Emma and the Cutting Horse (15 page)

“Most of the time, none of this seems real,”
Emma said around a mouthful of popcorn. “I keep thinking that I’m
going to wake up in my own bed and find that it was all just a
dream.”

“If it’s a dream, it’s a sweet dream,” Kyle
replied. “Did you ever think about how one sort of insignificant
thing you do can set events like this in motion? I remember when
that flyer came in the mail about the dispersal sale where your dad
bought Miss Dellfene. He had it in the seat of his truck with the
rest of the mail one day when I was helping him fix that washed-out
section of fence. He showed it to me and said he’d like to go, but
he didn’t think he would have the time and he was sure he wouldn’t
have the money. If he had thrown that flyer away, none of this
would have happened.”

“I guess you’re right,” Emma said. “I’ve
never seen him do anything on the spur of the moment like he did
the day he bought Miss Dellfene. I’m glad he did, though. I sure
wouldn’t have wanted to miss all this.”

“Neither would I! The only other times my
parents have let me miss school were when I had the flu or a
dentist appointment.”

Emma laughed. “This has been a lot more fun
than either one of those!”

“Is your heart going to be broken if she
doesn’t win?” Kyle asked, his blue eyes serious.

“No,” she answered, considering. “I know that
winning is a long shot. I might be a little disappointed, though.
My parents could sure use a quarter of a million bucks.”

* * *

Pacing around the hotel room, Emma and her
parents waited impatiently through the long afternoon for the
semi-finals to start. They had decided to come back to the hotel
and rest for a while, but none of them seemed able to relax. Kyle
flipped through the channels on the TV and finally settled on a
football game.

“How can you watch football at a time like
this?” Emma asked. “I can’t even sit down, let alone concentrate on
a football game.”

“You’re wearing out enough carpet for both of
us,” Kyle said

Emma’s parents picked out clothes they were
going to wear to the semi-finals and tried not to bump into each
other.

“We all need to chill out!” Emma’s mom
announced. “Even if she doesn’t get into the finals tonight, she’s
already proved that she’s a top-notch cutting horse, and we’ve had
a terrific time watching her in the process. I’ll bet she’d bring
quite a bit of money if we sold her this afternoon. It’s not like
we have invested a fortune. Let’s just try to relax and enjoy the
show.”

“Nice sentiments,” her dad said, “but I’ll
bet your hands will get just as clammy as mine tonight.”

“You’re probably right. I’m just trying to be
the voice of reason.”

The idea of resting had lost its appeal, so
they drove back to the coliseum in the middle of the afternoon and
wandered through the barns looking at the horses in the stalls.
Miss Dellfene was standing hipshot in the corner of her stall with
her head down and her eyes closed.

“She must be tired after all this
excitement,” Emma said. “I wonder if John is as nervous today as we
are?”

As the afternoon progressed, the number of
people walking through the barns increased.

“Let’s go stake out some good seats,” Emma’s
dad suggested. “With this crowd, we’re likely to have to sit behind
a pole or in the nosebleed seats if we wait too long.”

When they sat down, they saw John standing in
the arena talking to a man in a black cowboy hat.

“Where have I seen that man before?” Emma’s
dad mused.

“I think that’s the attorney who owned Miss
Dellfene before we bought her,” her mom said. “Didn’t he tell you
that he was coming to the Futurity to watch her?”

“I thought he looked familiar,” Kyle said. “I
think I’ve seen him on television.”

“You probably have. He’s a pretty high
profile kind of guy.”

The stands rapidly filled with people, and
Emma’s dad moved around restlessly in his seat and finally got
up.

“I’m going down to watch John get her ready,”
he announced, glancing at Emma’s mom. “Do you want to come with
me?”

“Can you save our seats?” she asked Emma.

“Sure we can. Go ahead,” Emma said.

They put their jackets in the empty seats and
Kyle pulled out his ever-present catalog.

“I wonder where we get the list of the
forty-six horses that made it and what order they’re working
in?”

A woman in the row behind them leaned over
and said, “Someone is handing them out at the bottom of the
steps.”

