by Rae Davies
I pulled into the fairgrounds lot just in time to see the HA! contingency unloading from Rhonda’s Trooper. I arched a brow at my best friend as I sauntered over.
“They wanted to carpool,” she said, as if that would get her out of any aiding and abetting charges that I was sure were soon to be heading her way.
“And you were coming anyway?” I asked. She hadn’t said a thing to me about a burning desire to watching fifty smelly cattle be nudged down a road.
She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I thought about what you said. Eric is cute.”
I should have known. I glanced around, looking for her latest target. “Where is he?”
“He had to get something.” She rose on her toes, glancing around too. “He said he’d be here soon.”
I chose to believe that Rhonda had shifted her sights away from Ben out of respect for our friendship and my wishes rather than his current jailbird status. Still though, the conversation reminded me of what I’d learned the day before.
“So, Ben is forgotten?”
Her eyes rounded. I could see immediately that she had misinterpreted my interest.
“Only because you said it made you uncomfortable. You know I’d never believe that your brother—”
I cut her off. “No, not that. Yesterday I went to the campground, and I found out that the police took flowers out of the Egg.”
Her reaction was a lot like mine had been. “Flowers?”
“Yeah, you know smell sweet, grow out of the ground? It was apparently a bunch, like a bouquet. And I just wondered if Ben might have gotten them for you.”
She shook her head. “I guess he could have, but to be honest...” She flushed. “I think the interest was more on my side than his.”
For a moment I was outraged that anyone wouldn’t reciprocate any tender feelings that my best friend put out. Then I remembered we were talking about Ben, and that I hadn’t wanted those feelings returned.
“Do you think he was seeing someone else?” Like Tiffany? But I didn’t say that.
“I didn’t get that impression.”
And Rhonda was good at sniffing out available from unavailable men. Her opinion reassured me more than Ben’s own word would have. Still, though, there had been flowers and, as hippie dippie as I might find my brother these days, he was still a Southern Missouri male. I just didn’t see him picking them for himself.
I was sure, however, that Rhonda had told me as much as she knew. At least about Ben’s dating life. I pulled my T shirt down over the top of my jeans and looked back at Rhonda’s Trooper where most of the HA! members were still gathered.
“And what exactly does HA! have planned for us today?” I asked. Not that I was sure I wanted to know.
“I’m not certain—”
Before Rhonda could finish, Hope walked up. “Not giving away our secrets are you?” She looped her arm through Rhonda’s and grinned in a way that made me want to take a step backward.
But I also wanted to hear her take on the flowers and see her reaction to hearing that the police had found them in Ben’s Egg.
I told her the same story I’d told Rhonda about my trip to the campground. “Can you think of a reason Ben would have a bunch of flowers in his trailer?” I asked.
“Or why the police cared. That’s the stranger question, if you ask me,” added Rhonda.
Hope dropped her hold on Rhonda. “Flowers? What kind of flowers?”
I thought back to what the camper had told me. “I don’t know, but I’d guess they weren’t anything usual or the officer wouldn’t have had to describe them. He would have just said carnations or whatever.”
“Maybe they were wildflowers,” Hope suggested.
“Maybe, but then do you think Ben would have picked them near the campground?” If it was a plant that was that common, I couldn’t see why it would be of interest to the police.
Hope didn’t answer. She had stepped away and was staring toward the highway with her hand shielding her eyes from the morning sun. When she looked back, she smiled. “I don’t know why not. Ben does love flowers.”
He did? I thought I knew most of my brother’s loves. I ticked through them: his goose, the St. Louis Cardinals, grilled cheese, and beer. But flowers? That wouldn’t have made my list.
But then we hadn’t been close lately. Maybe he had gone all Ferdinand the Bull on me.
My confused look must have registered with the HA! member. She shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, but I have to go. Eric should have been here by now, and I need to talk to him about something.”
She trotted off, her ponytail bobbing up and down behind her as she ran.
