Trailed

by Naomi Niles

  “I don’t like it, either,” I said. “But it’s work.”

  Mama and I had had this conversation more than once. She’d been lonely ever since Zach had left, wishing she had spent more time with us growing up.

  “You know you don’t even need to work if you don’t want to,” she said, resting a hand on my arm. “We have enough money to support all of you.”

  I scoffed. “Try telling Dad that.”

  “Your dad would never quit working, even if he had a million dollars. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He’d probably go crazy if he was pent up in a mansion with nothing to do. At least the farm keeps him entertained, gives him a place to go so he’s not in my hair all the time. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t brought up retirement yet.”

  I nodded.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I like having him around, and I like having you around. I wish you were here more. I know work keeps you busy, but you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I can’t understand why anyone would subject themselves to the heat if they didn’t have to.”

  I thought I could see what she was getting at. “As much as I love you, Mama,” I said, “I can’t stay here and let you take care of me. I’ve gotta make my own way in the world.”

  “Well, it was just a thought,” she said. I could tell from the disappointed tone in her voice it had been a lot more than that.

  “I’m doing alright for myself,” I said. “I’ve got a decent-sized house in town, a dog that loves me, and I see you about five times a week. I’m willing to bet there’s a lot of folks who are a lot worse off. Plus”—and here I took her by the hand and spun her around—“not everybody gets to have your breakfasts every morning.”

  Mama laughed. “Well, if you’d come over more often you could have more than just breakfast. You know the tiny house next to the barn, the one we’ve been using for storage ever since Marshall and Braxton moved out—I’m thinking about renting it out. If you rented it, you wouldn’t even have to drive over here to eat my bacon and biscuits in the mornings.”

  I shook my head firmly. “Mama, as tempting as that sounds, I really like where I’m living right now. Me and Jake, we’ve got a good thing going. I feel like I’ve just gotten back into the routine of normal living after walking around half-dead for a long time. I wouldn’t want to mess that up.”

  “Well, if you say so,” said Mama. She drew her robe tight around her frail body. “But if you ever change your mind, we sure would love to have you.”

  ***

  That day’s ride ended up being even hotter than I had expected, and about as frustrating. Anytime you go on a ride like this, you’ll get a mixture of old hands who have ridden the trail a couple dozen times and know their way around, and folks who are tagging along just because their boyfriend or girlfriend wanted them to come. Those are the ones who irritate me because they don’t really know what they’re doing, and it holds the rest of us back.

  For example: today, Brian Dunham brought along his girlfriend, one of those East Coast women who’d probably never been on a hike in her life. Every quarter-mile or so, we had to slow down because she thought she was coming loose in her saddle and was about to fall off the horse. I can’t say I would have been much upset if she had, but Brian insisted on making the rest of us wait until it was straightened out. Every time. She and Brian wouldn’t even be dating in another week, but until then, the whole team had to deal with it.

  I was glad when we made it to Rio Pass and started heading home.

  It was late in the day when Dad and I finally made it back to the house. I told Dad I would finish tying up the horses. He went into the house to cool down while I led Rita and Nessie into the barn. They were both tired and didn’t complain too much as I untied them and hosed them down.

  As I was finishing up, I saw a movement in the hay out of the corner of my eye. At first, I thought it must have been a rat, but a rat wouldn’t have made the commotion it was making. It was too big for that.

  Without a second’s thought, I grabbed the gardening hoe from where it stood in the corner. With an effortless motion, I planted it smack in the middle of the pile with all my strength. Sure enough, a second later one of those gigantic Texas rattlers came slithering out, looking ticked.

  Quick as I could, I buried the hoe between its head and its body, cleanly separating one from the other.

  I took the snake’s still-writhing body and threw it to Frack, our barn cat. He batted at the tail with evident excitement.

  “You can have it,” I said, mopping the sweat from my face. “And any other snake you find in here. I hate those things, and I don’t want to see any more of ‘em slithering around in here, you hear?”

