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Linda’s voice was weak when she asked, “What is it?”
She knew exactly what was about to happen. Why had she even bothered celebrating?
“Were you able to complete the sign-ups for the new horses?”
“Yes, they’re already in the stables. Almost all the stalls are full now.”
“Almost?”
“Yes, but there’s only one left and I’m sure one of the new students will bring their horse in sooner or later, if they decide to continue their lessons.” Linda became nervous and apologetic. “I can start calling them if you want me to, if you want them all full.” She wasn’t going to let anything stop her from getting to the rodeo, not even her pride. She was willing to play right along with this woman if she had to.
“I’m not concerned with that. You’ve clearly accomplished what was asked of you.”
“I... have?” Linda asked, suspicious but trying not to sound suspicious.
“Yes.” Her stepmothers’ attitude, which was always a very subtle art to interpret when she wasn’t outright screaming, perceptibly changed to be ever so slightly positive. “I’m quite impressed with what you’ve accomplished lately. Your ingenuity has produced results that are undeniable. In fact, the way you painted that barn was almost like,” a frown formed on the woman’s face and she turned her head slightly away, disturbed by the word she was about to use.
“Like magic, I know, that’s what it seemed like, but I just got some friends to help me, it was no big deal.”
“Nonsense,” the woman said softly, her head still turned away in thought. She turned back to Linda and resumed her praise. “Nonsense. You’ve done exactly as I asked and in commendable time.”
But the reassuring words were a dead giveaway. Frustrated with them and becoming fed up, Linda challenged her stepmother in an attempt to spring the trap this woman was most likely setting. “And yet, I’m sure there are plenty of other things you plan on asking me to do in order to earn that day off.”
“And what would make you think that?”
Cautious, Linda pressed on as gently as she could, yet was very honest with her. “Because if you don’t want me to go, you’re going to keep handing me chores even though I’ve done quite a bit already.”
“No, Linda. Our little game of back and forth will not go on forever.”
“When will it end? When you give me the option of being fired and losing the stables or missing the rodeo?”
“Why is it that you want to attend this rodeo so badly?”
“Because I like Blake. He’s leaving and I’ve been waiting a long time to see him in action. He’s a talented rider. Maybe this is my only chance.”
“And you’d do pretty much anything to be there for it, wouldn’t you?”
“To be honest, yes, but there’s only so much I can do! If this whole thing is a setup for guaranteed failure, I’d be better off not trying at all.”
“I agree. You’d be a fool to play along if you thought the game was unwinnable.”
“I’m probably a fool, then.”
“You’re insinuating that I’m a liar. Do you think that’s what I am? That I would go back on my word?”
Linda didn’t know how to respond without making her angry.
“I’m just trying to get a day off work, that’s all.”
“And you shall have it.”
Linda couldn’t stand it! She knew the woman was lying! Or at least not telling her the whole truth.
“But...?” Linda prompted the woman, which elevated her anger just above the perceivable level.
“Linda, your skepticism and attitude are not assisting you in your situation. Are you accusing me of something?”
Linda decided not to let this escalate further, at least not before she found out what the woman’s next move was.
“I just want to know what I have to do to make it to that rodeo.”
“And do you think I would somehow forget to tell you? That I would leave you guessing on your own, blindly reaching for an unnamed goal?”
“So there is something.”
“I never said there wasn’t.”
“But you haven’t said there is, yet.”
“Because I was taking a moment to congratulate you on your accomplishments! I would like to be given a moment to acknowledge what you have done so that you don’t accuse me of being blind to it! What other accusations will I be subjected to this evening? Besides being unfair and a liar? Are you enjoying this? Picking on a poor, old woman? I am not unreasonable, Linda, I’ve told you that!”
Her stepmother was not a poor, old woman either.
“Alright, you’re right, I’m sorry.” Linda hesitated, knowing she should just let the woman speak, but she couldn’t help herself. “I would just really like to know if you’re going to give me something impossible to do.”
The woman looked at her stepdaughter with hidden disbelief. The insolence of this girl!
