Two days of getting the silent treatment from her father was all Lainey could stand. The second night when he came home with sawdust in his hair from the carpentry work he’d been doing and grunted in answer to her greeting, she went into action. She wrapped her arms tight around him and said, “Daddy, I’m not letting you go until you forgive me for cutting my hair and whatever else you’re mad at me for.”
“I’m not mad at you, Lainey.”
“Yes you are. You won’t talk to me.”
He took a deep breath and said without meeting her eyes, “I just don’t much feel like talking these days.”
“Then smile at me, at least, so I know you’re not mad.”
He gave her a smile so sad it pained her. “You doing okay with the horse?” he thought to ask.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m trying.”
He nodded. “Well, let’s hope you have better luck than your father’s having.”
It was a comfort to know she wasn’t the main cause of his blue funk, but she blamed herself for some of it anyhow. When Lainey had asked Mom why she was having such a hard time getting along with her father lately, Mom had said, “Your father just doesn’t like the idea of you growing up.” But she had to grow up, didn’t she? Was she supposed not to try being independent because it pained him when he was already hurting? She hadn’t come up with an answer to that yet. She only knew that being a good daughter was not as easy as it had been when she was little.
The third time that Lainey arrived with a couple of slices of dry bread and whistled for Whiskey, he actually left the company of two other horses to saunter across the corral to her.
“Good boy, Whiskey,” she told him with delight. “You’re beginning to know me, aren’t you?” She fed him the bread with one hand and stroked him with the other.
“Nice-looking horse,” a male voice said behind her.
She turned to see who belonged to it. “Ryan! What are you doing here?”
“Came to do some riding.”
“Oh.… Not to work?”
“Me, work?” He mimicked horror. Then he grinned and said, “Anyway, not outdoors in this climate. No, my father’s planning to take me on a weekend ride to see Indian rock paintings in some canyon. He wants me to get my butt in shape for it. Also, I’m supposed to learn how to care for my own mount so he doesn’t have to do it for me.”
“You and your father must be getting along, then.”
“Well, we’re sniffing around each other. How are you doing?”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry I took your job away from you. I mean, training me.”
“Oh, that’s okay. Mr. Dodge gave me a better deal than earning free rides.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m training this horse.” She patted Whiskey’s neck. “When I get him tamed so he can be sold, I’ll get part of the profit.”
“He looks pretty tame to me.”
She smiled, knowing better. “So who are you riding?”
“I don’t know. Any suggestions?”
“Ask for Lady maybe, or Shiloh. They’re easy to handle and give you a really smooth ride besides.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I have to find Chick. Dodge says he’s the only wrangler around this morning.”
“Chick was in the barn last I saw him.”
She watched Ryan go. He was easier to talk to than any boy in her school, more like an adult than a kid, and he was likable. But no way could she understand anyone who took pride in being lazy. Dad wouldn’t know what to make of him either. Unless Ryan was just striking a pose. That could be, Lainey thought.
She went about the business of saddling Whiskey. “Now this morning, no foolishness. We’re going for a real long ride, okay?” she told him.
He stood patiently while she mounted him, which didn’t mean a thing, as she knew from experience.
Ryan came back out of the stable lugging a saddle and blanket on one hip and wearing a bridle over his other shoulder.
“Chick claims he’s busy,” Ryan said. “He says I should get you to help me saddle Chester. Lady and Shiloh are out on the trail with Lopez already. Is Chester a killer?”
“Chester? He’s safe, just kind of—” Lainey wrinkled her nose. “Goofy,” she finished.
“Sure, just what I’d expect Chick to give me. That guy doesn’t even know me and he hates my guts. ‘City boy,’ he called me.”
“He was being polite. He could have called you worse.”
Ryan arched an eyebrow and sighed. “Yeah, well, he’s taking a group out in half an hour. He said to get Chester ready and walk him around here while I wait. So which is my goofy horse?”
