7. Cowboy Lessons #2
Copper moves into the canter smoothly and easy because Copper is a good horse and knows exactly what he's doing. The problem is entirely on my end. I lose the rhythm immediately, grab the saddle horn which I know is wrong.
Overcorrect my balance, overcorrect the overcorrection, and spend approximately fifteen seconds looking like a man trying to solve a very physical math problem at high speed.
Remy makes a noise from the fence that is not a word.
Maisie goes completely silent, which is somehow worse.
Then something shifts. Some combination of muscle memory and desperation and whatever instinct lives underneath. All the book knowledge kicks in and I stop fighting the movement and just. Ride.
Copper's canter is actually exactly what the book described.
Rocking and rhythmic and once I stop arguing with it, genuinely manageable.
We come around the far side of the pen and I find the diagonal and sit into it properly.
My hands soften on the reins and for about thirty seconds everything works the way it's supposed to.
It feels extraordinary.
Not because it's technically impressive. I'm aware it's not technically impressive. But because three weeks ago I had never done a single ranch thing correctly and right now I am cantering a horse around a round pen in Texas and it's working. I didn't get here from a book.
I got here from showing up every morning and doing the work.
Laney calls out from the center of the pen. "Sit deeper. Don't let your weight come forward."
I sit deeper.
"Better," she says. "Now bring him back to the trot."
I bring him back to the trot. Then to the walk. Then I ask Copper to stop and he stops and I sit there for a second breathing and letting my heart rate find its way back to something reasonable.
The fence is quiet.
I look over.
Remy is staring at me with his apple frozen halfway to his mouth like a man whose afternoon has not gone according to plan.
Silas has a very small smile on his face that he's not bothering to hide.
Maisie is on her feet on the second fence rail with both fists in the air like I've just won something significant.
"That's dessert for a week," she announces loudly. "Pay up Remy."
"He grabbed the saddle horn," Remy says, but his heart isn't in it.
"For like two seconds," Maisie says. "That doesn't count."
"It absolutely counts."
"Laney," Maisie calls over. "Does grabbing the saddle horn for two seconds count as falling off?"
Laney has walked up to Copper's head and is checking the bridle with her back partially to me. She's quiet for a second longer than the question requires.
"No," she says. "It doesn't count."
Remy points at her. "You're supposed to be neutral."
"I'm supposed to be his instructor." She looks up at me and there it is again, that thing in her expression that she doesn't always catch in time. "He did the work. That counts for something."
I look down at her from the saddle.
She looks up at me.
Copper shifts underneath us and neither of us moves. The morning sits quiet around the round pen and I think that this is the best I've felt since arriving in Texas.
Maybe longer than that.
We untack Copper together.
It happens naturally, the way things between us have started happening naturally when neither of us is paying close enough attention to stop it.
Laney shows me the proper way to pull the saddle.
I do it without dropping it this time, which is progress from last week when I nearly took out a bucket and Remy's shin in one move.
She checks the horse over while I hang the bridle.
By the time we're done the whole thing has the easy rhythm of something we've been doing together for a long time.
Which we haven't.
That's the part that keeps catching me off guard.
Maisie has dragged Remy toward the barn to show him something she found yesterday. Remy accepts with the resignation of a man who knows arguing with Maisie is a losing proposition. Silas has actually gone back to the fence post he's been pretending to work on all morning. The round pen is quiet.
Just me, Laney and Copper beneath the warm mid morning Texas sun doing its level best to remind everyone who's in charge around here.
Laney runs a brush along Copper's neck in long easy strokes. She does it without thinking, the way she does most things around the horses. Like the motion lives in her hands rather than her head.
She's got her hat pushed back slightly and there's a loose strand of auburn hair against her cheek. I am looking at the bridle I'm hanging up and absolutely not noticing any of that.
"You did good today," she says.
"I grabbed the saddle horn."
"For two seconds. Doesn't count."
"You told Remy it didn't count. That doesn't mean it actually didn't count."
She stops brushing for half a second. Starts again. "It means you stayed on when most people wouldn't have. The grabbing isn't the point. The staying is the point."
I look over at her. She's focused on Copper and her jaw has that set quality it gets when she's said something she wasn't planning to say and is now deciding how she feels about having said it.
"Laney."
"Mm."
"Did you just compliment me?"
"I gave you an instructional observation."
"You said I did good."
"As a rider. In a technical sense."
"You said it twice."
She brushes Copper with slightly more focus than the situation requires. "I say a lot of things. Don't read into it."
I lean against the pen rail and cross my arms, watching her with the patience of a man who has learned that waiting Laney Jenkins out is occasionally more effective than pushing.
She brushes. I wait.
She brushes more. I wait more.
"Fine," she says, without looking up. "You worked hard and you didn't quit and I'm..." She stops. Clears her throat. Starts again. "I'm proud of you. There. That's the thing I said. We're moving on."
The words land somewhere in my chest and stay there.
She is resolutely not looking at me, which is the only reason I let myself smile the way I do for about three full seconds before I put it away.
"Thank you," I say quietly.
"Don't make it weird."
"I'm not making it weird."
"You're smiling."
"You can't even see me."
"I can hear it," she says. "Stop."
Copper leans his big head against her shoulder like he's offering moral support and she pushes him gently away and goes back to brushing. I'm thinking that I would very much like to stay in this moment for considerably longer than is probably wise.
From the barn Maisie's voice carries across the yard. "Dad! Remy says I can name the new calf! Can I name the new calf?"
Laney finally looks at me.
The smile she's been holding back all morning breaks through for just a second. Unguarded, real and aimed directly at me, and it does considerably more damage than the almost kiss in the kitchen did.
Considerably more.
"Go name your calf," she says.
I push off the fence rail and head toward the barn, telling myself very firmly that I am not in trouble.
I am absolutely in trouble.