Emma and the Cutting Horse (14 page)

“We need to know what number she has to
beat,” he said. “Only half of these horses will advance to the
second go-round.”

“Have you been doing research or something?”
Emma asked. “How do you know so much about the Futurity rules?”

“I have a library card, Victoria, and I know
how to use it. Here’s the pertinent information. There are
deductions for cueing the horse with the reins or your feet.
There’s a big deduction for letting a calf get by you and back into
the herd, and there are a few other things that count off, too. The
horses work for two and a half minutes each, and can cut out two or
three head of cattle. Anything else you want to know?”

“If there is, I’ll ask,” Emma snapped.

In the middle of the afternoon, a bay mare,
visibly terrified when her turn came, let a calf get past her into
the herd and then ran off wildly toward the far end of the arena.
Her rider had a hard time stopping her and she trembled all over as
he turned her back toward the herd.

“Why do you think she’s so scared?” Emma
asked her dad.

“I don’t know for sure,” he responded, “but
I’ve heard that there are trainers who use too much physical
punishment. I’m glad that John doesn’t resort to beating his horses
when they make mistakes.”

The look in the terrified mare’s eyes haunted
Emma for the remainder of the afternoon.

John was very upbeat about Miss Dellfene’s
coming performance.

“She’s as good as any horse I’ve seen here,”
he told them, “but there’s a lot of luck involved, so keep your
fingers crossed.”

Then he walked off to get her ready for her
two and a half minutes in the limelight.

At four o’clock they took a break for a
change of cattle. The herd that was in the arena was driven out,
and a new herd of fresh cattle brought in. The next ten horses came
in to warm up in the back half of the arena, and Miss Dellfene was
one of them. She looked small from way up in the stands, but when
John loped her in circles and then executed some beautiful spins,
she appeared capable and confident. Her ears flipped back and forth
as she listened to John and watched the cattle. She was wearing
white splint boots on her front legs that drew attention to her
graceful movements. Emma was beginning to notice a fluttery feeling
in her stomach.

John nodded to the judges and settled his hat
lower when his name was called, and Miss Dellfene walked slowly
down the middle of the arena toward the herd. Her ears showed that
all her attention was focused on the cattle. When she got close to
them, John slowed her even more, and step-by-step she quietly moved
through the tightly packed calves to the back fence. The cattle
moved out of her way, but her progress through them caused hardly a
ripple. At the back fence, she turned slowly, put her nose down,
and began to work her way back through them again. Emma realized
that she was following a black steer and as he reached the outside
of the herd and turned back to rejoin them, John turned her to
block the steer’s path. She quickened her step and drove the steer
out into the center of the arena, alone. John lowered his hand, and
the reins fell in long, sweeping curves as he turned the mare loose
to work. She blocked the steer’s every move with the graceful
economy of motion that Emma had seen so often, sweeping back over
her haunches each time the steer changed direction. When it grew
tired of running and dodging in a fruitless effort to rejoin the
others, it came to a standstill. John touched Miss Dellfene on the
neck to let her know she was finished with the calf, and turned her
back to the herd to cut another one. Choosing the next calf and
moving it out into the arena seemed to happen in slow motion. Emma
held her breath. The two and a half minutes must be almost over,
but once more she began to outmaneuver the calf with practiced
ease, leaping sideways to block its attempts to return to the herd.
The buzzer sounded, but John let her continue until the calf turned
its tail to her. John had explained to her that quitting a calf
when it still challenged the horse was called a “hot quit” and was
frowned on by judges. As Miss Dellfene walked calmly to the far end
of the arena, Emma realized that her hands were numb from gripping
the arms of her seat. A small icicle of fear formed in her stomach.
Where had all the fancy moves gone? The dance steps had been
missing from her performance.

“Look,” Kyle elbowed her gently.

The electronic scoreboard flashed her score:
215 ½.

“Look in your catalog,” Emma urged. “That’s a
good score, isn’t it?”

“I don’t have to look. She’s somewhere near
the top.”

Emma risked a glance at her father. He was
trying his best to stifle a huge grin.

