Huckleberry Lake

by Catherine Anderson

  “Yeah. Tomorrow after my last class, I’d like to stop by and see her again. It’ll make me about an hour late.”

  “Erin may leave in the morning. If you’re late, we’ll be shorthanded. We’re in the middle of second calving season. You’ll have to do all your work after you get home.”

  “I can do that.”

  “All right. Just see that you do.”

  Kennedy shuffled his boot over the straw under his feet. Then he looked up and said, “I hope Erin doesn’t quit. I really like her. A lot.”

  Wyatt glanced out at Erin. She still sat motionless under the tree. The carrot on her palm hadn’t been touched, but the mare had moved a little closer. “Yeah, I like her a lot, too.”

  “I think you like her a little bit too much,” Kennedy observed.

  Wyatt felt a flush creep up his neck.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at her,” Kennedy added. “You’re falling in love with her.”

  Wyatt wasn’t foolish enough to deny the charge. “And that’s a dead end for me. You should understand that. I’ve told you why.”

  “Yep. And I don’t blame you for worrying about that possibly happening again. But love is love, Wyatt. You can’t turn it off just because you wish you could.”

  Kennedy turned and walked away, leaving Wyatt to mull that over.

  * * *

  * * *

  Erin’s spine tingled when the mare moved in close enough to nudge her shoulder and sniff her shirt. Then she smiled. But she kept her head bent. Next the mare sniffed at the carrot. Then she snorted and backed away. She didn’t trust easily and that made Erin’s heart hurt. But she finally stole the carrot with a quick wiggle of her velvety lips.

  Erin pretended not to notice and got out another carrot. It wasn’t what Wyatt had told her to do, but how could she try to touch the horse’s head when the animal kept the rope stretched tight to put distance between them? Erin remembered when she’d once been that wary. In an entirely different way, of course. She’d never feared that her law enforcement colleagues would do her physical harm, but she guessed, in a way, that being mocked or made to feel inadequate had wounded her just as badly down deep where no one could see.

  When the horse nudged Erin again, she murmured nonsensical reassurances and touched the mare’s neck, which was damp with sweat. It wasn’t a hot morning, so Erin knew the animal’s perspiration was caused by nervousness. But she felt a surge of satisfaction at being allowed to make physical contact. She pushed slowly to her feet and stepped in close as she’d once seen Wyatt do with a gelding. The mare didn’t object when Erin stroked her neck again. She just made soft, rumbling noises, sounding for all the world as if she were talking. Erin had no idea what the mare was trying to convey, so she tried to think what she might want someone to say if she were afraid.

  “I know, I know,” Erin murmured back. “Someone was very mean to you. I’m so sorry that happened.” And Erin sincerely meant it. That such a large and powerful animal had been brought to this state, fearful of even gentle touches, made her feel sick. “But you don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m as messed up as you are, and all I want is to be your friend.”

  As she stroked the horse’s neck, she inched her fingertips higher with every pass until she was almost touching the crown of the horse’s head. Then she stopped the advance and offered the mare another carrot, which promptly vanished from her palm. The grinding sound as the equine chewed reminded Erin of how easily the horse could bite her. But so far, the mare didn’t seem intent on doing Erin harm. She just wanted to be left alone. Only even as Erin thought that, she knew it was wrong, dead wrong. This horse needed a friend as badly as she did, someone she could trust, someone who would love her no matter what, and someone who understood her. It wasn’t much to ask for, and yet Erin knew it was absolutely everything. She’d never realized that animals needed love just as much as people did, but spending a couple of hours with this mare had opened her mind to lots of things she’d never stopped to think about until now.

  Erin got another carrot from the stash in her shirt, let the mare sniff it, and then began stroking her neck again, inching her fingers closer and closer to the animal’s head with every pass. She stiffened when she saw Four Toes approaching the paddock. She didn’t want to get trampled if the mare went berserk. But apparently the mare and the bear had already met and established a relationship. Four Toes made a moaning sound as he walked along the paddock fence, and the horse rumbled back at him. Erin likened their exchange to that of two people who didn’t speak the same language and settled for making sounds of greeting. The bear continued on its way to the main house.

