Scarecrow on Horseback (10 page)

“So doesn't your father respect
you
?”
Mel asked after she'd introduced Tanya to the goat that put his
front hooves on Mel's knees and tried to chew her belt. She pushed
him down and scratched around his ears while he nuzzled her.

“Dad expects me to be perfect,” Tanya said.
“And when I'm not, he gets mad.”

“Tough,” Mel said.

“So are you related to the owner or something
that they let you be a wrangler?” Tanya asked. It was her turn to
wrestle the goat away from her shirt, which he seemed to find
tasty.

“No. I'm just good with horses. It's the only
thing I'm good at.”

“Really?” Tanya pushed the goat away. It
scampered off and leapt to the roof of the shed. There it straddled
the peaked roof. When it bleated as if it were calling for help,
both girls giggled. “I'm a good student,” Tanya said. “And I play
two instruments, and I won first prize with a portrait painting of
my brothers this spring, but my father says I have no
ambition.”

“You're kidding,” Mel said. “What would he
say about me if he knew all I want is to save up enough to get my
own horse?”

“Makes sense. I mean you wanting a horse. I
hope you get one soon.”

“I'm working on buying Colby. Want to feed
the calf?” She offered Tanya the bottle she'd been carrying.

“Not especially. I don't like how it
slobbers. How about we try out the swimming pool?”

“Okay,” Mel agreed. She wasn't much of a
swimmer and hadn't used the ranch's pool once, but being sought out
by a girl like Tanya was flattering. Tanya reminded her of Lisa.
Maybe a little spoiled, but talented—a star. Lisa had reached out
to her, then Denise, and now Tanya. If this kept up, Mel would have
to give up thinking of herself as a social misfit.

She fed the calf and then ran to her cabin to
dig out her old swimsuit. There it was, scrunched in the back of
her bottom dresser drawer. Luckily, it still fit although it was a
couple of years old. It was mostly her legs that had stretched out.
Looking around for something besides boots to protect her feet from
the rock strewn ground, she realized that all her belongings would
fit in one suitcase. Tanya probably owned a roomful of stuff and
here she was envying Mel. The idea made Mel grin.

Chapter
Nine

At the end of the week Tanya left, promising
to write. Soon after, Mel faced another challenge. Two families
were scheduled for her three o'clock trail ride through the
quivery-leafed Aspens and the low-growing chokeberry bushes to
Beaver Lake. Sally was gone on an all-day ride, and Jeb was taking
a big group of supposedly expert riders up a steep trail to a
mountain lake. One of the other wranglers, a college boy who'd
worked on the ranch in past summers, said to her, “Looks like some
weather coming up.”

She saw the purplish, bruised-looking sky
behind the mountains and decided the rain was likely to fall back
there, on the far side of the range. Rather than disappoint her
group for nothing, she took a chance and led them off toward the
lake on schedule. They were in luck. A boy spotted a beaver, and
Mel called a halt so everyone could watch the animal climb the pile
of sticks above the water that marked the roof of its underwater
lodge. It embarrassed her that she couldn't answer the boy's eager
questions about how many beavers were likely to live in the lodge
and what they ate and whether they had any babies down there
now.

“We can look it up on the Internet when we
get back,” the boy's father said.

Mel's relief at being rescued from her
ignorance lasted only until she heard the first roll of thunder.
Jeb had told her what she must do if she was ever caught in a
thunderstorm with guests—get them out of the open and under the
thick canopy of tree branches. There they were to put on the yellow
rain slickers rolled up behind their saddles.

“We're going to have to wait out the storm,”
she said. But before she could tell her group where to take cover,
a sudden loud crack of thunder frightened Colby. He whinnied and
reared. Mel, who was turned backward toward the guests, lost her
seat and fell. She hit her shoulder hard against the ground as
Colby took off at a gallop.

“You okay?” the genial, ex-marine father of
the boy who'd been intrigued by the beaver asked as he helped her
to her feet.

She touched her shoulder. It hurt, but she
could move her arm all right. “I think I'm okay,” she said. But
Colby was out of sight and rain began pouring down as if someone
had turned the faucets on full blast.

