No Ordinary Cowboy

by Mary Sullivan

  “Hey,” he said, sounding only barely winded, “what did the horse say when the kid from the next ranch came to visit?”

  “What, Hank?” they chimed.

  “Howdy, nei-ei-ei-ei-gh-gh-gh-gh-bor.”

  Amy rolled her eyes. He had to be kidding. Did he really think that was funny?

  The kids laughed. Apparently it didn’t take much to entertain a child.

  “You people plumb wear me out,” Hank said.

  Watching the children’s faces, Amy noticed they fell for his shtick hook, line and sinker. They loved it. They loved Hank.

  He collapsed onto the grass in front of the house, with kids falling all over him. The solemn girl let go of Amy’s hand and joined the others.

  Amy stared at her empty hand, suddenly cool after losing the child’s warmth. Then she looked at Hank, covered by miniature candles of hope lighting the darkness of a harsh world, and she knew why he did this. He needed those children as much as they needed him.

  It didn’t seem to take much to make him happy—horses, cows, dust and kids.

  Watching him, Amy felt a pang of envy. What would it take to make her happy? Peace on earth? Certainly. No such thing as death? Yes many times over. To be happy and excited about her work again? Yes. Her husband back in her arms? Maybe not.

  That answer surprised her. A month ago, she would have answered with a resounding “yes.”

  Bemused, she headed for the house.

  AFTER LEAVING the children in the kitchen with Hannah, Hank walked toward the three-car garage across from the largest stable. Thinking about his son always left him melancholy, in spite of the fun he’d just had with the children. Lord, he missed Jamie.

  Willie lived in an apartment on the second floor, with blue window boxes that the man himself had filled with red geraniums and white alyssum.

  Hank needed to talk to Willie, to make sense of his conflicting feelings about that woman.

  He climbed the stairs, knocked, then walked into a home as spotless as a Betty Crocker test kitchen. Willie’s fastidiousness always took Hank by surprise.

  “Willie,” he called. “You here?”

  Willie stepped out of his bedroom buttoning up a clean denim shirt, covering the fuzz of gray hair on his chest.

  “How’d the trip to the ranch go?” he asked, tucking the shirt into his pants.

  “Good,” Hank said. “You got any coffee on?”

  Willie poured him a cup and handed it to him black.

  Hank took a sip. “She…ah…she’s a good person.”

  Willie’s face registered surprise. “So you feel better about her now?”

  “More sympathetic, I guess.” Hank wandered to a window that faced the yard. “She’s got a lot going on inside.”

  Maybe her vulnerability around the kids would work in his favor. Given her own shortcomings, she might be compassionate and forgiving once she saw the office. Was he willing to take that chance?

  Aw hell, he needed her to see that there was no problem with the ranch. If he scooted her in there in the next day or two, maybe she could be finished by the end of the week, relieving him of this lump of dread in his stomach.

  So what if she gave him a hard time about the state of his files? Embarrassment was a small price to pay for peace of mind.

  Hank turned from the window and rubbed the back of his neck. “Listen, I’m going to let her see the books.”

  “Why?” Willie sipped his own coffee from a mug that read Bronc Riders Like To Buck.

  “I need Amy to see that everything’s okay with the finances, so she can go home and get Leila off my back.”

  Hank sat in a big armchair and balanced his cup on the arm.

  “What if it turns out there really is something wrong with the ranch’s finances? Something real bad?” The possibility made Hank shudder. “She’d have to find it ’cause I sure as heck couldn’t.”

  “Makes sense, I guess,” Willie said.

  “Yeah. I’ll get her to fix it then she can head home.” He wanted her off the ranch before he cared for her even more than he did now.

  “When?” Willie asked.

  “When’s she going home?”

  “No. When are you unlocking the office for her?”

  Hank stood, crossed to the kitchen and set his cup on the counter. “Tomorrow or the day after.”

  He turned to Willie, seeking approval of his plan. “Amy’s gotta get emotionally invested in this place. I think I know how to do that.”

  “How?” Willie asked.

