Jayden sat down in the straw right beside her and wrapped the girl up in her arms. Ashlyn laid her head on Jayden’s shoulder and continued to sob. “I loved him, and he’s dead.”
Jayden remembered crying like that at her grandmother’s and then her grandfather’s funerals. The last time she had wept that hard was at her mother’s service. Tears spilled out of her blue eyes and flowed down her cheeks as the pain she had felt at her loved ones leaving her returned. Human or horse—the ache of losing someone or something was the same.
“Shhh,” she soothed Ashlyn. “He’s in a better place, darlin’.”
Ashlyn raised her head, her delicate chin still quivering. “But I don’t want him in a better place. I want him to be here when I leave. I didn’t even tell him goodbye.”
Tiffany wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “What do we do with him?”
“We have to bury him,” Ashlyn answered.
“And have a funeral,” Carmella added.
“We don’t usually bury a dead horse,” Elijah said. “We call a disposal company to come take them away.”
“No!” Ashlyn declared. “He’s been better than a therapist for me since I got here. He needs to be put in the ground out by the half-mile marker. He loved his afternoon walks, so he should be buried out there.”
“Do you know how big a hole you’d have to dig to bury a horse?” Elijah asked. “It’s six feet down even for a small human.”
“What’s going on in here?” Keelan yelled from the door. “Is everyone all right?”
“No, we’re not,” Ashlyn wailed in a high-pitched voice.
Keelan didn’t even stop at the stall gate but fell on her knees beside the horse and hugged him like a long-lost brother. Pretty soon the other girls had gathered round the dead animal, and all of them were sobbing.
Jayden let go of Ashlyn and carefully made her way out of the stall, leaving the girls to console one another. Elijah laced his fingers in hers and led her back to the main part of the barn. He sat down on a bale of hay and pulled her down beside him.
“Those kids have no idea how much a horse weighs,” he whispered.
“Can you use any of the farm equipment to get him up on the hay trailer?” she asked. “They need to bury him and have a funeral. They’ll have closure for something deeper and entirely different than what they’re feeling for Dynamite.”
What about you? the voice in her head asked. What would bring you closure for your parents, and for the way your mother treated you at the end of her life? You would have been much happier to have had the home than the small savings account, but Skyler got the house. Nothing was sentimental to her, and now it’s all gone.
“Are you all right?” His voice cracked.
She wiped a tear from her cheek. “No, I’m not. I used to come out here at night when I couldn’t sleep and talk to that horse. I don’t want to see him taken off to a landfill or wherever dead horses go.”
“I’ve talked to Dynamite pretty regularly for the past two years,” Elijah admitted. “The vet came out about a month ago and wanted to put him down, but I couldn’t let him. I wanted the old boy to die when he was supposed to.”
“From everyone’s reactions, I think he must have been a therapist to a lot of us,” she whispered.
“Oh, honey, I would have never gotten this far without Dynamite. He helped me so much when I just couldn’t get past the idea that if I’d done something better, my friends wouldn’t have died,” Elijah said. “I flew the helicopter to bring six of them home after they’d been attacked. Three made it; three didn’t. I’ve gone over the whole day so many times that it’s burned into my brain, and I keep thinking that if I’d done something different . . . they were my family, my brothers—no, that’s not right. They were closer than even a brother, and just like that they were gone. Dynamite listened to me work through some of that.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jayden said. “I talked to him about this thing between me and Skyler. I stayed with Mama and yet she made Skyler executor over everything. Skyler got the house. I got a small savings account that Mama had inherited after Gramps died. I still feel like it was the wrong decision. I would have kept the house forever.”
“Guess Dynamite will take a lot of secrets with him, including mine and yours.” Elijah sighed. “And I’m sorry, but we don’t have a backhoe around here to dig a hole big enough for a horse.” Elijah slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to his side.
“If you can get him out to the half-mile marker, the girls will take care of the rest,” Jayden said. “This will teach them teamwork more than anything they’ve done yet, and it will help them heal.”
