“Thank you, my man,” Mickey said with a formal British accent. “That will be all for this evening.”
“Too right it will,” Hank said in a broad Australian drawl.
“Let me push,” Sarah said. “Come on, Mickey.” Shoving Mickey’s chair ahead of her, she took off toward the barn at a gallop.
“Hey! Girl! You’ll have us both in the mud!” But he was laughing.
The others ran after them. A moment later the windows in the common room lit up, then, the lights came on behind the windows of Sean and Mickey’s rooms.
Charlie watched from her own bedroom until Sarah was safely inside the house. That was the most upbeat Sarah had sounded since before her father died. She’d worshipped Steve, possibly because he was so seldom there that she cherished the few memorable times they’d shared.
Across the way, Charlie saw the curtains at Jake’s window twitch as though he, too, were watching. Did he regret not having gone with them?
She heard Sarah clatter up the stairs and hopped into bed so that Sarah wouldn’t think she had been spying on her. She picked up her book and opened it across her lap, then realized it was upside down. “Sarah?” she called. “You have a good time?”
Sarah bounded into Charlie’s room and sat cross-legged on the foot of her bed. She hadn’t done that in a very long time.
“It was brilliant! The sushi was great and they treated me like I was one of them.” She took a deep breath and blurted, “I met somebody from my school.”
“Oh? What’s her name?”
“Not a girl, Mother, a boy!” Sarah wriggled against the footboard. “His name is Robbie and he’ll be a senior. He’s gorgeous!”
“How’d you meet him?”
“He’s waiting tables this summer at the sushi place. They don’t do uniforms, so he was wearing a Marchwood T-shirt. He smiled at me, I smiled back and when he came over to our table Mickey asked him about the T-shirt. When I said I was going to be a lowly sophomore this fall, he acted like it didn’t matter.”
“What’s his last name? Where does he live?” In her head, she heard her mother’s voice, “Who are his people?” Charlie could remember rolling her eyes in exasperation whenever her mother asked her that. No matter how nice a boy this Robbie might be, his family could hold up gas stations or cook crystal meth in their kitchen.
Not that students from Marchwood were likely to do either, but some of the worst juvenile delinquents she’d ever known had been scions of the rich and privileged.
“Who cares? He said he’s seen our horses when he drove by and he wants to come meet them sometime.” She sighed. “He has his own truck. He got it when he turned sixteen.”
“A pickup? Not a car?”
“Mother, everybody down here drives pickups, except the really rich kids who drive Porsches and Jaguars. This truck is so cute! Bright red with chrome running boards.
“Tell me you didn’t follow him to the parking lot.”
“He pointed it out through the window. There are some end-of-summer parties coming up, and he’s going to try to get me invited.”
Uh-oh. Charlie would face that one when it happened. Were all mothers condemned to rain on their daughters’ parades? “You do know you can’t date for another year?”
“Nobody dates anymore. Like tonight everybody was just hanging out, you know? Besides, you think some gorgeous senior is going to ask me for a date? But maybe they’re not all cyclopses at Matchwood if he goes there.”
“Cyclopses?”
“You know—one eye right in the middle of their foreheads—like dueling banjos.” She played air banjo as she spun out of Charlie’s room and slammed the door without saying good-night.
Charlie dropped her book on her nightstand, turned off her bedside lamp and stretched out under the thin cotton blanket. Even with the air-conditioning, that was sufficient cover during the night. She wanted desperately to sleep, but she could feel her heart racing and her stomach churning.
So it begins, she thought. At fourteen Sarah looked at least seventeen, and not because she overdid her makeup. She wasn’t as beautiful as she’d be at twenty-five, but she was lovely enough to keep Charlie in a state of mild alarm when they met young males. It would be nice if she could connect with some of her classmates before school started, but let them be female and fourteen, not a male soon-to-be senior.
* * *
“INCOMING, MAJOR.”
Jake whipped around at the sound of Sean’s voice.
