Zigzag (19 page)

This was big news in the cowboy bunkhouse? I wondered if the story of Iris and Jackson had made the rounds there.

“Yeah. On to Denver next.”

He nodded. “Where you headed after that?”

“Los Angeles is the final destination, but we're not in a hurry. It's the trip that's important.” Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I noticed Dory smiling.

“I've never been out to the coast,” he said. “Never seen an ocean.”

“I haven't either. This'll be my first time.”

“I guess it's real nice to look out over all that water.”

I had to stop talking to him then to cheer for Marshall who'd managed to get the rope over the head of a hay bale with a plastic cow head on one end. Three other boys had achieved the same goal, including Howie. Bobby was standing next to his father, hands shoved in his pockets, looking sullen. I felt bad for him; one of the hardest things about growing up is figuring out there are some things you just aren't going to be very good at.

With the four winners still in the corral, Mel shooed half a dozen calves out of the barn. They were still pretty young and kind of spooked by all the noise and people, but Mel chased them out into the middle. “Okay, wranglers, see if you can catch ya a real live calf!”

“Oh, my Lord,” Dory said. “I didn't know they'd let them do that! They'll get trampled!”

Glen leaned over. “Nah, the most that happens is they get a few scrapes or a rope burn or something. No big deal.”

I patted Dory's arm. “It's okay. Look, Marsh isn't scared.”

She looked up at her son. “You're right. He's not.” She managed a small smile, then clenched her jaw. “Okay, I can be calm, too.”

Sure enough Marsh managed to swing the rope high enough and wide enough to get it over the head of a calf. I thought Dory would fall off the fence. “Pull it tight!” she screamed, as if she was at the Little League championship. Pulling it tight proved harder for Marsh to accomplish. The calf stepped through the large loop of the rope with one foot and tripped itself. Marsh ran up to it, I guess to take the rope off—he was probably afraid the cow would get hurt—but the calf jumped up suddenly as he approached and knocked him over. The rope tightened then and Marsh got dragged a few feet behind the scared animal until he let go of the rope.

“Yay, Marshall!” I screamed, hoping he would not stand up with a bloody, tear-streaked face.

Mel hauled him to his feet almost immediately and announced, “The winner of the calf-roping contest! Let's give this cowboy a hand!”

Everybody whooped and hollered so loudly that Marsh's stunned look soon turned into a huge smile. There was no facial blood evident, but when he came running back to us, a blue ribbon pinned to his shirt, he held out his palms, scratched up, rope burned, and filthy. “I
won
!”

“You were great out there,” Glen told him, then reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a tube of salve. “Go wash your hands real good and then put this on 'em—by tomorrow they'll be almost like new.”

Dory took the salve and shakily climbed down the fence to help Marsh clean himself up.

“You always carry that stuff around with you?” I asked Glen.

“For the rodeos. Makes the kids feel like real cowboys if I tell 'em what to do. If their mothers gave it to 'em, they'd feel like sissies.”

“Aren't you the psychologist?”

He shrugged. “By tomorrow his hands'll feel like hell, but he won't bitch about it too much because he used the magic cowboy potion. You wait and see.”

I smiled. “Do you do this all year round?”

“No. I just finished my first year at the University of Arizona. I grew up about an hour from here, which in Wyoming is right in the neighborhood. This is my third summer working for Mel.”

I liked talking to Glen—the conversation was easy and natural. By the time Dory and Marsh got back we'd covered topics such as his major (animal husbandry), why he chose Arizona (his girlfriend was going there, but they broke up two weeks into the
first semester), and why I was traveling all over the country with my cousins (I gave him Dory's story, not mine).

We hadn't even noticed that the barrel racing had started until Dory and Marshall got back and she said, “Iris didn't race yet, did she? I didn't miss her?”

I said she hadn't, but I was embarrassed that I didn't really know for sure. How could I have gotten so involved talking with Glen that I wasn't even watching? Thank goodness, a few minutes later we saw Iris come trotting out of the barn on Silverfoot, her brown hat tilted back, her chin held high.

Each horse did the circuit alone so there was no chance of running into anybody else—the contest was just about who was the fastest. Mel started everybody off and held the stopwatch. Most of the kids weren't very good, although two of the girls were obviously veterans. Iris didn't go very fast—you could tell she was sort of nervous leaning so far over to the side when Silverfoot rounded the barrels—but she didn't fall off and she finished the race. Joe ran up and took Silverfoot's reins when she finished and you could tell he was praising her performance. I sort of wished we could stay here longer, for Iris's sake.

She was so happy when she came to join us on the fence—positively glowing. Glen said hello to her and told her she'd done a great job, and she thanked him, but she didn't look at his face.

As I'd imagined, Jackson was among the cowboys demonstrating their roping and riding skills.

“Aren't you going to show off, too?” I asked Glen.

He grinned. “Not tonight. Sometimes I sit one out so Jackson can look good.”

“Oh, what a good sport,” I said, teasing him. Who'd have guessed he'd be so easy to talk to?

When the rodeo was over we all headed back to the bunkhouse and Glen walked part of the way with us. When the
others pulled ahead he stopped walking and I did too.

“Well, I guess I'll say good-bye since you're leaving in the morning.”

“Yeah. Nice to talk to you.”

He nodded. “I wish you were staying longer. That's the problem with this job—you just get to know somebody and then they leave.”

