After a smooth twenty or so minutes of this, Galen sent Toby into the shed to bring back a small handful of horse cookies, and showed his team how to keep their hand flat to feed a horse atreat. Then he reached into the bucket with the grooming tools and instructed his team on how to use the body brush.
“Slow and easy,” he said. “Front to back, always with the horse’s coat. If the horse moves, move with it. Always be present, in the moment.”
He handed each one a brush and told them to go stand by their assigned horses. Naturally, they all stood in the wrong place, near the horse’s haunches and too far away to do much good, even Bede. Gently, Galen guided them closer to the horse’s head, at least to start with. Then he used Toby’s body brush to demonstrate what he meant and urged them to try again.
Soon, the wariness of his team settled into something more like attentiveness, with each of them looking at Galen every now and then as if to make sure they were doing it right. Then he showed them how to clean the horses’ hooves, and how to comb through their manes and tails.
“Ease the comb through, don’t tug,” he said as he walked around each horse, keeping a close eye out. They would do this task before and after each riding lesson so they would become more familiar with not just being around a horse, but also how to take care of it.
When finally it came time to saddle and bridle the horses, he could sense their excitement rising. He used Penny, Toby’s horse, to demonstrate how to throw a saddle blanket on, and how to tug the blanket in the direction of the horsehair, not against it. How to land a saddle gently on a horse’s back. How to tighten the cinch. How to loop the stirrups over the saddle and adjust their length.
He heard Bede muttering “What now?” so he went around Ripley’s backside, smiling at Bede’s frown of frustration.
“This is going to ruin my manicure,” said Bede, pretending to complain, which only made Galen laugh out loud. “I don’t know what length the stirrup should be.”
“You could guess,” said Galen, gently, as that was what he imagined Bede had been attempting to do. “But here. Put your fist under the leather flap and lay the stirrup on your arm. The edge of the stirrup should hit the bone of your shoulder. If it doesn’t, it’s either too short or too long. Here.”
Up close, he could smell the scent of horse on Bede’s skin. See the gleam of his eyes from beneath the brim of his straw hat. Which made it really hard to focus.
Galen did his best, demonstrating how to measure the length of the stirrup with his arm, keeping his eyes on Bede the entire time to make sure he understood. Then he had Bede repeat the motion, and when Bede nodded that he thought the stirrup was the right length, Galen nodded in return.
“I’m such a city boy,” said Bede, a bit plaintively, as if he wanted to be let go from the entire lesson.
“That you are,” said Galen, and it didn’t sound like an insult at all. Rather, it felt flirty and sweet, as if watching a city boy struggle to turn into a country boy was one of his dearest-held fantasies.
No. He needed to focus on the lesson for his whole team, and fast. So he went back over to Toby’s horse, Penny, and demonstrated how to mount, how to sit in the saddle, and how to dismount. When his team were all on their horses, he looked at them with a bit of pride.
“Well, you look like cowboys at any rate,” he told them, smiling, turning his gaze away when Bede, in the style of all the best cowboys in any western movie ever made, tapped the brim of his cowboy hat and winked at Galen.
Bede sat thick-thighed in the saddle, the reins looped around the saddle-horn as he, yes, rolled up his shirtsleeves in big square folds, as if he knew his forearms were like poetry to Galen’s eyes.
Yanking his attention back to the lesson yet again, Galen led them through how to neck rein, and how to urge the horse into movement.
Once they were all walking their horses around the interior of the paddock, all in a row, he reassured them it was okay that they were going slowly because that was the way to start.
After two times around the paddock, he sensed his team getting a bit bored, so he urged them to trot. Which they did, the horses’ hooves scuffing up dust in little clouds just above the ground, tails flicking, heads shaking, making the bridles jingle.
Then Toby kicked Penny and, startled, her head high, she burst into a canter and tumbled into Ripley, who reared up and sent Bede flying into the fence with a loud bang.
Galen’s heart stopped, anger pulsing that Toby had been rough with his horse, and terrified that Bede was badly hurt.
Rushing over, Galen thought to settle Penny, and then Ripley, but he hadn’t accounted for Owen, who dismounted and simply let Diamond go racing around the paddock, reins and stirrups flying. Toby, still astride Penny, was pulling on her reins, hard, and he needed to stop.
“Toby, dismount,” Galen said, reaching out for Diamond, grabbing the tail ends of her reins. “Owen, hold your horse.Bede.”
This seemed most important, that Bede was utterly still beneath the lowest wood railing, as if, in another second, he might roll out of the paddock, just to get away from sharp hooves, and never return.
Bede was on his back, his hands hovering as if he was reaching for invisible reins, a grip, anything to steady himself. But he wasn’t moving.
His face numb, fear jolting through his whole body, Galen went to his knees, but didn’t allow himself to touch. He knewbetter than to move Bede, knew that he needed to determine whether Bede could move himself.
“Bede,” he said, low, leaning close. “You okay?Bede.”
Desperation flourished in his gut, his throat, but then Bede blinked, and looked up at Galen, squinting.
Galen moved between Bede and the blazing sun, and touched Bede’s face, the long scrape along his cheek from the fence, brushed the dust from his chin. Traced his hair back from his forehead with a few faint fingers.
“Can you move?” he asked, ignoring the flutter in his heart when Bede’s eyes closed, and he went pale beneath his tan.
