The Long Ride Home Read online

  “Because I prefer David.”

  “Oh.” Sam’s forehead creased. “I don’t like it when people call me Sammy.”

  “Then say so. A man should at least get to decide what name he answers to.”

  Sam looked startled, then thoughtful, as if the idea was growing on him. “Okay. Should I run this calf, David?”

  David grinned. Cheeky little brat. “Go for it.”

  He glanced over and found Mary staring at him, a perturbed crease between her eyebrows. Their eyes met, held for moment, that same electric charge crackling in the air. The chute banged open and the calf ducked around to the left and nearly over top of David. He shooed it away, barking, “Stop, Sam.”

  Sam stopped his horse, kicking up a swirl of dust that the breeze tossed in David’s face. Geezus. Was it ever not some kind of windy here?

  David walked over to the roping box, gesturing. “That happened because you let your horse break wide out of the corner, instead of straight in behind the calf. A good run starts right here…” He walked into the roping box and forgot about everything but what he wanted the boys to understand. This was his place in the world. Here, inside the arena fence, he knew exactly what needed to be done and how to do it. The rest could wait.

  Chapter Twelve

  The roping session evolved into a lesson on horsemanship, the basic skills David’s dad and his uncle had pounded into his head while he’d fidgeted in his saddle the same as these kids, impatient to get to the good part. But they listened, did as they were told to the best of their ability. As the day wore on, they relaxed, slapping each other on the back for a decent run, dishing out a good-natured ribbing when it didn’t go so well.

  Each time David looked up, Mary was there on the nearest end of the bleachers, watching but never alone, even though Hilary left after half an hour. First, her seat was taken by a teenaged girl who talked fast, with a lot of hand gestures. Mary nodded along, somehow managing to give the girl her complete attention while still keeping one eye on the arena.

  “So can you help us?” the girl asked. “Please?”

  “Sure. As long as all I have to do is auction off the pies and not make them.”

  “Thank you. You’re the best.” The girl gave Mary a hug and then bounced off to share the good news with a gaggle of other girls lounging around on the bleachers, trying to look cool despite the wind and dust.

  The seat next to Mary didn’t have a chance to cool off before another butt was planted on it, this time a boy no more than eight. He had a fat, fluffy Australian Shepard puppy cuddled against his chest and offered it for Mary’s inspection.

  “What’s its name?” she asked.

  “George. Like the pig. ’Cause he’s my favorite.”

  “But…your puppy is a girl.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So…um, that’s a great name.” Her eyes sparkled with humor and her mouth curled into a tender smile as she stroked the puppy’s head. She laughed as it nipped at her fingers. David sidled in closer, leaning on the fence nearest where she sat, pretending his attention was glued to the action in the arena while he shamelessly spied on her. Hey, the better you know your enemy…

  “Can I bring her for show and tell, Miss Mary? Please? She’s so little and cute.”

  Mary tousled the boy’s mop of brown curls. “School doesn’t start for two more months, sweetie. She’ll be half grown.”

  “Oh.” The boy frowned, thinking it over. “But I want them to see her how she is now.”

  “How ’bout I take a picture and we’ll put it on my computer in the classroom?” Mary offered. She pulled out her phone and took a few shots, then the boy was off, thumping down the bleachers.

  David dragged his attention back to his students and pushed away from the fence, stepping out in front of the chutes to stop the next roper before he rode in the box. “Your reins are too long. Shorten them up and hold them down close to your horse’s neck. That’ll help you get up and over the front of your saddle coming out of the box.”

  Satisfied that the kid understood, David retreated to his spot on the fence as a round-faced little girl in braids and a grubby pink T-shirt plopped down next to Mary, clutching a Cat in the Hat book.

  “Hi, Mith Mary,” she lisped. “I been practithing my reading, juth like you thaid. Wanna hear?”

  “You betcha.”

