Changes of Heart

by Paige Lee Elliston

  “Maybe this isn’t a good time,” a male voice called out to her. “I could come back later.”

  Maggie dragged off her gloves, wet her thumbs in her mouth, and cleared her eyes as well as she could. Through powder, grit, and hay chaff, she focused on the man. He was about six feet tall, trim, with longish sandy-brown hair. His eyes, Maggie saw even through her obscured vision, were blue, but their actual shade was difficult to discern through her tears.

  “I’m Ian Lane,” he said. “Hey, having a horse farm is really glamorous, isn’t it?”

  Maggie sat stunned in the hay for a long moment. Then the entire ludicrous situation caught up to her. It was a laugh-or-cry moment, and her sense of humor made the decision for her. Her laughter came in dry, raspy bursts from her parched throat, putting tiny puffs of lime into the air in front of her. The minister laughed too, and the sound was open and warm and sympathetic.

  Maggie struggled to her feet, assisted by Reverend Lane’s hand taking hers and easing her up. “Reverend,” she croaked, “I...”

  “It’s Ian, Ms. Locke. I still look behind me to see who they’re talking to when people call me Reverend.”

  Maggie swallowed hard, trying to clear her mouth and generate enough saliva to say something coherent.

  Ian began tapping his loafer on the cement impatiently. “Well, look—let’s get to the real reason I’m here. Do you have your purse with you? I’m taking up a collection to install a hot tub and sound system in the home the church provided for me. The suggested donation is—”

  “Stop,” Maggie begged, the laughter actually painful as it erupted from her parched throat.

  Ian smiled. “My extensive training in psychology indicates to me that this may not be the perfect time for a home visit.” His grin was broad and innocent and full of fun. “How about tomorrow at about 2:00?”

  Maggie, still choking, nodded her head and motioned the reverend to go away—immediately. He too nodded, turned, and began walking to his car. Before he slid into the driver’s seat, he waved cheerfully. All Maggie could do was laugh harder and continue motioning him away.

  As soon as the reverend’s little red Ford left the driveway, Maggie bolted toward her house. The thought occurred to her that she hadn’t laughed with such pure abandon and mindless pleasure in almost a year.

  The following day was blessedly cool. A quick and spectacularly vivid thunderstorm had cleansed the air and washed away the grit and dust that the off-season heat had left behind. Maggie’s pastures seemed almost impossibly fresh and green, and the white paint of the fences and deep red of the barn looked like it had been applied the night before. The air was pure and wonderful to breathe, and the clink of a steel horseshoe against a stone rang out like a bell. The thudding of Dakota and Turnip’s hooves on the soil as Danny and Tessa loped across a far pasture echoed back to Maggie in a precise percussive rhythm.

  Maggie was in the kitchen brewing fresh coffee when Reverend Ian Lane’s Ford Aspire parked next to Danny’s GMC. There weren’t many compact vehicles in the Coldwater area, and Maggie inspected the car as Ian shut down the engine. It was slightly larger than a VW bug, and the sun glinted on its polished, fire-engine red paint. The car reminded Maggie of an enraged lawn mole for some reason—perhaps because the front end of it appeared to be lower than the rear, like a crouched and menacing varmint. Maggie stifled a laugh. She walked outside to greet Reverend Lane, striding to him and extending her hand when they were close.

  “I see you’re admiring my car,” he said. “I could see you laughing right through the kitchen window.”

  “I wasn’t...”

  “Sure, it’s weird looking,” he said, pride obvious in his voice. “But it’s almost impossible to get parts for it too. And,” he added, “it’s under-powered.” He took Maggie’s hand in his own. His grip was warm and dry and strong without being crushing. There was no agricultural lime in Maggie’s eyes, and no hay dust, so she inspected her visitor.

  Reverend Lane had a great smile—almost a toothpaste-ad smile—and his eyes were a crisp, intelligent blue. His hair, somewhat shaggy and not at all ministerlike, was a nondescript sandy brown. His face and bare arms were lightly tanned, and he was wearing the same pants he’d had on the day before and a polo shirt. Maggie noticed he was wearing penny loafers without socks. She released his hand and glanced again at the minister’s car.

