Broken Strings

Nineteen

Travis

Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed – Hunter S. Thompson

"That's really how you want to do this, huh?" Travis asked.  He folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes across the round pen.  There, staring at him without moving, was a large black gelding who had been utterly refusing to do anything that Travis asked of him.

            He'd been working Guacamole in the pen for over an hour, trying to get the horse to head in a clockwise direction but no matter what he did, Guac wouldn't cooperate.  He'd head counter-clockwise and then simply stop moving and stare at nothing, as if deciding that he had no interest in even wasting his time with Travis.

            Only to then nip at the edge of Travis' plaid shirt whenever he got too close.

            All in all, it had already been a hell of a day and Guac had only been on the premises for two hours.

            And now he was having a bloody stare-down with a horse.  The worst part was that the horse was the one who was winning.

            "God, you're the worst," Travis muttered.  "Can't you just listen to me for once?  Remember the last time you were here?  By the end, you were listening to me.  Why can't we just skip ahead to that part and cut out all this angsty bullshit?"

            Guac merely snorted.

            "Fine.  Fine," he repeated as a familiar car sped down the long driveway towards the house, kicking up clouds of dust behind the tires as it came.  "We'll pick this up again tomorrow."

            The horse tried to take another bite out of Travis's shirt as he grabbed the lead and made to usher Guac out of the pen and back towards the barn where he was being stalled.  Guac made a sound of disappointment but didn't contest further as he was taken out of the round pen. 

Across the way, he saw Ginger's car roll to a gentle stop and heard the deafening silence as the engine cut.  She waved as she climbed out of the driver's side door, curls bouncing, and angled towards him.  Ginger landed by his side just as he reached the barn doors.

"Hey you," he said.

"Uh oh," Ginger replied, raising a brow as she followed him into the barn.  "I know that tone.  Didn't go well?"

"Nope."

Travis led Guacamole into a stall next to his horse, Fabio, and removed the harness before stepping out and closing the door.  Guac turned his attention immediately to the bucket of feed, steadfastly ignoring Travis once more.

"How bad?"  Ginger leaned against Fabio's stall and stroked his head as he poked it out over the door to say hello. 

"Let's just say that I think I'm in for a permanent headache until Guac decides that he wants to be my friend and not be a menace."

"What's your plan?"

He turned his head, running a critical eye over the gelding who looked up and snorted before going back to his feed.  "Get him to settle in for a day or two, I guess.  Stephen's going to bring over Charm in a couple of days so we can work on desensitizing Guac."

"Charm – that's the retriever, right?  How many dogs does Stephen have now?"

"Yeah, Charm's the retriever.  Big, blond, and dumb but nothing fazes him so he's the ideal choice to use for this.  Technically, Charm is the only one that's Stephen's but his parents have the two livestock guarders, Buck and Wilder."