Bilgarra Springs (10 page)

He looked up to make sure that she understood. She nodded at him.

‘Righto. I want you to go across from here and do three laps around the yard clockwise. Then I want you to come back to me. Off you go.’

Aurora looked down at her hands to make sure that the reins were still right and gently kicked. The horse rippled his hide where her foot had nudged him, but that was the only movement he made.

‘If you want him to move, you can’t be gentle. If it’s not a decent kick, he thinks it’s a fly and moves his hide to get rid of it, just like he did then. Let him know it’s you.’

Aurora gave him what she thought was a decent kick, hoping like mad that he didn’t take off in a hurry like the horses did in the western movies. She felt a surge of relief when he moved off slowly. When she got across she pulled the right rein, kicked with the left foot and next thing they were going around the edge of the yard. She repeated that process to get into the middle after the three laps were done and pulled the reins while trying to keep her weight in the saddle to stop. When Sox pulled up like she had asked him to do, she grinned from ear to ear. Callan looked at her and after his own face splitting into a wide grin, decided that her smile was infectious.

‘Well done. I was a bit worried about you in the beginning, but you’ve done really well. You ready to go back around the other way?’

‘Sure.’

Without waiting any longer, Aurora repeated the same process but in the other direction. When she came to a stop beside him she was looking really happy and excited. Callan mentally tossed up whether to push her any further for the day while she was on a roll, or whether he would scare her off if he did. He decided to throw it out there and see what her reaction was.

‘Do you want to leave it there for today or are you keen to keep on going and ramp it up a bit?’

‘I’m keen to keep going if you don’t mind. Now that I am up here I’m loving it.’

The smile on her face was confirmation.

‘In that case I will get you to do some more exercises at a walk, and then we will move you up to a trot.’

He then outlined what he wanted her to do, then went and sat on the top rail while she did it. He acknowledged to himself that she was trying hard. He hadn’t had to explain things more than once and she did her best. It was good to see, especially since she had been scared of the animal to start with. She was slowly earning his respect and she was turning out to be more tenacious than he would have thought. He snorted. Not that there had been many, but the other city people that had come out had been downright soft. No wonder then that he had thought that she would have been cast in the same mould. No, he would give her credit where it was due, she was tougher than she looked. She actually appeared to be enjoying herself. Even though she was concentrating, she was still smiling. It was the most animated he had seen her since she arrived. Not that he had spent a whole lot of time with her he had to admit.

When she had completed what he had asked her to do, she brought Sox over and stopped in front of Callan. He stayed where he was as he was pretty much on eye level with her.

‘You want to have a go at trotting?’

Her face fell, replaced by a look of uncertainty.

‘Do you think I will be able to without falling off? I want to, but…’

Her voice trailed off and she dropped her eyes. She looked like a small child who was scared to cross the street on her own. The speed of the transformation from confident to insecure was amazing. He briefly wondered why she had no confidence in herself, in her own ability, and just as quickly decided it was none of his business. She was here for the next few weeks and then she would go back to her life and it wouldn’t matter a damn what he thought. He was, however, going to make certain that she knew that she could do this.

‘Of course you can do it. The speed of the horse will increase a little but once you learn how to deal with that, everything else stays the same.’

Callan then explained how to urge the horse from a walk to a trot and how to rise correctly while she trotted. She sat there, eyes wide, and listened intently. When he told her to have a go, she didn’t hesitate, she kicked Sox into a walk and then did a lap around the yard at a walk before trying to get him into a trot. Her first couple of attempts didn’t do much, except increase the speed of the walk.

‘Give him a decent kick. Let him know that you don’t just want him to walk faster. He needs you to tell him firmly to trot.’

With that she gave him a decent kick and they started trotting. She picked the rhythm of rising pretty quickly and did a few laps of the yard.

‘Pull him back to a walk, then after a few paces, get him to trot again.’

Aurora did that a few times, moving from walk to trot and back again.

‘This time I want you to bring him up through the middle and go around the other way.’

For someone that had never had anything to do with horses, she was doing really well. The smile was back. Not that he would tell her, but she really should smile more often it changed her whole face. After he had let her go for a bit, Callan jumped down off the rail and moved to the middle of the yard. Aurora brought Sox over to stand beside him. He ran his hand repeatedly down the horse’s neck, before looking up at Aurora.

‘Do you want to have a go at cantering? We can’t do it in this yard as it is a bit too small, but if you want to have a go, then I’ll take you into the next yard.’

The lack of confidence briefly flickered across her features before she steeled herself.

‘This is way better than I ever thought it would be. I really want to have a go.’

Callan’s wolfish grin was back.

‘Good choice.’

He was pleased that she hadn’t given free rein to whatever it was that ripped her confidence away from her. He went over and opened the gate and urged her to come on through.

