Paint My Body Red

by Heidi R. Kling

  “Day after tomorrow at sunrise, which means you better get your butt in a saddle today.”

  Subtle.

  Truth is, I love horses—used to anyway. For years riding was my favorite thing in the entire world. I missed horses so much when mom first took me away from the ranch. Missed their smell, the feel of their racing pulse, and their sweaty coat after a long ride. I even missed scooping the poop (though I wouldn’t admit that at the time).

  Now I’m here. I’m back.

  Everything is different. I’m different. Rearranged completely. But that…reverence and affection I used to have for the four-legged almost mythological creatures of my childhood is bubbling up again, despite myself. I’ve been eying that golden-red horse. Sharing apples with her in the same manner I did that first day. Admiring her strength and wild beauty, mostly from afar. Hell, she doesn’t want much to do with me, but who could blame her? I feel a sort of kinship with her. Like me, she’s trapped and mad as hell about it.

  I know I can’t ride her. She isn’t tame.

  But there are others. Why hadn’t I asked to ride?

  I knew why. It’s because they can’t. All those once-healthy bodies of my peers reduced to ash, melted to bits of bone. Their futures resting in engraved urns of wood, of metal, of cast iron, ceramic, glass—on their parents’ mantels. And soon, my dad’s may be resting on mine. Their right to do the things they love was stolen from them way too soon. So why should that right be mine?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Then

  “It wasn’t just his father’s fault,” Ty said, like I was a priest and our dim, modern living room was a confessional. Our parents were out at a charity dinner, ironically for Teen Suicide Prevention.

  They were wearing black tie attire.

  Five teenagers were buried in the dirt.

  We were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, soaking in the tension. I was still scared of him—unsure, yet sure at the same time. Sure he wouldn’t hurt me. Something about him was a little lost boy. He was a problem to solve. A mystery—and I craved the revealing chapter.

  “No?”

  “No. It was mine, too. I shouldn’t have let the baseball thing come between us. We still could have hung out.”

  “Ty.”

  “What?”

  “You said something really smart to me when I said the same thing to you about Elena.”

  He looked almost hopeful for a second. “Which was?”

  “You think someone would kill themselves over something as minor as a comment made by a sort of friend?”

  His eyes flared. “Don’t compare Elliot to Elena. She was a selfish bitch.”

  “A dead selfish bitch,” I lamely corrected him. “And Elliot used to be your friend. Past tense. You need to think rationally about this. Do you think you could have stopped him from dying if you still played ball together?”

  “Yes.”

  “But…how?”

  “You kill yourself if you give up hope. Paige, he had no hope. In ball, you always have hope. There’s always another game, another season, another exciting thing around the next corner.”

  “Ty. You haven’t played ball since second grade, either.”

  “So?”

  “So.”

  I didn’t want to fill in the blanks here. He was alive. He had the wherewithal to move on to the next day. It had nothing to do with baseball or sports or him.

  I told him what he told me. “This is bigger than you, Ty.”

  I thought he’d listened, but the next morning an article in the paper said renowned heart surgeon Dr. Lu’s BMW had his windows busted out in the hospital’s parking garage.

  I looked for Ty’s baseball bat in his room.

  I checked it for shards of glass.

  But it’d been carefully polished, preserved, and placed next to the rest of his memoirs from his young days at the ballpark. Days when he thought, probably incorrectly, that his life was perfect, that Elliot’s life had limitless potential.

  That they’d both go pro together one day.

  Now I had proof Ty was more devil than angel.

  And still, I didn’t stay away.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Now

  By the time I stumble into the stable area, Jake is readying an old gelding.

  “I’m impressed,” he says, a wry look on his face.

  “With what?”

  I take another sip of cowboy coffee Anna handed me as she shoved me out the door, half comatose, five minutes ago at 5:25 a.m.

  “You got out of bed.”

  “Haha,” I said. “I didn’t think it was exactly optional.”

  “Wasn’t. Still.” He grinned. “I’m impressed.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “Well, you’re welcome.”

