Chapter 17
Behind them, the girl sat up on her own, which was the first good sign in the last few minutes.
Pressing one hand into the grass, she pushed herself upright with careful, cautious movements, checking if everything still worked, and then sat for a moment with her knees drawn up and her hair falling across her face.
It was the quietest she’d been all morning.
The volunteer who had been handing out the stuffed animals was already crouched beside her, one hand on her shoulder, speaking in a low, practical tone.
The other volunteer had taken the horse’s trailing reins and walked it off slowly, running a quick, experienced hand down each of the horse’s legs.
The bay stood for it with his customary patience, his ears loose, apparently no worse for the experience.
The chestnut was a different story. He hadn’t fully calmed down yet.
He was still tense and trembling, his head lowered, his sides heaving, and sweat darkened his neck and shoulders to the color of old copper.
She kept Sundancer beside him, not touching him anymore but close enough so Sundancer’s steadiness could still reach him if needed.
The man sat in the saddle, looked down at his horse, and swore at him.
Jewel heard Emma’s quiet voice. “Is she hurt?”
The volunteer helped the girl to her feet. “I don’t think so.”
The young woman slowly rose, but she stood upright, and when she pushed her hair back from her face, her expression wasn’t quite pain. She appeared more confused because the morning hadn’t gone as she had expected, and she was still trying to process what had just happened.
“I’m fine.” The girl seemed to be talking to no one in particular. “I’m fine.” Then she sat back down on the grass in a way that suggested she wasn’t entirely fine.
The older volunteer straightened up and looked at the man with an immovable expression.
“I think what would serve everyone best right now is if you two took a few minutes to gather yourselves. Let your horses settle down a bit and let the young lady get her feet under her. There’s a group coming up behind you.
After they pass through, when you’re ready, one of our outriders can walk you back to the assembly area on the service trail.
We’ll have a medic standing by, ready to check you both out.
It’s a good trail. Nice and easy going.”
The man opened his mouth to say something, but the volunteer cut him off.
“The horses and the young lady have had a traumatic morning.” The tone of her voice was so firm that it left no room for argument.
He closed his mouth.
The second volunteer was already on a radio, quiet and efficient, and Jewel sensed that somewhere back along the trail an outrider was already turning toward them.
The whole operation had the well-practiced quality of people who had seen versions of this before and had learned exactly how to handle it.
Jewel looked down at the girl, who was still sitting in the grass and accepting a bottle of water from the volunteer with both hands. “Are you all right?”
The girl looked up at her. Her face had shifted from the performance of the morning into something simpler and younger. She glanced at the man, then away again. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
She nodded once and looked at the chestnut, at his still-trembling shoulders and his low, exhausted head, feeling the complex, pointless burden of wanting to say something she had no right to say to a stranger about his horse.
So, she stayed silent.
Turning Sundancer around, she rejoined the Johnsons, and the three of them moved out of the clearing without looking back, as the trail welcomed them again on the other side of the creek crossing with its cool, unhurried quiet.
For a long moment, none of them said anything.
Then Emma spoke. “Well, that was certainly something.”
Richard grunted. “Yes, it certainly was.”
What remained of the trail was everything the morning had promised to be before the man and his chestnut got involved.
The path climbed through open hardwoods, where the sun now shone brightly, warm on her shoulders and the top of her head, the frost long gone from the grass, and the air carried the first real hint of a warm autumn afternoon.
The color in the canopy had deepened as the light changed, with the amber and rust more saturated than at dawn, and in the places where the trail widened onto open ridges, the mountains appeared massive and layered, turning blue at their furthest edges where the sky met them.
They finished the remaining stations without any fuss.
A pole bending exercise between orange cones that Sundancer navigated with quick, light-footedness, her ears pricked with enjoyment.
A water crossing at a wide, shallow ford where Richard’s gray mare decided the reflection was suspicious, but with patience and time, was persuaded to cross.
A gate latch that had to be opened and closed from horseback, which Emma completed single-handedly while carrying on a conversation about something entirely unrelated, which Jewel suspected was deliberate.
