set the beans down and rushed from the room. Royce, a taciturn rancher, followed his wife. Kate wondered sometimes if he’d be happier if she just stayed in her wheelchair in the background. He’d disapproved when she’d ordered a pickup with hand controls and an automatic lift to load and unload her wheelchair. Royce said Colton’s life-insurance settlement should go toward Danny’s future. Kate didn’t point out to her father-in-law that if she hadn’t culled money from her meager food budget to pay the premiums, her rodeo-chasing husband wouldn’t have had life insurance.
And the Steeles’ plan for Danny’s future was that he’d one day be a champion calf roper, like his father.
Danny was silent after his grandparents left the table, even though Kate tried to get him to talk to her. She regretted not telling Danny her plans first—the fact that she hadn’t was just one more indication that she needed to be on her own with her son. Much later, when she went in to say good-night, Kate found him sitting at the window. He had one arm draped around Goldie, his golden retriever. The other held a worn lasso that had been his dad’s.
“Hey, guy, you should be in bed.”
“I don’t want to move.” He pinned her with serious hazel eyes. “I heard Mimi tell Pawpaw that this move will use all our money. She said we’ll go off and forget them…and Daddy.”
“Danny, honey, they want us—well, you—to fill an empty hole your daddy left in their lives. That’s too big a burden for you. It’s just…time…we all move on.”
“But, Mimi says if we stay in Fort Worth, by this winter I can enter the Little Britches Rodeo and win it like Dad did at my age.”
Tensing, Kate didn’t respond. During her recovery she’d watched from her bedroom window as Danny had devoted long hours to roping fence posts. That rodeo dream was the main reason she needed to get him away from the ranch. She patted Goldie, gently removed the rope from Danny’s hand and motioned for him to go to bed. “I’m looking forward to getting back into the classroom, you know. This will be a grand adventure, you’ll see.”
KATE BRAKED THE TRUCK and a thin layer of dust settled on her windshield. For three days she’d endured Danny’s sulks and Goldie’s hot breath on her neck while she’d pulled a wobbly horse trailer through a dusty landscape dotted with juniper and brittle natural grass. Now she’d run out of dirt road.
In a clearing, a weathered gray cabin sat tucked beneath scraggly pines. Beside it stood an ancient corral and adjoining stall that leaned in the same direction as the wind-bent pines. Off to the right of the house, down a steep slope, sat a small, unpainted shed. Kate yanked on the hand brake, hoping against hope that she wasn’t looking at a primitive outhouse.
Stirring for the first time in hours, Danny unbuckled his seat belt and scooted forward. He clutched his dog and his beloved lasso. “Why are we stopping?”
“Uh, I think this is it.”
“What?”
“Our new home, silly boy.”
“Pawpaw’s bulls live in a nicer place,” he announced.
Kate ruffled his hair. “Yes, but everyone knows he babies his bulls.” It was a weak attempt at levity. And a knot tightened in her chest. Marge Goetz had said she and her husband owned a sugar-beet farm. But the high plateau Kate had seen thus far couldn’t have been classed as farmland.
“Maybe you took a wrong turn, Mom.”
Kate rechecked her map and shook her head. She felt Goldie snuffle her ponytail and reached back to rub the dog’s soft nose. “This is it. See the red flag on the porch rail? Mrs. Goetz said our landlord would tie one on a pine where we should turn and another on our cabin.”
Finally Kate cracked open her door. “It’s getting late. We’d better see what’s what, Danny. Today’s Labor Day and school starts tomorrow. We need to unpack. I’ve got no idea when it gets dark here.” She waved a hand toward the horse trailer. “Unload Flame, feed him, then use the hand cart to haul boxed bedding inside. I’ll start with making beds.” Kate hadn’t wanted to bring the horse. But two of Colton’s animals had had to be put down at the scene of their car wreck. Flame was left and Royce had given him to Danny. Against her better judgment, Kate had phoned Marge Goetz and found out the cabin did have accommodations for a horse.
“I’ve gotta unload all our stuff by myself?”
“Yes. Well, you and me, sport.”
“Can’t the guy who owns this place come help us tote boxes?”
“Danny, I’m sure he’s a busy farmer.”
“Well, I’m just a kid.”
Kate turned to her son. “We can do this, Danny.” She hit the button for the lift that would lower her electric wheelchair to a level where she could slide from the truck seat and drop into the chair as she’d practiced repeatedly. She’d been without the use of her legs since the terrible accident on the Oklahoma turnpike that had killed her husband. Kate had been poked and prodded by a dozen doctors, none able to pinpoint a physical reason for her paralysis. No one had used the word psychosomatic, but Kate knew that’s what some of them thought. Kindly Dr. Pearsall said he was confident that one day something would click and Kate would get up and walk. He’d given her exercises so her muscles would be ready if and when the time came. Like right.
After two years, even Kate had begun to doubt Dr. Pearsall’s optimism. And her in-laws had long ago relegated her to invalid status.
Her chair bumped hard against the packed dirt. She unlocked the overhead clamp. Flashing Danny a confident smile, she slid from the pickup.
Seeing his mother meant business, he crawled a bit more reluctantly from the backseat. “What if your chair won’t go up that hill?”
“It’s a gradual incline. Marge Goetz said the cabin owner would leave a door key under a clay flower pot on the porch. You can unlock the door.” Kate didn’t want him hanging back, maybe seeing her struggle. She had to do this. Returning to Fort Worth simply wasn’t an option.
“Hey,” he called moments later. “It’s not so bad inside. It’s got new wood floors and cabinets and it smells like Mr. Duffy’s workshop.”
Her chair crested the slope, and Kate breathed easier. Otis Duffy, Royce’s handyman, made furniture in his spare time, and Danny loved helping him.
“Oops, I see my first obstacle. Steps. But speaking of Mr. Duffy, he nailed together a couple of ramps in case I might need them. Will you bring one from the pickup? Leave the other. It’s possible I’ll need it at school.”
Danny left and returned lugging the ramp. “My old school had concrete ramps for kids who couldn’t climb stairs.”
“Your school had twelve hundred students for six grades. This school has only fourteen students in eight grades and they all arrive at school in a single van.”
“Are they dorky? That’s who rode vans to Tumbleweed.”
“Daniel Royce Steele, I’m ashamed of you. I don’t want to ever hear you call special-needs kids dorky again.”
Danny’s lower lip jutted. He buried