I knew right then that Glen wanted to kiss me and I was shocked. Chris was the only boy I'd ever kissed—since I met him I'd never even thought about kissing anybody else. What was even worse was, I sort of wanted Glen to kiss me. Not that I had a big crush on him or anything, but I liked him, and it would have been very nice to kiss him, a sweet memory to take away from the Lazy River Ranch.

Of course, I
couldn't
kiss him. No way. I'd really feel like a totally horrible person then. The only thing I could think to do was to stick out my hand. I felt very dorky, but Glen got the message. We shook hands, and said good-bye, and I ran on into the living room of our bunkhouse. I closed the door and my eyes simultaneously, thankful to have escaped a close call. But when I opened my eyes, Iris was standing in front of me, waiting, fuming, her hands on her hips.

“What is going
on,
Robin? I thought you had a
boyfriend
?”

A
pparently Iris was hoping to stay up late into the night debating whether it was right or wrong for me to enjoy Glen's company for a few hours if I was in love with someone else. I assured her all we'd done was talk.

“You were walking awfully close to him,” she said accusingly. “And laughing, too!”

“There's a law against laughing?”

“You know what I mean!”

I did, but I wasn't going to admit it to a thirteen-year-old. “Calm down, Iris,” I said, and walked into the bathroom to get ready for bed. She followed me.

“You said you were in love with Chris!”

“I
am.
I didn't
do
anything!”

“You better not.”

“What are you—the Romance Police?”

She watched me in the mirror as I brushed my teeth, which gave me time to remember her indiscretions of the night before. I spit, then said, “What about you? You kissed Jackson last night and you have a boyfriend at home.”

She scowled. “First of all, I'm not in love with Parker, and
second of all . . . he's not my boyfriend anymore.”

“I thought you said you were hanging on to him until you got home?”

She shook her head and flopped down on the toilet seat.

“You already broke up with him?”

I could barely hear her say, “He broke up with me before we left.”

“Oh.” I soaped up my face and tried to think of the right response. After all, it wasn't like this was a tragedy—most thirteen-year-olds' relationships didn't last more than a few weeks.

“You can't tell Mom, though.”

I sighed. Every day there were more things I couldn't tell
Mom.
“Why not? I don't think she was expecting you to marry the guy.”

“Just
don't.
I don't want her to think there's something wrong with me.”

“Don't be ridiculous—she wouldn't think that. People break up with each other all the time.” Iris gave me a nasty look, grabbed her nightgown off the back of the door, and went into the bedroom.

I waited until we were both in bed and the light was out. “The only thing wrong with you is your barfing habit.” It wasn't actually the
only
thing wrong, but I was in a generous mood.

She sprang back up. “It's not a habit. I only do it once in a while.”

“Yeah, only after the meals where you've actually eaten something.”

“So, are you, like,
watching
me all the time now?”

“Should I be?”

“No!”

“Okay. Then you don't need to watch me either.”

She threw herself down on the bed and burrowed beneath the
quilt. I don't know about Iris, but I fell asleep right away. Although not before wondering if I'd see Glen in the morning.

Of course I didn't.
Glen was out on an early morning trail ride by the time we packed up the car and checked out. Just as well—what would have been the point? Even if I was ever going to see him again, it would be silly to lead him on when I already had a boyfriend. Although, now that I thought about it, I didn't much like the idea that I'd never be able to get to know any other boys ever again, unless I broke up with Chris. Which would be terrible, of course. But at least I wouldn't feel guilty for even thinking about somebody else!

I drove first. Everybody was quiet as we left the Lazy River Ranch—I think we all would have been happy to spend another few days there. As soon as I pulled back out onto the highway I got a little thrill, like
here we go again!
There's something so exciting about starting out on a trip, wondering what you'll see and do—and this trip started new every day. I think I could get addicted to life on the road.

When we crossed into Colorado, the mountains got bigger. Dory asked if I was nervous driving in them, but I loved driving those roads. They were like roads on postcards, with big pine trees growing close on both sides so you felt like you were in a green tunnel. Then, when you came around a corner, the view was suddenly opened wide and you could see the Rocky Mountains with their snowy peaks.

We were headed for Denver, but Marshall had been reading the guidebook and wanted to stop in a town called Golden first, to see the grave of Buffalo Bill. We weren't in any hurry so we did. Actually his first choice was to go to Water World water park, but
Dory said that was the kind of thing you could do anywhere, so they compromised on Buffalo Bill.

Marsh was telling us all about a book he'd read on Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley and their Wild West shows. He was all excited about seeing where the guy was buried, but when we got out of the car and actually walked up to the big white stone, he got very quiet. After a minute I realized we were
all
very quiet, and it hit me why that would be. I was the only person there not suddenly remembering the last time I was at a grave site, or at least, the only person not remembering it sadly.

All four of us stood staring mournfully at Buffalo Bill's grave as if he'd just passed on yesterday. The silence was starting to give me a headache, but then Dory suggested we go through the museum as long as we were there—probably just to get us away from the grave. For some reason, looking at a bunch of old guns didn't do much to perk us up either, so we went for lunch. Eating usually cheered people up, I'd noticed, even those who might not be planning to actually
digest
that cheeseburger.

I was keeping my eye on Iris now, although I hoped she wouldn't notice. She went into the bathroom first, but I followed soon enough after that I figured I'd be able to tell what had gone on. She passed me on her way out and smiled. “Don't worry, Scooby Doo, you won't find any clues in there.” So much for subtlety.