Thief of Happy Endings

by Kristen Chandler

  I say, “Wow. Just wow. Sorry, Kaya.”

  “Never apologize for something you didn’t do,” says Kaya. She frowns at the swinging tent flap. “And don’t worry about me. I’ve dealt with girls like Banner before.”

  * * *

  Coulter strokes his Santa beard. “We’re going to do some character-building today. How does that sound?”

  Nobody looks thrilled as Kaya hands out pieces of paper with the lists of jobs written next to everybody’s name. Four guys compare lists and grumble. A girl with aviator sunglasses says, “I’m allergic.” I think it’s the girl who got in trouble before, Devri.

  “To what?” says Coulter.

  “Dust mites,” says the girl.

  Coulter stops what he’s doing and looks at the sunglasses. “I’ve also got a shit-covered chicken coop that desperately needs a makeover. That sound good?”

  “Not really,” the girl says. I think her glasses are fogging up.

  “All right then.” Coulter smiles. “I suggest you get to work.”

  My first job is cooking breakfast with Alice and Banner. I wish somebody would shuffle the deck a little better for the work groups.

  Darius shows our group how to construct a fire in the shape of a tepee. “You’ve got to get the fire going, then wait a second while everything burns down to coals. Part of the trick of cooking this way is not stepping in the fire while you’re working. So watch the coals. You girls think you can handle that?”

  Alice has her fire blazing two feet in the air while he’s still talking. He steps back. “Hey there!”

  “You little pyro,” says Banner.

  Alice says, “My family owns a fireworks company.”

  Two of the younger boys bringing firewood up from the cutter come close, amazed by the height. They look at Alice and then back at the fire, then go back to work in a hurry.

  I need to spend more time with Alice.

  Banner gets her tepee up fast, too. I have less fire-building skill.

  Banner asks, “What does your family do, Cassidy? Clean outhouses?”

  Once my fire is up, Mrs. Sanchez hands us all a pan, which is just fine with me. She hands us some eggs, and we get our coals all shipshape and go to work. First I get my pan going with bacon grease, and then I crack my eggs with one hand.

  “That’s good, Cassidy,” says Mrs. Sanchez.

  Alice heads off to slice potatoes. I grab my pan with the two hot pads and shimmy it backward. I can feel eyes watching me crack the eggs and toss them back into the egg keeper in one swoop. I check my feet to be sure I’m not too close to the coals and shimmy the eggs again. My favorite part is the sizzle they make when they hit the pan.

  Mrs. Sanchez hands me more eggs. A lot more eggs.

  I stop showing off and start cracking and scrambling as fast as I can. The air fills with snapping sounds of breakfast happening. When I finish the eggs, I stand up. Banner is still frying bacon. She looks up at me. “Impressive.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  She keeps looking at me. “Like you’re on fire.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I don’t even notice Mrs. Sanchez until she’s almost on top of me. “Fuego! Fuego!”

  I simultaneously see her towel and the end of my jeans smoldering. Mrs. Sanchez throws her rag on my leg, pushes me on the ground, and kicks dirt on me. I get dirt in my mouth. The eggs are in the dirt.

  When I sit up Mrs. Sanchez is hovering. “Alma mia. You have to be more careful!”

  I look across the fire, trying to figure out what just happened. Banner is frying bacon. “Wow. That was a close one, Cassidy. Are you all right?”

  I get on my feet. “I’m fine.”

  Because I ruined a flock of eggs, breakfast is late, chores are late, and everything else, like me, is a mess. My pants have a sexy new scorch on them. The knot is back in my throat. And the worst part is that I’m not sure the accident was totally my fault. Maybe it was. Maybe somebody helped the coals while I was cooking. But I swear I stood back to keep out of the fire.

  * * *

  After the chore-fest is done, Coulter gathers us all in the first small arena. Everyone kind of hangs on the fence like they’d like to go back to bed or at least stand in the shade over by the ranch house. It’s not even halfway through the morning and it’s already so hot the back of my neck is sweating, or maybe that’s just the steam coming out of my ears from being secretly ambushed.