“And what if I told you that I was only going to ask you to take care of one additional chore for me?”
Linda, still very skeptical, responded, “Something that will take weeks? Months? You know the rodeo is in a few days.”
“Something that will take an hour and a half at most,” the woman yelled, the volume of her voice rising with every word as her patience finally broke, “but I would be happy to set you off scrubbing every square inch of the stables with a toothbrush, if that’s what you’re so committed to doing!”
"No, no," Linda backed off, against her better judgment, she committed herself to stop making this worse and just find out what was to be asked of her, "whatever it is, I'll do it."
Linda’s curiosity had been piqued and she was contemplating the truthfulness and hopefulness of something the woman had said. “You said it would only take an hour and a half?” she asked, starting to believe her.
And then, after a moment of prolonged stoicism in the expression on the woman in front of her, when a tiny little flame of hope had finally sparked in Linda and she felt actual enthusiasm manifest inside, that’s when she saw it.
The very thin, impossibly subtle, devilish little smirk peel the edge of the woman’s mouth up, ever so slightly.
It was then that Linda knew, despite all her best efforts, she had lost.
It had not been enough for her stepmother to crush her humble ambition: taking a day off of work, one time, to attend an event that, to her, would be spectacular enough to make a whole month of her life worth living. The woman had insisted on implanting a false hope in her as well, only to snuff it out like a candle. All it took was a fraction of an expression of satisfaction on the woman's face and that hope was lost.
The woman spoke.
“With all the new business you’ve brought into the stables, it is in our best interest to make room for additional customers, should they appear. Since you are almost certainly correct about the demand for boarding, based on how many students you were able to produce, I would find it prudent to create an additional space in the barn.”
“You want me to, what, build a stall?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I told you, all I am asking is for an additional hour and a half of your time.”
Linda racked her brain to try to imagine what this woman was up to, but she couldn’t come up with anything that made sense.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s very simple. I need you to vacate one of the stalls.”
“You want to get rid of one of the horses? How would that help anything?”
“Not a horse, no.”
Linda thought for a moment.
“Carl?”
“If you’re referring to the mule in the stall on the end, then yes.”
“You want me to get rid of Carl?”
Linda felt worried, having grown quite affectionate towards stubborn little Carl the mule, or “hinny” as Blake would like her to call him.
“Yes, that’s what I want you to do.”
Linda didn’t bother feeling sorry for herself, imagining how she would miss old Carl, not yet, because it still didn’t make sense. How would this benefit anyone? Why get rid of one renter for another? And how would she get rid of Carl anyway?
“But what am I supposed to do? Evict him?”
“I have someone willing to take the mule.”
“Take him? Does his owner want someone else to have him? I don’t get it. Have you spoken to the owner?”
“That animal’s owner wants nothing to do with it.”
“How do you know? Did you talk to him?”
“I didn’t have to.”
“And you’re sure that he doesn’t mind you giving Carl away to someone else?”
“Not giving away, selling.”
“Someone’s going to buy Carl? This doesn’t make sense! He’s old! And he’s cranky! You could never hunt with him or really pack anything with him. He’d be worth more money as,” and she stopped talking.
Linda’s stomach, as it was known to do when her stepmother got a grip on it, turned to jelly and became sick, sinking down in her body and pulling the words from her mouth with it.
Her stepmother did not confirm anything out loud; she only took the time to watch what was happening to Linda as she was figuring it out for herself.
Her words came out weak, her lungs not cooperating with her efforts, the muscles required to talk having little energy.
“Are you selling him to a hunter?”
“No, Linda.”
Linda’s mouth was dry.
“A farmer then.”
“No.”
She was in disbelief, finding a way to make this untrue or stop it from happening in her reeling mind.
“But his owner wanted him to be at the stables!”
“His owner has not paid his boarding fees in months. Attempts were made to contact him, but they were in vain; he has moved away permanently and left the animal behind. It has been abandoned and now the wise thing to do would be to recover some of the losses boarding him has cost us.”
“Okay,” Linda argued nervously, “no problem, I’ll just help get the money owed on his board.”
