Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
BITTERN
The first month at Ryder Ranch is good. I don’t work much, but most of my time is taken up with follow-up appointments in town.
Then, the facility clears me for real this time, saying I’m ready to get back to work.
By the time the doctors release me from their grips without dozens of appointments in my schedule, it’s five weeks later, and I’m realizing my new life has started and I’m missing it.
That gets me up, gets me moving.
My time of hiding in these four walls is over.
I hurt when I get up, like I have every morning since the accident in the mines.
It’s an overall ache that comes from the marrow of my bones, a wound so old, I can’t figure out if it’s flaring up or if my body is just not conditioned to being alive without pills to numb it all.
I reckon it’s the latter now that I’m clean off everything.
It takes a second to get out of bed. The shower helps loosen things up. I turn the knob until it’s almost too hot to bear and let it beat down on my back.
In the kitchen, I make another coffee and take it out to the front porch.
In rehab, there was a gym where I usually spent my mornings once they discharged me from physical therapy.
My hands have never been quite the same after the accident.
My grip doesn’t work as well as it should.
When I squeeze too hard, they shake a little.
Time in the rehab gym and physical therapist’s office has helped, but it’s gonna take time.
It all feels…so disconnected from the world I knew.
Back home, we were tough as nails, about as fancy as dirt.
The concept of going to a gym was laughable.
Hours of labor in the factory or the mines was workout enough.
Nobody had anything left after that. Evenings meant eating without speaking and falling into bed from exhaustion, then rinse and repeat so there was just enough of a paycheck to keep the lights on.
I sink down on the porch. In the distance, I glimpse a tall figure moving on a horse down the center of the housing.
Deacon Ryder, Freya’s man, is heading towards me at an easy pace.
The first time I saw Deacon, I kind of recoiled, because he reminded me of Aiden.
Even in my hazy state, it hit me pretty hard that my little sister was running around with him.
It hit even harder when she told me she was pregnant.
But then I met him.
He’s a rare kind of man, no anger in him. Justice, yes, and sympathy for the disadvantaged, but anger—I haven’t seen that surface in his eyes yet.
I glance up as he pulls his horse to a halt and takes off his hat.
“You look like shit,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, stretching out my legs on the stoop. “I feel like it.”
“I don’t think you should start work full time just yet.”
“I’ve been putting it off for a month,” I say, taken aback. “Is that Freya talking or you?”
His jaw works, and that’s how I know my sister put him up to this. So far, Deacon seems like the hardworking type who doesn’t care much for excuses. I can’t see him giving me time off just for being tired.
“I’m fine,” I say, getting up. “I’m ready to work. What needs done?”
He sighs. “I can have you shadow Andy today.”
“Ranch manager Andy?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Why’s that?” I climb up the steps and go to pull open the door.
“Andy needs somebody to help out on his days off,” he says, shifting his weight to turn his horse. “You better be the one to explain to Freya that you don’t need more time off. I ain’t doing that shit.”
“She’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ll drop by so she can see how well I’m doing.”
“You better. She’s always worried.”
I pause in the doorway. “Hey, I’m not going to disappoint her. I promised, and I mean it.”
He jerks his head, clicking his tongue to send his horse in the other direction.
I duck inside and head upstairs. I only have one extra change of clothes, but luckily, they’ll be serviceable for work.
Moving slowly, I put everything on, buckle my belt, and head down the stairs to where my boots sit.
They’re the only thing left from my old life, made in Kentucky a few years back. I had them on the night Deacon dragged me to rehab. They held them back for me and handed them over the day I checked out.
I sink down, lacing them on.
I kind of miss home. The dense mountains, the foliage so thick, it blocks out the sun sometimes, the creeks snaking through the hills.
But it’s better to be here now, with Freya and her new family, than anywhere else.
She needs me, that much was clear when I saw her for the first time after rehab last month.
I’ve got to pull it together and be the brother I couldn’t be for the last twenty some years.
She’s been through enough at just twenty-three.
I hated watching her struggle the way we did, just hanging on and trying to grow up like weeds struggling through sidewalk cracks.
I had it rough, but she had it worse as the only girl in the family—underfed, ignored, sleeping in corners of the house, sometimes on nothing but a dirty blanket.
