Chapter Four
Gentry
I wanted to tell her right then and there that she was the reason I was so pissy, but I didn’t. For one because I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction and secondly because I figured she already knew she was to blame.
Dressed in Gloria’s hand me down ranch clothes Krys stared me down. Challenging me. Boots disappeared around the side of the barn. He was a good guy and a hard worker but Krys was a fresh divorcee and she didn’t need no re-bound cowboy fling – least of all on my ranch.
“Come on,” I told her and led her into the barn through an identical door on the other side from the one she had been trying to open.
Doc, my dark roan Quarter horse stud kicked at his door in annoyed greeting.
“Hello there boy,” Krys said and reached her hand to his muzzle. Doc jumped back and tossed his head and to her credit Krys didn’t shy away. Doc weaved his head a couple of times before carefully approaching his strange visitor.
Krys kept her hand steady – allowing Doc to come to her. He placed his velvet nose into her hand and moved his lips in search of a treat. Krys giggled softly in a girlish way that threatened to take me back but I slammed the door in the face of that memory.
“So, Doc it is?” she asked him after blowing a ‘hello’ breath of air into his nostril so he could become familiar with her scent. “As in Doc Holliday or Buggs Bunny’s Doc?”
“Holliday,” she replied to herself as if the horse had answered. “Of course, Gentry is too serious for something like Buggs Bunny.”
I rolled my eyes. Horrid woman, even if she was right. A dark grey gelding poked his head out of the next stall, Jonesing for attention.
“And who might your friend be?” Krys asked.
“That’s Thunder Storm. He answers to Thunder or Storm,” I offered knowing she wouldn’t get a reply from Doc. “And he can be your mount but you may have to lose the bibs. It will be a brief ride so you shouldn’t freeze.”
“Really?!” Krys’ face lit up with excitement and I almost smiled. Almost.
“He and Doc get along just fine anymore. I’ll get your gear.”
I guessed it had been a few years since Krys had rode. Illinois wasn’t exactly a horse hub and although I recall her riding a handful of times with my sister I doubt she kept up when she went to New York. I was only partially wrong.
“I rode English style back East when I had the chance. It wasn’t often but I enjoyed all I could get.”
“The concept is the same,” I muttered as I sat down our saddles.
Fifteen minutes later we were at the barn door ready to go. Krys had tacked up without issue but I re-checked it all anyhow, taking special time to check her cinch.
I told myself it was because I was concerned for her safety and the safety of my horse. However, just below the façade I knew that it was all shit. I was doing it to be an ass and undermine her confidence.
Krys found her seat in the saddle easily and smiled at me. She was stepping back from the battle line. I probably should too.
“Ride behind me. Doc is a stallion still he doesn’t like to be challenged,” I warned and Krys sighed. This was a warning for her own safety but I let it go.
I didn’t take the ride lightly. The cold snap and snow had blew in with unexpected harshness. Winters could get bitter here it was true but it should still warm up a bit. And it had, the snow was turning slushy and the temp was pushing forty. A far cry from the last few days.
The horses needed exercise. Doc got stall crazy from boredom easily but he was an escape artist. Doc could jump too, making him difficult to pasture. With the storm brewing and a few mares in breeding season I had thought it best to not tempt him the last couple days. I hadn’t the time to chase him all over God’s creation.
Thunder Storm had been my roping horse, although I wasn’t going to offer up his sentimental value to Krys free willingly. I didn’t let anyone ride him aside from ponying kids and I hoped he would accept a different rider.
Storm was the best trained and I was most comfortable knowing Krys was on a mount I would trust with my life. If something happened to her Gloria would kill me – not counting what I was liable to do to myself.
I glanced over my shoulder at her. She had removed the stocking cap since we left the ranch yard and gathered her hair up on top her head. She wasn’t nervous or uneasy. Storm would have felt it. Horses are much better judges of character and emotion than people are.
“So,” Krys called out to me keeping her distance between Doc and Storm. “Are you going to tell me about the ranch or is this a silent tour?”
I grinned. Part of me wondered if she really wanted to know or if it was always just some fake politeness she had picked up out East causing the inquiry. But I loved talking about the ranch so I started to carefully tell its story as we rode.
I told her a story she had heard parts of, how the Sutton’s, my mom’s family, came with some of the first Colorado settlers. About the cattle Ed and I raised. We had a few pure bred short horns, but most were descendants of the original herds. A Mixture of whatever my fore fathers could find and afford.
I told her about the lay of the land, the names of the ridges and valleys. She was quiet occasionally asking a question when she felt the need for clarification.
“And this Mirror Lake I have heard so much of?” she asked twenty minutes into our ride.
“Right on the edge of the next ridge,” I said as the glimmer below came into view.
Although we had few guests who I got the pleasure of taking to see the six-acer lake for the first time, it was always a beautiful experience. To remember the awe it had as its effects radiated off someone else.
Krys pulled up on Storm halting him as she took it all in. The snow clung to the banks and the ice was beginning to break up on its surface. For all her beauty this wasn’t even Mirror Lake at her best.
I nudged Doc on, to follow one of the mountain streams that fed the Lake when Krys pointed to the North. “What’s that?”
“Come on,” I said with a small smile.