  “Today Darius and Justin are going to teach you how to be a good partner to your horse, aren’t you, gentlemen?”

  Justin looks out at us and tips his hat farther down on his face. Darius takes off his baseball cap and shows his two-tone ’do. He bows slightly, and we all clap. He’s funny at least. Justin is about as much fun as a tick.

  Coulter says, “Yesterday we haltered our horses in a corral where they were all close together with nothing to do. Today we are going to go out into a pasture with grass and plenty of room to run. The horses like being with their buddies, eating and kicking and running. The idea is get your horse to come to you so you can get a halter on them. Any ideas?”

  We all just stand there swatting at flies, shifting weight from one boot to the other.

  Coulter waves open his arms. “Here’s a hint. Horses are social. They depend on the herd to survive.”

  Everyone stays quiet, but the wheels inside my head are cranking almost on their own. Why do horses let people halter them?

  Devri says, “Easy. You take a grain bucket out and bribe them.”

  Somebody should give Devri some grain. She looks like she lives on lip gloss.

  “Thank you for your comment, Devri. Let me see if I got this right. We have to go get twenty grain buckets to get our horses for the rest of the summer?”

  Devri frowns. “Well, yeah.”

  Banner’s steps forward from the back. “You show the horse who’s boss.”

  Coulter walks through the other campers with a halter and hands it to Banner. “Excellent. You can pick any horse you’d like, Miss Banner. All you have to do is get that horse to lie down by showing him who’s boss.”

  “You want me to get the horse to lie down?” Banner holds the halter for a moment, looks out in the pasture, and hands it back to him. “I’d need more than a halter for that, Mr. Coulter. I’d need a whip.”

  “You wouldn’t do that, would you, Mr. Coulter?” asks Alice.

  “I’ve seen that at rodeos,” says a kid wearing a beanie cap. “It’s totally cool.”

  A girl in a red tank top asks, “Why do you want the horse to lie down?”

  Coulter takes the halter from Banner and returns to the front of the crowd where Justin and Darius are waiting.

  “Justin,” Coulter says, “our campers are wondering why we would ask a horse to lie down. Can you show them?”

  “Right now, sir?” He doesn’t look all that happy about it. But I have yet to see him do anything but scowl.

  “Right now,” says Coulter.

  Justin walks his buckskin next to a patch of cheatgrass. He takes off the saddle and blanket, then props them up sideways in the low-growing weeds. He takes off the bridle and hangs it over the saddle. If the horse wanted to bolt, there would be no stopping her, but the buckskin barely twitches at flies.

  Justin turns his back to us and leans into the side of his horse. There is something measured and graceful about the erectness of his shoulders. Nothing he does is fast or slow, just fluid. He rests his hands on her back and under her belly, almost hugging her. His back rises and then recedes, rises and recedes, as if they’re breathing together. Then he steps away, keeping a hand on the buckskin’s middle. “Down, sis,” he says.

  The horse drags her head around and looks at Justin, who nods back with his whole head. “Down.”

  Nothing happens.

  Justin l
eans on the horse again. Nothing. This is a strange trick.

  Finally, Justin leans in and says something I can’t hear and then backs away.

  After a second or two the horse’s legs seem to tremble. She sticks her butt backward, almost like she’s squatting. Then the horse drops completely onto her side in the dirt and rolls over on her back, hooves waving in the air. Which sounds cool, but with a horse it feels like something serious. Anybody can see horses’ legs and bellies aren’t supposed to be upside down, exposed to the world with no way to run.

  Everybody oohs and ahhs. Coulter’s eyes go all twinkles and moonbeams. I don’t get it. To be honest, the whole thing bothers the crud out of me.

  Justin nods to Coulter and then looks at us like here you go, idiots. He turns back around to his horse and makes a clucking sound, and the horse flips right up on her feet and shivers off the dirt. He pats her gently and hugs her around the neck. There’s a sweetness about the two of them that makes me feel funny again, like they have this hidden thing that only they get.

  Coulter says, “That, campers, is being partners.”

  Banner raises her hand again. “We couldn’t have done what Justin did. He already knows that horse. They practically live together.”

