Cowboy Tough

by Joanne Kennedy

  Above that was the horizon and a sky lit with delicate pink hints of dawn. It was clear the sun was rising behind the viewer, and a shaft of light slanted through the mists and lit a small tree that was clinging to a crack in the canyon’s layers of rock. He knew without being told that the little tree was the real subject of the painting. It was struggling into the light, holding tight to a narrow cleft in the rock but reaching and straining for the life-giving rays of the sun. One yearning root snaked out to the edge of the rock, like a toe testing cold water.

  He’d never been much for academic interpretations, symbolism and imagery, all the intellectual claptrap that got in the way of just sitting back and enjoying a book or a painting or a piece of music. But he knew without even thinking that the tree was more than a tree. He wondered if it was Dora, or him, or Cat herself.

  Maybe it was all three. Or everyone, doing their best to grow in whatever poor soil they were given, reaching for the light in everything they did.

  He looked at the scene itself. He’d seen it a hundred times, maybe a thousand, but he’d never noticed that tree. He’d never seen the light look quite like that, either.

  “It’s dawn,” he said without thinking.

  She whirled, giving him a strict schoolteacher-squint as she held her brush in the air like a weapon. He’d better be careful or she’d paint him to death.

  “What?” She blinked as if she’d been asleep for a hundred years, and he had to resist the urge to go to her and kiss the cobwebs away.

  “You’re painting sunrise.” He nodded toward the far side of the canyon. “You changed the light.”

  “I know.” She cocked her head and looked at the painting with a critical squint. “I didn’t realize it till I got halfway through. That’s how I feel, I guess. Like everything’s just beginning.”

  She backed away from the painting and the two of them stood together, soaking it in. Tippy nudged her hand and she petted the dog’s head without looking.

  “It’s good,” he said. “Amazing. It looks like you just stopped time—like everything’s about to change at this exact second.”

  Cat turned to him smiling, fully awake now, fully in the moment. She reached for him and he took her in his arms, looking down at her and feeling that mysterious tug, that pain in his heart.

  “It is,” she said. “And somehow, it’s going to change for the better.” She rested her head on his chest. “I just know it is.”

  Chapter 47

  Cat leaned the last painting up against the wall of the front parlor and took a step backward. She should be looking at brushstrokes and composition, color and value—things the students had learned from her over the course of the workshop.

  But instead she saw the other things they’d learned—less tangible things. She saw that Ed had painted Emma and Emma had painted Ed. Their figures didn’t take up the whole canvas, but somehow they became the focal points of their landscapes. She saw that Dora had painted a loose, impressionistic view of the prairie meeting the sky—a painting that was full of open space and possibility. She saw that Viv had worked much more tightly, preserving a view of the canyon as if she wanted to hold it still forever, put it in a frame so it would never change.

  Abby had turned a wall of rock into a bold abstract piece, and Charles had done the same with a tumble of river rocks. Their paintings were so similar they could have been done by the same hand. Hmm. Interesting.

  She stood by the window, looking out at the scrubby ground surrounding the house. Little birds were hopping from branch to branch in the spent lilac bushes by the front door, chattering like a roomful of gossips. She remembered how bleak the ranch had seemed when she got there. Now it seemed uniquely alive, not just with the birds but with the breezes, the sunshine, the sweet scent of sage.

  She thought of Modigliani as she had when she’d first arrived. Picasso, burning his drawings. Van Gogh, freezing in that stark, simple room. No matter what their circumstances, they’d been able to find the beauty in their world, to see it and show it by putting their hearts into their paintings. They’d made the world their own.

  But this world would never be hers. She was going back to Chicago. If Art Treks kept her on, she’d keep spending her vacations as a teacher, always in a new location. Italy. Scotland. France.

  Those places had glittered for her when she’d started this journey. That had been her goal—to travel, to see new places.

  But now she didn’t even want to leave the ranch. She wasn’t done, she realized. There was more here to paint. More to see, every day. The sun always came up on something new here, every day a bright new promise.

  She’d thought the place held nothing for her. She’d expected to miss all the excitement of the city, but the truth was, there was nothing for her to miss. She wasn’t sociable enough to enjoy the parties and gallery openings. She wasn’t rich enough to take advantage of the restaurants and shows.

  And the truth was, she dreaded going back to the concrete and brick, the square city blocks and angular buildings. She’d fallen in love with the winding roads of the West, the curves of the landscape, the way the clouds drifted aimlessly in the endless sky.

  She looked up as the students filed into the room. Tonight was her last chance to make sure their Art Treks experience stuck with them. She’d been determined from the start to give these people their money’s worth. Everything had gone wrong, but she knew they’d learned a lot. They’d made connections with each other, and every person you loved helped you see the world in a new light.

  Wasn’t that what really mattered?

  She knew she needed a plan, but her mind had gone blank. She’d asked the students to come prepared, so at least she knew how to start. They’d been told to explain why they chose the subject they did, and how their painting evolved from their experiences on the trip.

  She watched them arrange themselves as they always did—Emma and Ed on the sofa, Abby sitting stiffly in an overstuffed armchair. The two girls were behind the sofa, resting their elbows on the leather cushions.

