The affair wound down not all at once but as couples and families said their good-byes and drifted toward the door. Youngsters and toddlers were sound asleep and carried by their mothers or fathers, and older children walked in the short steps of the overfed, more than a few pasty faced and clutching their stomachs.
With the majority of the revelers gone, the hall took on the look of a vast cavern, in which sounds echoed hollowly and the streamers and decorations seemed to have lost their excitement and joy and become used and forlorn.
Danny, Ian, Sarah, Tessa, Maggie, and a group of others lingered in the hall, stuffing trash cans and sweeping the floors. Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie caught Tessa leaning close to Ian and whispering in his ear. The minister nodded, smiled at the girl, and said something Maggie couldn’t hear. A moment later, Ian stood next to her.
“Walk you to your truck, Maggie? I... I need to talk with you for a second.”
The fun and the laughter of the evening drained away for Maggie. She felt like a captive with nowhere to run. “Ian,” she began.
“It’ll only take a minute. Please. I know it’s late and you’re tired, but this is important. I’ll get our coats. OK?”
Maggie nodded, not quite trusting her voice. Danny, she noticed, was looking at some sort of a book Julie was holding. Julie had apparently found some coffee somewhere; each of them held a cup as they talked.
There were perhaps eight or ten trucks and cars still in the Grange Hall parking area. They walked toward Maggie’s truck at the periphery of the lot, their boots crunching the now-frozen mud.
“I’ve been spending a whole lot of time at your place lately, Maggie. I guess you know that.”
The words sounded rehearsed and practiced to Maggie, and she didn’t doubt that they were. How can I hurt this sweet, gentle man? And what if I say yes? Would that really be a bad thing? Could I be happy with Ian?
“... don’t want things for the sake of things. I have my work and my duties here in Coldwater, and... well... I’ve become so interested in horses. And Dancer. You know how I feel about him.”
They stopped at the driver’s door of Maggie’s truck, and she turned to face Ian. Even in the cloud-filtered light, he looked like a nervous schoolboy. “The thing is,” he said, “I’ve thought about this and I’ve prayed about it, and in my heart I know and believe it’s a good thing.” He swallowed hard. “So, I’ll just ask you.” He took her hand and held it, and Maggie felt the dampness of his palm.
“So, I’ll just ask you,” he repeated. He swallowed again. “Will you sell Dancer to me?”
“What?” The word came out as a startled gasp more than a question.
Ian stood perplexed, mouth slightly open, gawking at Maggie as the laughter rolled—poured—from her.
“Ian... Ian... you’re wonderful!” she choked as she clutched the startled minister in a hug.
“I have the money, and I’d board him at your place and pay you to help me with his training.”
Maggie eased away from Ian and leaned against her truck. “I’m sorry, Ian. I just... I... thought that you...”
“I what?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just a silly thought is all.”
Ian cleared his throat. “About Dancer...?” he asked. “We’ll work something out, Ian. I promise we will. I know how you feel about him.”
“Wonderful!” Ian exclaimed. “That’s really great! Hey, let’s get a coffee or a Coke or something, OK? I’m too wound up to go home just yet.”
“There’s nothing open in town, Ian. It’s after 11:00.”
Ian sighed. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. It was a good night, wasn’t it? I had a good time at the festival, managed to grind you into selling Dancer to me—or making some kind of arrangement, anyway—and met some people I hadn’t yet met.”
“You didn’t win a teddy bear for me, though,” Maggie teased.
“Alas.”
Maggie got into her truck, closed the door, lowered the window, and turned her ignition key. “Night, Ian. We’ll talk about Dancer real soon.”
“Great. Good night—drive carefully.” He began to turn away and then turned back. “Hey, who was that lady—Julie? At the basketball game? Seemed to know Danny? I introduced myself to her but never got a chance to talk—seems like her booth was the most popular one of the night.”
“Julie Downs. She’s a reporter for the News-Express.” Her next word came unbidden. “Why?”
“No reason,” Ian said. “Seems nice is all.” He smiled. “Night, Maggie.”
She watched Ian as he walked to his car, and then she engaged her clutch and rolled out of the parking lot. “No reason,” she said aloud mockingly and squealed her tires as she swung onto the road. “No reason,” she repeated in the same mocking, little-girl tone. Then, in a moment, she laughed.
He’s a minister! He’s supposed to know the people of Coldwater, and particularly those who come to his church. The image of Julie Downs, blond hair swirling, blue eyes sparkling, rolled through Maggie’s mind.
She didn’t laugh again during her trip home.
Sarah Morrison blew across the top of her coffee cup, dissipating the steam, and then took a sip. “Mmmm. That’s good coffee, Maggie. But let me get this straight. That was the night of the Spring Festival, correct? Almost five months ago?”
