Chasing the Dream

by Paige Lee Elliston

  The silence stretched almost to the breaking point. Amy could hear Jake breathing. Finally, he spoke again.

  “I’m cooking up some burgers tonight. I thought maybe you’d want to come over for dinner.” The words came more rapidly than she’d ever heard Jake speak. This is like when boys would call me for dates when I was in high school! He’s embarrassed to be calling me to ask me over. How sweet!

  “That sounds great, Jake. Suppose I make a big salad to bring along?”

  “Sure. That’d be good.”

  “OK. What time?”

  “Um—it’s about twenty to four.”

  Amy bit back a giggle. “No, I mean what time should I come over?”

  “Oh. Maybe 6:30?”

  “OK. See you then.”

  “Amy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t much like talking on the telephone.”

  She had to bite back a giggle again. “No problem. It’s not my favorite thing, either. See you at 6:30, Jake.”

  Amy’s errands in Coldwater had included food shopping, and she had plenty of fresh salad components on hand. She fetched her large wooden bowl from a top cabinet and began washing leaves of lettuce. The fresh smell of the onions, the radishes, the lettuce itself, and the pair of handfuls of crumbled blue cheese she sprinkled over the salad made her mouth water in anticipation. She hadn’t eaten since her breakfast in town.

  Her mind returned to Jake’s telephone call as she worked at the sink and counter. I should take it as a real compliment that the guy is nervous talking to me, asking me to his place. There’s a little-boy charm to him, whether he knows it or not. He’s downright refreshing. This should be fun.

  She found herself humming and smiling as she stretched plastic wrap over the bowl and put the salad into her refrigerator. She looked at her kitchen clock: 4:45. Plenty of time to take a leisurely shower and get dressed. The dressing part would be easy: a pair of clean jeans, a Western blouse, and the boots she’d purchased earlier that month. As she took the blouse from her closet, her glance fell on the line of chic dresses and the several pairs of expensive, impractical shoes she’d arranged carefully when she moved in—and hadn’t worn since that day. That too made her smile.

  Jake’s home appeared diminutive in comparison to the huge steel building that housed his business operations. Actually, it was a pleasant three-bedroom ranch, situated about fifty yards from the much-larger structure. There were, Amy noticed as she parked her Jeep behind Jake’s Dodge pickup in the driveway, a series of outbuildings strewn about the property. The living quarters for the cowhands—the bunkhouse—was a long, low wooden building that was functional rather than attractive, but because of the rough log siding, it fit nicely into the small rise upon which it rested. She noticed there was a long hitching rail outside the main door to the bunkhouse. Various sheds and lean-tos were obviously for storage; Amy saw the snout of a red tractor peeking out of one of them. There was the scent of horses and soil and fresh-cut hay in the air, and it was a natural and fitting aroma for the property of Jake Winter.

  The late July sun had barely begun its downward arc, but the temperature was moderate for the time of year—about seventy-five—and the humidity was delightfully low. Though it was still early, the light seemed to have a dusk texture to it, softening hard edges and morphing brighter colors to hues closer to pastels.

  Jake opened the front door before Amy had a chance to ring the doorbell. He looked good, she noticed, in jeans and a chambray shirt, and when he reached for the salad bowl, the fragrance of his aftershave tickled her nose. It was Clubman, she knew, because her father had used it for years. It was a spicy, masculine smell, radically different from the expensive colognes many of the men in the publishing world tended to wear.

  “Quite a salad.” Jake grinned. “There are only two of us, you know.”

  “Better too much than too little, right? I’m a major salad eater; I don’t think much of this will go to waste.” Amy followed Jake through the living room to the kitchen. She hadn’t been in his home before, but there were no surprises for her there. She’d pictured this place in her mind in the course of the afternoon, and her musings had been close to perfect: masculine, leather couch and armchairs, a Remington reproduction on a wall, Indian throw rugs over shiny pine board floors, and a couple of tall bookcases, one on either side of the fireplace.

  Jake put the salad in his refrigerator and poured two tall glasses of iced tea. “Let’s sit in the living room for a bit,” he suggested. Amy followed him out of the kitchen and walked to one of the bookshelves.

