Roz Denny Fox - Real Cowboys

“Preparing her how?”

“Sit down with her every evening. Make Clover read to you. Make her sound out difficult words. As a parent you’ll be tempted to blurt out the words, but don’t do that. She has to figure them out herself.”

“I’m no teacher,” he said as he walked his hands around and around the brim of his hat. “Shouldn’t you be the one working with her?”

“If reading’s too difficult for Clover, she’s probably too embarrassed to raise her hand in class and ask me for help. I’ll give you three basic storybooks to take home. When she’s mastered these, here are the names of three more books I consider easy second-grade level. A library ought to have them.” Kate tore out a sheet of notebook paper and jotted three titles, then stuck the page in one of the storybooks and offered them to her visitor.

Ben reluctantly took the books. “I’m already spread too thin,” he said.

“Reading is vital. Surely we can agree on that.”

If he responded before he spun away and strode to the door, Kate missed his words.

A strange man, she thought. But, damn fine to look at.

Upset at the flutter of interest that tripped through her, she stuffed the papers in a drawer. That same lazy way of moving Ben had was what had first attracted her to Colton. Never again. No cowboy or buckaroo—or whatever the term in the area—was going to turn her head.

Kate noted that the basketball had quit thumping the wall behind her. Through the side window she heard Trueblood’s deep baritone mingled with the children’s higher pitched voices.

It wasn’t until she started her wheelchair motor, backed up and angled toward the window that it dawned on her—a streak of vanity had kept her from escorting Clover’s father to the door.

You didn’t want him to see you stuck in a wheelchair.

Kate grimaced. She would have hated seeing pity in his eyes.

As Danny’s voice reached her through the open window, Kate realized he hadn’t sounded this excited since they left Texas.

Handwheeling her chair to where she could see and not be seen, she discovered two things—the source of Danny’s pleasure and the reason she hadn’t heard the crunch of Trueblood’s tires on the pumice drive. A black gelding and a small palomino mare grazed under a stand of trees. Clover and her dad had ridden horses to this meeting.

Kate wished she could hear what Trueblood was telling Danny to keep him so totally enthralled. The trio had moved again, out of Kate’s range.

She didn’t have long to wait for an answer, however. The father and daughter swung into their saddles and cantered off. Danny tossed his basketball in the air, caught it, then loped toward the school, a jaunty swing to his step.

“Mom, Mom!” Danny burst through the door and whirled one direction then the other, searching for Kate, who hadn’t wanted him to catch her at the window.

“I’m at the cupboard taking inventory of construction paper. It won’t be long before the holidays and I need to be thinking of an art project that will interest all of you kiddos. Toss that basketball in the bin with the others and we can leave. Oh, will you grab my tote? I didn’t finish grading papers before Mr. Trueblood arrived.”

“Mom! I’m trying to tell you something. Ben…uh, Clover’s dad said I can call him that…he braided the coolest rope out of horsehair. He curries the manes and tails of his horses and sorts out strands by color. His rope looks like an old diamondback rattler. Clover’s learning to braid, but she can’t do patterns yet.” Danny hardly took a breath between sentences.

Kate watched him dash about the room, doing what she asked. Usually she had to remind him several times. Not tonight.

“Guess what else? They do have a kind of rodeo here. They call it a Rope and Ride. Ben said all of their events are judged by Old West rules. I’m not sure what that means exactly. It’s next spring. Will you take me?”

“Oh, Danny, I have no idea where they’d hold such an event.”

He followed her out, his feet barely touching the ground as he waited impatiently for her to lock the door and motor down the ramp. “I can get directions. ’Cause that’s the other thing. Will you take me to their ranch tomorrow? Or, I could ride Flame over. They’re gonna brand calves. They’re late because of a drought. Clover said we can ride washes looking for calves that got separated when they moved the herd to a winter land lease. What’s a land lease, Mom?”

Kate stopped levering herself into the driver’s seat. “A land lease is pasture a person can rent from the government. Although, I don’t know what that has to do with this conversation. Danny Royce Steele, why on earth wouldn’t you have come in and asked my permission before you made such elaborate plans?”

His chin jutted stubbornly as he connected the lift clamps to her wheelchair. “I knew if I came in and asked before they took off, you wouldn’t think about it. You’d just say no. Please, Mom? All I’ve done since we got here is help set up the house. I did everything you asked. This will be so cool. Besides, yesterday when I talked to Mimi, she said Flame will get fat and lazy if I don’t work him.”

Kate couldn’t ignore the change in Danny’s spirits. It was like daylight from dark. Until now it hadn’t really sunk in how downcast he’d truly become since the move. After talking to Ben, he looked like his old, happy self.

But letting him spend the day with cowboys made Kate’s head ache. She tried again to discourage him. “Danny, I have Clover’s address, but finding their ranch without a map could prove impossible on these back roads. I think you should wait.”

“I know where they live. You remember the road we turned off of to find the cabin—the fork with the first red bandanna? If we’d kept on that road we’d have gone straight to the Rising Sun. That’s Ben’s ranch. His brand is neat-o. Clover showed me how to draw it the other day. She said Bobbalou named the ranch and drew the brand. I think it used to be his land, or something.”

“Who on earth is Bobba…whatzit?” his mother asked.

“Their trail cook. His real name is Lou Bobolink, but everybody calls him Bobbalou. He’s Paiute Indian. Uh, maybe Ben is, too.” Danny hesitated, pondering that. “Did you see how he ties back his hair? Gosh, do you think Clover’s an Indian? She said Bobbalou is sorta her pawpaw.”

“The politically correct term is Native American, Danny. I’d say it’s very likely Clover and Adam Lightfoot are native. The Paiute are probably one of the local tribes.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it, Mom?” Danny turned toward her with a slight frown as Kate parked at their cabin. “If they’re Ind…uh, what you said.”

“No, honey, that doesn’t matter.” What did matter was how Ben Trueblood had invited her son to take part in branding without consulting her. That was so typical of something Colton would have done—never mind the impact it might have on others.

“So then it’s okay if I go spend the day with Clover? You’ll trailer Flame, huh? We hafta get up early. Clover said they start branding at five-thirty.”

“A.m.?” Kate gasped, but it was drowned outby the grinding of the lift as it lowered her wheelchair.

“Yes, in the morning.” Danny laughed. “That’s daybreak here, Mom. Pawpaw and me were out feeding his stock at daylight in Texas.”

Kate squelched a sigh and handed her book bag to Danny to carry inside. She wasn’t a layabout type, but this weekend she’d planned to grab an extra hour’s sleep, followed by a leisurely breakfast to celebrate the successful completion of her first week on the job. “I have to give this more thought, Danny. Don’t bring up the subject again until after I fix supper and we eat. I’ll make a final decision after you shower, before you go to bed. Have you thought about Goldie? She’ll miss you.”