Chapter 2
Ranchette’s had been a major turning-around spot for pretty much everybody on the highway, so by the time Ty made it there, and pulled over to water the pony, the parking lot, though thick with slush, had been mostly empty.
He went inside the convenience store to buy some cans of Red Bull and two small bags of Bugles for the journey and, on impulse, bought a touristy blanket emblazoned with a wolf, thinking in the back of his mind that Cinders’ ears might be getting cold and he just didn’t want that.
The blizzard had let up briefly, the clouds thin overhead, but any fool familiar with the area and the crazy weather knew that the clouds would be coming down white and thick and it would start snowing not only harder, but also sideways.
Ty was no fool. He was also feeling a little crazy at the way his life had turned out and so he was going to keep going.
Stuck in the cab of his truck, his only concern was Cinders and Bea and that they should have the kind of Christmas someone had planned for them.
Focusing on that helped him forget everything else.
As he trundled along the low foothills to the west, snow snakes slithered across the two-lane road, covering the yellow dotted line in the center as well as the white lines to either side.
What saved Ty from driving off the road when the snow started to come down again in white, lumpy loads, was the glittery, almost-invisible mile markers, that and his familiarity with the road.
He kept his hands on the wheel at the ten and the two, being as careful as he could while the forty-five minute or so drive turned into an hour’s drive, and then an hour and a half.
By the time he took the slanted, slippery curve turning from Highway 211 to the 103 that led to Farthing, he’d been on the road from Ranchette’s Stop ’n Go for over two hours.
For any other delivery, he might have stopped in Farthing, might have parked and knocked on someone’s door to ask for shelter for the night. It was that kind of town.
But from the horse trailer, he could almost feel Cinders’ anxiousness and her desire to get where he was taking her. She wanted a quiet stall out of the weather, a basin of water, hay beneath her hooves, and the warmth of a little girl’s hand on her muzzle to welcome her.
He was going to do his best to see that the mare got it.
Main Street, which went straight through Farthing, was plowed, but the side roads were thick with snow, and more was coming down.
He paused at the edge of town to scrape the hard slush from his windshield wipers.
Then he went back to check on Cinders and, rubbing his hands together, climbed back up into the truck and made his way steadily along the road to Farthingdale Ranch.
By that time, the snow was coming down at an angle, a solid, slanted curtain of white, and the snow came up to the tires’ rims. The sides of the road were covered in white, and visibility was only twenty feet, maybe less. He drove on.
When he got to the gateway to the ranch, marked by a large iron sign above and a green-painted gate below, he paused the truck, intending to park and get out.
Just as he put the gear into idle and pushed on the parking brake, the truck slid sideways, jouncing over the edge of the road and into the ditch. From the back, Cinder’s whinnied, a horrible, high-pitched sound that made his heart lurch.
He held onto the steering wheel until the truck slowed to a stop, grabbed his gloves, and flew out of the truck, lumbering through the knee deep snow to the horse trailer. Which, thankfully, while it was at an angle on the sloped shoulder, had not been pitched over on its side.
Inside the trailer, Cinders was jerking her head back, tugging on the leather tie on her halter. When her dark eyes caught sight of Ty through the side grill, she whinnied again, not so sharply pitched this time, but still uncertain, still afraid.
“Hey, girl,” he said to her through the grill.
He didn’t know a lot about horses, or ponies, for that matter, but he knew enough, had seen enough cowboys in action when he’d delivered horses to various barns and rodeos, that he knew to move slowly, to speak softly.
If you were scared, the horse would be scared. If you were calm, the horse would be calm. It was all up to the human to set the tone, and since he was the only human for miles, it was up to him to keep her calm until he figured out what to do.
“You okay, Cinders?” he asked her. She nickered at him, soft and low.
He looked at the rig, truck and trailer both, as the wind swirled around them and the temperature seemed to drop with each beat of his heart.
He’d started from Greeley around one, and should have arrived back in Eaton by three, or three thirty at the latest. Even without checking his phone, he knew it was coming onto five o’clock, and that his lack of ability to see the details he needed to see was because the sun was already setting, turning the curtain of blowing white snow into a dark gray cloak of coldness.
Walking an entire circuit around truck and horse trailer, he didn’t think the axle was broken or anything like that, but without the help of a large tow truck, one larger than the rig he was driving, the horse trailer, with its sweet-faced occupant inside, wouldn’t be going anywhere soon.
With a sigh, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Eaton Trucking, where there was no answer because of course there wasn’t, not on Christmas Eve. He searched on his phone for the nearest tow truck, dialed it, and got voicemail. Then he hung up, stuffed his cell phone in his back pocket.
He put on his gloves as he looked at the trailer in the blowing snow and shivered as he looked past the green-painted gate to the snow-covered dirt road leading to the main part of the ranch.
He’d never actually been to the ranch, nor delivered anything there, but he’d checked the route on his phone’s GPS before he’d left and knew that the distance from the gate to the main lodge was about one mile.
From there, the barn wasn’t much further.
So either he could sit in his truck while Cinders shivered in the trailer and wait for fate to take its hand…
Or…
Or he could grab his scarf and down vest from the truck, and urge Cinders out of the horse trailer, which was leaning a bit where it rested on the slope of the shoulder.
He would check her over, making sure her blanket and leg wraps were snug, wrap the wolf-patterned throw blanket around her delicate, tipped ears, and lead her through the gate. From there they would have to trudge through knee deep snow, though only for a mile.
It would be pitch dark by the time they arrived at the barn, but he knew for a fact that someone named Bill, or maybe it was a guy named Clay, would be waiting for him to sign the shipping receipt and take custody of Cinders.
After that, well maybe someone would be kind enough to put him up for the night, and give him a cup of hot coffee, black would be fine, thank you.
Then, while he warmed up from the inside, he could keep trying to reach someone who would help him with the truck and trailer, which might or might not be drivable, but which most certainly would be towable.
Come the morning, his life would start anew, though his prospects reminded him less like a new start and more like the end of a long, empty road.