  “You’re a reader, I see—and no television set. Bravo.”

  “I have one,” he admitted, “but it’s in my bedroom. I haven’t had it on since I don’t know when. I relax with books—fiction almost exclusively. Light science fiction, Westerns, action-adventure, murder mysteries, all that stuff.”

  “I love mysteries too,” Amy said.

  They drifted into a comfortable, neighbor-to-neighbor conversation, touching on Amy’s impressions of Coldwater, Jake’s rodeo stock business, the weather, and whatever else came up.

  When ice tinkled in their empty iced tea glasses, Jake suggested they get refills and go outside. “We can eat out there by the grill if you like,” he said. “It’s an awfully nice night.”

  “I’d like that,” Amy said.

  Sliding glass doors from the kitchen led to a small flagstone patio that held a picnic table, two lounge chairs, and a grill, which was smoking nicely, burning the charcoal to white embers.

  “Tell me more about your business,” Amy said.

  His pride was obvious in his eyes and in his voice. “It’s really pretty simple. Rodeo associations contact me and rent my horses and bulls for whatever number of days their events last. I have a horse that hasn’t been ridden successfully in two years, and a bull that’s never been ridden to the buzzer. I take good care of my animals, and rodeo folks know my stock will give the audience a show and the cowboys a good ride.”

  “A ride is eight seconds, right?”

  “Yep. That seems short, but I’ll tell you what: it seems like eight years when you’re sitting on a rank bronc or bull that wants to get rid of you.”

  Amy smiled. “I guess you haven’t tried to explain to a managing editor why you blew a deadline, then. I think I’d go with the horse or bull.”

  The conversation continued to drift casually from topic to topic. There was no indication of Jake’s telephone nervousness in his demeanor; he was relaxed and obviously enjoying himself, just as Amy was.

  The hamburgers were works of art. Each weighed close to a half pound, and the meat was ground sirloin rather than the more prosaic chuck. Oversized rolls—fresh from the bakery in Coldwater—lovingly held the big burgers. Jake offered thick slices of Bermuda onion and a spicy Chinese mustard as condiments. “No reason to put anything else on a burger,” he said. “’Course, if you want ketchup, I’ll get it for you.” The way he said “ketchup” made it sound like a foul disease. “But”—he hesitated a dramatic beat—“I’ll never feel right about having you over for burgers again.”

  “I wouldn’t taint one of your masterpieces with ketchup,” Amy promised. “This is probably the best hamburger I’ve ever eaten.”

  “Only ‘probably’?”

  They laughed together. Amy liked Jake’s laugh; rich, full, a show of quick happiness. After dark they drank coffee in the living room. They both sat on the couch, not anywhere near touching, but each within the other’s space. Both were at ease with that.

  Amy glanced down at her watch and was amazed that it was 11:10. “I don’t know where the time went,” she said. “I know mornings around here get started early.” She stood. “Thanks, Jake. This was fun. I hope we can do it again sometime—maybe at my place next.”

  Jake stood too and turned to face her. “Let’s do that, Amy. I’ve had a great time. Hey—how about going riding day after tomorrow? I’m going to have the guys rolling your lawn, a
nd the noise of their tractors would disturb your work anyway.”

  “Well... remember, I’m a beginner,” she said as she walked out to her car. “But, I’d love to. Can we see the Indian mounds you mentioned?”

  “Sure. I’ll tell you what: come on over at about nine, and I’ll have the horses saddled and ready to go.”

  At the door of her vehicle Jake reached out his hand to her, and she took it and held it for a moment. “Again, thanks. See you Friday,” she said.

  Jake nodded. “I’ll see you then, Amy.”

  She sat on her couch at home after putting her Jeep in her garage. Nutsy, of course, found her lap immediately, even though she hadn’t turned on any lights. It was good to review her evening in the dark, and the purring of her cat provided the perfect, peaceful background sound to her thoughts.

  This move—all of this—was the right thing to do. My friends in New York were certain I was nuts—and maybe I was, at least according to their lifestyles. But this is right for me.

