“Blaze, this is Quint and Brody. They’re going to help me drive the horses down to the pasture in the valley.”
“Hi.” Blaze lifted his hand to wave, but could find no easy patter to send back in the direction of the two men, who nodded and tapped their hat brims with their gloved hands.
“We’re going to head out,” said Gabe. “We’ll meet you at the gate at around three or so. Can you have it open for us, with the power off?”
“Sure thing, Gabe,” said Blaze, lifting up on his toes. He looked past Gabe to the pasture, beyond the horse trailers. Two men had gotten out of those trucks and were just about to open the gate. “Can we watch?”
“Yes, you can,” said Gabe. “But head out as soon as you can, go back the way we came in, and when you park the truck, park it just at the end of the cutoff, where that little gully is. Put the truck in front of the gully. That way, we won’t have to worry about the horses taking a wrong turn.”
“You’ll need a bit of fence there, I’m thinking,” said Quint, his voice low and serious.
“Yeah, I think so, too, but that’ll have to wait for another day.” Gabe settled in his saddle, lifted the reins, and whistled between his teeth. When the two cowboys opened the gate to the pasture, he said to Blaze, “Better get in the truck or in the truck bed. These horses have been pastured a while and are eager to stretch their legs.”
Blaze scrambled into the truck bed, and Wayne leaned out of the window to watch as the horses came out of the pasture. Their hooves stirred up dust, manes flying, their eyes wide at their new freedom. A low energy grew, and then doubled again and just as the horses surrounded the truck, flicking their tails, tossing their heads.
Quint and Brody, now on horseback, guided them away, past the horse trailers and off into open country. Following up in the rear was Gabe, whistling through his teeth, using a circle of rope to slap against his thigh as he helped to keep the horses together rather than letting them sprawl as they seemed to want to.
Dust settled around them, and the two cowboys left behind got into their respective trucks and drove off, slowly trundling down the dirt road toward Chugwater. They nodded at Blaze and Wayne as they went by, but didn’t stop to chat.
From his open window, Wayne was sneezing as Blaze got in the driver’s seat, and got the engine running. He waited until Wayne was in the passenger seat, his eyes watering, snot running from his nose, his face red.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Blaze.
“Boss man’s going to kill me,” said Wayne, wiping his nose on his shirt sleeve, following this with two hard sneezes. “I’m allergic. I was when I was a kid and I thought it had gone away. But if I can’t work with horses on account of it, is he going to get rid of me?”
“He didn’t with Tom,” said Blaze, as he drove away from the now-empty pastures, leaving the faintest of dust clouds behind him as he sped up on the dirt road.
“HelikesTom, that’s why.” Wayne slumped into a gloomy heap.
“He does, that’s for sure.” Blaze kept driving, keeping the country music low, enjoying the feel of being behind the wheel, being trusted not to run off with the truck, being his own man beneath the bright blue May sky with not a cloud in sight. “I’m sure he’ll understand. Besides, you do everything else he asks you, so I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
Gabe didn’t seem the kind of guy to get rid of Wayne just because he was allergic to horses, any more than he was the kind of guy to keep a guy like Kurt on his team any longer than he had to. That sense of fairness had been an alien concept to Blaze, at least before he’d met Gabe.
He found himself thinking of what Gabe would say when he came back to the valley and found the truck parked in the exact right space, the gate wide open, the power off—everything just so, like he wanted it to be. He would turn to Blaze, his eyes full of admiration, and he would say something encouraging, likeWell done, orGreat job. Words that Blaze was not used to hearing, but that he wanted to hear.
He made the turn from Chugwater onto Highway 211 proper and hummed under his breath as he guided the truck along the road, delight bubbling up from beneath his breastbone. This was part of what he’d missed while in prison, this sense of freedom and the unsurpassed, seemingly limitless horizon that spread all around him.
Beside him in the passenger seat, Wayne was seemingly recovered from his sneezing fit, chewing on a hangnail, but still glum. He’d not cheered up any by the time Blaze slowed down going through the town of Farthing, and followed the no-name dirt road that went alongside the edge of the entire valley.
There was supposed to be a track that went into the valley where the pasture was. Gabe had explained to Blaze how to get there from the dirt road, but on his own, he wasn’t sure.
“Is this the way?” he asked himself and Wayne at the same time.
“I guess.” Wayne shrugged. “You can try.”
Trying might lead them to a spot where they couldn’t turn around or back out, but to go back the way they came, through Farthingdale Ranch and down the switchbacks, would take more time than Blaze wanted to take. He wanted the truck to be in place and the gate open well before Gabe and Quint and Brody arrived with the herd of horses.
Taking in a sharp breath, Blaze drove between the break in the trees, tires crunching on old grasses from when other trucks had passed this way. To the right, the land swept down, like it was in a hurry, but along the left, closer to the trees, the way seemed flat and easy to navigate. It was, but by the time Blaze had parked in front of what looked like it could be a gully or a ravine that might be dangerous for horses who were new to their surroundings, he was sweating beneath his armpits.
“Let’s get some lunch,” he said, looking at the pasture in front of them, at the wide green valley that seemed so much more familiar to him now. More like home. More like a place where he belonged. “Then we’ll come back and check to make sure everything is in place.”
“Why bother?” asked Wayne. He was already getting out of the truck, slamming the door behind him. “You guys checked the other day, and it’s not like the water tanks are going to get up and walk away.”
Blaze didn’t holler after Wayne, as he might have done in his other life, in prison or at the carnival. Wayne wasn’t into horses, was allergic to them. Tom, as well, wasn’t interested. Which left Blaze and Blaze alone to work with Gabe.
It made his heart rush, as though hurtling down a headlong slope for which there were no brakes, only a sense of anticipation, and a kind of new horizon, empty of anything but full of hope, that spread out before him.
He shook his head, made sure the truck was in park, and left the keys in the ignition. He’d have lunch, and he’d have a quick shower, maybe find an old cloth to run over his boots to get rid of the dust. He’d be ready, so ready, for when Gabe returned.