Elijah gave her a gentle hug. “All right. I’ll trust you to know what you’re doing. Thank goodness for the rain yesterday. At least the ground won’t be as hard as a rock, like usual.”
“Even if it was, they would find a way to dig a grave. I should go check on them,” she said, but she didn’t want to leave the comfort of his arms.
“I’ll go with you.” He dropped his arm and stood up.
When she got to her feet, he slipped his arm around her shoulders again. “I’m glad you are here, Jayden. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Me either, where you’re concerned,” she told him.
He stopped long enough to brush a soft kiss across her forehead, and then together they headed toward the stall.
All the girls looked up at them with red, swollen eyes. Apparently, those who didn’t love Dynamite as much as Keelan and Ashlyn weren’t going to let the rest of them mourn alone.
“Do we have to let them take him away?” Ashlyn asked. “Can’t we bury him and have a proper funeral? He was our friend.”
“Elijah says he’ll figure out a way to get his body out to the half-mile marker but that he doesn’t have equipment to dig a hole big enough to put him in,” Jayden told them.
Ashlyn stood up and squared her shoulders. “Give me a shovel. I’ll take care of the grave even if it takes me all week.”
“I’ll help.” Keelan got to her feet and stood beside Ashlyn. “Two of us digging will make the work go faster. Can we start right now?”
One by one the other girls got to their feet.
“How many shovels do we have?” Tiffany asked.
“I could probably rustle up four,” Elijah answered.
“Then half of us will dig for thirty minutes and then rest while the others take a turn,” Quinley said. “I’ll take the first shift with Ashlyn and Keelan.”
“Add me to that,” Carmella offered.
Elijah pointed to a couple of wheelbarrows. “The shovels are in the tack room. Take the wheelbarrows with you to help move dirt. I’ll bring him out there when you’re done and, girls, you’ll want to wear gloves, or you’ll have some mighty big blisters on your hands before the job is done.” He handed Ashlyn a tape measure. “You might want to use this to get an idea of how long and wide to make your hole, and I’d suggest piling rocks on top of it when you get him covered with dirt. That will keep the coyotes from trying to dig him up.”
“Thank you, Elijah,” Ashlyn said. “Tiffany, will you help me?”
Tiffany reached out and took the end of the tape measure, and Ashlyn stretched it from one end of Dynamite to the other.
“I’ll remember the numbers for you,” Quinley offered as Ashlyn called them out.
When they were finished with that, Keelan picked up the handles of one of the wheelbarrows and led the way out of the barn. Rita followed behind her with the other wheelbarrow, and the other girls carried shovels. All the girls left with their heads hanging low and with tears still dripping onto their shirts.
“I’m going with them,” Jayden said.
“Let them go out there alone,” Elijah suggested. “It’s their little procession. Give them half an hour, and then I’ll drive you out there in the truck. That way you can tell the others what’s happened and ask them if they’ll take shifts watching over the girls. You c
ould stay a couple of hours, and then one of them can relieve you so you can come back in and make dinner. If they’re not done with the digging at noon, I’ll drive them all back. How does that sound?”
“You’re probably right, but I can’t stand to see them in so much pain. I want to support them and do something,” Jayden said.
“You’ll be helping them the most by letting them depend on each other,” Elijah told her.
“Okay, but it’s not easy,” she said on a sigh.
“I know, darlin’.” He gave her a sideways hug. “As adults we want to shield them.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her even closer to his body. He hadn’t cried like the girls had, but his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. “Now all I have to do is figure out how to get a thousand-pound horse onto a hay trailer.”
She finally took a step back. “If I can help in any way at all to get him on the trailer, just tell me what to do.”
“Thank you,” Elijah said. “I’m going to figure out something while you’re talking to the others. I’ll be down to get you in half an hour.”