At her direction, the ex-marine got everyone
under the trees and into their rain slickers. Mel struggled to get
her cell phone out of her fanny pack and call the ranch for help,
trying all the while not to wince at the pain in her shoulder.

Half an hour later Mr. Davis came riding to
the rescue. The group seemed to take the experience as an
adventure, and were good natured about being caught in a storm. In
short order, everyone was safely back at the ranch, including
Colby, who jogged up to the corral without anyone needing to go
after him. Riderless and wet, he was shaking his head and looking
woebegone. Luckily, Mel's shoulder wasn't broken, only sore and
bruised. Jeb didn't take the event lightly though. That horse,” Jeb
snapped at Sally. “I told you it couldn't be trusted.”

“It was my fault,” Mel said. “I shouldn't
have gone, and that thunder boomed really close to Colby.”

Jeb didn't argue with her, but without
warning that he was going to do it, he got rid of Colby. One
morning when Mel came down to the corral, she found Colby gone.
Sally wouldn't tell her where he was, so she ran to Jeb and asked
him.

“Sent him back to Jeffries,” Jeb growled. “He
wasn't reliable enough to use on a dude ranch.”

“You got rid of him?” she gasped. “But that's
not fair. You told me to train him. Colby was mine.”

“Yours? He belongs to Jeffries, Mel. We'll
get you a better horse. Don't worry,” Jeb said and would have
patted her on the shoulder if she hadn't pulled away.

Mel was furious. She screamed at Jeb without
caring who heard her. “I hate you!” Then she stomped off to sulk in
her cabin. She didn't come out for meals. Her mother brought her
dinner at the end of the first day. Sally came by with chocolate
cake from the cook the second night. But Mel refused to eat
anything. She spent three days mourning Colby, mourning all her
losses, beginning with the father she'd never had, right through
Lisa and Wonder Boy, Lily and Hojo and now Colby. Then her mother
brought her Tanya's e-mail.

My dad says I can have horseback riding
lessons if I want. How's Colby? Let me know when you've saved up
enough to buy him.

“You can use the office computer if you want
to answer her,” her mother said.

Mel shook her head. “I can't, Mom.” Because
what could she write Tanya? That being good with horses wasn't
enough? That she was helpless to protect anything she loved?

Chapter
Ten

After dinner on the third day, Dawn sat down
next to Mel, who was curled up on the couch in their cabin. “You're
taking this too hard, Mel, I bet you wouldn't take to your bed and
stop eating if you lost
me
.”

“Leave me alone, Mom.”

“You know, you're getting a bad rep in the
dining room.”

Mel looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Well, they said you were doing such a great
job and you had such a feel for horses and all that. I was busting
my seams with pride in my daughter. Now you're a drop-out.”

“You don't understand. Colby wasn't just a
horse. He was my friend. He trusted me. And then Jeb—” Mel choked
up and couldn't continue.

“Jeb feels bad that he got rid of Colby
without warning you. He says he didn't realize how attached you
were to that horse.”

“Because
Jeb
doesn't get attached. A
horse is just a thing to him, just something he can use.”

“Mel, please,” her mom said. “It hurts me to
see you so down. Be mad at Jeb if you want, but you can't keep
hiding out here. Oh, and your pal Sally said to tell you he needs
you.” Dawn reached into her pocket. “And your friend Denise must
have heard what happened. Sue gave me this to give you.”

What her mom handed over was a homemade card.
On the front, someone had drawn two horses' heads with teardrops on
their long noses. “We miss you,” Denise had written. “Come sleep
over so we can make you feel better. That's what friends are for,
right?” And she'd signed it with love from Denise and Lily.

“Isn't that nice?” her mom said. “You'll go,
won't you?”

Mel shook her head. “No. I'll call her and
say thanks and I'll sleepover when the season's done, but I've got
to go back to the corral tomorrow. Sally probably does really need
me.”

“That's my girl.” She hugged Mel. “You know
how proud I am of you? To be a wrangler at your age. The Davises
say it's amazing how you can handle a sick horse that Jeb can't get
near. And Sally—who knows horses if nothing else—says you're a
regular horse whisperer.”