  Dr. Suess was his cousin Adam’s favorite, so David knew most of the book by heart. The little girl stumbled through the rhymes, so painfully slow he had to clench his teeth to stop from shouting out the right words. Mary murmured encouragement and gentle prompts. When they finally, blessedly, reached the end, she and the girl traded high fives.

  “That’s amazing, Shalea. I bet if you keep practicing every day, by the time school starts, you’ll be able to stay in the first grade classroom for reading.”

  The girl’s plump bottom lip poked out. “I like being in your room, Mith Mary.”

  “But you’ll get to see your friends more in Mrs. Murphy’s room.”

  The girl pooched out her cheeks, thinking it over. “Do I still get to thay the Good Morning poem every day?”

  “Hmm.” Mary made a thoughtful face. “How about Monday and Wednesday? Brendan and Julene like to have a turn too.”

  “I thay it better.”

  “You are pretty tough to beat.” Mary’s mouth twitched ever so slightly. She put out a hand. “I have to be fair to everybody though, so…do we have a deal?”

  “Oh, aw wight.” The girl gave an exaggerated sigh but accepted the handshake. “Deal.”

  Mary laughed and gave her a hug. “Tell your mama I’m very proud of both of you for all your hard work.”

  A pointed elbow jabbed David in the ribs, making him jump. He looked down to find Sam smirking at him. “You here to rope, or just check out the chicks?”

  A couple of the other kids snickered. David felt his face heating up.

  “I was waitin’ on you,” he told Sam and sent the whole bunch of them down to bring the calves back from the catch pen.

  The rest of the afternoon was more of the same. David tried to keep his focus inside the arena fence, but he was fascinated by the endless stream of people who stopped to chat with Mary. Many appeared to be students or their parents, but one woman looked closer to eighty than eight, leaning heavily on a cane as she hoisted herself up the steps.

  “You gotta talk to my granddaughter about the boy of hers,” the woman declared loud enough that David didn’t have to try to listen. “She don’t want to think there might be somethin’ wrong with him, and she sure don’t want to hear it from me.”

  She plunked onto the bleachers beside Mary and went on—and on, and on—about all the reasons she feared her great-grandson had a learning disorder, obviously not concerned about the boy’s privacy. Or his mother’s.

  When she paused for breath, Mary patted her hand. “I’ll spend some time in his kindergarten class this fall. If I see anything that concerns me, I’ll talk to his mom about doing some screenings.”

  The old lady thumped her cane on the metal bleachers. “You make sure of it. I don’t want him falling through the cracks.”

  “He won’t.” Her voice was honed steel.

  David believed her. The old woman must’ve too, because she hmpffed her approval, ordered Mary to help her down the bleachers and then stumped off to inflict her opinion on some other poor soul.

  As Mary started back up the bleachers, she glanced over and caught David watching. She raised her eyebrows. He gestured toward the old lady, rolled his eyes. Mary smiled and shrugged. For an instant, they were just two people sharing a small joke. Her face was relaxed, her eyes warm, the way she must be in real life.

  Then the shutters came down. She ducked her head, turned away and moved to the other end of the bleachers to join a trio of women near her age who’d been
observing both her and David with open curiosity.

  It was near supper time when Galen called a halt. While the boys unsaddled horses and stowed their gear, David accepted a cold bottle of water from Galen and took a long, grateful gulp, rinsing the grit out of his throat. The bleachers were deserted, the parents and girlfriends who’d tagged along with the boys straggling back to their rigs.

  “I don’t s’pose you’re staying a while?” Sam asked, giving him the puppy-dog eyes again.

  David shook his head. “I have to leave day after tomorrow.”

  “Too bad.” Sam’s gaze slid to Muddy dozing beside Mary’s trailer, and he lowered his voice. “Are you taking the horse with you?”

  Everyone stopped, waiting for his answer. David was acutely aware that Mary could hear every word.

  “We’re still working out the details,” he said, and went to help load the calves.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Had enough?” Galen asked, latching the rear door on the stock trailer and waving the driver to pull out.

