When Jesse took the kids home I walked with Old Frank to the rear of the barn. There was a washroom and an office at the back of the barn that used both water and electricity, so a panel of meters ran up the back wall outside the washroom. Electrical lines ran from the meters into the ground and a line ran to the roof and then out to a telephone pole behind the property. The men looked at the arrangement wondering what the meters could possibly have to do with kids being on the barn roof. I took a quick look and scrambled up the meters. I was on the roof in ten seconds.
“Well, I’ll be hornswoggled,” Old Frank said in amazement.
“Steve, you might think about covering these up somehow. Patrick is bound to figure it out,” I suggested.
Steve nodded in agreement. Now that Patrick knew there was a way, he’d find it, no problem.
Rusty beamed up at me from the ground below. He always found my antics as a kid humorous.
I walked to the corner of the barn and jumped off, landing on bent knees.
“It makes my bones ache just watching you do that,” Old Frank said. “How did you win that bet with Randy, when you was sixteen?”
“Which bet? We were always making bets.”
“You bet him he couldn’t track you across the ranch. It was when he first came here.”
“Oh, that was easy. I just didn’t touch the ground,” I told him matter of factly. “But at that time I could have done it walking on the ground too.”
“That’s impossible. How could you cross the whole ranch without touching the ground.”
I sighed. It was going to get dark soon.
“Okay, one more quick demonstration and then we need to head for the house.” I climbed back up onto the barn roof, walked to the front of the barn and lowered myself onto a stall wall. I walked the fence that formed the outdoor section of the stall. “The tractor was parked here,” I pointed out. “I lowered myself onto the wheel of the tractor and followed the contours of the machine to the other wheel. Then I had to touch the ground but there was a patch of grass.”
I climbed up onto the pasture fence and followed it around the front of the property. It wasn’t difficult. It was a four by four beam. In just a few minutes I was at the front of the property by Jesse’s house. I followed the fence to the middle pasture and back up to the front of the house and jumped down. “No tracks, no tracking.”
“An’ how did you get back to the ranch when your mom took you for x-rays and you didn’t want to have to wear a cast on your leg?” Old Frank asked.
“I walked.”
“With a broken leg?”
“It wasn’t too broken. I had a barrel racing competition the next day. I was afraid they wouldn’t let me sign up if I was wearing a cast and it would just get in the way,” I explained.
“So you walked from town. How come we couldn’t find you?” Steve questioned.
“Because I didn’t want to be found. If you found me Mom would just take me back to the doctor.”
“We didn’t find her ‘til the competition,” Steve explained. “By the time it was over she was ready to come home. Laid her up for six weeks but she got third place in the competition.”
“Saaay, how’d you get Shasta to the competition without us seeing you?”
“Very quietly. Basically I stole him. I snuck in at night, saddled him up and took him away. I rode him to the competition. That’s why we only came in third. Shasta was really tired.”
Rusty leaned against a fence post. “Do you folks ever run out of stories to tell? Seems like every time I come up here there’s at least one new story.”
Old Frank said, “They’re only new to you. It was nothing new to us. In fact, it didn’t worry Betty none that Cassidy up and vanished in town. She just called us and sent us out looking for her. We spent about an hour driving the roads between the doctor’s office and home and gave up, figuring she’d come home when she was ready.”
“You left her out there with a broken leg?” Rusty asked in disbelief.
Old Frank said, “If Cassidy don’t want to be found ain’t no way to find her. If she ever disappears on you ain’t no use looking unless she wants to be found.”
“How’d you break your leg?” Rusty asked.
“We’re not sure,” I answered.
“How can you not know how you broke your leg?”
“Well, it was a two disaster day. I got in a fight at school. Barton Fartston was picking on Colin Oliver and I told him off. They were going to stuff him in a locker and I got in Barton’s face.”
“I remember that,” Randy admitted. “You were spooky mad.”
“The bell rang and everybody ran off to class except Barton and his goons, Colin and I. Colin tried to leave and Barton stopped him. They stuffed both of us into lockers and left. So it could have happened in the struggle. After school I was punching bag mad but we didn’t have a punching bag so I took off on a dirt bike out into the hills. I was going too fast, taking risks I shouldn’t have and wrapped the bike around a tree a couple of miles from home. We’ll never know if I broke it in the crash or if Barton’s goons did it trying to stuff me into the locker. Anyway, I walked home and told Dad about the bike. First he grounded me and gave me extra chores. Then he scolded me about the fight at school, said now they couldn’t do a thing to Barton because we had no way to prove he hurt me in any way. Then I got sent off to the doctor for x-rays. It was a long two days.”
