Scarecrow on Horseback (9 page)

“You said you'd pay me if I led the family
rides, didn't you, Jeb?” Mel demanded.

“Yeah, well. Yeah, I did, didn't I?” Jeb
rubbed the back of his neck as if he were regretting that. “Okay,
you're on the payroll.”

She believed it when the first check came the
next Friday, small but real. Mel squealed with delight and handed
it over to her mother to deposit in a bank account for her. She was
so thrilled with the card-sized bank book that she carried it out
to the tack room where Sally was mending a bridle and made him look
at it. “Can you believe it?” she said. “I'm really on my way to
buying my own horse.”

“I'll say,” he said. “Looks like you've
gotten to be a regular riding fool this summer.”

“No, I haven't,” she said, quick to correct
him.

“Folks who like horses mostly like riding
them,” Sally said, shaking his head as if he didn't understand
her.

“I like them just as much when my feet are on
the ground.”

Sally grinned. “I once had a horse turn
around and bite me in the butt right after I'd fed him, and my feet
were planted firm as rocks on the ground.”

She laughed.

“It hurt,” Sally said indignantly. “You think
a nip from those big square teeth don't hurt?”

“Did you bite him back?” Mel asked.

“No, but I whacked him good. So what's the
real story, Mel?”

“Why should I tell you? You don't tell me
anything.”

“What do you want to know?”

“How come you never got married?”

“Who says I didn't?”

“Then what happened to your wife?”

Sally swiveled around on the nail keg he was
perched on to face her. “It's a long story.”

Mel promptly sat down on the dirty wooden
floor, cross legged, to show her readiness to listen.

“See, I worked on a ranch near where I was
raised in Texas,” he said. “I was just a kid, and I didn't know
much, but I knew I liked the ranch owner's daughter a whole lot.
And she liked me. But she was her daddy's little girl, and he
thought I was no-count and always would be. Truth is I wasn't any
great shakes at school and cowboys don't never get rich. Anyway,
when Clara, the old man's daughter, told him we were fixing to get
married, he said to wait. She figured waiting wasn't going to hurt
us and that he'd come around to liking me in time. So we waited. We
waited and years passed and nothing changed.” Sally stopped to
remove his beat-up cowboy hat and rub his head. “You sure you want
to hear this?”

“Yes.” Mel brought her knees up and rested
her chin on them, preparing to listen some more.

“Okay, so one day when Clara was edging onto
thirty and I got my first gray hair, we eloped. Came back married.
Her daddy was mad. He said we could stay on the ranch, and it would
still be Clara's someday. But if we set off on our own, he'd make
sure she never inherited it. Well, that ranch was a piece of
Clara's heart. So we stayed, and her daddy worked at making my life
miserable any way he could.”

“Like what did he do?” Mel asked.

“Oh, he found fault with every chore I did,
made me out to be a fool or an idiot. And Clara got uptight because
we couldn't seem to make a baby. One day I had enough of it. I told
her either she left with me or I was leaving by myself. Well, she
couldn't bring herself to leave her daddy or the home she grew up
in, so I went.” He shrugged. “And here I am.”

“She never asked you to come back?”

Sally smiled. “We stay in touch regular, Mel.
But we're both as set in our ways as her old man. So like I said,
I'm still here.”

“That's so sad,” Mel said.

Sally shrugged. “Okay, that's my story.
What's yours, Mel?”

Mel looked him in the eye. “If you got mocked
for looking like a scarecrow in horseback, would you ride?”

“Who told you that?”

“A girl who knew. I was riding her horse in a
show, and I messed up bad.”

“You have a lot of riding lessons before
hand?”

“No.”

“So what are you telling me? You try
something once and blow it and that's it? You give up and decide
you can't do it?”

She shrugged.

“Anyways, you ride just fine now,” he
said.

“I do?”

He frowned at her. “Of course you do. Think
I'd let you take off on Colby if I didn't think you were a good
rider?”

“Oh, Sally,” she said, and she hugged him
hard.