I was about to turn back to Rhonda to ask her how many men she knew who picked flowers for themselves when Shelia Blake’s truck and horse trailer pulled into the lot.
Jeremy was sitting in the front and, darn my luck, his mother, Peter’s ex-wife, was behind the wheel.
“I told you she’d be here.” Jeremy dropped out of the truck and onto the gravel.
He was properly outfitted in low-heeled cowboy boots, Wrangler jeans, a cowboy hat that a 90-mile-per-hour wind couldn’t dislodge from his head, and a belt buckle the size of a small plate.
“Nice buckle,” I commented, with complete sincerity.
He grabbed a hold of it with both hands and tilted it up as if he hadn’t seen it yet himself. “Thanks. I got it for mutton busting in Miles City.”
“That’s great.” This summer, Jeremy had opted out of the sheep riding competition at our local rodeo. I was glad to hear he’d gotten over any fears he’d had, but hoped even more that this win cured him of any future crazed mutton riding desires.
Shelia Blake got out of the truck and moved to the back of the trailer, where she started unloading horses. Luckily, at the same moment, Alphie, her and Jeremy’s Australian shepherd, bounded through the truck’s open window and into Jeremy’s open arms.
Jeremy, a grin bigger than the Mississippi, staggered backward under the dog’s weight. “I just taught him that. Do you like it?”
“Uh, yeah.” I grabbed Jeremy from behind, holding onto him to keep him from falling until the dog jumped out of his arms and trotted to the back of the trailer to check on what his other human was doing.
“Here you go.” Shelia walked around the trailer with two horses walking slowly behind her.
Neither horse was huge, I was happy to see, but neither was embarrassingly small either.
In fact, I wouldn’t have called either a pony.
Peter must have interceded and found me a nice, calm, normal-sized animal.
They both looked calm enough, bored actually, but I decided the sorrel looked the friendliest. I walked up to her.
“That’s Tweety. She’s mine now,” Jeremy said, his voice full of pride.
Tweety must have heard it too. She lifted her head and shook out her mane.
“Oh, then this must be...” I turned to the second horse. He was slightly bigger than the mare and buckskin colored. He also had a light in his eyes that made me frown.
“Jeremy, are you sure he’s... up to me riding him today?”
“Toby?” Jeremy’s eyes widened. “You don’t want to ride Toby.”
The horse lowered his head and dragged his front hoof over the gravel, digging a nice, deep trench in the gravel.
I took that as Toby’s confirmation of Jeremy’s advice.
“He’s my grandpa’s. Nobody rides him except grandpa and sometimes daddy.”
On cue, Peter’s truck pulled into the lot.
“But I thought your father had to work.”
“He did, but—”
Shelia appeared with her hands placed on her perfectly proportioned hips. “When he heard Jeremy was down to you, he rearranged things.”
Down to me. My lip rose. Rhonda elbowed me in the side. “That is a shame. Lucy was looking forward to riding with you.” She tapped the rim of Jeremy’s hat with her finger.
Jeremy s
pun on his mother. “I told you she wanted to come. Get Pokey out too.”
Shelia’s gaze slid to me, and a smile broke over her face. “If you say so.”
Twenty seconds later, she was back with the roundest, shortest, pokiest looking pony I’d ever seen. She handed me his reins. “Watch his teeth. He bites.” With a chuckle, she unhitched the trailer and went to get inside her truck. Standing with her foot on the truck’s elevated floorboard, she called, “And his back end. He kicks too.” Then she slid behind the wheel and pulled out of the lot, leaving me holding onto Pokey’s reins and wondering just how I was going to get through the day without being kicked, bitten, or otherwise humiliated.
Forty-five minutes later, worry about humiliation was past me. I’d waved off Peter’s offers to hold Pokey’s halter while I mounted the pony and endured five minutes of the damned creature spinning in slow circles as I fought to first get my leg over his back and then to get him to stop spinning.
“He likes to do that,” Jeremy confided, once Pokey was standing still and somewhat in the right direction. “He’s good, though, when we’re heading toward the barn.”
