He scrubbed his face. “The short answer is that I still don’t have my shit together. I’ve been trying really hard for months, and you’ve only given me reason to work at it even harder, but I’m just not there yet. I need you to be patient with me, Aiwattsi.” His black eyes met hers. “I don’t want to let you down.”
“I don’t know how you could,” she replied, hugging herself. “You came here, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I came. I swore I wouldn’t have anything to do with this, but I’m beginning to think even wild horses couldn’t have kept me away from you.”
He cupped her face and kissed her, softly, sweetly, with toe-curling tenderness. The kind of kiss that hinted at secrets hidden in the heart. He released her slowly. She shivered and chaffed her arms. “It’s getting really cold out here. I need to go back in. Will you join us for supper tonight? Jo-Jo said she was making something especially for you.”
“She is? What is it?” he asked.
She grinned. “The Food Network did a segment on fry bread yesterday. They had several different recipes, so she decided to give Indian Tacos a try.”
He laughed. “Sounds great, but could you ask her to hold off for a bit? There’s still about an hour of daylight left. I was hoping to work with the horse. Did you still want to watch?”
“Yes, I do! Just give me a minute to grab my camera and a jacket.”
A few minutes later, Miranda stood outside the corral with her video camera poised as Keith climbed over the panels and into the pen, a coiled rope in hand. He dropped softly to the ground. Fear gripped her as the horse spun to face him, neck arched, teeth bared, and ears pinned.
“Be careful, Keith!”
“I’m always careful,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m just going to stand here quietly, looking down at the ground. I won’t make a single move as long as he doesn’t. If he’s feeling purely defensive, he should just stand there, watching and waiting on me, but if he makes an aggressive move, I’ll have to counter in the same way. As a stallion, his sole purpose in life was to procreate and to protect. His instincts taught him to fight anyone who threatened his position. It’s not going to be easy to change lifelong behaviors.”
“How do you go about it?” Miranda asked.
“With time and patience.” He kept his eyes glued to the horse as he spoke. “He basically has to be reprogrammed, but I can’t even begin the process until he accepts that I’m not a threat to him.” Even while he was speaking, the horse lowered his head, stretched his neck, and charged.
Miranda cried out, but Keith darted out of its path and threw the looped end of his lasso at the horse, startling him into turning away. Blue Eye circled him several times, plunging and kicking, but Keith stood his ground, using the rope to keep the animal at a safe distance.
“If I back down or retreat, he wins,” he explained. “And that’s what he’ll remember the next time.” After a minute or two, the horse snorted and withdrew to the far end of the pen, still watching Keith with a wary glare until Keith lowered the rope and climbed back over the panel.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?” Miranda asked, befuddled.
“Yup. My only goal was to show him he can’t intimidate me, so I’d call that one a win.”
“It looked a lot more like a draw to me,” Miranda said dryly.
“In reality, there was no winner or loser, but I achieved what I wanted. I didn’t let him exert dominance. Once he backed off, I rewarded him by removing the pressure. This isn’t going to be about coaxing, cooing, and trying to woo him. That kind of courtship approach already failed with this horse. The next time I go in there, we’ll see who can move whom. Herding is how horses exert dominance over one another. If I win, we can move forward.”
“And if you don’t?” she asked. “What if he runs through that rope of yours? What if he hurts you?”
“Then I’d have a real tough decision to make. An aggressive horse is as dangerous as a rabid dog. I won’t keep an animal that I can’t turn my back on.”
“Are you saying you’d euthanize him?”
He nodded. “But only as the last resort. It’s still way too early to judge.”
Watching Keith with a horse was an almost magical experience. It was uncanny how well he read and understood them. “I just don’t understand why you aren’t doing this full-time,” she said. “You have such a talent. It seems such a waste not to use it.”
“I’ve already told you why I can’t.”
“But your reasons are nonsensical,” she protested. “Why can’t you at least give it a chance? I really think this could be a good thing for all of us. I don’t understand why you don’t see it, too. Whether you want me to be part of it or not, you still need to move forward with your life, Keith. You can’t let the past keep clouding your future.”
“My future?” He shook his head. “This is not my future, Miranda, or my dream. It’s yours.”
Her lips quivered. “I thought… I hoped…that maybe it could become ours together.”