  It was about 4:00 a.m. when Amy woke, her neck stiff from her position on the couch. She picked up Nutsy and found her way up the stairs and to her bedroom. Even as she snuggled under the covers, the good feeling about the evening before was first in her mind.

  She was up and sipping her first cup of coffee at 7:00 a.m. as she sat in front of her laptop. The early sun cascaded in her windows, and the slightest of breezes meandered in through the open windows. Morning sounds from Jake’s ranch, muted and softened by the distance, reached her: the high-pitched whinny of a horse, the rumble of a tractor engine, the voice of one cowhand calling to another. Amy sat back from her work, thought for a long moment, and then stood and checked the pocket of her jeans for her Jeep keys. Riding was to be a brand-new experience for her. She didn’t want Jake to think she was a complete klutz. She checked her kitchen clock: 8:35. She’d been sitting at her computer an hour and a half. She’d produced three sentences. She shook off the quick desperation that tried to take over her thoughts.

  Coldwater Drug probably opens at nine, and the library probably does too. Amy fetched herself another cup of coffee and sipped at it until quarter to nine, then went to her garage.

  She’d noticed the display of horse magazines just inside the door at the drugstore each time she’d stopped in, but she’d paid little attention to them other than a quick look at the horses on the covers. This morning she stopped in front of the rack and checked titles: Western Horseman, Horse & Rider, Appaloosa News, Quarter Horse Journal, and a slew of others interspersed with Time, Newsweek, Redbook, and other publications. Amy selected a half dozen equine-oriented magazines, paid at the counter, and headed for the library. There, using her new library card, she checked out an armload of books on western riding, amazed at the number of such references available on the shelves.

  She’d always been a rapid, resourceful, and thorough researcher, and she approached Western riding with the same skills that had been so important to her in her TV work. She began with the parts of a Western saddle and used index cards to jot down bits of information. Then she moved on to the basics of riding: position in the saddle, hand use, cues to the horse, the various gaits, leg use in commands, trail-riding manners, and on and on. She stopped only once to wolf down a sandwich, and at 5:30 she had a headache, eye fatigue, and a full inch of index cards crammed with riding facts. It had been worth it: she still hadn’t sat on the back of a horse with the reins in her hand, but she wouldn’t sound like a disinterested novice when she talked with Jake in the morning.

  That morning came quickly for Amy. By the time she’d showered, dressed, fed Nutsy, and eaten her customary bowl of corn flakes, her watch read a couple of minutes after seven. She sat at her laptop, but the words didn’t seem to come to her—they were nudged aside by images of herself riding with Jake.

  This is silly, she chided herself. I guess I need to get out more—I feel like a sixteen-year-old waiting for her date to pick her up for the prom. Still—what a great way to spend a few hours, learning to ride out in the sunshine.

  Housework wasn’t Amy’s favorite thing, but it did serve to pass the time. She dusted, straightened, and vacuumed. She gathered up old newspapers and magazines and placed them in her recycling box. She investigated her refrigerator and threw out a piece of cheese that was green with mold and two slices of pizza she’d carefully wrapped in aluminum foil—over a month ago.

  When Amy pulled in to the parking area behind Jake’s home, she saw him standing in front of the steel building with a pair of saddled horses. She hurried to him.

  “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting, Jake.” She smiled. “Good morning, by the way.”

  “Mornin’.” Jake returned her smile. “You’re right on time.” He hesitated for a moment. “I hope this doesn’t make a difference to you,” he said, the slightest bit of worry in his voice, “but Wes says he needs to hold off on your lawn work at least another day—the low areas are still pretty wet.”

  “Not a problem at all. It’ll get done when it gets done.”

  “Right.” Jake smiled, looking relieved, Amy thought. He nodded toward the tall bay horse that was inspecting Amy with curiosity. “This ol’ gal is Daisy—you’ll ride her today. She’s a quarter horse, thirteen years old, with the temperament of a kitten. Her gaits are smooth, and she doesn’t have a silly or mean bone in her. She’ll give you a good ride.” He nodded toward the other horse. “This one’s my Spike. He’s also a quarter horse—a four-year-old. He’s as wild as a hawk at times, but he’s a good horse, and he’s learning real fast. I’m going to be roping from him in a year or so.”

