Earl's Wrath

Earl sure was mad at me for riding off with one of the horses yesterday, but I just had to get away.

"What in tarnation is the matter with you?” Earl yelled when he saw me.  He'd been bent over working with barbed wire, but now stood when he saw me.  “I said, what in tarnation is the matter with you, for Christ’s sake!”  All I could do was stand there.  From his gloved hand, he angrily threw down the coil of barbed wire, and when it hit the ground, I jumped.  “You stole one of my horses, Girl!”  A vein protruded in his neck as he hollered.

“I brought him back,” I said.

“It’s still stealin’ in my book!” Earl shouted.  “I have a good mind to request that you go back to wherever it was you came from!  Maybe you should consider getting on the next ship that leaves the island.”  I stared at the ground, burning.  “You hear me?”  I was starting to feel fire in my chest and throat.  “I asked you a question, Girl!”

“You’d like that!”  I yelled.  I balled my hands into fists that hung at my sides.  “You’ve been keeping me from the horses ever since I got here!”  We stood staring at each other, with me breathing hard.

“This is no place for a girl,” he said.  He took his gloves off and tossed them on the barbed wire.  “Especially a girl like you,” he said under his breath and started walking towards the stables.

Earl

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  I followed him.

He stopped and turned to me.  “You’re soft.  Too soft.  I noticed this the moment I laid eyes on you.  You don’t have the farm–way about you.  There’s not a callous on your hand.  Your hair is soft, your eyes are soft, your look is soft, you speak softly, except for now, I may add.  You’re not cut out for this line of work.”  Earl looked up at the sky.  “I tried.  I tried to toughen you up with good honest hard work, but then you go and take one of my horses on a joy ride.”

I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it, then blurted, “I’m here to train horses!”  I held my palms up, reaching out to him a bit.

“Oh, are you now?”

“Yes I am!  I’m not here to be your… your slave.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes!  Yes, that’s a fact.”  I was breathing hard again, and as I looked at him, and he kept my gaze.

“You do got some spirit in you, that I gotta’ say.”  He pushed back his hair and looked out at the animals.  “Well, the way I see things is that I got some girly–girl who doesn’t know squat, and I gotta’ find things for her to do.  It’s not personal, and I suppose it’s not your fault being here, seeing they hired you and all.  It’s just that no one asked me.  I’ve been doin’ just fine here.  I don’t need a helper.”

“Well it seems to me you do.”

“Oh, do I now?”  He looked back at me.

“Yes, with the white horse.  You’re having trouble training this animal,” I said.  “And by the way, I’m not a girly–girl.  I don’t like girly–girls.  And why do you assume I don’t know squat?”

“’Cause you’re not more than a kid.”

“I’m twenty–two.”

“Like I said, you’re not more than a kid, and you don’t weigh more than a newborn foal.”

“A person’s size doesn’t matter when they train a horse, you of all people should know that!” 

“Talk to me when a thousand pound beast comes charging at you.  Now get to work!"