Chapter 16: Proving Grounds
The morning air in the barrel corral was cold enough to see your breath, a thin fog that clung to the ground before the sun burned it away. Rose stood by the fence, her knuckles white on the top rail. She was watching Dusty adjust the cinch on a nervous paint mare named Luna.
“Remember,” Dusty said, not looking at Rose. “It’s a conversation. You ask, she answers. You yell, she gets confused. And for god’s sake, breathe.”
Rose nodded, a quick, jerky motion. She was wearing the stiff new jeans they’d issued her, and they creaked with every shift of her weight. Amy leaned against the fence next to her, chewing on a piece of hay.
“You got this,” Amy said, her voice quiet. “It’s just like last night. The fear is just a door. Walk through it.”
“Last night was different,” Rose whispered back, her eyes fixed on the three barrels arranged in the dusty triangle. They looked huge, immovable.
“Only the scenery,” Amy said.
Wildfire strode into the center of the corral, the dust puffing under her boots. She had a coiled lunge whip tucked under her arm, not as a threat but as a pointer. “Carter, you’re on lookout by the south gate. Keep the yearlings back. Rose, you’re up. Simple cloverleaf. Time doesn’t matter. Clean doesn’t matter. Staying on and staying focused does. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rose said, the words barely audible.
Wildfire’s eyes narrowed, but she just jerked her chin toward the mare. “Mount up.”
The next few minutes were a blur of awkwardness. Rose got her left foot in the stirrup, swung her right leg over, and settled into the saddle with a stiffness that made the mare pin its ears back. She gathered the reins, her hands trembling.
“Walk her around the perimeter once,” Wildfire commanded, stepping back.
Amy moved to the south gate, her eyes not on the stray yearlings but on her friend. Rose looked small up there, like a kid playing dress-up. But as Luna completed a slow, plodding circle, something changed. With each step, Rose’s shoulders dropped a fraction. Her spine straightened. She was whispering to the horse, the words lost to the distance but the rhythm clear and calm.
“Alright,” Wildfire called. “When you’re ready.”
Rose guided Luna to the starting line near the fence. She took a deep, visible breath, her gaze sweeping the pattern: first barrel to the right, left to the second, right again to the third, then the sprint home. She glanced at Amy. Amy gave a single, sharp nod.
Rose nudged the mare with her heels.
Luna leaped forward, not with a wild burst, but with a gathered, powerful surge. The thunder of her hooves was a sudden, shocking rhythm in the quiet dawn. Rose leaned into the first turn, her body tilting with the horse’s momentum. It wasn’t pretty or perfectly synchronized, but it was connected. Luna’s shoulder brushed the barrel as they rounded it, but it didn’t tip. They straightened out, eating up the gap to the second barrel.
Amy found herself holding her breath. This was the one. The left turn. Rose’s weak side.
Rose sat deep, shifted her weight, and pulled Luna’s head around. The mare responded, cutting the turn tight. Dust sprayed up from her hooves. The barrel stood, a solitary sentinel. They were around and driving toward the third.
The final turn was wider, messier, Luna fighting the bit a little as Rose asked for the right lead. But they made it. The barrel wobbled but stayed upright. Then it was just the long stretch back to the start. Rose didn’t look back. She crouched low, a smile breaking across her face as the wind tore at her braid. She crossed the imaginary line and sat up, pulling Luna into a gradual, circling halt.
Silence, save for the horse’s loud blows and the creak of leather.
Rose was beaming, her face flushed with pure, undiluted triumph. She looked at Wildfire, then at Amy, her eyes shining.
Wildfire walked into the center, her expression unreadable. “Adequate.” She turned to Amy. “Your turn. Show her how it’s done.”
Amy pushed off the fence. Her heart was pounding, but not from nerves. A plan, half-formed and reckless, had crystallized in the moment she saw Rose’s smile. She took the reins of her assigned horse, a tall bay gelding named Judge, and mounted smoothly.
She warmed Judge up, feeling his power coiled beneath her. She could run this pattern in her sleep. She could show Rose speed, precision, the razor’s edge of control. Or she could show her something else.
She lined up. She glanced at Rose, who was watching with avid, learning eyes. She looked at Wildfire, standing with her arms crossed, a statue of judgment.
Amy kicked Judge forward.
He was faster than Luna, his stride eating the ground. The first barrel was a blur, taken so tight his hip skimmed it. Perfect. The second turn was a thing of beauty, a balanced, fluid arc. She was laying down a perfect run, the kind that would make Wildfire nod in approval.
As she approached the third and final barrel, Rose’s face was a mix of awe and study, watching Amy’s technique.
Amy shifted her weight slightly, almost imperceptibly. Just as Judge began to lean into the turn, she applied a subtle, incorrect pressure with her outside leg. It wasn’t enough to hurt the horse, just enough to confuse him. His hindquarters slid out. His shoulder clipped the barrel with a solid, hollow thunk.
