This was written for the sixteenth Song Fic Challenge over at Talk CSI. The song was Never Let Me Down Again, by Depeche Mode.
"One more time, son."
Nick groaned from the ground next to a horse that he swore was grinning triumphantly at him. The patience in his father's voice was starting to wear on his nerves.
"C'mon, son! You ain't broke!"
"It wouldn't matter if I were!" replied Nick, who was not broken, but knew he'd hurt by sunrise.
"You got that right."
Bill Stokes was getting on in years, as evidenced by his fifteen year-old son and his abundant silver hair, but was still quite youthful in mind and body. Buck, the obstinate quarterhorse next to Nick, was just like him. He had been born on the Stokes ranch the same year that Nick, Bill's youngest child, had been born. When he was young Nick had loved looking at Buck because he was a big, powerful horse who didn't take orders from just anyone. Unless he had come to an understanding with someone, he bucked – thus, his name.
The only humans that Buck had ever tolerated were Bill, and Nick when he offered treats or grooming services. Nick had yet to ride him, though – a fact which his father had decided needed changing. He had done the same when his older son, Billy, had turned fifteen. None of his daughters had ridden Buck, either, even though they all rode. This was because Jillian would have killed him if he'd put any of her beautiful daughters on a temperamental horse.
Of course, Jillian would have killed him if she'd known that he had put Billy on Buck's back. Or if she knew that right now, her baby was rather unceremoniously being flung into the Texas dust.
"There's a right way to fall, Pancho." Bill sounded vaguely disappointed.
"I don't see you on Buck!"
Bill smirked. "Don't get too smart, son – you know what'll happen."
Nick pulled himself off of the ground and leaned against Buck's right side, glaring at his father. "What could you possibly do to me that's worse than having me flung off of a crazy horse?"
Buck snorted at him. Nick snorted back.
"One more time, son."
"No – you know what, I am not gettin' on this stinkin' horse. Forget it. What happens if I get hurt? Coach is gonna kill all three of us if I break somethin'."
Bill smiled. He knew Nick's refusal was ceremonial at best – he didn't want to get thrown again, but he wouldn't defy his father. "You ain't broke nothin' yet, Pancho – one more time, now. Up you get."
"Dad, I been up there fifteen times already – Buck don't like no one but you."
Bill cleared his throat. "Don't be so dramatic, boy – you've only been thrown nine times."
Nick sighed and put his right boot in Buck's right stirrup, lifting himself off of the ground. He stopped short of moving his left boot into the opposite stirrup, paused a moment, and then hopped down. Bill watched, his head cocked slightly, with interest.
Nick moved to stand in front of the horse and lifted his chin. "What is your problem, huh?" he asked the horse, his voice low so his father wouldn't hear. "I feed you, I groom you, I muck your damn stall. . . . I'm practically your mother, and you throw me?"
In response, Buck snorted.
"Don't you snort at me. Damn horse." Nick's hands were on his hips and he was glaring at the magnificent, stubborn animal, trying to think of a different tack to take. He wasn't an expert by any means, but he'd seen enough on the ranch that he was as familiar with the ways of horse-training as he was with the fact that Buck responded to none of them. But he also knew that continuing the way he had been would only get him thrown again. Clearly, he and Buck needed to come to an understanding.
The kind of understanding that existed between Buck and Bill wasn't going to exist between Buck and Nick. Buck was the kind of horse who would respond to one master, and only one. Since his master was presently standing some fifty yards away, leaning against the fence and not punishing Buck for his bad behavior, Nick knew there was little chance that the horse would obey anybody at all.
But Nick also knew some things about Buck that few others did – for example, as he suddenly recalled, Buck's unreasonable fear of Molly, the tiny, mean calico barn cat.
Nick supposed he was a bit like Molly in that they both existed, for Buck's purposes, to serve. She was there to keep mice out of the barn, and Nick was there to feed and clean. Nick and Molly had both learned how to do their jobs without annoying Buck, and now, thought Nick, it was Buck's turn to do the same.
He shook his finger at the horse, who hadn't broken eye contact with him. "Stay where you are," he said, warning in his tone, and turned to march off to the barn.
"Where you goin', Pancho?" called Bill.
"Barn," he replied. "Be back in a sec."
Knowing exactly where Molly would be, Nick climbed up into the hay loft as soon as he entered the barn, plucked the sleeping cat from her perch in the sun, and climbed back down and out to the ring where Buck stood, waiting for him.