“Beautiful!” he said quietly. “That ought to
get her into the second go-round.”

* * *

That night they drove home again in a car
filled with euphoria. Everyone was talking at once about Miss
Dellfene’s performance and her score.

“I didn’t think it was going to be that
good,” Emma admitted. “She didn’t do as much fancy footwork as I’ve
seen her do in the past.”

“John told me he planned it that way,” her
dad explained. “He’s saving the fancy frills for a later
performance. Right now he just wants good herd work and correct
position, and I guess that’s what she gave him. I’m still having to
pinch myself every few minutes to be sure this is all real.”

“I guess she won’t work again until the day
after tomorrow when the first go-round finishes,” Emma said.

“That’s right, her mom replied, “and that
means that you two can go back to school tomorrow, and Dad and I
can go back to work.”

“Gross!” Emma muttered.

* * *

At school she tried to keep the excitement
out of her voice when she told Hannah and Katie about the first
go-round of the Futurity.

“That’s so cool!” Katie said. “Has she won
any money yet?”

“Not yet,” Emma answered.

She was surprised to find that, for her, it
wasn’t about the money anymore.

At lunch she overheard Hannah talking to some
girls at the next table as she came in with her tray.

“She could win a quarter of a million dollars
and be the world champion,” Hannah told them.

Emma cringed at being part of another horse
story. Candi Haynes would be sure to get wind of it, but Emma knew
that Hannah was just talking about it because she was excited for
Emma.

“It’s still a long shot,” she said
self-consciously as she sat down next to Hannah. “She has to beat
lots more good horses before she wins any money.”

As Emma feared, it didn’t take Candi long to
get the message.

“Hey, Cowgirl,” she said as she passed Emma
in the hall later. “I hear you’re ridin’ your ole cowpony in the
horse show.”

Emma stopped and turned to face her. Candi’s
face was plastered with makeup, which didn’t completely cover the
dark circles under her eyes. Emma flashed back for a moment to the
red sock and the little girl lying on the riverbank.
Darla
did
look a little like Candi, but without the hardness in
her eyes. The two girls who were walking with Candi looked
uncomfortable.

“You heard wrong,” Emma said. “My parents’
horse is at the NCHA Futurity. Her trainer is riding her.”

“Well, aren’t you
special
,” Candi
snapped sarcastically as she stalked off down the hall.

One of Candi’s followers caught Emma’s eye
and stopped. She glanced after Candi and waited to be sure she was
out of earshot.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” she said, looking
embarrassed. “She’s upset because her dad’s trial starts
tomorrow.”

The girl turned and walked slowly away down
the hall, not making any effort to catch up with Candi. Emma felt
lighter. She wasn’t so afraid of Candi’s power anymore. And was
that a tiny twinge of pity for the strange, bitter girl Candi had
become? Maybe not. It seemed only fair that she was getting a taste
of the kind of misery she so enjoyed bringing down on others.

* * *

John called that evening to let them know
that Miss Dellfene wouldn’t be working again until Friday, so Emma
and Kyle had to suffer through another day of school. The day crept
by as Emma checked with each teacher for missing assignments. Her
dad had warned her that all the distraction of the futurity
couldn’t be allowed to interfere with what was most important,
keeping her grades up.

Candi was absent. Her empty desk in the back
corner of the history classroom reminded Emma that this was
probably not a pleasant day for the Haynes family. For the
hundredth time she wondered what kind of abuse Candi had suffered
and she thought of Darla again. Some of the kids were saying that
both of them had been abused. Thinking about a father who would do
something like that to his own children was almost too terrifying
to consider.

When the school day finally came to an end,
Emma got off the bus to find Kyle cleaning water tubs and forking
fresh hay into the pens for the horses. She hurried down to help
him and to give Ditto an extra helping of attention.

“You wouldn’t believe what is happening to
that grouchy little mare that kicked at you!” she said softly into
his big fuzzy ear.

“I still don’t believe it myself,” Kyle added
from just outside the pen, “and I saw it with my own two baby
blues!”

