Twenty
“Well, slide down from there and I’ll saddle him up for you,” Young Bob told her. “I assume you’ll want to use your own saddle?”
She nodded as she slipped from Sundancer’s back. A saddle was a very personal item. She was used to this one and she was comfortable on it.
“Yes, please,” she said. Young Bob started to move towards Sundancer, but Will held up a hand to stop him.
“I think we’ll let Maddie do her own saddling,” he said. “May as well get started the way we mean to continue, and we don’t have any stable hands to help us at the cabin.”
Maddie didn’t mind saddling and bridling the horse. She’d been doing that for several years now. Young Bob hopped away towards the fence and retrieved a rope halter. He slipped it over Sundancer’s neck as Maddie removed the bridle from the Arridan.
“Nice horse,” he said, looking approvingly at Sundancer’s lines. “Got a good turn of speed, these Arridans, and a nice nature too. Pity he’s a gelding.”
Maddie slipped the bridle over Bumper’s head. The little horse actually lowered his head to allow her to do so. She stopped and looked curiously at Young Bob.
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Would have liked to borrow him for a year or so. Use him in our breeding programme.”
“He’s a bit fine in the limbs for a Ranger horse, isn’t he?” Will asked. In the course of his career, he’d unhorsed many armed riders by the simple expedient of having Tug charge headlong into their horses. The Arridan’s legs were too fragile for that sort of behaviour, he thought.
Bob scratched his nose thoughtfully. “Mebbe so. But we could use the speed. Breed him with something a little heavier and you’d get speed and a good solid build as well.”
Maddie had the bit and bridle set now. Bumper moved his mouth open and shut, chewing until he settled the bit into a comfortable position. Maddie quickly unbuckled the saddle and heaved it off Sundancer’s back, turning to carry it to Bumper.
The piebald pushed his neck forward to study the saddle. She felt his warm breath on her hands as he sniffed and snorted at it, his nostrils distending then contracting as he breathed in and out. After several seconds, he straightened up again and shook his head several times, as if giving her his approval.
She set it down, then fetched the saddle blanket from Sundancer’s back. Once again, she allowed Bumper to study it, making sure that he gave it his approval. Then she spread it over his back, setting it smoothly and evenly, without wrinkles. She reached down and, with a slight grunt of effort, she hefted the saddle up and onto his back. Bumper turned his head to eye her curiously. She grinned at him.
“All right?” she asked and he shook his mane several times. She reached under his belly to retrieve the hanging girth strap, then, pushing the saddle flap and stirrup up to expose the buckle end, she passed the girth through the buckle and heaved it tight. She hauled it in one more notch so that the saddle was firmly seated on the horse’s back. She paused, watching Bumper to see if he was going to release any pent-up breath—she’d seen Tug’s little trick when Will was saddling him over the past few weeks. But Bumper had no such guile in him. She patted his neck approvingly and he looked back at her again, moving his head up and down. For a moment, she could have sworn he was trying to speak to her. She shook her head, dismissing the thought.
She pulled the side flap and stirrup back down into position and looked at the two men who were watching her. There was something… expectant in the way they were looking. She glanced from one to another. She had the sensation that they knew something she didn’t.
“Before you mount up—” Young Bob began, but Will quickly cut across him.
“Is there anything you want to ask? Anything you need to know?”
A look passed between the two of them. She cocked her head to one side and smiled. The smile was just a trifle supercilious.
“I have ridden a horse before, you know,” she said.
Will nodded. “So you have.”
“And he looks pretty calm and placid.”
Will pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Calm is accurate. I’m not sure that placid is the correct choice of word.”
She smiled indulgently, looking at Bumper, standing rock steady, without the usual fidgeting that horses often went on with when they had just been saddled.
“Oh, I think it’s pretty accurate,” she said confidently.
Will made a sweeping gesture with his right hand. “Then, if you’re sure, go right ahead.”
She looked at Young Bob and he shrugged. She took the reins in her left hand and turned the stirrup so she could put her left foot into it. As she did so, Bumper turned again to study her. There was something expectant in his expression as well, she thought. Then she shook her head. Horses don’t have expressions, she told herself.
She bounced once on her right toes. She noted that Bumper stood perfectly still for her. Often, a horse would try to sidle away as a rider tried to mount. She nodded at him.
“Good boy,” she said and swung herself easily up and into the saddle.
And all hell broke loose.
Bumper seemed to spring off the ground from all four feet, arching his back and throwing her off balance. Then he came down with a teeth-jarring crash and promptly put his head down, exploding his rump up into the air.
Maddie was a good rider but she’d never felt a horse buck like this before. In addition, she hadn’t yet gained a firm seat and she felt herself sliding off to the right.
Bumper exploded away again in another of those spring-heeled leaps. But this time he went left, out from under her. She realised she would never regain her seat and kicked her left foot free of the stirrup. It was all too obvious that she was going to fall. Bumper started to rear back on his hind legs. She leant forward to compensate and realised, too late, that he was foxing.
His head went down again and his rear quarters shot into the air like a giant equine catapult.
She felt herself leave the saddle, soaring up and forward over the horse. She twisted in the air, hoping to land somehow on her feet. And she nearly made it. But she was too far off balance to manage it completely and she crashed into the dust of the saddling yard, the force of her fall driving the breath from her lungs.
Winded and groaning, she lay in the dust, desperately trying to drag air back into her temporarily empty lungs. She opened her eyes and realised that Bumper had moved to look down on her, a quizzical expression on his face. He snorted softly, blowing warm air onto her face. It was almost as if he were checking to see if she was all right.
She rolled onto her side and came up on one knee, looking around the saddling yard. Young Bob and Will were watching her with knowing expressions. Sundancer was looking quite alarmed. Tug seemed to be smiling quietly.
Maddie stood, a little shakily, and glared at them.
“You knew that was going to happen,” she said accusingly.
Will considered the statement for a second or so. Then nodded.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” he said. He waited until Maddie had beaten some of the dust from her clothes, then went on. “It’s just you’ve been a little… condescending about our horses,” he said. “I thought it might be useful if you saw they’re not all solid and stolid and plodding. That they have a certain amount of fire in them.”
She rubbed her back painfully. “You’ve got that right,” she said. She glared at Bumper, who approached her now and bumped her gently with his forehead. There was no sign of wickedness or contrary behaviour in his eyes. They were big and dark and liquid and friendly.
“Why did you do that?” she asked him.