  “Yeah.” David swiped an arm across his face, grimaced at the smear of dirt on his sleeve. He could feel the grit between his teeth when he bit down. “This wind wears a person down.”

  “What wind? This here’s just a nice breeze.” Galen flashed a quick grin and then glanced at his watch. “I better get going. Cissy’s still in Great Falls at the hospital with her aunt, so I got all the chores to do.”

  So did everyone else judging by the way they’d scattered, headed home to family, chores, dinner. The stab of homesickness was sharp, familiar. Everyone had someplace to be, someone to be with. David glanced up, got an unexpected pang when he saw the bleachers were now deserted. Stupid. Of course Mary was leaving. He wasn’t sure why she’d stayed this long.

  She came around the corner of the stocks pens, marched over to where they stood and looked David straight in the eye, her expression a perfect match to Galen’s poker face. “Are we done for now?”

  “Looks like,” Galen said.

  “I want to see where you live,” David blurted

  Her eyes widened, startled, then her gaze shifted to Galen, who frowned at David.

  “Where you’re taking Muddy,” David corrected before they called JoJo the cop to come arrest him for stalking. “I need to know where you’re keeping him.”

  “Oh.” That little pucker appeared between Mary’s brows as she considered the demand.

  “I don’t know…” Galen began.

  “All he has to do is ask at the Town Pump and someone would tell him where we live.” Mary leveled a cool-eyed stare at David. “He can ride out with me and I’ll drop him back by here after we get Muddy put up.”

  “I have time,” Galen said.

  “No need.” Mary transferred her gaze to Galen and some kind of silent message passed between them. Galen nodded. Either David had met muster or Mary was non-verbally promising to blast him with pepper spray if he got out of line. Or a shotgun. A woman who’d been to war would know how to pull a trigger.

  Galen extended a hand to David. “Appreciate you takin’ the time with the boys. They need all the help they can get.”

  “They’ve got a lot of try and they pay attention,” David said, accepting the handshake. “There’s some real talent in that bunch.”

  Galen grunted. “Talent ain’t the problem. There’s a dozen guys on this rez who rope good enough to win the world if they could stay off the bottle and the rest of that shit.” He shook his head in disgust. “Don’t know if I’ll see you tomorrow. Gotta go to Great Falls to pick up Cissy and her aunt, won’t be home ’til evening.”

  With any luck, David would be gone by then, but he only nodded.

  “I’ll load Muddy,” Mary said and turned to walk that direction.

  Galen climbed in his pickup, backed out with a final lift of his hand in farewell. David circled around to the nearest spigot and scrubbed the calf manure from his hands best he could in the icy water, then wiped them dry on his jeans.

  Mary fired up her pickup as David walked toward her, had it in gear before his door was completely shut, obviously looking forward to this quality time with him. She didn’t have to worry about making conversation. Now that they were alone, his tongue was tied tighter than the best wrap and hooey he’d ever put on a calf.

  She swung the rig around and headed for the exit, her gaze glued to the road. The pickup was a four-door dually, diesel engine and manual transmission, at least ten years older than David’s but with half the miles. The interior was scuffed and worn but clean except for the inevitable layer of dust.

  She turned right out of the fairgrounds, away from town and toward the mountains on the same highway David had jogged that morning. Clouds churned on the horizon and the wind whipped streamers of snow into the sky above the peaks.

  “Gotta wonder how Lewis and Clark ever figured they could cross those,” David said.

  “They didn’t. At least not here. Meriwether Lewis tangled with a band of Blackfeet and had to run south for his life.” She cut him a sly glance. “They were trying to steal his horses. Guess it’s genetic.”

  “Uh—”

  She laughed, soft and dry. “That was a joke.”

  Oh. David scraped at a smear of calf snot on his jeans with his thumbnail. “Thanks for bringing me along. I’ll sleep easier.”

  Mary was silent for a long count of ten. Then she huffed a sigh. “He’s your horse. You have a right to know where he is.”

