all right. I know you didn’t mean anything. Just be more careful. Come on, let’s finish up. It looks like we’re ready to move out.” Carey and Joseph joined the line of ranchers and vacationers who brought their lunch dishes back to the rolling kitchen truck before heading back to their assigned positions within the drive. Although a modern cattle drive hardly even looked like what the cowboys of the Old West endured, what with retrofitted kitchens on wheels doing all the cooking, a medical truck providing support, and even an extra vehicle or two meeting the group at different points along the way in case anyone needed anything, Bernard did his best to keep some of that original spirit alive. That’s why every year, people paid good money to join the drive, “city people”, who spent a week or two with the group just to get away from their busy lives and smartphones for a little while. Helping move thirty or forty thousand cows from one state to another may not have been as glamorous as a trip to the Caribbean or a ski vacation but people still signed up, year after year, hoping to get away from it all and carve out just a small portion of peace and quiet while still being a part of something big.
This drive was no different. If Carey bothered to look hard enough, he could have started to pick out some of the differences among their guests, but who was he kidding? They were all the same, at least on the surface. They all had lives and jobs that didn’t involve ranching or working the land, and they all had money to burn to pretend like they wanted to live like this. He knew from experience that every one of them would be hopping on the plane in a few days, eager to get back to the land of modern plumbing and central heating. There wasn’t much point in learning anything more than their first names, and even that information was only useful for calling out to one of them if they were about to do something dumb.
Carey swung up in the saddle and steered his horse to the lead team, ready to swap out with anyone who might need a break for a little while. Leading was stressful, especially because the rest of society didn’t care too much for the old ways. Lead riders had to watch out for all kinds of dangers like speeding cars and eighteen-wheelers and alert the rest of the group, so there was no daydreaming up front.
“Hey, Jeff, I’ll come on up here for a while if anyone wants to take a rest along the sides of the pack,” Carey offered, coming up close to one of the professional drovers, who was hired every year just for the duration of events like this one.
“Yeah, right,” Jeff said with a pleasant laugh. “You just want to get away from those city people. You’re not fooling anyone with this ‘I’m here to help’ act you’re putting on!”
“I’m telling you, Jeff. I don’t know if I can take it anymore!” Carey laughed along quietly, looking around to make sure no one overheard them. “I’ve put up with these yahoos every year, and even after I think I’ve heard it all, somehow, the next crop has someone even worse. Remember that guy who brought his own gun on the trip and was mad when Dad made him leave it locked in the safe? Like we were going to need to deputize him and ride out with a posse against Black Bart to save Miss Polly from the train tracks, or something.” Jeff laughed at Carey’s description, slapping his thigh with his reins as he roared. “This time, we have two girls who have no business out here, one who’s scared of every little shadow and one who thinks all men were put on this planet for her to hate.”
“Oh, sounds like you’re already getting along great with the ladies, huh?” Jeff joked, pointing out that Carey’s twin had just gotten married, leaving plenty of room for him to find a girl of his own.
“Don’t start on me. I can already feel Dad breathing down my neck. Not that I would ever wish Casey or Miranda anything but the best but deep down, I was kind of hoping Dad would realize he should have stayed out of it if they didn’t patch things up like they did. Now that he’s tasted matchmaking success, it’s like I can feel his eyes on me, like he has a giant bull’s eye on my back for his Cupid’s arrow.”
“Yeah, I wish I had something helpful to say there, buddy, but I’m sure you’re right. He’s gonna be on you to get married next!” Jeff grinned as he spoke, obviously not anywhere near as sympathetic as his words should have been. They rode along in silence for a few more minutes, one smiling in triumph, the other hanging his head. “You know, there is one thing you can do. The only way to head off your dad’s ideas of romance is to beat him to the punch.”
“What do you mean?” Carey asked, hope coloring his voice.
“Well, find your own girl without his help. Maybe then he’ll leave you alone. Your only other option is to hope that Casey and Miranda start a family right away. Maybe having some grandkids running around the place will give your dad something to focus on rather than playing love triangle with your future all day.”
“That’s great. Fat lot of good you did in the hope department!” Carey called out as he rode away, mentally preparing himself to rejoin the group of city people who were helping out with various tasks along the route. He took a deep breath, released it, and painted a smile on his face, ready to face them.
Chapter Two
“Karen, can you wait for me? I can’t seem to get this dumb horse to want to cooperate,” Amy called out as she watched the other woman’s retreating back moving farther and farther away. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard Karen let out an exasperated sigh, but the other woman did expertly lead her horse back around and come back toward Amy.
“That’s because you’re not letting him know that you’re in charge,” Karen said roughly. “You don’t have to be cruel, but let him know who’s boss or he’ll walk all over you.” Karen snatched the reins out of Amy’s hands and made a sharp clucking noise to the brown, doe-eyed animal, pulling it forward.
“Don’t hurt him!” Amy cried, grasping the saddle with both hands to keep from falling as the large horse lurched forward.
“I’m not hurting him,” Karen argued. “but you have to give him instructions. He doesn’t want to stand there looking like an idiot any more than you do, and if you’re not going to tell him where to go in the only way he understands, he can’t move. Now, move, horse!” She tossed the reins back to Amy, more than a little disgusted by the younger woman’s innate air of weakness. If this drive did nothing more than teach her to grow a backbone, Karen thought harshly. It would have been money well spent.
Amy dropped her face as shame crept up and washed over her, letting her strawberry blonde curls fall in waves over her face. She was always letting other people boss her around, and it had landed her into one failed relationship or friendship after another: work friends, boyfriends, bosses, even professors in school now that she’d gone back to college to work on her graduate degree. It hadn’t always been like this but lately, she’d begun tolerating it when people effortlessly walked all over her, and she knew it was because she let them. She just didn’t know how to stand up for herself. At least the horse isn’t walking all over me, she thought. But she knew that was only because he wasn’t walking much at all.
“Hey now,” Carey said, riding up alongside Amy and ducking his head to see her face under the wide brim of her hat. “Why the long face?”
“It’s nothing…” she began, looking away and blinking back the threat of tears.
“I was talking to the horse,” Carey answered. Amy looked up at him, crestfallen, until he smiled disarmingly. “That was a joke. Get it? You know, the old joke? ‘Why the long face?’” Amy laughed half-heartedly in spite of herself and shook her head. “Never mind. No, I really was talking to you. What’s wrong? You don’t seem to be having a lot of fun out here.”
“I guess I’m just not a natural born horseman. Horsewoman.
