Sunday #2
“I think they could, technically,” Annabelle said. “But they’d probably have to make a bunch of budget cuts. Not that I know about the ranch’s finances. But Mom and Dad keep talking darkly about how if we don’t do something, we’re going to run out of money.”
And then they wouldn’t be able to pay for all the fancy things around here. “I see. Well, having guests makes financial sense, I guess.”
She remembered the recent offer for the ranch and how Uncle Russell had mentioned being cash poor.
Maria had always assumed Grandma Austin had boundless wealth to run a big place like this.
She couldn’t fathom why Dad needed to pay the loan back.
Now she was seeing that when your wealth was tied up in land, it wasn’t easy to do anything with it except sell it.
Still, none of that excused the way Grandma Austin was treating Dad.
She should have come up with some other way to fix her financial problems.
The ranch probably hadn’t been running out of money when Mom was a girl here. What had it been like, back in the day? Maria ought to see if there were any saved family photos from the old days. Maybe there were photos of Mom she hadn’t seen.
“Would you reach me another sandwich, please?” Annabelle’s voice brought her out of her reverie.
The sandwiches were good, if Maria said so herself. And there was plenty for three. Good thing Tim hadn’t come—they wouldn’t have had enough for three girls and a hungry cowboy.
§
After the girls had picnicked and waded in the creek, they took the ATVs and the cooler back to the house. Annabelle was going to teach Maria how to ride. Savannah was going to tag along.
They went down to the lower ranch buildings, and Annabelle led the way to the stables.
“Do you work with guests who are beginners?” Maria asked. A flutter of nervousness tickled through her stomach. A horse could always run away with you, or buck you off.
“All the time,” Annabelle said. “Of course, half the beginners pretend they know all about riding. At this point, I just assume they’re all lying.”
Savannah laughed. “Or they learned to ride from movies.”
Annabelle groaned. “Yeah. They watched a couple western episodes, and now they think they know everything.”
Maria’s ideas about horses were almost entirely from Western episodes. Better not mention that.
The stables were in a long, low barn, open at both ends. The barn smelled like straw and horse manure, reminding Maria of the county fair back home.
“That’s Rocket.” Annabelle motioned to a spotted horse Maria guessed was a pinto. “He’s nervous. Not good for a beginner. Elijah likes him. Then we’ve got Lightfoot and Juliet and Mississippi—his name’s spelled wrong on the board, because Savannah wrote it.”
“I didn’t forget how to spell Mississippi,” Savannah said. “I just wasn’t paying attention to what letters I’d done.”
Maria laughed. “I can see that,” she said. “So which horse should I ride?”
“Down here at the end,” Annabelle said. “Lucky. She’s twenty-eight. She’s nice and slow. We don’t give her heavy work, but she still likes getting out, so I put beginners on her sometimes.”
Lucky—a brown horse, medium-sized—was four years older than Maria. Maybe she’d been at the ranch when Mom had still lived there.
Maria approached slowly. Her only experience with horses was looking at them as they stood in their stalls at the county fair, and she didn’t know how this horse would react to her.
“You can pat her,” Annabelle said. “She won’t be startled. Like I said, we start a lot of beginners on her.”
Annabelle wasn’t so bad sometimes. Maria patted Lucky’s nose gently.
“Don’t be too gentle, or she’ll think you’re a fly landing on her,” Annabelle said. “Why don’t you give her a piece of carrot. Savannah, can you get her saddle?”
Maria did her best to listen and learn from Annabelle’s instructions as she showed her how to brush and saddle Lucky.
“Now let’s go out in the round pen,” Annabelle said. “I’ll show you. Lucky’s a Tennessee Walking Horse, and she’s gaited. That means she won’t bounce you up and down when she trots.”
Finally seated on Lucky, slowly walking around the pen, Maria took a deep breath.
So this was what Mom had grown up with. Although, of course, Mom had been a notable horsewoman, not an adult beginner.
But you had to start somewhere. Maria listened to Annabelle’s instructions and tried to remember to keep her heels down.
Annabelle taught Maria how to get Lucky to walk, stop, turn, and go faster. Thankfully, Lucky didn’t bounce when she trotted. In Ellen Tebbits, a book Maria had read as a kid, there was that one scene where Ellen’s horse kept trotting and it was worse than a spanking.
It was hot in the pen, and Maria was sweating under her helmet, but she didn’t care.
Riding a horse was wonderful. At least, riding a slow elderly horse was wonderful.
She wasn’t sure how she would feel about something faster.
But learning to ride happened one step at a time, just like learning to cook.
§
Maria’s lesson over, the girls were going back to the house when Annabelle’s phone buzzed. She looked at it and exclaimed. “I can’t believe it!”
“What?” Savannah asked.
“Scarlett! You know why she canceled? She went to hang out with Mia Brooks, because the two of them are both planning to compete in the Miss Rodeo Montana pageant this fall!”
“What’s that?” Maria asked.
“Some kind of beauty pageant, maybe?” Annabelle said. “Or a rodeo competition? Or both? I actually don’t know. That’s so rude of Scarlett to cancel! And she didn’t even tell me about the pageant! I had to learn about it on social media! What the heck?”
In high dudgeon, Annabelle marched back to the house, the other girls trailing behind.
“Do you know what the Miss Rodeo Montana pageant is?” Maria asked Savannah.
“Nope. But we could look it up.”
Inside the house, Annabelle was loudly complaining to her mother. The elder adults must have gotten back.
“Let’s not go in there,” Savannah told Maria as they hesitated near the living room doorway. “Let’s go upstairs. I wanna find out what this Miss Rodeo Montana business is.”
“Well, I guess it’s not like we’re spying on Annabelle,” Maria said. “We have a perfect right to look up a pageant we heard about.”
They found a page about it on social media. It seemed that each state in the US had its own competition for Miss Rodeo of whatever state. This event was a combination of the sport of rodeo, a beauty pageant, and a writing competition.
“I can see why Scarlett wants to do it,” Savannah said. “She always rides in the rodeo, and she’s pretty and stylish. She probably has a lot of money too.”
“It sounds awfully rude to cancel her plans with Annabelle because she was going to hang out with somebody else who’s also getting ready for the pageant,” Maria said. “I can understand why she’s upset.”
“Well, it kind of serves her right,” Savannah said. “She doesn’t invite me anywhere. It won’t kill her not to get invited to something once in a while.”
Maria raised an eyebrow.
“I know, I shouldn’t say that,” Savannah said. “I can’t help it sometimes. Annabelle just burns me up. All she thinks about are her friends and how popular she is. She doesn’t give a rip about her younger sister.”
“It would be nice if she spent more time with you,” Maria said. “Does she realize that you feel that way?”
“I don’t know,” Savannah said. “I gave up on her wanting to hang out with me. She only does it when Elijah isn’t around and she doesn’t have anybody else to hang out with. Like today.”
“You want me to talk to her?” Maria asked.
Savannah’s face was dejected. “No. I oughtta talk to her myself, I guess. But I still don’t think it’ll make any difference if anybody talks to her.”
“Well, maybe she’ll realize her sister is nicer to her than her friends that cancel on her.” Possibly it was straw-grasping to say that, but Maria did want to give Annabelle the benefit of the doubt.
“Like that would ever happen,” Savannah said. “Well, come on. It’s pretty quiet downstairs. Let’s see what everybody’s doing.”
Downstairs, Annabelle and her mom huddled over a computer. Annabelle straightened when Maria and Savannah came in, her blue eyes flashing.
“Guess what?” she said. “I’ll show Scarlett and Mia. I’m going to get into that pageant—and I’m going to beat them!”