Page 30 of Cowboy in Colorado
“Long story,” he answers. “Now. Hang on.”
He clicks his tongue and I feel him wiggle his butt forward in the saddle, nudging Gopher’s side with his left foot. “Let’s go, boy.” Gopher eases into a walk, and then Will clicks his tongue again, another nudge with his left heel, and then Gopher is trotting, but the trot only lasts for a few hoofbeats. “Gallop, Gopher.Go, boy.”
Thick walls of muscle begin to churn, and I can feel the truth in Will’s statement—Gopher is running faster than Tinkerbell, by a long shot. And with each stride, I can feel him putting on more and more speed, until it becomes obvious that Gopher would be more aptly named Cheetah. The world is a blur, and all I can do is cling to the saddle and to Gopher’s whipping white mane, and be grateful for Will’s arm like an iron band around my middle, keeping me clutched hard against his body. He moves with Gopher, not just sitting on the horse but actively working with his strides; I can feel Will’s core contracting and shifting against my spine. Rain splatters painfully against my face, and hail pelts me like a dozen bee stings to every inch of my body, and the wind howls, snatching at me. My hair is now completely loose, and my blazer is being ripped backward. Thunder booms and cracks, like a barrage of cannon fire, each crash accompanied by a blinding blast of lightning.
I’ve never experienced a storm like this in my life, and it is utterly terrifying. I am an insect beneath the fury of this storm, as helpless as an ant.
Will is immoveable behind me, and under us, Gopher is tirelessly thundering onward, hooves throwing clods of dirt and grass skyward. His head bobs, neck reaching. I’ve been in a speeding car before, and on a motorcycle, but it’s nothing like this. The sense of speed turns my stomach to quivers, and the power of the animal beneath me makes me feel weak and small. Will clutches me in an unbreakable grip, and despite the danger all around, I feel safe, sheltered in front of him, his broad shoulders behind me, his thick strong arm around me.
How long do we ride? I don’t even know. For the second time today, I’m on the back of a galloping horse, bound for who knows where.
Although, it’s clear both Gopher and Will do know where they are headed, because the path we take is unwavering, a straight line over hills and between trees, and I can feel Will providing very little by way of guidance—Gopher is heading home on his own. Even I can tell it is away from the Big House, away from Alpha Camp, away from everything. Farther and farther from anything, acre after acre.
The hills grow higher and steeper and more rugged, the grass taller, the trees thicker, more pine, and less birch and aspen. Gopher’s pell-mell gallop takes us up a hill, and then finally he slows and angles across the hill to follow the ridge, and now we’re on a recognizable path, a track in the grass under the tree cover. The trees provide a little shelter from the storm, but hail is loud on the tree trunks and leaves, thudding against the grass. The pieces of hail are larger now, and the ones that make it through the foliage more than just sting when they hit me, they downright hurt, more like pebbles thrown at me from close range.
The danger we’re in is all too real. If the hails gets any larger, or comes down any harder or more thickly, we risk serious injury. As it is, I’ll have bruises. Will is urging Gopher on, and trees whip past on the left and right, branches slapping at my face and ribs, tearing at my clothes and ripping at my hair, and hail crashes against me like handfuls of gravel, mixed with stinging blasts of rain. Thunder and lightning crash and flash nonstop, all around. Fear claws at my throat, and god, I’m sick of being scared today.
Suddenly, Will is hauling at the reins, and Gopher turns sideways, skidding to a stop in a tiny clearing under the trees. Barely a clearing, really, more of an open space between trees. In it, there is a small cabin, hand-built from logs, with a small barn a few feet away, the pair of structures hunkering under the trees, hidden by them. The ridge is a stone’s throw away, and as Will hauls Gopher around, I catch a glimpse of the view—meadows and pastures and miles of fence and rolling hills and stands of trees—breathtaking…and hazed by a silver curtain of lightning-lit rain.
I barely have time to register what’s happening—Will has Gopher dancing sideways, and there is a desperate urgency to his actions as he leans over from the saddle and hauls the barn door open without dismounting. I feel something big and hard slam into my shoulder, leaving me numb and shaken—a ball of hail the size of my fist rolls to a stop at Gopher’s feet, and I look out into the forest, seeing similarly sized balls of hail slashing through the tree cover, bringing down leaves and branches with them, slamming into the earth with the audible thunder of impact.
