Glass Girl

by Kurk, Laura Anderson

  She drove down a narrow dirt road into a beautiful area full of cottonwood trees and aspens, and parked on an open patch of dirt. We unloaded the car and carried everything under the trees. They unrolled their sleeping bags and laid their pillows down on the ground like they were in someone’s living room for a sleepover. They even fought over who got to lie next to whom. We were in seventh grade again, only now instead of the danger of stupid girl fights, we had the danger of bears.

  I tried to work this out in my head. “Okay, guys, I’ve never been camping, but I know this is a little weird. I have at least seen camping in movies. Where’s the tent? We can’t just lie on the ground, can we? I mean there’re things out here that we don’t really want to curl up with in a sleeping bag.”

  Tennyson stared me down. “Meg, you’re a buzz kill. Help us find firewood, and try to have some fun. Think of it as an episode of Survivor. We’re stranded in the wilderness and we’ve got to see if we’re plucky enough to make it, right? And maybe we’ll meet some gorgeous half-naked male survivors who’ll take pity on us.”

  I could tell I wasn’t going to win the argument, so I started looking for firewood. I felt like an idiot. I knew this wasn’t the way it goes. Once we’d dragged back a dozen large branches and broken them up, we arranged them into what looked like a decent campfire. Tennyson pulled out a can of lighter fluid, soaked it down liberally, and lit a match. In an instant, we had fire. We jumped back to keep it from burning off our eyebrows. I didn’t think that was actually the way to build a campfire. But it might’ve been the best way to start a forest fire.

  I had to give them props—they did bring marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate to make s’mores. And they remembered hot dogs, but not buns. So we had dinner and dessert, with orange juice, which I think was actually supposed to be for breakfast, but it was all we had. The wind blew gently around us and the pines trees sounded like they were whispering to each other. The stars showed off, and I found most of the major constellations. The sliver of a crescent moon didn’t give us any light, so once the sun was down, it was implausibly dark. In Pittsburgh, I never really saw true darkness. There were always lights on around us—blindingly bright at night. Mom used to bemoan that her children had never seen the stars. That’s not exactly true. We did vacation in areas where we could see them.

  When the temperature dropped, we zipped up in our sleeping bags and huddled together next to the fire. No one thought to gather more firewood, though, and inevitably the fire died down to hot coals. We were too afraid to venture away so we suffered in silence. Tennyson suggested that maybe she should’ve borrowed a tent from her neighbor. We all agreed, but as Taylor pointed out, none of us would’ve known how to put it up.

  I heard a dog barking in the distance and it made me think of coyotes. I knew there were coyotes watching us. Did Tennyson not think of coyotes? And coyotes were probably the most innocuous thing in these woods at night. I thought sleeping in the car would be a good option, especially when I realized the barking dog was getting closer, and I heard something else, too. A horse…running fast, toward us. My hands started to sweat.

  “Tennyson, exactly whose land are we on? Would it be someone who would confront trespassers with a rifle?” My voice revealed my irritation and Tennyson looked a little hurt.

  “The Whitmire’s ranch.”

  “As in Henry Whitmire?”

  “Who else? They own like a million acres out here. This is nowhere near their house, so they’ll never know.” She glanced at Sara and smiled and then muttered under her breath, “And, voila…happiness ensues.”

  As if on cue, I looked up to see Henry bearing down on us on a huge brown horse—a bay, if my memory of American Girl fiction served me well. He pulled back on the reins and walked the horse right up to our feet. He had a rifle slung across his back. I wanted to hiss something to Tennyson about Henry’s legal right to shoot us, but something told me she didn’t care. She watched him with a look of utter self-satisfaction.

  Henry’s black and white dog seemed interested in me. He came straight over and started licking my face. Henry’s eyes slowly swept around our impromptu campsite. I saw him take note of Tennyson’s car, our sleeping bags, the open sacks of food, the dying fire, and the missing tent. I could tell he was trying hard not to smile, but the effort of it was playing at the corners of his perfect eyes.

