Sunset Ranch, page 4
“Jack wants me to work with these new guys to get them ready to take on the overnight pack trip. They’re all good camp horses, so it shouldn’t take much to get them ready.” He patted the black one on the shoulder. “And you’re supposed to help me,” Stephen went on. “So we get to work together.” He grinned at me.
“Oh. Okay.” My calm voice belied the handsprings going on inside me. I smiled at him and took a step closer. “It’ll be fun.”
I’d heard about this pack trip. It was the highlight of the summer, for the staff and the guests—a day’s ride up into the mountains, across streams, on narrow trails, to camp under the stars. The whole section went, and the guests were already talking about it.
“That’s what I was thinking.” Stephen’s eyes met mine.
“You get those horses in?” A loud voice from the doorway interrupted. Stephen’s face tensed as Rick strode in.
“I got them off the trailer, no problems. The black didn’t want to go in his stall, but I gave him some sweet feed and got him in that way.” His voice was slightly too loud, slightly too eager. I shifted uncomfortably. I knew Stephen worshipped his brother, but Rick was kind of scary. He always seemed to be teetering on the edge of some kind of anger precipice.
Rick didn’t reply. He looked the horses over carefully, running his hands over their heads and flanks, down to their legs, first the black, then the paint. When he got to the buckskin, the horse backed away and raised his head, trying to avoid the trainer’s hands. “Come here,” Rick muttered. He raised his hand to grab the horse’s halter, and the buckskin trembled, his eyes rolling.
“Easy, boy,” he murmured to the horse as he took hold of his head. Sweat streaked the animal’s fur, as Rick continued his inspection.
“Jack’s a damn fool,” the trainer grunted, straightening up.
“How come?” I gathered my courage enough to ask.
Rick shot me a glance, as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Look there,” he said, nodding toward the buckskin’s head.
I stepped closer and stifled a gasp. The horse’s forehead and cheeks and the sides of his neck and back were striped with scars—long, broad stripes of missing fur. “What happened?” I breathed, though I thought I knew.
“It looks like he’s been beaten,” Stephen said.
“He was heading for the meat factory, and Jack bid on him at the last minute.” Rick took a toothpick from his breast pocket and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. “Pretty clear now why no one else wanted him.”
“Oh, poor baby.” I raised my hand to pat the horse, and he shied away again.
“Head shy,” Rick said. “Watch yourself or you’ll be missing a couple fingers. This horse can’t go on the pack trip. I don’t even know why Jack bought him. He needs to go straight back where he came from.” He turned on his heel abruptly. “Tie that buckskin’s head. He’s going to bite anyone who comes near him.” He clomped out into the bright sunshine.
Stephen sprang forward and fastened the horse’s halter to a ring in the wall with a lead line. The horse’s head drooped.
“What’s going to happen to him?” I rested my chin on the top of the stall door. The horse craned his head to look at us. He looked so sad, tied up in the dark depths of the stall. “Does he really have to be tied?” I slid back the bolt and stepped into the stall. “There, boy,” I crooned, stroking his shoulder and neck. He dropped his head a little further and I ran my hand up his neck. Gently, I patted his broad, flat cheek. He didn’t jerk away this time. Instead he leaned up against me and pushed his heavy head against my arm.
“What’s going to happen to you?” I whispered to him again. He heaved a great sigh and half closed his eyes.
“You like that horse, do you?”
I realized there was another figure in the barn aisle now, instead of one. I eased back out of the stall to see Jack standing beside Stephen.
Jack hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Glad you like this gelding, but he’s just here for a couple weeks, Chloe. I only brought him with the others because Sandra couldn’t stand to see him up there on the auction block.” He smiled a little ruefully. “Forty years on the ranch and she still has a soft spot for the charity cases.”
“But what then?” I couldn’t keep the anxiety from my voice. “Where will he go after a couple weeks?”
Jack looked at me for a long moment. “I’m going to sell him again at the auction mart.” He spoke gently. “He might get a home or he might go for meat.”
