After the Rain (4 page)

I tried to pull her in a circle but she only went halfway and then began nervously shifting backward. “Get down!” Jake’s tone was harsher than I had ever heard from him.

Elite sat back on her haunches slightly and pinned her ears back. I slid off the saddle, jumped down, and moved away quickly. Jake was already at her side, grabbing at the reins and pulling her toward the trees. He tied the horses up as I spread the tent out to begin setting up. I was freezing before but then it began snowing. My hands went numb as I fumbled with the tent anchors.

Spring storms were not totally uncommon, but this storm had a fervor and fury to it that I could tell frightened even Jake. The wind was fierce, whipping the tent about as I tried ineffectively to set it up. We weren’t prepared for such
a drastic temperature drop or for the several inches of snow. It felt like we were on the top of a mountain in a blizzard.

Jake jammed the last post into the ground and then turned to me. “Get in there, Lena.” He was out of breath.

“No, I’ll wait for you.”

He pulled me toward his chest. “I’m going to check on that calf and bring Pistol back. Just get in there. I’ll be back in a minute.” He touched his freezing lips to my mouth and pressed hard before untying Elite from the tree and jumping into the saddle.

Just as he passed me, one of the tent lines flew off the anchor, forcing the material to fly back and make a sound like a cracking whip. Elite reared right over me, and I saw as fear and panic swept over Jake’s face, almost as if the scene were playing in slow motion. Elite’s hooves fluttered just inches from my head. Stumbling back, I fell on my bottom and looked up to see Jake pulling Elite’s reins tight, forcing her from the reared position to fall backward, on top of him. He was trying to protect me. He had forced a thousand-pound animal to fall backward onto himself, crushing his body, allowing me to escape without a scratch.

“Jake!” I screamed so loudly that Elite immediately rolled over, got to her feet, and took off frantically. My husband, my cowboy, was lying there, nearly lifeless in the snow and the mud. I had seen Jake on a rearing horse and I knew he wouldn’t have pulled her back that way if I hadn’t been standing there.

I ran to him and dropped to my knees. His eyes were closed but he was moaning. “Jake, please, look at me.” For several minutes he stayed that way, moaning as blood began dripping from his nose. Panicking, I quickly secured the loose tent line to the anchor, grabbed him from under the
arms, and dragged his six-foot-two massive body into the tent. He moaned and made horrifying guttural sounds as I yanked him across the rough terrain. I had to get him out of the cold or he would die there. After making sure that the tent was stable, I covered him with the sleeping bags.

My mind was racing. What could I do, how could I help, how could I heal him?

I knelt beside him when he began to stir.

“Jake, say something. Are you okay?”

He looked up at me and there were tears in his eyes. “I can’t feel my legs.”

The air rushed from my lungs as if I had been punched in the stomach by a thousand fists. I was gutted and had no words. I could feel myself shaking my head back and forth slowly but I wasn’t making a conscious effort to do so. I was in a state of complete disbelief and shock.

“No,” I said finally, but the word rushing over my lips barely made a sound. Jake grimaced, clearly pained by the realization he saw on my face. “It can’t be,” I said. He nodded and then closed his eyes, pressing tears to the corners before a steady stream began running down his cheeks. That was the first time I ever saw Jake cry. Even then, he tried to turn his head away.

“No, Jake, I won’t believe it, I promise you, it will all be fine. Look at me.”

I turned his head to face me but he wouldn’t look. “Open your eyes and look at me,” I sobbed, then my own tears began dropping into his hair.

God wouldn’t do this to me
, I thought. I tried to convince myself that no God would let this kind of tragedy happen to two people so in love with such a long, hopeful future in front of them. But of course, I knew that wasn’t true. I knew
that kind of pain and sadness; I was familiar with it and I knew it didn’t discriminate.