I was gone in the mines, and after that, I don’t remember much.
Not all of that was my fault. But when I think of little Freya, on the porch in her dirty, too big clothes, I can’t let go of the guilt.
I head to the barn. Andy is a wiry, graying man who walks like he’s been astride horses all his life.
He stands in the center of the barn, hands on his hips, talking to one of the ranch hands.
I met him coming in yesterday. His name is Ed, he’s younger than me, and he’s worked on this ranch for the last ten years, which means Deacon Ryder has a lax view of child labor laws.
He had to be at least thirteen when he started.
They both glance up when I enter, and I feel like an alien visiting Earth for the first time. Stared at, out of place.
“You get breakfast?” Andy calls.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Didn’t see you at the mess hall?” He narrows his eyes. “What’d you eat? Cup of coffee?”
I wasn’t expecting him to read me so easily first thing in the morning.
The look on my face must give me away, because he shakes his head and hands the clipboard under his arm off to Ed, who heads off without saying a word.
If I recall, he’s kind of a silent type, which I don’t mind.
I’ve spent most of my life being that type, and there’s nothing better than not having to speak.
“Come on, let’s find you a horse,” Andy says.
We start walking to the barn at the other end of employee housing, where most of the horses live.
I work a little slower, which I hope doesn’t bother him.
Everything feels like I’m just now waking up, and I don’t know why.
They sent me in for physicals, testing, and I did so much damn therapy.
According to the doctor who released me, I’m fine, but it still feels like I’m standing still and the world is moving fast around me.
The final doctor I saw told me it wasn’t the drugs most likely, just years of neglect and trauma piled high.
It’s going to take time, he said.
“What are your plans now that you’re here to stay?” Andy asks.
I shrug, glad he’s not beating around the bush. “Get into the swing of things and work. It’s a good opportunity.”
“Better stay in line,” he says. “Deacon’s the no-bullshit kind.”
“I gathered that.”
We pause outside the barn, the big door rolled back.
Inside sit rows and rows of horses in some of the nicest stalls I’ve ever seen.
It reminds me of being back in Kentucky, seeing those multi-million dollar horse farms where everything is locked up behind black iron bars and electric gates.
When we step inside, it smells how I always thought those fancy barns would, like fresh air coming from the industrial fans and sweet, clean hay.
“These up front are the pricey ones,” Andy says, clearing his throat. “Back there are the working boys and girls, the extra ones that don’t get taken out as much. You can pick whoever you want from any stall that doesn’t have a name tag on it.”
I’m not a wrangler or a cowboy, but I get the feeling there’s something sacred about picking out a horse, so I’m appropriately silent as I walk down the middle of the aisle.
Andy watches me, leaning on the wall. All the horses are beautiful, made of fine stock, but it’s a palomino that catches my eye, in the far stall to the left.
I draw closer, looking up at its arched neck and head hanging over the door.
It’s bulkier and taller than the other horses but surprisingly graceful as it reaches out to nip at the hem of my shirt.
“You like her?” Andy calls, pushing off the wall and striding over.
I touch her nose, soft as velvet. “Yeah. Kind of feels like she’s picking me.”
“That’s Starling,” he says. “She was a pity buy Deacon saw at auction. She kept pulling on his jacket, and he couldn’t let her stay behind, but she’s not much use other than for riding. We don’t breed Halflingers out here.”
I run my hand down her neck. “I’ve never seen a Palomino up close.”
“She’s not one, just looks like it. Halflingers don’t have the gene to be a true Palomino. She’s just a real pale chestnut.”
“I guess I have a lot to learn.”
Andy unlocks the stall, taking the lead rope down to hook to Starling’s halter. “Go on, take her out to the pasture.”
Back home, we didn’t ride much. It’s kind of embarrassing, but Andy has to help me brush her down and saddle her up. I watch closely so I never have to ask for help again, the mount up in the barn. I follow Andy out to the pasture behind the barn, and he opens the gate so I can take her through.
Starling rides easy but not quick. At first, I think maybe I’m doing something wrong, but Andy tells me not to rush.
“She’s just that way,” he says. “Her gaits are gonna be slow compared to the other horses.”