Page 26 of Rolling Thunder

When Kayla got in bed that night, Abbey immediately vaulted in with her, tongue hanging out, delighted face asking if she could stay. With a sigh, Kayla patted the mattress next to her, and Abbey’s warm wriggling little body pressed in as close to her as she could with a contented sigh. Kayla stroked the dog’s soft ears and delighted in the simple pleasure. There had been so, so little innocence in her life, so few warm comforts that she could just enjoy without strings attached. Falling asleep in her grandmother’s house, hearing a horse snort or stomp out the window in the pasture, with a sweet dog curled up against her felt like a treasure. It made her want to fight all the more to hang on to it, savor it. Animals could be trusted, even if people couldn’t. They typically made their intentions abundantly clear and didn’t have the capacity to deceive. In this rare moment of calm, she drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep.

She bolted awake, heart thudding in her chest. She sat up straight in her bed, wide eyes panning the dark. She didn’t remember a nightmare. What had woken her?

A loud boom sounded, followed by a frantic pounding. It was the sound of hooves on the barn wall. Certain sounds she knew in her gut. This was one of them. She leaped out of bed, yanking on her boots on the way to the side door, and ran into the night. Slightly winded, she arrived at the stall of the horse in distress. It was a big black horse named Lurch that was in for training, worth a decent amount of money. She assessed the situation quickly. The horse was cast—he had lain down or rolled too close to the wall of his stall, and now his front legs were pinned, making it impossible for him to get himself back up. It was one of the dangers of keeping horses in barns, and it usually took two people to correct—especially for a horse this size. The solution was to put ropes around the horse’s trapped legs and flip him over by brute force so that he could put his front legs out in front of him to stand. He was a big horse, tightly wedged against the wall and she didn’t think she could flip him by herself. Eyes rimmed in white rolled back at her, but he didn’t thrash again, and that was a good sign.

“You’re all right, buddy,” she said, hoping her tone comforted the horse. “Stay calm. I have to get help.” She ran back out the barn door toward the broken-down fence between her and the other property. The campfire was low and the tent wasn’t the easiest to see in the dark, but she found it. She hesitantly unzipped the tent flap, feeling like she was violating Bill’s privacy by opening his tent without permission. He was sprawled out next to a small camping lantern with a book lying open on his chest.

“Bill!” she said. He jumped awake, confused. “I’m sorry to bust in on you like this, but I need your help. I got a cast horse.”

Canyon Bill had lived with a horsewoman long enough, on this very farm, to understand the urgency of the situation. His face focused as he shook off sleep and began to rally himself into shuffling out of the tent as fast as he could. “I’ll be in the barn,” she said, and turned to run back. She knew she could get there much faster than Bill.

She let herself into the stall, speaking soothingly to the horse. She dropped one thick lead rope by the door and took one with her. Moving slowly up to his head, before he could try to thrash again, she dropped, gently resting her knee on the horse’s cheek to keep his head down and began stroking the side of his face.

“Easy now. You’re all right,” she said as she looped her lead around the front leg nearest her. The horse tensed and tried to struggle, but she held his head down to prevent it and continued to talk to him until he relaxed.

At last, Bill appeared at the stall door. He grabbed his rope without having to be told and approached the horse’s hind end. It was the more dangerous rope to secure for sure, and she watched with apprehension as he skillfully slipped the rope between the horse’s hind legs and avoided a swipe from a kick as the horse reacted.

She eased off the horse’s head to get herself into position to pull.

“On three,” she said. Both of them readied for the big pull. “One, two…three!” She and Bill pulled with all their might, and Lurch momentarily flailed over on his back, all four legs in the air, before flipping completely over. As if choreographed, learned from years of practice, they simultaneously dropped their ropes and retreated from the stall to give the horse space to safely get to his feet. Lurch surged up and shook like a dog. Kayla gave him a moment to calm down and then put a halter and lead on him. She brought him out into the hallway and walked him around. She trotted him a few steps.

