Amanda nodded. “So I hear.”
“He’s just a little...”
“Hard to live with sometimes.”
“Private. He doesn’t like surprises. Never did. I always figured it was ‘cause of the fact that he had to deal with so many when he was young, that was the only way he could cope.”
Amanda couldn’t help nodding along with her. It wouldn’t hurt, she thought, to remember just how different their childhoods had been. Hers had been graced with music and words and a close, boisterous family to offset the troubles. He had had to create his own stability. It had to do something to a person.
“Well,” she conceded, knowing that the words she really wanted wouldn’t be accepted here. “He’s lucky to have you and Clovis.”
Betty shook her head. “Luck has nothin’ to do with it.”
Amanda was thinking of going back to the little cabin and trying to squeeze into the three-by-three shower stall and coax some hot water out of the solar tank when the stallion barn door opened. She knew it was Jake even before she saw him. Alongside strode a wiry, graceful young man in regulation jeans, flannel shirt and a five-gallon hat that looked like he’d used it to beat out fires. Jake led a pale gray horse behind him.
“You see Jake work a cutting horse yet?” Betty asked.
Amanda shook her head, watching the easy rapport between the two men, the flashing grins and natural swaggers. Jake had his spurs on again, and it tickled something in her.
Betty was already turning toward the door. “Come on.”
Amanda wasn’t exactly sure how Jake would take her appearance. He was still conversing with the man alongside him as she and Betty approached. Across the way two men who were digging fence posts stopped and leaned on their post-hole diggers. Clovis stepped from the mares’ barn. Amanda and Betty walked up to the corral fence, Amanda admittedly a bit more slowly than Betty.
“You know anything about cutting horses?” Betty asked, standing against the fence as if she were waiting to go into church, her coffee cup still held steadily in both hands.
“Just that a good one can cut the flour from a biscuit without breaking the crust.”
Betty grinned. “Then you probably heard it from Clovis. A cutting horse is used to cut cattle out of the herd. Best ones are bred just for that. They have cow sense. Know what a cow’s gonna do before he does it. They don’t need ‘em as much now, what with fencing and smaller spreads and such. Only real range left is up Montana, Idaho way. But the competitions are getting tougher. It’s pure poetry to watch one in action.”
“Are those the horses they use in rodeos?” Amanda asked.
Betty shook her head. “Those are calf-roping horses. He trains those, too. But the cutting horses are his pride and joy.”
“Does he always have an audience like this?”
Betty took a considering look around. “I’ve seen people come in from town to watch him work a horse. You just don’t see anything prettier.”
Jake led the horse into the bigger corral, an oversized rectangle that held a herd of about twenty head of cattle. The man with him proceeded to unhook the gate and wait for Jake. Amanda leaned against the fence and prepared to watch.
He was talking to the horse. Amanda couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the horse’s ears were flicking, first forward, then backward, as if keeping track of both Jake and the cattle. He was a pretty gray with black stockings, mane and tail, small and well proportioned, with the well-developed hindquarters of a quarter horse and the face of a mustang. He had a sweet eye, as Clovis called it, big and liquid and friendly. As Jake swung into the saddle, the gray came alert.
Amanda had seen ballet. She’d seen almost every team and single sport known to the North American continent and a few Olympic events. She had never seen anything with the grace and power and precision of Jake working that horse. They spun, they danced, they moved with the grace of figure skaters, whirling and backing and sidestepping across the corral as if it were a dance floor. Jake faced the horse toward one of the cows, and the horse went after him. Anticipated him, tracked him, faced him down. They tracked the animal, face to face and movement for movement, until the cow finally tired and headed away from the herd. Then they did it with the second, third and fourth, all picked out by some minute signal from Jake.
She couldn’t take her eyes from them, a Remington statue in action, power and muscle and intelligence. She soaked in the calm, quiet command in Jake’s riding, the fluid sensuality of the way he sat that horse, working him with his hands and his legs and his feet, and sometimes just letting the reins drop from his hands and letting the horse work on his own. The horse never surprised him. He never out-thought him. Man and horse were one, and suddenly Amanda understood why it was such a powerful sexual symbol.
“He’s something, isn’t he?”
Amanda startled at the masculine voice alongside her. She’d forgotten everyone else in the place, so mesmerized had she been by Jake’s performance.
The man Jake had been talking to now addressed her. Mid-thirties, same tan as Jake’s, same laconic style. Brown eyes, thin lips, hawkish nose. His face was calm, but his eyes were alight as they watched Jake and the horse.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Amanda admitted. “Is the horse for you?” she asked.
He nodded, still watching. “I came a little early. Jake’s been tellin’ me about that little hoss, and I couldn’t stand the suspense. Jake Kendall doesn’t give away a Grayghost get very easily. I wanted to be here before he changed his mind. Impressive Gray there is going to be another world-class winner.”
Jake ran the last animal down to a standstill and suddenly lifted the reins, placing his hand gently on the horse’s neck. The animal settled back into an easy stand, his gray coat gleaming with sweat, his sides heaving.
“Oh, yeah,” the visitor breathed in awe. ‘That’s a Grayghost get all right.”
