by Alexa Davis
We walked to the back of the house where my mother had opened the double set of wide, French doors out to the back patio, though patio came nowhere close to describing the opulent, outdoor living space that butted up to the house. The outdoor kitchen looked over a sitting area complete with a flat screen television and fireplace, and the fountains that poured over the glass and rocks just outside the confines of the dining area at the edge of the deck framed in a view of the pastures and forest beyond. Rather than set the house right on the lake itself, it had been built up the hill and next to a creek tributary, which now ran through my mother’s gardens and the low pasture beyond, providing a view of lush flower and vegetable gardens, long swaying grasses, and beyond them, walnut and pecan trees in the orchard.
When Rachel and I joined our families, my mother was already creating one of her complicated and masterful salads made with homegrown vegetables, fruits, and candied nuts. Dad was manning the grill while he and Rachel’s father talked about the ranchland, judging from the gestures Dad was making with his grilling tongs. Jackson and Caleb had taken over the corner by the fireplace and seemed to be conspiring like old friends. Rachel stood quietly beside me and surveyed the scene. There was something about seeing all of these people together acting like old friends or family that struck me, like foreshadowing the future that I never imagined before with any other woman.
My mother motioned us over and handed us each a plate. We were loaded up with enough food for an army and sent to sit at the dining table. Our fathers brought over a platter loaded with grilled steaks and set it in the middle of the table. We sat and broke bread together as families and celebrated the next step in Rachel’s personal journey.
Amidst our lunch where we were laughing and eating and sharing stories, Pete walked in. He’d spent some time with Peacemaker and had a lot of questions about his lineage and his training so far.
“That’s a fine piece of horse flesh you’ve got there, Rachel,” he said. “I’m curious about what your plans are for him and if there’s anything I can do to help.” My mother dished them up a plate of salad as he grabbed a steak off the top of the platter. He pulled up an empty chair to join us at the table. “Jackson, I know you haven’t had a lot of interest in the horses, but you really have to come take a look at this thoroughbred."
Jackson simply nodded as a mouthful of food prevented him from answering. Caleb, Rachel’s younger brother, agreed.
“After Rachel’s accident, the only thing Mom and Dad refused to give up was Peacemaker," Caleb offered. He started to say more but was cut off by his mother motioning him to be quiet. I glanced over at Rachel to see her face was completely white. It looked as though she might pass out. Her mother quickly stood and walking past her daughter, patted her on the shoulder.
“What happened in his car accident?” I asked. “When did it happen?” Rachel simply shook her head and refused to answer. I looked at her father and mother in turn. Her mother gone quite pale, as well, but simply shook her head. It was her father who finally gave us the explanation. It made Rachel’s desire to be successful and to do so by her own sweat much more clear.
"About two years ago, right at the end of sophomore year, Rachel was in a car with a friend coming home from a party. Rachel asked her friend not to drive because he been drinking. However, he became belligerent and dragged her to the car. A few miles down the road, he hit another car head-on and was spun off the road and into a tree." He was obviously angry just repeating the story. “Rachel was hurt far more than the driver and the passenger in the other car was killed.”
Rachel stood from the table and left without a word. Her father watched her leave before he continued.
"She’s worked very hard to get back from that time both physically and emotionally. She blames herself for the changes that our family made to pay for medical bills and get our kids to college." Her father shook his head. “Obviously, none of it was her fault and she has nothing to feel sorry for. I just wish we could convince her that. I can’t think of anything that will be better for her than to spend her time here working hard away from the people the reminder of that time.”
Rachel’s mother sighed and picked at her food. Even Caleb was suddenly quiet and withdrawn; all chatter about his upcoming vacation in Europe died in an instant. I felt the hot, white rage building up in my gut, and I had to ask what it happened to the driver of the car in the accident. Her father told me that the young man was from money and as frequently happened in these cases, he got away with probation and a slap on the wrist.