  She flipped on her turn signal, slowed, and David nearly swore out loud. Son-of-a-bitch. It was the house with the tipi. He’d stood right there beside Mary’s mailbox only a few hours earlier, not more than fifty yards from Muddy.

  The narrow driveway was pitted and scarce on gravel, but the fences on either side were in perfect repair. The pasture beyond was emerald green, scattered with clumps of willows and some other kind of brushy trees he couldn’t name. Twenty acres, he guessed, surrounding the compact manufactured home and a red-tin barn big enough to house a couple of stalls and a tack room.

  The deck was freshly stained, the yard fenced and mowed and the tipi even more gorgeous up close. The buffalo were painted in dark brown, the door flap decorated with handprints of red, yellow and blue. In the broad, black band at the very top, white dots formed the Big Dipper.

  Mary followed his line of sight and smiled slightly. “That was my college graduation present from Galen and Cissy. Said I’d always have a home, even on a teacher’s salary.” She parked in front of the barn and turned off the pickup, swiveling in her seat to face him full on. “So. This is it.”

  She waited a beat as if he might want to comment. When he didn’t, she popped the latch on her seatbelt and climbed out. David followed, meeting her at the back door of the trailer. He hesitated, not sure of the proper etiquette. Was it pushy to offer to unload the horse? Rude to stand back and make her do it?

  While he debated, Mary flipped the safety catch on the door and swung it open. The trailer was built to haul up to three horses, but the stall dividers had been removed, leaving a single open space. At the front, Muddy bowed his neck and rooted impatiently at the halter rope.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” Mary shoved his nose around so he didn’t smack her upside the head while she untied him. The instant she pulled the knot free, he fell back, scrambling out of the trailer and sending the gravel flying when he hit the ground. She gave the halter rope a hard yank to stop him from taking off and shot David an exasperated look. “More of your training?”

  “No. He learned that all by himself.”

  And damned if David hadn’t missed even the irritating parts. He held out a hand for the lead rope. Mary hesitated and then reluctantly passed it over, as if he might grab Muddy and run. Not that he wasn’t tempted. He reached up instead, intending to pat Muddy on the neck, but the horse dodged away, flattening hi
s ears.

  “I wanted to name him Happy. ’Cause of his personality and all. Galen and Otis had to talk hard to persuade me he’d work for Kylan.” Mary crossed her arms, eyeing Muddy. “Whatever possessed you to buy him?”

  “He was cheap.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” she said drily.

  David chuckled, letting Muddy tug him toward the open door of the barn. “A neighbor asked me to break a couple of colts and offered me Muddy in payment. I figured I’d start him roping and sell him to a kid or a weekend roper, make a few bucks.”

  “Guess he had different ideas.”

  “He usually does.” He yanked on the halter rope, forcing Muddy to pause inside the door while David checked out the barn. There were two large box stalls and space for a stack of hay bales. “You don’t have other horses?”

  “Not here. We had to take Kylan’s old kid horse over to Galen’s place, Mutt kept picking on him. Then Kylan decided he was lonely and brought a goat home, figuring it could help keep the knapweed cleaned up out of the pasture, but Mutt—um, Muddy—ran it through the fence.”

  David winced. “He’s a hateful little creature.”

  “He’s been a miracle for Kylan.” The soft declaration brought David up short. Before he could sort out an answer, Mary spun around. “I’ll go unhook the trailer.”

  David would’ve watched her walk away—watched a little closer than he should—but Muddy wasn’t much interested in standing around admiring the scenery. He rammed his nose against the halter with all his might, nearly yanking David off his feet.

  “I was hoping they’d taught you some manners,” he said.

  Muddy gave him an eye roll, plowed through the open gate of the first stall and spun around to glare at David, demanding that he take the halter off pronto. David did, then he swung the gate shut and fetched a flake of hay. The metal trash can beside the haystack held oats, so he scooped up a coffee can full and dumped it into a bucket tied inside Muddy’s stall. The horse jammed his head clear to the bottom, stuffing his mouth as full as possible, then he chewed furiously, oats drooling out the sides of his mouth.