, but the far reaches of my hearing told me that he was grazing calmly in a meadow and seemed satisfied enough to stay there.
When we were a quarter mile from Kestrel’s house, Mom reined Cocoa to a walk. Rusty slowed to match her pace, and when Mom stopped Cocoa, Rusty stopped too.
“Just a second,” Mom said, then fell silent.
I waited, impatient for her to speak. She seemed to be having trouble forming the words. More serious talk. Great.
My bad feeling grew as seconds ticked past and she remained quiet. The only thing I could think and hope and pray was that she hadn’t changed her mind about the rodeo.
“About what we were talking about the other day.” Another pause. “The boarding school. In Vancouver.” She almost choked when she said the word Vancouver.
Incredible! My miracle was going to happen. Mom was going to give me permission to go!
“You wouldn’t really like it,” Mom said.
I blinked. That didn’t sound like permission.
“I know you. You’d hate it. All the rules and schedules and being monitored all the time. Controlled every second.”
This sounded suspiciously like what I’d told Twilight last night. And I reacted just as Twilight did. “Maybe I’d love it more than anything.” I know that sounds obstinate, but really, how could she know I’d hate it? Had she ever been to boarding school? Well, maybe she had – I didn’t know – but even so, even if she was right and I wouldn’t like it, shouldn’t I make that decision for myself?
“You love it here. Or I thought you loved it here anyway, with or without Kestrel.”
“I do love it here, Mom,” I said, my voice more exasperated than I intended, “but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like a chance to be a normal person once in a while.”
“Is it really that terrible, having an unusual life?”
Okay, so there was no answer for that… or maybe there was. “I don’t know. Since I’m not normal, since I haven’t ever had a normal life, how can I know if I’d like to be normal?” I threw my hands up to accentuate my point and Rusty snorted. “I don’t even know what normal is,” I said with vehemence, then cut to the master stroke. “And I’m probably going to be weird my whole life because of growing up isolated from everyone except Kestrel, who now is leaving for her normal life, by the way. So what chance do I have of ever fitting in? No chance. I’m a weirdo, a total misfit – because of you.”
Mom looked like I’d slapped her, which made me feel like crawling under a rock. But I couldn’t back down. Not now. Not when she was so adamant about controlling every aspect of my life.
“We better get going,” I said, trying hard to make my voice a bit softer. Maybe she’d know I felt sorry for being so mean without my actually saying it.
Mom just nodded and turned Cocoa. Five minutes later, we were riding into Kestrel’s yard.
Twitchy was tied to the hitching post by the barn, saddled and looking like she’d resigned herself to stand there forever as Kestrel tried to force her mane to lie to the left side of her neck. Mom rode toward where Seth stood beside the truck, looking at his watch, and I turned off to help Kestrel. I already knew that her parents and two sisters were going in the truck. Kestrel and I wanted to ride our horses to the rodeo instead. We thought it would be more fun to have Rusty and Twitchy there, plus we had an ulterior motive.
“Hey,” said Kestrel and smiled up at me, then looked at Twitchy’s mane and grimaced. A line appeared on her forehead. “Mom says it’s impossible. No one has ever been able to tame Twitchy’s mane.”
“She looks cute that way anyway,” I said, and she did. The bay mare had a rumpled, huggable look to her, like a comfy grandma horse.
Kestrel stood back and eyed her handiwork, then shook her head. “I give up.” She slipped the bridle onto the mare’s head. Moments later, she was in the saddle, scowling down at Twitchy’s mane. “It looks even worse now.” She poked at the hair standing up like a rooster’s tail.
“Just push it back to the right side,” I suggested.
Kestrel leaned forward to shove the errant black mane to the right – and it stuck out straight to the side. I couldn’t help but laugh, and moments later Kestrel was laughing too.
“We can stop by a creek on the way and wet it down,” I said.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
I yelled goodbye to Mom and waved, knowing she’d motion me to come over and then proceed to give me every instruction and caution she’d already told and retold to me over the last few days. When she just waved back – and a tiny wave at that – I felt horrible. She wasn’t even going to lecture me again? Didn’t she care?
I was about to go over anyway, thinking she’d feel better if she had the opportunity to tell it all to me again, when Elaine and Kestrel’s older sisters, Mya and Nova, came out of the house.
“Hello, Laticia,” Elaine said. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind about coming?”
Mom turned her attention to Elaine, and knowing our opportunity to talk was over, I reined Rusty toward the big ranch gates. Then Kestrel and I were high-tailing it out of there.
We slowed to a ground eating lope when we were out of sight of the house. In less than two hours, we’d be at the rodeo. Butterflies battered the inside of my ribcage, making me feel totally sick with excitement.