* * * *

Every week for the rest of July, Mel led
family rides around Beaver Lake. Twice a week on different days,
she led groups up to the picnic grounds for a breakfast hike. That
was the other easy trail. Nothing happened, nothing bad. No one
mocked her riding ability, and after a couple of weeks, she rode
relaxed in the saddle on Colby's back. He wasn't the affectionate
horse that Lily was, but he was alert to everything around him, his
dark eyes took in every variation in his surroundings—the ranch's
van parked in front of the dining hall, the lawn mower buzzing past
the pond, and Mel herself when she appeared. “At least Colby
recognizes me and comes to me when he sees me,” Mel told Denise.
“Although, I suppose that's because I give him treats.”

“Or because he trusts you,” Denise said.
“You're really good with horses, Mel.”

“You better think so if we're going into
business together,” Mel said. And they slapped high fives.

By midsummer, the ranch had a full complement
of guests to take out on the various levels of trail rides. Jeb and
Sally had finally sorted out which horses did best leading and
which didn't get along and were likely to fight if they were out in
the same group. They knew which horses cared whose rump they
followed, and which ones stumbled too often on rocky trails. They
could warn a guest whose mount had a habit of nipping other animals
or who would kick if another horse rode up his butt. The ranch was
operating like a well-conducted orchestra, and Mel was proud to be
playing a part in it.

Then one morning Jeb stopped beside Mel as
she was grooming her tall, speckled horse.

“Nobody signed up for the family ride this
morning, Mel, and my horse's gone lame, so I'm borrowing
Colby.”

“But Colby's my horse,” she said in
alarm.

Jeb ran his hand down the horse's shoulder
making Colby shudder. “You bought him when I wasn't looking?” he
asked slyly.

“I don't have enough saved yet.”

“Yeah, well. Then he's still out on hire to
the ranch, right? You tack him up for me. I'm going to see how
good you trained him.”

Furiously Mel did as she was told. In short
order, Jeb swung into the saddle and led his riders out of the
corral, opening and closing the gate from horseback. Mel had no
more than half an hour to smolder with indignation before Jeb came
loping back. His shirtsleeve was torn and his arm was bloody.

“This fool horse's more scared rabbit than
equine,” Jeb said to Sally who'd opened the gate for him. “He don't
like cars honking at him on the road and loose rock drives him
wild.”

“He buck you off, Jeb?” Sally asked with sly
sympathy.

“Now you know I can ride anything on four
legs, Sally. I stayed on him, but he jammed me into a tree. Can't
use him for trail riding, that's for sure.”

“He's fine with me,” Mel said, looking up
from the sore on a horse's leg that she was bandaging.

“You think so? Well, it's your hide,” Jeb
said, and he had Sally tack up another horse for him so he could
rejoin the group that he'd left waiting for him up the road.

* * * *

One week, four of Mel's eight riders included
a tight-lipped, frowning father, his twin ten-year-old sons, and a
teenage daughter who was complaining about having to get up so
early. “It's my vacation too, Daddy,” the girl said. “Why can't I
just go on afternoon rides?”

“Because we're doing things together this
week,” the father said. When Mel adjusted his stirrups, he asked
her if she was going to be leading them.

“Yes, I'm your wrangler this morning. ”“My
name's Mel.”

“You look young to be leading us,” the father
replied. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Same age as my daughter.” Without another
word, the man pulled his horse out of line and walked him over to
where Jeb was standing with the checklist of morning riders.

“I want a more mature wrangler. It's
dangerous to give a fifteen-year-old responsibility for a group of
riders,” the man said to Jeb.

Jeb's jaw twitched. All available wranglers,
including Jeb himself, were assigned to more difficult trails.
“Mel's really good with horses,” Jeb said. “She's been leading this
ride for weeks without a problem.”

“What if something goes wrong on the trail?
How's a kid her age to deal with it?”

“She's got a cell phone. She'll call for help
like any other wrangler.”

“I'm not comfortable with that. I'm asking
you to send someone more experienced with us.”

“You can take the morning ride up to the
breakfast stop on the mountain,” Jeb said. “We got a college boy
leading that in half an hour.”

The man turned to his sons who were mounted
and ready. The one who looked like a smaller, thin-lipped version
of him said angrily, “You promised us, Dad.”

“My sons want to see the beavers,” the man
said to Jeb.