"Yes," her stepmother said as her face lit up with an awful, fiery grin, "you will."
Linda gasped. “Please,” she begged.
“I’ve already arranged it.”
“Please, we can figure something else out.”
“Mr. Harris will be hauling a group of horses at the end of their lives up to a factory Canada in a few days. He’s very generously offered to include the mule in the group for us. You should be very happy, Linda. The animal has been completely useless and now it will be doing some good.” She smiled enough to actually reveal her teeth, harsh and old, sharp and yellow porcelain made for tearing flesh. “He’ll keep a lot of dogs from going hungry.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Give yourself some credit. Mr. Harris has kindly offered to let you borrow a small horse trailer, he only asks that you bring the animal up to his farm, he will take care of the rest.”
“No, I mean Carl is like a pet to me! He’s not old enough for the factory yet! I just, I won’t do it.”
“Are you saying that you won’t complete this last chore?”
“Yes, there has to be another way.”
"There is not another way that I can see. The money for that animal's feed, bedding, and board is owed to me. If you will not help me recover it, then you will not attend the rodeo."
“But there’s lots of money coming in! It’s not like it cost a bunch to keep the animal, just some oats and hay, and I did the work anyway.”
“That’s not the point, Linda, I will not be taken advantage of. The unwanted animal cannot stay at the stables and its owner has left it behind. What would you like me to do? Set it to run free in the wild? Dump it on the side of the road? If I sell it to the factory I’ll get double what it’s worth alive. It’s a ragged old thing, I’ve seen it. It’s time to let the animal go. Even you can see why this is the most practical decision.”
"Okay, but I won't do it!"
“And you don’t have to! And you won’t attend your precious rodeo and you can say goodbye to your cowboy now instead, and I’ll get the animal to the factory anyway! I’m only giving you an opportunity!”
“You’re not giving me anything!” Linda screamed. “You’re just trying to torture me! You could get a few hundred bucks selling him as a backyard pet and that would be plenty! You’re selling him for meat because you know I like him and you want to hurt me! Just admit it!”
The woman nodded her head and, to Linda’s shock, said, “Yes.”
Linda gasped.
“But why?” Linda asked on the verge of tears.
The idea that Linda did not know enraged her stepmother. It offended her.
“You act like you don’t know.”
Linda did know, and she lost control of herself, screaming at her stepmother. "Why do you have to be such a nasty, old witch!? Your own daughters are spoiled brats who don't help with anything, yet you give them anything they want! I'm constantly working like a slave for the three of you like your personal Cinderella and yet you do nothing but abuse me! How can you be so awful to me!?”
At this insubordination, the fire of the woman's madness flared up in full display and she shrieked.
“Because you are not my daughter and I don’t like you!”
The airway into Linda’s lungs clenched and, with her mouth open, she could not draw a breath.
Anger and fear filled her lungs instead.
As Linda ran into the front yard, her hands covering her eyes as they spouted tears, she slowed herself and sat down on the front steps, furious at her father for leaving her with this monster. She blubbered into her hands and tried to squeeze the pain out like a sponge, emptying it into her palms with gasping breaths.
The tears came for a while, uninterrupted.
“Everything alright?” a calm voice asked from nearby.
Blake was standing in front of her, his approach unnoticed because of her crying.
She stood and went to him, putting her head into his chest and latching onto his torso.
“You’re here?” she asked with a wet, stuffed up nose.
“I told you we were going out tonight.”
“But I didn’t know you were coming right now.”
“Well, I’m here.”
A few more tears came and then she wiped them away and took his hand.
“Come on,” she said and pulled him towards the truck.
“Do you want to go somewhere?”
“Not here.”
They got in the truck and drove and Linda looked out the window as emotions stirred and settled and eventually she composed herself.
Blake pulled off where there was a place to park near some long, wet grass and a herd of cattle standing together, brushing against each other under a blanket of stars.
Blake got out of the truck and lowered the tailgate at the rear and sat on it, waiting for Linda, who made her way there when she could. They sat on the tailgate looking at cows in the middle of wide-open Montana, his arm keeping her warm.