  Coulter smiles. “Exactly right.”

  “But why do you do it?” I ask. That’s not being a partner. “Why do you want the horse to do that?”

  “Excellent question. But I’m not going to answer it. You are. The first one who answers it right gets this.” He pulls a gigantic candy bar out of his jacket. I’m not sure how he hid it in there. I don’t want to think about it too hard.

  At least ten kids raise their hands. The kid with the running nose moans out loud, “Sweet mother of candy.”

  Devri says, “I thought you said you don’t offer bribes.”

  “There is difference between a bribe and compensation. I should note that if you guess wrong, you get to clean the outhouses with Cassidy.”

  Everyone puts their hands down.

  Coulter bellows, “No takers?” Nobody moves. “All right then. Let’s make it interesting. How about the chocolate and a one-hour riding lesson? But if you lose, you have to work an extra two hours.”

  I look at Justin. Then I look at his buckskin, just inches from him, standing quietly without her halter. That mare would follow that broken nose off a cliff, and he’d probably do the same. So why roll in the dirt? That’s the worst way to get away from a cougar there is. I raise my hand. “Okay.”

  Coulter looks at me triumphantly. “Are you sure, Cassidy? That’s two extra hours of work.”

  I want to clean two extra hours tomorrow like I want to have my eyes poked out, but heaven knows I need more help than anyone here. Plus I think I know the answer. “You ask the horse to lie down because you want her to trust you.” I stop to see if Coulter’s face changes. It doesn’t. “There’s no way she’d do it otherwise. It goes against her instincts. And if she does, then you know you can trust the horse.”

  Coulter’s eyes narrow. I think I see a flash of something serious, and maybe even anger, but then he smiles and hands me the candy. “You’d think I’d learn not to bet against a Parker by now.”

  * * *

  When we get back to the tent, Banner is not a happy camper. “What was that?”

  “What?” I say.

  “Coulter really is your sugar daddy.”

  I lay the candy trophy on my bed. I’m not a huge chocolate fan, but I can’t believe how big this thing is. And I won it. For answering a question no one else knew the answer to. About horses. Are there taxidermists for chocolate bars?

  The tent feels stuffy. Alice lies on top of her sleeping bag like a deflated balloon. Banner pulls off her boots and pours dirt out of them. “Why’s Coulter obsessed with your grandfather? Was he some kind of bank robber or criminal or something?”

  “He died when I was little. But he was just a rancher.” Then I add, “At least, that’s all my mom ever talks about.”

  Banner takes off her shirt and sits on her bed in her bra and jeans. “Bless your heart. That’s what families are best at. Keeping secrets.”

  Alice nods. “All my parents talk about is money. And me becoming an accountant.”

  I think about this for a second. “My mom’s an accountant. But she doesn’t talk about money, not much anyway. She talks about accountability. Which is not the same thing.” My mind leaves the state for a minute. My parents do keep secrets. I look at my trophy. This is going to be a long, hot summer. I need friends a lot more than I need chocolate.

  I offer the first half to Banner. “I hope your letter comes soon.”

  “Shut up and give me the chocolate,” she says.

  I give the second half to Alice, whose smile barely fits on her face. She breaks her chocolate in half and hands the biggest piece back to me.

  I smile back at Alice.

  “That’s so sweet,” says Banner.

  It actually is.

  Chapter Seven

  BANNER AND ALICE go right to sleep. No such luck for me.

  After a while the horse starts to whinny, and no one seems to care. It’s not loud, but it doesn’t stop. I wonder if I should do something. But what would I do? My mind wanders. I look at the outline of my grandfather’s hat in the darkness.

  Maybe Banner is right about my grandfather, too. Maybe he did do stuff he shouldn’t have. I know how Grandpa was with me at least. He was strict and foulmouthed, but he never cheated me out of anything except more years as his granddaughter. Anyway, I have enough family problems to worry about.

  The horse isn’t quiet for a long time.

  When I finally fall asleep I see Grandpa’s long, skinny arm arching over the green bar of the gate to the horse pasture, opening it to me like a kingdom.