  Amy stepped forward and stroked Daisy’s neck; the texture of the sleek, sun-warmed coat was something Amy hadn’t experienced before. Daisy turned her head to look more closely at Amy. Impulsively, Amy kissed the mare’s nose. “I like her,” she said.

  “’Course you do. C’mon, climb on and we’ll get going.”

  Amy gathered the reins in her left hand and eased her left boot into the stirrup. She swung into the saddle in a single, smooth motion, surprising herself.

  “I thought you didn’t have any experience,” Jake said. “You mount up like a cowhand.”

  “I did a little reading about Western riding,” she admitted. “How far that’ll take me once we’re underway is up for grabs, I guess.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Jake said. He clucked to Spike, and the horse moved out at a walk. Without a command from Amy, Daisy followed the other horse, moving up to his side. The saddle creaked a bit under Amy, but Jake had adjusted the stirrups perfectly, and she sat comfortably, holding the reins a few inches over and ahead of the saddle horn as her references had told her to do.

  Amy looked around her as they rode. The sky was the brilliant blue that even native Montanans marvel at, unmarred by any vestige of clouds. Around her, pastures spread lushly in all directions, washed of dust by the long rain. The day was perfect. When Jake asked if she wanted to jog a bit, Amy answered, “Sure,” without hesitation.

  She took a spanking for twenty yards or so. “Sit into the saddle, Amy,” Jake urged. “You’re moving against Daisy rather than with her. Let her carry you—don’t fight her. Use your ankles kinda like the shock absorbers on a car. Let them take your weight instead of smacking the saddle with your bottom.”

  Amy nodded. Jake was right—the soles of her feet were pushing against the stirrups, making her legs rigid and transmitting the horse’s movement to her upper body. She relaxed and began to find the rhythm of the jog. She glanced at Jake. He grinned. “Good,” he said.

  They tried the lope next. “This gait is just like riding a rocking chair,” Jake explained. “Let your body move with Daisy just as you did in the jog. A good quarter horse can carry a rider at a lope all day long. They’re famous for it. Remember, move with Daisy, not against her.”

  Amy quickly found the lope rhythm and was surprised to find that the motion was very much like that of being in a self-propelled rocking chair that Jake h
ad mentioned. They alternated gaits for an hour or so with little conversation. Amy had no idea how far they’d gone and didn’t really care. She was thoroughly enjoying herself and feeling good about her burgeoning riding skills.

  Jake reined through a cluster of pines, and Daisy followed Spike. When they’d cleared the copse, Jake stopped and dismounted. “We’ll tie the horses here and go on foot. The burial grounds aren’t too far ahead.”

  They walked through another group of trees. The scent of pine was heavy in the air, and their boots crunched over many years of fallen needles and branches. It was cooler and darker in the woods, and the respite from the strength of the sun was welcome.

  “I never ride up too close to the mounds,” Jake said. “Seems kinda disrespectful somehow.” He pointed. “There they are.”

  Two mounds, roughly the size of large automobiles, stood perhaps twenty feet apart. They were covered in grass, but the very tops appeared to be closer to raw dirt, brown against the green. Jake stopped, and Amy stopped next to him.

  “What kind of Indians made these?” she asked.

  “Crow, no doubt. Chiefs and shamans rated mounds like this, not braves or women. There were major ceremonies—dancing and everything—when the burials took place. After that, the grounds were considered sacred.”

  “Can we go a little closer?” Amy asked.

  “Sure. As long as we don’t disturb anything. These mounds and others like them are protected by the state of Montana. They’re considered historical sites. The problem is that when the locations are revealed, the looters show up.”

  They took a few steps closer and stopped again. Amy experienced an odd sensation that she’d felt in the past when visiting the battleground at Gettysburg.

  They kept the horses to a walk most of the way back, chatting or riding in silence, enjoying the day. When Jake’s spread came into view as they topped a rise, he spoke again. “I’m trying something new in my business,” he said. “I’m bringing in a cutting-horse trainer.”