Fifty head of cattle lay ahead of us.
I didn’t see a barn in Pokey’s future or mine for some time to come.
Still, I smiled at Jeremy and murmured my confidence that Pokey and I would be just fine. In fact, he reminded me of Kiska, in all the wrong ways.
Peter, for his part, didn’t comment. He just smiled and walked the not-to-be-ridden-by-anyone-except-a-real-man Toby up next to me. “You can still bow out.”
I snorted. Like that was going to happen. Pokey and I were together for the next hour, or however long it would take to get the cattle to the Capitol, and it was about time both of us got used to the idea.
I leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
He moved backward and flung his head from side to side.
“Don’t touch his ears!” Jeremy yelled.
I fell forward and wrapped my arms around the pony’s neck.
“Or grab him around the throat!”
Pokey’s rear end raised and a snort erupted from his throat. I would have joined him with an outburst of my own, but my heart lodged in my esophagus blocked all sound.
“Whoa.” Peter grabbed the pony’s harness again. Immediately, Pokey calmed. “Just ride him, and you’ll be fine.”
My heart still fluttering, I gave Peter a smile that I hoped looked more confident than nervous and sat with one hand gripping the saddle horn while the other held tight to the reins.
“He’s playing with you,” Peter added. “But don’t worry. Alphie will keep the other horses and cattle away from you. You’ll be fine.”
I looked down and, sure enough, there was Alphie staring at me like I was the sole reason for his existence.
I smiled and waved at the dog. He didn’t even blink.
I didn’t know about Pokey, but Alphie’s unshakable focus did nothing to calm my nerves.
However, as the cattle in front of us started moving, so did the dog and, miraculously, so did Pokey.
“He knows,” Jeremy yelled as he pushed his horse to a trot and moved on ahead.
I desperately wanted to know exactly what it was that Pokey knew, but the boy was already three horse lengths ahead of us. Instead, I settled back into my saddle and concentrated on looking as if I had the situation and my steed completely under control.
The cattle drive proceeded at a nice boring pace. Pokey, once committed to the ride, moved slow but sure. I got into the side-to-side motion of his backside, moving my body in sync with his swaying.
I glanced at Peter to see if he had noticed what a natural I was.
“Watch out,” he called and made a sideways motion with his hand.
I looked forward to see a tree branch heading my way. I dropped my reins and clung to the saddle horn instead. Then, two heartbeats too late, I ducked. Luckily, Alphie was faster than I was. He darted forward, pushing Pokey just enough to the left that the tree branch barely grazed my right shoulder as we passed.
Grinning, Peter rode closer and retrieved my fallen left rein. “I should have warned you. That’s one of his favorite tricks.”
Both reins back in my shaking hands, I narrowed my eyes and stared straight ahead, right between Pokey’s pointy ears.
With my ride back under control, Peter swung his arm again, signaling for Alphie to herd two wayward head of cattle back onto the main road.
The police had shut down Lyndale and Benton for the drive, and the trip was peaceful all the way to the intersection of Helena, Lyndale, and Montana Avenues, loving referred to as Malfunction Junction.
As we approached, things came to a grinding halt. It seemed the name had never been more apt. A giant load of straw had been dumped across the road, blocking our path. Cattle spread across the intersection, moving off the road and out into a used car dealer’s lot.
Longhorn, shorthorn, Angus, and Hereford cattle wandered between beat-up sedans and well-used pickups. Men on horseback yelled and motioned to border collies, Australian shepherds, and cattle dogs, which zipped out of nowhere to nip at a Hereford’s heels or dart in front of a daring Angus.
One particularly large, particularly stubborn steer stared two cattle dogs down.
I glanced at Peter.
“Beefalo,” he said, then he kicked Toby into action and rode into the fray.
Left alone, I stared around, feeling lost and happy that Pokey was poky and showed no signs of wanting to follow his friends into the mass of moving cattle.