  Ian caught the quick flick of her eyes. “I could’ve had a new Rolls-Royce like Sarah Morrison’s,” he said. “But I prefer a smaller, more distinctive luxury vehicle.”

  “You know Sarah and Tessa?” Maggie managed to choke out with her laugh.

  “Sure. And I know Danny Pulver too. That’s his gas-guzzler there, isn’t it?”

  “Yep. Danny and Tessa are out trail riding. C’mon—let’s go inside and have some coffee.”

  Ian sat at the kitchen table as Maggie poured coffee. “Where’d all that hay go? From yesterday, I mean?”

  Maggie sat across from the minister. “I paid the boy down the road ten dollars to haul it to the dump.”

  The silence in the sun-bathed kitchen wasn’t uncomfortable as they enjoyed their coffee.

  Ian spoke again first. “Ellie asked—demanded, actually—that I stop by, Ms. Locke. I talked with her a couple of days ago.”

  “Please—it’s Maggie. How’s Ellie doing?”

  “She misses everyone. She sounded good. She said you’ve written to her.”

  “Yeah. I guess my letters don’t say much, but I want her to know I’m thinking of her.”

  Ian set his cup on the table. He looked into Maggie’s eyes, and his spark of humor was gone. “As you know, it’d be inappropriate for me to offer much in terms of counseling, Maggie, at least not on a regular basis. But I want you to know that we have some common ground.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was married for almost six years. My wife and I lived in Chicago, and I had a small church in a tough area. Maria, my wife, ran an abused women’s shelter. A guy whose wife and little boy were in the shelter shot and killed her when she wouldn’t let him in.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie said, her voice a whisper. “Then you know what it’s like.”

  “Yeah.” There was a silence. “Maria died almost four years ago, and I still can’t really believe it. I find myself thinking it’s a nightmare—that I’ll wake up. But, of course, I don’t.” Ian’s voice had gone flat, as if the emotion behind the words was more than his voice could handle. “I found one of her grocery lists stuck in a book the other day—Maria made lists for just about everything—and it tore my heart out. It was like the first day all over again, when the police came to my door to tell me what happened.”

  “Sometimes I wonder how much a person can take without flying apart from the grief,” Maggie said quietly.

  Ian met Maggie’s eyes. “A lot. A great, vast, encompassing whole lot. Life is a gift. The Lord never promised any of us permanent happiness on earth. But—and here’s the saving grace—he will give us the strength we need to keep on going if we ask him. I know this is true, because it’s what I’ve done daily since Maria died.”

  Again the kitchen fell silent, and, to Maggie, the sound of the ticking wall clock seemed louder than it ever had before.

  “I’m glad you told me about Maria, Ian—told me about everything.”

  “I am too, Maggie.”

  A crow cawed raucously out by the barn and was answered by another from farther away. Ian took a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was completely different from what it’d been a moment ago, as if he were trying to push away the sadness and longing that had permeated the room. The beginning of the grin on his face wasn’t a 100 percent natural, but it was close enough.

  He held his cup out to Maggie. “I wonder if I could have some more of this brown, rather bland liquid, Maggie?” Maggie sat straight in her chair. “Brown liquid? Bland? I make the best coffee in Montana—and this is a mix of Starbucks and Eight O’Clock Dark Roast. It’s...”<
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  Ian shook his head sadly. “You poor thing,” he murmured. “But I guess we all kid ourselves in one way or another. Look,” he said, “I buy a pound of Blue Mountain African coffee each month. It takes most of my salary, but I’m willing to make that sacrifice for good, strong coffee.” He paused for a perfectly measured beat. “’Course, I hide the Blue Mountain when company comes. Even my mom has never found it.”

  Maggie laughed. “You must do that a lot, Ian—use humor to kind of defuse situations. Yesterday I was ready to chew barbed wire and spit nails because of that moldy hay, but once I got to laughing... it got better.”

