Painted Boots (17 page)

30

FOR TWELVE WHOLE
minutes I sit on my bed, chewing my fingernails and staring at the clock.  Outside my window the snow falls heavily, insulating the world in quiet white.

Dad and Kyle’s voices
rise from the study below my room, but it’s impossible to make out what they’re saying.  When I can’t take it anymore I dress, pull my hair into a knot, then work my way down the stairs, creeping along the hardwood like a timid fox, avoiding the creaky places I know will give me away.  I sit on the bottom step just as Kyle says, “You’re kidding.”  He and Dad burst out laughing.

“We never told
Aspen,” Dad manages.  I swear he slaps his knee.

Men.
  Why I felt one second of fret I’ll never know.  I pick at the seam of my jeans, annoyed with both of them.

Dad grows silent
.  Kyle, too.  Then Dad says, “There’s a lot we never told her.”

“Makes sense
.”  Kyle laughs, again.  “I can think of a few things she’ll never tell you.”

“No, I suppose not. 
And I ask you keep this private, but we never even told her the truth of how we met.  In high school Aspen’s mom dated an abusive guy.  He full-blown punched her, twice.  A part of me still wants to kill that little shit.”

Tears sting my eyes
and without thinking, I sniff.  My mom was strong.  She knew herself so completely.  I thought she’d always been that way; that she’d always been happy.

Kyle asks,
“Why’d you keep it secret?”

“From
Aspen?  Think about it.  Your children will never know Em beat on you.  Aspen will never tell her daughter how Em kicked her bloody in a school hall.  No parent reveals their full past: the things their kids will misinterpret or worse, view as weak.  But seeing Aspen cut and bruised.  It brought back some pretty dark memories.”

“
So you want to take her,” Kyle says.

“
Of course I want to take her.”  Dad sounds mad and tired, both.  “And I probably should.  The problem is I risk my relationship with her if I do.  She knows what she wants and in a few weeks she’ll be eighteen and free to get it.  I can’t watch over her every minute of the day.  I can’t chain her to some wall.  If I take her, chances are she’ll run for you, alone.  What if she broke contact?  What if something happened to her along the way?”

“
I don’t think she’d make the choice to be in danger,” Kyle says.  “And anyway, she’ll be okay here.  She isn’t alone.”

Dad
thumps something against his desk.  A pencil, maybe.  “When I started dating Aspen’s mother her ex would ambush me.  It happened a lot.  I came home a bloody mess more nights than I can remember, now.  A broken nose.  Trips to the hospital.  Stitches.  Most people looked the other way.  Times were different.  We were two guys fighting it out over a girl.  What you’re in is dangerous, by my standards.  Em uses her gender against you.  And she’s calculating.  Who knows what she’ll do next?”

“Maybe nothing,” Kyle says.

“Don’t bank on it.”  The castors of Dad’s chair roll a bit.  “I don’t want Aspen facing the kind of stuff I went through.  I spent a good six months nursing injuries.  And looking back, I was lucky.”  Papers rustle on Dad’s desk.  A drawer shuts.  “Maddy’d never forgive me if she knew I’d even let it get this far.”

“
Maddy?”

“
Aspen’s mother.  People used to ask me if she was worth it.  I couldn’t put into words how I knew she was, but she was.  Loving her was hardwired in me, and defending her was part of that.  I felt born to be with her.  Fighting for the right to make it real was something I did out of pure instinct.  Once we were together nothing came between us, ever.  Not even Aspen.”

“Then you
understand,” Kyle says softly, “how I feel for your daughter.”

My heart wants to fly, for hearing that
.

“What I
understand is how she feels for you,” Dad replies.  “She picked you, Kyle, and over a lot of other guys in Portland, some who’ve tracked me down looking for her.  She won’t even bother to return their calls.  Hell, arguing to stay here with you was pretty much the first thing she did, lying battered in her hospital bed.”

