The Kill Pen Mare Who Won the County Rodeo

The Alley Gate

Myrtle ran fourth. She came out of the alley like a shot, and that bay mare of hers was everything Paige said she was.

Tight around the first barrel, tight around the second, a long hard run to the third and a straight line home.

“Seventeen point two one,” the announcer said. “That is going to be a tough one to beat, folks.”

The grandstand clapped. I clapped too. Myrtle is a good rider, and I’ve never held her mother against her. Down at the end of the fence, Paige clapped loudest of anybody.

Josie ran ninth.

She rode Ruby down the alley at a walk, the way our neighbor had taught her, letting the mare look at everything.

And about ten feet from the alley gate, where the arena opens up and the noise of the grandstand comes rolling in, Ruby stopped dead.

Her head went up. Her ears went hard at the gate. She planted all four feet.

Josie squeezed her. Nothing. She clucked and squeezed again. Ruby backed up two steps, then three, snorting, her eyes on the crowd and the lights and the flags snapping on the fence.

“Josie Vold, on Ruby,” the announcer said again. “Come on in, young lady.”

Somebody in the grandstand laughed. Not mean, maybe. But I heard it, and I know Josie heard it. I saw her face go white under that straw hat.

My hands were on the top rail of the fence, and I was halfway to climbing it.

I’m her mother. I didn’t know what I was going to do down there, but I was going.

And then Myrtle Hendry, who had already run, who was sitting on her bay mare in the warm-up area outside the alley, turned that horse around and rode back toward the alley gate at a jog.

She didn’t say anything to her mother. She didn’t look at her mother.

She just rode down that alley right up alongside Ruby, close, the way the older girls do for a young horse at a big show, her bay’s shoulder nearly touching Ruby’s.

“She just needs a buddy to the gate,” Myrtle said to Josie. I was close enough to hear it. “Come on. We’ll walk up together.”

And they did. Myrtle walked her mare forward, and Ruby, with that calm bay horse beside her, put her ears forward and walked right with her.

Step by step, up to the gate. When they got there, Myrtle stopped and let Ruby go on alone.

“Go get it, Ruby,” Myrtle said.