Chapter 30

 

I never would have guessed Rusty’s solution to my problem. All I can say is I thought he was nuts.

A man rang my doorbell one evening. I was afraid to open the door. Seems like whenever I open the door disaster enters my life. Rusty went to the door and opened it without looking out the peephole. He must have been expecting someone. I wished he’d told me so I could have been dressed for company. There stood a middle aged cowboy. He wore very worn and faded blue jeans over dusty boots, a white western shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a bent up straw cowboy hat. He took off his hat when he saw a lady was present. He had serious hat hair. The band was pressed into his slightly overgrown hair. His blue eyes were sharp, reflecting a kind heart and a quick mind.

“Cassidy, this is Farley McGyver. Farley, this is my wife, Cassidy.”

I shook Farley’s hand and he said, “Good to meet you.” His voice was quiet and kind making me think he knew more about me than I did about him.

I was wary. This had the smell of one of Rusty’s surprises. I had to be nice but I wasn’t sure I was happy about whatever he had up his sleeve.

“Farley has a project for you. If you will take it on, I think it’ll be good for you. He has a three-year-old horse that needs to get used to people. I told him you had experience with horses, that you were particularly good at gentling unruly horses in training.”

I looked at him dumbfounded. He wanted me to train a horse? When I couldn’t even walk around the block?

“What are your plans for this horse?” I asked Farley. My voice sounded like it was coming from far away, but it was important to keep the ultimate goal in mind when training a horse, so I persevered despite my reluctance.

“He was given to my school. I have horses that handicapped kids ride. It helps them develop balance and self-esteem. Their coordination improves dramatically when they learn to ride and care for a horse. I have kids in and out of the stables all day. I can use all the horses I can get but I can only have horses at the ranch that I can trust with the kids. If I get one I can’t let the kids ride, I foster it out. All I need is someone to work with him. It doesn’t matter how long it takes as long as it’s done right.”

“So you just need him to respond to basic riding commands and be gentle with kids?”

“If that’s possible. If you have really good luck with him I’ve got some kids getting advanced enough to try jumping. It wouldn’t be high jumps, just enough so the kids have to develop some better riding skills.”

“Is he saddle broke?”

“He was at one point. The former owners didn’t have time to devote to him so he needs a refresher course.”

“Is he sound?”

“Yes, and he’s a beautiful horse. The kids love pintos because they are flashy. The kids will learn anything to be able to graduate to this horse.”

“And we’re not on a time table?”

“None at all.”

“Because I’ve got some handicaps of my own right now.”

Farley looked concerned.

“Do you think this horse is too much for you?”

“No horse is too much for me. Put him in the corral.”

He raised an eyebrow at that but Rusty just grinned. Okay, he had me. I wanted to see this horse. While the men brought the horse around back I changed into jeans, a camouflage t-shirt and boots. I brushed my hair. I was amazed how much I had let myself go in my depression. When I went out back, already tired from just getting dressed, there was, indeed, a beautiful pinto horse in the corral.  He was ready to be out of the trailer and he had energy to boot. He pranced around the corral tossing his head. I walked to the corral and ducked through the fence. Rusty almost stopped me.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“The kids wanted to name him Apache because they think he looks like an Indian pony. Then one kid pointed out that he’s a patchy horse so the name stuck.”

“Where’s the rope?” I asked.

He handed one over. I formed a loop and walked toward Apache. I lassoed him easily, much to the surprise of both men. I followed the rope closer. I looked over the horse from head to toe. He stamped his hoof at me and I gave him a stern “ah ah” so he’d know he was overstepping his bounds. I lifted his hoof and he jerked his leg away. I tried again. I wanted to make sure he was properly outfitted and I wanted to see if he was used to being handled.

“Where’s his tack?”

“You’re not going to try and ride him today, are you?”

“He’s that rusty?”

“That’s your call.”

I led Apache around the corral. He was spunky. I wasn’t sure if he was ready for a rider or not but I wanted to find out while Farley was still here.

“Let’s give it a try.”

I didn’t get to ride Apache that day. He startled whenever the saddle touched his back. He was going to take some work. He was used to a halter but fought the bit. Farley put two saddles, a bridle, about a week’s worth of hay and a couple of grooming brushes in the barn. I had me a horse. Temporarily.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” Farley asked.

“No,” I admitted. “But it’s worth a try. We’ll be working each other.”

When Farley was safely down the road I faced Rusty, hands on hips. “What makes you think I’ll take in any mean spirited horse that someone else doesn’t want to work with?”

Rusty just grinned broadly. “It’s working already,” he said. “It’s good to see you mad.”

“What?”

“Babe, you’ve been so depressed I didn’t even know if you knew how to feel any more. It’s a good sign that you’re mad.”

“I’m not mad yet. Why do you pull these things on me without talking to me first?”

“You know why.”

“I do?”

“You know you can’t say no to a horse. But if I talked to you ahead of time you wouldn’t have felt up to it. Give you a horse and a challenge and I knew you’d be up to it. Farley always has a horse he needs worked. He chose Apache specifically for you. You can’t go on a call anyway, so why not work on you and Apache for a few weeks?”

“You are a sneak!” I said.

“Thank you,” he replied smugly.

He was also a genius. At first I could only work with Apache feeding and socializing him. Just feeding Apache tired me. While I rested and he ate I ran my hands over him. While he was still calm I picked up each hoof. After a few days I began working on his hooves with a pick. I didn’t do any riding for several days and, when I did, I only rode late in the afternoon when I knew Rusty would be home soon. Riding didn’t take much energy but it took plenty of concentration. Concentration on the horse took my mind off of the attack. I dragged into the house each evening, but I dragged in after working, not lying around having flashbacks all day.

When I finally did climb into the saddle Apache gave me a run for my money. Before I even sat in the saddle he tried to knock me off by squashing me against the fence. When I jumped into the saddle and moved my leg out of the way of the fence he began dancing around, trying to shake me. He didn’t really buck but he was clearly irritated at having a passenger. I just sat the saddle rubbing Apache’s neck and talking to him, telling him what a good boy he was, making friends from my perch on his back.

 

“Babe, you’re amazing,” Rusty said. “Do you know how far you’ve come in the past week? You haven’t had nightmares for a couple of nights.”

“I’m doing better during the day, too,” I admitted. I could feel it, but I no longer lived the violence of the attack. The gunshot would be with me for years, but I’d managed to leave some of the violence behind.

Apache was slower to come around. He’d tolerate me in the saddle but he spent most of the time trying to get me off. He was young and feisty and didn’t want to be restrained. He wanted to be in control. I couldn’t let him. So my determination got a work out. It was a gradual process, half peer pressure, making friends, learning trust. The other half was the opposite, establishing authority. The two worked together in an odd way and each day it had to be attacked from a different angle.

Every morning I fed Apache and groomed him, checked his hooves, legs, ears, and teeth, not because I was worried about him but because he needed to be used to handling. I fed him little bits of carrot with the admonition to “be gentle.” When I fed him whole carrots he nearly tore my hand off grabbing at the treat. Smaller pieces he had to feel around for and there was more time to talk to him and praise him when he was gentle.

We worked on all the basic commands in the saddle and some that I deemed necessary for his job. I taught Apache to stay put when his rider left him. I’d ride for a while and get off and he was supposed to stay until I told him otherwise. It was important that, if his rider fell off, he stand by patiently. So at first I stayed close and upright. But he needed to know that, no matter what his rider did, he still had to stay, so I lay on the ground, like a fallen rider waiting for him to break his stay so I could correct him.

One day, as I lay on the ground, Rusty came home and looked out the back door. I heard the back door open and hurried footsteps. I waited to see if Apache would stay. As Rusty climbed over the corral fence Apache shied away and I corrected him.

“Ah ah! Stay!” I told him. I put him back in place.

“Oh god, Cassidy, you scared me half to death. I thought you’d been thrown.”

“We’re just training. He’s learning to stay.”

“You could have told me that before I had a heart attack.”

“I love you, too,” I said with a kiss.

 

Apache’s first trail ride showed me some areas we needed to work on. I put on the western saddle, glad I could finally lift it easily. I pointed Apache down Lost Hills Road and we set out at a leisurely pace. He startled when a car eased by on the road but I held him to a walk, praising him as the car disappeared down the road. I took note, we needed to practice working in the midst of distractions. Rusty could help with that. We continued down the road and then up a little dirt road that I knew went deeper into the hills. When the road opened out I sent Apache into a nice easy canter. He enjoyed stretching his legs and I enjoyed the free feeling of just being a girl on a horse on a ride in the hills. It reminded me of summers as a kid near my parent’s ranch.

The desert and junipers gradually turned to pine trees. Apache was used to wide open spaces but as long as I was there he seemed to accept his surroundings. I heard a motorcycle coming down the road and braced for Apache’s reaction. Unfortunately it was some damn fool person who enjoyed a good show. When he saw a horse on the road he gunned his engine. The loud buzz of the engine made Apache go crazy. The motorcycle roared by and Apache reared. As the bike roared past he bucked. I was hoping he’d give the motorcycle a good kick, but he took off running as fast as he could down the road as I cursed the motorcycle rider a mile a minute. If the circumstances were different I would have enjoyed the run but the road twisted and turned and I was afraid he’d barrel into a surprise as he dashed around the turns. There was a ranger truck ahead and a man stood by the side of the road with a chainsaw.

No! I thought as the man pulled the cord and the machine started up with a sharp buzz. Apache startled in another direction. He barreled off the road through a patch of thick undergrowth. He tripped in his hurry and we both rolled down the embankment, horse and rider a tangle of arms, legs and tack.

 

“Don’t move,” a voice told me gently. It was the ranger with the chainsaw.

“Where’s my horse?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about the horse. Just stay still. Paramedics will be here soon.”

“Paramedics? No! Send them back.”

“No way, look at you! Nothing’s pointing the right direction.”

“Well, it will be in a minute. Send them back. I’m only allowed one call per station per week. I don’t want to use up my one call on a tumble off a horse.”

The ranger just gawked at me, not believing I was still in one piece.

I started sorting out limbs. “How long was I out?”

“Fifteen minutes. What do I have to do pin you down?”

“The paramedics will tell you that doesn’t work. They’ll see it’s me and get out their little clipboard. I’ll sign their little form that says I refuse treatment and they will go home shaking their heads just like they do ninety-nine percent of the time. It’s that little one percent they worry about, so they come. Of course, they are also coming because they don’t know it’s me yet. You just watch. When they see it’s me their whole attitude will change.”

“Who are you?”

“Trouble. How long have you worked up here?”

The ranger would have laughed at that if he hadn’t been so worried. A little blonde woman, named Trouble, yeah, right.

“Five years,” he said.

“I’m surprised we haven’t met yet. You work with Kelly Green?”

“Occasionally.”

“Ask Kelly Green who Trouble is. If you tell him about this, he won’t be the least bit surprised.”

The red rescue squad truck pulled to a stop on the road above us. By then I had all my limbs going the right direction and I was picking sticks and leaves out of my hair. The guys jumped out and got their trusty medical boxes off the truck.

“Hold it,” Antonio said. “It’s just Cassidy.”

