Sunset Ranch, page 5
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.
ChapterSix
Sweaty and dusty after the chores, I pushed open the screen door to the bunkhouse and hurried toward the kitchen for a drink of water. My mouth was so dry, it felt lined with flannel. The doorway to the kitchen was a brightly lit square in the dimness of the main room, and the sound of voices and clattering dishes issued from the opening. “Miguel,” I called, leaning over the service counter, “can I come in and get—”
I stopped short, the words still in my mouth. Zach was standing at the long stainless-steel prep table, an apron around his neck, kneading a huge pile of dough. Nora stood beside him, wearing those plastic-bag gloves, scooping handfuls of the dough as Zach kneaded it, rolling it into discs.
“Nice apron.” I grinned at Zach, recovering myself. “I thought you were scrubbing water troughs.”
“I was, but Nora needed a volunteer for these tortillas. I was the natural choice, of course.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, of course.” He had a dab of flour on his cheek and more in his hair. “Miguel, do you mind if I get a glass of water?”
Miguel nodded from his post at the eight-burner stove, where he was sautéing beef and onions together. The aroma made me want to go over there and stuff it all in my mouth with my hands.
I eyed Zach as I took a glass from the cupboard. His hair was tousled boyishly, and the apron contrasted with his tanned, muscled arms.
I wandered over and leaned on the counter as Nora handed Zach the rolling pin. “Here now, Zachary, enough of the lesson. You try it.”
“You both just want to see me mess up.” He took the pin, holding it like a club. “I’m outnumbered here.”
I giggled but then stopped as he deftly rubbed flour on the rolling pin, then flattened a scoop of dough with his palm and rolled it flat with a few swift strokes. Nora raised her eyebrows. “Zach, you don’t have too much to learn. Here I was, giving you a lesson for half an hour, and I can see you already know plenty.” She laughed and pushed the bowl toward him. “You two finish this up. The delivery truck is here anyway.” She walked toward the back, chuckling.
An apron flew through the air, hitting me in the face. “Hey!” I pulled it from my head.
“Stop slacking off, McKinley. I need an assistant.” He tossed a ball of dough lightning quick, and I just managed to catch it.
“Are you playing with your food?” I threw it back and slipped the apron over my head, then stared at the pile of dough. “Okay, so what do I do with this?”
“Just knead it.” Zach rolled out another tortilla.
I gave the dough a tentative punch with my fist. “Like this?”
“What, are you mad at it? Here.” He pressed the heels of his hands into the dough and tromped them up and down.
I tried the tromping motion too, but apparently I wasn’t doing it right, because Zach sighed and shook his head. “Dude, you need to put some muscle into it.” He leaned over my shoulder and covered my hands with his. My pulse zoomed up at his closeness, but I tried not to stiffen up. His hands were much bigger than mine, the skin of his forearms darker. I could feel the muscles of his chest pressing against my upper back. And I could smell him too—a cedary scent, like some kind of soap.
His hands pressed down on mine, much harder than I had been pressing. “There, see? You have to really get into it.” He took his hands away and looked toward the doorway, running the back of his hand over his forehead. I looked down at the dough, trying to calm my breathing.
Miguel switched on the vent fan, and the background noise helped me recover myself. I flopped the dough over and started dividing it into smaller balls. Zach began on another tortilla, his hands flying. “All right, so confess. How come you know how to do this?” I nodded at his deft movements.
He shrugged with one shoulder. “My mom had a little café in Charleston when I was like ten—just for a couple years.” A rueful expression crossed his face. “We were between stepfathers.”
“What was it like?” I rolled a wad of dough between my palms. “The café, I mean. Not being between stepfathers.”
He dipped into the flour canister at his side. “It was actually outside of Charleston, on Johns Island. But it’s super country out there.”
“Like cows and corn and stuff ?” I handed him a dough ball.
He laughed and shook his head. “Like little cabins from a hundred years ago, falling over, with huge vines growing all over them. And these trees—they’re called live oak trees; they don’t don’t have them up here—with giant branches that make kind of a canopy over the road and the fields. It gets really, really hot and super humid and the bugs are just huge. And the neighbors used to burn their trash in the drainage ditches by the side of the road, so there’d be fire on both sides of your car when you drove past.” He stopped to take a breath.
“Wow.” I stared at him, my hands still. “You must miss it.” I remembered the dough and began another pile of balls.
He nodded. “Yeah. I miss the food, too.”
“Which? What was the best food in your café?”
“Probably the green beans. My mom would do them with onion and bacon, and she’d simmer them all morning. Once, when I was little, I snuck in and ate the whole pot. She was so mad I thought she was going to throw me right out the door.” He laughed, his face alight.
I laughed too. “You bad little boy. I once ate a whole bowl full of sugar.”
“Are you kidding?” He added another tortilla to the growing stack at his elbow.
“I’m not! My mom was super strict about sugar, and I wasn’t allowed to have any. So I snuck over to my friend Damien’s house next door one day when I was supposed to be taking a nap and just ate huge fistfuls. I finished the whole bowl before they found me. Here. This is the last.” I gave him the final few dough balls, then leaned my elbows on the table as he rolled them out. “I’m starving.”
“Here.” Zach held out an uncooked tortilla.
“Ew, no thanks.” I wrinkled my nose.
“Dude, it’s good.” He bit off half. “Dan used—” He stopped suddenly, and a grimace passed over his face.
“Who’s Dan?” I reached out and took the other half of the tortilla from his hand, stuffing it into my own mouth. He was right—it wasn’t too bad. Like un-sweet cookie dough. “Who’s—” I stopped. His mouth was drawn, and the light had gone out of his face.
“My brother.” His voice was oddly muffled. He looked down fixedly at the stack of tortillas.
“Oh.” I was about to ask him where his brother was, but before I could, Zach grabbed a baking sheet from under the counter.
“These can go in the oven.” He started shoveling the tortillas onto it without meeting my eyes. “So, that was awesome this morning, with the horses.”
I sensed he was trying to change the subject. “Yeah. It really was. Thanks for speaking up like that. Jack and Rick weren’t even listening to Stephen or me.” I studied his face. He didn’t want to talk about his brother—that much was clear. Why, though? What was the secret?
“Well, it was stupid not to give him a chance. He can do it. He’s a good horse. You can see it in his face.” He opened the oven and a puff of heat hit us. Zach leaned away and slid in the baking sheet.
“You can. And he has such a pretty mane, too. I found some detangler this morning—I was going to comb it out. I could braid it too—I learned at my old barn.”
“Whoa, Nellie. All the other horses will make fun of him.” He grinned at me, the teasing light back in his face.
“He’ll look cute.” A timer dinged somewhere, and Nora hurried back in, with Miguel close behind.
“Where are the tortillas?” she asked, looking around.
Zach nodded toward the oven. “I couldn’t stop Chloe once she got started. She was like a tortilla-making machine. Seriously, I couldn’t hold her back. She had all those puppies rolled out in like five seconds.”
“He’s such a liar,” I told Nora. “All I did was knead. He did the rest.”
“Don’t believe her! She should be on kitchen duty the rest of the summer—she’s like a professional chef!”