I spent that night holding him, counting his breaths and praying. We were a day’s ride away. We had a cell phone but no service in the valley. In the morning he fell in and out of consciousness as I prepared for the ride back. The weather had calmed but it was still snowing and very cold. I was terrified and every time I looked down at him lying there, the sinking feeling I had in my stomach would fall deeper. During one of his more lucid moments, he mumbled something to me as I sat next to him to put my boots on. I bent close to his face. “Tape your feet,” he said in a low voice, barely audible.

I shook my head up and down quickly and then rifled through his bag until I found a roll of duct tape. I ran the tape over my socks and then taped the outside of my lace-ups.

“Good girl,” he whispered to me.

I grabbed my pack and leaned over to kiss him. When he moved an arm up to touch my face, he winced and sucked air through his teeth. “Don’t move, I’ll be back soon.” I could taste the iron tanginess of blood when I kissed him.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too.” Tears flooded my eyes and dropped onto his face where they mixed with his. “Jake, you’re going to be fine, I promise,” I said slowly, as I took deep, deliberate breaths.

My heart was heavy and thudding along painfully as I watched his expression turn bleak. He swallowed and shook his head. “Get yourself to safety, don’t worry about me. Don’t come back for me. I’m no good,” he said, and then he lost consciousness. I fell apart, sobbing over his chest for several minutes before I could force myself to stand.

Crying hysterically, I stumbled out of the tent and discovered that Bonnie was gone. I fell to my knees again, cursing God and my middle namesake. Both horses were gone. I had no choice but to walk and hope that Redman and Dale would come looking for us. I had little faith that Jake and I would survive.

For the first time in his life, Pistol came up and licked my face, whimpered, and nuzzled his nose into my arm.

“Let’s go, boy.”

I headed back through the familiar snow-covered landscape I had traveled many times before. In parts where the vegetation was dense, the snow had already melted, creating thick, slushy mud. There was water sloshing in my boots, making my feet go numb. I fell several times by midday. On horseback, even at a slow pace, I would have covered twice as much ground.

Pausing near a tree, I hunkered down and called Pistol to me. I tucked him into my chest and tried to use his warmth to heat my body. I dozed off for a minute and dreamt of my horse Dancer coming to me. I woke with a start and realized the weather was getting bad again. To stay warm enough to survive, I would have to keep moving. I got up, whistled, and called out, hoping that Bonnie or Elite would turn up to take me home. As I trudged on against the storm, I kept my head down, trying to shield myself from the snow. At one point the wind was so strong that the snow looked like it was coming toward me, not down on me.

Every time I wondered if Jake was still breathing, my heart sank so low in my chest that it physically hurt. I tried to stay focused on getting back to the ranch. In the evening, the snow stopped falling long enough for me to make a shelter with branches and leaves, but it didn’t last long.
Everything was saturated with snow, so I found a large rock and lay across it. Pistol jumped up and curled into me. We stayed like that, curled in a ball for hours until I had the strength to move again.

Before light filled the sky I was walking out of the valley, delirious, hungry, thirsty, and hopeless. “Dancer,” I whispered over and over. After hours of wishing, she came to me, as if in a dream. She walked out of the foggy haze, her striking white mane flapping against her neck. “Dancer,” I called, and she came trotting through the snow.

It was the first time in my life I truly surrendered. Dancer could have been a dream or an illusion, but at that point nothing mattered anymore except for my next breath. My body was numb and my eyes burned. Swinging my leg over her bare back, I gripped her firmly, taking a handful of her mane near her ears with one hand and a handful near her neck with the other. I bent low and close to her body and squeezed my legs as tight as I could. “Go home,” I said, and she took off, dancing in a full gallop across the open plain.

When she slowed, she was laboring heavily and foaming at the mouth. Pistol was still following us. We had one large plain to cross and then we would be near a road that led to the ranch.

I dozed off and only came to when I heard Redman shouting at Bea, “Call an ambulance!”