Emma couldn’t help smiling at him. Kyle had
learned a lot about horses in a short time. He was the only one of
her friends who really understood how excited she was about this
whole, crazy experience. She knew her bubble might burst the very
next time Miss Dellfene stepped into the arena, but right now she
couldn’t stop floating just a little above the ground.

“Ready for tomorrow, Lulabelle?” Kyle
asked.

“It feels like it will never get here,” she
replied.

Chapter
Thirteen

The second go-round was almost an instant
replay of the first. Miss Dellfene worked her calves with
restrained enthusiasm and at the end of her performance the
scoreboard flashed a score of 216. It was well above most of the
scores they had seen that day, and Emma fought the urge to chatter
with exuberance.

“Don’t start doing somersaults, yet,” her dad
advised. “Only forty-six horses will go on to the semi-finals
tomorrow.”

John found them in their usual seats an hour
later. He was loaded down with bags of peanuts, which he passed out
to everyone.

“Do you think she scored high enough to get
into the semi-finals?” Emma’s mom asked.

“Yer damn right she did!” John answered.
“That’s when the going will get tough, though. She still hasn’t put
on her best show, and if our luck holds out and we don’t get some
bad cattle or something, I think she’ll sail right on into the
finals.”

When the last horse in the second go-round
had finished, Miss Dellfene had made the semi-finals in third
position.

* * *

“Tonight we’re going to stay in Ft. Worth,”
Emma’s father announced after the scores had been posted, “even
though the semi-finals don’t start until later in the day tomorrow.
We’ll get hotel rooms and go out to eat somewhere. I’m really tired
of hot dogs and nachos. We can take John with us.”

They had to travel several miles to find a
decent hotel that wasn’t already full. Emma’s dad rented two
adjoining rooms and they carried in the suitcases that had been in
the trunk of the car all week. The hotel was next door to a steak
house where they met John for dinner.

“Are you nervous when you’re riding her?”
Emma asked John.

He hesitated before answering.

“I worry a little about the cattle until she
starts working, and then I forget everything else but staying in
the middle of her. Do you want me to sit in your seat in the stands
and let you ride her?” he asked with a grin.

“No way!” Emma said. “I get so nervous I’m
afraid I’ll fall out of my chair, and it’s not even dodging around
in front of a calf.”

Emma didn’t sleep much in the strange bed.
Her dreams were populated with cheering crowds and championship
belt buckles, but in the dream she sat astride Miss Dellfene
herself and accepted the winner’s check with steady hands.

During the presentation of the awards, she
heard her mom saying, “Come on, Emma. We don’t want to spend the
day in this hotel room.”

“Aw, Mom,” she complained as she turned over
in bed. “I was just accepting the winner’s trophy in my dream!”

“Well stow it in your suitcase and get
dressed. We want to get there before noon. Your dad’s gone next
door to wake Kyle.”

At the coliseum, the crowd was noticeably
bigger than it had been earlier in the week. They found their usual
seats still empty, but the Futurity Sale was taking place in the
arena where the horses had been working yesterday.

“Are you going to buy another cutting horse?”
Emma asked her father.

“Not in
this lifetime
, but I would
like to watch some of the horses sell. A few of them are horses
we’ve watched in the Futurity this week, but I think most of them
are two year olds who are prospects for next year’s Futurity. I
just want to see how much money they bring.”

“I’d like to go down to the main entrance and
buy a tee shirt,” Emma said. “I saw one that I liked yesterday. Do
you want me to get drinks or anything?”

“No thanks, but take Kyle with you. I’d
rather you weren’t wandering around in this monstrous, old building
alone.”

Kyle got up from his seat.

“Come on, Evelyn!” he said. “I’ll be your
official watchdog.”

Emma and Kyle walked slowly through the
building looking at posters advertising coming events. The vendors
weren’t getting much business while the sale was going on, so Emma
got her tee shirt without waiting in line, and then bought a box of
popcorn and two Cokes. She handed one to Kyle. Outside the glass
doors of the entrance they could see a row of eighteen-wheelers
loaded with cattle turning into the coliseum’s drive.