Dude Ranch (11 page)

“I do,” Carole said. Stevie knew that Carole understood Christine’s loss better than any of them could since she’d lost the horse she’d loved the most in the world. His name had been Cobalt. “You can’t
replace
an animal that’s died any more than you can replace a
person who has died. There’s only one cure and that’s time. In time, Christine will find that she
can
love another dog. But that other dog won’t ever replace Tomahawk.”

“You’re very wise, Carole,” Mrs. Lonetree said. “What I was trying to do was just that and it didn’t work at all. I guess I just have to wait.”

“Time will help,” Carole said, her eyes growing dark and somber.

Christine reentered the room, bringing with her some of the trophies she had won in bareback-riding contests. She had fun describing the kinds of events she’d been in. The girls listened in rapt attention.

“I can’t believe all the stuff I’m learning about horses on this trip,” Stevie said. “And I thought I knew a lot before I got here.”

“
That
was back when you were a dude!” Christine teased.

Stevie and the other girls laughed.

Then Kate pointed out that, speaking of dudes, it was time for all of them to head back to The Bar None. They thanked Mrs. Lonetree for the breakfast, and they especially thanked Christine for sharing her morning ride with them. It was a morning they would all remember for a long time to come.

“Hey, Christine,” Kate said as they mounted their horses for the return trip. “We’re having a picnic tomorrow at Parson’s Rock. Want to come?”

“I’d love to,” Christine said. “What time?”

“Come about noon,” Kate told her.

“Can I bring something?” Christine asked.

“Just a sandwich for yourself,” Kate said. “We’ll be packing peanut butter and jelly. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I do,” Christine said. “See you then.”

Picnic
?
Tomorrow
? Stevie thought in dismay. That was her birthday. Was she really going to have to eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches on her birthday, probably while Alex ate barbecued spareribs by the pool at home?

Stevie swallowed hard. It wasn’t fair for her to expect a big deal for her birthday. She didn’t want her friends to know she was upset. After all, it wasn’t their fault that she’d miss her birthday.

“I
SN’T THIS PRETTY
country?” Carole asked as the girls did their trail riding the next morning.

“Depends,” Stevie grumbled. She and Stewball were riding right behind Berry. Lisa, on Chocolate, followed them.

“Depends on what?” Lisa asked.

“On how much you like circles,” Stevie said. “I know you’re in the lead, Carole, and the leader is the leader, but I swear we’ve passed this dead bush three times before.”

“Hmmm, maybe you’re right,” Carole said.

And she continued in the same circle she’d been going in before.

Stevie didn’t want to complain. She was in a bad mood anyway. It was her birthday and nobody had so
much as wished her a happy birthday. Kate had disappeared after breakfast, saying something about peeling potatoes. It seemed to Stevie she’d heard an awful lot of talk about potatoes being peeled in the last couple of days. Something was going on and Stevie didn’t like it.

Now, here she was, out in the middle of the range, with her two best friends, walking around in circles. In a little while, they were supposed to meet Kate and Christine at something called Parson’s Rock to eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. They didn’t even have anything to drink with them. Kate had assured them there was a creek, “not far from the rock,” whatever that meant. Considering how Stevie’s day was going, “not far” probably meant about a quarter of a mile—a wonderful distance to walk when you had peanut butter stuck to your teeth.

She grimaced at the thought.

Lisa burst into song, singing something about “the tumbling tumbleweed.” Lisa’s singing was really getting to Stevie.

And today was their last full day at The Bar None. They would leave the next day before lunch to begin their long journey home. Two hours on the truck, three airplanes … Home suddenly seemed a very long way away. So did Alex, her twin brother, whose birthday she shared. She hated to admit it, but she was
very homesick. Lisa’s tumbling tumbleweed and Carole’s big circles weren’t helping. At all.

“There it is!” Carole said. “That must be Parson’s Rock!”

“Of course it’s Parson’s Rock,” Stevie grumbled. “It looks just like a pulpit and we know that because we’ve circled it about eight times!”

