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Ice stares at the two horses tied up to the outside of the horse trailer apprehensively. He’s already regretting agreeing to this; he’s not really a big fan of trying new things, at least not when he’s not confident he’ll be good at them.
And no matter how many times Maverick draws comparison between the two, he highly doubts riding a horse is anything like flying a jet.
Speaking of, he turns to face Maverick, who’s pulling something out of the back of the truck. “I still can’t believe you know how to ride a horse.”
Maverick rolls his eyes but it’s playful. “I am from Texas, Ice.”
“Sure, but…” Ice shrugs.
“But what?” Maverick asks, distracted getting the bridle on one of the horses- it’s a brown one, Tom can’t say much more about it than that.
Ice watches the deft way his fingers work the buckles on the leather. “Just doesn’t seem like your kind of thing.”
Maverick leads the horse towards Ice, stops in front of him, tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
“Just that- I don’t know,” Ice takes one of Maverick’s hands, turns the palm up and points to the smooth skin there. “You don’t exactly have the hands of a guy who works with them.”
“Hey, fuck you!” Maverick laughs, pulling his hand back out from Ice’s grip. And then, voice low and suggestive: “I’ll have you know I’ve been told I’m very good with my hands.”
The back Ice’s neck goes red. He directs his attention back to the horse, who’s looking at him unimpressed, like it already knows he’s going to be bad at this. “Okay then, cowboy. What do I do first?”
“Okay, wrap your hand- no, the other one- around the horn- that’s that thing sticking out the top of the saddle. Yup, like that. And then put your foot- haha, nope, the other one, unless you want to end up backwards- in the stirrup- that’s what we call-”
“I know what a stirrup is, Mitchell,” Ice huffs, sticking the left toe of his boot into it. The horse isn’t very tall, but he feels really awkward with one leg up in the air like this.
“And then you just swing your other leg over,” Maverick says, from where he’s holding the horse steady by the bridle. “And be careful not to kick her on the ass as you do, or you’ll regret that pretty quick.”
Ice reminds himself that at the end of the day he is a fit and competent man, thank you very much, so he tests the motions a couple times to get a feel for it, and then gets his leg over in one smooth effort, though he must drop down on the horse’s back a bit too heavily or something, because it lifts it’s head in apparent indignation.
“Gentle,” Maverick chides, running a soothing hand down the horse’s neck. “She may not be a multi-million-dollar aircraft, but I expect you treat her as such.”
“Ah, jeez, okay,” Ice says, wrapping both hands tightly around the horn of the saddle as the horse shuffles her feet underneath him. He feels a prickle of unease. “How do I…?”
“Here are the reins, take ‘em in one hand- yup, just like that, nice and loose. So, to steer, you can just neck rein- that’s where you just push your hand to the side of the direction you want to go- yup, like that,” Maverick explains, letting go of where he was holding the horse by the bit now that she’s settled again. Ice tightens his grip on the horn. “To stop it’s real easy. Just kick your legs forward toward her shoulder a little and say ‘woah’. You’ll want to pull back on the reins but don’t- that’s a real good way to get stuck in reverse.”
“And to go?” Ice asks, watching as Maverick swings up onto his own horse, which is a greyish color, with practiced ease.
“She’ll just follow, you don’t have to worry about that,” Maverick says. “She’s what we call, uh, sensitive,” Maverick winks. Ice has no idea what that means, but he gathers he doesn’t necessarily want to find out. “So I’d recommend you just keep your legs off her sides and let her follow me. That’s what she’ll want to do, anyway. Herd animals are good like that.”
Sounds to him like maybe Maverick could learn a thing or two from her, then. But Ice doesn’t say that.
“I thought the whole point is that I’m riding the horse,” he says instead, tightening his hand around the horn as they start walking toward the open field ahead. It’s not actually all that uncomfortable, but he hardly feels secure. He feels every step she takes underneath him, gets jostled when she tosses her head to shoo away a fly. He forces himself to remember what Maverick said and resists the impulse to wrap his legs tighter around her body, or to pull back on the reins. “That I control it.”
“Well, that’s just no way to treat a lady, Kazansky,” Maverick laughs. He, on the other hand, seems to feel very secure up there, one hand softly clasped on the reins, the other resting casually on his denim-clad thigh. He’s even wearing a Stetson, which just completes the picture, doesn’t it? “Nah, I know what you mean. But this is just supposed to be fun, and you’ll want her on your side. And, uh,” he glances back at Tom, shrugs, “maybe I don’t want you strayin’ too far.”
Ice smiles softly, endeared. “Do you notice how you do that?”
Maverick frowns. “Do what?”
“You’ve been speaking all Texan, since we got here,” Ice says. “Dropping the first or last letters. Saying ‘strayin’ instead of straying. ‘Real’ instead of ‘really’. ‘Em’ instead of them.”
“Huh, I dunno,” Maverick says, considering.
Dunno, Ice thinks. “It’s cute.”
“Cute!” Maverick squawks.
“Cute,” Ice repeats, with a grin and a sure nod. “But anyway. Thank you. This is nice.”
They’re riding along the ridge of the escarpment now, and the view of the valley below is breathtaking. Now that he’s gotten his bearings, there’s something settling about the rhythmic movement of the horse stepping underneath him, the simple comfort of Maverick on his wing, the beautiful scenery laying itself out in front of them. Ice isn’t really sure how Maverick pulled this off, but he’s glad he did.
Maverick twists in the seat of his saddle to throw a lazy smile back at him. “Anytime, Iceman,” he says, sounding awfully sincere. “Hey- you look pretty good up there! I’ll make a cowboy out of you yet.”
Ice feels something warm and dangerous settle in his ribcage.
“Looking forward to it, Mitchell. Looking forward to it.”