  “I’ll tell you a secret. No, actually, it’s two secrets. Maria and I used to sneak into Chicago and go to those do-it-yourself comedy clubs, and I used to perform. My stuff was as amateurish as everyone’s, but I always got a few yuks. And I loved doing it. It was kind of unministerial, so we didn’t tell much of anyone about it. Then, after Maria was killed, I was seeing a therapist—a grief counselor, actually. He did lots of work with the survivors of cancer and AIDS patients.”

  The memory of that time, Maggie noticed, brought pain to Ian’s eyes. After a moment, he continued. “He told me I should start working humor into my life wherever I could—not sitcom junk or joke book stories, but the silly type of humor that’s generated by our own lives or those of the people around us. I thought he was crazy, but I gave it a try. It works. Life is funny stuff, Maggie. It really is.”

  “Laughter’s the best medicine?” Maggie asked, grinning.

  “Cheaper than Valium or Paxil.”

  The drumming of hooves caught their attention. Maggie stood and went to the kitchen window. “Come here, Ian—look at this.”

  Tessa and Danny were loping along the fence line of the pasture in which Dancer now spent his days after being weaned from Dusty. The colt moved as smoothly as a line of good poetry, his tail flowing behind him like a banner, his hooves seeming not to strike the ground but to flow over it with a balletlike effortlessness. Maggie noticed that Dancer was slightly ahead of the two horses on the other side of the fence, and that Tessa’s mount was fighting her for some rein to put himself ahead of the young upstart who was taunting him.

  “Is the little guy teasing Tessa’s horse?” Ian asked.

  “You bet he is—he knows exactly what he’s doing. What arrogance!”

  Dancer slowed as the fence at the end of his pasture drew near. Turnip, shaking his head and still arguing with Tessa, laid his ears back and showed his teeth as he passed the youngster. Danny and Tessa both laughed at the power play—and so did Maggie and Ian at the kitchen window.

  Maggie was suddenly aware of how close she and the minister were standing together—she noticed the scent of his light aftershave and the freshly ironed smell of his shirt. She moved back to the table perhaps a little too abruptly. Ian waited a moment and then followed Maggie and sat again.

  “The young horse is going to be a barrel racer, correct?” he asked.

  Maggie poured more coffee. “Right. I think he’ll be a great one. There’s not much I can do with him until he’s two years old in terms of training, but I handle him a lot, pick up his feet, put a blanket on his back every so often.”

  “I saw some barrel racing on the tube a couple of weeks ago. It’s exciting—I liked it. I’ve never seen the sport live, though.”

  “It’s a lot of fun for the riders, and the horses too. It’s a good, clean, fast sport. You ought to—hey!” The words tumbled out before Maggie was completely aware she was saying them. “Tessa’s going to run Turnip next Saturday at the October Festival at the fairgrounds. Why don’t you come along? It’s their first time out together, and Turnip needs the exposure to the arena, the crowd, the noise—all that. Danny’s coming too. We’ll make a day of it.”

  Ian’s smile was that of a little boy finding his first bicycle under the Christmas tree. “I’d love to. I know as much about horses as I do about brain surgery, and I’m going to have to learn if I want to live here. Sounds great—I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Good,” Maggie said. “You can meet us there at about noon on Saturday. I’ll be hauling Turnip in my trailer, and Tessa will ride with me. Barring emergency calls, Danny’ll be there around noon too.” When she looked at the minister, she thought she saw worry on his face. “What? What’s the matter?”

  Ian squirmed a bit in his chair. “Can Tessa... do it OK? She has only one arm, and... well...”

  Maggie smiled. “It’s not a strength contest, Ian. Barrel racing is all about skill and balance and speed—and a willing horse that’s well trained. The kid is a natural on a horse, regardless of the number of arms she has. It’s sweet of you to be concerned for her, but she’ll do fine.”

  Ian’s grin returned. “Will she win anything? Turnip looks fast.”

  “He is fast, and he knows the pattern. But he tends to get silly, and Tessa’s going to be nervous. I imagine they’ll take down some barrels, but it’ll be a good experience for both of them. Next summer she’ll do some winning.”