“Meat!” Horror shot through me. Those big soft eyes and that gentle face going for meat! “No! You can’t do that.” The words were out of me before I remembered who I was talking to.
But Jack didn’t take offense. He sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to. But that’s the way of horses. They’re too expensive to keep if they’re not earning it.” He dropped a big, hard hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “He’ll get a bit of a vacation here first, anyway.”
Stephen and I looked at each other when Jack left. We were each hoping the other would speak first. “We should just turn him out,” Stephen finally said. “Let him eat grass for two weeks. It might be the last time he gets to.”
“Stephen, they can’t send him back!” I cried, pain twisting my heart all of a sudden. “They can’t! We have to keep him here.”
“Jack won’t. You heard him. He’s really strict about all the animals here earning their keep. Old Diamond’s the only one in retirement.”
I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth. “I can’t stand to think of him being . . . eaten.” Even saying the word sounded grotesque.
“Hey, don’t look so upset.” Stephen took my hand, and my stomach fluttered in spite of my anguish. “Look, let’s just make sure he has the best two weeks of his life.”
“We can give him extra grain.” I managed a smile.
“And let him stay out all night under the stars.” Stephen took my other hand. The conversation wasn’t just about the horse, I realized at the back of my mind.
His fingers were warm on mine. I took a tiny step closer to him. “And—”
“Hey, kids.”
Zach tromped in all of a sudden, and I jumped, my foot hitting a metal bucket with a clang. “Oh, hi!” I tried to look casual, but his amused eyes told me he knew exactly what I was flustered about. “What are you doing here?”
“I work here, actually.” He held out his hand. “Zach. Nice to meet you. I’m a summer worker—”
“Ha-ha.” I swatted his hand away.
He grinned and dropped down on an overturned mud bucket. “To answer your question, I was told to come over here and groom the new horses. Is that okay with you, or did you have another activity in mind?” He wagged his eyebrows suggestively at me.
“That’s fine,” Stephen broke in. “You should do what you were assigned.” He frowned at Zach, who slung a mocking arm around Stephen’s neck and put him in a headlock.
“Absolutely, bro. You give the orders; I follow them.”
Somehow I didn’t quite believe him.
Stephen broke free of his hold and straightened up, his hair standing up. “The grooming boxes are in the tack room.” He smoothed his hair down—a little fussily, I thought, then immediately chided myself. I sat down on a mud bucket.
“Hey, guys,” Zach greeted the horses. “How was the ride over? Did you get to stop for food? Go through the drive-thru? Order grain burgers?” He rubbed the black under his forelock, then noticed the buckskin. “How come this one’s tied?”
“Head shy,” Stephen said, with his back to Zach. He didn’t turn around.
“You should untie him.” Zach sounded perfectly assured.
“What did you say?” Stephen slowly faced him, his voice incredulous.
“I said you should untie that horse’s head,” Zach said smoothly. “Tying up’s the worst for a head-shy horse.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Stephen said. “My brother told me to tie him up. Don’t you think he would know, since he’s the trainer here?”
Zach shrugged, apparently unruffled. “Yeah, you’d think so.” He let that comment dangle in the air between the three of us.
Stephen was starting to get red in the face and puff. “Look, Zach,” I put in, “Rick said to tie him up. We have to listen to what he says.” A note clanged in the back of my mind, though, as I was speaking. We never tied our horses up in the stall at my stable. Still, Rick must know what he was talking about—he was in charge for a reason, after all.
But Zach got up, strolled over to the buckskin, and unlatched the door. The horse rolled his eyes and laid his ears back warningly, but Zach reached in, quick as an oiled snake, and pulled down hard on the safety-release catch of the lead line.
“Hey!” Stephen raised his voice. “Put that back! That horse bites, in case you didn’t notice.” A vein was throbbing in his neck.
