Chapter 1 #2
The memories surface whether I want them to or not.
The porch swing where we read after dinner every single night, his big hands holding battered paperback westerns, me curled at the other end listening to him read.
The barn where he showed me how to brush, Abbey, the bay mare who came before Lark.
The creek passed the tree line where we fished every summer, and I seldom caught anything, but he never made me feel like that was a failure.
I loved this place. Past tense felt accurate when I was driving north out of Arizona with Tucker asleep in the back seat and everything we owned loaded into a moving truck somewhere behind us.
Standing here now, I'm not sure past tense is the right word for any of it.
***
The light is going when I head out to check the horses' water after dinner.
The pasture gate swings open easily. I step through and push it shut behind me, the latch dropping into place with a solid click.
I walk the fence line toward the water trough at the far end, making sure the level is where it needs to be.
The horses ignore me. Tango and Lark have drifted toward the upper end of the pasture.
Banjo is doing something suspicious near the corner post. Daisy has drifted toward the far end of the pasture, near the gate along the boundary with the neighboring property.
I'm almost back to the barn when something makes me look again.
The gate is open. Not wide. Just enough. Daisy is already on the wrong side of it, moving at a loose, calm walk through the tall grass, pointed away from the ranch like she's had a destination in mind all along.
My stomach drops clean through the ground.
Behind me, Tucker trailed out from the porch and planted himself at the near fence line, watching without a word.
"Hey." I keep my voice low and even, borrowing every horse-whisperer trick I've picked up from movies. "Hey, Daisy. Come here. Come on, girl."
Daisy glances back at me over one pale shoulder and takes three more steps.
I stop walking. She stops. I take one careful step toward her. She takes two away.
We do this for four full minutes. The light is almost gone. I’m completely out of ideas. Every time I get within ten feet of her, she drifts forward, calm and deliberate, putting exactly as much distance between us as she needs to feel comfortable about the situation.
I hear hoofbeats before I see the horse and rider.
He comes along the far side of the boundary fence at a measured trot, his gray horse moving easily and forward, the man on his back already watching the situation.
He doesn't say anything. He doesn't look at me.
He dismounts in one clean motion, ties off his horse with two quick loops around the nearest post, and slips through the boundary fence.
He moves wide and to the left in a long sweeping arc, getting around Daisy without pushing her pace, without rushing the angle. He doesn't wave his arms or make noise. He moves, and Daisy turns. By the time she's pointed back toward the open gate, the whole thing looks like it was her idea.
He walks her through, pulls the gate shut, and examines the latch.
Then he looks at me.
Dark brown eyes that don't move off me, don't rush to look away.
A day or two of stubble along a jaw that says he doesn't think much about it.
His shoulders are broad, built by years of physical work.
He wears a faded work shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, old Wranglers, and a beat-up hat that he doesn't remove.
He doesn't tip it either, exactly. He angles his head slightly in my direction, a nod that passes for hello out here.
"The latch is broken," he says.
"I can see that now." The heat in my face is not small. "I'm sorry. I got here today. I didn't realize…"
"Taylor's Hardware store in Silver Creek carries the part." His voice is even. "Taylor's closed at five. I'll wire this shut for tonight, so nothing else gets out. Get the part tomorrow and swap it out, takes ten minutes."
"I…" I push my hair back from my face. "Thank you."
He doesn't respond to that.
He's already looking at the fence line, running his eyes along the posts and counting problems as he goes. He looks at the barn. Then the corrals. His eyes narrow slightly at the corners. He's seeing the same list I've been adding to all afternoon.
"You're Jeb's granddaughter."
It's not a question.
"Yes, I'm Hannah Parker."
He nods, as if that confirms something he already suspected. He turns back to the boundary fence, slips through it with the same ease he arrived with, and unties the gray. He swings up into the saddle in one motion, the horse solid underneath him, and looks down at me from that height.
"Get that latch fixed."
He turns the gray and rides back along the fence line at the same easy trot he came in on.
The trees at the far edge of the neighboring property swallow him up in less than two minutes.
The sound of hoofbeats fades. The valley goes quiet again, just the wind in the pines and the distant sound of the creek and Tucker's voice somewhere behind me.
I stand there longer than I should.
I realize I never got his name.