Kyle says, “I
saw Aspen a couple of weeks before school started up.  I fell in love with her there and then.  Every day I’m around her, I love her more.  You should know it’s mutual, how we want our lives together.  I feel I’m hers, body and soul.  She’s my girl.  I need her with me.  I can’t bear the thought of us being separated.”

I
grin like a crazy fool and pull a daisy from the jar on the stairs next to me.

“You two barely know each other,” Dad says
, and the smile in his voice makes me angry.  “But I guarantee she finds you remarkable.  And I’ll admit, now that I know you better, I see some of what she sees.  You come from good people.  You own your actions, as a man should.  You speak your heart.  But for all of that, I still wonder if you have what it takes to stand by my daughter and see this through.  I mean no offense, but you have a miserable track record with Em.  She’s not done with this.  Of all people, you’ve gotta know that.  I want to believe you can deal with it.  But I don’t want Aspen caught in the middle.”

The hair on my arms tingles
.  I ache to defend Kyle, and myself.  But I stay still as the silence between my father and my guy becomes unbearable.

“
I love Aspen,” Kyle says after a few moments.  His voice is low and hard as iron.  “I’ll defend her with everything I’ve got.  I’d as soon die as see her hurt again.”

Dad draws a deep breath.  “
I don’t want it coming to that.”  He pauses, then says, “I won’t let it come to that.  But you should know. Aspen’s here only because Em doesn’t give me reason to take her.  It’s a lot on you, from where I’m sitting.”

Kyle says, “I won’t let you down.”

“I’m not the one I’m worried about.”  Dad’s chair rolls over the plastic floor guard then the springs pop.  He’s on his feet.

I don’t want them to catch me on the stairs
.  I start up, thinking to get to my bedroom so I can start back down again.  But for some reason I glance toward the front door.

There’s a handprint,
faint as a spider web, shimmering on the long pane of our entryway window.  As I stare it fades away until all I see are shadowy snowflakes falling against an indigo sky.  I bolt for the door, knocking over two jars filled with flowers in the process, and throw it open.  Scattered footprints churn across our porch and walkway then stretch, like dark comets with tails, across our snow-covered lawn.  I run outside and follow the footprints as far as the street.  The world is quiet; a settling snow globe.

No one is there
.

31

Journal Entry
fourteen | Aspen Brand | AP English

Pearl Harbor Day
. I should write about something patriotic, like soldiers and the sacrifice of war, but I’m not thinking about stuff like that right now.

A
few strange things have been happening, though I haven’t told Kyle yet.  On Monday, the day of the big storm, I could have sworn someone was watching me, looking into my house from outside.  When I opened our front door there were footprints everywhere—trailing across the yard and into the street.  I chased out into the snow stocking-footed, but I didn’t see anyone.  Dad stepped onto the porch, but for all he knew the footprints were mine.  Kyle ran after me and carried me back inside, slung over his shoulder.  We were both laughing, but Dad thought I was crazy, racing around the yard with snow crusting my shoulders and wetting my hair.

We were all so
happy in that moment.  Everything felt right.  Maybe that’s why I didn’t say anything about the footprints.

Then there was the flat. 
Kyle and I came out of school to find the right rear tire of his farm truck flat to the rim.  I felt guilty, sitting there all cozy with the engine idling as he jacked up the truck and struggled to loosen the lug nuts so he could change the tire out for the spare.  I thought the truck was warm, but it didn’t heat up enough to take away Kyle’s chill.  When we got to his house he was shaking and his lips were sort of purple.  His mom asked what happened and he said, ‘We’re going for a soak.’  She shot him a look, but she didn’t say anything more.

I didn’t know what he was talking about until I followed him into his parents’ bedroom and out onto
a private deck.  They have a huge Jacuzzi there.  Kyle stripped down to his boxers and settled into the blue swirling water, steam rising all around him like a Yellowstone hot pot.  He said ‘Come on in, girl’.  So I stripped to my underwear too.  He warmed up, after that.

