The Trail Home

by Bonnie Bryant

  It wasn’t Ben, though. An old man walked out, thin and frail, struggling with a big plastic laundry basket. Father? No, too old, Carole thought. More likely a grandfather, but why would he be retrieving the laundry if Ben could do it?

  She sat still in the car, guiltily watching the man tug at the underwear, shirts, and towels on the line. She could hardly offer to help him, but she could barely stand to watch. Where was Ben?

  That question was answered when Ben came down the street from the opposite end, carrying two large brown bags. Carole recalled a small shopping area near the school. He must have gone for groceries—or picked them up on his way home from Pine Hollow.

  Ben spotted the old man working on the laundry and hurriedly put the bags on the front step so that he could help with the laundry. While the man stood back and rested, Ben took all the clothes off the line and folded them with the same cool efficiency Carole knew so well from watching him work at Pine Hollow. He picked up the basket and returned to the front step. The man followed him and held the door until Ben returned for the groceries.

  At that instant, Carole knew she would be seen. Her car was parked directly across from Ben’s house. It was a car Ben knew well, since it was at Pine Hollow every day. It was too late to do anything about the situation she’d gotten herself into. She had to hope that he wouldn’t look in her direction.

  Ben stepped back out of the house and reached for the bags. As he stood up with them, his eyes lit on the car. For a second, Carole hoped he wouldn’t see, wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t recognize, but their eyes met and her hopes were dashed. Ben had seen her; he knew she was there.

  There were no nice words or rationalizations for what she was doing. She was spying on him. She was his friend, or had thought she was, and she was doing nothing more than snooping. No way could she pretend she’d just been wondering where Winn Road was. She was a nosy snoop. She knew it, and now Ben knew it.

  Without a word or sign of acknowledgment, Ben stepped back into the house. The door closed behind him. A second later the welcome light went out.

  NINE

  It occurred to Carole to call in sick the next morning, but that seemed dishonest, and she’d had enough of her own dishonesty for a while. She arrived at Pine Hollow very early and was in the office and behind the desk by the time Max arrived.

  She flicked on the computer and began her data input before the horses had been fed or the first stall had been mucked out. If she was busy working at the computer, she wouldn’t be able to help with the physical chores, and that would, at least, put off the inevitable meeting with Ben, for his first task was always looking after the horses. She suspected he would be as happy to avoid her as she was to avoid him.

  As she worked, Carole could hear the familiar sounds of the stable waking up: stalls being mucked out, hay coming down from the loft, fresh shavings being spread in the stalls. These soothing sounds helped her concentration, which was so total that she was almost finished entering the address file when the first class of young riders arrived, clamoring for their pony assignments.

  By midmorning, Carole had convinced herself that if she sat at the desk for the rest of her life entering names and addresses, she could successfully avoid seeing the one person she never wanted to see. Then he appeared at the door to the office.

  “Barq just threw a shoe,” he said.

  “I’ll let the farrier know,” Carole responded. “He’ll be here Monday.”

  “Thanks.”

  That was it, their total conversation. No accusations, no recriminations. Carole returned to the computer, uncertain whether that was good or bad.

  At eleven Emily arrived with Callie. Mrs. Forester had brought both of them and was staying to watch the session. Carole was surprised that there was going to be any session at all.

  “It’s really just a bruise,” Callie said. “It only hurts a little, and although I don’t mind sympathy, I hardly deserve any. Even my doctor said some exercise wouldn’t hurt the new injury. So I’m doing the classic back-in-the-saddle thing.”

  Emily seemed pleased about the whole matter. Mrs. Forester looked skeptical. The trio left the office to get to work.

  “At least let me carry the saddle,” Mrs. Forester said to the two girls.

  “Let you? We’re going to shanghai you for the job. And how are you with a grooming bucket?” Emily asked, once again defusing a potentially explosive situation with humor. It was a gift Carole envied.