Zach tossed the lead line, and Stephen caught it automatically. “Steve. If the horse is head shy, he’s going to feel even more freaked out being tied up by his head. Then he’ll never trust you.” He spoke slowly, as if addressing someone of limited intelligence.
“If he bites someone, he’ll be back to the glue factory!” Stephen shouted back, finally losing it. They were facing each other now, practically nose to nose.
Then Zach turned away abruptly. “No one’s giving this horse a chance,” he muttered. He strode over to the dusty window and gazed out, his hands jammed in his pockets. “He at least should have a chance.”
His words sparked in my mind. “What did you say?” I asked slowly.
Zach’s dark brow was knitted. “He should have a chance to at least try for a place here; that’s what I said.”
I jumped up from my mud bucket. “Do you think they’d give him an audition? If we worked with him, maybe?”
Stephen shook his head. “No. That’s not the way Rick and Jack do it. It’s okay. You guys haven’t been around here long enough to know.”
Zach caught my gaze and held it. Then the spark in me burst into flame. “Stephen!” I burst out. “It’s like you and Rick. You said he won’t give you a chance to try for assistant trainer—and this horse needs a chance too.” I was pacing now, the words tumbling from me. “What if—what if this was your big break? What if we asked if we could train him up? And then Rick would see that you really do know a bunch? And he’d promote you and the horse could be saved!”
“Could work,” Zach said from the window.
Stephen shook his head. “Chloe, I don’t think they’d go for it. They just don’t do that around here. Rick makes up his mind and that’s that.”
“But why not just try?” I persisted. “You never know until you ask. We’ll all go—the three of us.”
“I’m for it,” Zach said.
“Ah . . . I don’t know. I need to think about it.” Stephen strode out of the stable. Zach and I looked at each other, and then I hurried after him.
He was leaning on the pasture fence, his arms resting on the top rail, gazing out at the vast, waving grassland spread before us. Softly I came up next to him and leaned over the rail. I was silent and watched Diamond scratching his leg with his head. He switched his tail against the flies, and the breeze carried over the sweet-musty horse scent. To the west the mountains sat, calm, cool, blue-gray, and silent. Just gazing at them was restful. The grasses were rippling like water in the thin mountain air. Al was noisily slurping at the water tank, and somewhere very near my feet a cricket was trilling. I shifted slightly and the trilling stopped. I held very still. The trilling started again. A melody started in my head, combined with the cricket and the whistle of the wind—
“That guy can be kind of a jerk, don’t you think?”
The words jarred me out of my reverie, and I glanced at Stephen. He was still staring ahead, hands clasped.
“Well . . .” I searched around for the right words. “I think we’re all just trying to help the buckskin out, right?”
“He gets under my skin. I mean, how come he thinks he can just barge in and take over like that?” I could see the muscles in Stephen’s jaw clenched tight.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, um . . .” I cast around for some other, happier topic. “Which is your favorite horse?” I indicated the herd in front of us.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He furrowed his brow, thinking, and traced his thumb back and forth across the wooden rail. “Probably Hans.”
“Hans?” I laughed. The German name sounded incongruous in this land of Jims and Big Bills and Codys. “Which one is he?”
“That one.” Stephen leaned over to point. “That little fat chestnut beside the sagebrush.”
He was very near to me now, his shoulder touching mine, and I felt his breath just touch my cheek.
“Oh yeah, I see him.” Though at that moment I cared about Hans the Horse about as much as I cared about the state of North Korean politics. “How come he’s your favorite?” I pulled myself together enough to ask.
“He’s kind of an oddball—he’s a Haflinger, which is this Austrian breed. The Amish use them a lot. They usually pull buggies, but Jake brought this one out here a while ago because we didn’t have any ponies for the kids. But he’s so strong, he can carry a man too. He’s just a good little guy—totally willing, never offers to bite.”
His voice trailed off and he glanced at me, then looked down quickly. He ran his fingers back and forth rapidly along the fence. “We can do it.”
“What?”
