#1 Blazing Courage Read Online Free Page B

reassuring tone.
    Jack lifts the saddle and hooks the right stirrup over the saddle horn. He drapes the cinches over the seat of the saddle, too. Poco sees him in her peripheral vision and sidesteps to gain a little distance, but Jack reads the motion and matches it. “No worries,” he whispers, and lowers the saddle for her inspection. Once she calms to it, he continues. He lifts the saddle and gently places it on the center of her back over the pad.
    Poco flinches and muscle ripple beneath her skin. But she doesn’t run. She reads trust in Jack’s eyes and trusts him in return, even as he tightens both cinches around her belly. “Bridle,” he says like a doctor doing surgery, and I deliver it with my free hand. The ringed, silver snaffle bit glistens in the sun.
    I’ve heard a snaffle is gentler on a horse’s mouth than other, stiffer bits, and Jack confirms it. “This won’t hurt her too much,” he says as he dangles it in front of her, “if you don’t pull too hard.” His eyes lock on mine. “Do NOT pull hard.”
    I nod as he smiles, wraps his right arm around Poco’s head, and guides the bridle toward her face. Cheek to cheek, they stand staring at me when Jack starts to sing, softly. So softly I can only hear something about dancing and night.
    â€œOrleans,” he whispers, naming the oldies band he’s humming as he slides the bit into Poco’s mouth and fastens the bridle strap around her jaw. “God love the 70s.”
    He turns to face Poco, stroking her nose as he sings on. His singing is still so soft that I can’t hear any words, and then his singing slips back into humming.
    â€œMusic soothes the savage beast,” he whispers and continues to hum. He slips his left boot in the left stirrup of Poco’s saddle. His body rises gracefully until all his weight is on one side of the saddle. Then slowly, even tenderly, he drapes his body across the seat, like a two hundred pound sack of singing beans.
    â€œShe isn’t fighting it,” I say. “And she’s playing with the snaffle against her tongue.” I am amazed. I see no fear.
    â€œAtta girl,” Jack says, sliding off of Poco’s back. He scratches under her jaw and she drinks in his approval. I should be pleased, but I’m not. I’m jealous.
    â€œCan I try?” I ask, and Jack nods.
    â€œTake it slow,” he says. “It’s about trust.”
    He’s right, but I don’t hear a word. All I can hear is the sound of my heart pounding—the sound of my insecure thoughts. I have to make her love me , I am thinking. But my approach is dead wrong.
    Poco hears my boots rushing toward her. Her ears go back—a warning I ignore. I lift my left foot into the left stirrup, as Jack did, but I do not pause to prepare her. I throw my right leg over the saddle and shove my foot into the stirrup. I am not smart as I kick my wild Mustang in the side.
    My shy little Buckskin, so new to the world of people, panics. A reckless creature is in her saddle, an unyielding bit is in her mouth, and a thick, wooden fence has her captured. I pull back on the reins, begging her to stop. But “stop” isn’t a word she’s learned yet, and with every tug the bit cuts into the back of her tender mouth and hurts her more. Instinct tells her to escape the pain, so she does. Three out of four wooden rails snap like twigs when Poco hits them at a gallop, and I am suddenly airborne.
    Poco runs for the safety of the barn, to Jinx in his outdoor paddock for reassurance, as I sit in mud outside the ring. The Thoroughbred cries out as if he’s defending her. I should be ashamed he’s a better ally than I am, but I’m not. I’m too mad.
    â€œStupid horse,” I say, brushing mud from the scrapes on my elbows.
    â€œStupid horse?” Jack asks. I am not the only one who is angry. “What in the holy heavens were you doing,