Read Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) for Free Online Page A

savoring the warmth and the nice horsey smell of him.
    A bay with three white socks, a big white blaze, and one blue eye and one brown one, Gunner had distinctive markings by anybody's standards. His blaze and two-colored eyes gave him a clownish look that fit his personality; Gunner, I'd discovered, was playful as a child.
    He bumped my arm with his nose when I brushed his face, and I held out my hand, knowing what he wanted. Nosing and licking my palm, he begged for beer, his favorite treat.
    "Sorry, buddy, no beer today," I told him as I slung the saddle pad up on his back. Next the saddle, a heavy roping saddle I'd borrowed from Lonny, who was a team roper. I was developing impressive biceps lifting it on and off.
    I cinched the saddle up loosely, then slipped the halter off and held the bit up to Gunner's mouth, which he opened obligingly. Pulling the headstall over his ears, I fastened the throatlatch and patted him on the shoulder. "Ready, pal?"
    Another bump with the nose was his only answer.
    Taking it to be an affirmative, I led him down to the arena, tightened the cinch, and climbed on. The first time I'd done this I'd held my breath and taken a good grip of the saddle horn, prepared for anything. Gunner had had ninety days of professional training before he'd been hurt, so I knew he was ridable, but I hadn't really known how he would behave.
    Lonny'd been with me and had offered to ride the colt himself, but I'd refused. Gunner was my horse, and I wanted to be the first one on him. Still, my knuckles were pretty white as I clutched the saddle horn and urged him to take his first few steps with me on his back.
    As it turned out, there was no problem. Gunner was green but willing, and we'd gotten along just fine. Lonny watched our whole session, and when I'd put the colt up, he'd grinned at me. "That horse won't hurt you, at least not on purpose," he said. "He's got a real good eye. He'll do whatever you ask him to, if he knows how."
    And so it was proving. As I hoisted myself up on Gunner's back this afternoon-I still hadn't developed a very graceful mounting style-I felt no fear, only pleasant anticipation of our interaction.
    Letting him move out at an easy walk, I took in the late afternoon sunlight slanting between the redwoods down by the creek and heaved a deep sigh. Finally, for the first time since that awful moment when I'd seen the bodies, I felt a sense of peace.
    I rode Gunner for the hour I'd intended, more or less, mostly at the walk and trot, with a couple of brief bouts of loping. I kept a hand on the saddle horn the whole time; on another horse, I wouldn't have-it's not considered good style-but Gunner had a quirk that made it necessary; he was a spook.
    I'd discovered this on our third ride; a little piece of paper had blown into the arena, and you would have thought it was a horse-eating monster, judging by his reaction. He'd leapt away from this terrifying creature, clearing, I swear, thirty feet in a single bound. Only my grip on the saddle horn saved me; I'd clutched automatically and kept myself from landing on the ground by the skin of my teeth.
    After his one enormous jump, Gunner had stood still, trembling and staring at the paper, his heart beating in great thudding thumps that moved my legs. I'd assembled my scattered wits, straightened myself in the saddle and urged him forward, and with some trepidation, he'd complied.
    Since then I'd learned that this was his pattern. He'd see something he didn't like and make one jump-that was it. He never tried to run away or buck. If you could last through the initial leap, you were fine. The trouble was, his jumps were astounding-sudden, violent twenty-foot-plus swerves I could never get used to. Thus I rode with a hand on the horn.
    Urging Gunner into a lope for a final couple of laps, I enjoyed the easy rocking motion of the horse underneath me. I'd had a horse for a few years when I was a teenager, and I rode well enough to exercise Gunner and