I heard Caleb make a gruff sound in the back of his throat, but he said nothing. Rachel’s mother got up and walked in the direction her daughter had gone. Lunch became subdued, and there was no more laughter. Everyone just quietly ate.
When I thought enough time had passed, I went looking for Rachel myself. I found her in the room that she was using while we made her room in the bunk more secure. She was sitting on the edge of the bed talking to her mother, but seemed calm and not upset any longer. She gave me a wan smile she looked up and saw me.
“I hope I didn’t cause a problem. I’m mostly okay when the accident comes up. But, it’s hard to see my father so upset, knowing there’s not much I can do about it.” She glanced at her mother, then looked back at me. “A large part of why I work so hard and try to accomplish so much is to show him that I didn’t let the accident ruin my life. One day, I’ll be able to pay him back and my mother for everything they sacrificed to take care of me and get me back to where I needed to be." She flushed and looked at the floor. “I’m just glad that I no longer have to worry about that kind of person in my life. I guess you just don’t really know someone until the chips are down.”
I took that to mean that particular someone was no longer a part of her life. For the most part, I was glad for that. However, there was some small part of me that was disappointed I wouldn’t be running into him just so I could cause him a little pain, too.
I smiled at Rachel and asked if she wanted to go for a ride the later in the afternoon. I wanted some time alone with her and I wanted to see Peacemaker in action. I had never taken a woman out to my special places on the ranch or by the lake, but suddenly, I couldn’t wait to show her all the amazing parts of my small world.
Chapter Five
Rachel
My parents and Caleb took the empty trailer home with them. Watching them leave, it made my new home for the summer more real. I fought the fingers of panic squeezing tight around my throat. I knew I could manage this, but the pressure to bring something novel to Lago Colina, that would live on and weighed heavy in my stomach. I jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Instead of Daniel, it was Jackson who had come up behind me.
“I know I’m younger than you, and it sounds like more than just years you’ve got on me,” he teased with a chuckle. “But, I know that school was just a twenty-minute drive away from home, and now, you can’t just run home anymore.” He squeezed my shoulder and smiled when I looked him in the eye. “I’m just saying, if you need anything, you can always talk to me, or Mom, you know, when the boss-men get you down.”
I chuckled at him. After the intensity of the interview conversation I had with his father, I could easily see how being around him and the elder Hargrave brother could become challenging.
Not to mention the heat that rushed through my body anytime his brother got close to me. It was a distraction I certainly didn’t need. But, it was nice to finally feel something again. After Jason had crashed us into that car and I’d been injured so badly, he hadn’t even visited me in the hospital. When I was out, he finally came around to tell me that I was too broken for him to want me. He’d actually had the gall to tell me that that scars were bad enough, but knowing that even if he overlooked them for my sake, I could no longer give him children was too much for him.
I had been broken then. I’d cried and blamed myself for not getting the keys away from him. I’d forgotten that some of the bruises I’d had in
the hospital had been from his fingers as they dug into my arms. I felt my stomach clench and bile rise up in my throat just remembering how cruel he’d been. I glanced at Jackson and saw he was watching me with a worried look.
“No problem, Jackson. I’ll definitely come find you if I need to talk,” I reassured him.
“Will you tell me what made your face look like you wanted to kill someone?” he asked, his eyes wide. I shook my head.
“Naw. Some people don’t deserve the time or energy. If you forget to forget them for a minute, the best thing you can do is go back to pretending they never existed.” I smiled, but it wasn’t happy. I had found my own rock bottom at the hands of a selfish, stupid man. I would never let another person put me there, ever again. I patted Jackson on the back and went in search of Daniel. There was work to be done, and I figured that immediately was a good time to start.
I searched the house with trepidation, feeling like a snoopy guest rather than an actual inhabitant with the right to wander freely. Finally, I located Daniel’s mother, who let me know that he was in the stable with Pete and his father, in her words, “behaving covetously,” and fawning over my Peacemaker. I told her I couldn’t blame him and welcomed her to come visit anytime she wanted to get to know him.
