Little Red’s Riding by Nicole Casey
Ruby
I was not goingto let Lincoln ruin my day. I’d given him too many of my days, already. I wasn’t going to give him this one. This was my first day back in Magnolia, and it was beautiful, sunny with a warm breeze.
I gave up on Magnolia!? Discovering something new doesn’t mean giving up on the old! Lincoln, what an idiot.
Try as I might, his insults still rang in my head and I couldn’t shake them. “Augh!”
I needed to punch something and kick someone or kick something and punch someone, any combination would do. I needed to get this ugliness out of me. Blow off steam. If I hadn’t been carrying the basket of goodies for Gran, I would have taken off on a run.
As soon as I turned on to Cullen Road, I knew just what I would do to set my mind right and shake off the anger: go see the horses.
I’d told Mom I wouldn’t take the shortcut, but that was before I knew I’d be running into Lincoln. I told myself that she’d understand. Then again, she would never know. Plus, I was twenty years old, perfectly capable of making my own decisions, perfectly capable of looking at a few horses, perfectly capable of looking at a few rough and rugged cowboys without swooning or falling head over heels and getting myself pregnant.
I could just picture myself. ‘Hi there, handsome. My, what strong hands you have. I bet there’s no bull in all of Wyoming you couldn’t wrangle into submission. I bet there’s no amount of bucking that would throw you off, is there?’
I had a laugh. What was my mother thinking?
Soon after, the ranch came into view, and Lincoln and his petty grudges were the furthest things from my mind.
* * *
Rodeo season wouldn’t officially start for another three weeks, but already a caravan of trailers filed from the stables, around the riding ring, to the end of the lane and down the side of the road. In the distance, I spotted a cowboy leading a black horse out of one of the trailers and into the stables. He and the horse disappeared from view as quickly as I’d noticed them.
I stood on the road and watched for another horse to come out of a trailer, but apparently, I’d arrived too late; I’d just missed the last of them.
I’ll just go in and have a quick look. No harm in having a quick look.
I walked up the lane along the file of trailers leading up to the stables. Occasionally I’d get a glimpse of someone weaving in between them, hauling crates or signs. No one seemed to notice me. If they did, they didn’t pay me any mind.
The dirt was soft and worn under my feet, and I regretted the shoes I’d put on. City shoes! What was I thinking?
I tried to walk on the grass, but the slope was uneven, and I kept stumbling. I must look like a complete idiot, stumbling up the lane in city pumps with a big wicker basket hanging from my elbow.
I hated the clothes I was wearing, too. The wrap top was one Gran had got me a few Christmases ago. I’d put it on for her, not for rodeo cowboys.
I stopped walking and mentally chastised myself for caring what people I didn’t know might think about what kind of top I was wearing when the back door of the trailer a few feet ahead of me opened and out came a man.
In New York, I might be walking down the street and spot a cute guy. But here in Wyoming, I spotted a man. That’s what he was: tall, broad-shouldered, the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up exposing thick bristled forearms bulging with muscle. He was gripping a roll of coiled rope slung over his shoulder and wore dark tan leather gloves, creased, scratched, weathered from use like the leather saddle he carried. The brim of his Stetson was pulled down low, casting a shadow that hid his eyes yet ended where his suntanned stubbled jaw began.
As a reflex, I slipped my hand into the wicker basket and pulled out my camera.
He turned my way, the shadow lifted from his face and his deep-brown eyes caught mine. The corners of his mouth rose slightly, cutting sharp dimples in his already well-chiseled cheekbones. He gave me a subtle nod.
The breath was knocked out of me. I gasped in a quick lungful of air, letting out the sound of a frightened child. How embarrassing.
He glanced at the camera in my hand. “You see something you like?”
I smiled nervously. “Could I take your picture?” My words came out hurried and defensive.
“Sure, kid.” He put a boot on the trailer tire and, one leg bent at the knee the other turned toward me, he stood with an open stance like he was mounting a colt, all his weight on his back hip. He lifted the saddle and rested it on his knee.
“Great.” I set the basket on the ground and put the camera to my eye. Now I saw him through my lens; now I felt cool and in control. He flashed a stiff smile. I took a step toward him and got down on my haunches.
His pose was awkward, and his smile forced, but I took the shot anyway. I stood then moved to the side to find another angle. As I did so, he straightened, made as if he was leaving then stopped. He looked my way over his shoulder and said, “You come round in a few weeks, and the next photo you take of me will be on the winners’ podium.” He gave me a wink and a nod.
That was the shot I wanted: the wink and the nod. But the camera was at my side. Before I’d even thought to raise it, he turned and was gone.
