DavidRM
New Member
Chapter 1. Welcome home, Stevie
Stevie Buckbee spent the third wasted day of her summer vacation staring out the window at the passing Oklahoma countryside. She twisted in her seat, still trying to find a comfortable position, but no longer expecting to find one. The velour of the seat had been cracked by years of sun, and the springs worn out by Aunt Mary's oversized behind.
"Do you need to use the bathroom?" Uncle Rick asked.
"No," Stevie said. She didn't look at Uncle Rick. She continued to stare out the window of the car.
Ninety minutes into the trip home, and the only words Uncle Rick had spoken to her in all that time had been whether she had to pee. Once just before they pulled out of Uncle Rick's and Aunt Mary's Tulsa driveway. And just now.
"See if you can hold it another fifteen to twenty minutes," Uncle Rick said. "We're almost to McAlester."
"I'm fine," Stevie said.
Even after ten months of living in the same house, she and Uncle Rick hadn't developed any better than a functional relationship. If Aunt Mary had been in the car, the woman would have kept up a running chatter, whether anyone in the car responded or not. If her cousin April had come along, Stevie would've had someone to talk to, or at least to put between herself and her Aunt and Uncle. Eleven year old April was only two years younger than Stevie, but she had no memory of Stevie's mother, and no reason to feel uncomfortable around her cousin.
But Aunt Mary and cousins April, Kate, and Scottie had waved good-bye earlier, staying home today, packing suitcases and getting the family SUV ready for a summer roadtrip. So Stevie and Uncle Rick had the car to themselves.
Sullen silence wasn't so bad, Stevie figured. It could've been worse.
The previous Sunday, Dad had said he would drive up Thursday morning to get Stevie, take her home. Today was Saturday. Thursday evening, hours after he had been scheduled to arrive, he called to say he couldn't make it, he would be there tomorrow to get her. Tomorrow came and went with Stevie still in Tulsa, waiting. Dad called again Friday night to ask would Rick and Mary be able to drive her down to Antlers?
Uncle Rick had been livid, shouting into the phone that his family was leaving on a trip on Saturday and they didn't have time-- Stopping himself, his jaw clenched, Uncle Rick handed the phone to Aunt Mary, sent a hard glare at Stevie--as if it was her fault, somehow--and stomped out of the living room, leaving Aunt Mary to work out a compromise with Dad.
Stevie heard only Aunt Mary's side of the conversation, but she could imagine Dad's short, simple, "No. I can't." Offering no explanation, just the repeated negation of a promise. Silent on his end of the phone while Aunt Mary, his younger sister, offered possible options until one of them met his approval. Finally, it had been decided that Uncle Rick would drive Stevie as far as McAlester, where Blake, Stevie's eighteen year old brother, would meet them and take Stevie the rest of the way.
So, yeah, Uncle Rick was upset at Dad. Stevie understood. As happy as she was to be almost home, she was upset at Dad, as well. Two days of her summer, gone, and another ticking away.
She tried not to think about it. Because she still had time. Lots of summer remained ahead of her.
She would spend day after day with her horses, especially with Jack Rabbit and Rain and, maybe, Buckaroo. Of the three, Rain was the only one with training or experience in barrel racing, other than practice runs by Dad and Blake. But Rain was also the oldest, as old as Blake. Not too old for barrel racing, but Stevie wanted to train and race Jack Rabbit. He was her horse. Her first horse that was really hers, not a hand-me-down like Rain. And proof that Dad didn't break all his promises.
The daughter of a horse rancher and a competive barrel racer, Stevie had never raced, had never had her own horse until Dad bought Jack Rabbit for her while she spent the school year in Tulsa. After Edwin's funeral, before Dad sent her to Tulsa with Aunt Mary and Uncle Rick, Dad had promised she would race this summer, and that he would buy her a gelding to train and race with. That her first week with Jack Rabbit over spring break had started so disasterously didn't phase her.
Her hand went to the scar on her lip before she could stop it. She forced her hand back to her lap, held it there with other hand while her lip tingled.