“Now, don’t be mad at me,” Carole said sweetly. “I just thought a nice quiet ride would be good for you. You seem sort of bummed today. Is something bothering you?”

“No,” Stevie lied.

“I think the path is over here,” Lisa said, gesturing to Carole. She led the way and they began the ascent to Parson’s Rock.

Stevie’s first suspicion that something was up came when she heard a roar of laughter. Christine and Kate were the only other people who were supposed to be there and Stevie didn’t think they could laugh that loud.

Also, she swore she could smell the pungent odor of a barbecue fire, and something simply wonderful was being cooked on it. Maybe barbecued spareribs?

Then Stevie heard a series of “Shhhhs” that made her very suspicious. And as they rounded the final bend at Parson’s Rock, Stevie spied the bright colors of decorations garlanding the trees.

“What’s going on?” she asked her friends.

“SURPRISE!” was the answer as everybody from The Bar None jumped out from behind Parson’s Rock to greet Stevie. She gaped at them in astonishment and understood the full impact only when she read the banner her friends had made for her. It read, HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEVIE (AND ALEX)!!!!!

“I don’t believe this!” Stevie said, sliding down out of the saddle. “Is this really for me?”

“Is it somebody else’s birthday?” Phyllis asked with a smile. “I hope not because then we’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble for the wrong person.”

“No, there’s no mistake,” Stevie said. “It’s my birthday. It really is. It’s just that I didn’t know anybody here had remembered it.”

“Remembered it?” Carole asked. “Why, you must have told us about it twenty times
before
we left Virginia, and how many times since?” she asked Lisa.

Lisa shrugged. “Double digits, anyway,” she teased. “We may be dumb dudes, Stevie, but we’re not dumb. Anyway, there’s nothing nicer than an excuse for a party.”

“Especially if the party is a barbecue at Parson’s Rock,” Kate added.

“Ribs are almost ready,” Frank announced. Phyllis and some of the guests hurried to set out the salads and the plates and the forks for their lunch.

Stevie’s friends would have helped, too, but they were too busy getting hugs from her.

“You’re the best friends a girl ever had,” she said, hugging them all once again.

“Even if I sometimes just go around in circles?” Carole asked, laughing.

“I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what you were doing,” Stevie said. “I thought you’d gone crazy, but I wasn’t ready to handle it, so I just let you wander around. Since I could tell we were circling this thing, I knew we weren’t getting lost.”

“Did you like my singing?” Lisa asked brightly.

“About as much as I liked Carole’s circling,” Stevie told her frankly. “Now, of course, I’ve changed my mind. I love every bit of it!”

“Good, because it’s time for lunch. Your mother called Phyllis last week and gave her this barbecue recipe for ribs. I hope she got it right.”

“I can tell just by the smell that she did,” Stevie said, and when she’d had her first bite, she knew she was right.

Stevie could barely believe that all these people would go to so much work for her. She was really happy that Christine was there, and the Devines, of course. And she was glad that all the other guests from the ranch were joining in on her celebration. But the
real surprise, and in a way the nicest one, was that Eli was there, too.

“Happy birthday, dude,” he said, shyly offering his hand.

Stevie shook it gladly because she knew that she and Eli had become friends.

The food was just about perfect. Stevie couldn’t believe that the Devines had actually managed to get a fully frosted birthday cake up to Parson’s Rock. Phyllis was a wonderful cook and the cake tasted like the best Stevie had ever had.

She sat contentedly and quietly for a moment when she’d finished her second piece of birthday cake, surveying the party her friends had arranged for her. She liked being with her own family on her birthday, sure, but this was just great and she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. She smiled to herself.

“Time for presents!” Carole announced.

Stevie couldn’t believe it—presents, too?

When she saw the stack, she was even more astonished. “Why you guys must have brought four truckloads up here!”

“Five,” Frank corrected her.

“Why do you think we had to be ‘lost’ for so long?” Carole asked.