He put the box back and walked forward, hands on hips, an irritated look on his face.

“Don’t blame me! I didn’t call you. He did,” I said pointing to the ranger. “Did you see a brown and white pinto on your way in?”

“We weren’t exactly looking for a horse.”

“Was Rusty’s Explorer at the house when you passed?”

“We passed him coming up Sunset Road.”

“Shoot.”

“You need a ride?”

“No, I need to find my horse. Can you stop by the house and tell Rusty not to worry, that I’ll be home as soon as I find Apache?”

“I guess,” answered Antonio. “I still owe you one for finding Eva.”

“No you don’t. But if Rusty’s worried he might just call you out to look for me, so it might be worth your while to stop.”

“How are you going to find your horse?” the ranger asked.

The paramedics and I all looked at each other wondering which one of them would answer first.

“If there’s one thing this kid can do it’s find a horse.”

“Yeah, catching up with him today might be the tough part,” I added, “and I’m not going to catch him standing around talking. Where’s your handy little form?”

“You’re really going to let her off that easily?” The ranger asked. “She was unconscious when I got to her. I would have sworn every bone in her body was broken.”

“What happened?” Antonio asked withholding judgment a few minutes more.

“I took a tumble with a horse.”

“A tumble? That was not a tumble,” the ranger insisted. “The horse rolled over the top of her! I didn’t expect her to survive.”

“Sounds like a normal Cassidy call to me,” said Antonio, then he ordered me to sit. I sat with a sigh. He got out his box, gave me the quick check: pulse, blood pressure, light shined in the eyes, felt for broken bones.

Antonio got out his clipboard and put the proper form on top. I signed wondering how thick the folder for these forms was and how many of the forms in it had my signature on them.

“Thanks guys,” I said to the paramedics.

“Take care, Cassidy.”

“And thanks…”

“Tate.”

“Thanks Tate, you talk to Kelly and you’ll find out more about me than you ever wanted to know.”

I walked down the embankment and looked at the crushed branches and trampled ground.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tate asked.

“Yeah, just getting my bearings. I’m a tracker. I’m trying to see how banged up the horse is. I’ll be on my way shortly.”

I found Apache’s trail and followed it easily. A horse is about the easiest animal to track. They are big and heavy and their shoes leave distinctive prints. They trample brush. I heard the chainsaw start up again behind me. Antonio drove away with a wave, back to my house and the station. It was hard to assess Apache’s injuries. The brush was thick and hid the intricacies of the tracks. He was on his feet and moving. That was good news.

The main problem was I was not up to walking very far. Since the miscarriage I had one mishap after another. I had been housebound for weeks before Apache came along and since then I had only walked enough to train him. Walking from house to corral to barn did not take much effort. I walked slowly, conserving energy, knowing I might need some left over when I located the horse. If he didn’t want to be caught I might have a chase on my hands. Maybe I should have had the guys send Rusty out here looking for me.

It was getting late and I had no food or water along. I knew if I had to head for home, I’d make it eventually. The problem was the eventually part. I thought about how far it was. I was guessing three or four miles. Normally that was a morning’s hike. Now it was anybody’s guess how long it could take. I sighed and admitted I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I decided it was more important to be findable. I could come back in the morning and locate Apache with better resources, so I headed for the road. By the time I got there I had to rest. I alternated walking and resting as I made my way homeward. The sun set and still I kept up the pattern until bright headlights appeared in front of me and the Explorer pulled up.

“Hey beautiful! Headed my way?” Rusty said.

I climbed into the Explorer and he took me home. He tried to keep things upbeat but the fact remained. I was beat and I had a horse loose in the woods.

“Maybe he’ll come back on his own. You always said that horses have barn radar.”

“I don’t know if he considers our house his home. He might remember the way. He might want to come back here but he hasn’t been here long. I still need to go back out and find him.”

“I think I can help,” Rusty said.

“How?”

“You think this hasn’t happened to Farley’s troublemakers before? I bet if we need a horse to get us out there to find Apache he’ll bring us a horse that’ll do the job. He’ll probably be amazed Apache was ready for a trail ride.”

“He obviously wasn’t.”

 

In the morning Farley brought two horses, saddled, bridled and ready to go.

“Are you okay?” he asked me. “Rusty told me what happened.”

“Yeah, I scared a ranger half to death, but I’m okay. Apache needs to learn to work with loud noises around him. I didn’t know that when I set out. Cars, motorcycles, chainsaws. He panicked at any loud noise. Are these riding horses we’re on, or roping horses?”

“Riding horses. I don’t have much use for a roping horse with kids doing beginner exercises in a ring.”

“Okay, I’m used to working with roping horses. I just wanted to know what to expect.”

The difference could mean catching Apache or losing him again. A roping horse has an entirely different reaction to a chase than a riding horse.  A roping horse knows the cues, and senses when to stop and help set the rope. A riding horse only obeys commands related to riding. What it boiled down to was that I couldn’t count on my horse to help once the rope was set.

I led Farley to the last place I’d seen Apache’s hoof prints and we started down the trail again. When the tracks were clear I rode, when they weren’t I walked. Farley was puzzled. Guess I hadn’t made it exactly clear how I was going to find Apache.

After the tumble down the hill Apache had rolled to his feet and bolted downhill. He had run until he figured out the forest was not a racetrack. Undergrowth impeded his movements so he slowed down. He walked in an agitated gait, still stressed by the events of the day. After he settled down he began doing what any horse will do if left to his own devices. He grazed. He walked. He grazed some more. As I read the tracks to Farley he stopped me.

“Wait a minute. How do you know what he did? Did you see him? Rusty said the ranger found you unconscious.”

“I’m reading his tracks. I grew up with horses. I know what their feet do in every possible situation. I have no problem reading the tracks. I had an accident and I haven’t built up my strength enough to walk this far. Otherwise I would have just stayed out here last night and stayed on his trail.”

“You’re not making sense. You grew up with horses so you know what their feet do?”

“And I’m a professional tracker. I work with the search and rescue unit in Joshua Hills, at least I did until this accident.”

“Hell, I’ve been just looking out into the trees hoping we spot him and you say you’re on his trail?”

“Yeah.”

Apache headed in the general direction of home but when he got to Lost Hills Road he continued on into the junipers. He liked the wide open spaces and used it for a short run. Usually a horse on its own does very little running. Seeing Apache running for the fun of it showed me he was too young and too spirited to be forced into a life of trotting around a corral with a little kid on his back. He was destined for bigger things, at least until age caught up to him.

When we found him it was obvious he was going to give us a chase. I tried the easy approach first. I rode towards him talking quietly, loop ready to drop over his head, but every time I got near he gave me a mischievous look and pranced away.

“Are you ready for a run?” I asked Farley.

“I’m not that good with a rope.”

“Okay, you block him in on one side and I’ll give it a try.”

We closed in on Apache and he tossed his head daring us to try it. When we got close he ran out of reach. I looked at Farley. Farley looked at me. He nodded. I put the heels to my horse and it bolted forward. Apache thought it was a game. He snorted and took off running. I was glad to see his legs didn’t pain him. I expected some injuries from the tumble he took.

Feeling a good solid horse beneath me felt wonderful. He reached out with his hooves. He pounded across the desert after the fleeing paint. I opened up the loop ready for a toss but I never got close enough. Apache was just too fast, too game. My horse was older, smaller and sturdier. He was a workhorse but he wasn’t used to rounding up spirited youngsters. Three times we tried to lasso Apache and he outran us every time. Farley and I regrouped.

“Think we should call it a day?” he asked.

“No. I’ve got one more trick up my sleeve. It’s going to take time and patience but it won’t wear the horses out. I need you to distract him. Let him think you’re trying to catch him but don’t chase him.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Stalk him.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Here?”

“Just distract him.”

I slung the lasso over my shoulder and got off my horse. I walked off to a nearby juniper and gave Farley the go ahead signal. He rode toward Apache. I snuck from tree to tree to bush until I had an angle I could work with. Apache watched Farley carefully, trying to figure out this new game. I snuck up on him slowly. Every once in a while he’d look around for me and I froze. I stayed calm, like I was just standing around in the desert for no reason. He didn’t consider me a threat. The man on the horse though, he might still be, so he watched Farley. Farley’s eyes crinkled in merriment as he saw me get ever closer to Apache’s flank. By the time I was close I began rethinking my plan. If I lassoed him he might try to drag me off through the desert. What if I just got in the saddle?

While Apache was watching Farley I motioned him closer. Farley shot me a questioning look and I nodded. He started toward Apache, who startled a few quick steps closer to me. I timed my leap carefully. Foot in the stirrup, a quick pull and I was in the saddle. Apache was irritated. He bucked around and Farley watched and worried as I rode it out.

“Stop it you knucklehead,” I said to the horse. “Just remember, I’ve got the carrots.”

Carrots? He knew that word.

I rode up beside Farley. “Guess he still needs some work,” I told him, then I detailed how far we’d come and what I had learned we needed to work on. We gathered up the other horse who had stood by obediently. We talked as we rode. He asked about the accident and my experience at the ranch. As we neared the road I listened carefully for cars, motorcycles, anything motorized. We crossed the road to my house and put the horses in the corral.

“Come out to the school,” Farley said. “I can use all the volunteers I can get. It would keep you on your feet walking beside the horses as the kids ride. You can teach them the commands, and be there in case of trouble. I need people with your experience. Just try it once for a few hours, see if it’s something you could enjoy. I know just seeing a kid who one day was a listless wheelchair case suddenly perk up at the site of a horse keeps me going. Even if they never ride they seem to come alive when they see the horses. Kids who struggle with leg braces can ride with ease. It gives them freedom from their handicap. Give them a half hour lesson on a horse and they feel they can do something. It carries on to other parts of their lives. They try to walk, they use their hands. They care for the horses, too. You should see it.”

“Give me a ride home and I’ll look at your school,” I said.

The horses had a full day, so there wasn’t any further training for me to do that day. Apache was safely ensconced in his corral again, so I rode to the school with Farley in the school pickup.

 

“You’ll find this place a little different than most of the horse places you’re used to,” Farley said. “I’ll tell you about each case as I can. Don’t ask about the kid’s handicaps in front of them. We try to get them to forget their handicaps. To their face they are any normal person. A kid might be thirty but inside they are still kids. Take Terrel, for instance. Terrel is thirty-two but he plays video games. He can play video games with his eyes shut and win but he can’t spell his name. He’ll tell you his name is Terl. But he’s a great kid. He rides Brownie. That’s another thing. The horses have weird names because the kids name them. You can guess why Brownie has his name. We also have Lassie, Socks, Yoshi, Giant and Indy. Indy is our other pinto. Yoshi got his name because he has a big nose. He reminded Terrel of the little dinosaur on the video games. Giant is big. He’s a draft horse. All the names have reasons behind them but the meanings aren’t always clear to outsiders.”