  His look makes me wonder how in the world I’ll make it through an overnight with this blue-eyed cowboy.

  I pat the horse’s big spotted ass and redirect the conversation. “Who’s this?”

  “Ole’ Blue.”

  “What about that one?” I say, gesturing to my red-gold beauty in the corral, angrily dashing back and forth like a bee is in her bridal.

  Jake makes this laugh-snort sound and shakes his head.

  “What?”

  “She’s not even broke.”

  I shrug.

  “Do you remember anything about riding, Cowgirl?”

  “It’s just like getting back on a horse, I hear.”

  “Haha,” he mimics. He readies the saddle, the bridle, and the bit. Yanks on this, adjusts that. Leans his shoulder into the horse.

  He explains how to adjust the bridle, pull in the reins. Adjust the bit. Cowboys are the kind of teachers who show you something once and expect you to have it down. I figured Jake would be the same way. That if I don’t understand something, he’d expect me to speak up and ask. In this specific case I didn’t need to be shown anything. I remembered clearly, but I could tell he was getting a little pleasure in showing me what to do. “Here you go,” he says, tapping the top of my boot. “Put your foot here, and hop on up.”

  “I remember how to get on a horse, Jake.”

  “Uh-huh,” he mutters.

  “What? I do. It’s not like it’s something you forget.”

  “You wanted to get up on a wild ‘stang your first time back out. Don’t take this the wrong way, Cowgirl, but let me take the lead when it comes to the horses. You break your back, Anna breaks my face.”

  “Duly noted.”

  Jake’s face was perfectly imperfect. It was becoming the image I saw every time I closed my eyes, the image of something good in my messed-up world, and it would be a damn shame if harm came to it. Especially of the Anna variety. I bet she packs a mean punch.

  I grip the horn with both hands. Slivers of dirt and sweat rub off on my palms as I place my left heel into the stirrup and heave myself up and onto the saddle.

  “Toes up in the stirrups, good,” Jake says. “Heels down.”

  “Got it.”

  “Well, why aren’t you doing it, then?” He lifts my foot gently into the stirrup, and adjusts it the way he sees fit. “Might as well get it right out the gate.”

  He meets my eyes, talking about more than a stirrup, I think.

  I blink. “That’s not as easy as the cliché makes it sound.”

  I adjust my ankle in the metal as he directs me to.

  “Better,” he says.

  He takes the lead rope, a rich blue color, and leads me out of the corral.

  “Where’s your mount?” I ask.

  He smiles then. I’m not sure if it’s because of the word itself or the fact that I know it. “I’m not going with you.”

  “I thought we were all going?”

  “This is your practice ride, Cowgirl. Find your sea legs again.”

  My heart seizes, and I inadvertently yank on the reins. The horse whinnies and rears back its head. Jake touches the horse’s face to calm it down. “Hey, easy, there,
old man. Ease up on the reins, Paige. Listen, you’ll be fine. Just hug the reins in tight when you want him to stop but keep them loose as he walks along. Blue here is an old guy. He’s not up for more than a walk anyhow. Stick to the trail loop and—”

  “Jake. I haven’t been on a horse in years. What if—”

  “Don’t worry. If you ain’t back in a half hour, I’ll come for you. I have to finish getting the supplies ready for the trip. Ready the other horses.”

  The graying gelding with the coarse white mane sneezes. At least I think it was a sneeze; it may have been a protest. Then, he shakes his head again when I pull the reins back.

  “It’ll be fun.” He takes my hand and readjusts it on the reins. “Not so tight. Here like this.” He twists his hand around the thin straps of leather, shows me, and then wraps my fingers around the soft leather the right way. “Like you’re holding an ice cream cone, see? Let a bit of it fall over like this.”

  About six inches of thin leather flapped over the side, dusting against my tight fist. “I think mine’s dripping.”

  “You got it, then.”

  “But, Jake,” I say, nervously. “I think Anna meant for you to come along.”

