Read Online Rodeo Rocky by Jenny Oldfield - Free Book Online Page A

horses in the corral, Kirstie could tell that even Hadley was impressed by the progress she’d made with the wild horse.
    Taking a deep breath of fresh mountain air, she tightened the reins and tilted her heels down in the broad stirrups. Settled and balanced, safely astride, now she felt ready for whatever Rodeo Rocky might throw at her.

7
    “You make the right things easy for the horse and the wrong things hard,” Sandy Scott told Kirstie. They were working with Rodeo Rocky in the round pen five days after the stallion had been successfully saddled and ridden. It was late evening: a time when tiny bats flitted overhead and the mule deer wandered down from the high slopes, stalked by shadowy gray coyotes with their telltale howling.
    “Meaning?” Kirstie left off teaching Rocky to respond to the reins and walked him quietly over to where her mom stood.
    Sandy tilted her hat back and began her explanation. “Well, you make the right things easy by making them fun. When Rocky obeys the rein to the right, you rub his shoulder and scratch his neck, do all the things he likes.”
    “And if he gets it wrong?” Kirstie couldn’t imagine that her mother was telling her to hit or punish him in any way.
    “You hold back the praise and the fun. A horse likes the games you play with him when he gets it right. He likes them so much, it feels bad for him when it doesn’t happen. So next time, he’ll try to understand what you’re asking him and do his best to get it right.”
    “But I don’t have fun with him until he does.” Kirstie set off with Rocky around the pen to try the reining technique once more. This time, the horse responded well, so she leaned forward to praise and pat him.
    “That’s real good.” Sandy, too, was pleased. She stood back and watched Kirstie work on until the light got too bad. Then together they unsaddled Rocky and led him out to the meadow, where Lucky stood at the gate waiting for him, his pale mane and tail picked out in the deepening dusk. Kirstie let Rocky loose and the two horses greeted each other then loped the length of the field.
    “Happy?” Sandy asked Kirstie as they walked back to the ranch.
    “Yep.” They crossed the bridge, noticing the lights go on in the cabins, hearing Hadley play his harmonica in the bunkhouse doorway. “How about you?”
    “Yep,” Sandy replied.
    “So can I ride Rocky on the trail?” Kirstie waited for the reply for what seemed like ages. She felt he was about ready to try to begin work as a ranch horse, but would Sandy see it that way?
    Her mom stepped onto the ranch-house porch, took off her hat and shook her hair loose. “Why not give Lisa a call?”
    Kirstie ran ahead of her. “Mom, what kind of answer is that? I was asking about trail riding Rocky!”
    “Sure.” A smile played about Sandy’s lips. “That’s why I said you should give Lisa a call.”
    “Huh? What’s the connection?”
    The smile broadened. “I’m thinking Lucky and Rocky. They like to be together. And that makes me think you and Lisa. You get along pretty well, too. So if Lisa can make it tomorrow, and she wants to ride Lucky …”
    “… That means I could ride Rocky and we could all go out on the trail!” Kirstie jumped in. “Great idea, Mom!”
    Flinging her baseball cap down on the porch swing and dashing into the house to grab the phone before Sandy could have second thoughts, she went ahead with the arrangements for Rocky’s biggest test of all.
    “Excuse me, ma’am, can I get your horse for you?” Charlie came up behind Lisa as she stood in line in the corral the next day. He grinned sideways at Kirstie.
    Lisa turned around. “Hey, Charlie, it’s me!”
    Kirstie jerked Lisa’s arm to pull her out of line. “He’s fooling. Come on, we’re going with Hadley on the advanced ride.”
    It was all arranged. Lisa’s mom had driven her daughter up before opening time at the diner. Lisa had arrived in new jeans and boots, wearing a Native American