Page 23 of River Ride

Jackson said, “Me and Davey are going to take the horses out and give them a good run to the back of the ranch. They’ve been in the trailer for three days and they have to work the kinks out before tomorrow.”

“I want to go with you,” said Virge, “but my horse ain’t here. I could ride Outlaw, I guess.”

“We trailered your horse here for you, Virge.” Davey hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s in the corral waiting for you.”

“You brought Desert Sun all the way up here?” Virge hollered as he jumped up off his chair and knocked it over. “I can’t fuckin believe it.”

“Yep. He’s out back. You should take him for a ride.”

Virge hugged Annie in the kitchen. “Thanks for bringing my horse up here, Mom. That was the best surprise I ever got.”

“My pleasure, sweetheart. You might as well enjoy him for the summer. Y’all be back in an hour for dinner, hear me?”

“We will, Mom,” said Davey. He hollered for Lucy, and she came running to go with us.

“I might as well come,” said Rowdy. “We can get a few minutes of practice in. Don’t know what kind of condition y’all are gonna be in tomorrow without a regular workout.”

We saddled our horses and headed for the back of the thousand acres where the wild horses liked to run. Virge was so fuckin happy his horse was here in Montana. He’d only ridden Desert Sun on Annie’s ranch in Texas and missed him real bad ever since.

We rode about halfway to the back boundary line and that’s where Rowdy stopped. We took a break right there and Rowdy put Jacks, Lucy and Davey through some warm-up exercises.

He set up pylons and Lucy put her horse through its paces getting it ready for her first barrel race competition.

Watching Rowdy ride and demo what he wanted the boys to do was fun for me and Virge. Rowdy rode his rodeo horse, Zeke, and barely had to tell the horse anything. Zeke knew every move to make. When to stop. When to pull back on the rope…everything. Amazing to watch.

“Jeeze, I can hardly wait until we go to that rodeo tomorrow,” said Virge. “This is way more fun than working.”

I laughed at my brother. “Sure is.”

When we got back to the house and cooled the horses out, Annie had a picnic dinner ready, and it was fun—all of us eating together. Jacks was a funny guy and told a lot of jokes. I liked him a lot.

Tammy sat at the table and stared at her plate and never said a word. I saw Dad look at her two or three times and he wasn’t wearing a happy face. He was worried.

Virge was worried for Dad and after watching Tammy closely, I got myself worried pretty good too. Like Virge said, Tammy wasn’t fixed. They let her out of the hospital too fuckin soon.

Travis barely spoke to Rowdy since he got to the ranch and when she’d had enough of the tension all of us were feeling, Annie called Dad on it.

“You’re being a shit host, Travis. Rowdy and I will take the kids and sleep at the Inn. I didn’t drive thousands of miles to bring Tammy back to you just to have you treat us like we shouldn’t be here. You can go fuck yourself, you big prick. We’ll be back in the morning to load the horses.”

Travis shook his head. “So sorry, Annie-girl. I apologize for being such an asshole. Too much for me to handle, but that’s no excuse. I want y’all to stay here on the ranch. I do. I’ll do better. I promise.”

Later on, Lucy and I went to the barn to check the horses on our own and we had ten minutes to ourselves. In those ten minutes of privacy, we crammed in a lot of talking, kissing and fooling around.

Being with Lucy was nothing like being with Penny. No comparison. I loved Lucy with my whole heart, even though I wasn’t supposed to love my foster sister. Couldn’t fuckin help it.

When we ran back to the house, I was super happy and ready for a fun vacay with my family.

A poker game was set up in the kitchen, and we played cards and drank beer, and stayed up a lot later than we should have. Fun family time and no one wanted it to end.

Except maybe Tammy. She didn’t want to play cards and sat in the front room and watched TV.

Annie called it after midnight, and we had to quit. We had an early start in the morning to get to Columbia Falls for their Fourth of July rodeo.

Kansas City. Kansas.

Ray was too tired to drive any farther, and Bobby took the wheel when they turned north in Kansas City. “Nice country up here,” said Bobby, but Ray was already asleep.

Ray was negative about everything Bobby had in mind for their future and Bobby was thinking hard on whether he should keep Ray on the new plan or let him go back to Tennessee where he was happy.

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