“Why don't you like Sally?” Mel asked in
alarm.

“I like him fine. He's a nice man, but he's
kind of a loser, Mel. I mean, a man his age who doesn't own
anything but the clothes he has on—”

“He owns his horse.”

“Does he? Well, even so. It's easy to be good
natured when your life is simple and you're not responsible for
anyone else.”

Mel frowned but didn't argue. Convincing her
mother of Sally's worth would take more energy than she had at the
moment. By Dawn's standards, he was a no-count. To Mel he was
golden, the first grown male in her life who had cared about her.
One thing she did need to make her mother understand though— “You
know why I decided to ride Colby, Mom?” Mel said. “It was so I
could earn enough money to buy him. I need to own my own
horse.”

Dawn's eyes widened. “You better not count on
that, honey. No way can you or I afford to buy a horse, much less
pay for its upkeep. You'll have to wait until you're grown up and
earning your own living.”

Mel pulled back from her mother's embrace. “I
do earn my own living. Jeb's paying me for being a wrangler.”

“But you only work a few hours a day and you
don't get paid much.” Her mom looked anxious. “Please don't set
yourself up for another disappointment.”

“If I had my own horse, Jeb couldn't keep
taking it away from me. And I could make sure that it had a good
life.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the fear of what might be
happening to Hojo and Colby if whoever Jeb had sold them to wasn't
treating them right.

Her momstood up. “All right,” she said
wearily. “But remember, I can't help you with money because we just
about get by on what I earn here. I didn't take this job because it
paid well. I took it because I thought you'd be happy on a ranch,
and because I haven't done a whole lot just for you in your
life.”

Mel was touched. She reached out and hugged
her. “Mom,” she said, “I am happy here, except when Jeb ruins
everything.”

Dawn pulled away from her. “Well,” she said,
“Jeb does have a short fuse, and he's impulsive. That's what got
him in trouble with his girlfriend.”

“He tells you stuff like that?”

“We're friends, Mel. Like most people, Jeb
needs someone to confide in, and he can't afford to talk to the
wranglers who work for him, or the Davises because Mr. Davis is
sort of his boss. So he talks to me.”

“And he's just a friend?”

Dawn laughed. “Don't worry. I'm not after
anything more than friendship with any man. I learned my lesson. I
jumped at the gorgeous life Max had to give me, and it made me
miserable. It'll be just you and me for a long, long while,
Mel.”

Mel was glad to hear it. She couldn't have
stood Jeb having any more influence over her life than he already
did.

* * * *

Early the next morning, Mel found Sally in
the tack room fixing a broken bridle in the thin sunlight that
seeped through the cobwebbed window. She pulled a keg over and sat
down beside him. “I need your help.”

But when she told him she wanted to try and
buy Colby back, Sally shook his head. “Even if you could track him
down, Mel, you'd need thousands of dollars to buy him back. You'd
have to work forever at a wrangler's wage to save that. And Jeb's
only likely to pay you when he needs extra help in mid season.”

“Now
you're
discouraging me, too?” Mel
said.

“I just don't want you riding for a fall,
aiming for something you can't get.”

He sounded like an echo of her mother and
thinking of her mom’s opinion of him, she asked, “Sally, did you
ever want to be anything besides a wrangler?”

He laughed. “I used to dream about running my
own ranch.”

“But that isn't why you married your
wife?”

“Of course not. Clara and me understood one
another. We were a matched pair right from the start.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I mean about Clara's
father hating you.”

“Yeah, well. She made her choice between him
and me.”

“You're mad at her?”

“More like disappointed. So you coming back
to work then, Mel?”

“If Jeb will let me. I wasn't very nice to
him when he got rid of Colby.”

“I expect he'll forgive you. My take on him
is he got rid of Colby because it embarrassed him that he couldn't
handle the horse and you could. So now he's feeling bad that he did
that to you. He'll probably agree to let you pick any horse you
want to ride at this point.”

“Maybe I'll go back to taking care of sick
horses and shoveling manure for a while. I'll get up before anybody
and measure out the feed.”

Sally shook his head and set the bridle
aside. “You won't get full pay for those kind of jobs, Mel.”