The farm had row after row of shed barns, the same kind they had seen at the race track in New Orleans. The place was abuzz with activity from instructors giving lessons to people at various stages or riding lessons and others training horses. The road in to the farm ran parallel to a horse exercise track.
Tex was at the vanguard of their little formation, riding with no hands and shaking his fat dreds to a song on his headphones. Buddha pedaled up next to the rockin’ out rasta and pointed over to the track. When Tex looked, he saw a girl riding along next to him inside the fence. She rode a muscled black mare whose summer coat was the same glossy black as Tex’s Redline. The Hispanic girl, with flawless golden brown skin the color of a perfectly cooked waffle, had taken off her hat and shaken out her own dreds. She was riding the horse with no hands, mimicking Tex to the laughter of the boys.
Tex whipped off his headphones and called out, “Oh, you got jokes?” He spun around on the bike with his butt on the handlebars peddling the bike backwards.
The smiling stunt girl flicked her wrist like she was knocking dirt off her shoulder, then grabbed the saddlehorn. With her feet together, they hit the ground on the side of the running horse and flipped back into the saddle facing backwards.
“What?” Tex’s jaw dropped.
“Oh, she’s got skills.” Spider quipped, amused.
Tex rotated back the right way on the Redline and spotted a pile of asphalt that could be used as a makeshift ramp and tripled his speed towards it. His bike ramped off the top of the pile and he turned a 360 and spun the handlebars all the way around, landing to the boys’ cheers.
The girl smiled seductively and winked at Tex as she leaned down and patted the horse and they broke into a run. The fence that separated her from her audience was about five feet high and two feet from the fence was a sign around the same height. The mare galloped to the fence, then courageously leapt over it, tucking her small feet against her body and soared almost weightless over the two obstacles like she were at a steeplechase. The girl rode hands up, body bent, in a picture perfect jumping form, landing almost in the boys’ laps. Unfortunately, the footing on the boys’ side of the sign wasn’t exactly solid and the mare stumbled upon her touch back to Earth sending her rider into the soft grass.
Tex’s stomach flipped like a gymnast as he dropped the bike and ran to the limp leaper. He lifted her head gently and checked her vitals. When she opened her pretty, copper-colored eyes halfway, she muttered something that sounded like Spanish.
“What did she say, Spidey?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You speak Spanish, don’t you?”
“She ain’t speakin’ Spanish, you Rosetta Stone Romeo. It sounds like Portuguese.”
“Finally, I meet the girl of my dreams, and she doesn’t speak English,” Tex said with defeat.
The mare, who had a few strands of her mane dyed bright pink, nudged the girl softly and woke her. She smiled up at Tex. She stood and brushed herself off and said, “Oh yeah, dream man. I do speak English.”
Tex blushed a deep cherry red.
Before he could die of embarrassment, he was granted reprieve in the form of a tall, heavy-set man with a grizzly salt and pepper mustache and mutton chop side burns wearing a dilapidated trucker hat that said ‘Dashing Elvis’ who approached on a four-wheeler.
“Diana! Are you alright?!”
She put one her delicate hands on her chin and with her long painted fingernails on the side of her high Brazilian cheekbones, popped her neck. “Yes, Mr. Mike, I’m fine.”
“What happened? Did the bikes spook her?”
“No, Mr. Mike. It was my fault.”
Mike Green looked into the horse’s eyes like she was about to impart upon him some secret about the accident, but Diana swung up on the horse. He looked at Tex instead, who made some pantomime trying to convey with his hands that the horse had jumped the fence and the girl had fallen and hit her head.
“Di, you shouldn’t ride. Let me take her back.”
Now it was Diana’s turn to feel some embarrassment. She turned red and blurted, “First I fall off my horse trying to show off for a cute boy and now you make me look like a kid. Next time, just shoot me!” She turned the horse and trotted off toward the fence.
Mr. Mike shook his head and held out his hand. “Mike Green, Owner Operator.”
Before Tex could shake it, Spider intercepted, saying, “Spider Hernandez, freelance comedian. This is James Worthy Alabama, ‘cute boy’ to girls with head injuries.”
They laughed so hard they had to sit down on the ground.
Mike had the kind of soft country voice that made people immediately at ease and after Spider’s joke, they felt like old friends. He told them Big Paulie had called and decided for him and Paulie Jr. to fly out the next morning and fix Maggie personally. He paused and looked at Buddha’s bike. “Young man, did you bring that cat all the way from New Orleans?”
“Um, not really, Sir. She stayed with a friend in Grenada and somehow showed up yesterday at Murder Creek.”
“That’s weird.” He stared at the cat for a few seconds. “Well, let me get to the rules.”
Buddha pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
“Ya’ll will be sleeping in bunkhouse number ten. It’s lights out as ten, unless you are on a horse exactly at ten, then it’s bed down at one. Since barns catch fire and fire kills good horses and good hands, there is no smoking on the property anywhere except the back porch of the main house, ‘cause that’s where the boss smokes.”
“I thought you were the boss?” George inquired.
“Nope. I’m the owner. The boss is my wife.” He laughed and added, “You boys’ll understand one day.” As an afterthought, he continued, “Oh, if ya’ll don’t mind doin’ me a favor, Paulie is bringing a camera crew to put you boys on the show. Which kinda makes you celebrities, so the other kids here will probably look up to ya’ll. I’d appreciate ya’ll not smoking, ‘cause role models should be responsible for those they influence.”
Buddha blushed and stamped out his cigarette, picking up the butt to throw away later and pocketing it.
The gang passed on the guided tour and instead hit the showers in the bunkhouse. Buddha emerged with a fresh bald head and said, “I don’t know why I’m so tired if I slept for five days.” Despite the fact that they had, Buddha was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.