Bobby Holzer’s battered and bruised flatbed clattered down the gravel road toward the barn. The truck bed was empty, so he obviously wasn’t delivering anything.
Except payback. Jake sighed. That’s what happened every time he took decisive action. Aidan had returned, possibly with reinforcements, loaded for bear and out to get his manhood back.
“That pair of rednecks looking for round two?” Hank said. He dropped the currycomb he was using on Pindar’s shoulder and came to stand by Jake. “Think they’re armed?”
“Of course they’re armed,” Sean said. “Didn’t you see the gun rack behind the seat? Damned arsenal. Maybe you were too far away.”
“Probably a couple of handguns in the center console as well,” Jake added. “They won’t shoot up the place. Charlie’s a customer.”
Sean said, “Hank, go warn Charlie we may have trouble and head Mary Anne off. She doesn’t need to hear any more nasty comments.”
“They go for us, I’ll lay you eight to five Mary Anne goes for them,” Hank said.
“Last thing Charlie needs is a range war,” Jake said.
“I’m stickin’ with you two,” Hank confirmed. “Uh-oh. Too late to head her off anyway. Mornin’, Mary Anne.”
The truck stopped at the front door of the barn, and both doors opened. Bobby climbed out of the driver’s seat and Aidan climbed down and joined him. The two men were as big as steers, but both were freshly shaved and the shirts and jeans they wore looked freshly ironed.
“Not here for trouble,” Bobby said, holding his hands out in front of him. His eyes took in the three men and landed on Mary Anne. “We’re here to see Miss Mary Anne.”
“I came to apologize,” Aidan said, dropping his eyes. “Really apologize.”
“I beg your pardon?” Mary Anne said.
“Yes’m. Bobby and me went down to the VFW after work. They already heard about us having a spot of trouble the other day....” He looked sideways at Jake as though expecting him to erupt. “My uncle Travis—he was airborne in ’Nam—liked to have tanned my hide when he heard what I said.”
“He could still do it, too, even if he is older than dirt,” Bobby said. “Anyway, he called Aidan here a blockhead. Said no gentleman would say something like that to a lady.”
“I didn’t know y’all were heroes,” Aidan added.
“Heroes?” Hank sputtered. “Us? More like fools in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Anyway, Miss Mary Anne,” Aidan said, “Uncle Travis said I ought to come apologize for real. So I do.”
“Apology accepted,” she said, then turned on her heel and walked down to the harness room. She had to slip by Mickey, who had wheeled himself into the aisle in solidarity with the others.
“Well, we got to get on the road,” Bobby said.
“Good morning, Bobby,” Charlie said from Picard’s stall. “We’ll see you next month with our shavings, as usual.”
“Yes’m.”
Charlie took in Jake, Sean and Hank standing shoulder to shoulder across the aisle as Bobby started his truck and drove out. “You look like fugitives from the O.K. Corral,” she said.
“I figured they were here to go after the major,” Hank said. “What just happened?”
“Uncle Travis happened,” Sean said.
Ten minutes later, Charlie climbed into the marathon cart beside Hank. She planned to do some probing along with teaching. She either had to understand what made him grumpy or dump him from the class. Pindar was accommodating, as usual, but after ten minutes Charlie could see that Hank reacted too hard and too quickly to correct the horse.
“He’s going to take exception to your hauling him around like that,” Charlie said.
She heard Hank’s sharp intake of breath and saw his hands tighten.
“I know how to steer a horse,” he said.
“Maybe one-handed cutting horses, you do,” Charlie said. “If Pindar got really annoyed at you, there isn’t much you could do to stop him this side of Collierville. So, lighten up on the reins.”
She thought Hank was going to snap at her. Instead, he took a deep breath and loosened his fingers. “Yeah, okay.”
“Why did you join this class?” Charlie asked. “You obviously aren’t happy here.”
“Because I pick on Mickey? He gets my goat is all. What the heck has he lost?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He’s a computer geek. One chair is the same as any other. He keeps working at it, he’s gonna walk. Maybe not run marathons, but he’ll be able to go back to doing what he did in the army, go to college—he can use his hands and his brain to run his equipment as well as he ever did.”
