30. Bonnie
BONNIE
Mercy leans her whole head into the brush, and I decide while I am doing her neck.
Cleo is beside me with a bucket, telling me about a boarder who has bought a saddle before deciding which horse to buy. I hear about half of it.
“She’s staying home,” I say.
Cleo stops. “From Amarillo?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been going back and forth on that since February.”
“I have.” I move the brush down Mercy’s shoulder. “I can teach the session on their horses. Mercy doesn’t need to travel for it.”
“That’s the reason?”
I stop brushing. She waits.
“That’s one. The other is Byers. They’re still buying publicity at the final, and I don’t trust them with a new picture of my horse after what they did with the last ones.”
“And the arena?”
“I’ll be standing in it.” I drop the brush in the bucket. “I want the arena. I want my name on the program and somebody else’s horse in the pen.”
Cleo picks up the bucket. “Then call the woman before you talk yourself out of it.”
I call the education coordinator from the barn door. I tell her Mercy will not travel. I can still teach using the enrolled riders and the suitable horse she offered when I signed on.
“That works,” she says. “I’ll update the session notes and send the change round to the sponsors before the preview.”
I sit down on the mounting block with the phone still in my hand. She accepted the decision as readily as she had promised. I had still expected to have to argue.
Gage’s call comes before I have finished writing down the change. He is at a circuit preview event in town, where I am due later for a brief discussion with the education team. Cleo will stay with Cricket. I tell him Mercy is staying home.
“Your call?” he asks.
“Mine.”
“Good.”
I finish the note and go home to change.
The late-March preview is held in a hotel meeting room, with circuit banners and too much heat.
The circuit has brought sponsors and education staff up from Texas to meet the Colorado riders ahead of the final.
I remember another hotel, another table, and choose a chair near the door because I can.
The coordinator reviews my session with me.
Mercy’s removal is straightforward. My name remains on the program.
Then Tawny arrives with two people from Byers Western.
She sees me at the table and comes over. “The session notes say Mercy’s out.”
“She’s staying in Colorado. I decided this morning.”
“That’s convenient.”
The coordinator looks up. “We have the teaching session covered.”
“I meant for Gage,” Tawny says. “Every time he gets close to the final, something has to become about Bonnie.”
I have Cricket’s clean shirt in my bag because I forgot to take it out. I have spent the morning deciding where my horse works and who gets to photograph her. Tawny is standing in front of me trying to make it an argument about how much attention I want.
“Mercy isn’t entering his division,” I say. “He has his own horse.”
“The campaign was built around that mare.”
“The campaign ended.”
“The audience remembers.”
I stand and pick up my bag. The coordinator hands me the revised session plan.
“I’ll teach the riders you booked,” I tell her. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Tawny steps beside me as I put the paper away. “You could let somebody else make the call for once.”
“I made it. And don’t use the old pictures instead. I haven’t agreed to you using Mercy, or me, or my daughter to sell anything.”
Gage has come up beside us. “You heard Bonnie,” he says to Tawny. “Leave her out of the promotion.”
He asks whether I want to leave, and I tell him I want a cup of tea first.
“She thinks I’m holding Mercy out to interfere with you,” I say.
He looks toward Tawny, then back at me. “She’s wrong.”
“You can still ride.”
“I know.”
I need him to say it plainly, so I ask. “You’re not blaming me if the weekend goes badly?”
“The bay and I are the ones running.”
I take the tea he hands me. We stand together while people move around us.
That evening I go to the barn before dinner. Mercy eats while I check on her. I tell her the schedule has changed, then laugh at myself because she has never cared what a program says.
Cleo finds me by the door. “You all right?”
“I’m going to miss showing her.”
“I know.”