The variety of horses on Farleys ranch was as wide as the variety of kids who came and went all day. Six-year-old Sarah rode Indy. She came in a wheelchair accessible van but she walked to Indy’s stable one lurching step at a time. There were hand rails all around the stable for the kids who needed a steady support. A volunteer helped her saddle and bridle the little horse and helped her into the saddle. I watched as the volunteer guided the horse out to a large corral. Sarah’s eyes shown as she rode quietly around the corral. The volunteer stood before the horse.

“Now Sarah, do you remember how to turn the horse? Show me how to turn right.”

The little girl reined left but had the motion down correctly.

“That’s left, but that’s good!” the volunteer praised. “So how do you turn left?”

And so it went. It was all easy stuff. Things I had known all my life.

 

“Cassidy? This is Bailee,” Farley said. “Bailee has been coming here for two years. Haven’t you Bailee?”

The girl just looked at Farley with big blue eyes. She stood tall for her nine years but her hands curved inward and her fingers were stiff.

“Bailee is a super rider, aren’t you Bailee? This is Cassidy. I want you to show Cassidy your horse.”

I followed the young girl to the stable where she stopped in front of Socks’s stall.

“Mine harse,” Bailee said with difficulty.

“He’s a beautiful horse,” I told her. In reality Socks was an old horse and looked old in every way. His black coat was graying but his white socks still stood out boldly. He was a kindly horse, though, nuzzling Bailee and standing quietly as she groomed him. Bailee grasped the brush with difficulty. It hurt me to watch her although she enjoyed every minute of the time she spent brushing the horse. I grabbed a brush and went to work on the other side. When Socks was brushed to her satisfaction she led me to the tack room. I could see that each piece of tack had a laminated list clipped to it with the kid’s names on it. There were saddles of all shapes and sizes and bridles with different configurations. Bailee needed a bridle with the reins tied. That way she could rest it over her withered hands without losing a rein. Some of the saddles had straps designed to keep the kids in place. Some had extra handholds. Bailee had a normal saddle and she was a super rider. She showed me a wall where clipboards were kept. In big, bold letters her name shined on the top of a clipboard in purple glitter paint. It was obvious Bailee had written the name herself. The letters were scrawled but legible and it was decorated with pink flowers with neon green squiggles for stems. I took down Bailee’s clipboard and read: Three circuits. Walk. Trot. Canter. Pole weave. Gate.

Farley looked over my shoulder.

“A circuit is a figure eight in the corral. We do figure eights so the kids get more practice reining. Let’s go. Ready Bailee?”

Farley led me through a class with Bailee. As she rode out of earshot he told me her story. “She was a normal kid until a car accident.  She had head injuries. There was some paralysis from strokes and therapy helped her work through most of it. Her hands are bent from lack of use. She can read and write but she barely speaks. She’s quit trying to talk except the few words she knows well. One day she had a birthday party at her house. She was excited because she had received a horse figurine for her birthday. She kept trying to tell me she got a sma harse. I just smiled and told her that was great, not knowing what she meant by sma harse. If she does say something, listen. It’s very important that what she says counts. Many of these kids get fixated on something. With Bailee it’s horse books. She can be a normal kid in a horse book. She can be a normal kid here, living a horse book.”

When Bailee finished a figure eight at a walk Farley called out, “Now a trot!” Her eyes lit up with each advancement through the sequence. She found the gate to be a challenge. The trick was to open a gate from the saddle, ride through it and then close it. It was new to her. Her hands didn’t help but Farley knew she could accomplish the task. He didn’t raise his voice in any way but he insisted the gate had to be closed and latched properly or else the horses would get away. She understood but she wrestled with the gate and when she finally got it he clapped and grinned broadly and when she dismounted he hugged her cheerfully.

 

Every Tuesday and Thursday I showed up at Farley’s school. I tried to get there around the same time Bailee showed up. I always arrived at the school with mixed emotions. It was hard for me to face the kids. Their challenges seemed too big. How could they take it? But put them on a horse and they could do anything. It was heartwarming and humbling. Each day brought a little more lifting and a little more walking and the work with Apache was challenging. After his great escape he reverted a little and we had to go back to corral work again.

Then one day I realized I wasn’t tiring as quickly and I could work around the house again and I didn’t get winded like I used to. Only problem was now I didn’t have time for all those household chores I’d tried so hard to do. I was too busy.  I had to find a way to start backpacking again. That was my last hurdle before I’d be ready to track again. So I began wearing my pack to the school. Bailee looked at me weird. We got along great now even though it was in a quiet way. We enjoyed each other’s company. She patted my backpack and gave me a questioning look.

“What?” I asked good naturedly, trying to get her to form words.

She thought for a moment. “What you do?” she asked.

Words!

How to explain the pack though?

“I need to carry a pack for my job. I got hurt. I couldn’t carry it. I’m getting better so I try to wear the pack to get used to it.”

“You yike me,” she stammered.

“Of course I like you,” I answered.

She got frustrated. “You yike me, try gate. Use to it.” Her struggle with the words touched me. Yes, I was just like her. She used to be able to open a gate. Now she was relearning, getting used to it. We were all in this life together.

“You’re doing great on the gate. You and Socks are learning together. That’s even harder than learning by yourself and you’re doing great!”

I went through that whole lesson with a big lump in my throat, watching Bailee struggle. I hardly noticed my pack on my back.

For some reason Farley never questioned the pack.

 

When I had been wearing the pack to the school for about a week I had a surprise visit. I was carrying my pack to my new Jeep when Strict drove up.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“I don’t know anything. I’m going to the riding school. Bailee’s lesson starts in half an hour.”

That got a strange look.

“What’s with the pack?”

“The usual. I’ve been wearing it at the school and around the house doing chores so I can get used to the weight. Why?”

“So, are you used to the weight? I came to see how you were doing. Figured you’d be bored stiff, sitting at home. I have a job for you if you are up to it. Rusty thinks you might be.”

I couldn’t believe I was torn between a search and a kid at the school. Bailee would be disappointed if I didn’t show up. She was finally talking to somebody. How could I not go? I thought through the contents of my search pack. It was ready. Was I?

“I have to talk to somebody first. You talked to Rusty?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to go with me? Or should I meet you up there?”

“How long will it take?”

“An hour tops.”

We tossed the pack into his Suburban and I gave him directions to the school. When we got there I found Farley.

“I need to go on a search, I’ll be gone for a few days. Can somebody take over with Bailee until I get back?”

“I will. She’s not going to be happy though.”

“I know. I’ll talk to her.” Strict followed me to Socks’s stable. “Hi Bailee!” I said brightly.

She smiled her usual lopsided grin.

“Remember I told you I had to carry a pack for my job? Well, I need to go. My job is to look for lost people and there’s a person who needs to be found. Farley will do your lesson with you and I’ll be back soon.”

Her lower lip trembled. She searched for words. Oh shoot, I didn’t think it would be this hard.

“How yong?” she asked.

“Maybe one day, maybe a few. But if I don’t find them they might get hurt.”

“Yike me,” she said, thoughtful.

“I don’t want them to get hurt. I’ll be back as soon as I can. You’ll do good at your riding. Show Farley how far you’ve come. Show him you can do the gate easily now.”

She nodded that she would. I turned to go.

“Chas!” It was the closest she could come to my name and it was the first time she had tried it.

“Yeah?”

“Me yike you.”

“I like you, too. I’ll be back soon,” I said with a hug.

I never in my life thought a kid could affect me like that. I walked to the Suburban teary eyed.

“Cassidy!” Farley said as he ran up. “She talked! Does she talk like that to you?”

“She’s coming along,” I answered.

“You’re an angel,” he said.

“I’ll be back, just as soon as I find my man.”

 

“What are you doing here?” Strict asked indicating the school grounds.

“I’m working and walking and getting used to my pack…and I guess I’m helping a little girl learn to talk again. I’ve come as far as she has lately. If it weren’t for the horses and the kids I’d still be at home half mopping my kitchen and giving up in disgust.”

“Do you think you can backpack?”

“All I can say is, I’ll try and I won’t give up. I assume I’m going out with Landon again?”

“Yeah, until we know for sure, I want you and Wilson paired up as much as possible.”

“He cares too much. I worry about him.”

“He cares too much to let you hurt yourself. We both know you will if left to your own devices. So you’re stuck with him for a while.”

“Who am I looking for?”

“Did you have to ask that?”

“I always want to know who I’m looking for.”

“All I can say is ignore the TV cameras. You’re looking for Sherri Champlain.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. How’d she get lost? Don’t at least half a dozen paparazzi know where she is?”

“That’s what got her lost, trying to get away from the crowds.” 

“How long has she been missing?”

“Overnight, not long by our standards. Her agent called, said she was supposed to be on the set at six-thirty this morning. He tracked her down to a campground and her friends said she took off in disgust because the photographers wouldn’t leave her alone. She didn’t want to be photographed camping. Said she needed a bath and at least an hour in front of the mirror, then she’d be ready for the camera. The cameras never stopped so she took off straight into the mountains.”

I groaned, “What a first search to call me out on! TV cameras, mountain climbing, probably rocky terrain, half the world waiting on me. Why me?”

“Because you’re good at it.”

Base camp was a movie set. Where there was usually a trailer, a lean-to and a picnic table, there was all that plus three television crews, three fire trucks, two police cars, and half of Landon’s coworkers. Light towers stood ready to blast forth as soon as the sun set. A helicopter circled overhead. Damn, this wasn’t a search. This was a parade! Strict and I got out of the Suburban and he marched up arms crossed. Half a dozen volunteers met him on his way to the table.

“If I didn’t call you about this search previously, go sit down,” he called out over the crowd.

They all started milling around dejectedly. I sure wished one of them was a tracker. If there was ever a case I’d hand over to someone else this was it. I shunned publicity. The cameras, the tense waiting were going to grate on me. I wasn’t sure I was capable of physically enduring the search and now I had the whole world watching me struggle through it.

Landon and I remained standing and Kent Jacobsen and Jayce Thompson stepped forward. I groaned again. I knew why they had been picked. They were used to working with me. They had the patience and experience. But they also expected things to get weird on any case I was involved in.

Strict nodded approval and then looked to me. “Crowd control,” he said simply. As usual they were all outfitted with radios. I preferred to hike unencumbered. I also like to leave the gadgets to people who appreciated them. The guys liked the radio. Any of the trappings of search and rescue they took on willingly while I just made sure I had my food, water, and stove handy. “Follow Landon,” he told me.

Landon led me around the back of base camp where a simple campsite was located. Nobody was in it. I assumed whoever camped there was part of the crowd at base camp.

“Here’s her shoes,” Landon said pointing to a picnic table. On it was six pairs of shoes.

“Who brings six pairs of shoes on a camping trip?” I asked.

“Sherri Champlain,” he answered.

I looked over the soles. They were all nearly new. No wear marks on any of them.

“Do we know what kind shoes she took off in?”

“Hiking boots.”

“Brand new, too?”

He looked at the pile of shoes. “Probably.”

“Do we have any sample tracks?”

“Umm, yeah, we have a whole gaggle of tracks, unfortunately I think all Sherri’s friends also have identical brand new hiking boots. Take a look at the camp.”

Damn, he was right, tracks everywhere, same size, nearly the same tread.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Do we at least have a direction?”