She pointed to the large, angular, reddish brown animal. This morning he was busy gnawing on the manger. “You want to approach him on the left side. That’s the side where the horse expects you to be when you’re on the ground. They like things to be the way they expect,” she said.
“Who doesn’t?” Ryan fumbled with the latch on the corral gate, complaining, “These saddles weigh a ton.”
“That one’s maybe thirty-five or forty pounds,” she said. “Mine’s lighter because I’m smaller.”
“No, really?” Ryan faked amazement.
She bit her lip. He might not like being told the obvious, but she didn’t like being mocked for trying to instruct him, either. She was miffed enough not to bother telling him to leave the saddle and blanket outside of the corral so that they wouldn’t be dirtied by horse droppings. That, too, was obvious.
It turned out not to be to Ryan, though.
“Now what,” he demanded as he stopped next to Chester, who ignored him and kept chewing on the manger.
“Now you put on the bridle.”
To get rid of the saddle, Ryan heaved it up on Chester’s back. That got the horse’s attention! He stopped chewing and jumped sideways. Then he did a quick dance step with his back legs. Ryan jumped out of the way, up against the manger. The saddle fell off Chester, startling him so that he sidestepped fast the other way to avoid the thing that had dropped on the ground beside him. The sight of the horse’s great round rump coming at him sent Ryan climbing into the manger. Next he started to scale the fence around the hay stored in the inner ring.
Chick’s cackling laugh broke clear above the early morning birdcalls. He was standing in the barn doorway laughing so hard he was bent double. Now that was mean, Lainey thought. She dismounted, tied Whiskey to the nearest rail, and went to retrieve the bridle that Ryan had dropped in his haste.
“Come on down and I’ll show you how to do this, Ryan,” she said.
“God, I hate being made a fool of!” he exploded.
“Everyone does,” she said calmly. “Come on, now. Hold this bit with your fingers the way I’m showing you, and stand by Chester’s head.”
Slowly, Ryan descended. He took the bridle stall and held it up. “If this horse bites off my fingers, do I get a medal for bravery or do I get scoffed at again?”
“You get scoffed at, naturally,” she said. “Come on. He won’t eat your fingers.”
Gingerly, Ryan offered Chester the bit, which the horse took as if it were a piece of sugar, barely showing his teeth. “He let me,” Ryan said. “Can you believe that? He let me do it.”
“Sure. Now slide the crown piece over his ears.” Lainey helped him for the sake of Chester’s poor ears as Ryan struggled clumsily with the big boxy head. “Next comes the saddle blanket. Be sure it’s free of burrs before you put it on.”
“Okay, but where does it go?”
“Where do you think? Under the saddle on the horse’s back, Ryan.”
He frowned at her. “Come on,” he said, “don’t you give me a hard time, too.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re a decent kid. Or at least that’s how I had you pegged.”
She sniffed, pleased enough by the compliment to forgive him for being so smart mouthed. Patiently, she demonstrated how to put on the saddle. By the time Ryan had tightened the cinch and hoisted himself onto the horse, he seemed more confident.
Meanwhile, Chick had saddled a half dozen horses.
“If you try going it alone, City Boy, don’t blame me when that old Chester takes off for the next county with you on his back,” Chick called in his nasal twang. “You best wait for my group. You’ll fit in good with them.” He chuckled to himself. A bad sign, Lainey thought.
“I think I’ll go with Lainey,” Ryan yelled back to him. “Okay?” he asked her, his eyes pleading.
“Suit yourself,” Chick said. “But it’ll be a real short ride if you go out with Whiskey. He don’t go more’n a quarter of a mile.” Chick grinned at them both. The bashed-down felt hat he was wearing today made him look tough because it hid his baby face. All you could see of him was hat, long blond hair, and a handlebar mustache that looked fake but wasn’t.
“Come on, then,” Lainey said to Ryan. She didn’t want the distraction of him bumping along on Chester while she was trying to train Whiskey, but she couldn’t bring herself to reject Ryan in front of Chick.