“Thanks,” Kyle said, getting up and starting
for the steps. “I’ll be right back,” he called to Emma over his
shoulder.

Finally the judges climbed into their booths,
and a herd of calves trotted into the arena from the far end.
Several men on horseback pushed them down the arena wall.

“She’s number thirty-eight,” Kyle said as he
squeezed in beside Emma and sat back down. “I don’t know if being
near the end is good or bad, though.”

He handed her the list and she glanced at the
familiar names.

“Lots of them are owned by the big ranches,”
Emma observed.

“The horses don’t know who owns them, and
being owned by a big ranch doesn’t make them any better at what
they do,” Kyle said.

Emma pondered this for a minute.

“I’m glad you came with us, Kyle,” she said.
“It’s harder to worry when you’re here.”

“I aim to please!” he said, grinning.

Emma’s parents returned. They had talked to
the attorney who had raised Miss Dellfene.

“He thanked us for helping the mare realize
her potential,” her father told Emma and Kyle. “We just smiled and
acted like we knew she had it in her all along. We didn’t say a
word about Gary and John
telling
us
she had the
talent to make a good cutting horse. I guess I should be ashamed of
myself for not giving them the credit they deserve.”

“But
you
did
see something
special in her right from the beginning,” Emma said. “When everyone
else thought she was hard-headed and hopeless, you still believed
she moved like a gazelle.”

“Thanks, sweetheart, you’ve made me feel
better.” her father replied, patting Emma fondly on the back.
“Anyway, he is pleased with the mare’s success. If she continues to
do well, it will be good advertising for his stallion. Many of the
colts the stallion has produced are winning in other areas, but
none of them has ever made it to the NCHA Futurity.”

Miss Dellfene trotted into the arena with the
fourth group of horses to work. From the moment she appeared at the
far end, she seemed wired and anxious to get at the cattle. John
loped some figure eights to warm her up and then began walking her
in big circles near the back wall. She didn’t want to take her eyes
off the calves and, as the other horses worked, he stopped her
facing the action and let her watch.

When her turn finally came and John nodded to
the judges and walked her down the middle of the arena, Emma got a
grip on the arms of her seat. She had grown accustomed to the slow
herd work, and, as usual, John took his time and chose a calf
carefully. When he drove a Hereford heifer out into the center of
the arena and dropped the reins, Miss Dellfene crouched and then
sprang into action. She danced joyfully back and forth across the
arena, handling the calf with graceful expertise. Her white splint
boots flashed as she leapt in tandem with the galloping calf. When
she had blocked the heifer’s return to the herd over and over
again, the heifer slowed to a trot and finally stopped in
confusion. Then the little mare began to tap dance, patting her
front feet on the ground before the heifer as if she were
challenging it to try to dodge past her.

“Yeah,” came cries of approval from the
crowd. “Look at that!”

The heifer turned its tail toward Miss
Dellfene and ran, and John reached down to touch her neck, and
turned her back to the herd.

The next calf, a red steer, was faster and
more determined to get back to the others, but Miss Dellfene
managed his runs expertly. She seemed to draw energy from his
faster movements and twisted her body in a U as she turned in front
of him. Now the crowd was really making noise and when her front
feet began the dance steps again, the cries reached a crescendo.
Emma couldn’t tear her eyes away from the flying mare to look at
the crowd, but she could hear the woman behind her yelling, “Yeah!
Yeah!” She turned to her husband and said, “That little mare may be
the best horse here!”

The buzzer sounded. John let her work the
steer to a standstill before he touched her neck and turned her
away. People in the stands were clapping and shouting at John, but
he pulled his hat brim over his usual poker face and rode quietly
at a walk to the far end of the arena.

Kyle put his hand on Emma’s arm and pointed
to the scoreboard. It showed an incredible 221½. The numbers
blurred as Emma’s eyes filled with tears.

“I guess her crooked knees haven’t hurt her
any!” Kyle quipped.

Emma laughed with a mixture of joy and
relief.

“I can’t believe this is happening to us.
We’re nobodies, and our horse has beaten most of the best
three-year-old cutting horses in the world.”

“You’re not nobodies,” Kyle said.

