Another Kind of Cowboy (6 page)

SEPTEMBER 12

THREE DAYS LATER
Alex rode down a long driveway shaded by towering fir trees and lined with sword ferns and waxy salal bushes. The forest opened out onto a field and the sky reappeared over the winding gravel road, which wound down to meet a lake.

Turnip walked briskly, and his head swung from side to side as he took in the unfamiliar sights. He had an old gelding's well-honed sense of self-preservation and was not one to get excited unnecessarily. When a big bay horse galloped up to the fence and snorted a challenge, Turnip gave it a sidelong glance of cautious disapproval and moved on. As always, Alex felt proud of his horse's steadiness and solid common sense. He gave the old paint a
pat on his neck.

Alex was still in shock at the warm, friendly greeting the man had given him when he finally gathered the courage to call the number on the card. The man, who said his name was Fergus, had promptly invited him to come for a lesson.

“I, uh, don't have a horse trailer,” said Alex, feeling like the whole thing was too good to be true.

“And where do you live, lad?”

Alex explained and Fergus laughed. “I think you're in luck. We're not too far from you.” He gave Alex the name of the road and Alex realized it was only about a fifteen-minute ride from his place.

“Think you can make it that far?” asked Fergus.

“Oh, yes. Definitely.”

Now that he was on his way to his first dressage lesson he could hardly believe it.
It's like heaven here
, Alex thought, eyeing the house and outbuildings and the lake beyond. Motion in an outdoor ring caught his eye.

It was a horse and rider at the end of a lunge line. The bald man from the store stood in the middle of the circle holding the line, which was clipped to the horse's bridle, and a long whip that he wiggled to tell the horse to go forward.

Alex was familiar with lunging. Meredith had kept him on the end of a lunge line when he was learning how to ride. Alex remembered that riding in a circle on the end of a lunge line while someone else controlled the horse made it easier to focus on his seat and position. He'd lunged Meredith's horses, riderless, to exercise them and warm them up. But he'd never seen an experienced rider on the end of a lunge line and the girl in the ring obviously knew how to ride. She wasn't using reins or stirrups and was basically maintaining her position. That couldn't be easy—Alex could see that every stride the horse took was basically jet-propelled.

“Relax your hips,” said the man.

As she got closer, Alex could see air between the girl's seat and her saddle. A whisper of nerves prickled across his neck.
What if he was terrible at dressage?
If this girl, who obviously had all the advantages money could buy, was having trouble with her riding, what would happen to him? He'd hardly even been in an English saddle before.
What if Meredith was wrong? What if he had no talent?
He wished Meredith had been able to come with him for his first lesson, but she was busy packing.

“Walk,” said Fergus. The girl began to tip forward.

“Sit back! Shoulders open.”

“Shit!” said the girl, and Alex suppressed a gasp. Meredith would have killed him if he swore during a lesson.

When the big mare finally slowed to walk, the girl slumped over in her saddle.

“God,” she said. “I totally need a chiropractor.”

“What you are going to need is an attitude adjustment before Ivan gets his hands on you,” said the man. Then he noticed Alex and Turnip.

“Hello, dear boy!” he called.

Dear boy.
The man had called him
dear boy
! Alex felt his smile widen.

“So you've found yourself some English tack.”

Alex nodded. Meredith had lent him an old close-contact saddle and helped him cobble together an English bridle from bits and pieces she had lying around. The new mismatched English gear didn't suit Turnip particularly well. In fact, Alex found himself very aware of the stark contrast between Turnip and the horse in the ring. It wasn't just a matter of height—the two horses could have been different species entirely. Alex mentally apologized to Turnip for his disloyal moment.

“Wonderful. We're going to have a lot of fun. Isn't
that right, Cleo, love?” said Fergus.

Cleo slumped over on her horse, lolling her head theatrically. “I guess that depends on how you define fun.” In that moment, Alex recognized her as the dressage rider, the girl he'd seen at the fall fling.

“Okay, you can get off now. I think you've had enough for one day.”

“Thank God,” said the girl, displaying all the energy and grace of a wet dishrag as she slid off the tall mare.

“Another beautiful dismount, Miss Cleo,” said Fergus, still not showing any sign of actual irritation. “Now remember, when you finish untacking Tandava and cooling her out, you're to clean all her tack and then you've got her stall to clean.”

The girl, who was petite and had delicate, almost sharp features under her black riding helmet, rolled her eyes.

“Please tell me you're kidding,” she said. “I'm paying full board. What's with all the work?”

“Your parents are paying, darling. Big difference. Students at Limestone work. It's part of the dressage lifestyle.”

“No wonder I'm your only student,” grumbled the girl.

“It's only been a few days, my dear. We've barely gotten started with you. And this young man here may be our second student. I don't want you scaring him off.”

Alex wasn't scared. He was intimidated, but so excited he would have whipped off his shirt and started scouring the barn floor with it if asked.

“Good luck,” said the girl to Alex as she drooped her way out of the ring. He could tell she didn't recognize him from the horse show and he was relieved.

“Come on in,” said Fergus. Alex jumped off Turnip and led him in.