“The cameras came from that way. So…”

“Isn’t there a friend somewhere around here that we can get some directions from?”

“We’ll have to wade into the crowd to find them.”

“No thanks, I’ll find it.”

As I slipped into the forest to begin my half circle of the camp I could hear Strict answering reporter’s questions.

“Our time table depends strictly on the terrain involved. I don’t expect a find until tomorrow. Sherri has a day’s head start on us. Only she knew where she was heading. All we have to go on is the clues she left behind. We’ve got the best crew there is. They will give this search their all and then some.”

It took three ever-widening passes before the tracks thinned enough to pick out Sherri’s tracks. The attitude in them was different from her friends. Her friends’ tracks milled around wandering in zigzag lines. Hers led in a straight line away from camp and headed into a thickly forested, but rugged, canyon. She stopped frequently to look behind her. Unfortunately the canyon she chose was rocky, desolate and held no promise of water unless it rained. If it rained it would turn into a flash flood zone. Trees had been washed down the canyon from previous storms, but fortunately this wasn’t the rainy season. There were plenty of rocks and fallen trees to complicate the movements of the photographers following her. Unfortunately, that meant there were plenty of rocks and trees to complicate our movements, too. The helicopter followed our every move. The only advantage to that was that maybe Sherri would hear it and try to signal it.

“Well, Michaels won’t have to call in for his nightly update. He can just turn on the TV and watch you,” Jacobsen said.

“Thanks, Kent,” I said, but I was glad he reminded me. If at all possible, I needed to keep a positive attitude. I didn’t want Rusty to see me struggling on the trail.

Struggle I did, though. It only took about a half mile for my pack to weigh a ton. Each step up the canyon became a challenge. I kept my head down, eyes on the trail. I made sure, if I ever looked at the helicopter it was with a cheerful attitude. I kept my troubles to myself.

“Couldn’t they have sent a dog on this search?” I thought aloud.

“They brought a dog in. It smelled the tent and found every girl who had slept in it except Sherri. It smelled like perfume and the whole group smelled like a perfume counter.”

“Don’t they know perfume just attracts bugs?”

“Maybe they do now.”

Sherri was sorry she wore brand new hiking boots. Her steps began changing as she hiked. Maybe she was getting tired, maybe the new boots were irritating her feet. She pressed on. I doubted she could have lost the photographers this quickly. We certainly hadn’t. We came to a rock wall and Sherri’s footprints led to the base. When I didn’t see any sign of her following the base, I started up.

“Let me go first,” I told the guys. “I need to look for sign.”

Sign was in short supply on that rock wall. About halfway up I wondered what this looked like on TV. Hell, why did the press have to be so darned persistent?  I reached for the next handhold, felt a ledge and heard a fierce rattle. I jerked my hand back and nearly toppled right off the rock. I held on with my left hand as small rocks rained down on the guys below.

“Cassidy!” Landon called.

I struggled to find handholds while I pictured the rattlesnake investigating my one handed hold on the rock. I imagined viewers all over the country holding their breath.

“Are you okay?” Jacobsen asked.

I located a pair of footholds and stood, pressed against the rock while I steadied my nerves.

“Did you see where my hand was?” I asked.

“No, we were talking,” Landon admitted.

“Well, don’t go there. There’s a rattlesnake on the ledge.”

I climbed horizontally across the rock before I started up again. When I looked at the ledge where the rattlesnake lay I saw Sherri’s bootprint, halfway covered by the snake.

“The snake is right there,” I called down, pointing.

When I got to the top I cast around for more tracks but things were still very rocky. I found the edge of the rocks and studied the ground, back and forth, back and forth until I found sign of Sherri’s passing. I took note of her track, went back and waved the guys up.

“Look out for the rattlesnake,” I warned them.

They all wisely shied away from the very handy looking ledge.

“You are the only woman I have met who would stay on a rock with a rattlesnake right next to her,” Jayce said.

“I’ve had a little experience with rattlesnakes,” I reminded him.

After the climb up the rock Sherri seemed to have lost her pesky photographers because her trail turned from an angry escape to a pleasant hike. She must have been hot, tired, and thirsty but she continued on. I couldn’t. Once I’d determined that Sherri was okay and her trail was clear I had to stop. I took off my pack and sat down under a tree to rest.

“Sorry, guys. I have to,” I said. My breathing had turned to huffing and puffing and the day was starting to feel unusually warm, even for southern California. We had topped out. That was good news. It was a rough climb and had taxed any reserves of energy that I had. I couldn’t expect to stay on the trail as I had in the past. My recovery was just starting to look positive. At home I was nearly back to my normal self, much to Rusty’s relief. Every time he came home and I was doing something active he stopped and watched and when I came to a stopping point he reached out to me. His hands strayed more now that he knew I felt like a woman again. His hugs were wonderful. But a search was not normal household chores. It was carrying thirty-five pounds on my back on a hot, dry trail. It was climbing mountains with that thirty-five pounds on my back. And it was just plain work. Hard work, after what I had been through.

“You’re doing a lot better than I feared,” Landon said when he caught up. “I didn’t want Strict to send you out but he said this was too high profile to just go beating the bushes over. Strict wasn’t sure if you’d be ready either. That’s why he went after you himself. What did you do to convince him?”

“Well, I was loading my pack in the Jeep when he arrived. He thought I knew about the call already but I was just getting ready for work.”

“You’re working now? What are you doing?”

“It’s not what you think. I’ve been teaching kids how to ride horses. And I’ve been training a rowdy horse. I’m trying to get him in shape for beginner riders but I don’t think he’s going to make it. He’ll need an experienced rider for the next five years. You don’t want to hear what he did to me last week.”

“Oh yeah? You know I’ve got to hear it now.”

It was just part of a search, hearing the latest Cassidy Michaels adventure. I noticed the guys stayed right behind me as I told the story.

“And so I went out to this school, met the kids, met the horses. I work with this kid named Bailee. Farley says she is nearly uncommunicative but I must have done something right. She speaks a few words now if she feels strongly she needs to get a message across. I hope she managed the gate okay today. I can’t wait to see what Farley wants her to learn next. You should see her when she’s allowed to just ride. She turns into a whole different kid.”

I was just rambling now and the guys had probably lost interest, but the talk made the miles go easier.

“When I get home I need to ride the motorcycle around Apache’s corral and get him used to noises. I haven’t ridden the motorcycle since the attack so he’s never seen it. Maybe I can get him used to noise that way.”

I paused, studying the ground. Sherri was not an easy person to track. She moved quickly and lightly through the woods. She didn’t seem like the type to take off on long cross-country treks or climb rough rocks. She must have been really mad. I thought she would stay fairly close to camp, so I thought we would find her fairly easily. Her pace slowed down considerably once she was beyond the reach of the cameras. It was time for her to rest, find something entertaining to do, head for home, anything.

Every half hour or so I had to sit and wait for my body to catch up. The pack dragged me down. Landon worried when I stopped. He knew how driven I usually was on a search but I couldn’t push myself that hard without giving out on the guys completely.

The tracks led on into shady little pockets of the mountains. I was glad Sherri was sticking to the shade because I needed every spot of shade I could find. As the day wore on the shade became darker and darker until I had to admit I could no longer see the tracks. I wearily called a halt. I took off my pack, leaned it up against a tree and sat. And sat. The guys pitched their tents and started their stoves and still I sat. Landon sat down next to me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Need some help?”

“No, just a dose of energy.”

“I’ll add some water to mine and you won’t have to get your stove out.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you bring cookies?”

“Oh, Landon, Strict took me straight to the school and then we came straight out here. I never went back in the house. I just took off. I didn’t even call Rusty because Strict had already talked to him.”

“That’s okay.”

“No it’s not. First I almost died on you, then I socked you in the jaw. It’s a wonder you will go anywhere with me anymore. The least I can do is remember to bring cookies.”

“I’m just glad you were around to sock me in the jaw.”

“I’ll give you some cookies when we get back to town.”

Jacobsen and Thompson looked disappointed.

“And I’ll send a batch to the station, too. I usually carry them along on searches but Strict surprised me.”

When Landon’s water started boiling I dug out a backpacker meal and pulled the tab to open it up. Landon poured water in my pouch, then his, and we sat there holding our dinners, shaking them occasionally to feel how done they were.

“So you teach riding at a school?” he said, just for something to talk about.

“A couple of days a week. And I train that knucklehead horse. But I have to admit, it got me on the right track. Getting Apache to act like a gentleman has taken my mind off my health and wrestling that big horse has given me a gradual workout. I walk around the school, helping the kids. I can’t dwell on my problems when I see theirs. Kids who will never graduate from high school. Kids who will never walk normally. Kids, like Bailee, who barely talk, who can only live a normal life through their imaginations. I thought I’d seen my last search. There were so many weeks of hardly being able to walk. I thought I was all done in.”

“Two months ago I thought the same thing,” Landon said. “When they wheeled you into surgery, I didn’t expect to see you again. I’ve seen some desperate situations. I’ve had heart attack victims in my ambulance. At least with a heart attack there’s a plan. You run through your options and hope it works. With you I didn’t even have a procedure, only a guess. If I didn’t have my training to fall back on I’d have been a basket case. I was running through percentages in my head. How much blood could one person lose before there was no turning back? This percentage meant one thing, that percentage meant another. I didn’t want to think what it could mean for you. You were way into the danger zone before we got over the mountains.” He paused to collect his emotions. He was uncomfortable with the guys seeing him keyed up over it, but he also seemed to need to talk. Jacobsen and Thompson knew Landon. Landon was a permanent fixture at the station when he wasn’t working his day job. And he was available twenty-four seven for Strict, so the guys knew him from there too. The officers frequently had to call Landon to accident scenes. So he was well known throughout the police and fire departments.

“How’s Rusty taking all this?”

“He’s had a rough time of it. First he mourned for his little boy. Then we had some opportunities to have kids around and he perked up. Then we both kind of settled into a blue funk while he missed the kids and I missed being able to accomplish anything. I used to think when you are down there’s nowhere else to go but up. But I’m beginning to learn things can always get worse. So I’ve been trying to look up. Like when I surf and I get pushed to the ocean bottom. I know eventually I’ll rise to the surface. It might be a long hard tumble before it happens but I look up and eventually I make it. This has been one long tumble in the surf, but I can breathe again. I’ll be okay. And Rusty will, too.”

I was hungrier than I thought. I quickly finished off the whole backpacker meal and searched around for dessert. I was glad I felt like eating. For two months I’d barely eaten enough to keep going. My weight hung around a hundred five. It was time for a change. It was time to workout again. It was time to build a new me.

I packed up my trash and pulled out my tent. Landon helped me set it up. I wouldn’t have used it if it weren’t for the guys. For some reason they had trouble letting me sleep out in the open when they all had tents. If I had my choice I’d just roll out my sleeping bag when it was time to turn in, but I knew from experience that if I did that I’d quickly be offered one of their tents. Chase was the only cop I knew who respected me enough to leave me to my own devices. No, I corrected myself, that wasn’t it. I blamed it on an over developed sense of chivalry, while Chase accepted the fact that I didn’t give a hoot about chivalry. I just wanted to be left alone to be as eccentric as he was. Whatever it was, I knew I had to set up a tent, so I did it, wishing the guys would happen to think they were also forcing me to carry an extra five pounds all day when I didn’t need to.