She led the way down the road to the left. Once on the gravel verge of the highway, Chester poked his head companionably close alongside Whiskey’s haunches. Since Whiskey didn’t seem to object, Lainey allowed Chester to draw abreast, and they walked down the road side by side.
“So how do you like Tucson?” she asked Ryan.
“Not that much,” he said. “It’s okay at night when it cools down, but baking in a 110-degree oven every day is not my idea of fun.”
“Early mornings are nice,” she said.
“Early mornings I’m sleeping. Unless I’ve got a date with a horse. I guess it’s what you’re used to.… Have you always lived here?”
“Always,” she said. “I don’t mind the summers. And I love the sunshine and mountains in the distance wherever you look.… I visited a cousin in upstate New York once. She lives near mountains, the Adirondack, but they’re too green.”
“Better too green than the dead brown around here.”
“You should see the desert in bloom in the spring. It’s full of color then.”
“Cacti just don’t do it for me,” Ryan said. “Give me a nice old maple that I can lean against without getting speared.”
She laughed. “So when are you going home?”
“I don’t know. I may stick around until I get a handle on what my father’s like.… He talks to me after dinner usually. He has his coffee, and we sit out on the patio and watch the lizards scarfing up flies, and he talks. There’s an owl in a big old tree near the pool. I’ve never seen an owl in the wild before. We sit there until the stars come out. Then he watches TV and I read some more.”
“What does he talk about?”
“Oh, how great he runs the hospital. Or about the West and what Tucson was like when he first came out here. Or what he thinks is going to happen to the old U.S. of A. He’s pretty interesting, really.”
“What does he think is going to happen to the country?”
“Well, he figures we’ll come out on top because we’ve got what he calls ‘vision’ and we’re natural-born risk takers. Not me, though, I’m not a risk taker.” Ryan chuckled. “I guess you could tell by how quick I got out of Chester’s way, huh?”
“Chester’s pretty big,” she said, trying to be fair, “and you’re not used to horses.”
“Thanks for not laughing at me, Lainey.”
“I almost did,” she had to admit. “You were pretty funny.”
He grinned amiably, showing a dimple in his broad cheek. “I bet I was.” Then out of the blue he asked her, “How come you got your hair cut?”
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
“Well, sure. I mean, you’d look good anyway, but your hair was special, so long and shiny, kind of like Whiskey’s tail. Not that I’m comparing you to a horse. I mean—” He groaned in embarrassment.
To rescue him, she confided, “I cut it off to show my father I’m not his little darling anymore. I’m an individual, and I’m going to grow up and do things because I want to and I can—just like my brothers. You know what I mean?”
“All that from a haircut?” he asked.
She shrugged.
He said, “Well, I guess I can see it. There’s a kid in my school who got sent home for having four-letter words shaved onto his head. I guess he was using hair to make a statement, too.”
Lainey gave a start. She couldn’t believe it. They’d walked past the entrance to Cobb Lane, and Whiskey was still stepping right along. “Ryan, he did it!” she shrieked.
“Who did what?” He looked around in confusion.
“Whiskey.” She forced her trembling hands to steady so that Whiskey wouldn’t feel her excitement through the reins and start acting up again. “This horse,” she practically whispered to Ryan, “always—I mean always, no matter who’s riding him—turns around and heads for the stable in a quarter of a mile. We’ve gone at least half a mile already.”
“Must be my influence,” Ryan said. “Or maybe it’s Chester. Hey, Chester, you distracting old Whiskey from his turnaround act?” Ryan leaned slightly forward in the saddle and patted Chester’s neck.
Lainey was irked that he wasn’t taking this breakthrough seriously. To her it was amazing that Whiskey had become obedient so suddenly, and for no reason. Unless he was responding to the hours she’d spent grooming him and giving him treats he didn’t deserve. Or did Ryan have it right? Could it be Chester’s companionship?
“You know what this means, Ryan? It means I may be able to buy myself a horse soon. At least, I will if Whiskey’s broken his bad habit and Mr. Dodge can get a good price for him.”