  “So, Tennyson, having a little campout tonight?” His voice sounded gentle enough to hide the biting sarcasm behind it, but there was no mistaking that he found this scene incredibly entertaining.

  “Yeah, what’s it to you, Henry?”

  He chuckled a bit. “What’s it to me? Well, first of all, my dad got a call a minute ago that there was a fire out here, and one of our wranglers was locking some gates and noticed a little red Nissan.”

  He paused like he was waiting for Tennyson to defend herself, and then he shook his head slightly and continued.

  “I kind of thought I might find you here, and that the fire might belong to you, but I didn’t dream you’d be crazy enough to sleep out here on the ground, with no tent, and a bunch of food open all around you.”

  His voice got louder as he tried to make the stupidity of this sink into Tennyson’s hormone-addled brain.

  “You’re asking to be eaten. Heck, you’re gonna serve the bears s’mores before they eat you—and if a bear doesn’t get you, a wolf might, or a panther, or a skunk will make himself known in the middle of the night. And, you know there’s a burn ban right now, right? You understand that means no fires, at all, anywhere, especially not right under our trees and next to our pasture where our expensive livestock is just trying to enjoy the evening?”

  “Henry, you’re just feeling your oats. We didn’t realize where we were. The gate wasn’t locked, and we just thought it looked like a nice, safe place to introduce Meg to camping in the mountains. She’s such a city girl, and all.”

  She smiled her sweetest smile at him. “By the way, which wrangler turned us in?”

  He nodded a slow, imperceptible nod and pushed his tongue into his cheek. “Is that what this is about? Tennyson, if you’re looking for trouble, I can accommodate you.”

  “Was it Dylan?”

  Henry ignored her, but the tiniest grin touched his lips. “So when you got out of your car to unlatch the gate with the big W on it, you didn’t have some idea about where you might be?”

  “We were all talking. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. You know how girls are when they get together. With all the talking, we can hardly think straight enough to drive, right?”

  He rolled his eyes and glanced at me when she said that.

  “Well, Meg, what do you think about camping so far? Is it everything you’d hoped it would be, tenderfoot?”

  His voice dripped with mischief. I got butterflies when I heard him say my name, and I looked down to hide the blush that I felt coming on.

  “Um, not so much. I’m freezing, and I really thought camping involved more in the way of tents, and maybe little lanterns strung through tree branches. And possibly an air mattress, and a cowboy cooking over the fire, bringing me hot chocolate.”

  Now he wasn’t even trying to hide a smile. His whole face lit up and he threw back his head and laughed. He glanced at his dog that had laid his head in my lap and gone to sleep, and then he pulled on his reins and disappeared just outside the trees. I heard him talking—on his cell, I guess—and laughing quietly, trying to be as respectful of us as possible given the circumstances. In a minute, he walked back through the trees. I could see that he had tied his horse up on a branch. He started picking up limbs and breaking them across his knee. He set up a wood pile three times bigger than the one we’d just been so proud of. Then he started carrying rocks and placing them in a circle around the wood.

  “I thought you said there was a burn ban,” Tennyson teased.

  “It doesn’t apply to me,” he grumbled.

  He lit the fire and got it going with no li
ghter fluid and the warmth was immediate. “You’ve put some kind of a spell on my dog, Meg,” he said as he sat down next to me.

  “I like him. I’ve always wanted a dog. What’s his name?”

  “Butch—he’s part border collie and part Australian shepherd. Look at his eyes.”

  I pulled Butch’s head up and he grunted and opened his eyes—one was a shocking blue and one was dark brown. I gasped and Henry grinned and patted Butch.

  “Yeah, I know, it got me the first time I saw him, too. He’s a real ladies man. His mother is my sister’s dog, Claire. She’s full border collie, the best cow dog I’d ever seen until this guy. She turned up pregnant a couple of years ago and Butch was in that litter…the only one that looked like a mix. He’s turned out to be an even better working dog than his mom. And he’ll keep the snakes off you if you keep him near.”

  Henry saw the look of horror shudder across my face and he laughed. “I can also keep the snakes off you if you keep me near, Meg.”