It was a rough night. I was afraid I’d have nightmares and wake up the guys, so I tried to hold myself to a light doze. All night long I lay there wondering how long I had lain there, wondering how much longer until first light. I always got up at first light, as soon as it was bright enough to see. I’d eat a quick breakfast and hit the trail while it was cool and I could make good time. I lay there wondering about the time until suddenly I realized there were voices outside my tent.

“Do you think she’s okay? Usually she’s the one rattling our tents,” Jayce said.

“At least she’s resting,” Landon answered. “I’m glad she’s over the nightmares. I expected another sock to the jaw.”

Thompson laughed. “You’d go in there just to get it, too. You’ve got to put her behind you.”

“I know, I’ve tried. I even dated someone for a while.”

“Oh yeah? Who?” Jacobsen said.

“After Cass’s wedding I kept in touch with Michael’s sister, Sandy, but it didn’t work out. She’s too much of a city girl and she said I was arrogant and conceited.”

I laughed silently. Yep, that about summed it up. It’s exactly what my first impression of Landon and Sandy had been. Sandy would always be a city girl, but Landon was only arrogant and conceited until you worked your way past that and got a glimpse of his heart.

I rustled around so they would know I was awake.

“It’s not easy finding someone who understands the profession. At first the uniform’s a draw, but after being stood up a time or two because of emergency calls most girls give me the cold shoulder. That, and the fact that after seeing as much as I’ve seen, they all seem shallow. When I get off the job, I don’t care what brand shoes a girl is wearing. I just want everything important to be on an even keel. I thought maybe Sandy would understand that. She was raised in a family with cops. But it wasn’t like that. Rusty’s sister and Cassidy’s sister are so similar; you’d think they came from the same family. So right now there is nobody.”

I brushed my hair real quick hoping my bangs weren’t sticking straight up. One thing about camping is I never had a mirror. The guys had never run away in fright but I often wondered what I looked like first thing in the morning. At home it depended on what happened before I fell asleep. If I woke up to a crazy hair day I could usually blame Rusty.

I climbed out of the tent and quickly collapsed it by pulling the two pegs and pulling the poles out of the pockets. I pulled the poles out of their sleeves and set them aside. Landon folded them up for me while I rolled up the tent, pushing all the air out from the rear to the open front door of the tent. I looked around. The guys had eaten breakfast and gathered up their belongings so I pulled out my trail mix and shouldered my pack.

“You should make trail mix cookies,” Landon observed.

“Then I could get sick of trail mix and cookies at the same time,” I countered. “Besides, the trail mix has to melt and then freeze back together. It wouldn’t do that if it was in cookie form.”

“Learning all the intricacies of trail life is important,” Thompson observed sarcastically.

“Ha, I bet you send your steak back if it isn’t medium rare,” I said. He couldn’t argue with that. “So I like my trail mix melted. You like your steak medium rare. What’s the difference? Tell you what, I’ll make trail mix cookies and send them to the station. I bet chocolate chip wins.”

“With nuts,” added Landon.

It was good to have meaningless conversations on the trail. That was what trails were for. Seemed like a lot of meaningless trail conversations involved food. We’d had the macaroni and cheese debate more times than I could count. Why did I bring macaroni and cheese pouches if I didn’t like them? The answer was, they magically jumped into my basket at the store. I just grabbed one of each kind and macaroni and cheese was always on the rack, probably because nobody else wanted it either. So I’d come home and ask myself why I bought macaroni and cheese and stick it in my pack and then not eat it unless I was desperate. I had purposely prepared it for myself once, when it was the last thing in my pack, and once for Patrick, because it was kid food.

Then there was the great hot chocolate/instant coffee debate. Was there more caffeine in hot chocolate or coffee? And who could stand instant coffee? The debates went on and on, mile after mile, unless there was a story they hadn’t heard or hadn’t shared.

“What’s happened on the job lately that is interesting?” I asked as I tracked.

“There was a morning not long ago…we were patrolling this neighborhood when we heard shots. We pulled over and Jacobsen sees this guy running off. He gives chase so I go see what else is happening. I’m looking the house over when this woman comes running out in her pajamas. I stopped her from walking into something she shouldn’t and she nearly shot my head off.”

“Very funny, and I wasn’t quite in my pajamas,” I said.

“What about that guy who tried to hold up the Fifth Street Market?” Jacobsen said.

Thompson continued the story, “Get a load of this, the guy goes in, gun in hand, right? He sticks up the place but he doesn’t have room in his pockets for the money so he lays down his gun, gets out his wallet and the cashier picks it up. The cashier points the gun at the guy and we walk in and slap the cuffs on him.”

“With my luck I’d be behind him in line and he’d turn out to be the guy Rusty was looking for,” I said.

Sherri’s trail was turning towards the mountains again. Despite the late start we were making good time. I followed the tracks in amongst the trees and into a small cleft in the rocks. Oh no, rocks. Please, don’t go there. But before I could buckle down and get too discouraged I heard an “Eep!” and a noise of something moving in the bushes. I held out an arm to stop the guys and peered into the brush.

“Wait here,” I told them. I removed my pack and pushed the branches aside. There sat Sherri disheveled and dirty. Her leg was obviously broken but that was the least of her worries.

“Oh!” she cried. “Go away! Don’t look at me!”

“Sherri, we all know who you are. You’ve been stuck up here for two days. Nobody expects you to be gorgeous. Believe me, these guys have seen women in every state you can imagine.” Then I rethought that statement and blushed. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“Don’t let them see me!” she hissed.

“I have to. They’re the ones who know what to do. I’m just the tracker.”

“I think we found our ten sixty-five,” Jacobsen observed.

The officers stood back smirking. Landon was on the radio reporting our find. Codes fired back and forth but Landon didn’t have any more answers until he could get a look at his patient. Every time a guy stepped forward Sherri retreated farther into the brush, cussing up a storm at the pain in her leg.

“Okay, everybody hold it,” I said. “Just stay put. Give me fifteen minutes.”

I crawled under the brush pulling my pack along. I opened it up and dug out my hairbrush, a bottle of water and a clean sock.

“Here,” I said handing her the brush. “You know you’re just giving the reporters time to close in. They were quiet until the radio tipped them off. Give that helicopter five minutes to get over the mountains and you’re in the news again.”

She was an expert with a hairbrush. Five minutes later her hair was brushed and teased into a glorious halo of blonde. I poured some water into the sock and handed it to her. She looked at it with distaste.

“It’s clean,” I assured her.

She dabbed at her face being careful not to rub.

“Do you have any moisturizer?”

“Ha, you’re lucky I have a hairbrush and a wet sock.”

“No eye shadow? Liner? Lipstick?”

“Do I look like I use that stuff on the trail?”

“Can I have more water?”

“Yeah, you can even drink it. Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

I handed her the trail mix.

“You’re torturing me!” she shrieked. “It’s covered with chocolate! It’ll make me break out.”

I dug into my pack again and came up with a granola bar. She read the calorie count before opening it.

“Tell me about your injuries. What happened?”

“It’s my leg,” she wailed. “I’m going to be out of work for months. Arnie is going to kill me.”

“Arnie?”

“My agent. I’m in the middle of a huge production and I don’t have two months to spend on crutches! I’m supposed to save the world! I’m supposed to make out with Prescott Hughes in the Bahamas! I have to wear a sexy black dress in a nightclub scene! Casts are not sexy!”

“You look great!” I said with as much confidence as I could. “Let Landon take a look at your leg.”

“Landon, aye? Sounds like a cool guy. Is he single?”

“Yeah, he’s a cool guy and he’s single.”

“You’re sure I look okay?”

“You look terrific. When the news helicopters show up just smile real big and all your fans will throw a party in your honor.” Hoo boy, did I believe any of what I was saying? Maybe a little. Mostly I was just trying to get home sooner.

She fluffed her hair a little and checked her nails. They had sunsets with palm trees painted on each one.

A pink and purple helicopter made a few passes and Sherri scooted back in the brush. When it had us located it hovered overhead a minute. A bay door opened and a shiny black head poked over the opening. The helicopter was so close I could see the shiny black head had tons of eye makeup on. He wore an expensive suit and a silk tie that blew around in the wind. Not a hair on the man’s head moved. It was the guys’ turn to shrink back. They didn’t like this pushy helicopter pilot. They assumed it was sent out by some fashion magazine to take pictures but when the shiny black head disappeared we barely heard from above, “BOMBS AWAY!” and a package came down with a bubble wrapped thud and bounce. The contents rattled in a familiar way and Jacobsen ran to pick it up.

“Ooo, bubble wrap!” he said and popped three bubbles.

Sherri gave the helicopter a toothpaste commercial smile and called up excitedly, “Oh! Thank you, Arnie!”

There was no way they could hear her above the clatter of the helicopter blades. She waved hysterically as the helicopter bobbed, seemingly in answer, and then flew away.

Jacobsen opened the package and inside was a Day-Glo pink makeup case and a box. He passed the contents through the brush to me and I passed it along to Sherri. Behind me I could hear the pop, pop, pop of the bubble wrap. Thompson got out his pocketknife and asked for a piece so Jacobsen reluctantly cut it in half. As Sherri meticulously applied moisturizer, then foundation, powder, blush, eye liner, mascara, eye shadow and lotioned her arms and nicely shaved, unbroken leg the two officers gave us a bubble wrap demonstration and debate. Thompson rolled the bubble wrap and twisted it popping at least fifty bubbles with each twist.

“That’s cheating,” Jacobsen said. “A true bubble wrap connoisseur will only pop one bubble at a time.”

“I never claimed to be a connoisseur. I say kill and destroy. I have power over the helpless bubbles. They are all doomed.”

Jacobsen: Pop, pop, pop…

Thompson: sizzzzzzle, pop, pop, unwrap, retwist, sizzle, pop…

Then Jacobsen: pop, pop, pop…

It was the Bubble Wrap Wars. Who would win? Slow and steady? Or kill and destroy?

“Okay,” Sherry sniffed. “I think I can do this now.”

I crawled out and handed the situation over to Landon.

“We’re going to need a lift out,” I told the officers. They called in to Strict on the radio, reporting the patient’s condition and asking for a helicopter.

Landon was having fun. He oozed smooth compliments. He was good at that. He was a flirt and Sherri enjoyed being flirted with.

“How did you manage to fall off a cliff without breaking a nail?” Landon asked.

“I can’t break a nail. I’m going to be in a hand lotion commercial tomorrow.”

“Let me see,” Landon said.

Sherri held out her hands.

“Wow, not a scratch!”

A helicopter clattered overhead. I looked up at it. News. I was waiting for a yellow and green one. I stood out in the open ready to flag it down but with all the news helicopters around I probably didn’t need to do anything.

“Clear plastic? How tacky!” Sherri said about the inflatable splint.

“It’s clear for a reason. They can take x-rays through it. Don’t worry; you’ll make it into a fashion statement. Everyone will want one.”