Everybody laughed. “We watched you circling this
place,” Kate said. “We thought you did a pretty good job of it. We timed the truck runs with your circles.”

“What a terrific bunch of people you are,” Stevie said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You won’t know
what
you’re thanking us for until you open your presents,” Christine reminded her.

Stevie picked up the first package, which was from Kate’s parents. It was a red Western bandanna.

“Great, that’ll keep the dust off my face on my next cattle drive—in Willow Creek,” she said, slipping it up over her nose and mouth, cowboy-style. “Or maybe I’ll rob a bank!”

The next was a present from The Saddle Club. Carole and Lisa had pitched in together to buy her a pair of beautiful black kidskin riding gloves.

“They’re for your next show,” Lisa said. “You’ll be in dressage competitions soon, and you should have them.”

Stevie smiled. They made her think of home, Pine Hollow Stables, and Comanche, her horse at the stable. She sniffed them. They had the wonderful rich smell of fine leather.

“They’re perfect,” she said, hugging her friends.

“And this is from me,” Kate said, handing Stevie a very long package. Stevie opened it expectantly. It was a dressage whip, and it had been used many times.

“This is
yours
?” Stevie asked. Kate nodded. “You’d give me your very own riding whip?”

“I’ve hung up my spurs for English-riding competition,” Kate reminded her. “You’ll need it, and you’ll use it well.”

Kate had been a championship rider. Stevie knew it was a great honor for Kate to pass on her own riding whip to her.

“Thank you,” she said, near tears.

“Come on, now, there are more gifts here to open,” Frank said.

The other guests at the ranch gave Stevie nice gifts. She got a small bottle of cologne from one of the families, and a piece of primitive Indian pottery from the older couples. Stevie wondered if this was Mrs. Lonetree’s work. She glanced at Christine, who shook her head ever so slightly. “It’s beautiful,” Stevie said.

There were two packages left. The first was small and square. The card said it was from Eli. Stevie opened it carefully, wondering what a wrangler would give a dude for a birthday present.

Inside the box was a tooled leather belt with an intricately decorated silver buckle, inlaid with turquoise.

She looked slyly at Eli. “Is this the kind of thing a dude would wear?” she asked him.

“No way,” he said.

She stood up and removed the plain leather belt she
had on her jeans. She slipped her new one through and then buckled it snugly.

“It guess that means I’m not a dude anymore, huh?”

“Don’t think you ever really were,” Eli told her.

“That’s the nicest thing you ever said to anybody, isn’t it?” she teased him. He smiled at her. “Well, thank you, Eli. It’s beautiful.” She wanted to hug him, but she thought it would embarrass him, so she just shook his hand again. That seemed to embarrass him anyway.

Stevie reached for the final box. It was from Christine and it was very heavy. She lifted it carefully and untied the bow. When she’d taken the paper off, she opened the box. There was a lot of tissue paper. She removed it slowly.

When she was done unwrapping it, Stevie found herself holding a clay figurine of a German shepherd who was unmistakably Tomahawk. Stevie gasped softly.

“My mother made it,” Christine said. “She made it last year. There are two of them. I have the other.”

Stevie felt the tears well up in her eyes. She was sad, she was happy. She was overflowing with emotions. She had new friends, and old ones, and this seemed like the most wonderful day of her life.

“Oh, Christine!” she said, looking once again at the figurine Tomahawk. “It’s perfect. Thank you!” She
gave her new friend a very big hug, one that was long enough so that they could both control their tears before they parted and sat down.

Kate recognized that it was time to change the mood. “Eli,” she said, handing him a rope, “would you show some of these Easterners some of the things you can do with a lariat?”

It only took a bit more urging to get Eli to show off. “This stuff’s better on a horse,” he said, but he did turn down offers to ride some of the horses who were at Parson’s Rock. He showed the girls how to circle a lariat low and high, jumping in and out of the spinning rope like double-dutch. He then showed them how he could toss the loop onto small targets at great distances. He almost snagged a very surprised chipmunk.