Endings -- an excerpt

ENDINGS:
A Novel
by Barbara Bergin
Published by Sunstone Press
Reprinted with Permission

Leslie was surprised at how easy it was to talk to Regan. They had a lot in common, jogging, books, politics. They both had interesting jobs. She was intrigued with his work and they talked about his career up to the point of doing the stadium. He dabbled in home building for a few years, but he preferred office and industrial type jobs. Eventually he got into a niche. He just bid on the stadium site and got it. It was definitely the highlight of his career so far.

"Well, we've spent the entire evening talking about me," he said when the check arrived. "You're going to have to go to dinner with me again so we can talk about you."

It was just as well from her standpoint that they didn't get too far into her career because so much was tied to her family. It would be hard to lie to him. She didn't want to do it, but knew sooner or later she would have to. She also remembered that sometimes clever people who know enough about dates, life, careers, can put two and two together and figure out that something's missing. This was the problem with getting to know people.

"Do you feel up to going over to the horse show?" Regan asked.

"Sure. I can't believe it's going on this late."

"Well, believe it, because they almost always do. Sometimes we're roping at two in the morning. Like I said earlier, I don't know what's going on tonight but whatever it is, it'll probably be interesting. Even though I don't do it, my favorites to watch are the reined cow horses. I know they're not going in the morning because the ropers are. Those poor cow horse fools always get stuck at the end of the day or first thing in the morning."

Regan paid the bill. Leslie felt funny about not paying her part but figured he probably wouldn't let her pay for her own dinner, so she didn't bother to offer. They left the restaurant and drove to the Taylor County Expo Center.

Sure enough, there was a lot of activity there, even at nine at night. And it was cold. That would be hard to tolerate, riding late at night when it's this cold. They walked around the barn first. It was warm in there and smelled like horses and hay. It brought back memories of her childhood. They walked up and down some of the aisles and he pointed out the different body types of the quarter horses, depending on the event for which they were bred. There were huge, gaunt, sixteen to seventeen hand horses. They didn't even look like quarter horses. These were bred for western pleasure and English riding events. There were horses that looked like thoroughbreds, used in the hunter jumper events. Then there were the very typical quarter horse conformations; large hind ends, shorter stature and big chests, bred for performance horse events like cutting, reining and cow horse.

Regan said that his "grandaddy" had a quarter horse that could run the quarter mile, work a cow and then compete in the halter division, which is basically a conformation competition. Today horses are bred specifically for halter. They're like body builders. They're not ridden and perform no particular function other than competing in a class that theoretically defines the appearance of the ideal quarter horse. He told Leslie that one time he was asked to put one of his roping horses in a halter class in order to fill the class so the winner could earn more points. His mare, whom he thought was perfectly formed for a quarter horse, looked like an old nag compared to those specimens.

They walked slowly up and down the aisles, stopping occasionally at a stall to look at a horse. Some were curious and came up to the side of the slatted pens for attention. She loved to pet their soft noses and feel them breathing on her fingers. It seemed as if they seduced her to put her hand in the stall, and then they would try to give it a nip. Some horses totally ignored them, while others put their ears back, defying Leslie to come near. They would swing their heads at them, aggressive but probably harmless. Regan spoke of the horses just like her dad had. They're marginally intelligent, so they can learn some tricks in order to eat. But Leslie could swear those big soft eyes could see straight into her soul. What is it about horses? Why had she stopped riding? Too many other things to do.

Regan found out that indeed, there was a cow horse event going on in an outdoor covered arena and suggested they drive down there to check it out. Several horses were tied up to the fence and the contestants were riding horses around in circles, trying to stay warmed up. They got out of the truck and walked up in the middle of the bleachers.

Just as they sat down a horse and rider entered the empty arena and stopped in the middle, facing the bleachers. The horse looked up as if suddenly surprised by his surroundings. But other than ears twitching back and forth, he stayed perfectly still. In a little bit the rider gently cued him to step off into a big circle to the right. She recalled the leads from her riding experience and noted that this was a right lead, the horse basically pulling with his right front leg. When he came around to the middle he did a flying lead change to the left and ran around the circle twice. Then he switched leads again in the middle. Leslie was amazed at the apparent ease of this maneuver for the horse and rider. She remembered having to slow down to a trot sometimes, and she always had to do a lot of holding with the reins as well as hard pushing with her legs to get her horse to change leads. Sometimes her horse would leap out of the lead change and take off running. These lead changes were barely detectable. Regan was talking her through most of this, but she remembered some from her childhood lessons.

