“OK, now you’re riding!” Hutch exclaimed. “Just relax, she’s not going anywhere. Relax, Mrs. Massey!” he called, walking beside her with one hand loosely on the rein. “You’re doing a great job,” he told her.
For half an hour or so Hutch escorted her around the empty corral. Clara walked steadily, stopping and starting and turning left and right without the least hint of bad attitude or boredom. Caroline listened to what she was told, and tried to remember it all, tried to feel the movement of the horse and make it her own, as Hutch instructed, but she could not shake the feeling that the animal had no choice but to resent her being there, and would at any given moment revert to the wild and throw her as far as she possibly could. Her back and legs were soon aching, and when she commented on this to Hutch, he gave the side saddle a disparaging look.
“Well, that’s bound to happen when you do something for the first time. But, to be honest, Mrs. Massey, you’d be a heck of a lot more comfortable riding astride than you are sat sideways like that…”
“Men ride astride. Ladies take the side saddle,” Caroline said firmly.
“You’re the boss,” Hutch shrugged.
At that moment, Corin came cantering in off the pasture with two of the line-riders. Sunlight rippled from Strumpet’s black coat, and sweat was running down the mare’s forelegs. Caroline sat up straighter, rigid with embarrassment. The line-riders, whose names she still could not remember, tipped their hats to her, and slowed their horses, and she thought for a hideous moment that they were going to stop and watch the rest of her riding lesson. She gave them a small wave, and her cheeks flared scarlet. They rode as naturally as Magpie cooked and worked, slouching in the saddle as though their bodies had been designed for that very purpose. To her immense relief, they carried on toward the water troughs and only Corin pulled up at the corral fence.
“Well, now! Look at you! You look fantastic up there, sweetheart!” he beamed, pulling off his hat and rubbing his hot scalp.
“You want to go on over?” Hutch asked, and Caroline nodded. “Well, go on then. You know how,” he urged her. Cautiously, Caroline turned the mare’s head and persuaded her to walk over to the fence.
“That’s fantastic, Caroline! I’m so happy to see you up on a horse at last!” Corin told her.
“I’ll never be able to saddle her alone-it’s so heavy!” Caroline smiled, anxiously.
“Well, that’s as may be. But you can just ask any one of the boys and they’ll help you with it. There’s always somebody around, and they’d jump through hoops if a pretty girl like you asked them to!” Corin grinned.
“Can I get down now, Hutch?” she asked.
“I think we’ve done enough for one day,” Hutch nodded, hitching up his jeans at the waist. “Couple more goes like today and we’ll change your name to Annie Oakley!” he smiled.
Feeling altogether less of a tenderfoot, Caroline listened as Hutch described the best way to dismount, but somehow her foot got snarled up in the stirrup, and her skirts tangled her knees, so she sprawled forward on the descent, landing on her front in the corral sand with the air whooshing out of her lungs. Behind her, Clara gave a small snort of surprise.
“Damn! Are you all right, Caroline?” Corin swore, scrambling out of his own saddle.
“Well, that wasn’t exactly how it was supposed to go,” Hutch remarked calmly, taking her arm and helping her to sit up. “Hang on there, catch your breath,” he instructed, but Caroline had no intention of staying in the dirt, or so close to Clara’s hooves, for any longer than she had to. She climbed shakily to her feet, coughing, her eyes streaming where grit had got into them. Her neck was jarred and one wrist badly over-bent where it had taken the weight of her fall. She was covered in dust from hair to hemline. She glared at Corin, furious with herself and crippled with embarrassment.
“Why, you look every bit as fierce as Inferno, when you fire up like that!” Hutch said, admiringly.
“And every bit as red, too,” Corin grinned.
“Don’t… laugh at me!” Caroline bit the words off, frustration and anger burning her up inside. She turned on her heel and stalked away toward the house, shaking with the shock of the fall, her legs jellied by the riding. She was more disappointed than she could bear-to have failed again, to have made herself a laughing stock.
“Ah, hell, Caroline! Come back! I wasn’t laughing at you!” She heard Corin call out behind her, but she squared her shoulders the best she could and kept walking.
Autumn arrived on the prairie with a string of vicious thunderstorms and pounding hailstones rent from blackened skies. Hutch came in from the range one evening and warmed himself by the stove as he reported the loss of three head of cattle, felled that day by a bolt of lightning that had struck the ground amidst the herd and thrown them into the air like confetti. Caroline paled at the tale, and Corin gave his foreman a censorious look that the poor man, his teeth chattering and his hands curled into scalded red claws, failed to notice. This glowering season was short, and soon the true winter began. Corin came in for dinner with his movements stiff and clumsy, and granules of sleet clinging to his eyebrows; but he always found a smile for his wife, declaring:
“There’s one hell of a blue norther blowing out there!”
Caroline, who would once have been shocked by such language, no longer was. Still, she frowned slightly, out of habit, and pulled her shawl tightly around her against the wave of cold air that entered with her husband. She, who never thought she would miss the summer’s heat, found herself longing for the sun.
They saw out the end of 1902 and welcomed in 1903 with a party at the Fosset’s farm, to which all of the nearby ranchers, their families and riders had been invited. The night was still and dry, the air hanging like a chill blanket, and on the buggy ride over, Caroline’s fingers, toes, her nose and the tips of her ears grew quite dead with cold. There was no moon, and the lantern on the buggy lit the prairie a scant few yards ahead. The dark all around was like a living thing, like solid flesh that watched. Caroline shivered, and huddled closer to Corin. Behind them, she could hear the hooves of the Massey riders following, keeping close as if they too felt pursued. When the Fosset place hove into view ahead, lights blazing out into the night, Caroline uttered a short, silent prayer of relief, and breathed a little easier.
There were fires burning about the yard, and meat smoking and spitting on the griddle, and a mass of people and horses all gathered into this oasis of light and life on the dead, dark plains. Corin’s arm was shaken, his shoulder clapped, and they were soon engulfed by the friendly crowd of their neighbors. An accordion, a fiddle and a drum struck up in the barn, and the heat given off by dancing bodies warmed it, filled it with the animal smell of breath and sweat. Angie’s children had made a painted banner out of a ragged old sheet, and it hung above the gate, reading happy new yere! and easing to and fro in the slow shifting air. Angie had two girls, aged twelve and eight, and a little boy aged four, who had his mother’s red hair and the bluest eyes anyone had ever seen. Even as she danced and laughed and talked, Angie kept one eye on this perfect, happy little lad, and when she saw Caroline admiring him, she called him over.
“Kyle, this here is our good neighbor Caroline Massey. Now, what do you say to her?” she whispered to the boy, swinging him up onto her hip.
“Please’ t’ meetya, Missus Massey,” Kyle mumbled shyly, around the fingers he was chewing.
“Oh, well I’m pleased to meet you too, Kyle Fosset,” Caroline smiled, taking the hand that wasn’t in his mouth and shaking it gently. Angie set him down and he darted away, ungainly on his short chubby legs. “Oh, Angie! He’s just the most beautiful child!” she exclaimed, and Angie beamed.