“You were right. About talking to Rick. I was just getting all bothered by Zach being the one suggesting it. It’s actually a really good idea.” He smiled at me. “Sorry I was being stupid.”
I threw my arms around his neck and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you! When should we do it?”
“Morning’s the best time—they’re usually in the office right after breakfast. We can do it tomorrow.”
I squealed. “We’re going to make him the best horse on the whole ranch—and Rick will see how amazing you are, I know it.”
“I hope so.” Then he paused and cleared his throat. “Hey, um, do you remember when we were driving in and saw the Garden of the Gods? Well, I was thinking of going for a hike out there tomorrow. We have the afternoon off. You want to maybe come with me?” The tips of his ears were bright red.
“Oh! Yeah! Yeah.” I controlled my voice with an effort. He’s asking me out! He’s asking me out!
“Cool.” He cleared his throat, regaining his composure. “I know this great trail—it’s not marked, so no one goes on it, but my brother showed me once.”
“I love secrets.” My jaws ached from the strain of controlling my grin. “Sounds fun.” Or like heaven on earth. Whichever.
“Stephen!” Rick’s bark came from the hay shelter near the barn.
Stephen jumped as if he’d been pricked with a pin. “I have to go.” He threw me a quick smile. “Meet you after breakfast tomorrow?”
“Sure. I’ll tell Zach.” I watched as he scurried toward his brother, who was standing in a sweat-stained T-shirt, his fists on his hips.
I turned back to the pasture and rubbed my hand up and down Hans’s warm nose, already wrapped in daydreams of tomorrow.
ChapterFive
The sky was heavy with gray-bellied clouds when I met Stephen and Zach on the porch of the main house after breakfast the next morning, still chewing my last bite of tortilla-and-egg sandwich.
“You guys ready?” Zach asked, looking from me to Stephen.
Stephen shrugged. “I can’t guess what he’ll say.”
“No one’s saying you can, bro.” Zach’s voice already held an edge of irritation.
“All right, let’s go in,” I said, cutting them off. I swung open the screen door with more confidence than I felt.
Rick and Jack were sitting on either side of a battered metal desk heaped with papers, stirrup leathers, bits, and hay samples. In the corners of the stuffy little office, feed buckets were stacked five high, and the walls were hung with old and out-of-service bridles. I half admired a silver mounted one as we crowded the doorway.
Jack looked at us over his glasses. “What is it, folks?”
We wedged ourselves into the cramped space. Rick pushed his chair back with a scrape. “You hands need to get to your work.”
“We have a request for you first,” Zach said. He sounded so calm and direct.
“We were wondering if you’d let us work with the buckskin horse,” I said. “I know you said he’s only here temporarily, but we were thinking that maybe if we trained him up some, he could be a good ranch horse—and he could stay.” I stopped, my breath arrested in my throat.
“No.” Rick didn’t even bother to look at us. He opened a file folder on his lap and took out a schedule and handed it to Jack. “Get to work.”
That was it. Dismissed. Impotent anger choked me. He wasn’t even going to offer an explanation.
“That horse deserves a chance!” Stephen suddenly burst out. I could feel his arm trembling against mine. “No one’s sending him away without at least giving him a chance.”
Jack put down the schedule.
“What did you say?” Rick asked slowly. Dangerously.
Jack stood up and pulled three feed buckets from the corner. “Sit down, you three.”
We sat.
“Now, tell me what’s going on here.” Jack spoke to all of us, but he was looking at Stephen.
“We feel like the buckskin could be a good horse, sir,” Zach jumped in smoothly. “He has potential. Chloe, Stephen, and I can school him every day. If he’s not doing good in a month or two, send him back to the auction then. That’s our proposal.”
“I can do this,” Stephen broke in. He was talking to Rick. “Just wait. He’ll be the best guest horse on the ranch.”
“If you’re looking to be assistant trainer because of this horse, there’s no promises.” Rick spit the words out like apple seeds.