  When Carole could no longer look at her computer screen, she decided to check on Callie and Emily, wondering how the pair was surmounting the problems of the newest handicap. She walked along the stable aisle to the schooling ring, automatically greeting horses as she went. Fez, in his Ben-made sling, barely acknowledged her as she passed by.

  She reached the door that led to the ring and paused, remaining in the shadow of the stable. Callie was in the saddle, holding the reins in her good hand. Ben held a lead line and was walking next to PC’s head. The greenest beginning rider always had a lead walker, and it must have been humiliating to Callie to have Ben there. The reality was that although PC was the finest and gentlest of horses, nobody wanted to take any chances, even Callie. Her balance was distorted from the accident, and her skills were further hampered by her bruised ankle. She was very much at risk. Riding was supposed to help her. Falling off a startled horse would not be helpful.

  At Emily’s instruction, Ben helped Callie take her feet out of the stirrups. PC began walking slowly. Carole could see Callie shift her weight through her hips to move with the motion of the walking horse. It was the most natural thing in the world for a healthy rider. For Callie, with damage to her nervous system, it was training. If her body had forgotten how to walk smoothly, PC was reminding her nerves and her brain just what it was she was supposed to do.

  “Is your bruised ankle hurting?” Mrs. Forester asked from the fence.

  “Not much, Mom. No problem.”

  “Emily? Does she mean that?” Mrs. Forester asked.

  “Probably not,” Emily said. “But it doesn’t matter. Even though it may hurt a little, she’s not doing anything that will cause further damage.”

  Emily was perched atop the fence so that she could see everything. She had a clipboard in her hand and was making notes and check marks while Callie rode smoothly and comfortably. Every few minutes Emily’s concentration was broken by another worried query from Mrs. Forester. She wasn’t worried about anything in particular. She was worried about everything—the speed at which Ben was walking the horse, the angle of the turns, the possibility that PC might be distracted by the jumping class in the adjacent ring.

  Then Emily had another of her wonderful problem-solving ideas.

  “Would you be able to take the lead rope for a while?” she asked. “I know Ben has some chores he wants to get to.”

  Mrs. Forester agreed readily. It was a good idea, and Carole knew it instantly. Mrs. Forester was a rider herself and was wise about horses. The problem with watching her daughter’s therapy was that she didn’t have any control. As soon as she became involved—leading the horse—she’d be a participant and could stop fretting about other people’s, and horses’, mistakes.

  Mrs. Forester eagerly took the rope from Ben, who excused himself from the session. He would now come into the stable, probably to Fez’s stall. Carole returned to the computer, hoping she could avoid seeing him and talking to him for a while longer—like a hundred years.

  She worked at the computer, answered the phone, called the farrier. In the far distance she could just hear Emily, Callie, and Mrs. Forester in the ring. The rest of the therapeutic session went as smoothly as the first half had. Soon enough, Carole heard the clopping hooves as PC returned to the stable. If Ben had chores to do, the least she could do was untack PC, groom him, and bring him some water.

  She met the group at his stall. Emily was running up his stirrups. Carole took over the job and removed the saddle, letting PC loose in his stall. />
  Callie and her mother were more interested in what was going on on the other side of the hall, in Fez’s stall. Carole watched the interchange.

  “What is that?” Mrs. Forester asked, looking at the sling.

  Ben explained it to her while he loosened the straps. “He’s been up long enough now. It’s time for a rest.”

  Mrs. Forester asked Ben questions about the schedule, not in a challenging way, but clearly interested in what was being done for the welfare of her daughter’s horse.

  While her mother talked and listened, Callie watched. Carole could see that what held her attention wasn’t the chatter, the comparison of her therapeutic riding with the therapeutic program Ben had devised for Fez. What Callie was watching was her horse. He might be standing. He might be stronger today than yesterday. But there was still no gleam in his eye, no interested perk to his ears. She reached out and patted his cheek. He barely responded; his eyes simply followed her hand. He took the carrot she offered him, but there was no grateful nod or eager sniff for a follow-up morsel.