The horse went around the corner but instead of riding in a circle, he straightened out and began to gather speed until he was galloping fast down the middle toward the other end of the arena. The sound of his hooves beating the ground could be heard above the wind and country western music on the loudspeakers. What happened next was totally unexpected. The rider, without changing positions or pulling on the reins, said, "whoa" to the horse, cueing him to stop. But because he was going so fast, he couldn't just stop. He had to slide to stop his forward progression. She was sure the rider had to hunker down to keep from being hurled over the front of the saddle. The horse's front legs kept pulling while the hind legs remained flexed and dragging through the sand. He left two tracks in the sand that she guessed were at least twenty to thirty feet long. This was amazing. She looked at Regan and he gave her an approving look and a thumbs up sign for the horse and rider.

The next maneuver even surpassed the stop because she could never recall seeing a horse doing this. He spun on his hind legs with his front legs pulling him around in a couple of twirls. He ended up facing the other way and ran down to the other end of the arena to do another stop, followed by another set of spins in the opposite direction. Then he went only halfway down the arena, stopped and backed up. End of event. Simply amazing.

"That part of this event is called reining, which is now part of the Olympics. It's the first western horse event ever to be in the Olympics."

Now that's impressive, she thought. When most people think of western events, they think of bronc riding, barrel racing, calf roping. Things you wouldn't see in the summer Olympics. But this clearly required a lot of skill on the part of the horse and rider. She equated it to dressage, but in a western fashion. She wondered what made some equine sports appealing to the Olympic committee and others not. The other western riding events required skill on the part of rider and horse as well. At least as much skill as the luge. But she couldn't envision cows in the Olympics.

Regan nudged her arm. "Now watch this." At this point the horse and rider turned toward the far end of the arena, where a small herd of cattle was penned up. The rider gave someone in the pens a nod, the gate was opened and out came a calf. The horse stepped up. The calf appeared somewhat agitated, as if wanting to get out of the arena. The rider then began to work the calf from one side of the pen to the other. The movements were somewhat like cutting but the rider moved the horse with his rein and legs to a greater extent.

She recalled cutting horses that appeared to work the cow on their own once the rider put the hand holding the reins on the horse's neck, signaling to the horse that it was time to do his thing. Of course the cutter uses his legs but not so it's obvious.

The rider openly used his legs to move the horse and correct its body position. After doing a little of this cutting-like action, which Regan called "boxing," the horse then brought the cow around to the long side of the arena and essentially chased it down the fence, heading it off before it got to the other end. The horse and cow were running at a high rate of speed and when the horse moved ahead as if it would be natural for the rider to just keep going in the original direction rather than hanging on for dear life and turning with the hose and cow.

Of course this impressive maneuver was followed by a huge cheer from the crowd. Rider, horse and cow then went the opposite direction and repeated the step to more cheers.

When the cow popped out into the middle of the arena, the horse went after it and circled it to the right and then to the left. Suddenly while circling to the left, the horse lost its footing. It looked to Leslie like he was going to go down, and everyone gasped. The rider lifted up on the reins, the horse looked like it scrambled a bit, then regained his footing to go on and finish the turn. Everyone cheered, Leslie included.

"I really want to do that," Regan said.

"Well, why don't you? You know how to ride cutting horses and rope."

"It's more difficult than that. The reining is really a challenge. You'd have to learn an entire new deal. Get a reining horse. They're expensive. I'd have to get hooked up with a trainer. It's a lot more complicated than it looks."

"It's exciting, no doubt." Leslie was cold and shivering.

"You're freezing. I'm sorry. Why don't we go back to the barn?"

"I'm a little cold, but I'd like to see a couple more of these horses, really. It's just my hands. I should have brought gloves." She held her hands together and rubbed them.

Regan reached over and took her hands in his. She stiffened up a little and started to pull them back, but he held on. His hands were warm. She remembered the slight roughness she felt when they shook hands on the night of the accident.

"That feel better?"
She nodded. One way or another it did.