by Zoe Dakota
In for five, out for two. In for five, out for two.
I probably broke some lenses.
In for five...
Shit, which ones are even in this bag?
...Out for two.
I could check before Hudson comes back.
In for five...
The lenses don’t fucking matter, idiot, don’t move if you don’t want a bone sliver through your heart.
...Out for two.
Does that really happen?
As she was lying there, mentally investigating the ways in which she could be grievously hurt, she felt hooves coming, the ground pounding, a low thumping that gradually rose until it became sound, until it became two men on horseback, both jumping off together, kneeling down next to her.
“How you doing?” asked Hudson.
“She’s alive and awake,” said Bryce, on the other side of her. “That’s a good start.”
“We called the paramedics,” Hudson said. “They might be a little while. It’s rough getting up here in the ambulance, though there’s a fire road that goes not too far from here.”
“Okay,” Lydia said. Silence. “Keep talking to me,” she said.
“About what?”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m scared, just tell me something.”
“When I was a kid, I had this dog that would fetch rocks out of the river,” Bryce said, suddenly. “His name was Joe. Joe the dog. You could throw a rock into a river, and Joe would come back, all wet, with that exact same rock in his mouth.”
“How could you tell it was the same rock?” Lydia asked.
“We’d mark it somehow, or just pick a really funny-looking rock,” Bryce said. “Joe. He was a great dog.”
“What kind?”
“Golden retriever,” Bryce said. “Dumb as bricks, but the sweetest dog I ever had.”
“We ought to get a dog,” Hudson said. “Shepherd dog, you know, for the ranch.”
“Where did you grow up?” Lydia asked.
Bryce paused for a minute. “South Texas,” he finally said. “Little town no one’s ever heard of. Nothing happens there.”
“And now you’re up here,” Lydia mused. She didn’t feel like her head was quite all in one place, but more like little pieces were floating away, like everything was hard to keep track of.
“I think she’s got a concussion,” she heard Hudson tell Bryce. “It ain’t a bad one, but she’s still a little out of it.”
“I think you’re right,” said Bryce.
Then both men looked up at a sound. They stood.
“Ambulance is here,” Hudson told her. He was obviously relieved.
Chapter Three
The time the EMTs spent fussing over Lydia, then rolling her onto a stretcher, putting her into an ambulance, driving her to a hospital, and double-checking everything were probably the most humiliating time of Lydia’s life. They were worse than the time she’d shown up to Spanish class her senior year of high school with her skirt tucked into her tights, worse than the time her top had come off in the swimming pool during college. She kept protesting that no, she was fine, but Bryce totally overrode her objections and, hours later, she was in a very nice room in a very nice hospital, a little bit doped up on Vicodin.
As she watched a rerun of Seinfeld, a nurse came in, holding her charts. Finally allowed to move, Lydia turned the volume down on the TV.
“You’re incredibly lucky,” the woman said with no introduction.
“I am?”
“You sure are. Not a bone broken.”
Lydia took a deep breath in and felt at least four ribs protest. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Positive,” the nurse said. “You’ve got some bruised ribs and a sprained vertebra in your lower back, so it’s not all sunshine and unicorns, but you’ll heal from that pretty quick.”
Lydia settled back against her pillow.
“Wow,” she said.
“I’ve seen people paralyzed from the neck down from being thrown off a horse,” the nurse said. “Pelvises broken, organs burst.”
Lydia felt a little bit nauseous, hearing that she’d been so close to death.
“But, you’ll be fine,” the nurse went on. “Some painkillers and some time off, you’ll be good as new. Get some rest,” she said, took a few notes, and then bustled back out of Lydia’s room.
Just as she felt relieved, Lydia began worrying anew: it was great that she wasn’t paralyzed, but how the fuck was she going to pay for this? She was a single, twenty-eight-year-old freelance photographer. She had health insurance, but it was the cheapest kind she’d been able to get. Her deductible was thousands of dollars, and she was nearly positive it didn’t cover this fancy, single hospital room, or the nice nurse, or an overnight stay, or any of this.
And then, the Vicodin began to kick in again, and she nodded off to sleep.
Lydia didn’t know what time it was when she woke up to voices, but she knew that waking up from her Vicodin nap felt like dragging herself, hand over hand, out of a deep well.
“She’s gonna be fine,” one voice said, its accent Western-tinged and deep.
The other man just sighed.
“Look, things happen.”
“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been trying to impress her and running cows around.”
Impress me? She thought, still down in the well of sleep.
“I didn’t think it would charge her, Bryce.”
“Did you think at all?”
“Of course I thought. I been running cattle for years. That cow ain’t never charged anyone before, why would I think it would now?”
Silence.
“You shouldn’t’ve put her on that horse, neither.”
“Stella?”
“You know she’s unpredictable. She scares easy.”
“You’re just saying that because of the time you were on her and she shied away from a bobcat,” Hudson said. Things were beginning to get heated between the two of them. “Stella ain’t never thrown no one before. She’s nervous around predators. Every horse is nervous around predators.”