  The cat let out a yowl of understanding and went on playing with the snake.

  Chapter Four

  Allie

  I woke again on Monday morning to the cats scratching at the door to be let in. There was a brief moment of panic as I realized it was Monday and I had to go to work again. Sundays never seemed to last as long as I wanted them to, even when I spent them cocooned in a blanket on the sofa sipping warm tea and watching documentaries on Netflix.

  I went into the kitchen to make breakfast and turned on the portable TV on the cabinet. The local news was reporting an oil spill in the Gulf just outside of Galveston. I listened with growing interest as I fired up the skillet and stirred my pancake batter.

  “The spill appears to have begun at around 8:30pm Sunday, local time,” said anchorman Brian Balleza. “No word yet on what caused this unfolding disaster, but FEMA estimates that 20,000 gallons of crude oil flooded into the Gulf, threatening marine life. The United States Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency have been working overnight trying to contain the mess and have been joined by volunteers from across Texas and Louisiana.”

  He cut to an interview with a curly-haired African-American woman who was pleading with tears in her eyes for additional volunteers. “I understand if you’ve got work,” she said, “but this is our water, this is the only world we have. We have to keep it clean, for ourselves and our children.”

  The clip ended. Bill, solemnly frowning, said, “The EPA has released a statement saying the spill may take between three to four days to clean up. In the meantime, beachgoers are advised to be on their guard and to immediately report any suspicious-looking materials to this number.” A number flashed on the screen beneath him and Cindy Cisneros.

  I reached for the remote and turned off the TV with a mixture of disgust and sadness. Lately, it seemed like you couldn’t turn on the news or get online without being confronted with some irreparable environmental catastrophe. As I thought of all those seagulls covered in black slime, a feeling of dread rose up like a giant fist inside me, squeezing my insides into knots. It didn’t seem right that I had to worry about ecological doom on top of all the other things I was already worried about.

  The phone buzzed just as I was leaving the house. Thinking it was Dave, I tore open my purse and rummaged around until I found it. But it wasn’t Dave; it was my friend, Lindsay Armstrong.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I said, not particularly feeling in the mood to talk.

  “Hey,” said Lindsay in her chirpy voice. “I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner tonight after I get out of class.”

  Lindsay taught remedial English at Sulphur Springs High School. I had met her a couple of months ago at a bar during an MMA fight. We had both been abandoned by our boyfriends, and it was clear from the looks on our faces that neither of us wanted to be there.

  “I think I would like that, actually,” I said as I started my car. “Where did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, I would be the one cooking,” said Lindsay. “I just bought several pounds of fish on sale, and I was thinking about frying them with wine and Greek salad. Maybe some sourdough bread. It’s your call.”

  “That all sounds great. When are your classes over?”

  “Around five, but I’
ll need about an hour to get ready.”

  “Same. Text me your address, and I’ll meet you there at six.”

  I was feeling a bit better by the time I pulled into the clinic ten minutes later. That feeling was quickly dispelled when I walked into the office and saw that Sarah wasn’t there. Dave was standing at the desk in his office frantically stuffing packages of cheddar crackers into a brown duffel bag.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Where’s Sarah?”

  “She phoned in sick, not ten minutes ago,” he said. “Looks like she’s going to be out for a few days.” He closed the bag, looked up at me, and drew a deep sigh. “And so am I.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked with an ominous feeling.

  “I don’t know if you saw the news this morning, but there’s an oil spill on the Gulf Coast that needs cleaning up. The Coast Guard has called for a thousand volunteers, and at present, they only have about 250. My country needs me.”

  “Don’t you think your job needs you?” I asked. “You can’t seriously be thinking of leaving me here to run the entire clinic by myself?”

  Dave came forward and patted me gingerly on the shoulder. “Allie,” he said, slowly and quietly, “I have the utmost faith in you.” With a curt nod, he picked up his duffel bag and brushed past me.