  “I’m going to show her around the ranch before I open up the office to her. Let her see how much it means to the children.” He drummed his fingers against his thigh. “I saw something in her today. She really likes kids. She cares about what happens to them.”

  “That’s good.” Willie nodded. “If she does find a problem, she’ll be more likely to try to save the ranch than to sell it.”

  Hank filled with hope. “Exactly my thinking.”

  He rubbed his twitchy belly. He was banking a lot on being able to get the city woman to care about his ranch.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE FOLLOWING morning, Amy entered the dining room late for breakfast, head pounding from too little sleep, confused and groggy from yesterday’s roller-coaster ride of emotions. Maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew by coming here.

  She rubbed her temples. She needed to get into the office to see what kind of challenges she faced there.

  The dining room was empty. The children and Hank must already be outside working on the chores someone mentioned they did every day.

  She stepped through a swinging door that led into the kitchen.

  Light poured through numerous windows. Every spotless white cupboard, drawer, countertop and appliance contrasted against blue walls. The focal point was a huge, glossy oak plank table in the center of the room, where a small woman stood rolling out pastry.

  Amy recognized Hannah, the housekeeper, by Leila’s description. So this little bird-boned woman was a nurse. More power to her.

  Hannah looked up and smiled when she saw Amy.

  “Morning,” she said, then scuttled to the sink, as delicate as a sparrow and twice as quick.

  She rinsed her hands and dried them, then turned back to Amy.

  The wrinkles on Hannah’s face created a network of enough complexity to put a map of New York City to shame. Her skin was not as darkly tanned as Hank’s, but close. Amy bit her tongue to keep from telling her she should have used sunscreen over the years. Amy guessed her to be in her sixties, but the lines added years, as did the soft white hair.

  Hannah smiled, sending a few rivers to crisscross with a couple of mountain ranges, and waved Amy closer, then wrapped her arms around her. “Leila’s friend Amy, so glad to meet you.”

  Amy strained against the contact, but found the woman’s grip surprisingly strong, the meager bosom warm and her scent reminiscent of home in years long gone—of a vanilla and cinnamon essence that seemed to have taken root in the woman’s pores. Amy stiffened against her own sentimentality.

  Pulling out of the housekeeper’s embrace, she said, “Hello, Hannah.”

  Hannah peered into Amy’s eyes, then nodded. “We’ll see what we can do for you here. This ranch, you know, it holds a lot of magic.”

  What had Hannah seen on Amy’s face? What information was Amy unwittingly giving away about herself, making her too vulnerable?

  Hannah bustled to the stove. “Hank, he keeps bringing the children here, and mostly they go home happy. You feel so good to help them. They laugh so much here.”

  Hannah spun around and handed Amy a bowl of oatmeal, then retrieved a carton of milk from the fridge. “Go into the dining room and eat.”

  Amy thanked her and left the kitchen. In the dining room, she fell into a chair to recover from the whirlwind that was Hannah. She sprinkled sugar on the glutinous gruel in her bowl and shrugged. Oatmeal was best served fresh. Her own fault for sleeping in.
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  After breakfast, she headed for the office but found the door locked.

  She walked down the hall to search for Hank. Stepping onto the veranda, she saw no sign of him in the corrals or yard. Where was everyone? The heels of her sandals clicked on the gray wooden floor. She descended the steps.

  A light June breeze carried the faint sounds of children’s voices from the barn. It also held an elusive hint of fragrance from the garden. Funny that she hadn’t noticed all these flowers yesterday.

  She walked the length of the garden slowly, savoring the colors and scents.

  “I can’t do these up,” a child’s voice said from behind her.

  Amy spun around.

  The thin girl with the sallow skin stood behind her wearing a pair of overalls, but holding them up at the waist. Two straps trailed on the grass behind her.

  Amy bent and picked up the straps, trying not to touch the narrow shoulders while buckling the straps to the bib. The child stared into her face, her eyes enormous.

  “You’re not doing chores,” she accused.

  Amy squirmed under the girl’s steady gaze.

  “We all got to do chores,” the girl continued, her voice ripe with reproach.