But t
he weirdest stuff is what’s been going on at my house.  On Tuesday there were squares of red fabric, laid out like a crazy checkerboard, stuck in the snow in our front yard.  On Wednesday a black ribbon had been tied around our willow tree.  Yesterday I found feathers in our mailbox and a dead bird on the doormat.  It’s like some giant squirrel is using our space as its cubby, except that I know the stuff comes from some ONE not some THING, and I’m pretty sure the one is Em.  I mean, Kyle once told me Em vandalized his parents’ property every time he tried to break up with her.  I should tell him what’s been happening.  But I can’t bring myself to do it.

Since the red fabric,
which I took care of because I noticed it from my bedroom window when I woke up, I step outside early and, while I wait for Kyle, gather whatever’s there—today it was twelve rocks in a circle on our driveway.  I don’t want Kyle or Dad seeing any of the stuff I’m finding.  I mean if Kyle knew it might put him into a tailspin.  He might think he has to go back with Em, just to protect me.  If Dad knew I might have to go away.

Gillette is my home now. 
Kyle is my guy!  Em is just going to have to accept that.  The sooner she figures out that I’m here for good, the better it will be for all of us.

Mrs. Martin’s phone quacks and I about go into cardiac arrest.  She clicks off the noise and says, “Pencils down, please.”  My grip relaxes and I take a breath, rubbing at the tension in my hand.  Kyle touches my shoulder.  He whispers, “Hey, girl, you okay?”

I slam my journal shut.

Like a guilty child I turn round in my chair, dropping my arm to the top of Kyle’s desk.  He lays his hand over mine and smiles.

Secrets.
  They’re like waking in a shadow, unaware you’re someplace less than light.  Maybe that’s why I didn’t realize, until this second, just how many I’ve been keeping.

32

I’VE NEVER BEEN
on a horse and from where I’m sitting, maybe five feet up and astride the warm brown body of a mare, I’m not sure I want to be on one now.  Kyle makes a clicking sound and Bucky—the silky black stallion he’s ridden since he was ten—moves away from the horse trailer and toward a snow-packed winding trail.  My horse Rox follows after, her breath like train smoke in the morning cold.

“She’s
walking!” I say.

“Just hold tight to the reins
like I taught you,” Kyle calls to me.  “Rox knows what to do.  You’ll be fine.”

Rox’s
gait throws me forward and back, forward and back.  Her feet are heavy on the frozen ground and she feels powerful, like I’m no more to her than a flea.  “It’s so weird, having such a huge animal between my legs!”

Kyle laughs
, loud and long, his laughter painting the air with steam.  “The places I could go with that,” he says, wiping his eyes.  Then he rides on.

We’re miles from Gillette
, climbing into worn old hills.  The boulders along the trail wear tall caps of snow.  Snow frosts the trees; it swirls like glitter from the horses’ hooves.  We round a bend and there, in the distance, dark purple atop eastern Wyoming’s rolling plain, is Devil’s Tower.  I jerk the reins, bringing Rox to a sudden stop.  “It’s the tower!” I shout.  I don’t believe it.

“Well, yeah,” Kyle
answers.

“
I’ve never seen it, except for TV.”

Kyle shifts
in his saddle, looking back at me.  “I’ll take you there.  Come spring.  We’ll break it in.”

“
In a hotel?”

“
Hell, no.  We’ll hike up a bit, spread a blanket in a private place with a view and go for it, in broad daylight.”  He clicks his tongue, urging Bucky on.  “I can hardly wait!” he yells.

My face
warms but I grin, shaking my head, just as the sun pops above the horizon.  Light floods the landscape like water from a broken dam, glittering across the snow as it engulfs the tower in blinding brightness.  I cup my hands round my eyes, lost in how, for a moment, the tower seems to glow.

Rox
bursts into a trot.

She
makes a small jump over a rotted log and my butt bounces up from the saddle.  When I land I’m slightly off-center, a little to the right.  My left boot flies free of its stirrup.  I don’t know what to do.