Before going to the stable, I went to the kennel I’d brought for Skipper so I could let him out, now that I could keep an eye on him. When I got to the kennel, the door was open and Skipper was gone. I panicked and started calling him frantically. When I paused to listen for him, I heard a muffled whine and a yip, then silence. I started yelling for him again, and Daniel came running from the direction of the stable.
“What’s happened? Did Skipper run off when you let him out?” he asked, but he didn’t sound worried. “Don’t panic; I’m sure he’s just been out here smelling all the amazing things he couldn’t get to while he was stuck in there.” He smiled reassuringly and stroked my back.
“No, you don’t understand. He was already gone when I got here, and when I called him, I could hear him. It was muffled, but he sounded scared, and then he cried like he’d been hit,” I babbled, tears overflowing from my eyelids. “He sounded so scared,” I repeated. My hands were shaking and I felt a panic attack taking over my body, making me tremble and feel dizzy. My chest hurt like I was being crushed by an elephant, and the world started to spin in front of my blurry eyes.
Daniel started calling Skipper’s name, and when he paused, I heard one small muffled bark and another pained yip, but I couldn’t tell where it had come from. I forced the panic down into my stomach, where it churned like old milk.
“Did you hear that?” I gasped to Daniel. He nodded and pointed toward a shed tucked just back from the bunkhouse where I’d sequestered Skipper on the deep front porch. He called out for Skipper again as he walked toward the building, but I took off running toward the shed and burst through the door. Two men gaped at me, so surprised when I burst in that I could see the whites of their eyes. Poor Skipper cowered between them, and I could see blood on his muzzle.
Something snapped inside me at the sight of my sweet little boy bleeding at the hands of the men, and before I realized what I was doing, I’d balled my right hand into a fist and hit the bearded blond one closest to me. I punched the way Caleb had taught me before I left for school, with all my weight and strength behind my shoulder. I felt a sickening crunch of bone under my fist and the man howled in pain. I ignored the searing pain that coursed through my hand and without a break in my step, I turned to face the other one, who was still holding Skipper’s lead. He swallowed hard and handed me the leash without a word. I thought I’d scared him, until I felt something at my back and spun around to see Daniel behind me.
The look on his face even made me afraid for a moment, and I was glad that I wasn’t the one he was angry with. Then I was grateful that he was on my side, as he grabbed the remaining man and threw him out of the shed. He turned to the one whose nose I’d broken and hauled him outside by the arm, leaving a trail of the man’s blood behind them. I bent down to assess Skipper with my left hand for injuries before awkwardly picking him up and picking my way out of the shed, careful to avoid the droplets of blood on the way out.
I could hear shouting and hesitated to come all the way out to face the man I’d attacked, and Skipper shivered in my arms. After a minute, I found my resolve and stepped out of the shadows to confront my little friend’s attackers. I came around the building to a scene, one man still bleeding out into the gravel of the driveway, the other yelling at my new employer, my employer’s two sons yelling back at him.
I hung back until I found Hannah Hargrave and snuck toward her, trying to make myself as small and invisible as possible. I almost made it to her side when the bleeding man caught sight of me and rushed at me yelling.
“That’s it. You stupid bitch!” He hollered as he stumbled toward me. He had taken his shirt off and was pressing it to his face to staunch the bleeding. “The cops are on their way, and you’re going to fucking jail!”
I flinched as he reached me, but before he could lay a hand on me, he flew backward with a surprised look on his face and hit the ground full on his ass, not even putting a hand down to break his fall.
“Stay down,” Daniel growled at the man, who wore a look of pure hatred. The man stayed down, though, and didn’t say a word. Daniel strode to my side and tenderly cupped my face in his hands. “Are you all right?” he asked, as he tried to pry Skipper out of my arms. I nodded my head, but wouldn’t let go. I held on until he bumped my right hand and I cried out involuntarily.