She nodded his way and headed outside. The sun was a fireball in the eastern sky by then, promising a hot, humid day after the rain the day before. How could the sun shine on such a sad day for the girls? It didn’t seem fair, but then Jayden had had the same thoughts the day she and Skyler went to the cemetery—Skyler in her sports car, Jayden in her old green truck. The sun had been shining that day, too. Wildflowers bloomed in the medians, and her mother’s roses were thick with blooms. She had picked a huge basket of red, pink, and yellow roses and set them at the end of the casket. Skyler had sneered at the basket, but she hadn’t brought a single flower with her.
She’d held the tears back to be strong for the girls, but the dam broke on the way back to the dining room. Tears streamed down her face, dripped off her jaw, and made wet circles on her shirt. When she reached the dining hall, she squared her shoulders, forced herself to stop sobbing, and went inside.
Diana and Novalene had put the kitchen and dining room to rights and made a new pitcher of sweet tea while she was gone.
“What’s going on out there?” Novalene rushed to her side. “Are you okay? Is Ashlyn all right? We started to come on out there, but we figured you’d call if it was serious.”
“Dynamite died,” Jayden answered.
“No!” they chorused.
“Is Keelan all right?” Novalene asked. “She’s awfully attached to that horse and has been fussing about Ashlyn thinking he wasn’t doing well. I think she knew he was on his last legs but was just in denial.”
“They’re all taking it hard, and”—Jayden poured herself a tall glass of sweet tea, and slumped down into a chair—“they’re going to bury him and have a funeral this afternoon.”
“They are going to do what?” Diana’s eyes almost popped right out of her head.
Jayden repeated what she’d said. “They’re out at the half-mile marker digging a hole right now.”
“Those girls have never done anything like that,” Diana gasped. “We should go supervise and be there to comfort them.”
“Exactly.” Jayden laid out her plan. “I’m going to take bottles of water out with me for the first shift.”
“Let us take care of that,” Novalene suggested. “You need to cook. Elijah can drive us out there. Maybe they’ll have the grave done by lunchtime, and they can have their little service right after they eat.”
“Are you sure?” Jayden asked. “I don’t mind taking the first couple of hours.”
“Of course we are.” Diana laid a hand on Jayden’s shoulder. “We’ll get some water and maybe put some of those leftover cookies that you made into a bag. Digging is tough work, and they may need a little snack about midmorning. Poor darlin’s, the death of a pet is tough, and Dynamite has been a friend to all of them.”
Novalene bent down and slipped an arm around Jayden’s shoulders. “How are you holding up? It couldn’t have been a party out there with all eight of them, was it?”
“I’m fine,” Jayden answered, but she wiped a hand across her wet cheeks. “No, I’m not fine, but I will be. It hurts to see the girls in pain, and to tell the truth, Dynamite was my sounding board, or maybe I should say ‘sounding horse.’ I used to go out there at night and tell him my troubles.”
“I’m so, so sorry,” Diana said as she and Novalene gave her a three-way hug.
Family doesn’t have to share DNA, her gramps’s voice came to her mind. He was so right. These folks—the counselors, girls, and even Elijah—were family even if they didn’t share a drop of blood.
“For some of them, it might be their first time to deal with death,” Jayden said.
“Poor things.” Novalene took a step back. “They’ll learn today that their parents’ money can’t buy a cure for death and the pain of losing something or someone dear to them.”
“Ain’t it the truth.” Diana picked up a tissue and wiped Jayden’s cheeks.
Jayden whipped up two applesauce Bundt cakes. While they baked, she made gazpacho and put it in the refrigerator to chill. Cold soup served with chunks of homemade Italian bread, wedges of cheese, and chicken salad sandwiches would be good for hot, sweaty girls who’d used up a lot of energy and emotion that morning.
The whole time she worked, she worried about all the girls, but even more about her three—Ashlyn in particular. They hadn’t discussed the death of grandparents or pets, but Ashlyn had said something about her nanny dying, and that was when she turned to alcohol. When the cakes were out of the pans and cooling, she chopped up peppers, onions, and tomatoes to sprinkle on top of the gazpacho and sliced the warm bread when it came out of the oven.
“French fries and hamburgers, my butt,” she fumed as she thought about the two women from the day before.