Two more helicopters joined the first one.

“Oh!” Sherri wailed. “Don’t let them see me!”

“Calm down,” Landon advised her. “You know how they can zoom in. Just smile up at them. Show them how much fun a broken leg can be. Your fans will be relieved you were found and glad to see your spunk.”

“Do you think so?”

“I know so. Just wait until you read your mail over the next few weeks. Maybe you can get a custom cast at the hospital. Start thinking about what color you want. Maybe you can get one to match your nails. Have your friends sign it, then sell it on eBay. You’ll make an extra couple grand just from auctioning off that old cast.”

So went Landon’s examination. Landon stayed under the brush with Sherri, keeping her spirits up, giving her a pep talk so she would cooperate when it came time for transport. Finally the green and yellow helicopter appeared overhead, and a basket was lowered from above. Two EMTs jumped out of the basket, unclipped it and set off to find their patient. We pointed the way.

“Cassidy? You coming?” Landon asked.

I thought about the load, the TV cameras, the peaceful hike back. Sherri would probably insist on being taken to L.A. and I had no desire to find my way home from there. In spite of the long hike back I waved them off. I stayed behind until the helicopter lifted up and headed south, then I put on my pack and headed for base camp. Jacobsen and Thompson filed in behind me. The news helicopters wavered a little bit so I waved up at them as I hiked into the forest.

The hike back was much easier than the track in. It was nice easy hiking until we got to the canyon. After the rough night I still had to rest about every half hour. I told the guys to go on ahead and I’d catch up but I knew it was useless. Landon wasn’t there and somebody had to make sure I didn’t fall head first off the rock or hike myself to death, so they pretended to rest when I rested.

“You know you don’t have to hike behind me. I’m not tracking. You’re not going to mess up the trail. Besides if I walk behind you I’ll learn your tracks. If you run into trouble on the job you might want me to be able to recognize your tracks.”

“You’d recognize our tracks on sight?”

“If you’d just give me a chance.”

“You mean you could pick out our tracks in a group of mixed tracks?”

“If… you’d just give me the chance. Once your patterns are logged into my brain I remember things like that fairly easily.”

“Whose tracks can you recognize?”

“Well, Rusty, of course. Chase, Big John, all the hands on my parent’s ranch except Elan, the new one. Patrick, Kelly Green. There are several dead people I’d recognize if they suddenly came back to life: Dirk, Old Frank, Tyrone Trent, Mario Peccati, Carl Cranston. That’s depressing. I don’t want to think about that. Can we change the subject?”

“But you’re saying if we changed shoes, you’d still be able to pick us out of a crowd?”

“It depends on a lot of things. If I knew you were missing and I knew your mannerisms and I knew to watch for you I think I could. If I was walking across the field at the fairgrounds and saw your tracks I wouldn’t suddenly say, ‘Jayce and Kent came through here!’ Rusty and Chase are the only ones that stand out that clearly to me. There have to be a few clues first.”

“Dang!” said Jacobsen but nobody suddenly wanted to walk ahead of me. It was ingrained in them. The tracker goes first. Or maybe they were worried about going too fast and leaving me behind.

Jacobsen was still popping bubble wrap one bubble at a time, while Thompson was searching a limp sheet of plastic for that one elusive bubble. He handed it to me. I ran the plastic through my hands and said, “There’s still one more,” even though I didn’t feel any. He examined the sheet as he walked. “One problem with the kill and destroy method is they might not all be completely dead. They might just be squished and limp and laying there helpless. But they aren’t quite dead yet.”

Pop, pop, pop, went Thompson’s bubble wrap.

The canyon went steadily downhill until we got to the rock wall. I was tired. I looked down the face of the rock and the thought of climbing over the edge with my pack on was daunting. Up was no problem. I was used to the balance issues on the way up. I took off my pack and rummaged around in it. Sometimes I had a light climbing rope but I didn’t this time. Shoot.

“Cassidy, what are you doing?” Jacobsen asked.

“I was hoping to climb down without my pack on. I was looking for a rope.”

“You’re in luck. We don’t want you to climb down with your pack on either,” Jacobsen said.

“You’re allowed to ask for help,” Thompson added.

“I don’t need help. I can improvise. I’m good at improvising. A rope would just be easier.”

Both guys gave me an impatient look.

“Do you have any problem with the climb without the pack?”

“No.”

“Then climb down. We’ll take care of your pack.”

I looked over the edge.

“Rattlesnake’s gone. Or at least in a different spot,” I reported.

I backed over the edge finding footholds, feeling my way down until I could find handholds on the rock. I inspected the ledge and found it snake free. When I reached the bottom Thompson started down. Jacobsen handed down my pack and Thompson passed it to me.

 

Base camp was in transition as we dragged our way in. The search had been over for a long time but a group of reporters was still hoping for an interview. Strict was still in residence. He had to be as long as civilians were hanging around. He was relieved to see us so he could kick everybody out.

“Well, guys, they’re all yours,” I said, but Thompson grabbed the back of my pack before I could get away.

“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re the tracker. You know the answers. We were just crowd control.”

“Then control this crowd!” I said walking away but he still had hold of my pack.

“Cassidy… it was your search. Just stay and answer a few questions.”

“I don’t know what to say. Sherri doesn’t want them to know everything!”

“Then fudge a little.”

Then it was too late. We were trapped.

“Good job finding Sherri Champlain,” a reporter said to Jacobsen and Thompson. “What condition was she in when you located her?”

“We didn’t find her. Cassidy did,” Jacobsen said. Aw gee thanks guys, I thought shrinking back, but they pushed me in front of them and closed the gap so I couldn’t escape.

“She looked remarkably well considering she was out in the open for two days.” Thanks to a last minute fashion rescue by a greasy agent and a searcher with a hairbrush.

“Was she injured?” the reporter fired at me.

“That is privileged information. You’ll have to ask her or her agent that question.”

“Did she talk to you when you found her?”

“Yes.”

“What did she have to say about her ordeal?”

“She was more concerned about getting back to work.”

“And when do you think that will happen?” another reporter asked.

“Just as soon as possible,” I said, dodging the question. “Get me out of here or the cookie deal is off.” I mumbled to the guys behind me. They just smiled at the cameras.

“Where is Sherri now?”

“I presume somewhere in L.A. Since I didn’t go, I don’t know where they went.”

“How did you find her so quickly?”

“I followed her tracks.”

“What happened on the cliff that made you fall?”

“I didn’t fall, and it wasn’t a cliff. It was a twelve foot rock and a rattlesnake just gave me a warning to stay off his ledge.”

“Are rattlesnakes common in these mountains?”

“I’ve seen a few.”

“Do you think Sherri ran into a rattlesnake?”

“I doubt it.”

“How long does it usually take to find a person in Sherri’s situation?”

“That depends on many things. Sherri was relatively easy to find. I’ve had searches take hours and searches that took four days. It depends on how long the person has been lost, how far they traveled and the terrain they chose. Some soils are easy to track in and some are nearly impossible. We have a wide variety of soil types in these mountains. I’ve tracked most of them.”

“You look familiar. Have we interviewed you before?”

“I have been involved in a few news stories over the past few years. The mine collapse, the follow up wedding story. Those were me. I was also the officer missing from a stakeout a little while back.”

“And the mysterious shopper at the mall who took down the bank robber. I saw that on TV,” interjected Jayce Thompson.

“I really should be going,” I said pushing my way between Thompson and Jacobsen.

“But will Sherri be all right?” half the reporters asked at once.

“She’ll be fine,” I shot back.

 

The house was quiet until I walked in the front door. Shadow met me with his usual enthusiasm. It was hard to tell if he missed me. I got the same greeting whether I walked to the barn and back or I was gone for a week.

Life went on and so Rusty was at work, catching the news off and on throughout the day. He’d know very soon that Sherri was found. If he didn’t catch it on the news, Jacobsen and Thompson would arrive at the station soon.

I grabbed a carrot from the fridge and headed out back to see how my charge was getting along without me. I broke the carrot into pieces as I went. As I expected, Apache had been fed and watered in my absence but he hadn’t been brushed or ridden. I slid the carrot pieces into my pocket but I couldn’t fool Apache. When I came close to him he nudged my pocket. I took out one piece and climbed into the corral.

“Gentle,” I said as I held out the carrot on my palm. He took the carrot and I went to the barn and got out a brush and started to work. I needed to relax, but to a girl who grew up around horses, grooming horses was a relaxing activity. Apache must have missed me a little. He stood still while I talked and brushed. He paid attention, ears swiveling as I moved around, brush in constant motion. After a light brushing he looked better and I put the brush away and got out the lead line. I walked him out to the grass and let him graze a little. He was a perfect gentleman. I thought he was hiding an ace up his sleeve so I remained cautious. He didn’t try anything that day so I put him back in the corral and went into the house determined to work with him after my trip to the school the next day. Then I remembered the work I was going to do on the motorcycle. I went to the garage. I started the bike with the door closed and when it was settled down to a nice quiet idle I opened the door and slowly eased the bike out and around to the back yard. At first I just left it idling next to the house where Apache could hear it. I walked to the corral. He was prancing in circles, ears pricked, senses alert. I entered the corral and talked to Apache, petting him, reassuring him the noise was okay. When he had settled a little I walked back to the bike and pushed it closer. He did a little playful bucking when the bike came in sight so I went and talked to him again. The bike rumbled gently, the horse paced and tossed his head and pawed the earth. So far so good, I thought and moved the bike closer. As long as the bike was just sitting there Apache settled. As soon as it moved he got fearful and antsy. I shut it off and put it in the barn before I went too far and panicked him.

 

Rusty wasn’t sure what to expect when he got home. He knew I could be worn out from hiking, so he was relieved to find me up and about. I was looking over my chocolate chip cookie recipe wondering if trail mix cookies would be really good or really tough. I was imagining what dried fruit would do in the oven if you baked it into a cookie.

“It’s good to have my girl home again,” he said wrapping me in a hug. “Thank you for having patience with the TV reporters. I know how hard you tried to avoid them.”

“So, what’s your theory on bubble wrap? We had a big bubble wrap debate on the trail.”

He grinned. “The guys were still popping bubble wrap when they got to the station. My theory is it doesn’t do much good if you pop it so I leave it alone.”

“You don’t pop bubble wrap?”

“No.”

“I’ve known you all this time and I just assumed you would at least pop a few of them. Even I have to pop a few of them. It’s not normal to not pop bubble wrap.”

“I never claimed to be normal,” he said.

“Do you push the buttons on those irritating animated holiday animals in stores?”

“No.”

“Rusty! You mean you never got curious about what a Valentine’s Day kung fu hamster might do? You never wondered what a mechanical ukulele playing stuffed gorilla might do?”

He grinned, amused at my curiosity. “No, but I have to admit I watch over your shoulder when you do it.”

“Okay, that’s more like it.”

“Knowing you, the hamster would have a black belt, but so far they’ve proved harmless.”

It was so good having meaningless conversations again. For the longest time Rusty came home to a silent house while I slept, recovering from some chore that proved to be too much for me.