When the semi-finals ended, Miss Dellfene had
qualified for the finals in second place.

Chapter
Fourteen

The Futurity finals were scheduled for the
following evening and, to avoid interminable waiting, they drove
home early the next morning to check on the livestock and give
Emma’s dad a chance to change into clothes that were more
appropriate for the photographic session that would be a part of
the final ceremonies. All fifteen horses in the finals were
considered winners and would earn money; the competition was to
determine their ranking in the top fifteen. The money would be
awarded in ever increasing increments from the fifteenth horse to
the first.

Turning into the driveway, Emma’s dad stopped
the car and got out to pick up the mail and the newspaper. He
tossed them on the front seat, but not before Emma spotted the word
CONVICTED in large, block letters in the newspaper headline. She
leaned over the seat, slipped the rubber band off the paper and
spread it out. “Local Car Dealer Convicted” it said above a picture
of Mr. Haynes coming out of the courthouse with his lawyer. An
unexpected wave of sadness swept over her.

“Look, Mom,” she said, turning the paper
around so she could see.

“That’s terrible,” her mom said, “but at
least he’ll be put someplace where he won’t be able to damage
anyone else. I wonder what will happen to Candi and Darla?”

“I don’t know,” said Emma. “Candi really
looks different than she used to. She wears even more makeup now
and her clothes don’t look real clean. Some of her friends from
last year don’t hang out with her anymore. I’d feel sorry for her
if she wasn’t so mean.”

“Everybody has their troubles,” Emma’s dad
said, “but the kind of trouble her family’s having rates a ten on
the troubles scale.”

Emma couldn’t stop thinking about how much
peoples’ lives could change in one short year.

* * *

Low, gray clouds hung ominously in the sky
when they returned to Ft. Worth in the late afternoon. John was
waiting near Miss Dellfene’s stall. He handed Emma’s dad two
business cards.

“Here’s two fella’s who were asking if you
want to sell your mare,” he said. “They wrote their phone numbers
on the back of the cards and told me to have you get in touch with
them after the futurity.”

“Even if she doesn’t win?” Emma’s dad
asked.

“Yep. But she’s gonna win,” John said. “She’s
full of beans today, and unless our luck runs out she should give
us a great performance. I have a lot of faith in her.”

“I’m glad you do,” Emma’s dad replied. “She
doesn’t get along with many people.”

John chuckled. “Most trainers believe that
single-minded horses like her make the best cutting horses.”

“You can call her single-minded,” Emma’s dad
said, “but I always called her hard-headed.”

In the stands, Emma looked in amazement at
the size of the crowd. She was even more amazed when she noticed
Sarah and Sandra coming up the steps with their father behind
them.

“What are
they
doing here?” Emma asked
her mom as she pointed them out.

“Uncle David called your father this morning
and he told them about it. Try to be nice! After all, Uncle David
is your dad’s brother.”

“I’m not the one who has trouble being nice,”
Emma muttered.

Sarah and Sandra threaded their way down the
row in front of them and took the two seats in front of Emma and
Kyle. They glanced briefly at Emma and said, “Hi.” With that out of
the way, they immediately turned their attentions to Kyle.

“Are you riding the cutting horse tonight?”
Sarah asked him. “Dad said that no one in the family was riding it.
I really thought Emma would be riding. She
lives
for
horses.”

“Not me!” Kyle said. “Emma
could
ride
her, but the trainer who has been working with her all this time is
the one who’ll be riding her tonight.”

Emma made a mental note to thank Kyle later
for sticking up for her.

Sarah and Sandra continued plying Kyle with
questions about cutting horses and how much money the horse was
going to win. Sarah listed the things she would buy if she won a
quarter of a million dollars, beginning with a brand new red
Mustang Cobra. Emma turned her attention to the arena, where the
grounds crew was preparing for the final competition, but felt
momentarily sorry for Kyle who was trapped into listening to
Sarah’s pipedream.

Finally, the far gate opened and a larger
than usual herd was driven through the arena toward the front. As
they approached, Emma noticed that they looked different from the
cattle that had been used earlier in the week. They were bigger and
there were quite a few gray ones and white ones in the herd this
time.