The Last Cowboy. Lindsay McKenna

allow maximum air circulation throughout the building. Jordana worked to keep up with the fast walking and talking wrangler. “How long have you been working here, Shorty?”

      “Too long,” he laughed. Then, getting more serious, he said, “I worked for Mr. McPherson until he was killed by Red Downing, another rancher, in an auto accident. At that time, Slade and Griff, who are fraternal twins, inherited this ranch. But they were too young to take over as six-years-olds. Slade was adopted by his uncle Paul McPherson and Griff went with uncle Robert McPherson, who was a Wall Street broker in New York City. When Slade was ten, his adopted mother died of cancer. Then, Paul drank himself to death and he died when Slade was seventeen.” Shorty halted at the concrete floor opening to the pole barn. His voice lowered. “At seventeen Slade had to take over this ranch. His brother didn’t want anything to do with it. So, he struggled by himself to keep it going.”

      “That’s a lot to ask of any seventeen-year-old,” Jordana murmured.

      Motioning, Shorty said, “Follow me down the breezeway here. Your mare’s stall is the last one on the right,” and he pointed toward the other end of the long, clean barn.

      Digesting the information about Slade, Jordana set it aside for later. Right now, as Stormy clip-clopped down the concrete aisle, horses on either side nickered in a friendly fashion to her. Jordana counted ten box stalls. She was the last student. Feeling lucky and happy, she followed Shorty.

      Each roomy box stall had iron bars across the top half of it and sturdy oak below. Shorty slid the door open. Jordana was pleased to see that not only did the floor have thick black rubber matting to make it easy on a horse’s legs, but also fresh cedar shavings were strewn over it. She brought Stormy to the opening and allowed the mare to look around, study and sniff it first. Mustangs were wild, and Jordana knew that Stormy had to check out her new surroundings before she’d ever step into the well-lit box stall. To try and force the mare into it, without giving her time to inspect it, would have been a mistake. Stormy would have balked and fought her instead.

      “She’s a mighty alert horse,” Shorty noted, standing and assessing Stormy.

      “Pure mustang,” Jordana murmured.

      “I can see.” Shorty nodded toward her legs. “Got the zebra stripes on her legs. Good sign she’s got seriously good mustang genes.”

      “I agree,” Jordana said with a smile. “And her name is Stormy.” The mustang stepped into the stall on her own. Following her mare, Jordana slid the door shut and unlatched the rope attached to the mare’s red nylon halter. “You want me to leave her halter on, don’t you?” she called to the wrangler.

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      Stormy moved around sniffing and checking out the shavings. She touched noses with the curious big black horse next door and then went straight for the huge water dispenser located at the front of the stall. The mustang drank deeply and then smacked her wet lips afterward. Laughing, Jordana patted her mare. “You like your new digs, girl.”

      Shorty slid the door open for Jordana. “She looks purty happy in there. She a beaver?” He shut the door after the owner stepped into the passageway.

      A beaver in horse language was a horse that chewed on wood areas of the stall when it was bored. And that could cause wind colic or worse. Jordana knew that in those cases, they would paint the wood with a foul taste that discouraged such a bad habit. “Nope, she has no stall problems.”

      “Well,” Shorty said, “we don’t have bored horses around here. The Boss works them every day, and by the time they’re done, they’re tuckered out and glad for a rest. On the days the students come out to ride their horses, they get a solid workout.” He smiled a little and studied the rows of stalls. “Nope, none of these horses have much time to become bored.”

      “That’s good,” Jordana said. “Can you tell me the training schedule, Shorty?”

      “The Boss didn’t?” he asked, surprised.

      Shaking her head, Jordana pulled out a small notebook from the back pocket of her jeans and opened it up. “No. And I’d like to know.”

      “Why, sure you do, ma’am. Let’s amble down to the tack room at the other end of the pole barn. You’ll be putting your saddle, bridle and tack box in there.”

      Jordana followed. The wrangler was so different from the owner it was stunning. Shorty was jovial, kind and open. All the things Slade McPherson was not.

      “Starting tomorrow, the Boss will have me put Stormy on the hot walker for half an hour.”

      Mechanical walkers were a must in training. Jordana saw the machine in another nearby corral. It had four long metal arms sticking upward with a thick rope and snap on the end of each one. She knew four horses at a time would be snapped on to each rope and then the speed would be set by the operator. The circular walker looked more like a space vehicle to anyone who didn’t know what it was used for. The covered motor was located in the center. The operator could make the horses walk or trot.

      “He’s not trotting them on it, is he?” Jordana wondered.

      “Oh, no, ma’am. It’s a fast walk to warm ’em up before they’re worked. And he also uses it to cool ’em out after their training. Any fool who thinks they can trot a horse in that tight circle is lookin’ for leg problems to develop real fast.”

      “Yes,” she murmured, “I just wanted to make sure, was all.”

      Shorty slowed and opened the thick oak door. “Endurance horses have the best legs in the world. The Boss isn’t interested in harming those legs, only makin’ them stronger.”

      “Good to hear,” Jordana said. The tack room was huge, roomy, spotlessly clean and smelled of leather. She loved the scent and inhaled it deeply. There was one hook for a bridle and an aluminum saddle rack suspended just below it. Shorty gestured to it.

      “This will be for Stormy’s gear.” He pointed to a large wooden tack box below it. “Anything your horse needs insofar as brushes, combs, hoof pick and such, goes in here. I’ll be puttin’ Stormy’s name on this box so you can identify it among all the others.”

      Jordana was impressed with Slade’s management abilities. The box stalls had fresh shavings and were obviously cleaned daily. The waterers were automatic and filled as the horse drank it down. In the tack room, there were no cobwebs in the corners, no dust on the thick rubber mats across the floor. All the leather gear was clean, the bits shining, the saddles contained no dust anywhere upon them.

      “Now,” Shorty said, a bit of warning in his voice, “the Boss don’t like dirt. He’s a real nitpicker about it.” Shorty went over to a specially made endurance saddle that had no horn on it. He lifted up a leather flap on the rear of it. “He expects you to keep your gear in tip-top shape. No dirt, crud or oil between the skirts here. And he’ll be inspecting you every day you come out for training. Equally important is the cinch.” Shorty picked up the white cotton girth that spanned the horse’s belly and kept the saddle in place on its back. “He expects you to not only minutely look at each twisted strand of the girth for dirt or weeds, but also wash it once a week. He hates dirty cinches. That dirt can work into the horse’s belly and create a sore and inflammation. Something this simple can take an endurance horse out of a contest. Don’t disappoint him on this.”

      “I’m beginning to like him,” Jordana said, impressed. She knew a dirty cinch was only asking for trouble. A horse had hair, but any sawing motion could pull it out and leave the horse’s tender flesh open to being rubbed raw. And as a doctor, she was always aware of possible infection starting at such a site.

      “Oh, he’s a stickler,” Shorty promised with a lopsided grin. “You’ll be spending a lot of time either in here or just outside the door cleaning your gear afterward. He don’t want you leaving the premises until you’ve bathed your horse over at the shower area and then cleaned your leather. Oh, and make sure your horse’s hooves are clean. If he finds any mud, manure or, worse, a stone lodged in the