“I don’t want to move.” He pinned her with serious hazel eyes. “I heard Mimi tell Pawpaw that this move will use all our money. She said we’ll go off and forget them…and Daddy.”
“Danny, honey, they want us—well, you—to fill an empty hole your daddy left in their lives. That’s too big a burden for you. It’s just…time…we all move on.”
“But, Mimi says if we stay in Fort Worth, by this winter I can enter the Little Britches Rodeo and win it like Dad did at my age.”
Tensing, Kate didn’t respond. During her recovery she’d watched from her bedroom window as Danny had devoted long hours to roping fence posts. That rodeo dream was the main reason she needed to get him away from the ranch. She patted Goldie, gently removed the rope from Danny’s hand and motioned for him to go to bed. “I’m looking forward to getting back into the classroom, you know. This will be a grand adventure, you’ll see.”
KATE BRAKED THE TRUCK and a thin layer of dust settled on her windshield. For three days she’d endured Danny’s sulks and Goldie’s hot breath on her neck while she’d pulled a wobbly horse trailer through a dusty landscape dotted with juniper and brittle natural grass. Now she’d run out of dirt road.
In a clearing, a weathered gray cabin sat tucked beneath scraggly pines. Beside it stood an ancient corral and adjoining stall that leaned in the same direction as the wind-bent pines. Off to the right of the house, down a steep slope, sat a small, unpainted shed. Kate yanked on the hand brake, hoping against hope that she wasn’t looking at a primitive outhouse.
Stirring for the first time in hours, Danny unbuckled his seat belt and scooted forward. He clutched his dog and his beloved lasso. “Why are we stopping?”
“Uh, I think this is it.”
“What?”
“Our new home, silly boy.”
“Pawpaw’s bulls live in a nicer place,” he announced.
Kate ruffled his hair. “Yes, but everyone knows he babies his bulls.” It was a weak attempt at levity. And a knot tightened in her chest. Marge Goetz had said she and her husband owned a sugar-beet farm. But the high plateau Kate had seen thus far couldn’t have been classed as farmland.
“Maybe you took a wrong turn, Mom.”
Kate rechecked her map and shook her head. She felt Goldie snuffle her ponytail and reached back to rub the dog’s soft nose. “This is it. See the red flag on the porch rail? Mrs. Goetz said our landlord would tie one on a pine where we should turn and another on our cabin.”
Finally Kate cracked open her door. “It’s getting late. We’d better see what’s what, Danny. Today’s Labor Day and school starts tomorrow. We need to unpack. I’ve got no idea when it gets dark here.” She waved a hand toward the horse trailer. “Unload Flame, feed him, then use the hand cart to haul boxed bedding inside. I’ll start with making beds.” Kate hadn’t wanted to bring the horse. But two of Colton’s animals had had to be put down at the scene of their car wreck. Flame was left and Royce had given him to Danny. Against her better judgment, Kate had phoned Marge Goetz and found out the cabin did have accommodations for a horse.
“I’ve gotta unload all our stuff by myself?”
“Yes. Well, you and me, sport.”
“Can’t the guy who owns this place come help us tote boxes?”
“Danny, I’m sure he’s a busy farmer.”
“Well, I’m just a kid.”
Kate turned to her son. “We can do this, Danny.” She hit the button for the lift that would lower her electric wheelchair to a level where she could slide from the truck seat and drop into the chair as she’d practiced repeatedly. She’d been without the use of her legs since the terrible accident on the Oklahoma turnpike that had killed her husband. Kate had been poked and prodded by a dozen doctors, none able to pinpoint a physical reason for her paralysis. No one had used the word psychosomatic, but Kate knew that’s what some of them thought. Kindly Dr. Pearsall said he was confident that one day something would click and Kate would get up and walk. He’d given her exercises so her muscles would be ready if and when the time came. Like right.
After two years, even Kate had begun to doubt Dr. Pearsall’s optimism. And her in-laws had long ago relegated her to invalid status.
Her chair bumped hard against the packed dirt. She unlocked the overhead clamp. Flashing Danny a confident smile, she slid from the pickup.
Seeing his mother meant business, he crawled a bit more reluctantly from the backseat. “What if your chair won’t go up that hill?”
“It’s a gradual incline. Marge Goetz said the cabin owner would leave a door key under a clay flower pot on the porch. You can unlock the door.” Kate didn’t want him hanging back, maybe seeing her struggle. She had to do this. Returning to Fort Worth simply wasn’t an option.
“Hey,” he called moments later. “It’s not so bad inside. It’s got new wood floors and cabinets and it smells like Mr. Duffy’s workshop.”
Her chair crested the slope, and Kate breathed easier. Otis Duffy, Royce’s handyman, made furniture in his spare time, and Danny loved helping him.
“Oops, I see my first obstacle. Steps. But speaking of Mr. Duffy, he nailed together a couple of ramps in case I might need them. Will you bring one from the pickup? Leave the other. It’s possible I’ll need it at school.”
Danny left and returned lugging the ramp. “My old school had concrete ramps for kids who couldn’t climb stairs.”
“Your school had twelve hundred students for six grades. This school has only fourteen students in eight grades and they all arrive at school in a single van.”
“Are they dorky? That’s who rode vans to Tumbleweed.”
“Daniel Royce Steele, I’m ashamed of you. I don’t want to ever hear you call special-needs kids dorky again.”
Danny’s lower lip jutted. He buried a hand in Goldie’s yellow fur. “I had more than fourteen kids in my calf-roping class. Do any kids here rodeo? I didn’t see any cows.”
Kate hadn’t asked Marge that question, although in talking about the area, Marge had called it the land of the last buckaroo. Buckaroo was another word for cowboy, and Kate hoped that meant the cowboys were all gone. “Danny, it costs a lot for rodeo gear and things like entry fees.”
“Pawpaw and Mimi will give us money.”
She straightened from securing the makeshift ramp to the porch. “No. From now on we make do with what I earn. You’ll get a weekly allowance for helping me with household chores. I expect you to save part, and the rest will buy feed and pay vet bills if you want to keep Flame.”
“Not keep him? Flame’s the best roping horse in all of Texas.”
“We aren’t in Texas anymore, Daniel,” Kate said, aware she sounded a bit like Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz. “From here on we live in a place called Owyhee, Idaho.”
“Idaho stinks.” Danny kicked the porch step.
Recognizing a look she’d often seen Colton wear if things didn’t go his way only convinced Kate all the more that leaving Texas had been a good idea.
MARGE GOETZ PASSED A MUG of steaming black coffee to the neighbor who stood on her front porch talking to her husband, Ray. “Before you two get so deep into hashing over today’s Bureau of Land Management meeting, tell me, Ben, did our new teacher get moved into your cabin?”
“Danged if I know.” Ben Trueblood blew on his hot coffee and shifted his gaze to the hills where the cabin sat. His land butted up next to the farm where Ray and Marge raised sugar beets and onions. “Last week I tied red flags like you asked and left the box