  Emily was laughing, looking at Ben’s chart. “You know, I think the only real difference here between the program you’ve set up for Fez and the one I’ve got for Callie is that I don’t have her scheduled for any longeing and pasture time—and longeing might not be a bad idea.”

  Callie stepped into the stall with Fez and Ben, using her crutches for support. Fez was still standing, though waiting for Ben to release the last few straps so that he could lie down. Callie leaned forward and reached down, feeling the leg that had been broken in the accident. It was much thinner than his other leg, weakened by the break and atrophied from lack of use.

  “We’ve got some work to do, you and me,” she told the horse. He watched her without moving his head, and then, when Ben unbuckled the final strap, Fez let himself down into the soft straw bedding, watching Callie until he lowered his head and closed his eyes.

  “I think it’s nap time for Fez,” Mrs. Forester said cheerily. She held the stall door for Callie, saw that Ben wasn’t finished there, and closed it behind her daughter. Emily followed Mrs. Forester and Callie down the hallway. They’d worked hard and deserved a rest.

  For Carole there was the job of looking after PC. And across the hall, Ben worked with Fez, folding the sling, soothing the ailing horse, and making sure that the straw bed was soft and giving. They worked without speaking. For a while, Carole thought maybe it would be possible that they wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t have to consider what had gone on the night before.

  When she finished grooming PC, it was time to get him a bucket of water and a tick of hay. She picked up the empty water bucket and the full grooming bucket and let herself into the aisle, latching the stall door behind her.

  Ben was coming out of Fez’s stall with his water bucket. There was no question about it. They were headed in the same direction, and neither of them could pretend they weren’t staring at one another and that there wasn’t something they needed to talk about.

  “You get lost last night?” Ben asked, more as a challenge than a question.

  At first, Carole didn’t know how to answer.

  “Wrong side of town,” he said, reminding her of where she’d been.

  “I—Uh …,” she stammered. This wasn’t good. “I’m sorry, Ben. I guess I wanted to know—I mean, I knew the address and, well, I knew you were walking, so I thought maybe you’d want a ride home.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said. “Look, if I’d wanted a ride home, I would have taken one when you offered it. And you weren’t going to do me any good parked across the street from my house.”

  “Ben, I—”

  “I don’t think we need to talk about it, Carole. I thought we were friends. Friends respect one another.”

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” Carole said.

  “Okay,” he said, accepting her apology as abruptly as it had been delivered.

  With that, he touched his forehead in a small salute and walked past her to the tack room.

  TEN

  “‘Okay’? All he said was ‘Okay’?” Stevie asked.

  Carole nodded glumly. “I think it was the stupidest thing I ever did.”

  “It wasn’t bright,” Stevie agreed.

  “I was just curious.”

  “He’s so private, though,” Stevie said. “There has to be a reason.”

  “Well, I didn’t learn much except that he lives in a kind of run-down house in a kind of run-down neighborhood with a man who looks like he’s probably his grandfather.”

  “You don’t know who else lives in the house,” Stevie reminded her.

  “No. I guess I don’t. And I don’t even know that the man is his grandfather. But I do know that Ben looks after him because he brought groceries and he took down the laundry.”

  “I wonder what the secret is,” Stevie mused. “Don’t you?”

  “The secret is probably that he doesn’t like being spied on by someone he thought was a friend. It doesn’t matter what I learned or didn’t learn, I hurt his feelings.”

  “He accepted your apology,” Stevie said.

  “Sure. Like he meant it, too.”

  Carole and Stevie were sitting on the floor in Stevie’s room, where they’d had many conferences over the years. As soon as Carole had left Pine Hollow that evening, she’d walked over to Stevie’s, wanting the solace of a friend. She’d gotten dinner along with the solace, and now they were having the private chat she’d needed all day.

  Carole grasped her knees and pulled them tight to her chest.