  “Wait,” I said, running after him into the main office. “If you’re going to Galveston or wherever, you should at least take me with you.”

  Dave paused and shook his head. “No can do. With Sarah gone, I need someone to stay here and manage the office. Plus, we’ve been working together for nearly three months now. This is your test. I have no more to teach you.”

  He walked out the door into the warm summer morning. I watched him leave with a miserable feeling.

  “Is it too much to hope,” I said to Tomas, “that no one’s animals will get sick or injured in the next three to four days?” Tomas squawked in reply.

  ***

  Even if you had never met Lindsay, you would have known she was a teacher just by walking into her apartment. There were at least twenty pictures thumb-tacked onto a corkboard on the wall of the dining room, all showing Lindsay kneeling and hugging students. There was no TV, but a bookshelf standing against the back wall sagged under the weight of old college textbooks and one-volume Shakespeares. In the corner by the window stood an easel and a small stool.

  “I can’t believe he left you there all day by yourself,” said Lindsay as we stood in the kitchen together cutting vegetables. “From the way you describe him, he seems sort of manic.”

  “He is, a bit,” I said. “Luckily the day wasn’t a total disaster. The only person who came by was Patricia Evans wanting me to refill her heartworm medication. I can do that. I didn’t feel remotely prepared to deal with a horse’s broken leg.”

  “Well, I’m sure you’re a better assistant than you realize,” said Lindsay. “The first couple of years I worked at the high school, I kept expecting the principal to walk in and fire me at any moment. I figured it was only a matter of time before she realized there’d been a mistake, that I wasn’t remotely qualified to be teaching her students.”

  “But you have your degree and everything,” I said, dropping the carrots into a large colander.

  “I know,” said Lindsay. “Not that it mattered; I still felt like a fraud.”

  “Well, I can guarantee you’re better at running a classroom than I am at running a clinic.”

  “Maybe.” Lindsay smiled serenely. “It doesn’t sound like you did too bad today.”

  I tossed the carrots and onions into the skillet.

  “Anyway,” said Lindsay, “your boss obviously has a lot of respect for you, to leave you in charge like that. Only three months in, and he’s already letting you run the clinic.”

  “I don’t think he had much choice this morning,” I said as I reached for the spatula. “He was in a hurry to leave, and Sarah was gone, so he appointed me the veterinarian pro tempore and crossed his fingers that it wouldn’t end in disaster.”

  “I remember the first time I was left in charge of a classroom, back when I was a student teacher,” said Lindsay. “I was so sure I was going to forget something important and, I don’t know, cause a fire and accidentally kill twenty students. Teaching is both a lot harder and a lot easier than you think it’s going to be. It’s harder because it uses up so much of your energy. I come home at the end of the day, and I’m completely spent. And it’s easier because you don’t have to be doing something every single minute of the day. There’s a lot more sitting behind a desk than I was expecting.”

  She handed me the lettuce, and I began cutting. “I actually wanted to become a teacher back in high school,” I said. “I haven’t completely ruled it out yet. I might look into getting my degree if I realize I don’t want to be a veterinarian.”

  “What’s wrong with being a veterinarian?” asked Lindsay.

  “It’s mostly my boss,” I said, reaching over to turn down the burner. “His attitude has made me a lot less eager to go into work every morning.”

  “Because he’s flighty and irresponsible?”

  “That,” I said, “and because he always seems to be flirting with me. Now, I’m not one of those women who thinks every boy who looks at me is hitting on me. He hasn’t exactly been shy about it. Just the other day, he asked me if I was dating.”

  “Do you feel threatened by him?”

  “A little. And again, it could be just me. My last relationship didn’t end on the best of terms, and I’m wary about getting into another one. Whenever I sense a man is interested, my internal alarm starts going off.”

  As if to emphasize my point, the stove alarm went off at that moment. Lindsay reached into the oven and pulled out the sourdough bread. “I’m listening,” she said.