  “So, you’re not afraid of Four Toes,” Erin observed. “I think that may be amazing. I don’t imagine horses normally like bears. But then, Four Toes has been domesticated. Maybe he told you about that.” Erin reached the crown of the mare’s head and offered her another carrot. “You’re a good girl,” she whispered. “And maybe tomorrow, you’ll let me touch your ears. Domino and Four Toes both love to have their ears scratched.”

  As Erin spoke, she realized she’d just committed to staying on the ranch one more day. The horse was starting to trust her, and Erin didn’t think it was right to befriend the animal and then just walk away. That thought reminded her that it had been too long since she’d talked to Julie. Her friend had tried to contact her a few times, but Erin had let her calls go to voicemail. She’d just quit her job and taken another one at the ranch. She’d known Julie would ask questions, she hadn’t known how to answer them then, and she still didn’t now. But that didn’t matter. She still needed to get in touch and at least assure Julie that she was okay.

  For another hour, Erin held a piece of carrot in her loosely closed fist, allowing the mare to smell it, but not letting her have the treat until she’d managed to touch the crown of the horse’s head. She was pleased when the mare stopped flinching. And at that point, she decided the mare had been through enough for one day.

  She went to find something else she could do and ended up mucking stalls for the rest of the afternoon. This time, she tried to follow Vickie’s advice and took smaller bites of the straw and manure with the tines of the pitchfork. She also bypassed using the wheelbarrow and used the skidder to haul stuff away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Erin was drained by quitting time, but today it was a good kind of tired. As she walked toward the bunkhouse to help fix dinner, she decided she definitely wanted to remain on the ranch one more day. She wouldn’t unload her car. She’d just get out a set of clean clothes and her toiletries. If things got ugly again tomorrow, she’d be ready to leave when her shift ended. The thought of abandoning the mare to fend for herself made Erin sad, but it wasn’t as if Wyatt couldn’t take over with the animal and do a better job.

  Kennedy and Wyatt were cooking when Erin entered. With only a glance, she could tell they worked well as a team. Kennedy was communicating with American Sign Language and so was Wyatt. Erin followed their exchanges and grinned at their nonsense. It was good to see two brothers who got along, even if they were telling each other to “shove it up your ass” when they disagreed on something.

  Erin stepped to the fridge for a cold drink and selected a beer. She almost pulled the tab and drank straight from the can, but then she decided she wanted to try it in a glass instead. In bars, she enjoyed cold beer on tap, which was always served in a glass, and there was no one here who would make fun of her for liking it better that way.

  Whatever Wyatt was cooking was soon left to simmer on the stove. Erin sniffed the air and thought it smelled like spaghetti sauce, and she wondered if one of the brothers had made meatballs. She used the frozen kind herself, but that didn’t mean she liked them. She’d worked long hours and hadn’t wanted to be in the kitchen for hours to make a meal for only one person.

  The guys joined her at the table with cans of beer.

 
Kennedy took a long pull of his drink and told his brother, “I can’t believe you put sugar in the marinara sauce!”

  “Only two tablespoons. I don’t like the acidity of straight tomato sauce and seasonings. A tiny bit of sugar makes it better.”

  “Where did you learn that?” Kennedy asked.

  “Chef Boyardee,” Wyatt retorted.

  Erin couldn’t help it and burst out laughing at the startled expression on Kennedy’s face. She got up from the table to taste the sauce. When she turned from the stove, she tossed her spoon in the sink and said, “It’s fabulous, Wyatt. But I know your guilty secret.”

  “What secret?” he asked.

  “You stole Sissy’s recipe.”

  He guffawed, throwing back his blond head and closing his eyes. Wyatt rarely laughed, and Erin loved the sound. “Don’t I wish?”

