They walked up as far as they could to the edge of the slough and then had to turn back to follow, once more, the path between the blue lake and the fence line. The sun hadn’t quite begun to set, it was far too early for that, but it was slanting in the sky, with puffy clouds going long as the wind began to stir the tops of the tall green grasses.
Gabe didn’t have a watch, and he’d left his cellphone back in his tent, but that didn’t matter because no time would have been long enough, forever enough, to allow him to capture the day and the time he’d spent with Blaze and keep it close.
Chapter15
Blaze
When Blaze arrived at breakfast, showered and shaved, excited about the mid-morning arrival of horses, Tom just about peed all over everything.
“I’m not much good with horses,” he said, and it was obvious to see by the way he was dressed that he was not prepared, not one bit, to help Gabe in this. Tom was wearing regular work-in-the woods clothes, with nary a cowboy boot in sight. “I won’t work the chipper by myself, but I can sure take your map and flag all those roots we’re going to want to dig up.”
“That’s fine,” said Gabe, in his typical laid-back way as he dug into his pancakes, cutting a careful square with his fork. “I appreciate your willingness to carry on.”
There was nothing and nobody that was going to keep Blaze from getting into that truck with Gabe. Not with him looking the way he did as he stood up and grabbed his straw cowboy hat from the end of the table.
In his cowboy boots, Gabe was ten feet tall, thighs dense beneath his denim blue jeans, his smile genuine, coming from inside of him as he placed that hat on his head. He tilted it and then tapped it with his finger as though he were sending a special signal for Blaze to join in his joy.
Sure, Gabe was a genial guy, typically even-tempered and steady, but this morning, there was a light coming from him, and Blaze could only put it down to the morning’s activity, where they were going to drive up north of the ranch and drop Gabe off so he could help guide around twenty head of horses to the lower pasture in the valley.
“One of you fellows want to drive?” Gabe asked, jingling the truck keys in his pocket.
Both Blaze and Wayne shook their heads, and Blaze quite emphatically because he had no idea where they were going and, besides, it would be nice to just sit and relax and enjoy the view. Plus, he’d make sure to sit wherever was nearest to Gabe.
They waved Tom off and hustled to the truck in the gravel parking lot. Luck was with him because Wayne seemed quite content to sit in the back of the four-door truck. This left Blaze the spacious front seat, with full view of where they were going, and plenty of opportunity to gaze at Gabe out of the corner of his eyes.
With his shirtsleeves rolled up, properly tucked the way he liked them to be, Gabe drove them up the pine-scented switchbacks, over the high-grassed, windswept hillside, past the little wood cabin, and along the dirt road to the gate.
Blaze happily got out to man the gate, then hopped back in, holding his hat on his head with one hand as he pulled the door shut. He nodded to Gabe that they could keep going, settling back in his seat as the truck rolled along Highway 211, north to lands that were so new to him that Blaze had taken his hat off so he could press his nose to the glass.
“You can roll the window down, if you like,” said Gabe, and Blaze turned to see Gabe smiling at him. “It’s a fine day for it.”
Blaze tucked his hat near his feet so it wouldn’t get blown away, and pressed the button to roll down the window. But then Wayne’s complaints from the back made him roll it up again. They were going too fast, the grasses a blur, but inside the truck’s cabin, Gabe had the station on soft country music, and Blaze decided this was fine, just fine with him.
At Chugwater, they went beneath the freeway bridge, and Gabe took a left and headed west along a dirt road that went across the open countryside. Early summer green grasses were blowing in the wind, bending as though brushed by an unseen and very large hand, this way and that. They crossed several wooden bridges that went over silky, flat, blue and brown rivers, and then they were in the rumpled and stony hills.
“How far is this place?” asked Blaze, wishing he had a cellphone so he could check the map and see where they were.
“It’s about fifty miles,” said Gabe. “But when we drive the horses from Blue Grass Ranch, we’ll cut along the ridge, and then join up with the 211 and drive the horses down that. Our route will save us around thirty miles.”
Before mid-morning, they had reached Blue Grass Ranch, a tidy place with a few outbuildings, and several pastures, rich with green grasses, like those on the top of the hill at Farthingdale Valley. Blaze nodded, feeling wise because he knew the kind of fence they were using and why they were using it.
Two horse trailers were lined up next to a pasture with a bunch of horses in it. Standing next to the trailers were two real-life cowboys with straw cowboy hats on their heads, leather gloves in their hands, and leather chaps around their thighs. The men waved at Gabe as he parked the truck and got out.
Blaze looked back at Wayne, and Wayne shrugged.
“Should we get out?” asked Blaze. “We’re just going to drive the truck back, right?”
“I don’t know.” Wayne looked a little glum, though Blaze couldn’t figure out why.
Blaze got out, shutting the truck door carefully, as if a loud noise might spook cowboys and horses alike.
By the time he got over to the nearest trailer, Gabe was putting on leather chaps, bending to attach a clip-ring from behind his thigh up along his hip, and then behind one knee, and Blaze froze.
The chaps came up to the tops of Gabe’s thighs, the leather contrasting against the blue denim, cupping his buttocks, flaring with the slightest fringe. One of the other cowboys, a gruff looking man with short hair cropped close, handed Gabe a pair of leather gloves, and it was then that Blaze realized his jaw was hanging open.
This was Gabe, as he’d never seen him. It wasn’t just the close fit of those chaps, nor the lazy grin showing his sharp white teeth as he put on sunglasses. It was everything from the easy slope of his shoulders to the relaxed way he chatted with the two other cowboys. One of them brought him a pale-colored horse, and he stepped up into the stirrup and swung his leg over and settled in the saddle like a cowboy in the movies.
Gabe gestured Blaze close and, shutting his mouth, Blaze walked up to Gabe on horseback pretending like he did it every day and not like, as most certainly was true, he was stepping into the shadow of a ten foot giant.