“Right. I drove on home and went up to my room. I was tired and confused, but I still had the feeling that had come to me in my truck. I was distraught—at least a bit—but there was a difference. I wasn’t scared any longer, Sarah. That’s the thing: the fear had dropped away. I picked up my Bible that night and I read it for maybe a half hour. I hadn’t done that for a long time. It felt good.”
“Good in what sense? I’m not sure I understand. Was there some sort of revelation?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. I suppose this sounds silly, but the image and sensation that immediately comes to mind is this. When I was in the third grade, there were a couple of girls who picked on me all the time. I’m not even sure why they did, but they did. One rainy day those girls and a couple of boys were giving me a tough time after school, calling me names and splashing puddles at me and nonsense like that. I lived about a half mile from the school and walked both ways. I was soaked from the splashing and the rain, and the wind was cold, and I was completely miserable, feeling totally alone and unloved—and then I got home. I opened the door. My mom had been baking, and I smelled peanut butter cookies and felt the warmth of our house. My mom came from the kitchen and hugged me even though I was dripping wet. She got me out of my wet things and into fresh clothes, and we had cookies and milk together. I’ve never forgotten how good that time was. And that’s what I felt like when I turned out my reading lamp that night of the Spring Festival.”
A shriek from outside broke into the conversation in Maggie’s kitchen. Sarah rushed to the window. After a moment she said, “Come look at this.”
Maggie joined her friend at the window and watched as Danny focused the hose he’d been washing Dakota with on Tessa as she ran around the paddock, trying to avoid the ice-cold stream of water.
“I’m certain Tessa did nothing to prod Danny into spraying her,” Maggie said.
“Absolutely,” Sarah agreed. “The girl is without fault in all things.”
As they returned to the table, Tessa shrieked again. Maggie topped off their coffee cups before she sat down.
“We—all of us—noticed the change in you,” Sarah said. “But in a sense, it was subtle too. You were different. Lighter, I guess, more open. Less trapped inside yourself. It was good to see.”
They sat in the late August sun cascading through the window, quietly, companionably, enjoying each other’s company. Hoofbeats sounded from outside, and Maggie went again to the window. Tessa and Danny were mounted, headed up a grade in the pasture outside the training paddock, both as comfortable in the saddle as working cowhands. Their horses were in a gallop, reaching out with their front hooves and draggin
g ground beneath them, tails streaming like banners. Dancer ran the fence line of his own pasture and pushed hard to maintain the couple of strides he was ahead of the other two horses.
“They look like a postcard from a dude ranch, don’t they?” Sarah said as she walked over to join Maggie. When Danny and Tessa topped the rise and rode out of sight and Dancer had gone back to grazing, Sarah faced her friend.
“You’ve done wonderful things in the past few months. You’ve made a perfect decision and you’ve... I don’t know... come back to planet Earth, I guess.”
Maggie looked down and stared into her coffee cup. “He’s happy for you, Maggie,” Sarah said quietly. “He told me that he is, and I believe him.”
Maggie nodded and then raised her head to meet her friend’s eyes. “I hope so,” she said.
Sarah smiled and went on. “I don’t know if you realize it, but Tessa has learned so much from you. She’s learned about love and pain and life choices and recovery from loss. She loves you to pieces and respects you more than I can begin to tell you.”
Maggie blushed, and both women laughed. “How could I not love that girl like I do, Sarah? God doesn’t make many like her. She’s a gift and a blessing.”
Sarah smiled. “I talked to her again about a prosthesis. I told you how she said she’d rather have her stump than some phony plastic thing everyone would gawk at. Well, I’ve been bringing catalogs home from the hospital. Some—many—of the devices aren’t half bad, you know. The articulated ones look almost natural, and all kinds of progress has been made in prosthetic science—really amazing stuff.” She sighed, but the smile remained on her face. “It’s up to Tessa, of course. Anyway, she said she was going to talk with you about it, and I wanted you to be prepared.” She laughed. “That’s not precisely what she said—she said she’d ask you if you thought she’d look good with a silver hook, like the pirate in Peter Pan.”
Maggie laughed. “Like I said, the girl’s a blessing, Sarah—to all of us.”
Sarah glanced at her watch. “Whew! I’ve got to run. Big day tomorrow, and I’ve still got some things to do. And I promised Tessa I’d pick up a new pair of jeans for her.”
“The new surgeon—what’s his name?—is working out well?”
“Steve Ridley. Yeah. He’s excellent. Nice guy too—a little arrogant, but a nice guy. The nurses flock around him like bees to honey.” Sarah moved toward the door. “How do you think Tessa will do tomorrow?”
“Well, Turnip’s ready. He’s been burning up the pattern and leaving the barrels standing up. Tessa might be pushing too hard for that extra half second she can save by jamming the barrels too closely. If she keeps cool, she’ll do real well.”
“Thanks to your training.”