 

“Let me get out into the desert before you start it up,” I told Rusty. “Then ride around as close as Apache will let you. If he seems upset, back off. He just has to get used to the noise and activity. He’ll never be fit for kids until he’s accepted surprise noises as normal.”

“Are you sure this is wise?”

“As long as we’re out in the open we’ll be fine. If he runs all I have to do is stay in the saddle. If that happens just put the bike away. We’ll know he isn’t ready for this exercise. I’ll be back as soon as he tires out.”

And so I spent an hour slowly riding Apache out in the desert while Rusty quietly rode big circles around the horse. Apache bucked and startled and Rusty fretted, thinking he’d do something just a little too suddenly and I’d be thrown. I waved him closer. Things were more under control than they appeared to be. I was familiar with Apache’s natural reaction to noise. He was just fearful and nervous. Nervousness was to be expected in a horse his age and it usually resulted in movement. Herd animals run from prey, so they run from frightening things.  Round and around we went until I was tired of the monotony of it. I called Rusty on the cell phone.

“I’m going to run him. Try making a pass and see what he does.”

“Okay.”

I hung up and gave Apache a spirited kick to get him going. This youngster didn’t need much prompting. He’d rather run than do anything else, so I pointed him down the road and he took off and found a comfortable pace. Rusty passed us on the bike off at a distance then turned around and made a pass closer to us. Apache’s nostrils flared. His ears pricked forward and he stared down the motorcycle. The buzzing grew nearer. Apache held his own. The motorcycle kept on. This was a game of cowboy chicken and I was willing to bet Apache would chicken out first. I held on with my knees as he pounded forward. Ready for a sudden lunge to the side. Instead Apache stopped in midstride nearly throwing me over his head. My legs tightened automatically gripping the horse as I followed his erratic movements. He whirled around and took a flying kick at the motorcycle as it went by. I hung on hoping Rusty wasn’t watching me. I’d ridden many a green broke horse and Apache’s bucking didn’t bother me. I just moved with the horse. The motorcycle sped off and Apache turned and watched it go, stamping his foot angrily. My cell phone rang.

“I say we call it a day,” Rusty said.

 

Farley followed at a distance as I met Bailee the next day. She brightened immediately when she saw me coming and she had plenty to say, well, for her anyway. She was excited.

“Chas!” she hugged me happily. She pointed to herself with her clenched hand and said, “Saw you. Me did.”

“You saw me?”

She nodded.

“Don’t tell me, on TV?”

“Yes! You… I see.”

She held up a tabloid newspaper with Sherri’s picture on the front and a long article inside. She held up a pen and the newspaper.

“What? You want my autograph?”

She beamed. Oh, what the hell. It was useless, except to make a little girl happy. So I signed it: To Bailee, a super rider at McGyver’s riding school. From Cassidy Michaels who tracked and found Sherri Champlain in the woods of California. Then I decorated it with hearts and stars and handed it back to Bailee. She read it and her smile brightened the whole stable.

“Are you ready to ride?” I asked.

She went to Socks’ stable and hugged the old horse.

“Mine harse,” she said.

“Can you say Socks? Horses like to hear their names. Can you say Socks’ name?”

She thought for a moment and I thought she was going to withdraw but she hesitantly said softly, like she was experimenting by herself in her room, “Mine… Shocks… mine Shocks.”

“That’s great!” I praised her. “You can say Socks’ name! When he does what he is supposed to, praise him. He will like to hear your voice and he will respond better.

“Shocks…” she said over and over, practicing.

As we brushed out Socks’ coat I made sure to use short phrases as I went. When I found tangles in his mane and he didn’t flinch I said, “Good boy! Good Socks!”

Bailee looked like she was taking notes. As she rode she said, “Goo… Good Shocks. Good harse.”

 

“What’s wrong, babe?” Rusty asked that evening.

“Nothing,” I answered truthfully. Nothing was wrong. The problem was it was so right I didn’t know how to deal with it. Bailee’s brain was working, forming new words where they didn’t exist before. All she needed was a reason. Was there anything love couldn’t do?

“Cassidy?”

I looked at him pushing down the emotions bubbling just below the surface. Love caused all manner of strange things to happen. It made a little girl want to speak again. It made a detective hunt down a renegade horse to draw his wife out the depths of despair. It drew people to do things they never thought possible, teaching in a place where joy and cruel reality fought hand to hand. It was the story of my life, trouble and peace fighting it out. But I loved this life. And my love was growing. I could feel it expanding and swelling.

“Cassidy?”

Maybe there was space in my heart for my own child. To see my own child learn and grow. To see Rusty’s sparkle in their eyes. To see their curiosity about the world expand and grow…

“Hon…”

If he only knew what was in my head he wouldn’t interrupt, I thought. Maybe, some day, I’d have that chance, to see my own child figure out how to say words, to walk, to soak up life. That’s what I wanted for my child…to soak up life, like a little sponge.

“It’s all right,” I told Rusty, “and it’s getting better. You’ll see. Would you come to the school with me?”

“You? You want me to come to the school with you? That’s your project.”

“It’s not a project. Do you remember when I asked you to come to the hideout with me but you didn’t know why?”

“Yes, I remember that weekend as if it were yesterday.”

“Was it worth it? You weren’t sure you wanted to walk four miles for something you didn’t know was there. Was it worth the hike?”

“It was priceless. It was the first ray of hope I had for us.”

“Would you come to the school with me?”

“Of course, when you put it that way. I would do anything for you. I didn’t know it meant that much to you.”

“It didn’t at first. But something has been happening that I want you to see.”

 

On the way to the school I told Rusty all about Bailee. He had never actually been to the school before but the station had a program for teenagers wanting to work their way into law enforcement and Farley supported that. Rusty met Farley on one of his frequent visits to see how the kids were doing. He sponsored a riding day for the Junior Officers so they could have a day as mounted police.

“How old is this kid?”

“Nine, and she really does very well. Even a normal nine year old wishes she could ride like Bailee. When I started here she only said two words, ‘mine horse.’ She has come up with several others since I started working there.”

I took Rusty to Socks’ stable and we waited for Bailee. The more I looked at the old horse I wondered how many rides he had in him. But Bailee didn’t see him that way. Socks was a friend and no matter how old he got and how big Bailee got they would be friends forever. Having seen the demise of many an old horse I only prayed Socks had one more ride in him than Bailee.

After sharing the newspaper with me Bailee felt like she could share other parts of her life. She ran to the stable with an odd lopsided gate that didn’t slow her down at all. I pointed her out to Rusty so he could see the state she was in even before she got there. In her hands she clutched a book.

“Hi, Bailee!” I said with a big smile. It always paid off to be bright and cheerful. It was contagious and put off total frustration just a little bit longer.

“Chas!” She held out the book.

“What have you got here?”

“Mine.”

“What is it?”

“Mine…” a few seconds of thought, “book.”

“It looks like a great book! I read books like that when I was a kid, too.”

“Look!” She showed me the cover. On it was a girl running the barrels on a black horse with white socks. “Dis… dis me! I do! I do dis.”

Oh man! I was all for it but I wasn’t the boss. Farley was the boss. Farley knew the right steps. I couldn’t go over Farley’s head. But this was important. This is what Bailee wanted. If a kid wanted something there was no stopping them, except unbelieving adults. Unbelieving adults had a horrible way of squashing kids’ dreams.

“You want to do barrel racing?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said emphatically.

I looked at Rusty. Rusty looked at me. I took Bailee’s clipboard down. She was supposed to ride English today. That was a big step for a kid in itself. It meant she was getting better at balance, not needing the support of the big, wide, western saddle. But Bailee had the barrel-racing bug.

“Bailee, I have to ask Farley before we can do barrel racing. I brought a surprise for you, too. This is Rusty. He’s my husband. He wants to see you ride. He’s heard you’re a super rider. Show him how to get Socks ready for your lesson and I’ll talk to Farley.”

As always she gave the horse a hug, saying, “mine harse.” She worked a brush over her withered hand and got to work.

I handed Rusty another brush and said, “I’ll be right back.”

“Show me what to do,” Rusty said to Bailee.

 

“Farley, we have a slight problem,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“It might be nothing. And it might be you.”

He cocked his head like Shadow did when I asked him if there was a squirrel in the back yard.

“Maybe you should tell me about this problem.”

“Bailee wants to try barrel racing.”

“How do you know that? She can’t even say barrel racing.”

I held out the book. “No but she can say, ‘this me.’”

“Oh really!”

“Yeah, Farley, she doesn’t have to try it at a gallop. As long as she is working towards it. It’ll be good for her coordination. She knows how to steer a horse. That’s all barrel racing is is steering a horse around barrels. Why can’t she do that slow until she’s ready to do it faster?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Think fast.”

“What?”

I stood up to Farley and gave him the look. “Little girls’ dreams don’t last forever. She will do anything to be like this kid. So let her be like this kid.”

“That kid is fictional.”

“Bailee isn’t. Bailee’s a real kid with a real dream. Scratch the English saddle. Give me three barrels.”

“She’s ready to ride English.”

“She thinks she’s ready to try barrel racing. She is! At least slow.”

“What if Socks isn’t ready for barrel racing?”

“He can at least take them slow. That’s part of riding, knowing what you can expect out of your horse.”

Farley and I had a short stare down.

“You can’t slash her dream,” I told him. “Come talk to her. She wants this bad enough to talk. Come see for yourself.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Yes! That was better than him coming with me anyway.

 

“Bailee, Farley wants to talk to you about your riding. You need to convince him you can do it! He knows you’re a super rider. Show him you have what it takes to do barrel racing.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. I know you can do it. You convinced me. But you need to talk to Farley. He sets up your lessons. He’ll be here soon.” I handed her the book. “Tell me about the story. What in there got you interested in barrel racing?”

It was like making a shy kid get up in front of a group and give a speech. She was terrified.

“Dis harse,” she said tapping the cover of the book, “he… sick… dirl…” she drew a blank. “Dad… say harse… no good.”

“What’s the girl’s name?”

“Sam… Sam say harse… good harse… care of harse.”

Farley walked in dumbfounded. Bailee was talking. Making conversation. Describing a book.

“Did the horse get better?”

“Yes! He… fast. Sam have…” another pause while she thought very hard “big dream… her harse… be rodeo harse.”

It was the standard girl meets horse story, but she didn’t know that.  After what Farley saw he didn’t take a whole lot of convincing.

“Bailee, show Farley what you want to do.”

She looked at Farley like she’d just been sent to the principal’s office. Then her eyes brimmed with tears. Farley took an emotional step back. If he said no it would be like taking candy from a baby. He’d feel like a heel.

“Mizzur Mac…” That alone took Farley McGyver by surprise. “Shocks good harse… me want… ride like dis.” She held out the book to Farley.

“You do?”

“Yes!” Yes can be the most beautiful word when it comes from somebody who has heard a thousand no’s.

“This is going to take work, you know that.”

“Yes!”

“You don’t mind starting out slow?”

“No!”

“You’ll listen to Cassidy?”

“Chas! Yeah!”

“Cassidy? Have you ever done barrel racing before?”

“Yeah, it’s been several years but I can teach it, no problem.”