  Amy fought the guilt flooding her. She was here to do her own job. Wasn’t that a chore?

  Amy’s braid fell over her shoulder and the child touched the end of it.

  “Pretty,” she murmured. “Can I get one of those when my hair grows back?”

  Amy inhaled sharply. “Yes.” The word whispered out of her.

  “When?”

  “Soon.” Amy choked on the lie. It would take a couple of years to grow her hair back as long as Amy’s, but staring into the child’s solemn blue eyes, she didn’t have the heart to tell her so.

  She stepped back from the girl. She couldn’t do this.

  Just as she turned away, the girl slipped her hand into Amy’s. Amy curled her fingers around the tiny hand, then stared at it lying in her fist with a trust that humbled her.

  Don’t, she wanted to plead. Don’t rely on me. I don’t know if I have anything to give you.

  But this was what she thought she’d wanted when she came here, wasn’t it? Time to get on with life, she’d thought. What better way than trial by fire among these children? What a naive fool she’d been. The reality of this girl and her problems at such an early age broke Amy’s heart.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  The child turned her head on her scrawny neck to peer up at Amy.

  “Six. How old are you?”

  Old enough to be able to handle this, Amy thought, but she said aloud, “Thirty-one.”

  “What’s your name?” the child asked.

  “Amy.”

  “I’m Cheryl. That was Grandma’s name.”

  Amy fought a fierce battle—to stay and learn more about this child who might die someday soon, or to run for the hills to bury herself in a cave. Alone.

  Cheryl raised her arms to be picked up. Amy lifted the child, her actions unnatural, as though someone else held the strings that controlled her limbs. The girl was as light as a milkweed pod. Amy settled her onto her hip and tried to control the shaking in her knees.

  Cheryl pointed to something under one of the plants. “What’s that?”

  Amy squatted, setting Cheryl on the grass beside her. Someone had tucked a clay toad house toward the back of the flower bed in the moist shade.

  “A toad house.” Amy cleared her throat of regret. “A toad will live here in the summer. Maybe there’s already one inside.”

  Cheryl squatted beside her, with her hands curled over her knees. “What do they look like?”

  Amy lifted the clay pot, but found nothing but damp soil underneath.

  “They look like frogs, except they’re larger and less green. They have a lot of different shades of brown on their bodies. So they can look like the soil.”

  “Why did Hannah give them a little house in her garden?”

  Ah, so this was Hannah’s garden.

  “They eat all kinds of creatures who are hard on plants, who would try to eat Hannah’s flowers,” she said, surprised that the bits of knowledge her father had once shared with her came back. “Flies, bugs.”

  She’d forgotten about the small garden Dad had made for her behind their rental house.

  Movement behind them startled both Amy and Cheryl. Hank’s shadow covered them.

  “I thought you were coming straight back to the stable from the washroom, Cheryl.” His voice was starving for moisture this morning, like sandpaper on tree bark.

  “Dragon scales,” Cheryl said as she stared up at Hank.

  Hank squatted in front of her. He snuggled her baseball cap more securely onto her head and tucked her shirt neatly into her overalls.

  “What about dragon scales?” he asked.

  “Your voice sounds like dragon scales. Rough.”

  “Rough, are they?”

  Cheryl nodded. “And scaly.”

  Hank raised his thick eyebrows. “Dragon scales are scaly, are they?”

  Cheryl nodded solemnly.

  “And they sound like my voice?”

  Cheryl bobbed her head. Hank wrapped his large hand around her tiny one and kissed her fingers.

  “It’s itchy.” She pointed to his mustache.

  “Like dragon scales?”

  “Um…like…like…like snakeskin!”

  Hank tickled her tummy. “You been kissing snakes lately?”

  It was close, the tug at the corner of Cheryl’s mouth. Almost a smile. Amy guessed the child didn’t laugh very often. Hank picked her up and settled her onto his forearm, against his chest. She wrapped her thin arms around his neck.

  “That’s me, all right,” he said. “Old snakeskinned, dragon-scaled Hank.” He turned around and collided with Amy, obviously having forgotten she was there.