She and Sundancer did them all. She didn’t think about any of them specifically. She was in a state she sometimes reached on a long ride, when her body had settled into its work, her mind stopped supervising, and everything narrowed to the immediate, the physical, and the good.
The finish line was a wide, sunny clearing at the trailhead, decorated with the same green banners as the start.
A row of folding tables was set up along one side, where volunteers were handing out completion ribbons and taking photos.
A group of riders who had finished earlier stood in relaxed, contented clusters at the end of a rewarding experience, horses on loose reins, helmets removed, faces tilted up toward the sun.
Jewel saw Ashley before Ashley saw her.
She was standing behind the ribbon table in a yellow volunteer vest, holding a stack of ribbons in one hand, talking to the woman beside her. Her reddish hair was pulled back, and she appeared relaxed, unhurried, and completely at ease.
Then she looked up, and their eyes met.
The warmth vanished quickly, like a hand yanked away from a hot surface. Ashley turned to the rider on her left, offered a ribbon with a smile that held nothing, and refused to look back toward the trail entrance again.
Emma pulled her bay up alongside Sundancer, watching with quiet, observant eyes.
“Ribbon?” Another volunteer at the end of the table was holding one out to her. Green and white, with a small horse printed at the center.
“Thank you.” Jewel took it without looking at Ashley again, either.
They rode back to their trailer, untacked the horses, offered them water and hay, then headed over to the pavilion where they had picked up their numbers this morning.
The lunch was laid out on one end of the pavilion, while the rest of the area was filled with long tables covered in paper cloths, weighted down at the corners against the breeze.
More volunteers were passing out trays of hot food, salads, and desserts.
It was exactly the kind of hearty food that suited a long morning on horseback, and she smiled in appreciation at the volunteers.
Once they had their lunches, they sat together in a comfortable, slightly tired relaxed state.
The food was good, and the sun was warm.
Around them, the clearing filled and emptied with the staggered rhythm of groups finishing at different times.
Voices, laughter, and the occasional whinny from the trailer area drifted on the light afternoon breeze.
Emma ate with the same straightforward enjoyment she often brought to most things, and for a while, the conversation was easy and inconsequential, requiring little participation from anyone.
Richard had opinions about the gate latch station.
Emma had strong feelings about the volunteer, whom she claimed had been rude to a horse ahead of them at the water crossing.
Once Emma finished, she wiped her mouth with her paper napkin and looked at Jewel with a calm, steady gaze as if she had been debating whether to speak up or stay silent and had finally decided. “ It looked like you knew that woman at the ribbon table.”
Jewel turned her water bottle once in her hands. “Yes. We do.”
Emma and Richard exchanged a glance, the kind that passes between two people who have been together long enough to have an entire conversation in it.
Richard set down his fork. “Do you know her name?”
She looked at him curiously. “It’s Ashley Meyers. Why?”
He glanced at his wife, then continued. “We’re pretty sure we saw her when we were passing through Syracuse about three weeks ago. Coming back from our daughter’s. We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant.” He paused, then added, “And we also saw your ex-husband.”
The word landed the way it always did when Robert’s name appeared somewhere it had no business being, as something cold dropped into warm water.
“You saw Robert.”
Emma nodded, her voice careful and even.
“Yes. We recognized him from the last time we were here when he ‘visited’ you at the lodge. He’d been unpleasant enough then that he wasn’t exactly easy to forget.
He was with that woman. They came in together and sat in a corner booth.
We only noticed them because Richard recognized him and pointed him out to me. ”
Emma looked at her husband, as if asking for permission.
Then she turned to Jewel again. “I want to be clear about what I’m telling you. This was not just two people having a business lunch. It wasn’t casual. It was intimate. Very comfortable. The way two people are when they know each other well. When they’ve known each other for some time.”
She looked at Emma, confused. “Are you sure it was him?”
Richard nodded. “I’d know that man anywhere after the trouble he caused you.”