over, and she crouched low in the saddle, bending low over the gelding's grey mane. Her balance restored, she gripped the animal between her knees and released her hold on the saddle horn. The reins bounced along the horse's neck. She grabbed them with her free hand and began pulling backward, easing the gelding out of his frightened run.
As they slowed to a trot, the thunder of the gelding's hooves was replaced by rasping echoes of laughter. Turning her grey back toward the hunter, Victoria frowned. "I hardly see what's so amusing," she called to her companion.
"Just been a good long while since I rode with a greenhorn is all," Cora replied. "I plumb forget how funny you lot can be."
"I think I performed rather well, all things considered," Victoria said, sitting up straight. "After all, I completed the lesson and managed to keep my seat."
"You ain't no stranger to riding, I'll give you that," Cora said, suppressing another chuckle. "Still, a display like that ain't going to do you any favors in a firefight. Can't go spooking your horse with every shot."
"What do you suggest I do, then?" Victoria asked. "Tell the dumb beast I'm about to fire a gun and that it might want to brace itself?"
"Might work. Might also try making friends with him." Cora patted her mare's neck. "Me and Our Lady been riding together for well over ten years now. I trust her more than any other creature on God's green earth, animal and human both. We've pulled each other out of more scrapes than I can recollect. She knows I wouldn't never do a thing to put her in danger unless it was necessary, so she don't bat an eye when she feels me setting up to shoot."
Victoria grimaced. "You expect me to befriend an animal?"
Cora urged Our Lady forward until the two women were no more than three feet apart. "What, that don't sit well with you?" Reading Victoria's expression, she shook her head. "You ain't going to last out here, kid."
"I am not a child."
"No, you ain't," Cora said. "Even kids know how much rides on the backs of horses in these parts, and it ain't just your pretty little rump. Horses are the difference between life and death out here. You got a good one under you, you got a good chance of surviving most everything this desert can throw at you. Sun, coyotes, thirst...all of them's easier to deal with if you're mounted right. That's why they ain't cheap. That pretty grey cost you a bundle, didn't he?"
"Yes," Victoria admitted. "A full one hundred and fifty of your dollars."
"One hundred fifty," Cora repeated. "That's more than a schoolteacher would see in two years of teaching. Maybe them as own a railroad or two wouldn't bat an eye at that, but most folk can't buy a horse all easy-like the way you done."
"I'll spend my money how I see fit," Victoria said.
"Ain't my point. Point is, you'd best make friends with that critter under you. He's apt to save your life if you do. If you don't, he'll throw you sooner or later."
"I never bothered to befriend any of the horses I rode as a girl, and they didn't throw me off."
"But was you shooting guns at other folk shooting back?" Victoria shook her head. "There you go, then. Them horses you rode before didn't need to trust you none."
"But this one does?"
Cora nodded emphatically. "Now you're catching on. Put it another way: how do you reckon you'd get back to town if you didn't have a horse?"
"If I didn't have a horse," Victoria said, "I wouldn't have left town in the first place."
"Well, ain't you the clever one," Cora said. "Silly me trying to teach a fancy lady anything, seeing as how I ain't book-learned."
Before Victoria could reply, Cora put her heels to her horse. Our Lady eased into a healthy gallop in the space of a few seconds. Soon, both horse and rider disappeared into the dust clouds they stirred up, leaving Victoria alone on the hillside.
Turning her own horse to follow, Victoria urged him into a trot. The headless hare bounced against her leg. Overhead, the shape of a bird circled, black against the blue sky.
How could she befriend a horse? Even if she felt so inclined, it wasn't as though she'd brought apples or sugar along in her saddlebags. Cora's list of supplies included salted beef, a flavorless sort of biscuit she called hardtack, and sacks of