  Amy watched a blush creep up Hank’s neck and settle on his cheeks.

  “I’m going to look for a toad in there every day.” Cheryl pointed to the toad house.

  “Is that right?” Hank asked.

  It hurt to watch the affection between the two of them, the big cowboy and the fragile child. What if something happened to Hank? What if something happened to Cheryl?

  “May I have the key to the office?” she blurted.

  Hank’s eyes widened at her abrupt tone. She moderated it. “I need to get started on those books.”

  She watched his Adam’s apple bob. He glanced around, swiftly, as if looking for an escape route—or looking for a reason to keep her out of there.

  “I think you should come in and go through them with me,” she said.

  “Can’t. Too much work to do.”

  “You got to do chores with us,” Cheryl said, staring at Amy.

  For a split second, Amy thought the look in Hank’s eyes turned crafty. “Yeah, it’s a tradition on the ranch that every guest helps out with chores.”

  Was he kidding? She glanced at him again and his face was the picture of innocence.

  Cheryl rested her head on Hank’s shoulder, sent Amy a pleading look and said, “Please?”

  She reached her arms toward Amy. Hank handed the child to her.

  When Cheryl wrapped her arms around Amy’s neck, Amy stiffened, then hugged the child. Such a sweet, trusting soul. How could Amy say no?

  She nodded and followed Hank to the barn with Cheryl’s warm weight resting against her chest.

  She stopped just shy of the doors. “Are there cows in the barn?” Cows were big, ungraceful creatures Amy didn’t hold any affection for.

  “No, Amy. Horses.” Hank stepped into the dark, cool interior. “When a structure houses horses we call it a stable, not a barn.”

  Amy crossed the threshold and halted. The two closest stalls had horses in them. Really big horses.

  One of the horses stuck his head over the gate of his stall and let out a loud whinny. Amy jumped and Cheryl giggled.

  Hank spun arou
nd to stare at Cheryl. He grinned. “You laughed,” he said.

  He took her from Amy and tossed her into the air.

  “Don’t—” Amy gasped, watching the child soar toward the ceiling, but Hank laughed and caught her easily, barely straining his muscles.

  Cheryl smiled and stared into Hank’s eyes in a union of souls that had Amy leaning forward, even as she wanted to run.

  Hank set Cheryl on the floor and clapped his hands together. “Looks like the rest of the kids’re done chores and are already outside. Sooner we get our share done, sooner we’re off for fun and games.”

  The only game Amy wanted to play was called accounting.

  Hank walked down the wide center aisle to the back and threw a door open. Sunlight flooded the far end of the stable.

  “Can you open that second door at the front?” he called to Amy. “There’s a hook on the outside wall to hold it open.”

  Amy did as he asked.

  Hank carried pitchforks up the aisle. “Good. Fresh air.” He tossed a tool to Amy. She barely caught it.

  “You take that stall.” He pointed to the one beside the huge horse on the right.

  The horse hung his head over the gate. Amy put a wide berth between them when she entered the stall beside his.

  ZEUS WAS HANK’S HORSE. No one else rode him. The horse could be temperamental or cooperative, depending on his mood. He could also be the best friend a man could ever hope to have in an animal.

  Hank stared at the expensive sandals on Amy’s feet, watched the woman enter the stall to muck it out and knew those shoes wouldn’t last five minutes before they were toast.

  “Wasteful,” he whispered.

  “Wait,” he said out loud.

  He rummaged through a cupboard at the back of the stable and came up with a pair of old boots. Cracks in the leather were crusted with manure. They smelled worse than the back end of a cow. As he carried them to Amy, his smile felt more than a little wicked.

  “Here,” he said. “You don’t want to ruin those shoes. These belong to my ranch hand, Jenny. She’s out with the campers. You’ll meet her in a couple of days.”

  Amy took the boots and held them at arm’s length, her perfect nose wrinkling in disgust.

  “Relax,” he said, “the smell grows on you.” With a grin that felt as wide as Montana, he walked to the stall he was about to muck out.