Within ten minutes, Kestrel’s family drove past us. I was extra glad we’d taken the horses as they honked and waved and disappeared around the corner in front of us. I needed time to prepare myself for all the noise and excitement of the day. I’d only ever been to town twice in my whole life – no, I’m not lying. Once was with Kestrel and her family, and the other time was with my Mom and Kestrel. Both times I went to the General Store, and once even bought a candy bar – oh wonder of wonders!
But never, ever had I been to a rodeo, or any other event, for that matter. I’d never seen or heard a crowd, though I’d certainly imagined them. The noise was going to be fantastically cool and energizing. There would be more than a couple of people talking at once. There’d even be cheering and yelling and whooping and clapping. Kestrel had told me about the rodeo announcer and how he’d probably be telling bad jokes and hamming things up with the rodeo clown. And there might even be music. That would be awesome. Except for my own off-key singing, which doesn’t really count, and Kestrel’s CD player, I’d never even heard music. Unbelievable and beyond bizarre, I know.
And not only would there be a ton of cool human things going on today, there’d be lots of horse happenings too. Just thinking about it all made me want to hurry. I asked Rusty to go a bit faster and he drew abreast of Twitchy. Kestrel grinned over at me and then both horses moved into a gallop. Twitchy even had her ears forward. We all wanted to get there. I felt like I’d been waiting my entire life to do this one thing. This was my launch into the real world. And it could only lead to being allowed to do more things, go to more events, have more social adventures. Oh, yeah!
The town was hopping with activity. People, horses, and dogs were everywhere. Kestrel seemed to know everyone as we rode through the streets toward the rodeo grounds. I echoed her “hi” to everyone and grinned until my cheeks ached. Everyone looked at me like they were trying to figure out who I was, but I didn’t care. I could hear the beat of distant music – yes! – and as we came closer, yelling and cheering. The sun beat down, hot and sultry. Not a cloud in the sky. Life, in this moment, was perfect. Or almost. Horse emotions slipped into my mind like water, filling it up, drowning my ability to listen to people. I wanted to listen to the horses too and especially didn’t want to close Rusty out, but as we got closer the voices and emotions became louder and more insistent. Then, as I guessed would happen, I felt my first wave of dizziness. Feelings are much more powerful and consuming than mere human speech.
Regretfully, I used my old trick – I closed the door on my horse sense, or almost. I left it open a crack so I could hear Rusty’s voice. I’d still be able to sense the strongest emotions too, though they would be muted. And I’d be able to sense any other horses with the ability to think in abstract thought, like Rusty. There wouldn’t be many, if any. Most horses are purely and beautifully emotional creatures.
I reached out to touch all that I could hear with my diminished sense, so I knew what I’d be dealing with – and there were only three more abstract thinkers in the hundred or so horses at the rodeo. One was with the broncos and another was a young colt, a yearling. The third was barely there; its conscious thoughts were fuzzy as though muddied or far away. Or groggy maybe. You know that feeling when you sleep too long? I’d never felt that from a horse before, and it seemed strange. But with only those three and Rusty to hear, I’d be able to concentrate on what the humans around me were doing and saying, no problem. Awesome!
When we reached the rodeo grounds, we rode straight to the competitor’s entrance. This was the one secret I’d kept from my mom. We’d brought our horses for another reason. Yeah, it would be more fun to have them here, but we’d also entered them in the horse games that were to be held after the main rodeo events were over. At three o’clock, the fun for the kids would begin. There was the Barrel Race, even though they had a separate race for the professional Barrel Racers with the rodeo, plus four other events: Pole Bending, Stakes, Scurry, and the Egg and Spoon Race.
I hadn’t known about the games until last week when Kestrel came to visit, so I’d only had time to practice one event, the Barrel Race. It had the most prize money – one hundred dollars, donated by a local business – so that was the one we practiced. I still wanted to enter Rusty in all the other games too though, just for fun.
Kestrel and Twitchy were pros at the games. Last year they’d won both the Pole Bending and the Stakes. Twitchy had competed with both of Kestrel’s sisters when they were younger, and from what I’d heard, she’d been good too.
Inside the competitors’ compound, we greeted about a billion strangers – or they were strangers to me anyway – and then found a shady spot for the horses. They were still a bit hot from the gallop in, so we unsaddled them and then went to find Kestrel’s truck. In the back, we measured oats into buckets, and after Rusty and Twitchy were contentedly munching away and we’d hauled some water for them, we walked over to the arena to watch the rodeo.
“Hey, Evy! Kestrel!”
I spun around. No one knew me here, so who could be calling my name? Kestrel’s elbow found my ribs as we both spied Jon walking toward us. I urgently hoped and wished and desired that – please, please – my face wasn’t as red as it felt.
“Hi, Jon,” said Kestrel, in her teasing voice.