That hadn't been Jack Rabbit's fault. Not entirely. She and Blake had both messed up. Besides, only a trace of the split remained, where the metalshod hoof of Jack Rabbit hit her, split her lip, nearly broke her nose, loosened her front teeth, and gave her a mild concussion, sent her flying backwards to land in the dust of the corral. She had lived around horses all her life and should've known better than to walk behind a skittish horse. It had been more embarrassing than painful. And it had hurt a lot.
Thrown and kicked, spending hours in the emergency room getting stitched up and scanned, and then wasting most of a week on her back as both Dad and Blake alternated between hovering over her, blaming themselves, blaming her, blaming Jack Rabbit, and refusing to let her do anything lest she hurt herself. Spring Break had not gone as planned.
Horse and rider had to get to used to each other, she had told both Blake and Dad over and over, until they finally allowed her and Jack Rabbit some time for riding and bonding--with Blake and Dad looking on like mother hens. Too long ago, and too short a time.
Summer, though, had finally arrived, if a couple days late. Three months that she could spend in her real home, with Blake and Dad. And, more importantly, with Jack Rabbit.
She and Jack Rabbit would race at rodeos and exhibitions and any other event in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas that offered barrel racing. In her dreams, she and Jack Rabbit won all of the races. But in the real world, she was prepared to place as low as third or fourth in the first few races, as she and Jack Rabbit found their stride together.
For the past two months, she had scoured the Web looking for listings of barrel racing events from June through August. Her first list contained one hundred seventeen events in ten states, encompassing a region from New Mexico to Louisiana to Iowa to Wyoming. The first time she mentioned her list to Dad, over the phone, she heard him choke on his drink and spend two full minutes coughing. She took the hint and narrowed the list down to only thirteen events, just a bit more than one a week for the entire summer. She had sent Dad and Blake emails with the final list, but she had also made four printouts of the list, one each for her, Blake and Dad, plus another for posting on the fridge.
A line of horse farms passed by on her side of the car, and pulled Stevie's attention back to the present. The heat of the Oklahoma summer had settled in, making the June morning hot and sticky outside the air-conditioning of the car, but there were still a few horses standing in the corrals and pastures, heads down, munching on green grass, or heads up, looking around.
As she watched, all the horses brought their heads up and turned to the highway. Looking at the car.
At her.
Stevie sat up, feeling an unexpected surge in her chest, her heart pounding, her eyes locked to those of a bay mare with a long black mane and three white socks. Stevie blinked, but when she opened her eyes again, she knew that the horse still looked at her. Hundreds of yards away, moving past at seventy miles an hour. Stevie shook her head. She had to be imagining it.
As if it heard her, the mare blew out--impossibly, she seemed to hear the blow, feel it on her cheek--and shook its head. And Stevie could feel the eyes of the mare and the other horses looking at her. Not at the highway, not at the cars. At her.
"Looking at the horses?" Uncle Rick asked, distracting her.
"What?" Stevie asked, then added, "Yes." She turned back to the window.
They had passed the horses, left them behind. She could feel the distance between her and the bay mare growing, whatever connection they had shared fading. Her heart slowed. Had she imagined it?
A green highway sign flashed by, announcing "McAlester 11" in white letters that sparkled in the late morning sun.
Another fifteen minutes, and she would see Blake. Tall, gangly, tanned, with perpetual sunstreaks in his hair. Good looking too, in a dorky, brother kind of way. Not as good looking as Edwin had been. None of them had been as good looking as Edwin. Not Blake, not Dad, and certainly not Stevie. Edwin had looked more like Mom than any of them ...
Stevie let those thoughts drift away. Let the tightness that squeezed her heart loosen. Before the tears could come. Tears for Edwin. Not Mom.
She resisted the urge to wipe at her eyes. Uncle Rick would probably think ... whatever it was the man thought. Probably ask her--again--if she could hold it until they got to the McDonald's where Blake waited for them.
Ten minutes to Blake. She would be glad to see him. She was always glad to see Blake.
And then another hour--maybe less, the way Blake drove--and she would be home, with Jack Rabbit and the rest of her horses, and all the horses stabled at the ranch, for the first time in two months.
They passed a few more ranches and fields with horses. Stevie didn't feel the same connection as she had with the bay mare, but as she watched, each of the horses turned to the highway and watched her on her way home.