“Hank, you’ve lost half a foot. You barely limp.”
“I started rodeoing in high school. I’ve lost everything.”
“Bull!” She reached over and took the reins. “Pindar, stand.” She turned him to face her. “You planned to rodeo until you were what—sixty, seventy?”
“Heck, no. I expected to have enough money to buy my own spread by the time I turned thirty. Raise Santa Gertrudis cattle and bucking horses.”
“Then why on earth did you join the army?”
“I joined the National Guard, not the army. One weekend a month and a couple of weeks in the summer. I needed the money to tide me over when I wasn’t winning. I sure as shootin’ never expected to wind up in the desert with people trying to kill me.”
“You should have expected it. Every day I read about some National Guard unit that’s deploying for the fourth time in six years.” She caught her breath. “You didn’t actually do something goofy like shoot yourself in the foot to get to come home, did you?”
“What? Heck no! Whatever I am, I’m no coward. I love my country.”
“Okay, can’t you ride bareback broncs? You wouldn’t need any stirrups, just balance and guts. Or how about this? Ride bulls.”
Hank began to laugh. There was an edge of hysteria in it, but it was real laughter. The first Charlie had heard from him since he arrived. “I’m crazy, but I am not that crazy. My daddy warned me never to ride bulls. See, a bucking horse will devote his entire energy to keep you from staying on him for eight seconds. If he tosses you off, he’ll go bucking across the arena. But a bull—never try to ride a critter that will spend eight seconds trying to kill you, then when he gets you off his back, turns around and tries to kill you all over again. No, ma’am. Bulls are out.”
“Answer my question. Why are you here? Pindar, walk on.” She handed Hank the reins.
“Pindar, stand,” Hank said. He swiveled to look Charlie in the eye. “I needed me some horse, and this seemed the only way available to get some.”
Charlie realized his eyes were full of tears. For the first time, she’d got him. All those years she’d given up horses entirely to work full-time and look after Sarah and Steve, she’d felt she “needed her some horse.” The vacations at the farm came seldom then. No money, no time. Not nearly enough horse.
“I thought if I can’t ride, maybe I can drive a carriage in some city. Better than nothing.”
“How good a rider are you?”
“Oh, lady, before this I was one heck of a rider.”
“When we get back to the barn, we’re going to find out how good you still are. Pindar, walk on.”
* * *
CHARLIE DUG OUT her old dressage saddle and bridle, and led Aries, the Friesian gelding, out to the driving arena.
“You know what you’re doing?” Jake slipped out of the stallion’s stall and came to join Charlie.
“Not a clue,” she replied. “I have to do something about Hank. Maybe if he sees he doesn’t need his anger, he’ll let it go.”
“And make all our lives easier,” Sean said as he came out of the common room.
“Where are Mary Anne and Mickey?”
“She was helping him walk,” Sean said. He shook his head. “It’s slow going and he looks like RoboCop when he gets in those leg braces, but the little sucker is game, I’ll give him that. He says it doesn’t hurt to walk. You believe that, I got some bridge stock in Brooklyn just aching for investors.”
“Don’t want him standing around making fun of me,” Hank said as he walked back in the barn.
“After lunch we’ll set Mary Anne up for her first lesson with Terror and the pony cart,” Charlie said. “Jake, you and Sean can bring up the pony cart while I work with Hank.”
“In the meantime, go away and don’t watch me,” Hank said. He came out of the tack room shoving a black hard hat on his dark curls.
Aries stood well over sixteen hands, much taller than the average cow pony or bucking bronc, and considerably broader. Coal-black, his mane hung down below his shoulders, and all four fetlocks wore the heavy feathers standard to the breed. Charlie tacked him up in the dressage saddle and bridle while Hank made friends with him and gave him a few treats. Then he led him out to the indoor arena.
“Don’t try any of that jumping-on-the-back-of-your-horse thing,” Charlie said.