  “You don’t do a lot of stupid things,” Stevie said. It didn’t sound like a compliment, and it wasn’t really meant as one. Carole recognized it as a simple truthful statement. She didn’t do stupid things.

  “On the other hand,” Stevie continued, “I’m famous for them. I’ve been accused of impulsive behavior more times than I care to recall. I regret it every time, especially when it hurts someone I didn’t mean to hurt. All I can tell you, Carole, is that it passes. Ben will forget. So will you. I have to say I don’t think this is a very good way to begin a relationship—”

  “There is no relationship,” Carole interrupted.

  Stevie withdrew the assertion with a quick “Right,” and then said, “No matter. But the only thing to do is to forget it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Well, then, pretend to forget it, because that’s what Ben will do.”

  Carole sighed. In this case, Stevie probably knew what she was talking about. Carole wasn’t very good at pretending and she never had been. This, perhaps, would be an appropriate time to start honing the skill.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about that postcard from Lisa, and every time I think about it, I miss her a little bit more. Want to see if we can get her on the phone?” Stevie asked.

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” Carole said. “What time is it out there?”

  “Oh, about”—Stevie looked at her watch—“six. She ought to be home from work. Probably helping Evelyn with dinner or something like that. Want to try?”

  “Hand me the phone,” Carole said.

  Stevie took the cordless phone from her bedside table and punched Talk. She listened for the dial tone, but instead heard voices. She covered the phone with her hand and listened tentatively for a few seconds.

  “… mucking out stables, just stuff like that—I hardly see Skye at all,” a very familiar voice said.

  Stevie pointed to the phone and mouthed “Lisa” to Carole. “And Alex.” Then she spoke. “Uh, yeah, I’m here.… No, I’m not listening in. I just wanted to use the phone to call a friend in California. Hi, Lis’! … Listen, Carole’s here and we’re dying to catch up, so when my darling twin finishes telling you how miserable he’s making everybody in the family because he misses you so much, have him come get me so Carole and I can give you details. And Alex, bring your phone in here so we can each have one, please.… Okay, okay, I’m hanging up now.”

  She poked Tal
k again, leaving her brother and his girlfriend alone.

  Over the next fifteen minutes, Stevie lightened Carole’s mood by sharing tales from the laundry. Only Stevie could have found a way to make color-bleeding funny or make a riveting story out of a malfunctioning extractor. Flows of suds, disputes over socks, and abandoned sweatshirts all combined into interesting events.

  In the middle of a story about a couple who found an unfamiliar set of women’s underwear among their laundry, Alex knocked on the door and handed Carole his cordless phone.

  “She’s all yours, for now,” he said.

  Stevie reached for her phone so that she and Carole could talk at once. “How are you?” she began.

  Lisa was fine, it seemed. Everything she’d said in the postcard was true, though, naturally, there was a good deal more to tell.

  Her job at the television ranch was really great. “They have these wonderful horses here. They are so well trained and their owners demand contracts so that the horses get total star treatment.”

  “Yadda yadda on the horses,” Stevie interrupted—although Carole would have liked to hear more about their special care. “Tell us about the human stars, starting with Skye Ransom.”

  Lisa told them. She didn’t see an awful lot of Skye, and when she did see him, he was usually dashing from one place to another, stopping by only to pick up or drop off his horse. He was the star of the television series, but there were other stars, too, some nice, some not so nice. Lisa didn’t spend much time with any of them, either. She wasn’t complaining. They were paying her well, and it was really interesting, for a summer job. Then Lisa turned the tables and started asking questions.

  She knew all about the accident and Callie’s recovery. She even knew that Callie was using riding as therapy. Carole and Stevie brought her up to date on the first few sessions, including the bruised ankle.

  “Oh no!” said Lisa.

  “She’s being a great sport about it,” Carole said. “She’s even almost convinced us that it’s not a bad thing. It makes her disabled on both sides, not just one, so it evens things up for her.”