Mornings were going to be special at the ranch, she realized as soon as she woke to mist shrouding the mountains to the north. Downstairs, the coffee pot filled the large kitchen with the smell of morning. The dogs were underfoot, and everyone looked happy even though their faces were still puffy from sleep. She asked Clay and her uncle to give her some chores and they obliged: feeding and turnout of the ranch and training horses. After her chores she promised everyone breakfast and found herself enjoying the rich, easterly light as she made egg and biscuit sandwiches. The ranch kitchen was big and comfortable, and her aunt was happy to concentrate on accounts at her desk while Lenora took over breakfast. Lenora mixed the biscuit dough from scratch, and then rolled and placed neatly shaped rounds on a well-oiled cooking sheet. While the biscuits baked, she searched for preserves to top them and discovered a jar of apple butter in the refrigerator.
When the men came in they were hungry and smelled of the morning chores: mud, horses, alfalfa, and wood shavings. Lenora felt her nostrils flare with the smells of life on the ranch.
“So, are you going to cook for us every morning, Lenora?” Byron asked.
“Maybe,” Lenora replied, “Do you want me to?”
“Yes!” Both Jesse and Clay replied simultaneously.
Lenora smiled and felt warmth fill her. Maybe she could belong here.
Annie came into the kitchen and smiled to see the men eating blissfully around the table and Lenora cooking.
As everyone rinsed their plates and put them in the dishwasher, Clay paused next to Lenora.
“Would you like to have a riding tour of the ranch? Maybe this afternoon?” He asked.
“Yes. Yes, I would,” Lenora said.
She found herself staring up at his dark eyes and feeling lightheaded.
She knew now was not the time to start falling for the first cowboy she met. Especially not one who was such an important part of her aunt and uncle’s ranch.
She took a deep breath as he walked out of the kitchen. She could not help but notice the snug fit of his jeans. She concluded that riding horses must really be good for a man’s backside.
After lunch Lenora unpacked her bags and all her tack from the horse trailer. Then she met Clay in the corral. He caught a big sorrel mare and a paint gelding.
“I thought you might ride a ranch horse today. That way your boy can have some time to get used to the place and recover from the long trip,” Clay said.
“Good idea,” Lenora responded.
They brushed and saddled Moon, the mare, and Big Sky, the gelding, in easy silence.
It was not until they were through the ranch gate that Clay spoke. “I’m glad you’ve come. It will be so good for Annie to have you around. You know she’s wanted you and your mom here for so long?”
Lenora was quiet for a long moment. “I actually didn’t know that,” she finally answered. “I don’t know exactly why Mom didn’t want to come here very much. But I wish that I would have come more, even if it was on my own.”
Clay did not elaborate further and they continued in silence through the open pasture land. She looked at the mountains to the east. They rode gradually up and away from the ranch, along a winding two-track road paved with loose rock and grass. On each side of the road were aspen and pine trees. Further up she thought she saw a grove of spruce, but realized she would need to look through her plant and tree books to learn more about the flora and fauna of her new home.
“Sometimes, a person has to get away from where they started,” Clay said.
Lenora was shaken from her reverie of the trees and reminded of her mother who had been born on the plains just east of Missoula. She had left Montana at eighteen years old and returned only three times. Annie, her mother’s older sister, had stayed and married a rancher and moved up into the mountains. Despite being her mother’s older sister, Annie was a woman whom Lenora knew very little about. She had never known much about any of her family out west, she realized. Her mother had never told Lenora a great deal about her father. The basic story Lenora knew was that her mother had been young and become pregnant by a cowboy. According to her mother, the man was hardly ready to be a father; and so the decision was obvious— as simple as packing her bags and boarding a train. Lenora had always had the impression that her mother never looked back. Now Lenora was trying to discover a world her mother had not shared with her.
“I suppose they do,” she said in reply to Clay’s earlier statement.
Big Sky was solid and sure-footed under Lenora, who found herself wanting a good canter to clear her mind. She turned to Clay and found him watching her. She smiled, surprised to find his eyes on her.
“Can we canter?” She asked.
As an answer he grinned; a lopsided smile, and gestured her first.
She kissed to her horse and felt him gather his haunches and then leap into a full-shouldered lope. The mountain wind was cool and fresh against her face. She felt the thin air moving through the horse’s lungs as he surged beneath her. She took a deep gulp herself. The track narrowed ahead, and she urged her horse onward and upwards. It was not until they reached a plateau where she could see the whole bowl of the valley stretching below that she let her horse ease back into a walk. She turned and surveyed the land beneath and felt a pulse of pure joy; a kind she had not felt in a long time, shoot through her body. This was an adventure! She knew she needed adventure in her life. More importantly, she needed the promise that there was more living yet to be done. For too long she had felt as if her life was over, each chapter kept closing in such a painful way.
