"First day's the roughest," the long-legged brunette, Chelsea, agreed. " 'Specially if you're working with Tam. He's fair but he's tough."
Chelsea was correct on all counts. Tam was tough, he kept moving every minute of the day, and never mind if she had to run to keep up. She would or die trying. Her hands hardened, she grew to enjoy that early-morning grooming, as much for the olfactory gratification that had lured her into this in the first place. The unique fragrance of horse, the tactile sensations of warm flesh under her hands, her growing realization of the individual personalities of the various animals was the reward she had anticipated. And yet… she became increasingly dissatisfied. Horses, horses all around, and not a one for her to ride.
The hands were sent here and there, on the bikes, in the big trucks, on horseback to perform the necessary tasks of the Preserve. She began to resent her very basic duties and was mollified only by the fact that Tambor was treated with great respect by everyone, including the administrators. Not even that trio were called by any titles that she ever heard in the relaxed and informal atmosphere that pervaded the Preserve. Even the exercise facilities in her Residential, where everyone worked to achieve the same goal of physical fitness, were not as casual.
By the first week, Peri had had a chance to orient herself, calling up the Preserve "spread" on the computer in her quarters and memorizing the various areas and the twists and turns of the access roads and track. The Preserve extended over an impressive sector of mountain range and valleys, a bastion of the natural, three hundred square kilometers that were not quite squared, having to take into account the vagaries of mountain contours. She noticed where the base camps and forestry stations and the educational farm were located, separate from the headquarters so that ponderous tour-helis did not disrupt the daily routine or disturb the animals in pasture. She was amazed that some ten thousand horses, cows, sheep, goats, and a small herd of buffalo were resident on the Preserve as well as other small animals and fowl whose natural habitat was this mountainous area.
The main base had once been a dude ranch, Tambor told her, where people would vacation in natural beauty and ride out on long treks. Her quarters had originally been one of the guest accommodations. The mess hall was original, and the barn by the corral as well as the paddock complex. The conditioning barns, the stallion quarters, lab, storage and garage facilities, heli hangar, and the other smaller buildings had been added as need arose.
She had been there two weeks when Monty borrowed her from Tam and started to teach her the fundamentals of bike riding, an experience she found wildly exhilarating and unnerving. Imagine a vehicle that was not voice-activated! Why, it could be dangerous with no single command safeguards for speed, direction, and braking.
"Wal, it's true hosses listen to you, and you tell 'em a lot with your tone of voice," Monty agreed, "but all your experience is closer to mechanical things. Learn to ride this bucking bronco first. You can't do it much harm."
She fell off the mechanical thing several times, stalling, forgetting to shift gears, forgetting to brake in time, although she caught on to steering easily enough. She scraped her elbows and the calves of her legs but she finally managed to put the bike around the obstacle course behind the garage.
"Not bad," Monty said with faint praise as she stripped off the protective helmet and mopped her sweaty face. "Larn the tracks and roads now from the main map. You gotta be able to get anywhere on the spread in an emergency." She was borrowed frequently then, generally about the time she should have been having a brief respite from her work with Tambor. One day she took some tools to one base camp; another, additional lab supplies to the men up at Crooked Canyon who were scoping this year's crop of calves. She fell off twice on the rough roads until she got the knack of watching the terrain ahead of her. She boxed herself when she got back and so no one noticed her new bruises or scrapes.
But her greatest desire - to ride a live horse - seemed as distant as ever.
Whenever she could, she would spend a few moments, hanging over the corral rail, watching the mounts used by the teams: Monty's big Appie, with its spectacular blanket of cream and roan splotches; Chelsea's paint; Barty's dun; Pedro's dappled blue roan. It occurred to her that most of the hands had chosen the sport colors. There were three palominos, two pintos, a leopard spot, three grays - flea-specked, dappled, and iron - two more roans, and the very elegant bright sorrel chestnut she'd seen Tambor on from time to time. Was there some kind of competition to choose the unusual from the breeding herd? They were certainly easily identifiable as they grazed. It was then she noticed that they moved among animals with the more traditional colors, bay, chestnut, brown… and one so dark it was nearly black. She liked it best - for no reason she could have explained.
"Does anyone ever ride these mares?" she asked Tambor as casually as she could when she had been two weeks at the Preserve. She hoped the little quaver in her voice was not too obvious.
"Yup. We break 'em all in case they'd be needed where they're going. Reckon we say hasta la vista to this lot to- morrow!"
"Tomorrow?" She couldn't suppress her surprised and regretful tone.
"Told ya not to get attached to the critters."
Peri swallowed the lump in her throat, patting the neck of the bay mare she'd been grooming.
"There'll be another set in here soon's they rig the stalls," he added. "Git used to it. This's what we're here to do, and do well." Somehow Tambor implied that she, too, had done well, and that eased the pang. "We'll just give 'em a bath 's afternoon on account there won't be no water available fer such nonsense on board." Then he snorted. "Not that they'll like it much 'cause we gotta use debuggers and that stuff stinks."
It did. Halfway through washing twenty mares, Peri could no longer bear the stench and put on a filter mask. Tambor didn't say anything but she felt she had lost his good opinion. She couldn't quite rid herself of the odor even after a long shower and much lather.
"Pugh! Stink! Goldurnit, Tambor, you and Peri sit down at the far end" was the order from the other diners.
"If that's the way you feel about it, we'll raise you one," Tambor said and, with a broad wink for Peri to join him, they moved to the bar to eat their dinner.
"We really do stink," Peri said as she settled herself with her back to the dining room. "I washed real good and I can still smell myself."
"Doesn't last long but I gotta admit it is a powerful stench. But then, it's efficient. Most colonies prefer to leave the parasites back here. Ever think of shipping out?"
"You mean, as a groom?" Peri glanced at him but his expression gave no hint of any ulterior motive for the question.
"Nah, as a settler. Purty li'l gal like you'd do well out there."
"If there were horses," she began tentatively. Tambor grinned at her. "Yore shore gone on horseflesh, ain't you?"
Peri nodded slowly, not able to confide the depth of that fascination to anyone, even to someone like Tambor, who had evidently spent his life with the creatures.
The next day, while Peri did feel the wrench of watching animals she had cared for and grown fond of being shipped out, she was also fascinated by the process. The entire unit of stalls, complete with treadmill and cleansing bars (which would be reattached to appropriate outlets in the cargo hold of the spaceship), were slipped out on well-oiled runners into the maw of the transport.
She, Tambor, and the three handlers who would be traveling with the mares to their new world stood on the center aisle, ready to go to any animal that showed distress. But the mechanical noises had been part of the conditioning and the transfer was so smoothly made that none of the horses demonstrated any strong reaction.