Rodeo Rider (8 page)

“I’ve noticed,” Lisa said, “and I don’t like it. I like to be the one to tell my horse what to do.”

“Absolutely,” Kate agreed. “You have to be. Otherwise, the horse will just stop paying attention to you. There are a couple of tricks I learned that might help you with that. The best I found was to keep a fairly tight rein and to keep it moving—just a tiny bit. What I mean is that even when nothing else is going on, you wiggle the rein slightly. It’s like the start of a signal, but without a message. It doesn’t tell the horse anything; it just gets his attention.”

“That makes sense,” Lisa said. “I’ll try it.”

“It won’t stop Chocolate from
wanting
to play follow-the-leader with the other horse. It’ll just keep her from doing it,” Stevie added.

“You know what I’ve been wondering,” Christine asked, “is how I can get some cowboy boots to wear in the parade on Saturday. I’ve outgrown the ones I have.”

“We’ve got a whole lot of them at the ranch to lend to guests. You can take your pick,” Kate offered.

“That would be great. Thanks.” Christine smiled.

“So, now that we’ve taken care of Christine’s feet, what are we going to wear on the rest of our bodies?” Stevie asked.

“Hey, she’s right!” Lisa said. “A parade’s a parade!
We can’t go just wearing jeans and plaid shirts, can we?”

“No, I think we also ought to wear socks, and hats—”

“Very funny, Stevie,” Lisa said.

The girls talked about that for a long time. The only conclusion they could come to was that they ought to wear something special for the parade.

“After all, we need to look like a
team
,” Lisa declared.

“A team of what, though—that’s the question,” Stevie remarked.

“A team of winners,” Carole said firmly, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind about Carole’s determination. “We’ll practice; we’ll win. It’ll be good for the rodeo, good for us, and most of all, good for The Bar None.”

“What exactly is the prize?” Stevie asked.

“Five hundred dollars,” Christine said. “And the individual winner gets one hundred.”

“Wow! That’s six hundred dollars! We can have a blast with that! Let me see—” Stevie began calculating out loud. “That’s a hundred and twenty apiece or, really, one hundred each except for Kate, who would get two hundred—”

“Wait a minute,” Kate said. “There’s no guarantee I’d win the individual—”

“But you’re the most experienced rider among us,” Carole reasoned.

“That doesn’t make me a rodeo champ. But anyway,
I’m in this for The Bar None, so if I win anything the money is going to the ranch.”

Lisa smiled. It was right. Just plain right. She looked at her friends to see what they thought. They all liked the idea.

“That would buy a lot of shingles and paint,” Kate said. “It would pay for the new toilet we need in Cabin Four. It might even buy some new tack for the horses, or a new tent for the round ups.”

“And a game of Pictionary?” Stevie added.

The girls laughed.

“Well, count me in on that,” Carole said, more seriously now. “Anything I win goes to the ranch, too.”

“Me, too,” Lisa said.

“Me, three,” Christine added.

“Since that’s why we’re in this, it’s the way that makes sense,” Stevie agreed.

The girls finished up their dinner, cleaned after themselves, and got into their sleeping bags. They weren’t tired yet, but the desert night was becoming cool. They could talk bundled snugly in their sleeping bags as well as they could sitting up and freezing, so that was what they did. They talked for hours on their favorite subject, horses.

When the talk had quieted down and the girls were ready to sleep, Lisa once again found herself gazing at the sky, now a deep black. She imagined she was riding a path through the stars on horseback, weaving and circling, flying with the clouds. Her horse seemed to
anticipate her every command, turning faster than she could signal, going through the path at the speed of the wind. She never made a mistake. She never fell off.

Lisa drifted to sleep, dreaming of victory, glory, honor, shingles, toilets, Pictionary, and full bunkhouses. They would win. They had to win.

“H
OLD
WITH
YOUR
legs! Grip with your thighs!” Christine yelled at Stevie the next morning. Stevie held on for dear life. Stewball had just been bitten by the racing bug and he was running his heart out on the cactus race course that Kate had found for them.