“A bobcat ain’t a predator, it’s a bad sign.”
“They probably smell like mountain lions to a horse, Bryce.”
Silence, again.
“I had no idea that horse was gonna throw her. Of course I didn’t. I’d never have put her on, I thought Stella was the best, gentlest horse we had. And we got lucky. She’s gonna be fine, the doctors all said so.”
Boots shuffled. “When can we take her home?” Bryce asked.
“Tomorrow. They want to watch her overnight.”
Boots sounded to the door, then back, like the second man was pacing. “Okay,” he said.
Then Lydia finally made it out of the well and opened her eyes, turned her head, still fighting off the veil of sleep.
“Hey,” said Hudson, standing to her right. In the window there was a huge display of flowers in a ceramic vase. “You you feelin’?”
Lydia swallowed. Her mouth felt coated in a thin layer of cotton. “Okay,” she said, faintly.
Bryce strode back over, bent over her, offered her a glass of water. “Doctors say you’re gonna be fine,” he said. “But no moving for a couple of days. We’ll set you up real good back at the house.”
She nodded and drank the water. Bryce pushed a sweaty strand of hair out of her eyes and back along her temple, his hands calloused but gentle.
A nurse entered the room. “Visiting hours are over,” she announced.
“We’ll be right out,” promised Hudson, and he leaned over Lydia as well. “Get some rest and we’ll take you home tomorrow,” he said, putting one of his big hands on hers.
“Wait,” she said. Her felt all... swimmy, and everything hurt, but she couldn’t afford an overnight stay. She had friends who’s been bankrupted by less than this.
“I can’t stay overnight,” she said.
“What, you got a hot date?” Hudson teased.
/> Lydia smiled, weakly. “Just real shitty insurance,” she said.
Bryce waved a hand at her. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.
Lydia blinked, not understanding.
He pointed at her, the other hand stuck in a belt loop. “Your first priority is to get better,” he said, a little stern. “Everything else comes second.”
She nodded, the movement sending a dull pain through her.
Both men walked out. Lydia turned the TV on, and then fell asleep again.
Chapter Four
By Friday, she was up and walking, through she still had a back brace on. She showed up at breakfast for the first time, a little late — the men were already eating — but both of them looked up from their huevos rancheros with big smiles on their faces. They stood from their chairs and gave her the gentlest hugs, like giants petting a kitchen.
“Good to see you up and around,” Bryce said.
“Now you can shower,” Hudson teased.
Lydia stuck her tongue out at the two of them. Even though she was up and at ‘em, she was still on the Vicodin and now muscle relaxers, and she was more loopy than not.
Cecilia came over with a cup of coffee, light brown with cream, and a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast.
“You need to get your strength up,” she commanded.
“Thanks, Cecilia,” Lydia said.
The shorter, older woman took her upper arm in one hand. “I’m glad you’re going to be okay,” she said. “You gave us all a good scare.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lydia.
“Don’t apologize, girl,” Cecilia said. “We’re just relieved.”
Cecilia went back into the kitchen to do whatever she did all day, and Lydia sat, took her first sip of coffee in a few days. It tasted like heaven in a mug. Everything tasted good after she’d been eating and drinking little for the past few days. After all, your dining options when you were bed-bound weren’t great, and mostly consisted of all the different types of soup.
“They’re saying early snowfall this year,” Hudson said, tucking back into his breakfast.
“It gonna stick around?”
“Think so.”
Bryce nodded and took another bite of eggs, scooped onto his bacon. Lydia noticed that he never really ate like a rich guy, at least when it was just the three of them. When she’d first gotten the fellowship, of course, there had been a reception and some fancy dinners, and when she’d shown up in Aspen they’d gone out to eat, and there he’d been the very picture of etiquette. But here, at his own house with his own people, he ate with his hands sometimes, scooped things into other things. He smashed his ice cream into ice cream soup. He was never gross, just not what she’d expected.
“I guess I’ll be seeing more of my family this year, then,” Bryce said. He sighed. “Can we look into getting the security system upgraded before my brother and his brats get here?”
“It’s done already,” Hudson said. “After that fit you pitched last year.”
“Good,” said Bryce.
The two men ate in silence for a moment. Something clanked in the kitchen, and Lydia focused on putting her hands to her mouth, over and over again, with a minimal amount of pain. She found it was best if she leaned forward about fifteen degrees, perched on the edge of her chair with her legs straight out, but even that still hurt some.
“You should’ve just let the police handle it,” Hudson said, suddenly.
Lydia’s ears perked up, even as she ate her bacon T-Rex style, trying to move her elbow without also moving her forearm.
“I couldn’t do that,” said Bryce. “They’re Jackson’s kids, I couldn’t let them go to jail. I couldn’t be the one making them go to jail.”
“They’ll never learn otherwise.”
“I don’t know,” Bryce said. “Maybe not. Maybe you’re right, but—“ he put his fork and knife down with a clatter and moved his plate away. “But, the first time I’m in the news in the past ten years can’t be for putting my brother’s kid in jail.”