Nick walked around the ring until he was in front of Buck, then climbed the fence and approached slowly. As soon as Buck saw what Nick was holding in his right arm, he folded his ears back and whinnied. Nick stopped.
"You and me are gonna learn how to get along, Bucko!" he called.
"That's a great way to go about it, Pancho," hollered Bill. "Scare the shit out of an animal that's more than half a ton. Brilliant."
Nick ignored him. Buck's eyes were trained on the hissing Molly, but he didn't move, so Nick advanced. When he was close enough to Buck, he reached for the lead with his left hand. "Let's take a walk."
Buck walked slowly alongside Nick, who kept the cat in his right arm. Occasionally Nick would stop and turn, just to show Buck he still had Molly, and that Molly was still pissed off. They walked around the ring one time, and then Nick led him back into the barn.
Once there, Nick made a show of putting Molly in her cat carrier. He even turned it upside down and shook it, to show Buck that she couldn't get out.
"You see that, Buck? She's stuck." He put the carrier down, Molly mewling and hissing unhappily inside, and kicked it gently out of the way. Buck visibly relaxed. He still didn't look particularly happy, but Nick hoped he had gotten the message. With the sternness in his voice which he had learned from raising animals, he said, "I control the cat, my friend. Throw me again, I'll put her in your effing stall."
Then he picked up the carrier in his right hand and took Buck's lead. They walked back out to the ring. Nick stopped at the entrance to put the cat carrier down not far from Bill, and then led Buck to the middle of the ring, where he turned the horse around so that he could see the cat carrier. Nick had no doubt that he could hear her crying and hissing inside.
"The cat comes out if I come off your back," he said in a low voice. He knew that Buck didn't understand his words, but hoped like hell he had understood Nick's actions.
He took a steadying breath and climbed into Buck's saddle, half expecting to be thrown on principle. Buck twitched a little, stomped a little. Nick sat still, letting him settle. He tried to nudge him forward, but Buck wouldn't move.
With a sigh, Nick dismounted and headed for the cat carrier. As he passed his father, he heard, "It's going well."
Nick adjusted his hat. "I ain't been thrown again," he replied in his defense.
"You ain't movin', either."
Nick decided not to retort, and instead picked up the cat carrier and took it into the barn, making sure that Buck saw what he was doing. When he returned to the ring, he approached Buck with his hands out in front of him, as if in surrender.
"No cat," he said, and with no further preamble, he mounted Buck.
Again, Buck twitched and stomped, but he didn't throw Nick. Nick let him adjust for a moment. Then he patted Buck's long chocolate neck. "There you go, buddy. . . . No throw, no cat." And again, Nick tried to nudge the horse forward.
This time, though, Buck took a step. An unsure step, as his eyes were still fixed on the barn, but a step nonetheless. Nick praised him, as he had been taught to do with every other animal the Stokeses owned. Buck took another step, and then another, and before Nick knew it, he was walking slowly toward Bill. Nick continued to praise Buck, who stopped when he saw Bill.
Bill said nothing to Nick, but did praise Buck with a pat on the snout. Then, with a nudge from Nick, he was off at a trot around the ring.
They circled twice, and then Nick slowed him down and dismounted, praising the horse all the while. Bill met him at the gate.
"I told you," he said. "I told you you'd stay whole."
Nick wanted to point out that that fact was more attributable to the cat than to his father, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Instead he smiled, and with a nod, muttered a noncommittal, "Yeah."
With a twinkle in his eye, Bill asked, "You wanna know how many times it took your brother to do that?"
Nick sighed. He did not want his recent victory over Buck to be tainted, like so many things had been, with the knowledge that his older brother had done it faster and better. "Not really," he admitted.
"He got up on Buck's back one time with a whip in his hand," said Bill. "His ass wasn't in the saddle a second before it was out again. I ain't never seen that damn horse buck anybody so hard and so fast."
Nick couldn't help it; he smirked.
"Now, Billy says he won't go near Buck – says Buck's crazy, and maybe he's a little right. But the truth is, Bucky won't let him near. Now – you keep tellin' me you want to be a cop, and maybe turn investigator, and I reckon, Nicholas. . . . I reckon that might not be a bad job for you. You're stubborn and smart." Bill patted his son's shoulder and turned toward the barn.
Nick had fallen on that shoulder twice that day. He knew it would hurt in the morning, but just then, it didn't hurt a bit.