Chapter Three
Amy
That Saturday afternoon I pulled my windbreaker from my closet and ran down to the kitchen to grab an apple for Bailey and a Mountain Dew for me. My only real vice. I finished the soda and found my dad in his den, his feet up on his desk as he read one of those spy thrillers he loved so much. Soft jazz playing in the background.
“I’m headed out to Jenny’s,” I told him. “I’ll be home for dinner.”
He looked up over the top of his glasses and smiled. “You’ll be on your own. I took a shift for Dr. Richardson. I won’t be home until late tomorrow afternoon. Will you be okay for the night?
My father was a surgeon at the only hospital in town. But sometimes he helped out the other doctors in town by taking a shift in the ER.
I nodded. “Sure, I’ll grab something on the way home.”
He smiled again. “Text me when you get in,” he said as he returned to reading.
I shook my head as I left. It didn’t seem right to be so trusted at my age.
My father knew me so well. He was leaving his seventeen-year-old daughter alone in this big house on a Saturday night. And he had nothing to even worry about. Sometimes I almost wished I could be bad just to shock him a little.
As I turned onto the dirt road leading to Jenny’s house, my heart fluttered. Luke might be there. Who was I kidding? Of course he was there. Where else would he be?
I smiled to myself as her family’s old farmhouse came into view. Weathered gray, the house was over a hundred years old. Built by one of the first families to settle this valley. It had been added onto so many times that it was hard to discern where the original house started.
A big red barn and a white rail corral sat back behind the house.
The crisp autumn air was filled with the scent of pine, barn smells, and green pastures. The high blue skies reminded me to take advantage of these good days before the gray gloom descended on us for the next six months.
Turning into the yard by the barn, I noticed Luke in his jean jacket walking across the field with his dog, Nellie. The black and white border collie trotted at his heel, glancing up at him, waiting for a command.
Jenny had told me how Nellie had been his dog and how she’d been broken-hearted when Luke was sent away. One more thing to hold against him, I thought. Making dogs sad was never a good thing.
Luke glanced up, squinting as he tried to see who was here. Once he identified me, he turned back to doing what he had started.
Not even a wave. I thought as I shuddered. Jenny’s brother was so different. There was really no other way to say it. Not in that creepy weird way. More in the unusual, loner way. It wasn’t just the criminal aspect of things. It was that assuredness. That confidence in who he was.
I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun as I watched Luke walk across the field. Something about him pulled at me. Alone, yet confident. A guy secure in himself.
He whistled sharply and Nellie was off. Charging across the field to a group of cows in the corner.
Jenny’s mom had rented out their fields to a neighboring farmer.
What was he up to? Then, I remembered Jenny saying that Luke had gotten a part-time job with Mister Jacobson on the next farm. Mostly mucking out barns, fixing fences, and taking care of the steers being run on the Prescott place.
He’s moving them to another field, I realized.
I watched in admiration as Luke whistled short sharp bursts that directed Nellie back and forth working at their heels. Jumping back when one of the steers turned and rushed her. Neither Nellie nor Luke panicked. She just raced behind the big animal and quickly had it back with the group headed to where Luke held a gate open.
He was so good, I thought. It was as if he had never been away. The two of them working as a tight team. For just a second, I started to feel pulled towards him.
Out of bounds, I reminded myself.
Thankfully, a soft neigh from the corral called my attention. Bailey’s head stretched over the top rail, looking at me expectantly.
“Okay, okay,” I said to her as I reluctantly turned from observing Luke. When I got to the horse it sniffed at the pocket holding the apple.
“Yes,” I said as I gave it to him. “Jenny said I was to take you out for a ride. Is that okay? She thinks you get upset if you don’t get exercised.”
Bailey looked at me with a strange look. I swear he understood every word.
“Okay then. Let’s get you saddled and we can go. There’s a back trail I want to check out. That all right with you?”
I slipped his halter on and clipped the lead draped across the top rail and led him to the barn. After I had him fully saddled, I led him back out to the yard. I knew he didn’t like people getting up on him inside the barn. One of his many quirks.
As I stepped into the stirrup and then up into the saddle, I turned to look for Luke but he and Nellie had disappeared. He was probably off doing any of a thousand different things for his new job. Jenny had told me more than once that ever since he got back, he seemed to spend all of his time outside doing things.
As a 911 dispatcher, Mrs. Prescott spent half her time at the communication center. The farm hadn’t really been worked seriously since Jenny’s dad had died. They kept chickens and a huge garden. But that was about it. And Bailey of course.
I gave one last look, but when I came up empty, I turned Bailey towards the back trail. The Prescott farm butted up next to the State forest. Technically we weren’t supposed to be riding back here. But the place was huge and very empty. Nothing but trees and trails.
Ducking beneath a pine bow, I started Bailey down the trail. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. A beautiful day, riding a horse through the trees. Hair blowing in the wind. Free, young, life was good.
Jenny and I had spent every spare moment back here. Usually riding tandem bareback. This was my first time back here by myself. A tingle of excitement passed through me.
About a half mile in, I turned onto an old logging road and slowly worked Bailey up to a full trot. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. There was something so freeing about riding a horse. Just me and Bailey. The world’s problems disappeared.
We passed through a clear cut for over another two miles before I pulled back and slowed Bailey so I could turn off onto a side trail that led up through the mountains. The clear-cut forest had bothered me when I first came here. But Jenny had explained the whole harvesting and replanting thing and how it opened up areas for wildlife.
“Think of it as a crop,” she had said. “A crop that gets harvested every forty years or so.”
Eventually, I just accepted it as a part of life.
Jenny and I loved this way. It passed by a small stream where I could rest Bailey before we started home.
Would Luke be there? I wondered. What was it about him that occupied my thoughts so often?
My daydreams were interrupted when Bailey snorted and crow hopped to the side. My stomach clenched when he got too near the small bluff that fell off to the stream below.
“What are you doing you, idiot?” I teased as I nudged him forward.
Bailey snorted again but he started up like I wanted. We didn’t have far to go. A little beyond the next bend the trail dipped down next to the stream where I would let Bailey have a drink and we could turn for home.
I smiled to myself as I soaked in the forest. The peaceful gurgle of the stream, the wind whispering through the trees. The sharp pine scent, all of it combined to send a happy feeling to my soul.
As we started, around the turn in the trail, Bailey’s ears came up. My heart lurched when I saw it. There in the middle of the trail, a full-grown mountain lion crouching over a deer carcass.
The giant cat hissed as it bared its fangs at us. Protecting his kill. Wild, primal.
My breath caught as Bailey screamed and reared up while he twisted around. Horses and Mountain Lions do not get along. They never have and never will.
It was too much too soon. I wasn’t ready and went off the back end, ass over tea kettle.
Somewhere in mid-air, I realized that this was going to hurt. Sometimes I hate being right. The ground hit me like a sledgehammer then fell away as I tumbled over the bluff.
“Noooo.” I screamed as I tried to stop myself. Of course, I failed miserably. Instead, I heard something snap as my leg erupted in pain. Fortunately, I was saved from more agony when my head slammed into something hard and unforgiving.
My last thought was that I didn’t want to be eaten alive. Hopefully, I would die before the cat got to me.