“We’ve gotta do something,” Hudson said, softly. Lydia struggled to lift her coffee mug, bending her head down as far as she could — but no, that just hurt a different part of her neck.
“Maybe by the time they show up, he’ll be in jail for something else,” said Hudson.
“You’re an optimist,” said Bryce.
“Well, he’s not exactly an honor student or a Boy Scout.”
“I’m holding out hope.”
“It’s just as well we don’t have kids, you’d spoil them.”
Did he say “we,” or was that the drugs talking, Lydia wondered.
Then she spilled hot coffee down her front.
“Shit!” she shouted, trying and failing to stand from her chair, muscles failing and locking in strange ways, everything she tried hurting. “Goddamn,” she muttered.
Bryce and Hudson jumped out of their chairs, napkins in hand, ready to dry her off. Cecilia came bustling out of the kitchen with several dishtowels, and the three of them proceeded to really wipe Lydia down. Cecilia left with her mug and it came back with more coffee and a straw.
“Stop laughing,” she told the two men, who were definitely smiling at her expense.
“Sorry,” Hudson said, not sounding contrite at all.
“I don’t know how I’m going to do the rodeo tomorrow at all,” she said, half to herself.
Both men’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re not going to the rodeo,” Bryce said.
Lydia looked over at him. She had to go to the rodeo. It was her job, photographing the disappearing lifestyle of the West. Things like the final rodeo of the season in a town like Aspen, which had once been a little hamlet and was now almost entirely a wintertime playground for the wealthy.
She opened her mouth to say so, and then thought, it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, and just smiled.
“You can’t even drink coffee without a straw,” Hudson chimed in.
She knew they had a point. She just thought she had a better one. Still, she wasn’t about to make any promises.
Lydia picked her coffee up, moving only her elbow, and sucked at the straw. She tried not to feel like a little kid, and failed.
Chapter Five
It was a strange, cloudy day with bursts of sun. Too late in the year for thunderstorms, the light and the air still felt like thunderstorms, so Lydia took her lightest camera and wandered the ranch a little, never straying far from the main house or the barn or the stables.
She’d broken a couple of lenses in the fall. Nice lenses. Non-photographers were always shocked to hear that lenses could be a thousand dollars, but it was true, especially if you did this professionally. So that one moment of dumbassery had cost her not only god knew how much in hospital bills, but a cool few thousand in equipment.
So she headed out to test this weird, electric-feeling light. It took her mind off her problems.
The stables were weird and dark, the horses mostly blanketed down and sleepy-seeming. It was the cold, probably — it made all creatures want to stay inside, not just humans. Light came in through the high windows running down the raised center of the ceiling, the windows in each horse stall, and filtered down to the ground where she was with a weird, gray tone to it. It made even the beautiful wood of the stable look blue and silver, from the hay to the horses themselves.
Everything looked quiet, she thought, and so she adjusted her settings and began shooting. She got lost in it, as usual, something she was grateful for: that even after so many years of struggling to make it, after years of day jobs and applying for things she didn’t get, she still loved what she did. It was moments like this, alone in the cold, quiet light of the stable, the horses nickering gently, that made everything worth it.
Then the door at one end opened, a cold breeze blowing in, getting through even her thick, alpine-strength sweater. She turned and saw Hudson heading in, stamping his feet and shaking his head. Then he frowned.
“You
ought to be in the house, not shooting in here,” he said.
“I promise, I’m fine,” said Lydia. “It’s the lightest camera I’ve got, I swear.”
Hudson looked skeptical.
“Here, feel it,” she said. “No equipment, even. Just this.”
Hudson stepped up to her and weighed the camera in one big hand. Up close he smelled wonderful, like hay and pine needles. How a man ought to smell, Lydia thought, and closed her eyes to breathe him in again.
“You okay?” Hudson asked. She opened her eyes. He was looking at her, quizzically.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly.
He put the camera back around her neck, carefully. She didn’t usually use her neck strap, but between the drugs and the pain, it had seemed like a good idea today.
“You’re a little loopy,” he said.
“You ever been on Vicodin and muscle relaxers?” she asked.
He laughed. “Of course. I rode broncs in the rodeo for twelve years. I call ‘Vicodin and muscle relaxers’ my twenties.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said.
Hudson just shrugged. “It was stupid and wonderful,” he said. “I was lucky to get out mostly intact. I know lots of guys who didn’t.”
“Did you ever win?”
He laughed. “I won plenty. Never won nothing big, if that’s what you mean.”
“But you did it for so long.”
“Just because you do something for a long time, don’t mean you’ll wind up the best.”
Lydia looked down at her camera. Suddenly it felt like nothing more than a hunk of plastic and metal in her hands. “I know,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re a sight better at taking pictures than I ever was at riding broncs. You want to take some horse pictures? I’ll help you out, hold them still for you. I bet you’re still a little spooked after that fall.”
“A little,” she admitted. Deep down, Lydia didn’t know if she ever wanted to get back on a horse.