  She didn’t know where Mack was. Maybe his office. He’d said something about needing to use the computer, so he was probably working on the ranch’s financial issues again.

  She wished he was here, but life had to go on. Even when you wanted it to stop. Even when you found a perfect moment with the perfect man, the real world kept on spinning.

  Charles came in and perched on the arm of the sofa near Abby, and Cat could swear the air in the room changed. Maybe somebody had gotten something out of this trip. And judging from Abby’s shy smile, it was a very good thing.

  She’d let the students start, and she’d take it from there. She’d learned as much from these people as they had from her.

  “Ed, would you like to start?”

  The old man cleared his throat. “Well, I didn’t know quite what to do today. You didn’t give us much direction.”

  Cat felt a tug of fear in her gut. Why was she still hoping this would work out? She’d failed these people. Nobody came on this trip to learn how to see inside themselves. They just wanted to learn to paint, and she’d taught them so little.

  “So I didn’t quite know what to paint. I mean, usually there was a lake, or a tree, or something, you know? Emma saw some flowers she liked, so we stopped, and then I tried to think about composition, like you showed us. And I asked myself what was the focal point of this scene, like you said.”

  Well, at least someone had learned something. She’d talked about focal points the first day.

  Ed held up a painting of his wife standing at her easel in a sea of wildflowers. The painting was promising, but not quite finished. “And I decided it was Emma. She’s been my focal point for fifty years. I guess she still is, even with all this pretty land to look at.”

  Emma turned her own painting around. She’d painted flowers, but in her painting they had be
en plucked out of the meadow and bunched in an old, gnarled hand.

  “I’d have gotten more done if she hadn’t made me hold the flowers,” Ed groused.

  “I wanted you in the picture too. I was remembering that time we went camping.”

  He snorted. “I took her up to the Adirondacks, made her sleep in a tent and eat Vienna sausage out of the can. And all she remembers is that I gave her a bunch of weeds I picked along the trail.”

  “These are perfect,” Cat said. “You couldn’t have done the lesson better.”

  “But they’re not finished,” Ed said.

  “But you caught what matters, and you can finish up the details later. It’s not what’s in front of you that matters. It’s how it makes you feel. These are wonderful.”

  Ed and Emma beamed as she turned to Abby. “Abby? What did you paint?”

  The woman started blushing even before she spoke. Her voice shook a little as she stood up and showed an abstract painting done in warm shades of brown and blue with touches of red. It was the colors and composition that mattered, but Cat recognized the wall of the canyon, with its layered streaks of rock.

  “I liked what you said the other day about form versus representation,” she said. “I know most everybody picked something pretty to paint, like the flowers, but I wanted to do something different. I saw the rocks, and, I don’t know.” She ducked her head. “They were so ordinary they were beautiful.”

  “I did the same thing.” Charles turned his painting around to show an abstract depiction of some round river rocks. He, too, had concentrated more on color and texture than form, and his painting was surprisingly successful. “I don’t think something has to be pretty to make a beautiful painting. You just have to look a little closer.”

  Cat looked from one painting to the other. “Did you two work together?”

  “Nope.” Abby looked uncomfortable, as if she’d been accused of cheating. “We were on opposite sides of the canyon. I was near the top, and it looks like he went down to the river.”

  “We just think alike.” Charles moved over to sit on the arm of Abby’s chair. The two of them put their heads together and it was clear they’d found their own focal points.

  “Viv?” Cat gave the girl a smile of encouragement. “Our most improved student, by the way. I can’t believe how good you’ve gotten. You have real talent.”

  Viv glowed as she shyly turned her painting around. She’d climbed down to the river and done a study of rocks and trees and flowing water. It was meticulously detailed, with every blade of grass defined.

  “Lots of detail,” Cat said.

  “I wanted to save it.” Vivian blushed. “Hold onto it, just exactly as it is now. Dad says things are going to be okay, but I was thinking about losing this place, and I—don’t want to. That’s what I like about painting. You can hold onto things.”

  She glanced at Dora, who turned her own painting over. It was similar to the one she’d torn up the first day—a long view of the canyon, with the river glowing at the bottom.

  “That’s beautiful,” Ed said. Emma nodded.

  “I like the way it fades out,” Viv said. “Just turns into a blur, so you can’t really see the horizon. It’s like the river goes on forever.”

  “I guess I wanted to say that we don’t know what the future holds,” Dora said. “But we keep going—like the river.”

  “What about your future?” Ed asked. “Are you staying with Cat? That father of yours isn’t looking after you too well.”

  Cat sucked in a quick breath. She hadn’t asked Dora yet if she wanted to stay with her. That was a personal conversation, one she’d been trying to get the nerve to start. Now Ed had laid it out in front of everyone, and he’d insulted Dora’s dad. She waited for the fireworks to start, but Dora only shrugged.

  “Not right away,” she said. “I think I need to look after my dad for a while. I’ll visit Cat a lot, though. If she’ll let me.”

  “Of course I will, hon. I was going to ask you to—well, we’ll talk about it later.”

  “I’d come visit a lot more often if you lived here.”