Harder, thicker, faster, the hail comes, moment by moment, crashing and slicing through the air. Gopher bolts sideways, screaming in pain as a ball of hail bounces off his left flank, and Will ducks as he gets the barn door open. I bend over Gopher’s neck as Will dances him into the barn—it’s a low-roofed structure, rude and crude and smelling of hay and manure and wood and horse. There’s a small loft, bales of hay stacked against the roof, a ladder running up to it. There’s one stall, made from what looks like old pallets stacked on end and nailed together and to the ceiling, forming two walls. A gate, comprised of another set of pallets, is fastened by hinges to one wall. It’s surprisingly neat, well-built, tidy, and cozy. The moment we’re inside, the noise becomes deafening as hail rattles off the metal roof. All three of us—Will, Gopher, and I—just sit for a moment, grateful to be out of the rain and wind and hail. The door is still open behind us, and I twist to look out—the world is white with hail, each at least the size of a grape, if not bigger, some nearly the size of a baseball. We made it just in time, I realize; if we’d gotten caught out in this, we would have been killed.
“I hope your men made it,” I hear myself say, my voice shaky.
“Me too,” Will mutters. He takes the walkie-talkie he appropriated earlier, and twists up the volume, then presses the button. “Everyone make it to Alpha?”
“Affirmative, Boss,” I hear a voice say, and recognize it as Clint’s. “Nick of time, too. Never seen hail like this in my life.” A pause. “You make it okay?”
“Same here—just barely.”
“Think the herd will be okay in that pen?” Clint asks.
Will sighs. “Yeah, they should be fine. Nothing we can do about it anyway. They have shelter.”
“Boss, about Miss Brooklyn…”
“Forget it,” Will cuts in. “You did what you could. She’s hotheaded and hardheaded and obviously has more balls than sense.”
I throw myself off the horse and stand facing him, anger snapping. “I’m right here, in case you didn’t notice!”
He clicks off the walkie-talkie, eyes crackling. “I know.” He dismounts Gopher, and sets about quickly stripping the saddle off, and then the bridle.
Gopher, once free of the tack, ambles on his own into the nearby stall, murmuring at Will, who takes a fishing tackle box from a shelf on the wall, opens it, and pulls out a couple old rags and a big brush. There’s a waterer attached to the wall inside the stall, and Will dips one rag into the water, wrings it out, and then uses it to rub Gopher all over, head to tail, shoulders to hooves. Once this is done, the rag is filthy, and Gopher’s sweat-wet hide is smeared and flattened against his skin. Next, Will uses the dry rag to wipe Gopher down again, several times, until he is somewhat drier, at which point Will goes over him again, this time with the brush.
“He was already wet and sweaty, so why the wet rag?” I ask.
“He’s been out working all day, and he’s dirty, plus he’s sweaty from the run, but the dirt under the saddle and blanket was all mired up in his sweat. The wet rag picks up the dirt and sweat and loose hair, and then dry rag cleans him up a bit more, dries him off, and the curry finishes it off.”
Will closes the gate, bringing the rags and brush out with him. He opens a nearby plastic bin full of grain pellets, scoops some into a bucket with a flat back and a hook meant to go over the gate top, and hooks the bucket where Gopher can get to it. In a back corner under the hayloft is a partial bale of hay, coming apart in thin slices; Will grabs three of the pieces and stuffs them into a leather bag full of holes attached to one of the walls. Gopher already has his nose in the bucket of grain, crunching happily. After a few bites, he turns and noses into the water, slurping loudly. Once he’s had his drink, I hear running water, and the water level rises automatically.
“An automatic water feeder?” I ask. “Out here?”
Will laughs. “No plumbing, if that’s what you mean. Not in the barn at least.”
“Then how?”
“There’s a cistern out behind the barn with a rain catchment system, which feeds down into his stall. There’s a little floater that stops the water supply when the waterer is full. Simple physics.” Will goes to the open barn door, watching the hail. “This is the craziest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”