overtake me again, my stomach roiling like I’d eaten something bad.
I swung down off Rowdy and sat cross-legged in the dust on the ridgetop, wiping my runny nose with my sleeve.
There had to be a way to stay. Had to. Had to.
I ran through it in my mind, turning it over like a piece of river rock, looking for a speck of gold in the gray granite.
Pa’s words came back to me: “no money, no ranch.” The whole conversation repeated itself painfully in my head, over and over. I thought hard, tried to turn my useless anger into a solution.
If we absolutely had to sell, maybe whoever bought our ranch would let me stay on as a hired hand. After all, I knew every draw and canyon a cow could hide in. I could rope and ride and cook and clean. I’d do anything.
Or maybe I could live at Jasper’s. At least I’d still be out here, not in the city. I could keep Rowdy. I could still work cattle. And Jasper’s folks were nice.
But, being next door, I’d have to see whatever strangers bought our place coming and going every day, see their horses in our corrals, some other kid getting on the bus at the end of our driveway, knowing her saddle sat on the rack Ma made just for me. Nope; I didn’t reckon I could stand it.
“This stinks!” I shook my head and said, “Come on, Rowdy.” I stood and swatted the dust from the seat of my jeans and wiped my sleeve across my face again. I wrestled my sadness into determination.
I had to figure it out, but I was drained dry of ideas, like a stock pond at the end of summer: just a little pool of damp at the bottom, everybody, ranchers and cattle, looking skyward, praying for rain.
I scratched Rowdy under his forelock and whispered, “Let’s go see Jasper. Maybe he can think of something.”
Chapter 3
As I rode down the hill, the scene in Jasper’s barnyard was so calm and peaceful, I almost hated to stir it up with my problem. Seemed like I had no choice, though, and what are best friends for? I’d helped Jasper get his dog, Willie, after all. Now I was the one who needed help.
Jasper was brushing Tigger’s dun coat with a rubber currycomb, making big circles to loosen the hair and dirt. Tigger munched her hay. Jasper was singing something sweet to his mare as her tail swept the dirt.
Willie drowsed in the shade of the tall poplar tree by the barn. He raised his head and wagged his tail slowly, flop, flop in the dust when he heard Rowdy’s step.
Jasper stopped brushing, probably surprised to see me again so soon. “You missed the chili and corn bread.” He rubbed his stomach over his plaid button-down shirt. “Too bad. Sure was good.” He knocked the currycomb against his boot, raising a cloud of horse hair and dust. Then he noticed my face. “¿Estás bien, Cassie?”
I was sure my frustration reeked, like stink off a dog that’s rolled on a carcass.
I studied my boot tops awhile more, mulling over how to say it. “Worst thing ever,” I finally spit out.
“Worst ever?” Jasper shook his head like he doubted me. He led Tigger into the corral and slipped off her halter. “Come in the barn while I soap my saddle.”
I plopped down on a straw bale in the barn aisle and watched Jas dip a fat sponge into a pail of water and run it over a tan bar of saddle soap. It smelled like pine tar and summer.
“Well?” he asked, rubbing the sponge over the smooth leather seat of his saddle. “What’s got you so wound up?”
“Like I said; worst thing ever.”
He stopped rubbing and tilted his head, his eyebrows raised.
I took a deep breath and dived in. “Pa says there’s no way to get our cattle down from the mountains before winter, what with him being laid up, and we’re out of money and we have to sell the cattle where they are and give up the ranch and move to the city so he can work.”
There; I’d said it out loud. The awful reality of it hung in the air, jumbled with the dust and the smell of soap and leather and hay and the delicious warmth of animals well cared for.
Jasper’s mouth hung open. “¡No es posible!”
“Yep.” I stood up, already feeling closed in, caught in a trap. I paced in and out of the sunlight falling like bars across the barn floor.
“You and me, we have to think of something, some way to raise money to hire help to bring down the cows, or pay the mortgage, at least until we can get the herd down, or … or … I don’t know, something.” I kicked the straw bale with the toe of my boot and raised more dust, like more questions floating through the air.
Jasper picked up the sponge, dipped it in the bucket again, and rubbed it on the soap. He picked up a stirrup leather and ran the damp sponge over it slowly, up and down, up and down, both sides of the strap, not saying anything.
“Well?” I nearly shouted. “What are we going to do?” I wanted him to get as mad as I was, to rage and stomp around and agree about how unfair it was. But I knew my friend. That wasn’t his way.
Finally, he seemed satisfied that the strap was clean and soft and supple. He dropped the sponge back in the bucket and leaned his elbow on the saddle on its rack.
He said, “Why don’t we just go get the cows, you and me?”
I laughed in spite of my anger and frustration. “What? You and me ride off on our own into the mountains and bring back the whole herd of cattle?”
Jasper nodded.
“You and me and Rowdy and Tigger up in the mountains with the bears and cougars and winter coming on?” I paced back and forth in the barred sunlight. Jasper kept nodding.
“You’ve been up there, Jasper. You know how rough that country is, all cliffs and gullies and trees so thick you can’t see through ’em. Think how many things can go bad and no one around to help if one of us falls or gets snake-bit or we get snowed in or lost … a million things could go wrong!”
“Yep,” he said. “You got another idea or you want to go home and pack for your move to town?”
“Just you and me bringing down the herd, no grown-ups? I thought you’d come up with a real idea.”
I kicked the straw bale harder this time and the twine popped loose and the bale burst and the straw tumbled across the barn floor.
“We’re twelve,” I reminded him. “Our parents would never in a million years let us go.”
“We don’t tell them, we don’t tell anyone. We’ll say we’re going on a field trip for school or something. Maybe I can tell my folks I’m staying at your place and you tell your pa you’re with me. We could do it over a weekend, be home by Sunday night.”
“Right,” I shook my head. “What if our folks come looking? It’d never work.”
“Hey,” Jasper stepped in front of me, stopping my pacing. “You’re the one who fought off Carl when we stole the horse, and you’re
