Lilac's Chance

Chapter Four

Last Chance is tacked up and raring to go within minutes. And suddenly, I'm not. I did not wake up expecting to ride today. I'm in tattered jeans, equally tattered sneakers, and somebody else's oversized jacket. I don't have a helmet, and nobody offers me one. My left side hurts from the crash, and I'm sure if I look I'll find bruises dappling my side.

But that's never stopped me before. So I swallow my nerves and follow Last Chance, Hank, and Braydon outside. None of them look at me.

Under the pale white sun, Last Chance is even more gorgeous. She gleams, muscles sliding beneath her molten gold coat. Her mane is little more than a snowy ridge upon the sun, and she tosses her chiseled head, sending it rushing in waves down her neck. But these aren't the qualities that make my breath shorten at the prospect of getting on her back.

No, it's her perfectly formed legs that dance impatiently, built for eating up distance. It's the hard-packed muscles rippling in her powerful hindquarters. And most of all, it's the look in her eyes as she throws up her head and surveys us mere servants. They're framed by creamy eyelashes, but they're anything but gentle. Instead, they're restless, staring beyond the place around her and into a distracted future, one where she will be running.

I know this, because I feel it too.

"Well," Hank says, and gestures to Braydon. Mouth a straight line, he crouches and laces his fingers together. Wordlessly I step into them, trying to ignore the heat of his palm pressing through my jeans, and suddenly I'm on Last Chance's back. "Don't fall off."

On Skip, my favorite Thoroughbred at home, I feel like I'm half of a whole. Without me, Skip could not win. Without Skip, I could not run. We listen to each other and learn from each other, and our communication is rudimentary but effective.

Immediately I can tell that Last Chance is an entirely different ride. Every step she takes as she bounds forwards reverberates into my seat, eager and brisk. Every head bob, every snort, every time her tongue presses against the bit, is less of a question and more of a command: let me run. Now.

"Soon, baby," I whisper, and press my legs into her sides. She steps into a trot, curling around the bit but not leaning into it. She's incredibly light, and I think this might account for the unusually sharp way Hank and Braydon's eyes follow my every move- a lot of jockeys tend to bully their way into becoming the horse's leader.

Last Chance's delicate ears flip back as I say, "well, I'm not here to be your leader. I think you need a friend."

If Bonawinds is a racing farm, they have a poor way of showing it. The only indication I can see of a track is an oval shape cut into the earth behind the barn, presumably by the tractor abandoned inside of the circle. I point Last Chance left, and we eagerly trot across the crunchy dead grass towards it. Since nobody stops me, I figure we're doing all right. By the time we reach it the filly is all warmed up, so I ask her to canter.

Oh, my goodness. In all my years of riding horses, never have I felt anything so silky smooth as the Quarter Horse beneath me. Her haunches rise up and down as she canters, her head is lowered, and she snorts in time with her gait. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. It's so mesmerizing that I kind of forget myself for a few moments and just float across the track.

All too quickly we've completed the entire oval and are back where we started, only Hank and Braydon are there now. They both are standing with their weight shifted to one leg, arms crossed. Hank looks unimpressed as he waves me over.

Last Chance is, too. She protests as I sit back in the exercise saddle and gently ask her to slow. Annoyed, she shakes her head, but all I have to do is close my fingers on the reins and she drops to a spirited, high-headed walk, swinging through her hind end and back. Wind drags my hair across my face as I turn her towards the two men, studying first Hank, then Braydon, for a glimpse of what they think.