“Oh my
god, Kyle, oh my god!”  Rox picks up speed.  Her shoulders roll beneath me, the movement as foreign as a choppy sea.  I clutch the pommel horn.  Though the saddle doesn’t shift I fret Rox will buck me, or maybe I’ll slip off.  All I can think about is my right foot, the one still in a stirrup.  It’ll catch, for sure.  Rox will drag me over stones and logs and snow-crusted sage brush.  I’ll be bruised and cut.  Maybe even killed.

“
Keep your boots in the stirrups!” Kyle brings his horse up along mine.  He reaches forward, grabs for Rox’s dangling reins, and yanks her to a stop.  “You want Rox knowing she’s boss?”

“
She’s got that figured out.”

“Here’s the rules, girl
, again.  Keep tight hold on the reins.  Your boots come free of the stirrups, don’t panic.  Just slip them back in.  You want to stop, pull the reins hard and say ‘whoa.’  You won’t hurt Rox.  You’re not strong enough for that.  Pat her neck from time to time.  Give her praise when she does things your way.  Got it?”

“
Just ride by me for a while, ‘kay?”

Kyle grins and his dimple flickers
into being.  He hands me Rox’s reins then tips his hat.  His eyes are bluer than the sky.  “Give it a year and you’ll be a pro.”

My smile
feels dribbly, like it’s painted-on with watercolor.

We wander
until we’re above the tree line, following a ridge-hugging trail.  Below us lies a crop-duster’s view of farms and ranches, forests and sage spotted hills.  In the distance, Devil’s Tower seems a single dark stitch, the only thing anchoring Wyoming’s forever sky to the snow-covered earth.  A dust of sparkling ice covers everything.  “It’s so beautiful here,” I say.

“
Pales to you.”  Kyle leans toward me and I dare meet him half-way, giving him a quick kiss.  “You’re on your own, girl,” he says, and he spurs Bucky forward.

We ride for maybe
two hours and slowly, I relax into Rox’s rhythm. When Kyle stops we’re near a rocky terrace jutting above a crescent of pine trees.  He dismounts, his duster falling in a swirl around his legs, and ties Bucky’s reins to a trunk.  Then he pulls Rox forward, securing her reins, too, before he helps me down.  I walk in circles as I bend the tension from my knees and calves, arching my back.  It makes Kyle laugh.

Using wood we carried up on Kyle’s horse,
we build a fire in a rock-ringed pit that’s seen a lot of use.  Then we unpack: hot dogs and marshmallows and apples for roasting, coffee and a small tin pot, ears of corn wrapped in foil.  Kyle melts a few pots packed with snow for the horses, pouring the hot, bubbling water into a snow-filled shallow drinking tin.  He tests the temperature with his thumb before he allows the horses to drink.  As I start our coffee brewing, Kyle removes the blankets strapped along the back of my saddle and spreads them near the fire.  “Snuggle in with me, girl,” he says, shoving the corn into the embers to cook.  He drives four hot dogs onto a long metal skewer.

Watching him work, i
t’s easy to imagine that he’s set up camp like this a thousand times before.  He’s wildly gorgeous: cold-reddened cheeks, his shoulders broad in his brown and gray duster, dark hair curling from beneath his felt hat, his hands strong and sure in worn leather gloves.  I love the way he’s wrapped a wool scarf round his neck, I love the scruffy look of his spurred cowboy boots pointing from beneath the frayed hem of his jeans.  He catches me watching him, glancing at me sideways in the way he often does, allowing me a bright, tempting flicker of his shades-of-blue eyes.

I take the skewer
from his hand and, setting it aside, tumble over him, burrowing my face into the warmth near his neck.

“
Mind the fire,” he says, but he wraps his arms tight around my waist.

I kiss his cheek
then look at him.  “I love you, Kyle Thacker,” I whisper.  “I’m your girl.”