"Nikki."
"Nikki."
"NIKKI!!"
My mothers voice was harsh in my ears as I opened my heavy eyelids.

"Would you please be so kind as to move the truck and trailer? Your dad has me parked in."
The first thing I wanted to do was to hurl a sarcastic remark her way, but instead I just sighed and got out of my nice, warm bed. It had never occurred to me last night that mom's work truck was parked between the rig and the yard fence...woops. I slipped my dirty sneakers on my bare feet as I grabbed my set of truck keys from the shelf by the door. The dew was still gleaming on the grass under my feet, it soaked through the toes of my shoes as I walked to the yard gate. My dogs ran in happy circles at my feet, chasing each other, almost making me trip over them. After I moved the trailer out of the way, I went ahead and unhooked the trailer from my truck so that I wouldn't have to pull the trailer to school the next day. Not that I hadn't taken a trailer to school before, I just didn't feel like getting up any earlier the next day to unhook it. An empty bottle in the bed caught my eye, it was out of place. It was the bottle my new friend had placed on the edge of the bed as he'd helped me with my horses the day before, and without even realizing it, a big grin stretched across my face. I left the empty water bottle where it lay, and made my way to the barn. The muffled sound of horse's feet in deep shavings came to me, as well as the sounds of them pulling hay from their hay nets. Dad must've already fed, but didn't clean stalls, which was my everyday chore.

I opened all the stall doors, let all the horses out for the day. After doing the morning chores myself for so long, I had my own system. Turn the ponies out, take their buckets down, wash them, pick the stalls as the buckets sat out to dry. It didn't take long to finish it all, I was back at the house at the house before my mother left for work. Her hours were strange; but shift work in a big factory was about all you could get around a little town like ours. She had worked there her entire life, and she honestly enjoyed it. The thought of spending my entire adult life working in one place scared me silly, I had no desire what so ever to punch a time clock day in and day out. My high school councilors were always after me to take this test or that, send in this application for this scholarship---and I always disappointed them. Out of a class of 73 students, I was the only one that openly admitted that I didn't want to go to college. School was more of a necessary evil for me, all it did was keep my dad pacified. I kept my grades up, was in the top 15% of my class, and was on the student council as well. My teachers just couldn't figure out why I didn't want to go to college--I was an anomaly to them.
All I wanted to do was rodeo. Run barrels, rope calves, tie goats, team rope. That was it. I knew it would be a waste of money to enroll with the pretense of going to school in the fall, so I didn't. Besides our horses at home, I had a few others that I rode to keep gas money in my pocket. Nothing big time, just to keep my mom off my back. She loved me to a fault but didn't always agree with the things my dad allowed me to do...or not do, as the case may have been.

The big calendar in our feed room had the next day highlighted, big bold letters were written across the bold black lines:
SHOER- FOXY, SNOW & COOLIE
Crap. That meant I had to be home from school as soon as I could get here to have the horses ready for the horse shoer. Whether or not he showed up would be a different story. Our farrier was an old friend of my dad's, and as such, he pulled the "good ol boy" treatment from time to time and didn't always show up when he was supposed to. It wasn't so bad for the most part, but my old barrel horse was half way crippled most of the time anyway, so missing a reset was not in his best interest.
Frowning, I reached for the phone hanging on the wall by the door. I dialed my dad's cell phone number, hoping he could use his influence with his buddy to be sure that my horses got shod. No answer. I slipped the phone back into it's place, then rummaged around in the in the little mini ice box till I found something to eat. A granola bar and chocolate milk wasn't much, but eating was just a habit anyway. Truth be told, I lived more in the barn than I did in the house, especially if I was the only one home.
Dad was gone for another month, who knew when he'd be back. The last of the summer rodeos were in full swing, and he was in high demand this time of year. He'd had a bad wreck about five years ago, and since he couldn't really compete anymore, he'd thrown himself into being a field judge. It still gave him the chance to travel like he had when he was competing full time, and gave him a steady income as well as being an excuse to keep a few head of good horses at a time.