Draped over Dancer’s back, I kept my eyes closed, finally feeling safe after hearing the familiar voices. I let my mind wander to the days when I met Redman and Bea. They made Jake and me feel like we were part of a family again. Redman’s face was handsome, weathered as it was, and his voice was deep and rich. I imagined the younger version of himself as the Sundance Kid. Bea, a skinny, feisty woman, would
have made the perfect Etta Place in her day. Now her hair was completely gray, always carefully pinned into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and she never wore makeup. Like Redman’s, her face was covered in deep lines from many years of working outdoors. Redman’s hair still had some hint of ruddy color streaking through the gray but his eyes were a dull blue, which sometimes happens when the color fades with age, making even the brightest eyes look lifeless over time. He was an intelligent man and a skilled horseman, and he was compassionate and funny around the people he knew well, but he had a short fuse. Bea took a lot of crap from him, so occasionally she would give it right back.

“Jesus Christ, Red, why did you let these kids go alone?” she yelled as she pulled me down from Dancer’s back. I collapsed into her and spoke with the very little breath I had left.

“Jake is . . . hurt . . . bad. Three hours . . . east of the pasture. He needs . . . help,” I managed to let out. That was my last memory before waking up in a hospital room.

I woke to the sound of beeping from a monitor above me. I was alive. It wasn’t a dream. I turned my aching body and pressed a button to call a nurse. After what felt like an hour, a nurse finally came in and shut off the monitor alarm.

“You were just tangled up, sweetie. How are you feeling?”

“Where is my husband? Where are Redman and Bea and Dale and Trish?” The nurse smiled, looking pleased at my alertness.

Before she could answer, I heard Trish’s thick Texas accent echoing from the hall. “Oh, she’s awake?” She came running in, followed by Dale and Bea.

Trish wore her hair big, blond, and curly as she had in her rodeo-queen days. “Oh, Avelina, you’re awake, it’s so good to see those big brown eyes staring back at me.” Her hair bounced on the tops of her shoulders.

There was pity on all three of their faces. My eyes welled up. “Jake?” was all I could squeak out.

Dale’s entire face looked forlorn, and it looked like he had aged since I had last seen him. Dale was more handsome than most men you might come across in Montana. He had an air of sophistication about him. His dark brown hair was straight and always neatly combed, matching the eyebrows that framed his light green eyes. But that day there was no glimmer in his expression like there usually was.

Bea stepped up with an obligatory smile. “Jake is down the hall. Redman is with him.”

“That’s not what I want to know, Bea.” My voice was high, loud, and demanding.

“Don’t sass me, girl,” she shot back.

I started crying and then sobbing. “What is it, Dale? You’ll tell me, won’t you?”

He was at a loss for words. I ripped my I.V. out. Holding my hospital gown closed in the back, I scurried toward the door. Trish stopped me from heading out into the hallway. She had a wrinkled upper lip that drew the pink color from her lipstick into the tiny lines above her mouth, which were only visible when you were standing about five inches from her face. The result of so many years of smoking, I assumed.

She frowned. “Thank Jesus, Jake is alive, honey. He was awake earlier today, talking to all of us.”

“Then why are you frowning?”

She huffed and swallowed audibly, trying to fight back
tears. With her hands gripping the outsides of my shoulders, she looked me right in the eyes and said, “He broke his neck, baby. He’ll never walk again.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could disappear. I knew Jake would not be the kind of man to take that news easily. Terrified to see him, I shuffled into the hallway and followed Trish to his room. His eyes were open and he was staring at the ceiling from his hospital bed when I walked in.

Redman rushed past me on his way toward the door. “Glad to see you up and about. He’s all yours.”

I grabbed Redman’s arm and pulled him around. “Why was Dancer out there?” I said, staring intensely into his cloudy blue eyes.

He squinted and then shook his head. “I don’t know. We were packing the horses to head out and noticed that her stall was open and she was gone. A few minutes later she was coming toward the house with you draped over her. All that matters is that you’re both here with us.” He bent, kissed my cheek, and left the room.