Bailee’s eyes lit up. She was going to learn barrel racing!

“Mizzur Mac! Dang you!” I laughed at her excitement and hoped Farley knew she was saying thank you. “Dang you, Chas!”

“You’re welcome, Bailee. I like barrel racing, too. Is Socks ready to go?”

 

I’m afraid Bailee was a little disappointed in her first barrel racing lesson.

“You know how to turn left and right but there are patterns involved in barrel racing. You have to know the sequence by heart and you have to make the turns as tight as you can without knocking the barrels over. We’ll work on the turns first. Socks has to listen to you slowly before you can expect him to obey quickly. He’s used to figure eights but he has never done the cloverleaf pattern before. So this is going to be new to him.”

Farley and Rusty set up the three barrels and I walked Bailee and Socks through one run.

“Remember the pattern, because if you go on the wrong side of the barrel it messes up the whole run. You need to circle each barrel in a clockwise direction.”

As she came to the first barrel I walked quickly beside Socks’ head calling out directions.

“Clockwise, tight, very tight turn, around, around some more. Okay aim for the next barrel. Okay do it again. Tight, as tight as you can without touching the barrel…” Next she needed to do it without me walking along side coaching. That was more frustrating. I called out the orders but Socks wasn’t listening very well. I thought it might help if Socks had some experience barrel racing. I doubt the little horse had ever been used in competition. When I could see the frustration level mounting I pulled Bailee off the cloverleaf.

“Just canter him around the outside. You both need a break.”

As she rode I talked to Farley.

“If she’s going to get anywhere at this she needs a horse who has done it before.”

“Indy might work better. He’s younger. He enjoys surprises so, even though he’s never done barrel racing, he’d take to it better.”

“Maybe that would work.”

But Bailee would hear none of it.

“No! Shocks… good harse! Me… Shocks… do both… we learn. Shocks my fren.”

“Can I ride Socks?” I asked Bailee.

“You? Ride Shocks?”

“Yeah.”

“Shocks mine harse.”

I smiled because I knew four other kids rode Socks as well, but to Bailee Socks was her horse.

“Maybe he needs a teacher, too. He has never done the pattern. Maybe if I run him through the pattern a few times he will listen to you better.”

“Shocks, me learn…both. We do…” She was thinking the word together but it just wouldn’t come out.

“You want to learn together.” I summed it up. “Okay, that’s fair. It’s harder but I know you can do it because you’re a super rider! Let’s try it one more time. I’m going to jog beside Socks. Maybe we can do it at a trot. Ready?”

Off we went. I prodded the lazy old horse around the turns calling out, “tight, tight turns, rein him tighter, there you go!” By the end of the run I was exhausted but Rusty was leaning against the corral fence grinning ear to ear. He hadn’t seen me work in a long time and to see me standing up for a little kid and helping her realize a dream made him feel as good as it did me.

As she put Socks back in his stable her face was a study in contrasts. On one hand she got to try barrel racing. On the other hand she was not even close to being good at it.

“Every lesson it will get easier, you’ll see. It’s never easy when you are both learning something new at the same time. I thought you did good for a first time! Remember the first time you tried the weave poles? It was hard. But now it is easy. The barrels will be the same way. Pretty soon you’ll be flying around those barrels and we’ll have to time you with a stopwatch.”

She gave me a big hug, “Dang you, Chas.”

“Tell your mom what you did today. Moms love to hear what their kids did, especially if they did such a good job.”

“Mom… don talk… me. Mom talk… Mizzur Mac.”

“Well, you talk to her, anyway. She needs to hear your voice. The more you talk the easier it’ll get.”

I encouraged her but her words bothered me. Mom don’t talk to me.

“Me talk you. You talk me.”

“You can always talk to me,” I assured her.

 

Again Rusty was puzzled.

“Cassidy? What’s wrong?”

“Is it always this heartbreaking and wonderful working with kids? Seems like every day Bailee makes me cry with joy and weep in sorrow.”

“No, not always. In my job you see the dark side of kids too often. I think a family loses the highs and lows in the business of everyday life. It’s not like that all the time.”

 

On Thursday I showed up at the school with a book about equestrian events. Farley glared at me.

“You can’t show that to Bailee,” he said.

“Why not?”

“She’ll want to do all of them.”

“So?”

“So she can’t do all of that here. It’s impossible.”

“Why stop her?”

“She isn’t capable of…”

“She’s capable of anything she’s allowed to do. She’s just as capable as me. She could enter gymkhanas if she progressed far enough.”

“That’s a big if.”

“What do you see, Farley? Do see Bailee’s capabilities or her limitations? So she has trouble talking. So her hands are crooked. She can do anything she puts her mind to. Or is that what you’re afraid of?”

He glared at me.

“I choose to see her capabilities. I’ll teach her whatever she wants to learn, because I had the chance to learn whatever I wanted. I might have had to teach myself, but I did it all. If we don’t have the equipment, I’ll figure something out. If she isn’t ready I’ll tell her how we need to work towards her goal. But I will not tell her flat out no. Kids learn what they want to learn. If Bailee wants to learn something there is no stopping her. Giving her information isn’t dangerous.”

“What will you do when her dreams are bigger than reality?”

“Then we try and stretch reality. But we try. That’s it. We try. She won’t fault me if I fail as long as I try. Six months from now we’ll see who knows more. Your star pupil or Bailee.”

“What in tarnation did Michaels get me into?” he said, forgetting completely that he invited me to the school himself.

That day I took Bailee through the cloverleaf over and over. She wanted to be timed but Socks always managed to balk at one turn or another unless I was jogging along beside him. Socks needed more training than Bailee did. After her lesson I gave her the book. We opened it up to the pages on barrel racing and she exclaimed over the action shots of women competing in rodeos.

“I do dis…” she said over and over wishing she had more words.

I turned to the page with the cloverleaf diagram. I traced the path with my finger.

“Take a crayon and trace the path over and over so the pattern is in your head. If you can get it to be automatic it’ll be easier to remember in the saddle.”

She flipped back to the action shots.

“I do dis…”

“What do you want to do Bailee? Tell me? Your head knows the words. You know it’s called barrel racing. You know they do barrel racing at gymkhanas and rodeos. You know more about it than most kids because you read.”

“Me want… Chas, words… be gone.”

“I know how you feel. I’m in no hurry. If a word gets stuck just try. We’ll find it.”

“Me want…” I thought she gave up in frustration but then she said, “Me… have little brover. He… he…” she got frustrated and held up two fingers.

“He’s two?”

“He talk… better’n me.”

“That’s great!” I said and she glared at me. She didn’t consider it a good thing. “What? You don’t think he should be praised when he says a new word? He is going at his own pace. He didn’t have a car crash to set him back. You did. It takes courage to do what you are doing. You earn every word. Every word you say I celebrate. I love to hear you talk. You should celebrate your brother’s words too. It will make you both feel better. And when he knows enough words he will celebrate your words, too.”

“You like… my talk?”

“Of course I do! Tell me, when you read do you pronounce the words in your head when you read?”

“Me… yes.”

“So you know what all these words sound like in your head?”

“Yes?”

“So when you read, try to say them out loud. You know what they sound like…”

“Say words?”

“Yeah, like this,” I said pointing to the chapter title. “Tell me what these three words say.”

“Woe mans row dee o eve ents,” she read.

“That’s great!” I exclaimed loudly. “That’s exactly what it says. See? You can talk! All you need to do is focus on it and think how it sounds.” I found another title. “So, tell me what event you want to learn. The words are right here.” I pointed out the words.

“Barl rais ing.”

“There you see? Barrel Racing! You can talk. You can do anything you set your mind to. All you have to do is want it bad enough. You want to talk? Try reading words out loud. Eventually your brain will get used to them and you won’t have to struggle to find them.”

And so it went. Half of Bailee’s lesson was in the saddle and half of it was in friendship. That’s really all she needed, a big sister to celebrate her words, and to give her high fives when Socks made it all the way through a turn without balking.

“Good harse! Good Shocks!” she said enthusiastically.

When she progressed enough to be timed, I sent her to Farley to ask for a stopwatch. She ran off and I trailed behind wanting to see Farley’s reaction.

“Mizzur Mac?” Farley turned, knowing it was Bailee and knowing he had a game of twenty questions ahead of him to find out what Bailee needed. “Chas say she time me… if you… got watch. You got watch?”

After Farley picked up his jaw off the floor he said, “You mean a stopwatch?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never had need of a stopwatch. Let me check the office.”

Bailee followed him to the office and waited while he searched the drawers.

“How are your lessons going?” Farley asked not expecting an answer but needing to fill the quiet.

“Good! Shocks go throo patterns good. Slow… but good. Now we must speed.”

“Bailee, you’re talking so much better! Tell me what Cassidy did. How did she help you talk?”

“Cass iddy? She Cass iddy? Me say Chas. She like Chas.”

“So what did Chas do to help you talk?”

“Me read book. Many many words. Me talk words in book. We read book… barl racing. So I learn rules, patterns. Me like pictures. Me say words in book. Chas like hear me talk. I read. I talk. Now, more words I can talk.”

Farley nearly forgot the stopwatch, just listening to this silent girl giving him a complex explanation of exactly what she’d been doing for the past month or so. He searched a couple more places before giving up.

“I’m sorry Bailee, I don’t seem to have a stopwatch.”

Sigh, “Okay,” she said. “Me look my house. Maybe next time.”

She caught me eavesdropping, but thought nothing of it. “Mizzur Mac no have watch.”

“Okay, I’ll buy one and then we’ll have one to use whenever we want.”

“Your name… not Chas?”

“Chas sounds just fine to me.”

“What you real name?”

“Cassidy, but really, Chas is fine with me. It’s your special name for me. You’re the only one who gets to call me Chas.”

She looked thoughtful and I was curious what she would decide. “Shocks ready to go! We do barl racing!”

 

In the meantime, Apache was his ornery self. I rode him every afternoon. I rode the motorcycle around the outskirts of the property getting him used to noise and motors and moving machines. I probably scared off every deer for miles around and they quit coming to my house in the afternoons, but I knew the motorcycle conditioning was temporary and the deer would come back.

“You see?” Rusty told me. “You don’t go looking for trouble and it won’t go looking for you. How long has it been since you’ve run into trouble?”

“It’s quiet,” I admitted. “Too quiet.”

“It’s not too quiet. You’ve kept busy. You’re making progress at the school. You’re making progress on Apache. You’re back to work at home. Everything is right on track. This is what things should be like.”

“Almost,” I answered.

“What do you mean, almost?”

“Something’s still missing.”

 

I tried to figure out what it was. Did I miss the mountains? Could be, but it didn’t feel like the itchy feet I used to get. Was it the empty feeling I felt after the miscarriage? Could be, but it wasn’t a physical ache any more. Did I miss the small victories I felt with Bailee that I wanted for my own child? Could be, but I didn’t have time for a baby. Whatever it was it was vague and sneaky. It lingered outside, feeling its way in occasionally and then backing out silently. It was like a peeping tom. I could see its tracks under the windows and when I wasn’t busy doing something I’d feel something out there…watching.