  Cat felt like every eye in the room was watching her, and she glanced around for an escape route. “Um, I don’t know—I…”

  “You know how you always say my mom didn’t fulfill her purpose?” Dora said.

  “I was wrong about that, hon.”

  “I know.” Dora flailed a careless hand, waving away the issue. “But you know, you aren’t fulfilling yours. You ought to be a mom. You’re always taking care of people. You should marry Mack and live here and raise a bunch of kids and paint.”

  Ignoring Cat’s red-faced embarrassment, she turned to the rest of the students. “Don’t you all think that’s what she should do? She has this sucky job back in Chicago, and a shitty little apartment. And they’re crazy about each other. It’s okay with you, right, Viv?”

  Viv shrugged. “Sure. Whatever makes him happy. She’s better than Emilio, that’s for sure.”

  At least Mack wasn’t in the room to hear Dora’s crazy ideas. Much as she wanted her time on the ranch to last forever, Cat knew it was a ridiculous idea. She and Mack had known each other for all of two weeks, and however powerful her feelings had become, it just wasn’t realistic to think his were the same.

  She cleared her throat, as if that could erase the awkwardness of the moment, and shifted into teacher mode. “I’m glad you all had such a good time,” she said. “Now tomorrow…”

  “Hey, wait,” said a deep voice from the doorway. “You forgot something.”

  Mack strode into the room carrying her painting, and she felt herself color as brightly as any dawn sky. She couldn’t explain why her own painting made her uneasy, but she’d left it behind on purpose. Every time she looked at it, she felt like she was the little tree she’d painted, clinging to a shelf of rock for dear life, resisting the pull of the shadowy depths of the canyon. She hadn’t wanted to dissect the feeling behind the painting with all these people watching. Heck, she hadn’t even wanted to think about it herself. That’s why she’d left it back in the Heifer House.

  As Mack held it up for everyone to see, she felt naked and off-balance. She certainly couldn’t present an intelligent analysis of her technique. Oddly, she couldn’t really remember painting it.

  She looked at the group—Ed and Emma holding hands on the sofa, their daughter beside them, talking to Charles. These people were her friends. So why did she feel so exposed?

  Chapter 48

  Charles looked at the painting and shook his head. “That’s fantastic,” he said.

  Emma nodded. “Beautiful. The way you caught the light. The way the tree looks so fragile.”

  Cat glanced at their faces. The admiration was real.

  “It’s about being on the edge,” she said. The feeling she’d had when she painted it came back to her—a sort of trance, where the whorls and currents inside her mattered as much as the breeze rattling the sagebrush and the sun warming the rocks. “The tree’s clinging to the edge of the rock, trying to reach for the sun. I suppose the canyon is the unknown, with all those shadows.” She glanced at Mack. “It’s dawn, a new day, and everything is about to change.”

  As she looked at the painting, it drew her in. It was good that it disturbed her. Good that it made her uneasy. She’d told everyone they should paint what was in their hearts, and she’d done just that.

  It was the best thing she’d ever painted.

  “I’m about to change,” she said.

  A long silence followed. Everyone was looking at the painting, and she shifted nervously.

  “Well, that’s about it,” she said. “The shuttle will be here at 9:00, so we’ll have our usual seven a.m. breakfast. I hope you all enjoyed your Art Trek and you’ll tell your friends about your time here.” She cringed internally, but the speech was scr
ipted, a requirement of the job. “You’ll be receiving an evaluation form in the mail, and the company would like you to give them your honest opinion of what we do right and what we could do better.”

  She felt like she’d just walked over that cliff, sealing her fate. Even if the students tried to be kind, they were likely to reveal some of the disasters that had plagued the Art Trek. She really hadn’t been in control—not from day one.

  She jerked her head up as Ed began clapping his hands. Emma joined in, then Abby and Charles. As she stood there blinking in surprise, the ovation continued.

  “Well,” she said when the applause faded. “You’re—you’re very kind. I’m sorry that things didn’t go smoother. We missed a couple days, and…” She blinked back tears.

  “Smooth is boring,” Ed said. “I like the bumpy parts of the ride.”

  “Me too,” Abby said. “This was the best vacation we ever took. Usually Dad takes us to these stuffy hotels, with everybody bowing and scraping. It’s awful. Nobody really talks to you, but you know they go home and talk about you. Here we felt like part of the family.”

  “And we learned a lot,” Emma said.

  “That’s great,” Cat said. “Thank you. I guess everyone got something out of the workshop, then.”

  “Even me,” Mack said. “I got something out of it too.”

  Cat hoped he’d gotten something out of it. She hoped he and Maddie would get that contract. Maybe they would, since the students were so pleased.

  “I got you,” he said. “At least, I hope I did.”

  Cat froze, and everything around her seemed to freeze with her. How long had the birds been silent? A moment ago they’d been chattering in the bushes. Now the hush was eerie. The room was suddenly a tableaux in a painting, a character study of a drawing room soiree. Everyone was smiling expectantly; everyone was watching her. She felt like they expected her to reveal a hat and whip out a rabbit, or produce scarves from her sleeves.