“How about you and Skipper come sit over here, and Mom can get you a nice cold glass of sweet tea? How does that sound?” he chatted with me as he gently led me to the steps of the veranda and helped me to sit. I rested with Skipper on my lap and nodded to Daniel, who motioned to his mother.
Hannah hurried inside and returned with damp rags, a tall glass of sweet tea, and animal-safe antibacterial ointment. While we waited for the police to make the drive out to the ranch, she helped me clean and treat Skipper’s wounds. His face looked like it had been clawed, with long gashes across his muzzle and his left cheek. He was holding his right front paw up, and I forced myself to examine him as I would any other animal, frustrated that my right hand didn’t want to work properly. I felt blind rage pour through me when I felt the compound break in his foreleg, and only the weight of him in my lap, and the quiet whimpers that escaped him with each trembling breath, kept me where I sat.
Daniel’s mother saw my face and guessed what I’d found. She motioned Daniel over to us and informed him of my findings. I looked up into his pale, drawn face and fought back tears. His anger was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Even after the accident, my father had never looked so ready to murder someone as Daniel did right in that moment.
He whirled around as I heard tires on gravel and bounded toward the two men who were now hemmed in by not only Jackson and Mr. Hargrave, but every ranch hand who had been close enough to hear what was going on, including Pete Call.
The bloody man with the broken nose grinned evilly at me as the police pulled up to a stop in a cloud of gravel dust. Two policemen climbed out of the SUV and while Daniel spoke to one in an animated voice, the other spoke with the two men who had taken Skipper. Mr. Hargrave joined them. They were too far away for me to hear them, but the man I’d bloodied gesticulated wildly and kept pointing at me.
The police officer looked at me for a long moment, and I made myself look as small and harmless as I could, but I knew that with his blood quite literally on my hands, I was about to be arrested for the first time in my life and spend my end of my first (and last) day at Lago Colina asking my parents and friends to bail me out of jail. I cradled my injured right hand in my left, and tried to ignore the screaming pain that shot through my knuckles where I’d connected with the ranch hand’s face. Skipper rested his face on my left arm and let me cradle him that way without complaint.
The
police officer who’d been talking to Daniel walked over and loomed over me. I shrank back even more and like a shadow, Daniel was by his side, hovering protectively over me.
“Danny Hargrave,” the older man huffed. “I’m not going to hurt your girl; give us a little breathing room, boy, or I’m going to knock you over.” Daniel backed up and paced behind the policeman, irritation radiating from him like heat waves off a highway in July. The policeman looked down at me again, and my heart raced at the naked anger in his face. “Hey there, little boy,” he cooed at Skipper as he squatted down in front of us. “Let me get a look at your owies, okay?” I glanced over his head at Daniel with a raised eyebrow, then jerked my eyes back to the officer’s hands as he gently ran them over Skipper’s fur.
He looked at me and frowned again, then very carefully began to feel the broken leg I had clumsily splinted with some gauze and tongue depressors Hannah had bought from the stable birthing room. Skipper didn’t make a sound, but when the officer’s hand skimmed over the break, he shivered all over and panted heavily, his eyes rolled back to the whites.
“Well, that’s no good at all,” he growled, running the last two syllables together to one word. “Have you called that vet of yours yet, Franklin?” he called out to Mr. Hargrave over his shoulder. Daniel replied that they had and he was expecting Skipper at the clinic, but that I’d done all that could be with the materials we had on hand already. The cop countered that I’d done a professional job with a splint, but that we needed to get Skipper to the clinic as soon as possible for pain meds and an x-ray since they didn’t have any dog dosed at the ranch at the moment, medications being expensive to keep on hand at all times.
“We’ve just been waiting to tie up things here before we go,” replied an obviously irritated Daniel. I just held Skipper as tight as I dared, waiting to be handcuffed for assaulting one of the Hargrave field hands. Mr. Hargrave and the other officer were walking toward us, with the two men between them. The man I’d punched had stopped bleeding, and his expression had changed, too, from evil glee to confusion and fear.