  “So maybe I’m being unfair to him. It just feels like I’ve been putting out all these very clear signals that I’m not interested, and he still won’t take the hint. We’re friends on Facebook. I’m thinking about changing my relationship status to ‘in a relationship’ so he’ll leave me alone.”

  “I did that with one of my girlfriends in high school,” said Lindsay. “This guy kept harassing her, so we said we were in a relationship on Facebook. Everyone thought we were dating, but he left her alone after that. And nobody asked me out for three years,” she added sadly. “On the other hand, if he’s that interested in you, you ought to consider taking him out.”

  I scoffed incredulously. “Me and him? No way!”

  “Just one date?” said Lindsay. “It couldn’t hurt anything.”

  “Okay, first of all, he’s my boss,” I said, “and just, ew. Second, have you met the guy? I don’t guess you have. He’s at least fifteen years older than me.”

  “That’s not a huge deal when you’re an adult,” said Lindsay. “Principal Schreiber’s husband is ten years older than she is.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t Principal Schreiber in her fifties? I’m twenty-five. I just don’t think I’m ready for that.”

  “Fair enough,” said Lindsay, tearing off a chunk of the bread and breaking it in half. “But you ought to go out with someone, if only to get your boss off your back.”

  I took the piece of bread she offered me; it was warm and buttery and melted in my mouth. “I’m not against dating; I’m just not interested in him.”

  “Well, do you know any guys besides him?”

  “I’ve tried, believe me. But Sulphur Springs isn’t exactly crawling with eligible young men. Most of the guys I meet down at the clinic are old farmers.”

  “It’s about the same at the high school. The ratio of male teachers to females is depressing. I tried joining a church singles group, an art club, and a dance club. Surprise! There wasn’t a single boy in any of them.”

  “Where have all the men gone?” I asked. “Have they given up on clubs and art? Do they just sit around in their beanbag chairs playing Halo and Call of Duty?” Lindsay laughed, and it made me laugh.
“I don’t know what boys do!”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” she said with a shrug. “I keep hoping I’ll meet a handsome young man in the teen fiction section at Half-Price, and that he’ll immediately realize we’re meant to be together. But alas, I never do.”

  “Well, here’s to men,” I said, holding up my half-empty water glass.

  “To men,” said Lindsay, raising her own glass. “Wherever they are!”

  Chapter Five

  Curtis

  On Tuesday morning, Dad and I went out riding again with Brent Stuart and his brothers and some of the other ranch hands from around town. This time, none of the girlfriends tagged along, I guess because they had better places to be. Fine with me. It was a cool, hazy morning with storm clouds quietly gathering on the eastern rim of the world, making the sky look bruised, like it had just been in a bar fight. The wind tugged at my sleeves and stirred the tall grass in the fields on either side of us. For once, I wasn’t sorry I had gotten up early to make this trek.

  “Curtis, how long you been riding?” Brent asked me after we had been riding for about an hour. “Your whole life?”

  I reached into my traveling kit and took a swig of bottled water. “For as long as I can remember,” I said after a moment’s pause. “Didn’t get really good at it until the summer after my sophomore year. Soon as I got a car, I started driving from one town to another offering my services at rodeos and carnivals. They could see I had some experience with animals, taming ‘em. Old man who ran a rodeo down in Paris said he wanted to see how I would do on his mechanical bull.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard this story,” said Dad.

  “Well, it’s not the sort of thing I’d have wanted to talk about.”

  “Did you get on it?” asked Brent.

  “I did—and promptly got knocked right off. Thank the Lord it wasn’t a real bull, or I’d like to have been trampled to death. But I was a stubborn young fool, and I got back on. And I kept getting back on, even after I’d acquired a black eye, a bruised arm, and a couple of loose teeth. If Mama had known what I was up to, she’d have come over and wrestled me off of that thing.”