“She wants me to sell Carl to the factory.”
“The mule?”
“The hinny.”
“Has he gotten too old?”
“He’s old, but it’s not that.”
“She’s just trying to get under your skin?”
“Yeah.”
A cowbell was ringing out in the field with the animals and Blake was trying to identify which cow had it around its neck, but everything on the ground was grey in the darkness. Everything in the sky was black and white.
“Well, he wasn’t going to live forever.”
“It’s not that either. I know animals die. I don’t even mind sending an animal off to the factory, if it’s time. We have to euthanize most horses in the end anyway, they just get too old. What’s the difference what happens after? It’s not like I’m going to cremate him. Keep him on my mantle or something. He might as well be of some use, like she said. That’s the way it would be in the wild. But Carl’s got a couple good years left, and he’s good for the barn. He just fits in there. He keeps me company when the horses are being a pain and I’m not ready to let him go yet.”
“Why does she want to get rid of him?”
“That’s why! Because she knows I like him. His owner abandoned him but that doesn’t matter, I could take care of him. She says we need to make room for another horse. We brought in all those new customers and she’s punishing me for it. She wants me to think it’s my fault that Carl has to go.”
Linda started crying again and curled up onto Blake.
“She doesn’t sound like a very nice lady.”
Linda shook her head.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Well,” Blake said as he reached for something he had set behind him in the back of the truck, “I know it’s not exactly a night to celebrate, but I brought you something.” He handed her a plastic bag with something inside and, noticing that the bag was somewhat unpresentable, he said, “I didn’t wrap it because, well, why would I?”
Linda pulled back the plastic and, in the dark, could see the shine from the dress she wore to the barn dance. Her hand ran over the details of the lace.
“You bought it?”
Blake nodded, the brim of his cowboy hat moving up and down. “That’s why I had to leave earlier, the store was going to close.”
Touching the dress reminded her that the night of the dance now felt like years ago. It reminded her what a dream it had been, spending the time she had with Blake.
“You could have done it tomorrow.”
Blake shook his head. “Not gonna be here tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving?”
Blake nodded.
“Why?”
“I have to go down to Helena early to meet up with the guys, plan some things. Set up a few travel partners. I’m gonna meet a kid who might be my road buddy down in Australia. He only just went pro, but I hear he’s alright.”
“And you’re not coming back before the rodeo?”
“No, we’re just going to hang out for a few days and loosen up on some practice bulls. I do it before every season with some of the guys. A friend has a house there in Helena.”
“And then after the rodeo?”
“You know what happens after. I hit the road.”
Linda didn’t want to cry onto her dress and she covered it with the plastic.
“This is it, then.”
“No. I’ll see you at the rodeo.”
Linda tried bravely not to let the tears come, but it had all been so much.
“But I don’t know if I can go to the rodeo!”
“What’s stopping you?”
“I told you! I don’t know if I can take Carl to the dog food guy!”
“We’ll figure something out.”
"No, we won't!"
Linda said, less reasonable as the tears came.
“We’ll think of something. Everything’s going to be just fine,” Blake said as he rubbed his hand in circles on her back.
"No, it won't. You're going to Helena."
“Helena’s not so bad.”
"Yes, it is," Linda said, defeated, crying, and rambling. "You guys are going to go to a bar and dance under a disco ball, and then some beautiful girl in a ball gown is going to come dance with you and a waiter's going to have champagne and everyone's going to take shots off each other like spring break and then you'll fall in love with her."
Blake was impressed with her imagination.
“Have you ever been in a bar?”
“No.”
“That’s not usually what happens.”
“What happens?”
“You drink pitchers of flat, cheap beer in a place with a sticky floor and either play darts or pool, neither of which are any fun.”
“Then why do you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t go.”
“I have to.”
Linda wiped her eyes and Blake rubbed the rest of the hysterics out of her shoulders. Finally, she took one of those quivered breaths at the end of tears and was done.