  The day couldn’t have been finer. Fall was obvious in the bite of the chilled air, but the sun was big and benign and the sky was that particularly profound blue that occurs outside of nature only in the perfectly crafted stained glass of cathedrals and churches.

  Maggie sat on the fender of her two-horse trailer with her hands around a milkshake-sized Styrofoam container of coffee, the flavor and color of which brought Ian’s “brown, rather bland liquid” to mind. She smiled and turned her attention to the arena.

  The Coldwater Fairgrounds, built shortly after the end of WWII, was designed specifically for rodeo: four gated chutes for saddle bronc, bareback bronc, and bull-riding contests, a chute on wheels that was pushed into the arena for calf roping, team roping, and steer wrestling, and, of course, a football field–sized expanse of a precise mixture of light sand and good soil that offered excellent footing and traction for horses at speed. Bleacher-type seating surrounded the arena, and tall metal posts with banks of lights on them stood at attention around the huge rectangle for night contests.

  All the construction money had gone to the arena, seating, and necessary equipment; the fan parking lot was a vast, rutted, and dusty wasteland that turned to a souplike quagmire when rain came. The contestant parking—another unpaved four acres of poorly leveled ground—was located fifty yards or so from the action end of the arena.

  The snack truck had set up in the contestants’ parking area early, and although it was only 10:00 a.m., the picnic-like aroma of charring hots drifted about on the sporadic breeze. Perhaps fifty other truck and trailer combinations were parked in a haphazard cluster, and others were banging their way over the potholes and ruts in a steady stream. This was a big day for barrel racers—no other rodeo events were scheduled, and the competition carried National Barrel Racing Association points and prize money.

  Some of the trailers were gargantuan four- and six-horse affairs that had bunk space and a small dressing room at the front and air conditioning for both equines and humans. Most were doubles, like Maggie’s, but there were more than a few relatively inexpensive singles and several homemades.

  Maggie drew in a deep breath. Even over the scents emanating from the snack truck, the rich aroma of shampooed horses, good leather, and the acrid petroleum smell of hoof dressing encompassed the gathering.

  Girls and women loped their horses in figure eights in the open acres adjacent to the trailers and trucks, the thud of steel shoes against dirt and grass a constant muted drumroll. The riders wore twelve-inch square cardboard numbers safety-pinned to the back of their shirts. Maggie grinned as she spotted the neophytes to the sport; many of the younger girls were almost constantly reaching back to make certain that their numbers were still in place or to adjust them slightly. Those who’d been in more competitions than they could remember were no more conscious of the numbers on their backs than they were of the socks they wore inside their boots.

  “Hey, M
aggie! Good to see you,” a tall redhead called out, swinging down from a flashy steel gray quarter horse. She dropped her reins, told her horse to stand, and rushed forward to Maggie.

  “Jackie, great to see you too.” The friends grinned for a moment and then stepped back, inspecting one another.

  “You look terrific, Maggie,” the redhead said. “I’ve missed you. We’ve all missed you. Are you riding today?”

  “No, I’m not. I hauled Tessa Morrison here. She bought my Turnip.”

  “I met her. Nice kid. How’s Turnip behaving?”

  “Real well, but this is their first competition together.”

  “Big day, then.” Jackie smiled. Her horse, standing where he’d been instructed to, raised his muzzle, lips rolled back, nostrils widely dilated, and whinnied long and raucously.

  “Twister find a lady friend?” Maggie asked.

  Jackie shook her head. “Some bubblehead brought a mare in heat, and Twist is going nuts. If I hadn’t watched him be gelded I’d swear he’s an ol’ range stud. You got any Vicks? I came without mine.”

  “Sure,” Maggie answered, walking to the tack compartment of her trailer. She opened the door, rummaged through miscellaneous gear, and tossed a small blue-green jar to her friend. Jackie caught the jar, unscrewed the cap, and walked to her horse. She used two fingers to dig thick blobs of Vicks from the container. Then she unceremoniously jammed the laden fingers into Twister’s nostrils. The horse, startled, reared a bit and then began shaking his head. After a moment he settled down.

  “If he can’t smell that brazen hussy,” Jackie laughed, “he won’t pay any attention to her.”