Chances Risked

-Maggie-
“Um, where are the breaks on this thing?” Pat asked and I giggled and watched him struggle on top of the horse.

We all decided to drive up to the mountain parts of the island to do a horseback tour of the wilderness. It was going to last about five hours long and there was going to be a little break for lunch. The owners of the horses just told the twelve of us that if we stuck to the paths then we would be fine, there were no tour guides, everything was pretty much self explanatory and there were signs explaining specific places on the path.

“How the hell does this work?” Corey grumbled as his horse started to move and I laughed when his eyes widened.

“You use the reins to direct the horse on where you want to go,” I said and had my horse walk up in front of the boys, “Tap the horses’ sides with your heels to determine how fast you want them to go.”

“How do you know this?” Jon asked and I giggled.

“Where was I born, sugar?” I smiled brightly and Pat chuckled.

“Forgot we had our own personal cowgirl,” Pat said and I rolled my eyes.

“That what position you guys do in bed, Kaner?” Andrew asked and I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

“Mind your business,” Pat said and I turned my horse, her name was Anita, towards the girls and walked over towards them.

“Are you ready?” I asked and they smiled and nodded their heads.

“What about the boys?” Abby asked and we looked back towards them, I giggled seeing Jon trying to rock his hips to try and get his horse to move.

“They’ll catch up,” I said and just looked at them, “Hopefully.”

Well, they finally did manage to figure out the basics to operating a horse, I laughed when everyone wanted me in front because I seemed to be the only one to actually know what I was doing.

“So how do you know this?” Anna asked as she came up beside me.

“My Uncle in Texas owned a horse farm and my brothers and I would go over every chance we got,” I said and she nodded her head, “My youngest brother Nicky was there more than my other brother and I,” I said and then looked forward.

“Why’s that?”

“Uh, Mike and I were away at hockey camp,” I said and she nodded her head.

“Oh, Mike’s your twin?” she asked and I nodded my head, “I’m sorry- I shouldn’t have brought-“

“It’s all right,” I said and nodded my head towards her, “I can’t never talk about him again.”

“I’m still sorry,” she said and I nodded my head.

Anna slowed her horse down and moved back towards Kelly and started a conversation with her. I heard my name and turned to the other side of me to see Pat. I smiled at him and giggled at how uncomfortable he looked on the horse, “Four more hours of this babe!”

“I can’t feel my ass already,” he said and I laughed.

“There’s a sign up there!” Abby yelled and I looked forward and saw the sign on the tree. We came out of the trees and saw an open area, the sign was telling us to just continue on the path and enjoy the view around us and if we looked towards the South we would see a good view of the ocean.

“Open path,” I smiled and then patted my horse’s neck, “Come on, girl!” I giggled and then gave a gently kick into her sides and let out a laugh as she started to trot forward, I gave two more kicks and smiled when she started to run.

-Kane-
We all were in the beginning of the open area, just watching as Maggie and her horse just ran around. I smiled at how happy she look and then looked down at my horse, “We can do that, right?”

“No,” Jon said and I looked at him and saw him shaking his head, “Barely hanging on with just walking.”

The girls laughed and I watched as Abby flew past me and headed into the open field, “I could do that.”

“Just pass on it, Kaner, we’re just gentler with the horses,” Kelly laughed and then trotted past us leaving the guys and Anna just watching them.

“Hey- Hey- Come on now!” I heard and turned my head to see that Sharp’s horse was bending down to eat some of the grass, but he was hanging onto the reins and almost fell over the horses’ head.

I smirked and then just started to walk into the open area, not wanting to risk it and running, I knew I didn’t have as much control on my horse than Maggie did. I heard a yell and turned my head in time to see Brent flying passed me, but I didn’t think he was doing it on purpose.

“Horse out of control! Horse out of control!” he yelled and the guys were laughing and we watched as his horse looked like he was trying buck him off, “MAGGIE!!!”

Maggie ran over towards him, yelled for him to just hold on and she came up on the horse’s side and grabbed the reins. She slid out of her saddle and just started to pet Brent’s horse’s face and tried to calm it down. We started to walk over towards her, but she stopped us and told us not to come any closer.

“He’s a newbie, you shouldn’t be on a tour group if you’re not use to riders, buddy,” Maggie smiled and calmed the horse down.

“You really know horses,” Brent said and Maggie shook her head.

“Naw, you can just tell that he’s new, he’s trying to chew on the mouth brace, so he wasn’t giving a good amount of time to get use to having the reins on him,” she said and I just looked at her, “What did you do?”

“Just tapped him to move forward,” he said and Maggie nodded her head.

“Switch with me,” she said and Brent looked at her surprised, hell, I looked at her surprised, “I’ll have a better chance at controlling him, I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Brent said and I chuckled and watched him slide off the saddle and walked over towards Maggie’s horse, who was just grazing in the grass.

“What do you want us to do, Mags?” Jon asked as he came up next to me.

“Just keep going on the path, I’ll catch up,” she said and I looked at her.

“What are you going to do?” I asked and she smiled at me and I watched as the horse just bobbed his head up and down in Maggie’s hands.

“Just going to get him comfortable with me before I get on,” she said and I nodded my head, “Go on, I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

“All right,” I said and then the rest of us started to move on ahead.

-Maggie-
“You’re just a sweetheart, aren’t ya?” I giggled as I sat on the grass and felt Bullet, the horse that was originally Brent’s sniff my hair and then rub his face against my shoulder.

I heard the others laugh as they just watched what was going on. I had caught up with everyone and when we got to a cliff that had picnic tables, we decided to stop there for lunch. There was a beautiful view of the island from where we were, but I was too busy to enjoy it or my lunch as Bullet just wanted to nuzzle his face into me and play.

I giggled and pet his face and then saw Pat walk over and hand me a brown paper bag. I opened the bag and saw a sandwich, bag of carrots, small water and bag of chips, the lunch was provided to us, we paid a little extra, not much though. I opened the bag that had my sandwich in it and giggled when Bullet tried to take a bite of it, but I pushed him back a little.

“Stop it,” I giggled and moved my sandwich away, “Here, here, here, I’ll give you the carrots,” I laughed and opened the bag of carrots and gave one to him, which this of course got all of the other horses’ attentions and they wanted food too, “Will you guys stop being mean and give your horses’ carrots!”

-Kane-
“Hey Mags!” I called and Maggie stood up from the ground and looked at me, “Come ‘ere,” I said and she nodded her head and jogged over towards me, I was standing by the edge of the cliff, there was a fence up so that no one fell off, “Abs, can you take a picture?”

“Yeah definitely!” she smiled and walked over and took my phone.

Abby took one of us where Maggie was standing at me side and we were both smiling brightly and then another where Maggie was on my back, I was holding her legs, her arms draped over my shoulders and she was kissing my cheek. We tried to do another normal one, but the guys photobombed, but it ended up coming out pretty funny.

After picture time was over, we all cleaned up our mess and then got back up on our horses and headed onto the path again. Maggie had to be in the front again because not on did she understand what to do, but her horse didn’t really like to be next to or in front of other horses.

“So are you going to say something to the owner when we get back?” Abby asked and Maggie turned in her saddle to look at her.

“Yes, he’s lucky that I understood what to do, Seabiscuit could have gotten hurt,” she said and I looked back towards Brent to see him enjoying his new horse, “They can get in big trouble for not having a properly trained horse in their tour stable.”

“Well, you’re the horse expert,” Jon said and Maggie scoffed.

“I’m not an expert, it’s kind of common sense,” she said and I just shrugged my shoulders.

“Whatever, all I know is that I definitely can’t feel my ass anymore,” I said and everyone just laughed.