I had seen this countless times at the agency. Some men were electric in the flesh, but when the camera was on them, they became stiff and lifeless. Others were quite the opposite. This man, when it was just my eyes on him, had me shaking in the knees. But he had no charisma for the camera. I understood, then, that I was going to have to steal some shots to make my calendar. I was going to have to catch my cowboys in action unaware that I was watching. And that understanding, I won’t lie, had me excited.
I’d initially imagined leading an organized photoshoot, rounding up a dozen hunky cowboys, and getting them to strike poses for me, like the kind of work I’d done at Handsome’s. That too had its appeal. But combine a staged photoshoot with sneaking shots of them ‘in their natural habitat’ like a private investigator trying to catch a target in an illicit act, that prospect had the project taking on a new extra tantalizing dimension.
I waited a beat for my hunky cowboy to get a good distance away then I followed him. Once I’d come within a dozen yards of the stables there were teams of men passing every which way. some lugged equipment, others signs and planks of wood. I didn’t see any women, wayward or otherwise, and I suddenly felt quite nervous and out of place.
An older cowboy with a bushy mustache spotted me; he touched the brim of his hat and nodded to me. Another flashed me a quick smile then went on with his work. I hesitated to continue ahead, but the neigh of horses coming from the stables drew me on.
Whether I was nervous to enter uninvited or not didn’t matter. The horses called to me, and I could do nothing other than comply.
A young man, probably about my age, held the reins of a beautiful chestnut Halflinger and was brushing its flaxen mane. The groomer didn’t see me, but the horse did. It turned its head and stared at me intently.
My instinct was to go for my camera and take the shot, but I had the inexplicable sensation that the horse was asking me not to. So, instead, I stood still and watched. I smiled at the horse and blinked slowly. When I’d opened my eyes anew, the horse turned its head away from me, confident I posed it no threat.
Farther ahead, to my right, a cowboy led a pinto horse from its stable. The horse swayed its muzzle to and fro as if adjusting its harness. And the cowboy spoke to it reassuringly, though his actual words I couldn’t distinguish.
It had been four years already since Tammy’s death, kicked by a pinto horse not too dissimilar from the one being led out of the stables now. Of course, I couldn’t blame the horse; Tammy had frightened it. But the pinto, although slimmer than the one who’d kicked Tammy, had the same caramel-colored coat with similar-sized splashes of white on its neck and body, and immediately my thought strayed to Tammy and the accident and my guilt.
Running into Lincoln then seeing a caramel-white pinto horse, all in one day. The memories came flooding back too quickly for me to digest. The discomfort must have shown on my face, because a stable hand came up to me, “You okay, there?”
I tore my eyes off the pinto horse and shook away the image of Tammy’s casket being lowered into the ground. “Um, yeah. Yes.”
“You lost?” he asked, his tone more of an accusation than a question.
I looked at him, but the hostility in his eyes had me quickly look away. “No, no. I just wanted… I was just leaving.” I turned and started out of the barn.
“I see you got a camera there in that basket.”
I turned back to him. The hostility in his eyes had gone, replaced with something I could only describe as ‘appetite’. He removed his hat, wiped his brow with the back of his hand the put his hat back on, and gave me an unsettling grin.
“You come to take pictures of the horses, is that it?”
“Yes. I mean…”
He stepped toward me, his eyes slowly running over me from head to foot like he was a rancher appraising cattle he was thinking of bidding on. He licked his lips. “Sure, kid.” He nodded toward the stables. “We got plenty of nice horses. I’ll show you round.”
“Um, that’s okay. Thanks.” I lifted my basket and motioned to it with a nod. “I’ve got to get these to my grandmother.”
“Oh.” He wiped his mouth. “You must be Linda’s granddaughter. I heard you might be coming round. Whatcha taking over to Linda?” He took another step toward me and tried to peer into my basket. “Can I have a look?”
“No,” I said, almost as a shout.
He looked at me surprised.
“I mean no, I’m not Linda’s granddaughter. I’m Blanchette’s granddaughter, actually.”
“Blanchette? Blanchette Davis?”
I nodded, relieved that there was something recognizable to him in my story.
“Mayor Davis?”
My relief quickly turned to worry as anger rose in his voice.
“The same mayor who’s trying to shut down my rodeo!?”
“Your rodeo?”
Again, he stepped toward me. I backed away, but he kept coming. He pointed a finger at me. “You tell your granny that she’ll shut down this rodeo over my dead body!”
I had no idea what he was referring to. Gran loved the rodeo. He wasn’t making any sense. I backed away, shaking my head. “I don’t know what…”
“What were you doing? Spying? Sneaking around here, taking pictures!?”
“No. No, I…”
“Well, you won’t find anything here. We treat our horses right.”
“I didn’t. I wasn’t…”
“Now you go on!” He waved at me as if backslapping the air. “Get! Get out of here.”
I turned and hurriedly walked away.
He called out, “And if I ever catch you snoopin’ round my rodeo again, you better believe I won’t be so friendly next time.”