  Chapter Eight

  BY THE TIME I get a shower on Sunday morning I feel like I have lived at Point of No Return for seven weeks, not seven days. To be honest, if I’d known I was only going to get to shower once a week, I might have bailed. A good shower is hard to compete with.

  Like everyone else, I get only five minutes at the back of the big house. By the time it’s my turn the hot water is long gone, but I use every butt-freezing second. The dirt runs out of my hair in a brown stream into the rusty drain. I see a spider the size of silver dollar clinging to one corner of the ceiling. I have to say that standing there naked and freezing in front of a spider, I feel tougher than I did a week ago.

  The highlight of the day, besides washing off eight pounds of dirt, is something that Coulter has billed as “Sunday Suppositions.” He tells us we’ll be “sharing a moment” in the cathedral of the great outdoors. Not optional. When Banner asks about her freedom of worship, Coulter says, “Don’t worry, Banner, nobody gets saved in Wyoming.”

  I sit on a beat-up old blanket next to Ethan, Charlie, and Alice. We’re like a thing now. Which I’m pretty happy about, really. Ethan hangs out with everybody, but I think he’s taken us weirdos on as a service project. Ranger work.

  “Your family religious?” asks Ethan.

  “No. My dad’s an English professor.” It occurs to me only after I open my mouth that people can be religious and work at a university.

  He nods. “My family are Methodists.”

  “Do you like being a Methodist?” I say.

  He smiles in kind of a serious way. “It’s not bad. We forgive people. We help people who need it. The people are nice. I first got started riding at a Methodist Bible camp with horses.”

  Charlie says, “My parents are religious, too. My mother is religious about exercise, and my father is religious about golf. I am an exercise atheist. I have no proof it doesn’t work because I haven’t tried it.” He stares into the fire. “They sent me here to trim down a bit.”

  Two blankets up, Banner says, “How’s that working for you
, slim?”

  We all turn around to glare at Banner but instead get an eyeful of Izzy from San Diego and Andrew from Arizona making out under a tree. They seem to have fallen in love in one week and are inseparable. Behind them Justin is sitting on a rock carving a branch with a knife. He’s flicking his shavings in their general direction.

  Kaya walks up to the couple. “Excuse me,” she says. “You two!”

  Andrew and Izzy sit up quickly.

  “Do you want a window or an aisle seat on the next plane home?”

  Banner says, “Y’all better look out. That happiness, it’s sin, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  Coulter doesn’t exactly make a grand entrance. In fact, he looks haggard as he ambles across the meadow to where we are all waiting in the shade. He has a guy with him dressed in some kind of forest ranger suit. I wonder if we’re going to get a Ranger Rick lecture.

  Kaya sits down next to me as the two men approach.

  Coulter waves us all to silence. “I’d like to welcome you all to our first Sunday get-together. This isn’t church. But it is a day of rest for the horses.”

  “Hallelujah,” says Banner.

  “Put a cork in it, kid. We have a guest. He has an announcement.”

  The late-twentyish-looking guy in the forest ranger uniform steps out from behind Coulter. He has sandy brown hair and a big jaw. His wide shoulders tip forward, like he’s ready to tackle something.

  “Good afternoon. I’m Officer Miles Hanks. I work for the BLM, or the Bureau of Land Management. I have the honor of caring for this beautiful land”—he lifts his hands stiffly—“on behalf of the United States government.” I wonder if he’s been an agent very long.

  Coulter’s face doesn’t look right when Officer Hanks is talking.

  “You kids are going to get a great opportunity to work with mustangs this summer. I get to work with them, too. Unfortunately, there are too many mustangs on the range here, and it’s my job to see that the horses that are selected by the government to be gathered and put up for adoption are gathered safely and efficiently. We’ve had some problems with horses being released after they’ve been captured. This is a danger to the horses, who have to be captured again, and it’s costly. So we’re asking you kids to keep a lookout for the people doing this. We also want to let you know that there is a three-thousand-dollar fine for harassing mustangs or vandalizing federal property. Anyone caught doing this could even be looking at jail time.”