Lindsay McKenna - The Last Cowboy

“He’s not trotting them on it, is he?” Jordana wondered.

“Oh, no, ma’am. It’s a fast walk to warm ’em up before they’re worked. And he also uses it to cool ’em out after their training. Any fool who thinks they can trot a horse in that tight circle is lookin’ for leg problems to develop real fast.”

“Yes,” she murmured, “I just wanted to make sure, was all.”

Shorty slowed and opened the thick oak door. “Endurance horses have the best legs in the world. The Boss isn’t interested in harming those legs, only makin’ them stronger.”

“Good to hear,” Jordana said. The tack room was huge, roomy, spotlessly clean and smelled of leather. She loved the scent and inhaled it deeply. There was one hook for a bridle and an aluminum saddle rack suspended just below it. Shorty gestured to it.

“This will be for Stormy’s gear.” He pointed to a large wooden tack box below it. “Anything your horse needs insofar as brushes, combs, hoof pick and such, goes in here. I’ll be puttin’ Stormy’s name on this box so you can identify it among all the others.”

Jordana was impressed with Slade’s management abilities. The box stalls had fresh shavings and were obviously cleaned daily. The waterers were automatic and filled as the horse drank it down. In the tack room, there were no cobwebs in the corners, no dust on the thick rubber mats across the floor. All the leather gear was clean, the bits shining, the saddles contained no dust anywhere upon them.

“Now,” Shorty said, a bit of warning in his voice, “the Boss don’t like dirt. He’s a real nitpicker about it.” Shorty went over to a specially made endurance saddle that had no horn on it. He lifted up a leather flap on the rear of it. “He expects you to keep your gear in tip-top shape. No dirt, crud or oil between the skirts here. And he’ll be inspecting you every day you come out for training. Equally important is the cinch.” Shorty picked up the white cotton girth that spanned the horse’s belly and kept the saddle in place on its back. “He expects you to not only minutely look at each twisted strand of the girth for dirt or weeds, but also wash it once a week. He hates dirty cinches. That dirt can work into the horse’s belly and create a sore and inflammation. Something this simple can take an endurance horse out of a contest. Don’t disappoint him on this.”

“I’m beginning to like him,” Jordana said, impressed. She knew a dirty cinch was only asking for trouble. A horse had hair, but any sawing motion could pull it out and leave the horse’s tender flesh open to being rubbed raw. And as a doctor, she was always aware of possible infection starting at such a site.

“Oh, he’s a stickler,” Shorty promised with a lopsided grin. “You’ll be spending a lot of time either in here or just outside the door cleaning your gear afterward. He don’t want you leaving the premises until you’ve bathed your horse over at the shower area and then cleaned your leather. Oh, and make sure your horse’s hooves are clean. If he finds any mud, manure or, worse, a stone lodged in the frog area of the hoof, he’ll give you one warning. The second time, he’ll release you as a student.”

“Got it,” Jordana said.

“Crud in the hoof can make a horse lame in a heartbeat.”

“Yes, it can. I’m a stickler on that, too.”

“Good to hear, ma’am.” Shorty scratched his chin. “Okay, let’s go over to the bathing area.”

Just outside the pole barn and to the left stood another enclosed area. It was painted red and made of an aluminum roof and wooden sides. Shorty led her down a thickly graveled path. He slid the door open. “Now, this is where you will bathe your horse after your training is done. It’s got solid rubber matting on the floor so the horse don’t slide or skid. We’ve got panic snaps on the cross ties that will be attached to both sides of your mare’s halter.”

“I like panic snaps,” Jordana agreed, stepping into the shower shed. It, too, was well lit. If a horse ever got scared or bolted while in the cross ties, all the owner had to do was jerk the panic snap open, and it instantly released the horse so it didn’t choke itself to death in the ropes. These hardy steel snaps had saved many a horse from such an awful and completely preventable death. Yes, panic snaps cost a lot more, and some horse people didn’t purchase them because of that. But what was the horse worth to them? For a little more money, they could protect their animal from such a fate. Jordana liked that Slade thought of all the details. It was obvious that he cared for the horse in every way possible. Would he care equally about the rider? That remained to be seen.

“Here’s the showerhead and hose,” Shorty told her, pointing up to the gear hanging on a hook on the right side of the shed. “The Boss doesn’t believe in hitting a hot, sweaty horse with shockingly cold water. You’ll find the water tepid, instead. He don’t want them traumatized with a cold temperature.”

“That’s impressive,” she murmured, deciding that Slade’s earlier demeanor didn’t carry through in his training philosophy. Maybe he just didn’t like her? Jordana frowned and hoped not. Still, he’d been this side of testy and rude to her. Maybe he was having a bad day, she thought.

Shorty gestured for her to follow him out. “The Boss treats his horses like himself.”

Jordana liked the warmth of the early July sun overhead. Having spent two winters in Jackson Hole, she had come to welcome the summer as never before. There was snow on the ground eight months out of the year. That was the part she didn’t like. When spring came, however, there was no place on earth as beautiful as this valley and the dragon’s teeth of the Tetons thrusting up out of the prairie.

“Now,” Shorty said, walking toward the huge rectangular corral, “the Boss will be riding your mare daily in here. It’s got two feet of fine sand as a base. That keeps your horse from pulling a muscle or, worse, a ligament or tendon. He’s going to be seeing what her strengths and weaknesses are this next week.”

“You mean he does all the riding?” Jordana was surprised. That meant ten horses a day were ridden. “I thought he had help.”

“No, ma’am, he does it all himself.”

“No wonder he was upset with me arriving late.”

Shorty grinned. “Time’s money.”

Nodding, Jordana now understood his frosty stance. “How long does he ride the horse?”

“Depends. At first, he’s not going to push your mare. He’s gonna see how she does at a walk, trot and canter. Might be on her for thirty minutes at the most, depending upon how built up she is or not.”

“I’ve been riding Stormy ten to fifteen miles every third day. He will want to know that.”

“Yep, he will. But when you come out the next time, he’ll cover all that with you. The Boss can tell how in shape or not your horse is by merely examining it and watching it work.”

That was true, Jordana decided. And Slade’s gray eyes had missed nothing. He was handsome in a rugged kind of way. She liked his full mouth even though it had been thinned with displeasure talking to her. His nose was strong-looking and had a bump at the root of it, telling her he’d broken it some time earlier in his life. She’d liked his broad, square face, his skin burned brown by being out in the sun so much, the creases at the corners of his eyes deep. Was that from squinting in the bright, white snow or sun? Or were they laughter lines? Jordana highly doubted Slade had any humor in his bones. Not once had he cracked even a slight smile toward her. No, he wasn’t Mr. Social, that was for sure.

“Oh,” Shorty said, “you need to know that the Boss will not allow a rider to wear spurs or carry a whip.”