Pokey, apparently bored with the happenings, turned to head back the way we had come. Not wanting to be alone with the pony, I jerked on his reins to turn him back toward the chaos. At the same moment, people flowed from between two dilapidated buildings and into the street currently occupied by cattle, cowboys, and intensely focused dogs.
People and... upright cows?
Startled, I blinked, but my eyes hadn’t deceived me. Upright cattle, humans dressed in furry cow suits, ran behind a group of people herding them into the street where the real cattle were beginning to panic.
One man, wearing a T shirt with a round brand mark on the shoulder, yelled, “People drive! Get along little doggies.”
A people drive. Now I knew what Eric’s plans for the day had been. I guessed the straw was the work of the group too.
Pushed along by the rush of people, Pokey forgot his name and broke into a trot. Alphie spotted us, but he was too occupied herding another beefalo back into line to mess with the likes of us.
Another man screamed some anti beef-to-eat, pro cattle-to-love saying, and Pokey’s trot shifted to a full-out gallop.
I threw myself forward and clung to the pony’s neck with every ounce of strength I had.
Dogs barked, horses neighed, and people yelled. It was all a mass of noise, colors, and smells that whooshed past like one big ugly kaleidoscope of sensory assault.
I squeezed my eyes shut and cursed my stupidity for trusting that a pony named Pokey would live up to his name.
Suddenly, without warning, Pokey locked all four knees and came to a bone-jolting stop. My grip slipped and so did I, flying forward over his head and onto the giant pile of straw.
I lay there, winded and disoriented, unable to move until Pokey, in an uncharacteristic move of empathy, ran his nose over me and blew.
I sat up immediately, first aware of the pain in my back and next of the horse spittle and straw that clung to my face and hair.
Grimacing, I shoved the pony’s nose away and wiped at my face. Apparently insulted, he knocked against me with his head, then turned and trotted back into the mass of cattle.
I was glad to see him go. I would walk barefoot across tacks before I’d be getting back on that demon steed.
Mumbling and groaning, I tried to stand. Straw slipped under my feet, and I wobbled, falling forward. My back shrieked, but I was too angry to let it do me in. I scrambled with my hands and feet up the pile unti
l I was finally upright.
Victory soared through me for all of three seconds. Then I looked down.
Protruding from the bottom of the pile was a hand, pale, feminine and heart-stoppingly real.
Chapter 21
Thirty minutes later, the police had managed to cordon off the pile of straw. More men and women had arrived, these on foot, to help herd the freaked out cattle into trailers to be taken back to the fairgrounds, where I hoped they would be dosed with bovine Prozac and left to sleep off their adventure.
The dogs, left with no job, had for some reason gravitated to me. They sat in a semi-circle around me, their freaky blue eyes monitoring my every move and twitch.
I turned my gaze on Alphie, suspicious that he had somehow orchestrated the unforgiving scrutiny.
“Looks like you made friends.” George walked toward me. His words were light, but his face and tone told me something else.
“Who was it?” I asked. I glanced toward the car dealership where members of HA! and their new people-drive recruits had congregated under the watch of four uniformed police officers.
My gaze rolled over them, but my mind was blank. I couldn’t think of who, if anyone, might be missing.
Seeing where my attention was focused, George asked, “You think it was one of them?”
I looked back at him, surprised. “They put the straw here, didn’t they?” After seeing the people drive, I’d assumed HA! was responsible for the road block too.
Something close to relief washed over his face. “Haven’t heard that anyone has confessed to that, but it makes sense.”
“So whoever dumped the straw got caught underneath it...” I shook my head. I knew the HA! people were passionate about animal rights, but I doubted that any of them had planned on putting their own life on the line for the cause.
Before George could comment on the accuracy of my assumption, my phone rang. Eager to talk to anyone who wasn’t part of this tragedy, I hit answer.
My mother’s voice came through the cell. “I did it. I figured out who—”
Before she could say any more, I slapped my hand over the speaker. “I need... this is... family thing,” I stuttered out. Then I turned my back on my one true ally and quick-stepped a few feet away.