Twenty-Eight
Tait
Charlie rides up over the hill just as I’ve finished the last of my chicken and broccoli salad. I had been blissfully content: full, warm from the sun but easily cooled by the pool below, calm settled over me like a soothing blanket, despite the frenzy of sensations that had surged under my skin during the sunscreen application.
I only had myself to blame. I knew what I was doing to myself, finding a reason for Henry to put his hands on me like that. I’m certain he was on to me, too.
It’d taken a full meal, along with about twenty yards of separation for me to calm my senses. I was just settling back in to these new, warm, comfortable feelings, thinking about the other parts of the day, of the laughter and conversation, when Charlie’s silhouette came into view.
He’s on horseback with another horse tied at his side, saddle empty. The calm leaves my system because I can guess what his intentions are, and this feels bigger than it should already.
“Hey!” he calls out warmly as he dismounts, and I’m putting my shirt and shorts on because no matter what, this obviously signals the end of our time here.
“Hi.” I look back and forth at both horses’ faces and wonder how you can feel elation and dread simultaneously. I loved horses as a kid. The feel of their soft, nuzzling, fuzzy lips on my palm was what I imagine my dementor-fighting, patronus-summoning memory would have been. I have never had the opportunity to ride or even to be near horses since we left here. It’s simply never come about again.
“I figured we could take the chance to give you a refresher tonight?” Charlie asks, holding up the reins.
Have you ever thought about just how terrifying it is to ride an animal? First off, who had that thought initially and just went for it? Second of all, there is some manner of control in any motorized vehicle, no matter how fast or dangerous or powerful. There are brakes that are controlled by a driver. A steering wheel.
With horses, there are commands. Your safety is entirely dependent on that creature’s willingness to abide by those commands. It’s quite terrifying once you step outside of it and truly consider this.
And yet, I’m already lacing up my boots, because I know that I want to. Once I finish, I reach up and slide my hand down the horse’s nose, letting him open and close his lips against my palm, letting the wistful feeling wash over me. I nod to Charlie and proceed to climb on… something I’m suddenly aware that I remember.
Once I’m settled, I look down at Henry. He’s holding the reins with a poorly suppressed smirk. “Shit. I forgot to grab those on my way up, didn’t I?” He just nods and hands them to me.
“I’ll grab your camera and bring it back to your place,” he says, squeezing my calf before he turns away. I wave to Grady and Caleb before I look over to Charlie expectantly.
He gives me the quick refreshers on how to tell the horse you want to go left, right, forward, stop… “What’s his name?” I ask, feeling rude and like I should offer an apology to said horse for hoisting myself onto his back before even making his formal acquaintance. Charlie laughs, seeming to understand my train of thought.
“This is Ace.”
Ace is buckskin in color, with dark markings at the base of each leg, a dark muzzle, and a black mane. Gorgeous, powerful. And, even with that voice in the back of my mind reminding me that he might not be so impressed back, I feel… peace.
We slowly turn and climb, side by side with Charlie and his mount, my weight rocking gently back and forth with his steps, until we crest the top of the hill and I look down. Behind me is a view of the forest, below the safety of the pools, the river flowing off and into it. Before me is a vast valley, the pond with the two cabins off in the distance, the rest of the Range behind the ridge just beyond that. The few clouds cast peppered shadows all over the hillsides as the whole thing is bathed in golden hour light.
Charlie spends the time asking me questions. He asks about my time in high school, in college. He asks about the places I’ve been to for photography. He asks about Cole and about everything that transpired. Ace’s steady steps create a rhythm that I fill with simple, truthful, and honest replies, never once feeling the need to hold back, or to check myself. I ask him about turning this into a guest ranch, about raising Grady. In turn, Charlie never holds back when I remark on how that would’ve been nice to have—a father so loving and invested. He just apologizes, again and again. We laugh at shared memories, and when each of us shares a new one that the other missed.
Hours later, when dusk has settled and we are back at the Range, after we’ve unsaddled the horses and put them in the stables for the night, Charlie hugs me again and tells me again how glad he is that I’m here.
“I’ll never get the time back, I know, but I’d be honored if you’d let me be a part of your life going forward, Tait,” he says.
I nod, smiling in agreement, because it’s all I can manage when I feel as jumbled as I do.
I mentally promise myself, more than him, that I’ll try.
Henry is outside the stables with a truck when we leave, ready to give me a ride home. We do so in silence, dark closing in rapidly. He doesn’t ask how it went, not even how I liked riding again—which, I realize later, was likely because we didn’t do any sort of challenging ride.
When we pull up to my house, he gets out and walks me up the porch, though not quite to the door.
“Breakfast again tomorrow?” he asks.
“Sounds good.”