“Hi,” I said, wishing I could think of something witty and brilliant to say.
“When did you get here?”
Okay, so he wasn’t saying anything exceptionally bright either. Maybe I was okay. “Just barely,” I said and pointed. “Our horses are over there.”
Jon looked over at Rusty and Twitchy. “Oh no, you brought Twitchy,” he said.
“You bet. And I’m going to totally beat you this year. Again.” Thankfully, Kestrel was gloating now, something she preferred to teasing.
“I don’t know. She’s getting old,” said Jon. “And I’ve been working with Coal.” Coal was Jon’s black gelding. I’d met him a few months ago and he seemed like a kind, surefooted horse, but not overly racy. Not that Twitchy was any speed demon.
“I’m entering this year too,” I volunteered.
“Oh great,” Jon said, dismayed. “Maybe I should…” His voice trailed off as he looked at us, obviously wondering if he should tell us something. I couldn’t help but think how cute he looked when he felt confused. “Come with me,” he finally said. “I want to show you something.”
We followed Jon as he weaved his way through the other competitors and their trailers and horses.
Hello, human girl.
I almost jumped out of my skin. I turned to see a paint yearling tied to a trailer. He was looking at me.
Hello, human girl, he repeated.
Hello, I replied hesitantly. Other than Rusty and Twilight, I’d never had another horse speak to me. And I hadn’t even spoken to this one first. How did he know I could hear him?
Water.
I walked over to him and looked down at his bucket. It was empty. Sure, I said.
Over there. An image popped into my head of a water pump near the trees where Rusty and Twilight lounged.
I know, I said, a little peeved that he thought I was stupid. Be right back. I picked up his bucket and fetched his water, thinking about how bizarre it was. This little yearling must be a protégé of language, a horse genius. And he thought I was his slave because I could hear his commands.
His owner was brushing him when I got back with the water. The man looked at me, perplexed, when I put the water in front of the colt – who wasted no time plunging his nose into the cool liquid.
“Sorry,” I said to the man. “He just looked thirsty.” I heard a sniggering snort from the colt. He thought this was funny. “He’s a beautiful colt,” I added, backing up.
“Uh, thanks,” the guy said, still staring at me like I was an alien or something.
“Evy, there you are. Come on!” Kestrel grabbed my arm and pulled me away. We passed people doing things and looking busy, and horses relaxing and not speaking to me – thank goodness – and then came to the other side of the competitors’ area.
Jon was running his hands down the slender legs of a tall chestnut mare. A grumpy man looked on as Kestrel and I stood silently, waiting. Finally, Jon straightened.
“Give me a minute,” he said to the man and the three of us walked away. Out of earshot, we stopped and huddled.
“So what do you think?”
“About the horse?” I asked, like a genius.
“Of course, about the horse.”
“She looks fine to me.”
“Me too,” added Kestrel. “But isn’t that a Three Bar Hoop brand on her? I heard that their horses are crazy.”
“Just high strung and sensitive,” Jon said defensively, then he sighed. “But I know what you’re saying. She’s cheap, so there might be something wrong with her. Maybe she’s really high strung and sensitive.”
“In other words, crazy,” said Kestrel.
“If that’s the case,” I interjected, glad that I finally had something smart to say. “It’s good to try her in a stressful place, like here, before you decide.”
Jon nodded. “You’re right.”
Slowly, we walked back to the man. Jon stopped in front of him. “I’ll take her if you let me try her out today. If I like her, I’ll give you the full amount.”
The man grinned. “It’s a deal.” He held out his hand and Jon shook it.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Jon said to the guy, who didn’t look so grumpy now.
“I need to tie Coal somewhere cool, since he’s just going to be waiting around today,” Jon explained as soon as we left the mare.
“Why don’t you put him with our horses?” I offered, refusing to look at Kestrel as I said this. No doubt she’d think I was flirting.
“Good idea,” said Jon, a little too quickly. “It’s nice and shady over there and he’ll like the company.”
We reached the black gelding and I stroked his neck as Jon untied him. He really was a nice horse. In some ways, he was like a younger version of Rusty, kind, smart, and very steady.
Kestrel and I walked on one side of Coal and Jon on the other, as we led him to where our horses waited. Halfway there, Kestrel leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You two are so cute together.”
I thought about slugging her, but that would’ve been too obvious. Instead, I decided to be a grown up, and you know, act mature. I looked around Coal’s head at Jon. “How come you want another horse?” I asked. “You’re not going to sell Coal, are you?”
“Never. I need another cow horse. I got a job working cattle over the summer and Coal gets pretty tired when I take him out every day.” We reached the fence and he tied the gelding’s lead rope so he had plenty of slack. “The ranch where I work doesn’t have any horses to spare.”