She tried to remember if horses always did that...
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
-David
Stevie Buckbee spent the third wasted day of her summer vacation staring out the window at the passing Oklahoma countryside. She twisted in her seat, still trying to find a comfortable position, but no longer expecting to find one. The velour of the seat had been cracked by years of sun, and the springs worn out by Aunt Mary's oversized behind.
"Do you need to use the bathroom?" Uncle Rick asked.
"No," Stevie said. She didn't look at Uncle Rick. She continued to stare out the window of the car.
Ninety minutes into the trip home, and the only words Uncle Rick had spoken to her in all that time had been whether she had to pee. Once just before they pulled out of Uncle Rick's and Aunt Mary's Tulsa driveway. And just now.
"See if you can hold it another fifteen to twenty minutes," Uncle Rick said. "We're almost to McAlester."
"I'm fine," Stevie said.
Even after ten months of living in the same house, she and Uncle Rick hadn't developed any better than a functional relationship. If Aunt Mary had been in the car, the woman would have kept up a running chatter, whether anyone in the car responded or not. If her cousin April had come along, Stevie would've had someone to talk to, or at least to put between herself and her Aunt and Uncle. Eleven year old April was only two years younger than Stevie, but she had no memory of Stevie's mother, and no reason to feel uncomfortable around her cousin.
But Aunt Mary and cousins April, Kate, and Scottie had waved good-bye earlier, staying home today, packing suitcases and getting the family SUV ready for a summer roadtrip. So Stevie and Uncle Rick had the car to themselves.
Sullen silence wasn't so bad, Stevie figured. It could've been worse.
The previous Sunday, Dad had said he would drive up Thursday morning to get Stevie, take her home. Today was Saturday. Thursday evening, hours after he had been scheduled to arrive, he called to say he couldn't make it, he would be there tomorrow to get her. Tomorrow came and went with Stevie still in Tulsa, waiting. Dad called again Friday night to ask would Rick and Mary be able to drive her down to Antlers?
Uncle Rick had been livid, shouting into the phone that his family was leaving on a trip on Saturday and they didn't have time-- Stopping himself, his jaw clenched, Uncle Rick handed the phone to Aunt Mary, sent a hard glare at Stevie--as if it was her fault, somehow--and stomped out of the living room, leaving Aunt Mary to work out a compromise with Dad.
Stevie heard only Aunt Mary's side of the conversation, but she could imagine Dad's short, simple, "No. I can't." Offering no explanation, just the repeated negation of a promise. Silent on his end of the phone while Aunt Mary, his younger sister, offered possible options until one of them met his approval. Finally, it had been decided that Uncle Rick would drive Stevie as far as McAlester, where Blake, Stevie's eighteen year old brother, would meet them and take Stevie the rest of the way.
So, yeah, Uncle Rick was upset at Dad. Stevie understood. As happy as she was to be almost home, she was upset at Dad, as well. Two days of her summer, gone, and another ticking away.
She tried not to think about it. Because she still had time. Lots of summer remained ahead of her.
She would spend day after day with her horses, especially with Jack Rabbit and Rain and, maybe, Buckaroo. Of the three, Rain was the only one with training or experience in barrel racing, other than practice runs by Dad and Blake. But Rain was also the oldest, as old as Blake. Not too old for barrel racing, but Stevie wanted to train and race Jack Rabbit. He was her horse. Her first horse that was really hers, not a hand-me-down like Rain. And proof that Dad didn't break all his promises.
The daughter of a horse rancher and a competive barrel racer, Stevie had never raced, had never had her own horse until Dad bought Jack Rabbit for her while she spent the school year in Tulsa. After Edwin's funeral, before Dad sent her to Tulsa with Aunt Mary and Uncle Rick, Dad had promised she would race this summer, and that he would buy her a gelding to train and race with. That her first week with Jack Rabbit over spring break had started so disasterously didn't phase her.
Her hand went to the scar on her lip before she could stop it. She forced her hand back to her lap, held it there with other hand while her lip tingled.
