my saddle on the ground than I’d walk out of the house without my clothes on. No good cowboy would.
I carried my saddle by its horn into the barn and put it on its rack, the one with the plaque that said CASSIE in curlicue letters, the one Ma had nailed there when she made the rack for my first saddle. I ran my fingers over the letters and straightened the saddle so the stirrups hung straight. I sure did miss Ma.
I headed in to see what was gnawing on Pa now. I had an uneasy feeling in my gut. Usually my gut was right.
Chapter 2
Pa and my sister, Fran, stood in the kitchen when I banged through the back door. Fran stirred a big glass pitcher with a wooden spoon. Pa leaned against the round oak kitchen table where we three ate our meals.
“Cassie, Fran, sit down. I need to tell you girls something important.”
My uneasy feeling leaped and clawed in my stomach, a creature waking after hibernation.
Pa pulled a chair out and sank into it. He leaned his crutch against the table edge and stretched his cast-stiffened leg out to one side. He looked at the wounded leg like it belonged to someone else, like it surprised him to see it attached to his hip. His hands crabbed together on the wooden tabletop.
Fran carried the lemonade pitcher to the table. She poured the glasses full and set one in front of Pa and one in front of two other chairs. Ma’s place at the far side, across from Pa, sat emptier than ever.
Fran and I sat down. I scuffled my boots under the table and traced a “C” on the dewy surface of my glass.
A triangular silence stretched taut between us, one of those lumps of time that inflates tight as a balloon, but really only lasts a few seconds.
Pa sighed and lifted his head to look us in the eye, my big sister first, and then me. “We’re on the edge of losing the ranch,” he finally said; a coyote howl of an announcement, defeated and sorrowful.
“The place was all paid for a long time ago, but, well, I’ve had to borrow against it during bad years. Now there’s a mortgage needs to be paid every month.”
Money, I thought, in the grown-up world, it was always money.
He went on, “Winter’s coming early. Snow level’s dropping.” He nodded toward the window where we could see the white snow line straight as a ruler across the foothills and the peaks beyond. “The cattle need to be brought down from the mountains right away, before the storms hit.” He paused so we’d feel the weight and coldness of the problem.
“I’m in no shape to ride.” He knocked his glass gently against the top of his cast, halfway up his thigh, indicating the source of our troubles.
Fran spoke up. “Can’t we hire somebody?”
Pa shook his head and smiled a slow, thin-lipped smile. “Truth is, girls, there’s no money. With all the rain at cutting time, the hay crop didn’t bring much.”
Money, again.
His face was slack and dark. “I’ll need to sell the herd where they are, take a loss, let the new owners bring them down from the mountains. It’s the only way.”
I stared at him. “Sell the herd?” The cows and calves had been fattening up on the mountain pastures all summer. Pa and I and the ranch hands usually brought them down to the lower fields for the winter. We sold the young steers to keep us going over the winter and auctioned some of the heifers in the spring.
“What would we live on after that?” Fran asked.
“That’s the thing,” Pa said. “No cattle, no money, no mortgage payments, no ranch.” He tried to lighten his voice then, like he was giving Fran and me some good news, instead of squeezing the life out of us, well, out of me anyway.
“I’ve been offered a construction job in Bend. We’d move there and I’d start work when my leg healed up.”
Fran’s face brightened. “Really? Live in the city?”
I knew my sister. I could see it spinning through her mind like a carnival ride; the bigger school, more boys, the movies and malls. She was a traitor to the ranch. I hated her right then.
Me? I felt my face go red and my hands begin to shake. I stood so suddenly, my chair clattered to the floorboards. I didn’t care.
“No! Pa, no! We can’t leave the ranch!” My throat tightened like I was being strangled. “What about Rowdy and Pet? What about my friends?”
“The horses would have to be sold.” Pa didn’t meet my stare. “You’d make new friends.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple rising slowly, and turned even further away.
Fran just sat there, a smug smile cutting her face in two. I wanted to slap her.
I closed my eyes tight, wanting the whole scene to disappear. Fiery tears gathered behind my eyelids. I opened my eyes, let the tears slip down my cheeks, a punishment for Pa, and stomped out.
I grabbed the bridle from the barn and caught Rowdy. He nickered and nuzzled my shirt pocket, looking for a peppermint or a carrot.
“Oh, Rowdy,” I pressed my face to his face and felt his eyelashes whisper across my wet cheek. “How could I ever leave you?”
I couldn’t even think about someone else owning my horse; brushing him, riding him, or worse yet, neglecting him. I thought of poor thin Glory, the horse Jasper and I had rescued, saw her sad eyes, ragged coat, and overgrown hooves. No, I couldn’t let that happen to Rowdy. I wouldn’t.
My hands shook as I buckled his cheek strap and pulled the saddle cinch tight. I lodged my foot in the stirrup and swung up.
My thoughts raced ahead of us as Rowdy and I took down the hill behind our house in long reaching strides. My horse felt my anger, my sadness; I know he did. He knew me deeper than anyone, even Jasper.
When we reached the ridge crest, I pulled Rowdy to a halt. He blew hard and danced in the bunchgrass. I patted his neck under his black mane and kept the reins tight.
I skimmed my eyes over the land below me; the John Day River Valley, Sutton Mountain flat-topped and stern, the distant, darkening humps of the Ochoco Range to the west, the Strawberry Mountains layered green on darker green to the east. The mountains watched over me all my life.
This was my home; the patchwork hay fields, the river cutting through cliffs. I was part of the land. It made me “Cassie”: rider, ranch kid, cowgirl.
I looked around at our neighbors. Jasper’s family’s ranch hunkered in its bowl just down the winding gravel road from ours. Carter’s cattle ranged their pasture where Sutton Mountain leveled out into the valley. The John Day River, flat and calm and green, wound out of the mountains, twisted through the valley, and dwindled away out of sight.
How could I leave this place for city streets and traffic, lights and noise and people everywhere? I’d sooner sleep in a cave in the mountainside with the bats squeaking in and out and the rattlesnakes wanting into my warm bedroll. I’d sit in the mouth of my cave and look down on this valley and no one could ever make me leave.
But