“Did it occur to you that one high school girl could not hold off a bully and his gang?” Rusty asked.
“Ooh, Rusty, you’re treading dangerous ground!” Randy warned.
“It didn’t matter,” I answered Rusty. “I thought I could do anything I put my mind to. It didn’t matter to me if I came out ahead as long as somebody stood up for the underdog.”
“I see that in you a lot,” Rusty observed. “It’s what made you shield Mai from that bullet.”
“Holy smokes, I’m late for an appointment,” said Old Frank.
“Hop in the truck, I’ll give you a lift,” said Steve.
“What could you possibly have to do at this time of the day?” I asked him.
“It’s important. If’n I don’t get there soon I’ll miss my chance.”
Steve grinned. “Dominoes game with Patrick. If Old Frank isn’t there by seven-thirty Jesse says it’s too late to start a new game.”
“It’s good for him. Keeps his mind going. That kid’s got a head on his shoulders,” Old Frank said. “He keeps score an’ everything.”
Eighty years difference in the two and they still had respect for one another. It was an unusual thing to see these days.
The next day Old Frank was late getting out of bed. I wandered around the barn area and watched the horses in the pastures before walking out to see if they would approach me. These were different horses than the ones I grew up with. They didn’t know me. As a kid I’d have horses following me, nuzzling my shoulder for attention. Why the change? I decided it was me. I’d become distant, distant from my family, from my surroundings, from everything except Rusty. At least I hoped I wasn’t becoming distant to Rusty.
I tried walking up to a horse but I had to make friends first because she didn’t trust me. I held out my hand and approached slowly. Running my hand down her blaze, I felt a pang of sorrow for losing all the familiarity of my childhood. I was a stranger here. Heading back to the barn again I noticed Steve and Rusty leaning against the fence watching me. I walked over.
“Why so melancholy?” Rusty asked.
“The horses don’t know me anymore.”
“You can’t expect them to,” Rusty said. “Shasta and Mack know you.”
“And Satan. He still charges the door when I enter the barn.”
“It’s not because he knows you. It’s because he’s ornery,” Steve said. “Nobody can do a thing with that horse.”
“Why do you keep him?”
“He’s a good looking horse. He’s a picture perfect quarter horse. He’s kind of a mascot. Sometimes we put him in the pasture up by the road and people stop and take pictures of him. Then soon as a kid climbs the fence it’s back to the barn with him.”
Old Frank finally stepped out of the bunkhouse holding onto the doorway for balance.
“You up for a ride?” he asked me.
“Where to?” I asked.
“To find some tracks,” he answered.
I thought for a minute. How far was it to the best tracking grounds? There was a place a little over a mile away. At least it had plenty of tracks when I was a teenager.
“Sure,” I decided.
“Do you want to go?” Steve asked Rusty.
“Me?” Rusty asked, not thrilled with the prospect.
“If you don’t go I’ll send Randy,” Steve said as he motioned towards the barn. Rusty followed, knowing there might be a reason he should go.
When I got to the barn Steve was giving Rusty instructions.
“Put the stirrup down where he can reach it, way down. When he tries to mount be ready to give him a boost. Then, after he’s up on the horse, raise the stirrup to just above where his foot reaches. Cassidy could help him up but I don’t think she could support him if he needs more than just a boost.”
By the time Old Frank caught up to us, all the instructions had been given, and I busied myself while Steve went through all the machinations involved with getting Old Frank in the saddle. I noticed Old Frank was riding Chet, probably because Chet was the shortest workhorse on the ranch. Being short, he was easier to mount. I handed Rusty Shasta’s reins and I took Mack.
Once in the saddle, Old Frank was a cowboy again. He moved with the horse and Chet obeyed him implicitly. It didn’t take long for us to get to the wood I had in mind and we walked the horses around until a trail caught my eye.
“What is it, kid?”
I dismounted and knelt by the tracks.
“Dogs, I think, based on the various sizes of the tracks.”
“How many of them?”
“Three, one big furry dog, one more along the lines of a German Shepherd and a smaller one.”
“Tony Macaluso’s dogs. I bet he doesn’t know they’re loose again. How old are the tracks?”
“Not a day, but the weather’s been mild. They could have come through here last night.”
“Can you see the toe nails?”
“Yeah, it’s very clear that it’s dogs.”
“I was hoping for wild animals,” Old Frank said.
“We can keep looking. I’m sure there’s other tracks out here somewhere.” I strolled around looking for more, watching for game trails, burrows, anything that signified animal life. Rusty dismounted, too.
