A Summer Without Horses by Bonnie Bryant

Author:Bonnie Bryant [Bryant, Bonnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-82516-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-02-06T05:00:00+00:00

I promise that’s the last tall tale I’m ever telling in my whole life!

The woods are on the far side of the fields. It’s about a half-mile ride to the edge of the woods and then there are miles and miles of trails. Lisa, Carole, and I never think much about the distances because we only ever do it on horseback. At a trot, a horse reaches the woods in a few minutes. On foot, wading through the grass, it would take me twenty. Then, once I reached the woods, I’d be even worse off because there are so many choices, though I’d go to the quarry first and that was about two miles into the woods—another forty-five minutes on foot.

The choices were not exactly great. I could take hours and hours on foot to accomplish exactly nothing, or I could ride. On horseback, it’d be a cinch to find them within about a half hour, no matter where they were, especially if I rode Topside, who could run like the wind.

If I could sit down.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? I couldn’t sit down? On the other hand, I didn’t have a choice about riding; I had to do it. There are some things that can be done on horseback better than any other way and looking for riders in the woods was one of them. I had to ride.

That decided, I worked on how I was going to do it. The answer was staring me in the face because I’d been working on it very hard with the young riders just a short time before. I would ride in the three-point position. It would tire my legs, but tiring my legs was a lot better than bruising my seating area any further. I didn’t waste any more time.

I grabbed Topside’s tack, took him out of his stall, led him to the entrance to the stable, and mounted—very carefully. Once I had both feet in the stirrups, I did the most sensible thing I’d done in days: I touched the good-luck horseshoe. Now was the time when I needed good luck more than I’d ever needed it before, and not just for myself.

I clucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, nudged Topside with my calves, and we were off.

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