“I wish we had a good horse for sale,” said Kestrel, “but we only have three. Twitchy, and Mom and Dad’s horses.”
“And we only have Rusty and Mom’s horse, and Twilight, who’d be supremely ticked off if I even thought of selling her.” Jon looked at me strangely, and I clamped my mouth shut. What a weird thing to say. Mom really did need to let me out in public more often so I could get some practice talking to people.
“Twilight’s a little independent,” Kestrel explained, taking pity on me. “Hey, we should go watch some events. You coming, Jon?”
“In a while. I want to spend some time with the mare first. I might bring her over here to meet Coal too.”
“Okay. Catch you later.”
Kestrel grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the rodeo arena.
“I’m so stupid,” I moaned, once out of Jon’s earshot. “Everything I say is dumb.”
“No way. You did fine. Besides, you don’t like him, so what do you care?” Kestrel laughed, knowing she had me.
I nodded, hoping that what Kestrel said was actually true and that Jon didn’t think I was too weird. A little oddness might be okay, but not too much.
The saddle bronc event was in full swing when we arrived. We found seats on the bleachers and joined the yelling, cheering mass of humanity watching the horses and cowboys battle it out in the arena. Some cowboys were thrown, but most rode the eight seconds they were supposed to. The horses sure could buck! It made me nervous about the first time I’d ride Twilight. I’d have to get her to promise me she wouldn’t buck before I got on her. There was no way I could ride like these guys.
I felt a sudden and intense increase of butterflies hammering against my stomach walls – and then the gate swung open and a big bay pounded the dirt.
Head down, tuck, and heels snap up. Spin around. Pitch right. Pitch right again. Man thinks right again, so straight up, kick, hang left! Wham!
The unlucky cowboy soared through the air like he’d been shot from a catapult. He landed in a poof of dust as the bay started his victory buck across the arena, the two pick-up men right behind him. As the cowboy regained his feet, he moved as if every muscle, bone, and sinew in his body ached.
The bay finished his victory pass, then suddenly bored of the whole procedure, allowed the men on horses to believe they were herding him toward the exit gate. As he passed the cowboy he’d thrown, who was still leaving the arena, I could feel his smugness. He’d totally won. Ha! I almost laughed out loud when I felt his merriment, but thankfully, remembered just in time that there were other people around who could actually hear me.
We watched the steer wrestling and the bareback broncs, and when the calf roping began, went to grab a late lunch. My first burrito! Jon joined us on the grass near the concession booth and told us that all the horses were resting, including the mare – though of course I already knew that from Rusty.
Jon was pretty happy that his potential new horse seemed so calm. As we talked and laughed and I ate my burrito, I felt the smart colt who had earlier demanded water looking for me. He was bored and wanted me to come entertain him. Great. I hoped that he didn’t realize he could call me from a distance, or I’d never hear the end of him. I wanted to relax and have fun, not be a slave to another demanding youngster – I got my fill of that at home with Twilight.
“Bull riding is next, folks,” the announcer said, and then continued to give details which I didn’t bother listening to.
“Come on, Evy. You have to see this. It’s, well, it’s bull riding,” said Kestrel, jumping up.
“You’re so eloquent,” I teased, but I was right behind her as we three and the others who’d been eating rushed toward the bleachers.
The bull riding was everything I’d expected it to be, but more terrifying. One cowboy got his hand stuck in the straps, and after the bull threw him, he flopped around on the bull’s side like a rag doll. The bull wouldn’t allow the pick-up men and horses near him, so they couldn’t help the poor guy. It wasn’t until the clown ran in front of the bull, flashing a big striped umbrella, that the bull was distracted enough for one of the pick-up men to run his horse alongside, reach down and jerk on the strap, and thus free the bull rider.
Another cowboy was almost trampled after being thrown. The only thing that saved him was that he hit the dirt near the fence and scrambled up the rails a millisecond before the snorting, stomping dragon reached him. One bull tried to gore his fallen cowboy. He rolled the man along with his horns a bit, then was distracted by the clown – and the cowboy jumped up and ran to the fence as if the devil was right behind him. The crowd loved it, every second. And except for a heart-seizing moment or two or three, I did too. Even the bulls looked like they were having a great time; I guess it was the perfect way to get out their aggressions. The only creatures that didn’t seem happy were the cowboys who lost, but they knew what they were getting into when they signed up. So as long as they weren’t hurt, I couldn’t feel too sorry for them.
And then the last bull unseated his cowboy, chased him, caught him and gave him a toss, and then decided to go snort at the crowd. He ran along the other side of the fence, all red and vicious and watching us with his little black eyes – I’m sure he wished he could gore us all – and then the pick-up men ran him out of the arena and the rodeo was over.
Game time!