  “What kind of snakes are we talking about, Henry?”

  “Mostly rattlers, so maybe you’ll hear them coming.”

  “Great. That’s helpful. Tell me about your horse.”

  “Truly…that’s her name. She’s a five-year-old quarter horse—a cutting horse. I use her when I’m working cattle. That’s what a cutting horse does. She can cut a cow out of the herd and Truly’s good at pushing them all in the right direction, too. She’s a good girl—young and feisty—but she’s getting there. I’m usually not a big fan of mares because they’re temperamental, but Truly’s all heart, and she knows how to work.”

  “What do you call her color?”

  “She’s a bay. You heard of that before?”

  “Actually, yes. I read a book once about a girl that had a bay.”

  He smiled, staring at the fire. “You read a book about a bay, but you’ve never seen one up close and personal.”

  “Not unless you count the Calgary Stampede. But all the horses looked the same to me there.”

  He suppressed a quiet laugh. “Well, you’ve got a lot to learn up here. I’ll have to make sure you learn cow so no one takes advantage of you. Know what that means?”

  “Er…no.”

  “You’ve gotta learn the language spoken by all these ranchers that have been here generation after generation punching cows. If you wanna fit in, I mean.”

  “Okay. Can I have my first lesson now?”

  A slow, easy grin spread across his face and eyes.

  “All right, Meg. First thing you need to know is that a man’s horse is only very slightly less important to him than his girl. And up here, there’s nothing worse than being afoot—nothing strikes more fear into our hearts.”

  “But that’s Old West stuff. It’s not really relevant anymore, right?”

  He shook his head and narrowed his eyes at me.

  “The West hasn’t changed like the rest of the country, Meg. We still believe God’s greatest gift to a man is a horse. Have you heard of Red Steagall?”

  “He’s like a cowboy storyteller, right?”

  “Yep. Old Red said that most cowboys can recognize a picture of a horse they rode fifty years ago, but they can’t recognize a picture of themselves or their wives from last year.”

  This made me laugh, and Henry looked down and grinned when he heard me.

  “You cowboys like to exaggerate,” I said as I shifted Butch’s heavy head from my shin to my thigh.

  “No. It’s true. The measure of a man here is how good he is to his horses and his woman. In that order.”

  Butch heard something then and his ears perked up. He whined a bit and then lay back down. Suddenly another horse appeared and stopped next to Truly and a perfect cowboy—Dylan, obviously—climbed off and started untying bundles from behind his saddle. He smiled and nodded to all of us like he was awfully glad for a little excitement out on the range. He tossed a large canvas sack to Henry and kept one for himself. Henry stood up and they walked behind us a few steps and dropped two tents out of the bags onto the ground. They set them up quickly, without speaking, and then Henry walked back to Dylan’s horse and untied two lanterns from the saddle horn. He lit one lantern and hung it from a hook in the larger tent.

  Then Henry unrolled a huge bag, and started filling it with the food that we had sitting around us. I jumped up and helped him, feeling really weird that they were doing all this work for us. The other girls sat and watched. He sealed this bag tightly, wound a long rope around the mouth, threw the bag over a high tree branch, and then tied the end of the rope around the tree trunk. He glanced at me and smiled when he saw my confusion.

  “Like my critter deterrent, Meg?” he joked. “If you need any food out of the bag, just untie the rope and lower the bag down.”

  Then he picked up our pillows, shook them out, and put all four of them in the larger tent. Dylan untied two sleeping bags from his horse and took them to the other tent. We all watched them in stunned silence. Tennyson had a look on her face that was borderline smug as she watched Dylan work. I realized that they were going to let us stay—let us have our little girl camping fantasy—but they had to hang around so we wouldn’t die doing it.

  Henry sat back down next to me and Butch. Dylan came over and stood behind us and Henry introduced everyone to him. He was very polite and knelt to shake our hands, and then he made a place for himself next to Tennyson.

  “I see you shared Tennyson’s secret with Dylan,” I whispered to Henry.

  “Hey, you have no idea what it does to a guy to know a pretty girl might like him. Everyone deserves a good night once in a while.”

