4. Dalton #2
“We found you some boots,” Lucas said. “Maybe you could stick around for a while. After the excitement of this morning, we’ve got a trail ride planned before it gets hot.”
“Come with us, Mr. Gayle,” Dillon and Cameron said in unison. “It’ll be cool.”
“It’s Dalton.” I didn’t add that they both knew, as did Lucas, that horses weren’t my thing.
“Yeah, Mr. Dalton,” they said together, smiling wide because everything was a big joke to them.
Except maybe it wasn’t. They’d gotten this far. They deserved to go farther. Maybe I could be an example of how to go about doing something that scared you.
“Okay,” I said. “Please give me the gentlest horse you’ve got.”
We went back to the bunkhouse so we could get ready.
I slathered on sunscreen, made the boys put some on as well, arranged the waist of my jeans, sans belt, and pulled on thicker socks before tugging on the boots.
The heel was slightly stacked, so I was taller inside of a heartbeat, and I felt pretty confident as we crossed over to the barn, where horses were already groomed and saddled up.
I didn’t want to mention again that I was scared and needed the gentlest of gentle horses. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself that way.
But mentally I had my fingers crossed, and I stood in the open doorway to the barn, watching the way the sunlight fell into the space with gleeful abandon. The way the light sparkled with flecks of hay and barn dust. The way it came through the slats of wood in golden beams.
They started leading the horses out. Their hooves kicked up dust in lazy, calm puffs. The horses were tied to the paddock rails, and cowboys helped the teens to mount up, standing close to adjust stirrups and show the novice riders how to hold their reins.
I was still waiting for a horse and thought for a second that they’d run out and I’d be off the hook.
But no. Jake emerged, leading a light brown horse with a black mane and tail.
The horse went where Jake wanted it to and nowhere else.
Which was directly up to me, only a whisper of a space between me and the horse’s shoulder as Jake tied it to the rail.
All warmth and movement and muscle. The smell of leather. Of hay and horse.
“This here’s Buddy,” he said slowly. Not for his benefit, but for mine. “He’s a dun-colored gelding. Sweet as sugar, and comfortable as a rocking chair.”
As I looked up into Jake’s eyes, I knew he meant what he said by the serious way he looked at me.
By the way he stood there, his hand on Buddy’s neck, waiting for me to decide if I was going to chicken out or not.
But no, he didn’t know I was afraid of horses, did he?
So I decided, with a gulp, that I was going to go through with this crazy idea of Lucas’.
“Okay,” I said boldly. Then I lowered my voice. “How do I get on?”
He didn’t blink, or show dismay, or anything to indicate that he thought I was an idiot. “We could fetch you a mounting block.”
I nodded. I’d seen those in movies about cowboys and tenderfeet. I guessed I was the tenderfoot in this scenario.
“Or I could make a stirrup of my hands and help you.”
“Stirrup,” I said, breathy as my air left me all of a sudden.
He bent forward a little bit, giving me a good view of his strong neck. The hard line of his chest where his shirt had fallen open. He made a cup of his hands, fingers laced together. The paper towel was gone, and his right hand had a rough red line running across his palm.
I hesitated, not wanting to put the dusty sole of my boot on that raw flesh. He looked up at me and shook his head, then resettled his hands together.
“It’s fine,” he said. “It happens. Now, let’s get you settled so you and Buddy can join the others.”
The rest of the riders were already in a line, waiting for me beneath the bright, sunshiny sky, a fine midmorning on a beautiful summer’s day.
“You don’t have a hat,” he said, like I was already astride and he was just making conversation. “But you’ll be okay. It’s just a short ride. To the ridge and back.”
I didn’t know how far that was, but the idea of it, that specific distance, gave me a distraction as I put my hands around the saddle horn and put my left foot in the well of his locked palms.
He was strong. He shot me into that saddle with seemingly no effort at all. The saddle was slippery enough that it felt like I was going over the other side.
Jake had his hands on my thigh right away, holding me in place. His fingers were warm. His breath was warm on my wrist. Buddy moved beneath me, stomping as though impatient. Jake patted the gelding’s neck, giving me a minute to settle myself. “All right?” he asked, looking up at me.
It was not all right, and it wasn’t going to be, not until the whole thing was over and I was behind the wheel of my sensible car, driving back to my boring apartment and my ordinary job that paid the bills.
All of which lacked any excitement. Not like right now.
My heart pounded hard beneath my ribs, but I took a deep breath, looked at the smile in Jake’s eyes, and pretended everything was fine.
“Hold your reins like this.” He placed both hands over mine, a warm, solid weight, and did something, switching the way I held the reins. Looped both of the thick leather straps between the ring and pinky finger of my left hand, then draped the two reins across my palm with the ends dangling free.
“Thumb on top,” he said. “You hold the reins in your non-dominant hand, leaving your right hand free for roping, opening gates. Holding a quirt, if you need one. Which you won’t. Not with Buddy.”
I held the reins, getting used to them, feeling stiff and awkward. But Jake went ahead, ignoring my nervousness, and reached underneath my thigh to do something to the stirrup. Something with buckles and flaps.
When he was done, my left leg, my left foot in its borrowed boot, felt a great deal more balanced.
He went around the back of the horse and nonchalantly did the same on my right side.
Then, he patted my thigh, like I was a horse who’d done a good job.
And maybe I didn’t mind the casual intimacy of the touch as I might have done only the day before.
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “Just let Buddy have his head. He’ll follow the others there and back.”
With a gulp, I nodded and kept the reins in my left hand, just where Jake had placed them. The heel of my palm rested on the saddle horn, and I wasn’t going to move it from that spot unless I had to.
“See you back at the barn,” he said. Then, at the last minute, he reached up, took his straw cowboy hat from his own head, and plopped it into my hand.
I put it on, and now my eyes were shaded.
Now I could feel the warmth of Jake’s skin along the slightly damp sweatband.
I was wearing borrowed boots and a borrowed hat, riding a horse that wasn’t mine.
But maybe, for a minute or two, I could pretend I was a real cowboy, just like I’d seen in the movies.