  Kennedy stepped to the sink to prepare broccoli for steaming. Erin asked how Jen had seemed to be feeling emotionally the previous day. She doubted the girl could emerge from such a devastating attack without at least some psychological issues.

  Kennedy cast her a glance over his shoulder, his expression solemn. “She acts as if boogeymen are hiding behind the curtains and under her hospital bed. When it was time for me to leave, she clung to my hand and asked me not to go. I understand why, of course, but it’s kind of hard for me to sympathize when she knows nobody’s really in her room.”

  As a female deputy, Erin had been required to take coursework for rape counseling and had been assigned to help several women go through the process of filing charges against their attackers, an action that required humiliating photography sessions and physical exams to procure documented evidence. “Victims of violent crimes often no longer trust in their perception of reality,” she told Kennedy. “I helped interview the three boys who were present, so I got the details of what happened to Jen that evening, and the attack pretty much came at her from nowhere. She thought her ex-boyfriend wouldn’t bother her again. He’d gotten in big trouble, after all. Jen went to work that day as if it were any other day. Everything went well, just as it did on any other day. She never expected what happened. The boys came in on foot, so she didn’t see a car to forewarn her. The ex-boyfriend waited in hiding until she skated within his reach, and he dashed out to grab her arm. He carried her behind the dumpster and threw her to the ground, pissed off because she’d gouged his shins with the roller skates. The fall is what shattered her wrist. At that point, she could fight him off with only one hand. Her day became a nightmare beyond her comprehension. With no warning, a boogeyman leaped out. And now she doesn’t know when it may happen again. Rationally, she may know she’s being silly, but her fears are real. The unthinkable can happen, and once a person lives through that, it’s hard to get over it.”

  Kennedy got the vegetables into the steaming rack inside the pot and then returned to the table. “I guess it’d be kind of like me walking through the woods and getting mauled by a grizzly where a grizzly bear should never be. I’d never feel relaxed in a forest again. It would take me a long time to get over it, anyway.”

  “Exactly,” Erin replied. “When Jen seems irrational, just be patient and try to understand.”

  “Thanks for talking to me. I guess I might be afraid, too, if I were her.”

  Erin had become very fond of Kennedy. He was a genuinely nice young man. “Jen will now look at every guy she meets and wonder if he’s a grizzly bear disguised as a nice person. It’ll take her a while to start trusting again. You also need to realize that, in her eyes, you are the guy who once fought off the grizzlies to protect her. She may be super dependent on you for a while, because with you, she feels safer.”

  After dinner, Erin teamed up with Tex to clean the kitchen and then walked to the main house. Wyatt, who’d gone out after supper to check on all the animals, intercepted her before she reached the porch. In the twilight, he was so handsome. The breeze lifted his longish hair beneath the brim of his Stetson, swirling it like strands of silk over his shoulders.

  “Would you mind taking a walk with me?” he asked.

  Erin was tired after sleeping fitfully the prior night, but he was her boss, and although the invitation was cloaked in civility, she knew it was essentially a demand. “Sure.”

  Moments later, she was glad that she’d come. Walking with Wyatt at this time of evening was surprisingly pleasant. He even stopped once to admire a doe and her fawn. They ended up down at the log where all their conversations seemed to go badly. She hoped this time would be different.

  After they sat down, he shifted to face her, resting one bent leg on the log in front of him. Erin followed his example. It would be easier for him to read her lips if she turned toward him.

  “What did you learn about the mare’s story today?” he asked.

  Surprised by the question, Erin replied, “I didn’t really think in those terms as I was working with her, so you’ve taken me off guard.”

  “It isn’t a test with right or wrong answers, Erin. I’d just like to know what impressions you got.”

  Erin almost said she hadn’t gotten any particular impressions, but the words that came out of her mouth were, “She’s afraid. I think she once trusted humans, but then she was betrayed, not once, but many times. Someone did mean things that make her afraid for anyone to touch her head. Today she wanted the treats I had and was afraid to take them.”