You just need someone to be pissed at, don’t you, baby girl? Her grandfather’s voice was pretty real in her head.
“Yes, I do,” she agreed aloud.
Remember what I told you about arguing with yourself.
“I’m not arguing. I’m agreeing with you.” She got down bowls for the soup and then started making chicken salad sandwiches.
If you’re fighting with yourself, you’re about to mess up.
“I told you, I’m in complete agreement with you,” she said again.
Follow your heart, and then you won’t be pissed at anyone—most of all yourself.
With dirt smeared on their sweaty faces, the girls filed in at noon. Ashlyn was first in line with Tiffany and Carmella right behind her. She managed a weak smile when she saw the gazpacho. “That looks really good. It’s so hot outside that cold soup will go down good.”
“I’m glad.” Jayden smiled. “Did you get finished, or do you have to do more digging this afternoon?”
“Elijah says it’s big enough and deep enough. We had four shovels, and we had a system,” Ashlyn said. “He said he’ll bring Dynamite out to the grave when we get done eating and then we can have our service.”
“There’s a poem called ‘The Rainbow Bridge.’ I’ve never read it, but Quinley said that her friend gave it to her when she lost her dog. She says it would be perfect for the funeral.” Tiffany held out her tray for a sprinkling of peppers, onions, and fresh tomatoes to be put on top of her soup. “Would you be able to find it and print it off so I can read it at the service?”
“I’ll do my best,” Jayden promised.
“And we all want a song,” Carmella said. “Can we borrow your phone and play ‘The River’ by Garth Brooks? The words kind of fit all of us here, and we’re all sorry that Dynamite is gone. We should’ve told him how much he meant to us. We’ve decided that for the rest of our lives, it’s going to be our theme song from what we’ve learned while we’ve been here. It talks about a dreamer, and we’re in Daydream Cabin.”
“I can make that happen.” Jayden tried to remember the words to the song but only something about daring to dance on the tides came to mind.
“Thank you,” Carmella said. “We’re planning to walk back out there together after we eat. We brought the wheelbarrows back with us to put the rocks in that we’ll gather as we go.”
“We’ll all go with you,” Jayden told her.
Elijah arrived as the last girl sat down. He picked up a tray and asked, “What is this?”
“Gazpacho and sandwiches,” Jayden answered. “I figured something cold might be good after the morning they’ve all had.”
“Haven’t had it in years, but it sure looks good. Is that cinnamon I smell?” He added several spoonfuls of extra vegetables to his soup and picked up two chicken salad sandwiches.
“Applesauce cake with brown sugar and cinnamon in the center, and fresh fruit salad for dessert. How’s it going in the barn?” she asked.
“I went ahead and put Dynamite in the hole the girls dug. I covered him with a horse blanket. Everything is ready,” he answered. “Y’all want me to drive you out there after we eat?”
“The girls are planning to walk. I’ll tag along with them,” she said.
“Me too,” Diana piped up from the table. “We’ll stay back a little way and give the girls some space, but it won’t hurt us to walk a mile today.”
“Speak for yourself,” Novalene said. “I’ll ride with Elijah. These old bones have sat out in the sun all morning. Watching those girls work so hard was all the exercise I need for the next six months.”
“How did they do?” Jayden asked.
“They cried a lot,” Diana said.
“And giggled a little when they remembered something special like the story of Dynamite and the snake,” Novalene added.
“But mostly they worked like troupers to get that hole big enough to put a horse in,” Elijah said. “They should be emotionally and physically drained by bedtime tonight.”
“Same as you, huh?” Jayden nudged him with her shoulder.
“You got that right,” he said.
Jayden could tell that Tiffany was nervous about reading the poem. Her hands shook as she took her place at the end of the grave. A relentless, broiling sun beat down on everyone’s heads, but the girls didn’t even seem to mind. Sweat circles and dirt stained their uniforms as they gathered around the hole with the horse lying in the bottom, covered with a blanket. She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and read:
The Daydream Cabin Page 26