“So who is this fine gentleman?” asked Fergus, walking around Alex's horse.

Alex felt a twinge of embarrassment. “His name is, uh, Turnip, Colonel Turnipseed.”

He pushed away his desire to make excuses for his horse. Turnip might not be the fanciest horse around, but he was definitely the smartest and bravest. And the most patient.

“Let's have a look at you ride, shall we?”

Alex swung easily back onto the old paint and began to move him around the arena at a walk, then a more ground-covering trot, which kept slowing to a Western jog. He had to remind himself to post rather
than sit. The stirrups were too short and the little saddle felt odd. Alex barely touched Turnip's sides, and the horse broke into the ultraslow lope that is the hallmark of a good Western pleasure horse.

“Okay, Alex, bring him back to a walk and come in here a second,” directed Fergus.

Alex slowed Turnip and turned him to the center of the ring so he faced the small man.

Fergus gently patted Turnip's neck with a flat hand. “Well, he's just a love, isn't he?”

Alex nodded, relieved the man wasn't making fun.

“He's got quite good balance and a good mind. I can see that right off. Not a big mover, of course, and you aren't that familiar with the English tack. But I'm sure we can do something for you and your root vegetable. First, however, we're going to have to rustle you up a dressage saddle. This one has you tipping forward like a jockey.”

Alex tried to contain his huge smile. He nodded quickly again and looked down at his horse's mane instead of giving away his ridiculous, outsized happiness.

SEPTEMBER 26

AS HE WAS
struggling out of his track pants by the side of the road, Alex reflected that two weeks of dressage training had turned him into a master of disguise as well as a liar. Well, not a liar, exactly; he was really more of an omitter. He didn't need to tell everyone his personal business, even though lately it seemed that everyone was interested.

To pay for his lessons, he'd worked out an arrangement with Fergus in which he cleaned stalls and helped out around the farm, fixing fences, driving the tractor to harrow the ring, and picking out paddocks. He was at the barn every day after school and most of Saturday and Sunday, but he still hadn't quite gotten around to telling his father that he'd
switched from Western to English.

“So, who you going to train with now that Merry's gone? She was a damn fine little horsewoman, that one. It'll be tough to replace her,” his father had commented last night.

Alex had mumbled some vague reply about taking lessons at a place down the road.

“They do reining there? Because I think that's the natural progression for you. You've shown you can do that slower-type stuff. It's time to work on your speed. I was talking to Rudy Chapman down at the Wheat Sheaf, and he said…”

Alex tuned out. Rudy Chapman was a man who specialized in rough-handling problem horses. If you wanted the spirit knocked out of your horse, Rudy Chapman was your guy. If you wanted somebody to drink with while talking trash about horses, he was also your guy. If Alex's pants were on fire, he wouldn't have taken Rudy Chapman's advice on where to find a water hose.

Alex wasn't one to confront issues head-on. That's why he didn't argue with his dad or tell him the truth. Instead he kept his English tack at Limestone, telling Fergus he felt safer riding over in his Western gear. He left his house wearing baggy track pants over his
breeches, the same track pants he was now struggling to get off. Twice today he'd been caught by passing cars as he hopped around on one leg by the side of the road before the turn-off to the barn. The elderly female driver of the first car, obviously afraid to see what he was doing with his pants half down, sped up after giving him an alarmed glance. The young aboriginal guy driving the second vehicle had grinned widely, and given him the thumbs-up.

He had one leg free and was working on the other when he heard another car approach.
Damn
. He crouched closer to Turnip, who stood solidly in place. The car, which sounded mechanically suspect and familiar, slowed as it got closer. Alex stayed very still, his half-removed sweatpants lying in the dust as he hid behind his horse at the side of the road.

“Alex?” came his aunt Grace's voice.

Alex swore silently under his breath and peered out past Turnip's shoulder. The gelding gently lipped at his hair.

“Do you mind telling me what the hell you're doing?” Grace's hair was extralarge today, and boldly highlighted. She looked right at home in the car—an IROC with a damaged muffler and a fat white racing stripe running up the middle of the hood—that Alex's
dad had from before he was married. Grace drove it around the neighborhood to her home hairdressing visits. It was, Alex thought, the ultimate white-trash vehicle.

“Nothing. Getting changed.”

“Into what? Your Superman cape?”

Alex sighed and straightened.

“Those are quite the pants you've got on there,” Grace said, noticing his breeches as he pulled off the other leg of his track pants.

“They're for riding,” he said.

“If you say so. Anyway, I'm off to do Nancy Ferguson's hair. She broke her leg at the curling club dance, so she's not getting around much.”

Grace revved the engine a couple of times. “Please don't take off any more clothes by the side of the road. You never know who's going to stop. Oh, and don't worry. I won't mention this to anyone.” Then she jammed the car into gear and roared off.

Alex breathed a deep sigh of relief. Grace understood the need to be discreet. Alex knew his father was eventually going to find out he'd switched to dressage, but there was no need to rush.