I knew there had to be other animals in this wood because the dogs were canvassing the area thoroughly. We saw so many dog tracks that it became a mystery of what they were looking for. I found a rabbit’s tracks. The dogs had chased it away into a burrow. We saw a few gophers, the bane of the horse ranch. Gophers were common and their burrows were a danger to the horses in the pastures. We fought them relentlessly.
Suddenly a commotion of barking and snarling startled me. I instinctively drew near to Mack and sought out Rusty who suddenly was in cop mode with a take-charge look about him. A dark brown blur rushed past the horses followed closely by the same three dogs I’d just described to Old Frank. Mack was startled at the sudden appearance of the fight and knocked me into Chet. The two horses jockeyed for position crushing me in between.
“Ha! Ha! See, Trouble? You were right! A Shepherd, a Malamute and a Springer Spaniel. Cain’t fool you, no sir!”
“Frank! Move! Make Chet move! I’m stuck!” I called over the ruckus.
He didn’t hear a word I said.
“Rusty! Grab Mack’s reins! I can’t breathe!”
Finally Rusty was able to snag Mack’s bridle and pull him away from Chet. I painfully worked my way clear of the two horses and stood, hands on knees gasping for breath.
“Cassidy! Are you okay?” Rusty exclaimed.
“Yeah, just give me a second.”
“There’s your wild animal,” Rusty said to Old Frank. “What was it?”
“It’s a marmot,” I told him. “But I bet we can’t even see the tracks. The dogs were hot on his trail.”
I climbed up onto Mack so if he was startled again I could control him. We followed the dog’s tracks and found them lunging at a burrow in the ground. They weren’t going to catch a marmot today. That critter was long gone, deep in the ground or out his back door.
We wandered around the hundred-year-old oaks and discovered deer tracks pointing toward the clearing. I found myself hoping there would be deer there for Patrick after school.
“I guess there just aren’t as many animals out here as there used to be,” Old Frank observed. “Them dogs don’t help none either. He usually keeps ‘em on his property but they’re hard to keep at home with no fences. I remember when you used to come out here and spend most of the day just wandering and tracking, poking your nose into dens and game trails. I often wished I could take off like that. Now, it seems, I can. I just don’t got the get up and go to do it.”
“You can do it, Old Frank, you just have to take your time and be careful.”
“Kid, I cain’t even get back up on the horse once I get off. If I got down from here I’d have to walk back and I cain’t walk neither. I just have to stick closer to home now. Sometimes Steve drops me off in town and I sit outside the barbershop and play checkers or dominoes with Hector an’ Bert. That’s the extent of my travels anymore. I can’t even say I need a haircut when I go there. I got more hair growing out my ears than they trim off my head. I always admired the way you took off after life and you never let tough times get you down. You’re always right back at it. If I ever had kids, don’t think I did but you never know. If I ever had kids I would want them to live like you, out there in it, not cooped up on a horse ranch. It’s such a small world, this ranch. At least I got to travel to the racetracks. When I was at the tracks I saw the sights. When I saw the sights I got more than I was lookin’ for a time or two. Thought I was really livin’. But you, you got a way with life. Adventure, happiness, sadness, love, it takes a little of all that to make a good life. You done good, Trouble, and I’m happy for you. You done real good.”
“Thanks Old Frank,” I said with a lump in my throat. I got the feeling the whole purpose of coming out here was so he could talk to me in private, let his opinion of me come across as clear as he could make it.
“An’, Rusty, if there was ever a man I’d entrust our Trouble to, it’s you. I was sixty-two when Cassidy was born. I barely kept up with her for eighteen years. It takes a quick man with a lot of guts to keep her in line, but I know you’re the best man for the job. I never seen her happier, so you must be doing something right.”
“You done good, too, Frank,” Rusty told him.
“Training horses was only a part time job. Once the young ones came along they worked me into a full time job. Think I shoulda gotten time and a half for Cassidy. Double on holidays. Holidays jus’ gave Cassidy more idle time to plot. I cain’t remember a holiday we didn’t have some excitement round the ranch. It’s been a mite quiet lately, though Patrick is starting to get the best of me. He’s a quick one, he is. Why is it only one kid is a handful?”
“Because parents couldn’t handle more than one. I think I gave you more gray hair than my parents because you were my go between.”
“No you didn’t, Trouble, all my hairs was gray by the time you were born. Maybe you made ‘em fall out but you didn’t turn ‘em gray. You showed me how I shoulda turned ‘em gray. I shoulda gone out looking for ways to turn ‘em gray. Hell, gray hair ain’t the end of the world. Some day, though, you run outa options. I’m glad you’re lookin’ over all the options while you’re young. Don’t ever stop.” He looked thoughtful for a moment and then added, “But don’t let ‘em kill you either.”