That hadn't been Jack Rabbit's fault. Not entirely. She and Blake had both messed up. Besides, only a trace of the split remained, where the metalshod hoof of Jack Rabbit hit her, split her lip, nearly broke her nose, loosened her front teeth, and gave her a mild concussion, sent her flying backwards to land in the dust of the corral. She had lived around horses all her life and should've known better than to walk behind a skittish horse. It had been more embarrassing than painful. And it had hurt a lot.
Thrown and kicked, spending hours in the emergency room getting stitched up and scanned, and then wasting most of a week on her back as both Dad and Blake alternated between hovering over her, blaming themselves, blaming her, blaming Jack Rabbit, and refusing to let her do anything lest she hurt herself. Spring Break had not gone as planned.
Horse and rider had to get to used to each other, she had told both Blake and Dad over and over, until they finally allowed her and Jack Rabbit some time for riding and bonding--with Blake and Dad looking on like mother hens. Too long ago, and too short a time.
Summer, though, had finally arrived, if a couple days late. Three months that she could spend in her real home, with Blake and Dad. And, more importantly, with Jack Rabbit.
She and Jack Rabbit would race at rodeos and exhibitions and any other event in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas that offered barrel racing. In her dreams, she and Jack Rabbit won all of the races. But in the real world, she was prepared to place as low as third or fourth in the first few races, as she and Jack Rabbit found their stride together.
For the past two months, she had scoured the Web looking for listings of barrel racing events from June through August. Her first list contained one hundred seventeen events in ten states, encompassing a region from New Mexico to Louisiana to Iowa to Wyoming. The first time she mentioned her list to Dad, over the phone, she heard him choke on his drink and spend two full minutes coughing. She took the hint and narrowed the list down to only thirteen events, just a bit more than one a week for the entire summer. She had sent Dad and Blake emails with the final list, but she had also made four printouts of the list, one each for her, Blake and Dad, plus another for posting on the fridge.
A line of horse farms passed by on her side of the car, and pulled Stevie's attention back to the present. The heat of the Oklahoma summer had settled in, making the June morning hot and sticky outside the air-conditioning of the car, but there were still a few horses standing in the corrals and pastures, heads down, munching on green grass, or heads up, looking around.
As she watched, all the horses brought their heads up and turned to the highway. Looking at the car.
At her.
Stevie sat up, feeling an unexpected surge in her chest, her heart pounding, her eyes locked to those of a bay mare with a long black mane and three white socks. Stevie blinked, but when she opened her eyes again, she knew that the horse still looked at her. Hundreds of yards away, moving past at seventy miles an hour. Stevie shook her head. She had to be imagining it.
As if it heard her, the mare blew out--impossibly, she seemed to hear the blow, feel it on her cheek--and shook its head. And Stevie could feel the eyes of the mare and the other horses looking at her. Not at the highway, not at the cars. At her.
"Looking at the horses?" Uncle Rick asked, distracting her.
"What?" Stevie asked, then added, "Yes." She turned back to the window.
They had passed the horses, left them behind. She could feel the distance between her and the bay mare growing, whatever connection they had shared fading. Her heart slowed. Had she imagined it?
A green highway sign flashed by, announcing "McAlester 11" in white letters that sparkled in the late morning sun.
Another fifteen minutes, and she would see Blake. Tall, gangly, tanned, with perpetual sunstreaks in his hair. Good looking too, in a dorky, brother kind of way. Not as good looking as Edwin had been. None of them had been as good looking as Edwin. Not Blake, not Dad, and certainly not Stevie. Edwin had looked more like Mom than any of them ...
Stevie let those thoughts drift away. Let the tightness that squeezed her heart loosen. Before the tears could come. Tears for Edwin. Not Mom.
She resisted the urge to wipe at her eyes. Uncle Rick would probably think ... whatever it was the man thought. Probably ask her--again--if she could hold it until they got to the McDonald's where Blake waited for them.
Ten minutes to Blake. She would be glad to see him. She was always glad to see Blake.
And then another hour--maybe less, the way Blake drove--and she would be home, with Jack Rabbit and the rest of her horses, and all the horses stabled at the ranch, for the first time in two months.
They passed a few more ranches and fields with horses. Stevie didn't feel the same connection as she had with the bay mare, but as she watched, each of the horses turned to the highway and watched her on her way home.
She tried to remember if horses always did that...
Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
-David