Maggie laughed. “Nah. Tessa belongs on a fast horse. She’s a natural. I’ve guided her a bit, but all the raw talent was there before I met her, before I had anything to do with her riding.”
“I guess we’ll see tomorrow.”
“We sure will. And even if she takes down all three barrels and runs over a judge, she’s still our Tessa.”
That evening, when the sun had lost its power for the day but was still providing gentle, dusky light, Maggie left the barn and walked the fence line of Dancer’s pasture. The other horses were in their stalls, but Dancer needed all the exercise he could get, and his evening meal was scheduled later than those of his barn mates to give him as much time as possible outside.
Maggie stopped and whistled a short note—and then immediately grimaced as Dancer wheeled his body toward the sound and placed much of his weight on his left rear leg as he turned. Nothing to worry about, she chided herself. Danny says he’s as fit as he was before Thanksgiving.
Dancer, gregarious as ever, galloped across the pasture to where Maggie stood, sliding to a decidedly show-offish stop. Maggie started toward the barn, and the colt, on his side of the fence, tagged along after her like a puppy, snorting every so often as if to hurry her somewhat unhurried pace to the feed barrels.
Maggie saw Ian in her mind as she walked, remembered him sacking Dancer—rubbing the colt’s body with an empty grain sack, beginning to flap it gently around the horse’s neck and face to acclimate him to the hurried moves of humans. Dancer had been clearly bored by the process. It’s going wonderfully—perfectly. They’re learning at the same time. The bond between Ian and Dancer is... is like a partnership—or a good marriage. There’s so much for each of them to learn, but they have all the time and space and love they need.
Maggie stood outside Dancer’s stall, listening to him grind sweet feed between his teeth and the occasional grunt that indicated his joy at eating. After a minute, she picked a handful of carrots from the treat basket and went stall to stall to give each horse a carrot, a scratch between the ears, and a few low words of love.
As she walked toward her house after securing the barn for the night, she stopped midway. The light in the second bedroom—the office—was on. Maggie took a deep breath of air that smelled of fresh grass and the humid sweetness of a Montana summer night. This is all good.
Maggie continued on into the house, leaving her boots on the mat in the kitchen. She started up to the second floor, her thick socks quiet on the stairs.
Ian was hunched over the keyboard, unaware of her presence in the doorway as he worked on the coming Sunday’s sermon. He was a good typist and a quick thinker and writer. Maggie focused on the cadence of his fingers as they tapped out letters, words, sentences. The simple gold wedding band on his left ring finger that matched the one Maggie now wore and had barely become accustomed to glinted as it caught the light from the desk lamp.
This tiny moment in time, Maggie somehow knew, was a picture of joy and love that would be in her mind and her heart forever.
“Hey,” she said quietly. “I’ve been standing here watching you work.”
Ian leaned back in his chair and turned toward her. “That doesn’t sound terribly interesting for you.”
“It all depends on one’s perspective,” Maggie said, moving to embrace her husband. “I find it fascinating.”
A Note on Barrel Racing
Barrel racing is a fast, hard-riding, intensely exciting sport that pits women and tautly muscled, precisely trained horses against a merciless and unforgiving clock. Since its inception in the 1940s, barrel racing has become a favored event in the Professional Rodeo Association’s shows and competitions, and a woman with a strong and competitive horse and a whole lot of personal grit and determination can earn prize money that rivals that of male calf ropers and rough stock riders.
The sport works like this: three empty polystyrene fifty-five-gallon drums are set in an arena. The distance between the barrels varies, but the rules call for a minimum of one hundred feet and can go longer, depending on the size of the arena. A safety zone is provided to allow the contestants to slow and stop their mounts, which are galloping at top speed after completing what is called the cloverleaf pattern. Although the majority of riders opt to take the righthand turn first (since most horses turn more strongly to their left), taking the left barrel first is allowed. The pattern looks like this:
Consistently winning barrel horses must have a tremendous ability to accelerate and the ability to handle acutely tight turns in both directions at a full gallop. Equally important is that the horses must be as competitive as their riders and must love the contest with equal fervor. There are many fast horses but very few top barrel horses. There must exist a communion between horse and rider to shave seconds—and tenths of seconds—off the clock. It’s that partnership that makes barrel racing the very special sport that it is.
Breeding, raising, and training barrel-racing horses is a large and competitive business, and the price asked for a finished (completely trained) horse can easily top twenty-five thousand dollars. But part of the beauty of the sport is that a horsewoman with enough drive, ability, and patience on a five-hundred-dollar grade horse that wants to win as badly as his rider does
can be counting her prize money while her colleagues glumly load their multi-thousand-dollar mounts into their trailers.
Paige Lee Elliston reflects her keen understanding of the horse/rider relationship in her writings. She has written many novels in the general market and is the author of numerous short stories and articles. She lives in Rochester, New York.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
A Note on Barrel Racing
About the Author
Changes of Heart Page 18