Author's Note: The trick to breaking horses is, after you get bucked off, keep gettin' back on 'til the horse gets bored. – Marshall Trimble
Disclaimer: Not owned, but owed.
The purple stallion was both blessing and curse.
Complaints from the neighbors about Nick's wildness and arrogance had ceased.
Complaints from the shopkeepers and bartenders in town about their middle son throwing his sleight weight around in their establishments was a thing of the past.
On the other hand, complaints from the hands that Nick was driving them nuts pestering them for advice about how to deal with his new stallion had begun.
Nick, who had already graduated from the local grammar school, rarely left the ranch anymore. Any time he wasn't doing his regular ranch work, he was working with Outlaw, reading every book his father possessed on the care and feeding of the equine race, or grilling the older hands on what they knew about the matter.
Nothing was too good for Nick's new mount.
… not that Outlaw would allow him to mount. He bucked wildly as soon as anyone came near him with either rope or saddle.
He would stand, four square, lavender-gray mane falling over his forehead as though it had been cut into windswept bangs, blue eyes snapping, barrel chest heaving, while the young man groomed him, but one wrong move, and—Bam! a muscular shoulder was ramming the youth, strong white teeth were nipping at him, raised hooves were nicking him, leaving bruises a darker purple than Outlaw's dorsal stripe.
Nick learned, perforce, to be patient, to be careful, to modulate the pronounced tones his voice usually held.
And there were compensations.
Mother often came out to the corral to talk to him now, to bring him lemonade, to ask how it was going. The same as he had seen her do all his life with Father.
Nick's chest puffed with pride. He was a man now, like Father, with a man's job, and a man's worries. He smiled at Mother, and she smiled back. The two of them watched the temperamental gruella playing with Nick's favorite cutting horse Coco.
Everything would be all right, eventually.
Outlaw would accept the saddle, Nick's bruises would fade, and the middle Barkley son would enjoy the fruits of his newfound manhood.
Quite soon.
He was sure of it.
'Neigh-eh-eh will kill you!' Outlaw screamed, an unearthly sound. It had started as a squeal, then risen to a roar.
Nick fell back, more amazed than dismayed, astounded by the awesome power of the striped hooves, as they hammered blow after blow on the old saddle, knocking the horn flying, breaking pommel from seat, driving the cantle into the dirt. He threw himself bodily over the corral fence to escape the stallion's savagery.
Outlaw would not back down. This was his corral! His! Not that vile, hateful saddle's! It could go, but since it wouldn't go, it could die! Die! Whump! Die! BAM! Crack! Bam!
It was dead at last. Dead.
Outlaw blew air at it to make sure.
It was dead.
He stood over the broken pieces of it triumphantly and screamed and screamed and screamed his victory.
The noise drew the hands from their work, Tom from his account books, Victoria from her sewing, even Silas from preparing supper.
Silas said it best. "Mr. Barkley, there's a devil in that horse."
Tom said nothing. He had eyes and ears only for his son, who had eyes and ears only for the purple stallion and the saddle he'd just obliterated.
Victoria, seeing her husband wasn't going to reply, undertook to do so herself. "Silas, you said a mouthful."