It teetered, a slow-motion wobble, then crashed into the dust.
Amy finished the run, pulling Judge down to a trot and then a walk. She circled back to the start, her face a mask of contrite disappointment. The perfect student who’d made a single, glaring error.
Wildfire hadn’t moved. Her eyes, sharp as shards of flint, were fixed on Amy. She’d seen hundreds of runs, thousands of mistakes. She knew the difference between an accident and a choice.
“Dismount,” Wildfire said, her voice flat.
Amy swung down, holding Judge’s reins.
“Rose. Come here.”
Rose, confused, slid off Luna and walked over, her triumphant energy now laced with anxiety.
Wildfire’s gaze never left Amy. “You think I’m blind, Carter? You think I don’t know a deliberate fuck-up when I see one?” She let the question hang in the dusty air. Then she reached to her belt and drew out a short, braided leather quirt. It was about eighteen inches long, its handle worn dark, its tails tightly woven.
She held it out to Rose. “She did it for you. To spare you the next failure. To give you a victory. So you get to deliver the consequence.”
Rose’s face went pale. “Wildfire, I…”
“Take it.”
Rose’s hand trembled as she took the quirt. It felt heavy, alive.
“Bend over. Hold the fence,” Wildfire said to Amy, her tone leaving no room for debate.
Amy didn’t hesitate. She walked to the rough wooden corral fence, handed Judge’s reins to Dusty, who had walked over silently, and leaned forward, gripping the middle rail. The worn wood was warm from the climbing sun. She pressed her forehead against her arms.
“Ten,” Wildfire said. “Make them count, Rose. Or you’ll both get twenty from me.”
The corral was utterly silent. The other girls had stopped their chores to watch. The only sound was a fly buzzing and the distant caw of a crow.
Amy heard Rose’s footsteps in the dirt behind her. Slow, dragging.
“Do it,” Amy whispered, her voice muffled by her arms.
The first stroke was a hesitant, almost clumsy tap. It landed across the back of Amy’s jeans with a soft thwap. It was more surprise than pain.
“That’s a love tap,” Wildfire said, her voice cold. “The ground will feel that. Do it properly.”
Amy heard Rose take a shuddering breath. The second stroke came down harder, with a quick, sharp crack. The pain was sudden, a line of pure, striking heat. Amy’s fingers tightened on the rail.
The third was stronger, better aimed. Amy grunted, shifting her weight.
By the fourth, Rose found a rhythm. Each stroke was a separate, searing punctuation mark in the quiet morning. Crack. Crack. Crack. Amy’s world narrowed to the scent of dust and leather, the feel of the sun on her neck, and the brilliant, focused fire blooming across her backside. She bit her lip, refusing to make more than a low, choked sound with each impact.
Six. Seven. Eight.
Rose’s breaths were harsh, grunting with the effort of each swing. There was no hesitation anymore, only a grim, determined focus.
The ninth stroke landed lower, across the tops of Amy’s thighs. A gasp escaped her.
The tenth was the hardest of all. A final, resounding CRACK that echoed off the barn wall. Amy’s knees buckled for a second before she locked them, her vision swimming.
Silence.
The quirt fell into the dirt with a soft puff.
Amy stayed bent over, waiting for the fire to coalesce into a single, throbbing ache. She heard Rose crying, quiet, shuddering sobs.
“Back to work,” Wildfire said to the gathered onlookers. Their footsteps scattered.
Amy slowly straightened up. The movement pulled at the tortured skin, a fresh wave of pain. She turned.
Rose stood a few feet away, tears cutting through the dust on her cheeks, her hands empty and curled at her sides. She looked shattered.
Wildfire walked over and picked up the quirt, coiling it neatly. She looked from Amy’s flushed, pained face to Rose’s devastated one.
“You administered a punishment,” Wildfire said to Rose, her voice losing its ice, shifting into something closer to evaluation. “You finished it.” She nodded, once. “Now you’re both behind on chores. Get those horses rubbed down and watered. Then muck out stall four.”
She walked away, leaving them in the center of the corral, surrounded by the imprints of hooves and the toppled barrel.
Amy took a step toward Rose, her gait stiff. She put a hand on Rose’s shoulder. Rose flinched, then collapsed into her, crying into her shirt.
“I hurt you,” Rose choked out.
“Yeah,” Amy said, her voice raw. She smoothed Rose’s hair. “You did good.”
Rose pulled back, her wet eyes searching Amy’s. “Why? Why did you do that?”
Amy looked past her, at the track they’d run, at the sun now fully clear of the horizon. “Because now you know you can,” she said simply. “And now I know you will.”
She took Rose’s hand, ignoring the protesting blaze across her own backside, and led her toward the horses. The work was waiting. The day was just beginning. And something between them, in the dry Texas dust, had been irrevocably sealed.