  “I’m getting the feeling that this was Tennyson’s plan all along. She must have known where he would find us.”

  “I’ve known her long enough to know that this was purely intentional.” He peered sideways at me, judging my reaction. “I like her just fine, but you should watch yourself around her. Tennyson is given to obsession, and her obsessions tend to run towards trouble. It’s kind of a Wyoming thing to push the whole ‘Wild West’ routine to its limits.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” I said. “I hope this campout thing doesn’t create problems for you. I’m sure you weren’t planning on sleeping outside tonight.”

  He reached out to rub Butch’s head in my lap. “There’s nowhere else I…need to be; but I had to give Tennyson a hard time. She was sure giving me the stink eye for it. You think I overdid it?”

  “I don’t think it had any effect on her whatsoever,” I laughed, wondering if his earlier pause meant there was someplace he’d rather be.

  He touched my sleeping bag and took a closer look. “Hey, nice pink, fleecy thing. Did Tennyson tell you this would be a little slumber party at her house? Were you planning on watching a princess movie and having a pillow fight in your underwear?”

  “Hey, you laugh, but all the girls in Pittsburgh were jealous of this thing.” I glared at him. “And the whole half-naked pillow fight thing…that’s some fantasy guys have about what we do at slumber parties. The truth is far less provocative.”

  He thought about that for a minute and his eyes registered amusement. “Well, that’s a disappointment. I won’t tell you how much time I wasted on that fantasy in junior high. Still, that sleeping bag isn’t gonna do you much good tonight when the temperature goes down.”

  He jumped up and was at his horse in a couple of long strides. He brought back a thick, blue blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders, and then added more wood to the fire.

  Dylan started telling stories about wrangling horses and life in Texas. He made Tennyson laugh so hard about the yell leaders at Texas A&M that she couldn’t breathe. He jumped up and taught everyone Aggie yells, which were actually led by boys in white pants and white shirts, or something like that, and involved a lot of squatting and major arm movements.

  They all talked for what seemed like hours. I listened quietly, enjoying the fact that no one paid attention to me. Out of the corne
r of my eye, I saw Henry suddenly lie back with his head on his arms.

  “Did you have a sky like this in Pittsburgh, Meg?” he asked quietly.

  His voice startled me because I thought he was listening to Dylan. I turned so I could see his face.

  “We had stars; but they never looked like this. The sky here is really unbelievable. It kind of settles down on you like a big blanket. It makes me feel lonely for some reason.”

  He smiled and nodded a little. “So, what’s your story? I’ve never heard you talk about yourself to anyone. Is that my imagination?” He turned over and rose up on an elbow.

  I settled on my side, facing him, mirroring his position. “Well, I don’t like to waste words.”

  “You could waste a few on me, Meg. I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

  The intensity in his eyes made me a little uncomfortable, but I forced an answer. “There’s not much to tell, I guess, and I’ve sort of always been private. I was born in Pittsburgh. I moved to Wyoming. The end.”

  He laughed and scratched the side of his head. “You’ve got to give me more than that. Everybody likes to be known. Heck, it’s why people roll their car window down when their favorite song comes on. They’re telling everybody, ‘Hey, hear this? This is me.’”

  “I didn’t realize I was describing myself every time I roll my window down.”

  “Come on, Kavanagh, what’d you like to do in Pittsburgh? Were your friends sad when you said you were moving? Was there a boy who thought he was gonna die the day you drove away? When’s your birthday? What’s your favorite book?”

  I laughed. “That was random. What’s your favorite book?”

  His eyes turned serious. “Don’t do that, Meg. I’ve seen you do that at school. You can talk about yourself. It won’t kill you. Tell me who you are.”

  “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

  “Okay. See, did that hurt?” He smiled as he watched me.

  “A little.”

  He waited quietly, studying my face, to see if I would say anything else. Finally he gave up and sighed. “So, I was born here,” he said. “My dad was born here. His dad was born here and that’s who I’m named after. We’ve got a ranch that’s been in the family a few generations, and I spend the majority of my time working.”