We went back to tracking and continued finding dog and deer tracks. We backtracked the dogs and the marmot looking for a decent marmot track, but the dogs had been very thorough in wiping out the marmot’s paw prints. Finally Old Frank needed to get back to take a nap before the “big shindig.” He rode with grace and style but as soon as he moved to dismount all the aches and stiff joints got the better of him. Rusty caught him as he struggled with the saddle and stirrups.
I doubt if Patrick’s feet hit the ground when the bus pulled up to the bus stop on the highway. He was home and onto his bright red bike before Jesse could even say hello. From up in my old bedroom I heard Dad bellow from his office, “Young man, there will be no running in this house.”
“Yes, Grandpa,” he replied respectfully, a little too respectfully as far I was concerned. Let the kid be excited, I thought. Rusty and I appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Are you ready?” Patrick asked.
“Yup, ready.”
“Did you wear your moccasins?”
“I even wore them to school and the kids thought they were funny looking ‘til I told them I made ‘em myself. They all think I’m weird so who cares what they think of my shoes.”
“I saw some deer tracks in the hills today so hopefully there will be deer at the clearing. Remember, these deer are going to be even harder to stalk than the deer at our house. They scare easier because they aren’t used to people.”
“I gotta go get my horse,” he said and headed for the door.
“Your horse?” I asked.
“Yeah, well, only temporary. He’s mine and Wyatt’s but Wyatt doesn’t care to ride yet, so I call him mine. Dad keeps him in the far pasture and makes me catch him before I ride him to keep my throwing arm in shape. He isn’t hard to catch. He wants to go too. I talked to him this morning and told him we were goin’ on a ride, so he’s expecting me. I’ll meet you at the barn.”
It amused me the way Patrick thought he could talk to animals. I never saw anything to doubt his ability, but I didn’t talk to animals believing they could understand my words. When I was halfway through saddling the horses Patrick walked up leading a diminutive pinto horse. It wasn’t quite a pony. It had a sturdy toughness to it coupled with a gentle look. I suspected the horse had been chosen specifically with the boys in mind, an older horse that some other ranch kid had outgrown so it was used to children and familiar with their quick movements. He seemed like a good horse for Patrick and Wyatt.
“What’s his name?” I asked Patrick.
“Snoopy, because he has markings like Snoopy.”
He did, sort of, and would probably stand out like a beacon to the deer, but we always stopped on the outskirts of the clearing, anyway. Patrick knew exactly where to find all Snoopy’s tack and, with some help lifting, he had his little horse saddled in minutes. He stood on a stool to get the right angle to pull the girth tight enough then had me check it just in case.
Rusty looked at Chet appearing as though he’d have preferred to stay on his own two feet.
“You can stay here if you want to,” I told him.
“No, I’ll go. I want to watch. I just had my share of riding already.”
“I know you did, but Old Frank and I were glad to have you along.”
“Come on guys!” said Patrick impatiently. We did need to get a move on so we could find the deer and stalk them. Then we had to get home in time for my mom’s party. Getting back in time wasn’t much of a problem, since we couldn’t stalk deer in the dark.
We loped our horses out the back of the ranch and pointed them towards the clearing. Patrick rode like he was born in the saddle even though his legs barely straddled the horse. Snoopy couldn’t have felt a kick even if Patrick’s legs had been long enough to bend in that direction. I watched the horses for signs of strain. They were used to being ridden frequently, but only for short jobs around the ranch. Repeated long rides were not part of their usual routine. Snoopy looked like he could go all day, determinedly plugging along. He looked like he was part mountain goat.
Only two lazy mule deer were dozing in the clearing. We stopped on the edge of the clearing and left the horses in the shelter of trees. Rusty found a comfortable vantage point as Patrick and I headed for the does. Patrick followed his usual ritual of showing himself to the deer and then knelt down and began silently talking to them. I still wasn’t sure how that worked but it made Patrick feel better and it was harmless so I left him alone to make his introductions. In a moment he was finished and gave me an “are we ready?” look. I started walking toward the deer, eyes on the does, alert for signs of fear. They ignored us at first but as we drew closer they began getting edgy. We stopped and froze in place. Patrick seemed to have a good understanding of how the deer were feeling. He froze at the appropriate times. He tended to take more chances than I would, but risks stalking deer were not a danger, simply a disappointment and a learning experience. I certainly had taken my share of disappointing risks as a kid. I was convinced the only reason Patrick really needed me along was because he was only six. He could use some fine-tuning but that would only come with practice. He was certainly exploring the confines of the ranch and had been seen investigating all kinds of animals in the brush. As I walked around the ranch I’d find his bicycle in odd places behind the ranch house, and eventually I would find blue jeans and cowboy boots poking out of the undergrowth or hear little, stealthy footsteps in the leaves.