  “If Anna’d meant for me to go along, Anna’d told me to go along. Now get,” he says, with a slap on the gelding’s butt. “I got stuff to do. Don’t look back, Paige, look on ahead.”

  Blue breaks into this awkward trot-walk thing and I pull back on the reins. “Jake?”

  “Let him know who’s in charge. Keep the reins in tight, but not too tight. Keep your eyes on the trail and you’ll be fine.”

  “What if we get lost?”

  “Sometimes you got to do stuff that scares you, Paige. That’s how you know you’re alive,” he calls to me in the wind.

  Jake is right about Ole’ Blue.

  He is as unmotivated as all get out, and after that initial burst of energy, I can barely keep him going. At every green bush, he sticks out his velvety nose, opens those huge chompers, and goes to town. I have to yank his neck back every few feet to keep him on the trail. I feel right up here, though. Natural. Like after a rainy suburban winter, getting back on my bike on that first sunny day and just riding and riding with nothing but the wind in my hair and a song in my head.

  I remember this trail.

  It’s the loop-de-loop beginner trail. The one the Kids’ Club would go on at the ranch. After a bit, I even remember this old horse. He was younger then, obviously, but always a calm one. Good with kids—gentle.

  We mosey along for a while in this routine that reminds me of mine and Anna’s: a quiet understanding that we were stuck with each other, so we best just get along.

  Critters crackle through the bushes, a chipmunk spins circles in the dirt, and a huge osprey appears out of nowhere, diving toward a small lake, hunting for his breakfast as songbirds twitter their morning tunes.

  Other than the creatures, the only noise is the breath of the horse, the sound of his hooves on the hard-dirt trail, and the heart in my chest adjusting to being alone.

  “I see you survived,” Jake says, with a wry smile as we mosey back into the corral maybe twenty minutes later. My gelding heads straight for the large trough. When he lowers his head to lap up the water, I lean forward, too. “Ole’ Blue,” he says with appreciation for the horse. “She treated you all right, didn’t she?”

  “Indeed,” I say. “We got along fine. Can I get down now?”

  “Sure enough.”

  This time he reaches out and offers me a hand, and I accept it, swinging my leg over and landing with a thump on the dirt. His hands fall on either side of my waist, steadying me. My right hand on that hard-soft spot between his chest and shoulder.

  “Oh,” I say. If we were somewhere else, if we were somebody else, we could be dancing. My body tenses up, and he quickly lets go, wiping his palms on his cowboy pants.

  “So how was it?” he asks, to fill the space with something other than our closeness.

  “Good,” I say. “Fine,” I say. But was anything fine?

  Nodding, like he knows it’s not fine, but knows it’s definitely something, he lifts off his hat, scratches a fake itch, and puts it back on.

  I like the way his hands feel on me, that’s obvious. Denying it is a fool’s game, but I can’t get close to Jake like this. I’m not ready. I may never be ready again. How was I going to handle the overnight?

  “You’ll be ready in a half hour then?”

  “Sure,” I say. “I’ll just run in and say bye to my dad.”

  “Hm.” He examines me the way he did when we first met by his Jeep.

  “What?”

  “Think there might be hope for you after all,” he says and laughs when I slug him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “How you feeling, Cowgirl?” Jake asks me half an hour later, on the dot.

  “Like I should’ve stuck to saying goodbye to Dad instead of stopping by my room,” I mutter as I hoist my body weight onto the horn and, after securing my right foot in the stirrup, deftly swing my other leg over. “My bed is way more comfortable than this saddle.”

  Jake pats the horse’s rear and half smiles.

  Don’t flirt with him.

  Don’t flirt with Jake.

  Don’t.

  Just do not. And don’t wonder what he does at night, either, because that’s none of your damn business.

  With new resolve, I face forward and study the back of Anna’s jacket. It is fringed suede, long and thick, like something she ripped off the set of Dances With Wolves. One half of me wants to take a picture, text it to Ty, with those mocking words. The other half of me wants to cling to sanity, to stop thinking about Ty, so instead I watch the fringes sway under a near-morning sky so bright with a mix of pink hints of sun and pinpricks of stars that I want to follow her forever.