She turned back to her silent guide and found him surveying the valley as well, a smile lighting his face.
“It’s so nice to come up here,” Clay said. “To see the world from above always helps me remember my place in it.”
Lenora looked at him and smiled in agreement. Her hair was free again and blowing in the wind.
His words rang true. She could be happy up here because her troubles seemed small and contained to the human size. While on the mountain, the whole world was huge and simply gorgeous with its massive layout. It was good to see her life from this perspective she realized, to know her worries and fears were proportionately small in the grand scheme of things.
Life at the ranch began to take on a tentative shape. Lenora found herself immersed in the spring awakening of her new world in the mountains. Clay seemed happy to let her into his routine. She watched him prepare the ranch horses for work, and, slowly, he began to let her help. It was a learning process for both of them, she soon realized. Her way of handling horses and dealing with the sticky situations that arose when working with these large, opinionated animals was different than his. He dropped the long ropes on the ground as he taught the colts how to steer. She, on the other hand, found herself compulsively keeping her lines tidy and the horses well groomed. Climbing onto a youngster, Clay would laugh if they bucked and plunged. While Lenora lunged and prepped each of her horses meticulously in order to avoid any unforeseen bronco moments. She thought she saw him laughing at her as she obsessively cleaned the horses’ saddles and bridles. Who cares what he thinks, she reminded herself.
When the day was fresh she would perch on the top rail of the corral and watch him with a young horse. His body would remain loose and relaxed and his face intent, until he would turn towards her and flash a quick smile to acknowledge her presence, at which point she found her heart leaping just like the young horses. She would smile back, how could she not? There was something boyish about him despite the starting of crow’s feet around his eyes and his well-muscled manliness.
As she helped Clay saddle up a horse, their hands would sometimes brush. She found herself looking forward to these stolen moments when they stood so close together.
That night in bed she let herself imagine turning into his touch. She let her mind trace the outline of his chest, the lean shape of his torso hardened by ranch work.
She jerked herself back to reality and lay still in her bed. She needed to heal, she reminded herself, not fall headlong into the arms of a cowboy. Outside her window the sky was rich with stars. She slipped out from under the covers and opened the window. The air was not warm exactly, but it didn’t have the teeth of winter she had felt every night since her arrival.
She dressed quietly in jeans, a thick flannel shirt, and a jacket. She found her boots in the dark entryway and managed to put them on while at the same time petting the dogs to keep them quiet. They raised their heads and thumped their tails against the rugs her aunt laid out for them. Only Sam wanted to come out into the starlit night with her. She was grateful for the company and stepped into the magic of a spring mountain night. The air caressed her cheeks with a nip of chill making her glad for her flannel, while also carrying the scent of growing things. She made her way to the pasture where Major spent his nights and climbed over the fence. The outlines of the hills were dark against the fullness of the sky. The horses had heard her, and came over to investigate. Major, realizing it was his human making the night visit, pinned his ears at the others horses and kept Lenora to himself. She stroked his neck and hunted in her pockets for something to feed him, eventually producing a somewhat shriveled bit of carrot. Major took it appreciatively and did not seem the least offended that it was far from fresh. Lenora rested her forehead against his shoulder as he nibbled on spring grass. She remembered her mother singing a lovely French song. How had it gone?
“...sous les etoiles de montagne,” she hummed and then let a few notes fill the still air. Major raised his head, and Sam wagged his tail. She realized she was not alone a moment before a tall shadow separated from the general darkness. Lenora sucked in her breath while sternly ordering herself to be calm. Neither the dog nor horse was upset, so this must be someone from the ranch whom they knew, she told herself.
“I thought it might be you. Out on a night like this.”
Lenora felt herself flush. It was almost as if she had conjured Clay from the very darkness of her overactive imagination. Careful with those fantasies, she cautioned herself.
“Yes, well. It seemed as if the air had lost some of the winter feel. And I couldn’t sleep,” she said. She purposefully kept her tone light.
“Me neither.”
Lenora laced her fingers through Major’s mane and looked at the shadow that was Clay.
“Can you ride him bareback?” Clay asked.
“Yes, of course,” Lenora replied.
“Wanna go up into the hills? Just a little?” His voice was definitely intimate as he stepped towards her.
“Yes.”
She had not thought about her answer before the quick reply left her lips. It was so true though, she wanted nothing more than to just ride into the secret, starry night with this man.
He gentled one of the mares turned out in Major’s pasture and slipped a halter over her head. He came over to Lenora who led her own horse to the corral gate and used it to mount. She saw a flash of white teeth in the dark and then watched him vault onto his mare’s back. He landed so gently upon the horse she barely flicked an ear. Then he opened the gate from horseback and they were loose in the night.
“Show off,” Lenora said.
She heard him laugh and saw a flash of teeth again.