‘Walk and trot him around a bit in here so you get a feel for the area, then you can get him into a canter. While you are trotting, kick him and sit back into the saddle. Make sure you keep your weight in the saddle because if you lift your backside and lean forward, he is going to go faster and faster because that is what he is trained to do.’

Aurora looked momentarily as though she had changed her mind.

‘He won’t take off if you sit back. You’ll be fine.’

Callan climbed back through the gate and watched as she moved off. She sat nicely on the horse. He had thought this was going to be a lot harder than it had turned out to be. She was a little uncoordinated on her first attempt to get Sox into a canter, but she got there eventually. She had the horse in a canter and her weight was back. So far, so good.

‘Come up the centre which will force you to do a direction change rather than following the rails.’

It was all going well until she was just about at the other end of the yard, and then in a split second Aurora went from sitting on top of Sox to ending up in a pile on the ground. Instinct took over for him. Callan flung himself through the gate and ran up to where she was.

‘Shit!’

Just as he reached her she rolled over onto her back, her stomach heaving a little.

‘You alright?’

She surprised him by starting to laugh, her reply coming out brokenly.

‘I don’t actually know the answer to that.’

The laughter was good in one way, it meant she didn’t have any broken ribs. She definitely wouldn’t be laughing like that if she did, he knew that from experience. After a couple of minutes the laughter died down and she placed her hands over her stomach.

‘I seem to be aching in a whole stack of places that I didn’t even know existed.’

She was still grinning stupidly as she struggled to try and get herself sitting up. Callan extended a hand to help her to her feet, which she gladly took.

‘Thanks.’

She was standing, which meant that neither leg was broken and both arms appeared to be fine. Thank God for that. He would have been furious with himself if she had broken anything. He felt guilty enough for what he thought of as pushing her along to learn to ride. Sox had been forgotten in the rush to make sure she was okay. He was patiently standing beside the rail a few steps away. Callan went over and grabbed the reins, bringing him back with him. He looked her squarely in the eye.

‘Do you want the bad news? Even though it is the last thing you are going to want to do right now, you need to get back on.’

Aurora looked at him ruefully.

‘This is where that cliché comes from isn’t it.’

‘Yep. It’s an oldie, but a goody. If you don’t get back on now, your confidence will be trashed and we won’t be able to get you on tomorrow.’

He handed her the reins.

‘Bring him over so that you can put him in that lower bit over there and you can stand on the slightly higher ground. It may make it marginally easier to swing yourself up.’

Aurora brought Sox over. Callan looped the reins over the horse’s head. She positioned herself and winced as she lifted her leg and placed her foot in the stirrup, bruised muscles complaining at the stretch required. She managed to get herself into the saddle first go and adjusted the reins to fit comfortably in her hands. She looked down at Callan.

‘I fell off because I couldn’t decide whether to go right or left towards the end and I sort of pulled the reins one way, then the other, of course Sox went one way, then the other and over the side I went.’

She was taking this well, he decided. He was glad that there were no hysterics or theatrics. He didn’t deal well with that sort of thing. He also liked that she had thought about what had happened. It meant that she was less likely to do it a second time. Callan grinned.

‘Sox won’t do anything that you don’t ask him to do. But the flip side of that is that he will do what you do ask him to.’

Aurora chuckled.

‘Learnt that the hard way didn’t I!’

With that parting remark she kicked Sox into a walk and off the two of them went. Callan watched her retreating back and experienced a grudging admiration. Her let her do her thing for a while and when she came over, satisfied with what she had achieved for the day, she dismounted and they took Sox over to be unsaddled and wiped down.

The others returned for lunch and both Callan and Aurora went out with them in the afternoon to continue with running the new wire out for the northern boundary fence. Just as dusk was settling they returned to another noisy dinner. Exhausted from the day’s exertion Aurora didn’t linger too long after the meal, instead showering and climbing into bed. She lay there staring into the black nothingness for a while, replaying the major events of the day.

The fencing had been hot and sweaty work and her hands and arms were covered in little nicks from the barbed wire, even though she had worn leather gloves, but it had also been fun in a sense, as everybody had joked and made fun of each other as they had worked. It was certainly different from her usual day job, but she had to admit that she didn’t hate it. So far there was a stress-less peace to anything that she had done out here.

Except, of course, the horse.

She had really amazed herself. If anyone had told her two weeks ago that she would be cantering around on a horse, she would have told them they were mad. She had to admit that it had been really, really difficult, especially for those first few moments when she was sitting up on Sox, but once she had overcome her fear and settled into it things had been much easier.

She smiled to herself in the darkness. Overall, she was really proud of herself for her progress this morning. Callan had suggested that she do a bit of work on Sox again the following morning in the yards and then they were going to ride out to the river and follow it for a bit. She was really looking forward to it. She was amazed that over the course of a few hours her attitude had changed. As much as she had wanted to be angry with Trudy for arranging it all, she realised now that she owed the other woman a big thank you.