  We don’t stop until long after dawn. I don’t have my phone. I don’t have a watch. I completely rely on the two of them for everything.

  “Time for grub,” Jake says. His horse stops, then Anna’s, then mine sort of sticks his face into her horse’s tail and then lurches back, and I think I’ll slide down his neck when he plunges his face into a bush.

  “Pull back on his reins, Paige. Knock it off, Blue,” Jake says. He hops off his mount and winds the reins casually around his wrist before handing them to Anna. Then he grabs Blue’s bridle and lifts his head, gently.

  I shield my eyes. “He’s old. He probably shouldn’t be walking this much.”

  “Why don’t you step down and give him a break then?” Jakes says, teasing, offering his hand to me.

  “Sheesh,” I say.

  Chuckling under his breath he mutters, “You’ll be a waddy yet.”

  “What’s a waddy?”

  “You’ll know when you are one, Cowgirl.”

  “It does take some getting used to. I’m glad you made me go this morning.”

  “See? Besides, you’re doing fine. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Jake wraps the reins and ties him to a tree. “I’ll get him a drink.”

  The sun is blinding, but sure enough, Jake fills a water bucket and ties it to Blue’s bridle. “You hungry?” he asks when he’s done. “Day one breakfast is always the best. We can’t keep the bacon and eggs fresh far after that.”

  “Bacon and eggs, for real?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “If y’all don’t need me, I think I’ll mosey up the trail and see what’s what,” Anna says, and both Jake and I look up, startled at the sound of her voice. I had forgotten she was there. We meet eyes and laugh.

  “Sure thing. Breakfast up in fifteen minutes or so,” Jake says.

  I shift back and forth on my legs as I watch him cook. Cracking the brown eggs on a piece of granite, and splitting the yolk and runny white over the heavy skillet. He makes the fire in, like, seconds, and won’t accept any help from me.

  The bacon sizzles next to the eggs, mixing with the fresh scent of pine trees and dust, an
d man, it’s just about the best thing I’ve ever smelled in my life. My belly rumbles as I sit across from him on a rock, and while I finish wiping every last bit of egg off my camping plate, he watches me, chewing on a piece of straw in an amused way that tells me he has absolutely no idea who I am or what I’m capable of. Anna comes back in time for breakfast and eats heartily. We clean up, and then we’re back up on our mounts. We talk about this and that. Sometimes we’re quiet. Jake points out an eagle soaring over the tippy tops of pine trees.

  We stop again a couple hours later, and I’m grateful for the change up.

  I excuse myself to go to the bathroom in the forest, reminding me of that first day here when I dashed from Jake’s Jeep into the woods. I drip some of the Purell in my pocket onto my palms after, and when I rejoin them, Anna hands me a sandwich: peanut butter and jelly on Wonder Bread. Jake is leaning against a tree like he’s a freaking model for some western magazine, piece of hay sticking out of his mouth and everything. When he catches me looking, he half-smiles and stares down at his scuffed up boots.

  Those dusty boots.

  I make it a point to remember to take a picture of them when we get back to the ranch, but then I remind myself the Golden Rule of this overnight:

  Don’t engage. No flirting. Flirting leads to disaster.

  While he works, settling in the horses, I think about the wide blue sky that seems to go on for days, the tangle of dried brush, Old Blue and the swish of his tail as he bats off annoying flies. Anything to keep my mind off of Jake’s charms.

  After lunch and clean up, we don’t stop the horses again until dusk, and we’re next to a small lake shaped like an almost full moon.

  The sunset sky is pink and orange and blue and quite literally the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. “Wow,” I say. I wander down to the water’s edge alone. The lake is so still—a mirror, a slate of glass. A bird glides over it, skimming its talons on the water, and I’m surprised it doesn’t leave a scratch when it lifts off again.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” Jake says from behind me.