Stevie could feel herself lose her balance as Stewball rounded the second cactus. The last thing she wanted was to be dumped on the hard desert. There were rocks, cacti, and snakes down there! She gripped harder, shifted her weight ever so slightly, and regained her equilibrium. Stewball galloped to the final cactus, circled it, and raced back to the finish line, where he came to a straight-legged halt.

“
Outstanding
!” Kate said, clapping Stevie on the back. “What was her time?”

Christine checked her watch. “Thirty-two seconds,” Christine said. “That’s almost a full fifteen seconds better than your last time, but you went around the final cactus the wrong way. It’s a left-hand turn, not right!”

“There’s instant penalty points for me. I can hear it
now. ‘Congratulations, you were the fastest, but you lost.…’ ”

“Right, left, left. Right, left, left,” Lisa said out loud. “I think I’ve got it.”

“All right, then it’s your turn,” Christine said, resetting the stopwatch.

Lisa mounted Chocolate. The horse shifted uneasily, as if she were about to do something naughty. Lisa twitched the reins ever so slightly. Chocolate’s ears perked up. She seemed alert. She was waiting for another signal.

“See, it works!” Kate said. “You’ve got her attention.”

Lisa now put all of her own attention to the job in front of her.

“Go!” Christine called out, clicking the stopwatch.

Lisa did just as she’d seen Jeannie do. She kicked Chocolate and used the end of her reins as a whip. Chocolate burst into a gallop. Lisa turned to the right and headed for the first cactus. Chocolate circled it smoothly and headed for the second. At the last second, Lisa remembered that they had to go around this one to the left. Chocolate followed her instructions, passed around it, and aimed for the final cactus. This time, Lisa remembered to keep the cactus to her left. They were so close to the bristles that she almost got scratched, but she didn’t and neither did Chocolate. The two of them sprinted for the finish line.

“Yahoo!” Carole, Stevie, and Kate cheered as Lisa
approached. Christine stared at the stopwatch. Lisa just knew her time was going to be excellent, better even than any of her friends’.

She wanted to end her ride with some style. She pulled on Chocolate’s reins, hoping she would perform the wonderful straight-legged stop that Jeannie and Stevie had done. It worked, in a way. Chocolate got her signal and came to an instant halt. Unfortunately, Lisa wasn’t quite prepared for it. She kept going, right up and over Chocolate’s shoulder and onto the hard ground.

“Great finale!” Stevie teased, giving her a hand.

Lisa was a little annoyed at herself and was about to take it out on Stevie, but Christine stopped her.

“Twenty-nine seconds,” Christine said.

“But I ended up in the dirt!”

“I just checked the rule book,” Christine said, pocketing the stopwatch so she could give Lisa a congratulatory hug. “It doesn’t say anything about having to stay on your horse after the race. Of course, the judges might prefer the more traditional dismount …”

“That was great!” Carole said. “You were really terrific. Can you give me some pointers on technique?”

Suddenly, Lisa felt as is she were standing on top of the world. Carole Hanson wanted help from
her
?

“Of course I can,” Lisa said graciously. “And you can help me, too.”

“Sure,” Carole agreed. “What do you want to know?”

“How do I stop?”

On that note, the girls were ready to do some serious practicing.

“H
OW
DO
YOU
think they’re doing with the busted pipes in Willow Creek?” Stevie asked her friends. The camp-out was over, the campsite was cleaned up, and the five girls were on their horses, heading back to The Bar None.

“Beats me,” Carole said. “Why? You think we’re doing so badly on our practice that you want to skip the rodeo and go home?”

“That’s one thought,” Stevie said. “What I was actually hoping, though, was that the pipes wouldn’t be fixed for weeks so we’d have to stay here.”

“No way,” Kate said. “Once we have our triumphant
success at the rodeo, The Bar None will be filled with paying guests. We won’t have room anymore for moochers!”

