Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(44)
Badger pulled differently on the longe and said, “Whoa, boy. Whoa.” Spirit took about half a turn before he slowed up, but he did, coming to a walk and then stopping as Badger pulled up on the line and walked to him. Then, coiling the longe over his shoulder, he led the colt to Nolan.
“You really want to learn, or are you just pesterin’ me cuz you’re bored?” He rubbed Spirit’s nose, and the colt gave him an affectionate push.
Though his ten-day school suspension was up, Nolan had asked to stay on at the B&B, doing the same grunt work, but now for pay. Badger had cleared it with Shannon, and she was paying him a good rate.
Everybody was keeping watch, making sure Cory and her kids were solid. They were paying Havoc’s cut of the weed run to her and would continue to do so as long as that run was on, but she wouldn’t get cut in on any new business. She was back managing Valhalla Vin, and Havoc had saved his take better than anybody —who’d have thought he’d have been so careful with money, considering his profligate ways in most other respects—so she’d be okay.
The Horde took care of their own and would step in to shore her up if and when she needed it, but she wasn’t one who’d come asking. So they paid attention, and they helped where they could. Nolan needed work not for the money, but for a host of other reasons. To keep his mind and body busy. To stay connected with people who cared about him. To figure out a way to move forward in his life again.
He seemed to have cast off what Badger and Len had figured was a problem with booze. Though he’d told Badger that he’d been putting back about half a quart of vodka a day for months, once he’d been caught, he just stopped, and seemed to have experienced no effects of withdrawal. Maybe he’d been pacing himself sufficiently.
Badger was kind of jealous. He was still fighting every single day the need to get high. Some days, the only thing keeping him clean was geography. In Signal Bend, there was no dealer. Drug abuse did not happen in this town. Period. Except for Badger, who’d had to travel all the way to St. Louis to get his fix.
Some days, he almost went on ahead and did that. A couple of times, he’d made it to his bike with that intention. But Adrienne was right there for him when he needed her. He was gentler with her now than he’d been at first, and the need was on him less often, and less emphatically, than it had been at first. He knew he was trading one addiction for another, but he didn’t think being addicted to loving her was such a bad thing.
Nolan, once he started spending his afternoons and weekends at the B&B, didn’t seem to have a need for booze. If he was trading booze for work, that didn’t seem such a bad bargain, either. Still, Badger took a hit off everything Nolan drank unless he saw the kid unseal it. It had gotten to the point that Nolan just handed his bottle or can over when Badger came by. He minded, but he didn’t fight it.
“I really want to know.”
“Okay. The way I train a horse—the right way to train a horse—is about trust more than control. I want the horse to want to do what I ask, not be afraid not to do what I say. A horse that obeys out of fear is unpredictable. Also, people who make horses afraid are dicks. So the first thing I do is let the horse know I’m not a dick.”
“Why are you holding a giant whip, then?”
Feeling a little smart and superior, Badger smirked. “I’ve never whipped a horse in my life. I use it for a different kind of touch cue, and for a sound cue. Watch and learn, kid.”
“Don’t call me that.”
In the act of turning to the colt, Badger stopped and looked back at Nolan. Havoc had called him that; Badger had said it without thinking. “Sorry.”
Nolan shrugged halfheartedly. Now Badger turned; Spirit stuck his nose under his arm, snuffling at his kutte pocket—where he kept the sugar cubes. “Not yet, buddy. Gotta work for your pay.” He grabbed the longe line at the hook, right under Spirit’s chin, and gave it a little pull. Then he turned the whip down, the lash folded against the shaft in his grasp, and tapped Spirit’s foreleg. “Back, boy.” Spirit snorted a little protest and then stepped back, one step for every tap. “Whoa. Good boy.”
As Spirit lipped the sugar cube he’d held out on the palm of his hand, Badger looked over his shoulder at Nolan. “That’s the only way I’ll touch him with the whip. Here’s the other way I use it.”
He played out the longe line and clucked twice, “Gid’up, boy. Let’s go.” Loath to abandon the chance at another cube, Spirit resisted at first, and Badger released the lash and snapped the whip on the ground. The noise it made was thicker than it was sharp, the dusty ground of the corral absorbing most of the impact.
But it had Spirit’s attention. With another snort, he took off in the direction of Badger’s leading arm, walking quickly until he had the lunge pulled out to near tautness.
“If I wanted him to step it up to the next gait, I’d cluck again, and he’d trot. But I want him to gallop right now, rather than go through the paces. So I do this.” He snapped the whip in the air, and it made a whistle-crack sound. Spirit nearly leapt into a gallop, shaking his head with abandon.
The colt’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Badger grinned, feeling good. He let him run for a bit, keeping alert, and called out to Nolan. “He loves this. I need to work on him restraining himself more before he can really take a rider. Easy to lose the saddle when a horse is happy dancing like this. But he’s just learned that the crack means all out, so we’ll work on restraint next. Then I’ll replace the crack with a voice cue.”