“Oh no. I’d be cranky too.” Zoey’s heart went out to her mount. She reached out to pet his velvety nose, then squeaked when his ears flattened and his lips wrinkled.
Well, that wasn’t reassuring.
“Why do you call him Mugs?”
“His name’s Mugshot, because he always looks like he’s about to get sent to prison. Okay, picture time.” Riley stuffed the reins into Zoey’s hands. Stepping back, she pulled out her phone and in an equally bored voice said, “Say cheese.”
Waving the phone with the image beneath her nose, Zoey caught a glimpse of her startled eyes and Mugs’s flattened ears, his expression one of serious disgust.
“Stick your foot in the stirrup and use his mane, not the saddle horn, to pull yourself up. Horses don’t have nerve endings in their manes, but they do get sore backs.”
Was that true? The idea of pulling a poor animal’s hair while awkwardly climbing up its side sounded mean. With the grace of a sack of potatoes, Zoey did as directed. Mugs grunted dramatically, then swung his head toward her leg, massive square teeth bared. Yelping in alarm, Zoey jerked her heel up to her hip, looking to the guide for help.
“What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing, he’s just in a mood today. Shove your foot out when he does that. He won’t want to bite your shoe. I’m sticking you in the back. Normally, my other guide would take the last place, but she called in sick. Mugs knows these trails better than I do. Just kick him if he falls behind.”
“Won’t that hurt him?”
The tiny smirk broke through the boredom in her eyes. Smacking her hand down on Zoey’s tennis shoe, Riley said, “Not with these little nubs.”
Now, that wasn’t fair.
As Riley turned her back, Mugs swung his head again, aiming for Zoey’s shoe to prove her wrong. Riley moved on to the next horse and rider, a beautiful sorrel gelding, half dozing as he waited patiently.
“My name is Riley, and I’ll be your trail guide for the day. If you have any questions just ask. This is Patch. He’s—” As Riley started a new spiel about this horse, Patch nuzzled the other rider’s hand, tickling her with his long whiskers and wiggling lips. Zoey eyed him wistfully.
“You see them?” Zoey muttered to Mugs. “He doesn’t hate his rider.”
Mugs snorted in equine contempt.
When everyone was on their horse and ready to go, Riley swung up on her own gray mount—a tall, energetic animal who hadn’t given up hope of a different life yet—and called for them to line up. A rich hodgepodge of variously skilled riders managed to form themselves into a semblance of a line, although the three who ended up behind Zoey at check-in now were in front of her. Listening to their conversation wasn’t intentional. The two women—sisters from what Zoey could glean—had the kind of voices that carried, even if the people around them would rather those voices didn’t.
Mugs dug in his heels when the group took off at a walk, but with a sigh of disgust and some nudging and cajoling on Zoey’s part, he finally shuffled forward.
“I bet Patch isn’t giving his rider side-eye,” Zoey told him. Mugs ignored her.
They hadn’t lied about the stunning scenery. As the trail wove in and out of the forest, through open glades, the mountains rising tall and glorious above them, Zoey’s heart swelled. If she could have jumped off her horse and rolled around on the ground, she would have, so happy as she was to be there. To see this. Then they descended into a shady glen, the afternoon sunlight filtering through the evergreens, and Zoey fell in love.
Complete, unadulterated love. There was literally no other place on the earth she would rather be than exactly that spot.
As for wildlife…well…the current volume of conversation in front of her had Zoey wanting to shrink away. No wonder there were no deer to be seen.
The two sisters had traveled everywhere, and they wanted everyone to know, sharing their stories as loudly as they could in an effort to regale the others around them. As they talked and argued over details, the husband kept slipping something out of his pocket and taking sips of it, ignoring them both.
Mugs wasn’t enjoying himself, especially when the one sister’s horse—a very pretty palomino—started misbehaving. Now, Zoey had been trying to see any kind of wildlife at all and was twisted around in her saddle when it all went wrong, so she didn’t know exactly what happened to start everything. The palomino started bucking, sister one screamed bloody murder, convinced she was going to die, sister two screamed at sister one to stop screaming, and husband one and a half pulled the flask out of his pocket and started to drink hard.
Stuck at the front, Riley tried to yell back what to do, but the trail was too tight to let her get there to help them. An aggressively bucking horse butt was not as picturesque as one standing in line or grazing in a meadow. Mugs snorted with surprise as he caught a tail beneath the chin, startled to the right, and ended wedged between two trees, Zoey clinging to the saddle horn.
Backing himself out from in between the trees, Mugs ignored Zoey’s attempts to help by tugging on the reins. Zoey realized a moment later than her horse that they were pointed with his nose back to the barn.
Mugs was done with this foolishness. With a derisive snort to the rest of the group, he started back up the trail.
“We’re going the wrong way.”
Mugs ignored her.
She tried to turn his nose, but he tensed his neck and ignored that too.
“Riley, I need some help here,” she called out, waving frantically, but the teenager was too busy trying to contain the screaming situation, the bucking situation, and the drinking husband situation. The poor girl looked like she wanted to scream or drink too, up until all of them disappeared because Mugs topped the hill and was resolutely headed down the other side.
Pulling on the reins, stuffing her nubs into his sides, verbally appealing to his better nature…none of it worked. There was nothing Zoey could do. The horse was determined on going back to the barn, and her options were to bail from a moving equine vehicle or just let this play out.
“Okay, what do I do? What do I do?” Frantic, Zoey looked around at a much more peaceful but far more frightening expanse of wilderness.
“I’m not calling Lana for help. One, my phone doesn’t work, and two, I have my pride. So we’re going to turn around. I’m sorry if this hurts your mouth, but I have no choice. I’m not getting lost a second time in two days.” Stuffing her feet into the stirrups, Zoey stood up with both hands hauling on the reins as hard as she could. “Mugs, whoa.”
Mugs thought about it. He paused. There totally was a pause. Then a derisive snort and a shake of his head later, he continued on, a trail horse untrailed, a beast of burden now free.