“He looks sound,” Bill said. Gram Kay had trusted Bill’s eye on a horse’s gait. Kayla did too. She went over him with her hands next, checking for any cuts he might have sustained while kicking the wall, but he seemed unharmed.

With a sigh of relief, Kayla put Lurch back in his stall with a fresh flake of hay. Exhausted, she murmured thanks to Bill, and they parted ways. She trudged back to the house, then kicked off her boots. Abbey blinked at her from the rumpled bed, and when Kayla climbed in, Abbey wriggled back against her. It was a small victory, a crisis averted. The feeling of a small accomplishment felt like a missing puzzle piece being fitted back into her battered, tattered soul.

The next morning, Kayla was roused from her much-needed sleep by the sound of Abbey happily chewing on something. She rolled over, squinting across the room. Her eyes snapped open to a pile of debris spread from one wall of the bedroom to the other, ending at the bathroom door, where the dog was lying contentedly, gnawing on the handle of Kayla’s plastic razor.

“What the hell are you doing?” she cried, half falling out of bed. The dog fixed her exaggeratedly large round eyes on Kayla—the classic “who, me?” expression. She scooted backward as Kayla approached and snatched the razor from her. Only the handle was chewed, not the sharp end, and she didn’t see any blood. “Don’t you have any better sense than to chew on a razor?” Kayla demanded. The dog hung her head slightly and peeked up at Kayla through white-rimmed, stricken eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake,” Kayla muttered, passing Abbey as she collected the contents of her bathroom trash can off the floor. The trail led her to the sink, where she discovered her toothbrush, half chewed and in a pile of unmentionable debris. If this was any indication, she was going to have a fantastic day.

The dog at least had the decency to follow at her heels into the kitchen looking shame-faced. She had one of those faces, just like a cartoon, and Kayla couldn’t stay mad at her. She poured herself a cup of coffee, and Abbey’s soft face pressed into her hand, nudging her. Kayla looked down and those crescent-moon, white-rimmed, “please love me” eyes looked up at her. Kayla obliged her by rubbing her head. She couldn’t not love her either. The warm feeling in her chest put there by the soft dog leaning against her leg gave her the fortitude to get dressed and see what needed to be done.

Kayla had totally missed out on any domestic training from her mother, but she could at least scramble eggs and brew coffee. She threw together a man-sized plate of eggs and toast and brought a steaming cup of coffee into the woods to Canyon Bill’s campsite. She knew he would be stirring early, and she knew her coffee was way better than instant on a campfire. She didn’t know when or what he ate.

“Thanks for your help last night,” she said, holding out the fresh coffee and food.

“Don’t mention it.” He took the offering and sat down on a repurposed tree stump. He gestured to another hunk of wood nearby. “Want to sit?”

She sat down. “You plan on staying awhile?” she asked, suddenly finding it necessary to clear her throat. He was eating the eggs with such gusto that a pang of regret sliced through her. Was he starving over here?

“You want me to go?”

She stared at him. She didn’t want him to go. He was the last semblance of family left living. Other than her mother, who, under the circumstances, didn’t count. Last night could have been a disaster if Kayla had been alone. She was so caught up in her own shit that it hadn’t even occurred to her until this moment how horrified Gram Kay would be at the thought of Canyon Bill living out in a tent on her farm. This property was as much his home as it had been hers during her childhood.

The sudden urge to help Canyon Bill was almost as strong as it had been to get Joey out of the auction barn. But she didn’t even know if Bill wanted to stay.

“I was just going to say…I mean…if you want, you could fix up Momma’s old place over there. If you want it.”

She thought she saw a smile in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure.

She didn’t hang around to hear his reply. What if he said that he’d be rolling out soon? “I better get the horses worked while it’s cool.” She walked off as quickly as she could, hoping for something, but not sure what.

CHAPTER 12

“Your dog needs therapy,”she said to Evan when she opened the door. His chuckle brought an unwelcome rush to her insides. He stepped in, taking up all the space in her kitchen.

“What did she do now?”

“She prefers razors and toothbrushes as chew toys. That’s just not normal.”

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