“Cowboys only try that on a short horse,” Hank grinned. “And with both feet.” He climbed the stairs of the mounting block and waited for Charlie to bring Aries up beside him.
He seemed relaxed. Then she noticed his hands were shaking.
“Good thing you’re missing part of your right foot, not your left. You only need to swing your right leg over the saddle.”
“And keep it in the stirrup afterward.” Hank gathered the reins and swung aboard.
Charlie walked around to the right side of the horse, checked for stirrup length and said, “Stick your foot in.”
Hank felt around without success. “I can’t feel where it is.”
Charlie guided his foot into the stirrup. “Okay now?” she asked.
“If feeling nothing is okay, then yeah. Saddle feels weird. No horn.”
“There’s a bucking strap across the pommel,” Charlie pointed it out to him. “But you won’t need it.” She glanced behind Aries’s broad rump and saw Sean, Jake, Mary Anne, Mickey and Sarah all peeking in the door to the arena, out of Hank’s line of sight. She made shooing motions. They ignored her.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “You need your prosthesis in the stirrup for balance, but you know where it is. Keep your heels down. You can feel your calves and thighs on the horse. Walk on.”
He took both reins in his right hand.
“Didn’t you ever ride an English saddle?” Charlie asked.
“No need. Why?”
“Let me show you how to hold the reins. And dressage horses don’t neck-rein.”
Aries took a couple of steps. Hank grabbed the bucking strap and slipped to his right. “Whoa!”
“Push yourself left.”
“I can’t shove when I can’t feel.” He started to swing his right leg over the saddle to jump off.
Charlie grabbed his right ankle. “Stop that. I know you’re not supposed to shove your foot all the way into the stirrup, but do it. Past the point where you feel your own foot.”
“Puts me off balance.”
�
��May I make a suggestion?”
Both Charlie and Hank jumped. Hank turned in his saddle and glared at Jake. “I told you not to watch.”
“As Mickey noted previously, you are not the boss of me.” But he said it with a grin. He pulled a piece of orange hay string out of his pocket, walked around to Hank’s right side and bent to his stirrup. “The only difficulty with this is that if you fall off, your foot may stay behind you.” He wrapped the hay string around Hank’s ankle, foot and the stirrup, so that the ball of Hank’s prosthesis was held securely in place. “So don’t fall off. Now, stand in your stirrups to get your balance. You can use your leg to move the horse, but you need to keep the ball of your foot in your stirrup and your heel down.”
Grumbling, Hank stood.
And slid off into the dirt.
“Hellfire!” He grabbed for the bucking strap, but he was well past the point of no return, so he let go and fell hard on his back.
“Hank!” Charlie said.
“I’m okay,” he gasped, and lay still a moment. “I do hate that feeling like you’ll never take a breath again.”
“I’m sorry,” Jake said, dropping on his good knee. “I thought...I shouldn’t have tried...” He stood, reached down a hand and pulled Hank up. Then he turned and walked away from them toward the back pasture. “I know better.”
“Hey, man, it’s okay!” Hank called after him. Jake didn’t break stride. “Shoot, I’ve fallen harder than that off the pasture fence.”
The others had joined them by now, even Mickey. He was still wearing his braces in his wheelchair.
“I’ll go after him,” Sean said, and shook his head. “Too bad. He actually tried to help. He’ll see it as just another screwup. I’d be surprised if this didn’t set him back part of the distance he’s come.”
“We can’t let it,” Charlie said.
“You come up with an idea, you let me know.” Sean broke into a jog and went after Jake.
Charlie took Aries’s rein to walk him back to the wash rack, but Hank stopped her. “Did I say I was finished? Let’s try that again.” He went to the mounting block and climbed back onto the horse’s back.
“All right, cowboy, let’s make a dressage rider out of you,” Charlie said. Her insides were clenched. She wanted to follow Jake, to tell him what he’d done was fine. Instead, she concentrated on Hank.
Taking the Reins Page 11