Mr. Ford had definite ideas about the merits of Western versus English riding. He referred to
Western as “real riding.” Traditional Western mounts, such as quarter horses and paints and mustangs, were “real horses.” English was “fancy riding” done by “sissy riders” with “useless horses.”

Mr. Ford was also a big believer in the power of the cowboy hat. He often said that any man could succeed with the ladies if he had the right ten-gallon. Alex politely refrained from mentioning the right ten-gallon could probably get a guy quite a few other guys as well.

When Alex and his sisters found their father passed out in his lawn chair outside his RV, they all pitched in to get him to bed, but rarely spoke about it afterward, other than to make veiled references to it.

“Keep an eye on the lawn chair,” Grace would tell Alex before she went out if it looked like his father might not make it up the stairs.

Alex and the twins almost never brought friends home, in case the “lawn chair” was having a bad night. But loyalty mixed with shame kept them from confronting their father about his drinking or anything else. The atmosphere around his house was thick with secrets kept at bay with jokes.

Alex's
tendencies
, as he had come to think of cer
tain feelings, were another family secret. He wondered if his aunt and sisters knew or at least suspected about him. He still had a faint hope that his desires would cooperate, or at the very least that he could keep them under wraps until he was out of high school. Alex didn't exactly deny who he was. He just tried to ignore it in the hopes that it might die of oxygen deprivation.

The few openly gay guys he'd met, mostly his aunt's friends, seemed to him to belong more to the girl world, the world of hair and clothes and makeup. Alex's heart was in the world of men—mighty steeds and fireman hats—the land of cowboys. That didn't mean, however, that he wanted to
be
a cowboy. What Alex wanted, more than anything, was to be like everybody else.

He wasn't certain what to make of his new coaches, two men who apparently lived together. His solution, as usual, was not to think about it.

Ever since he was little, his interest in things male had been, well, exclusive, but he still told himself that he might develop a desire for or interest in girls. When he was being honest with himself he knew that since “it” was as deep in him as his heart, he wouldn't.

Everyone seemed to understand the situation, at least on some level. Everyone, that is, except Cleo O'Shea, who was still the only other student at Limestone Farm. Cleo made him nervous, so he was constantly flustered around her. For some reason, she interpreted this as some kind of pathetic attempt at flirtation on his part.

At first Alex had been intrigued by Cleo. She was the first truly wealthy person he'd ever met. He'd always assumed that someone who'd grown up wealthy would be cultured and sophisticated. Instead Cleo was profoundly shallow and spoiled in a way he'd never seen outside of television. She not only
looked
thirteen, she acted it.

Cleo O'Shea was quickly becoming the one thing he didn't like about dressage lessons. She was always
talking
to him—talking
at
him. Telling him private things about herself. She came early and watched his lessons and followed him around as he worked, talking the entire time. Talking, talking, talking. But never, ever working. She talked more than both his sisters and his aunt put together, and incredibly, she worked even less.

That voice of hers was like a squeaky windshield wiper.

“Are you hanging out with anyone special, Alex?”

He'd evaded her questions, but later the same day as his aunt caught him changing by the side of the road Cleo tried a new tactic.

As Alex switched Turnip's tack back from English to Western for the ride home after his lesson, Cleo came and stood in the doorway of the barn.

“Oh, hi, Alex. You heading out now?”

He muttered something unintelligible as he tightened the girth. Cleo fidgeted, shifting her weight from foot to foot, and picked at her riding gloves.

“Mrs. Mudd isn't here yet to drive me back to school. So I'm just waiting around. Anyway, I was thinking maybe we could hang out this weekend.”

Was this lunatic female asking him out?

“Maybe we could go to a movie or something,” she continued.

Excuses flapped through his mind. Sick…aunt visiting…terminally ill…don't date…don't date girls…

It was time to bring out the big guns. He should have done it sooner. Time to unleash his Secret Imaginary Girlfriend, also known as the Certain Special Someone.

“Well, I might be seeing my, uh, girlfriend. The
one I'm, you know, dating.”

Alex used a white-haired girl he'd met at Pentecostal Bible camp as the model for his Secret Imaginary Girlfriend. All he remembered about her is that she'd smelled of wet bathing suit and of the LePage's glue she consumed in large quantities, and he'd envied her terribly because at home she had an Appaloosa named Spot.

“You have a
girlfriend
?” asked Cleo.

He nodded quickly. “Yeah. She's got an Appaloosa. Its name is Spot. You know, because it's an Appaloosa.”

No need to mention that he hadn't seen or spoken to his white-haired, glue-smelling girlfriend since he was eleven.

Cleo considered this for a moment, her face pensive. Then she said, “Well, that's okay.”

Alex couldn't believe it.
Was she a sociopath? How dare she bulldoze her way past the Secret Imaginary Girlfriend! The nerve!
He searched his mind for more excuses.

“I've got this family thing, too. So I'm pretty booked,” he added.

Cleo looked disappointed again, but not disappointed enough. Alex could tell from her expression
that she wasn't going to be deterred by a fictional family thing or by a Secret Imaginary Girlfriend. There had to be something he could do to get her to back off. The barn was his refuge and he planned to keep it that way.