Embittered Competitor: Day 8

Word Count: 48,002

Summary of Events:
Chapter 15:
Terri and barrel racer Kelleigh Braul talked about summertime, the weather, how they enjoyed Canadian weather and various related topics prior to the rodeo performance. During the performance Steele's pigging string broke which quite upset him.
Chapter 16:
Terri and Steele met at a restaurant and discussed everything so far and surmised that Spencer was their most suspicious suspect and planned to organize a group of friends to keep an eye on Steele's trailer and Spencer. Steele told G.D. about it once he arrived in Wainwright and then talked with E-L Reidy about the fact that he didn't know how to teach people to ride and yet he'd agreed to teach Rider.

Excerpt of the Day:
"Steele looked at his pigging string and clenched his jaw. Seriously? Really? Honestly?
He reached over and took his loop of the calf's head and stalked off toward Riverbed. He mounted up on her and went over to sit by Guy.
"It broke?" Guy asked.
"It broke," Steele replied through his teeth, staring ahead at the legs of the referee's horse trying to temper his fury.
"You're just being run through the wringer," Guy said. "It's like once your vehicle gets to be about ten years old everything absolutely falls apart. And if your vehicle manages to survive through that time period then it must be a model built prior to the eighties."
"No it isn't," Steele said.
"It isn't?" Guy asked.
"No," Steele replied. "It's deliberate sabotage because if my pigging string were getting that close to failing I would've gone and bought a new one. But, additionally, pigging strings never fail. They never wear to the point of failure because they aren't used for hundreds and hundreds of years. If someone were the descendant of the first tie-down roper and still using his pigging string it might fail, but I've had this pigging string from the beginning of my career, and my career's been only about a decade. There's no way that it should've broken."
"But how would someone sabotage it?" Guy asked.
"They steal my spare set of keys to my trailer," Steele replied.
"Oh no," Guy said.
"That's also why my rope failed and Prairie's saddle fell off," Steele replied. "Along with the two times that Riverbed has gone nasty on me."
"Someone's trying to sabotage you," Guy said. "But why?"
"I don't know," Steele replied. "But I tell you that I'm going to find out before one of my horses drops dead. Because right now I think that might be all that my saboteur hasn't done.""