Greener Pastures - Alyssa Brugman [1]
Even the grown-ups treated her differently. Strangers would ask her questions about the horses and how they did the tricks. She could tell by their faces that they thought the trick riding the girls did in the arena was something special.
Shelby wasn't as confident as the other two riders. When they were performing she only did manoeuvres where she was able to hold on with one hand. Molly did all the really hard hands-free tricks, like the deadman's drop, where she hung off the side with her arms over her head, and only one leg in a strap, so it looked as if she was being dragged, like you see in the movies.
Chad had come to all the shows close to home. He was a general dogsbody, helping Zeb carry buckets of water, filling hay nets and cleaning out the back of the truck so they could set up chairs and a table for their break times.
The trouble was that Shelby hated the rodeos. She'd seen some amazing riders and some wonderful horsemanship, but lots of things she didn't like too. Most people seemed to feel the same about their horses as they would about a piece of equipment, or a car. To Shelby horses had always been people, with personalities and moods. Even her friends said she was too soft. They told her that horses adapt, but Shelby couldn't think about them like that. She felt it was a betrayal of the trust the horses put in her.
And the horses seemed to have the best of it. The other animals at the rodeo were merely entertainment. Shelby didn't understand how people could take pleasure from all these hurt and distressed animals.
At one rodeo she had been near the cattle yards before the bull riding, and she'd seen some men prodding the bull to make it angry. The poor thing was enclosed in a metal crush and couldn't get away. It would try to get free, and bash its head against the sides of the crush. The more it bellowed with pain and rage, the more the men laughed. She had to cover her eyes. It made her cry even thinking about it.
Nobody wore helmets. It made her feel stupid when she put hers on, but she wasn't going to risk her brain just to fit in with the crowd – especially with the falls she'd had already.
Shelby hadn't hurt herself badly yet, but most of the falls had been dumb things – straps not tight enough, slipping when she wasn't paying attention. One time Blue had tripped and she'd hit her elbow on the metal rail at the edge of the arena. The bottom half of her arm had been numb for ten minutes. Towards the end she'd worried the feeling might never come back again.
'Why do you need to do anything?' Chad asked. 'Blue likes trail riding. You like trail riding. Why don't we just do that?'
She huffed. Even though Chad had done some exploring on his trail bike, there were lots of trails in the Gully that he hadn't been along yet. He didn't appreciate that the Gully seemed pretty small after you've ridden the same tracks for a few years.
'What about showjumping?' Chad asked.
Shelby bit her lip. 'I'm a scaredy-cat,' she blurted.
'You'll stand on a horse's back while it gallops around, but you won't jump?' Chad shook his head.
'I don't mind when the horse jumps, I just don't like the part when they decide not to jump,' she explained. 'I suppose I could try endurance.'
'You said you didn't want to do endurance because you don't get to wear a special outfit,' he reminded her.
When he put it like that it sounded silly – as though what she really wanted to do was play dress-ups.
'And I don't have a float,' she added.
Shelby sighed again. Blue had coped with the travelling. Each time he walked down the ramp he blinked his blue eyes and snorted, as if he was saying, 'Same thing, different postcode,' but Shelby was sure spending all that time in trucks and tiny yards wasn't good for him.
He was sooky with her, and instead of enjoying his reliance on her Shelby saw it as a sign that he was lonely. Blue should be in a herd with his