“You want Dodge to sell the horse?” Ryan shook his head as if he were mystified. “I thought you liked Whiskey.”
“I do,” she said. “But there’s no way I can afford him once he’s trained. See, then he’ll become valuable because he’s also young and strong and beautiful.”
“So don’t tell Dodge you’ve trained him, and he’ll sell Whiskey to you cheap.”
“I couldn’t do that,” she said immediately. “It wouldn’t be honest.”
Ryan smiled and nodded. “That’s what I figured you’d say.”
“Would you do it?”
“No,” he said.
She gave him one of her mother’s level-eyed special looks. He was an oddball, Lainey thought, and not easy to know even if he was an easy talker. Still, she liked him.
They clip-clopped across the road and entered a dirt path, bordered by a rock fence, that led to the state forest trails. A rider came loping toward them. Lainey recognized Amber on Belle. “Amber!” she called out, but her friend pounded on by without a nod or a wave.
“Who’s that?” Ryan asked.
“My friend. Or, anyway, she used to be.” Lainey looked after Amber in dismay. She’d been too busy to call Amber, and they hadn’t seen each other since Lainey’s birthday. No wonder Amber didn’t want to speak to her.
“I thought it was a boy,” Ryan said. “She mad at you or something?”
“Maybe,” Lainey said. Then she added hopefully, “Or maybe she didn’t realize it was me because I’m with you.”
“You mean she doesn’t expect to see you with a boy?”
“I guess not.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“Don’t you even have a boyfriend in school?”
“No. Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Well, sure. That is, I have friends who are girls. It’s no big deal. I mean, it’s easier to have a conversation with a girl. Especially the ones that like to read.”
She considered what he’d said and decided that she liked his attitude. At least he was a male who gave girls credit for concerns beyond their own looks and feelings. She was wishing she were more of a reader herself when suddenly Whiskey started reversing direction.
“Oh, no you don’t!” She reined him through the turn and past it, trying to force him back onto the trail. He snorted and began to rear right above a pile of boulders and the barbed spines of a bristling teddy bear cholla. “Whiskey,” she said keeping her voice calm to control him, “don’t start in now. Look at how far we got. Come on, settle down. Don’t you want to see what’s up the trail?”
The third time Whiskey rose up on his back legs, neighing as if demanding his release, she heard Ryan cry out her name in terror. It did seem that Whiskey was about to fall backward. Lainey made ready to jump.
When Whiskey came down safely on his front legs, her fear dropped with him. She simply gave him his head and let him gallop for home, leaving Ryan alone on the path behind her. Nearing Cobb Lane, Lainey was afraid her mother might be looking out the window of the trailer, so she tried reining Whiskey in. To her relief, he slowed to a trot.
Chick was coming toward her. He was leading what she had expected—a gaggle of little girls, probably another birthday party group. Into the face of his knowing grin, she said stiffly, “Ryan’s back there at the trail head alone.”
Chick nodded. “I’ll look out for him.”
She hoped Ryan wouldn’t be humiliated to be stuck with a group of elementary school age girls, but she couldn’t do much about it if he was. The best she could manage was to coax Whiskey from a too-fast bouncing trot to a walk.
When she dismounted at the barn, she went as usual to get him his oats and she gave him a thorough grooming. If nothing else, he was looking handsomer from all the attention she had been giving him.
“I treat you a lot better than you treat me, you big trickster,” she complained to him. “That wasn’t nice, to let me think I had you trained and then show me who’s boss. You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?”
Playfully, Whiskey bumped her shoulder with his nose.
“Oh, Whiskey, you crazy horse,” she said. “Don’t you know Mr. Dodge could sell you for dog meat unless you behave?” She put her arms around his neck and hugged him. He kept his head still and snuffled as if her affection pleased him.
Well, she told herself, he had gone past his limit today. What if tomorrow she could get him to go a little farther? What if Chick and Lopez were wrong and Whiskey did get trained her way? For a moment she stood still, embracing Whiskey and hoping for a miracle.