The sky was a blanket of thick darkness, rich in its depth and heavy with stars so bright they lit the earth below. Lenora breathed in mountain air and felt a deep-seated knot between her shoulder blades release. She really had no idea she had even been carrying tension. Her life— her past life in Chicago— was slipping away one knot at a time. Breathing in a lungful of night air, she spoke silently to her mother. If only, Lenora thought, her mother could see the stars from the mountain tonight. Why did she have to leave and never come back to her home? Why had her mother not shared this world with her? Lenora did not understand what had kept her away, and somehow that made her mad when all she really wanted was to have her mother here, on this horse, under these stars.
Clay was slowing down, holding his mare back until they were riding knee to knee. She felt the brush of his leg against hers and imagined for a moment his hand caressing the length of her thigh. And just like that her mind came back from the past and her mother to settle in the present, glorious moment.
“What are you thinking about?” Clay asked.
Lenora felt her face and neck warm and was thankful starlight was not bright enough to reveal her red cheeks.
“The stars aren’t so brilliant back home,” she said instead of the truth.
“It’s this mountain air. So thin and clear, it’s almost like riding up into the sky. You know, the Lakota have many legends about the stars. The Milky Way…” Clay said and then paused.
He raised his arm and pointed up and slightly to the west at the thick mass of stars melding together. They almost appeared pure white in places.
“The Milky Way, Wanaghi Tachanku, which means trail of the spirits, is a trail that all people must take at the end, when fate overcomes them for the final time. Maybe she’s there. Maybe your mother is now on the trail.” He let his words fill the vast, living silence. He seemed to genuinely wish that she could find comfort in the wildness of the mountains.
Lenora watched him closely as he gazed up at the sky. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest. How had he known about her silent, cerebral invite of her mother on this midnight trail ride? She wondered if she could trust this man. He seemed real and true and solid, but was that actually so?
They rode further into the hills until the ranch was small behind them. Major was sure-footed in the dark and she smiled to herself, realizing how well he had adapted to this huge change in his life. He did not seem to miss his comfy stall and small pasture back in Illinois at all. She realized that she too would not go back at this point in time. Curiosity about the future here at Bear Dance Ranch and, if she was honest, about this man drew her steadily forward.
He stopped his mare at the crown of the next hill and she stopped Major next to him. He pointed up into the sky and she saw the Little Dipper, and then he pointed out the Hunter stalking its prey across the expanse of night, and she kind of saw it. She was so entranced by the clear air and feathery light she would not have been surprised to see the real huntsmen come forward from the shadows. She could swear there was magic in this place. Her Western Adventure had begun in earnest and she realized that her mother’s passing had been a push for her to leave the Midwest and come here to find her roots and maybe even herself. She was deep in thought as the stars shone overhead. Their knees bumped, and she felt the familiar jolt of electricity and realized he was looking at her.
“You feel it too?” He said.
She was not sure what he meant: the jolt of attraction or the beauty of night; the clear stars so close they could almost be reached?
So she said, “The stars are magical. Aren’t they?”
“Yes.” He looked back up, and she could breathe again.
Slowly, they turned the horses back to the ranch and were quiet as they made their way home. She felt tired now and ready for her bed and time to recap in the privacy of her room about the crazy way Clay made her pulse surge. What was she doing? She really could not even believe that she was feeling anything at all. In an odd way, it made her happy that at least she felt something after such a long period of feeling as if she was simply a husk of a human. Maybe a little crazy attraction was okay.
Wrapped up in her own head and feeling a little drowsy she slipped off Major when they stopped at the pasture gate. Clay let her pass through first and she pulled the halter and rope off Major’s head and let him go with a gentle pat of thanks for the lovely night ride. Clay let his mare go and then closed the gate behind them.
“Thanks for taking me up,” she said. “It was really great.”
“Sure, any night,” he said.
They both hesitated for a moment, and then Lenora found herself hurrying towards the house and waving awkwardly goodbye. She knew she had just panicked but there was no fixing it now.
She pulled off her boots on the porch and tried not to let the storm door bang behind her. She told the dogs to be quiet and left them on their rugs in the entryway and then made her way up to her bedroom.
She strongly doubted that this cowboy was really interested in her, anyway. She was probably making a big deal over him trying to be nice to her. She was sure he felt bad that her mother had died and she was having a hard time dealing with it. He most likely had a girlfriend in every town with a rodeo. This was the last guy in the world who would find her interesting. She imagined he would be into those rhinestone-studded, bleached blondes with lots of lipstick. She could not even remember the last time she had worn lipstick, and her hair was the color of the inside of a pecan shell. She was not a rhinestone beauty queen. She even rode an Arabian. What must this man think of her? She fell asleep with a smile on her lips. For the first time in too long she had a tingle of excitement below her ribcage about what the next morning would bring.