  His eyes filled with a distant look. “I thought the same thing. I think she once had a loving owner and a wonderful life. Then she somehow ended up with someone bad.” His gaze snapped to hers. “Sorry. In my estimation, people who abuse animals are rotten to the core.”

  The passion in his voice made Erin’s skin tingle. “I agree.”

  “Did you notice how careful she was not to strike you with her hooves?”

  Erin smiled. “She put on a great act and had me scared to death at first. But then I did notice that. She doesn’t want to hurt me. She just wants me to leave her alone.”

  “That was my take, too. I saw you sitting under the tree with your head bent.”

  Erin couldn’t help but laugh. “I saw you do something similar once, and since I know next to nothing about horses, I copied you.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Yes. I think she thought I was asleep or dead, and she came over to sniff and nudge me. When I didn’t respond, she swiped the carrot from my hand. After getting a couple more carrots, she seemed to relax, so I got up and stepped in close to her shoulder like I saw you do that day last fall with the gelding. She let me press against her and allowed me to stroke her neck. I was sneaky about it, inching my hand higher and higher, but I finally got to touch the crown of her head.”

  His full mouth tipped into a crooked and purely devastating grin. “It’s her poll, Erin, not the crown of her head.”

  “Oh.” Erin thought about that. “Why make it complicated by calling it a poll?”

  His smile broadened, creasing his lean cheeks to form parenthetical brackets around his mouth. “Because it isn’t really the crown of a horse’s head. It’s technically the base of its skull. I’ve never researched why it’s called a poll when it’s actually an occipital protrusion, but I don’t argue the point. Poll is a lot easier to say, and since it’s important when we’re riding, we say it a lot.”

  “How is it important during riding?”

  “We’ll get to that if you end up staying. If not, it’s a bunch of information you don’t really need. I’m more interested in your take on the mare.”

  “My take is that she’s been horribly mistreated. She tried not to flinch when I touched her poll, but the fright reaction has been ingrained so deeply I think it’s a mindless response. To overcome it, she’ll have to learn to trust me and then make herself react differently. But that will take time.”

  Wyatt nodded. “A lot of time, and I got the same impression
from her.” His smile diminished to a slight curve of his lips. “So what did you learn about yourself as you worked with her today?”

  The question came out of left field, and Erin gave him a bewildered look.

  “You don’t need to answer,” he told her. “But I hope you’ll think about it.”

  He swung off the log and stood, looking down at her. “Ready to head back?”

  Erin got to her feet. “I can’t believe it. We finally talked down here without being ugly to each other.”

  He fell into step beside her. “Will wonders never cease?”

  * * *

  * * *

  Erin had a cup of decaf with Uncle Slade and Aunt Vickie before she went upstairs to shower and rest. Vickie served a plate of the chocolate chip cookies that she’d made the night before, and Erin, unable to resist them, ate five. Uncle Slade didn’t seem upset with Erin, which eased her mind, and she was no longer upset with him. With time to think about it, she understood why he’d appointed Wyatt to do the dirty work for him in regards to firing her, and it certainly hadn’t stemmed from a lack of courage. Her uncle loved her and simply hadn’t wanted to be the bad guy. He’d been trying to preserve their relationship.

  As Erin went upstairs, she felt differently than she had that morning, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason. Maybe, she decided, it was all a matter of perspective, and hers had changed over the course of the day.

  When she climbed into bed and snuggled under the down comforter, she recalled Wyatt’s question. How could she possibly learn anything about herself by working with an abused horse? She had never been physically abused as a kid. She had to give her dad credit for that much, even though he’d hurt her in dozens of other ways.

  There were no similarities between her and the mare. While working with the horse, she had deduced that the animal had tried to please her former owner and been punished for doing things she didn’t know were wrong. Or she may have done nothing wrong and her owner was just impossible to please.