Lisa only half listened to the teasing. She and Christine were at the end of the group. Christine seemed unusually quiet.

“What’s up?” Lisa asked.

“I was just thinking about our costumes,” Christine said.

“I’ve been worrying about that, too,” Lisa agreed. “I mean, when I think of cowboys and costumes, I start thinking about fancy stitched shirts, with piping and rhinestones, and tooled leather boots and silver-studded bridles. We don’t have the time to do all that.”

“To say nothing of the money!” Christine added. “And when I think of dressing up, all I can picture is what the tourists imagine is traditional American Indian garb—you know, feathered headdresses and stuff like that. We certainly don’t have the time to do that, either.”

“To say nothing of the wampum!” Lisa remarked.

Christine laughed. “That’s right.”

“So that leaves us with two goals—fast and cheap.
That
makes me think of T-shirts.”

“You know, we could write something on them …”

“We could even get them in a bright color so they stand out …”

“… front
and
back.”

“… maybe red?”

“I think we’re onto something!”

“You bet we are.”

“My mom’s an artist. She’s got all the paints and everything we could need.”

“I’ve got the funniest feeling that this is going to be cool,” Lisa said. “Really cool.”

“So why don’t we all meet at my house tonight after dinner to make our parade outfits?”

By the time Christine left them to head for her own house, the plan was made. Christine would have the art supplies. The others would buy and bring the T-shirts.

E
LI
WAS
WORKING
hard in the corral, practicing for the rodeo, when they arrived. The Saddle Club untacked their horses and let them out into the pasture with the rest of the herd. It only took a few minutes for them to stow their sleeping bags in the bunkhouse, tell Phyllis and Frank that they were back safely, and return to the corral to watch Eli.

The corral was set up for steer wrestling. Eli and a cowboy the girls didn’t recognize were on horseback. Between them, Jeannie seemed to be in charge of the steer. The steer was confined to a little pen and was fussing to get out of it.

“Go!” Eli yelled. Jeannie released the steer and reached to give him a slap on his flank. It was unnecessary. He’d already burst out of the pen before she could touch him.

The other cowboy started chasing after the steer, and Eli came immediately after him.

The girls knew now that the hazer’s job was to keep the steer running straight so that Eli could reach him. The cowboy didn’t seem to know it, though. The steer took a turn to the right, in front of the hazer, away from Eli, and just kept on going. It wasn’t going to matter how fast Eli could ride or how well he could wrestle the steer: If he couldn’t reach the animal, he couldn’t win the event. Eli drew his horse to a halt and scowled at the hazer.

“Gee, I’m sorry, Eli,” the hazer said. “Guess we’ll just have to try it again. I sure hope the steer at the rodeo behaves better than this one.”

Carole leaned over to her friends. “Doesn’t look to me like the steer is the problem here.”

“You think so?” Lisa asked in surprise. “I know he’s supposed to keep the steer straight, but it looked like the steer just ran wild. He couldn’t help that, could he?”

“He’s supposed to help it. That’s his job,” Stevie said.

“Come on, Derek, round up the steer and let’s try again,” Eli said.

Derek removed his rope from the pommel of the saddle, swung it easily in the air, and lofted it to where the still-running steer was going to be when it landed. The steer ran right into the noose. Derek yanked at the lariat to tighten the noose and brought the animal to a halt.

“Nice roping!” Kate said. “I wouldn’t have thought he could do that.…”

“Strange,” Christine said. “I wouldn’t have thought so, either.”

“What are you talking about?” Lisa asked.

“I think I understand what they mean. Watch closely,” Carole told her.

Eli and Derek tried it again. This time, Derek kept close to the steer and kept him to the left, so far left that Derek and the steer had crossed in front of Eli before Eli could even catch up to them.

Derek seemed about to start a new round of apologies, but Eli cut him off.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired. Why don’t we call it a day and start again tomorrow afternoon. How about two-thirty?”