She doesn't ride Jaeger. She wears him.
The pocket she takes around the second barrel is so clean I can see through it.
She comes out of the turn collected. Hand on the horn for half a second between turns. Leg cue subtle enough that I almost don't catch it. Jaeger drops his shoulder, gathers, sprints. The dust comes up around them.
She finishes the pattern and walks Jaeger out. Walks him in a wide circle to cool him. She doesn't look at me, but she knows I'm here.
She rests her forehead against Jaeger's neck for a few seconds at the far end of the cool-down.
Then she straightens, pats his neck twice, and turns him back toward the barn. She takes him in the long way around.
The long way takes them past me.
She doesn't have to walk past me. The barn is on the other side of the practice pen. She could walk Jaeger directly to his stall without coming within fifty feet of where I'm standing.
She walks him within ten feet of me.
I can smell her.
Sweat. Leather. Horse. And underneath it something soft, something her, something I haven't been allowed to know.
She doesn't say a word.
She walks Jaeger past me with her hand loose on the lead rope and her eyes on the barn door, and I don't move or speak.
She disappears around the corner of the barn and I stand at the rail.
By seven, I'm on my cabin porch with a beer I haven't opened.
The sun is going down red over the back pasture.
The mustang's at the rail of the round pen, grazing the patch of grass where I dropped a handful of hay this afternoon.
He's never grazed in the round pen before. He's been a horse who eats from a bucket and watches the door.
Tonight he's grazing.
I see her cross the yard at seven-fifteen.
She's coming back from the barn.
She's been there for an hour—I heard her go in at six and I haven't heard her come out, which means she was with Jaeger.
Probably brushing him. Probably talking to him the way she talks to him, low, the voice she uses with horses that's softer than the voice she uses with anyone else.
She's heading to the main house for dinner.
Her hair's down out of the bandana now. Loose around her shoulders.
She's still in the same jeans. Boots dusty. A clean shirt.
She sees me on the porch.
She doesn't wave.
I don't either.
But she stops halfway across the yard.