After signaling Patrick to head for the closer doe I let him copy my movements for a while, but eventually felt he was ready to decide how to continue on his own. Inch by inch he grew closer to the doe, freezing when it moved, moving forward while it was distracted or grazing. A few times he startled the doe but he would immediately stop and freeze in place, sometimes for unbearingly long durations. He had the patience of a much older kid, but he seemed to live closer to the deer’s timetable than that of any person. It seemed as though he was a part of their world so their rules applied, just like they would if he was visiting a friend. If Pat had been spending the night at his best friend, Ricky’s, house where bedtime was at eight p.m., Patrick followed the same rules. If Ricky wasn’t allowed to play outside the yard, then Patrick wouldn’t either. He was used to these different rules and it seemed to apply to the deer as well. So if the deer said, no leaf crunching or impatient hurrying then he agreed to not crunch leaves and to slow down. The deer was over a hundred feet away when it ran away. Three blurs on the hunt ran after the deer and then veered in our direction barking. Rusty leapt to his feet and I made a dash for Patrick, my heart in my throat, not because the dogs were dangerous but because I was scared to death of them! These were not the ferocious police dogs I was used to. Still, from my perspective, they were feral dogs. I snatched Patrick off the ground and then stood my ground. My instincts said to run but I knew that was just fear talking. To run would invite a chase. I held Patrick close, glad he was only six. I raised my free arm and, assuming a threatening posture, stepped towards the dog yelling, “Yaaah! Get out of here dogs! Yaaaah, go home!”
Rusty was advancing, sidearm drawn but it wasn’t necessary. The dogs were on the run again.
“I’m going to talk to Tony Macaluso. This is dangerous. That’s twice today we’ve caught his dogs up to no good. He’s got to know the repercussions of his actions.”
“Those dumb dogs!” said Patrick. “We were doing good, an’ they ruined it.”
“It’s common when stalking to have disappointing things come up: a car going by on the road, a predator, your own silly mistake. That’s why stalking takes patience. You were doing a great job. All you need is practice and to get practice you need permission to come out here on your own. To do that you just need to be older. That’s what’s really going to take patience, waiting for your age to catch up with your capabilities.”
“I hope Tony Mac catches his dogs before they catch that doe,” Patrick said. “She’s hurt and I don’t know if she could run faster than a dog.”
“What do you mean she’s hurt?”
“Look at her tracks. One hoof is different from the other three tracks. I think she hurt her leg.”
I looked at the doe’s tracks. Sure enough, there was an odd or missing track in her trail.
“That’s a very good observation,” I told Patrick. “I’m proud of you for spotting that. You didn’t see it as she ran away from the dogs?”
“No, I saw it in the tracks as I was stalking her. I forgot to look when she ran away. I was just scared for her.”
We took our time on the way back to the ranch. I was watching Snoopy. Yup, I decided, he was a mix all right, welsh pony, mountain goat and pinto horse. Patrick seemed to love the little horse and talked to him as he rode along. When we stopped at the barn Pat already knew the rules. He removed the saddle and blanket. The saddle nearly knocked him over when he dragged it down and he fought it all the way to the tack room with firm determination. Rusty watched Pat thinking I’d probably done the same thing when I was six. Pat returned with a brush and groomed his horse as far as he could reach, then got out a stool and finished the job. Patrick gave Snoopy a chance to take a drink of water, then took him back to his pasture. Rusty helped me with Chet and Shasta. It felt good doing simple, quiet things together, tasks that were familiar to me. It eased away the fear of the dogs. We put the horses in their stalls then went back to the ranch house to change our clothes.
“I’m really proud of you,” he told me once we were finally alone. “You faced those dogs without any signs of your old fear.”
“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared of them,” I pointed out.
“Bravery doesn’t mean you don’t have fears. Bravery is facing things despite your fears. You’ve confronted a lot of things you’ve been afraid of. And you’ve faced things I wished you were more afraid of.”
“Speaking of facing things, half the town’s people will be here in about an hour. We need to get ready.”
I hadn’t brought any dressy clothes but decided to wear my newest jeans with my most flattering knit top. Hmm, it was a little low cut but I’d only bought it because I thought Rusty would appreciate it. However, now I was wondering if it was suitable for my mother’s party. Oh well, I thought, I could always change if necessary. After curling my hair I applied a thick coating of mascara then finished my make-up. I was beginning to look like a normal woman these days. I wasn’t sure if I was pleased with my assessment since I never wanted to be normal.