Horse Mavericks

Part Two of The Art of Believing

Logs crackled in the wood-burning stove.  Lanny West sat across from me on a taupe love seat.  He was silhouetted against picture windows, which were displaying raining clouds.  He had been telling me stories about the thousands of people he had tried to teach to rope and how it was important to train the arm and the mind.

“How many people got really good?” I said.

“Fifty . . . maybe,” he said.

I was incredulous.  “That’s all?”

“Yep.”

“Why didn’t they make it?” I said.  I wanted to be one of the fifty and not one of the thousands.  If I knew what went wrong, then I could be different and succeed.

“Because they do what you do,” he said.  “They doubt.”

I gulped.  That hurt.   I could have gotten mad, but I didn’t.  He was right.