“Thank you for the dress, Blake,” she said, her nose stuffed.
“I couldn’t let it go to someone else.”
“Too bad I’ll never wear it again.”
“Sure you will. At the rodeo.”
“Do you really care if I make it?”
“Of course I do, I need you there!”
“Why?”
“Because I’m flat broke, for one, I spent my last money on that dress.”
“If you’re looking for money you are absolutely talking to the wrong person.”
“Not from you, but I could use a check from that rodeo.”
"Well, I can't help you with that. Sorry."
“Sure you can. I need someone in the stands cheering me on to calm my nerves, keep me focused. It helps a lot.”
“You’re forgetting one thing, Blake. Helena is only twenty miles from here, you’re gonna have lots of people there cheering for you.”
“But I need someone I care about.”
Linda didn’t know how to respond. If only Blake knew how much she cared about him.
“I’ll try to make it, Blake. But to do that, I’ll have to sell the mule.”
“Would she really fire you if you don’t? Take everything away?”
“I think so.”
“There might be another way. If you wait ‘till after the rodeo, and I win something, I could buy the mule.”
Linda shook her head.
“It’ll be too late then.”
“Then you’ll just have to decide what you want.”
“I don’t want to choose between you and Carl.”
“You really think she would lose her best worker?”
“She would lose the stables! She doesn’t care. She already spent the money it’s worth and it doesn’t bring in much.”
“It does now!”
“She doesn’t care. She’d be just as happy getting rid of me.”
“Maybe somebody else will buy the mule. I’d try to find someone but I’m leaving.”
“Not for the price we can get from the factory. You really don’t have any money?”
“Not enough. I’ve seen how fat he is and they pay by the pound. The start of the season is always the lightest time of year. I just have enough to travel with.”
“What about the big win in Laramie? Or the other big prizes?”
“A couple big checks over nine years doesn’t go too far. It costs money to get around and I borrowed some early on that I had to pay back. I’m sleeping in the truck until I get a check, and I’ve never won anything on the first few rides of the season, it always takes me a while to loosen up. That’s why I need you there. If you come, maybe I could place with a check. And if I do, I could buy the mule.”
“It’ll be too late.”
"No, it won't. She's not going to sell him."
"Yes, she will! If I go, she'll sell him anyway, she told me that!"
“Maybe you could, I don’t know, hide him somewhere.”
“Hide a mule?”
“I don’t know.”
“This isn’t a sit-com. I’m not going to hide him in my room. And I can’t steal him anyway. There isn’t a good answer for this.”
“We don’t have one. Not yet. But maybe we’ll think of one in time. Or maybe someone else will come along and save the day.”
“Maybe,” said Linda, thinking of her elusive fairy godmother. “And if that doesn’t happen,”
“He’ll make a lot of dogs very happy.”
Linda lowered her head and shook it.
“So cruel. The world is so cruel.”
“It’s not so bad.”
For a while, only the cowbell made noise and it got so dark they couldn't see each other, and it got cold.
Blake turned the heater on in the truck, even though it was the beginning of summer.
The ride home was too short and Linda wished she could stay out with Blake, but he seemed to have things to do.
When the truck pulled to a stop, Linda had the gut-wrenching feeling of knowing that, if she didn't end up making it to the rodeo, this was their goodbye. Their magical adventure was over.
She put her arms around his neck and held on.
“I’ll see you in a few days,” he said.
But, just in case, she held on for a little longer.
“You really think it’ll make a difference if I get there?” she asked, weighing her options.
“Yeah.”
“Why?” she asked, pulling away from him to see his face and interpret it.
“You don’t know?”
“Not really, no.”
“I would kiss you but I still don’t think you’d get it.”
Linda put her arms around him again and pressed her cheek against the buttons on his chest.
“You can kiss me if you want to, Blake.”
But for now, they only held each other.
In time, Blake made his way down the road in his truck.
When the sound of the engine was gone, Linda stepped out into the middle of the street, alone, not seeing much but looking left and right.
“Fairy godmother?” she asked, hoping.
But there was no response.