“All right, tomorrow morning I'll switch
wranglers around,” Jeb said. “You can do Beaver Lake tomorrow and
today do the mountain trail. How's that?”

“We want to go today,” the other twin
said.

The man studied his sons for a few seconds,
shrugged, and said to Jeb, “Okay, we'll follow that girl, but I
hold you responsible if anything goes wrong.”

Mel swung into her saddle and was ready to
lead her group out when Jeb stepped up beside her to say quietly,
“Be extra careful with this bunch. Don't let nothing happen or
we're both in deep horse doo.”

Mel nodded and swallowed hard. She started
down the road with a stomach clenched around the waffles she had
had for breakfast. The two hours on the trail had better go off
without incident or she'd lose her job and any hope of earning
enough to buy Colby. The frowning father was riding tail for her
group behind his two sons. Ahead of them was an older couple, not
related to them. They'd introduced themselves as Sam and Mabel. The
thirteen-year-old daughter rode in front of Mabel on a bay that
kicked any horse that came too close behind it. Mel twisted around
in her saddle and rode backwards for a bit to warn Mabel that she
needed to keep her horse, General, out of kicking range.

“Will do,” the grandmotherly woman said.

But then after they'd gone over the bridge
and were climbing the rock-strewn slope to the road, Mabel turned
to tell her husband something about the altitude pills he was
supposed to have taken. “Are you feeling all right, sweetie?” she
asked him, not paying attention to her horse.

General, feeling the reins loosen, started to
trot, and in doing so, shoved up into the girl's horse, which
promptly kicked a hind leg out. The girl screamed, and General
bolted across the road. Mel scrambled after Mabel and caught her
horse's lead line.

“Whoa,” she said. “Whoa, General.” She walked
him a few feet up the hill ahead of the group until he had calmed.
“Are you all right?” she asked Mabel.

“I think so.” I didn't fall off, did I?”

“No, you sure didn't,” Mel said. “I guess
General just spooked when he got kicked. He'll be fine now. But
maybe you better ride more back in the line, like behind your
husband?”

“Good idea.”

Mel led General to his new place in line and
returned to her lead position.

Nothing further happened on the ride. One of
the twins saw the head of a swimming beaver, and the whole party
got excited at the sighting. When they'd returned to the corral and
had dismounted, the father said to Mel, “You did a good job back
there. I can see why they trust you. I wish my daughter were half
as capable.”

“Maybe she would be if she had my job,” Mel
said.

He raised an eyebrow and half smiled, but his
daughter whispered, “Thanks,” to Mel as she swung off her
horse.

After the family had trudged off in their
borrowed cowboy boots toward the main hall where the raucous lunch
bell was summoning them, Jeb asked Mel, “So how did it go? Think
he's going to complain to Davis?”

“He said I did a good job.”

“He did? Whew!He had me worried there. Bet
he's a lawyer or some kind of big shot. Next time anyone asks your
age, you tell them you're sixteen, Mel. We don't need more hassles
than we already got in this job.”

That evening, Mel's mother said, “I'm proud
of you. Jeb says you're mature and dependable, and he isn't much
for praising people.”

“You can say that again.”

Her mother just laughed.

The next morning someone said, “Hi,” as Mel
was tacking up a bay for an all day pack trip that Sally was
leading.

On the other side of the corral fence was the
girl who'd been on the family ride yesterday. “Hi,” Mel
replied.

“Do you work all day, or do you have time
like to have a soda or something?” the girl asked.

“I'm done for the morning as soon as I finish
this horse.”

“Good. I'd like to hear about your life.”

Mel laughed. “It's not much of a life.”

“Oh, yes, it is. My dad respects you, and he
doesn't respect any other fifteen-year-old girls I know.” Her eyes
were intent on Mel.

Mel led the bay over to the mounting block
when Sally called for him. “I'm going to hang out with her for a
while,” she said, pointing to the slim, black-haired girl waiting
outside of the corral for her.

“Good.” Sally smiled.

At Mel's suggestion, she and the girl, who
said her name was Tanya, skipped the soda. Instead, they walked
over the bridge to the petting zoo with milk for the calf.