Saddlebags (7 page)

M
RS. ATWOOD WALKED
up to John and Lisa and put her hands on her hips. “So. I guess you two are on cleanup crew.”

Lisa could feel her face turning beet red. She couldn’t tell if her mother was angry, or embarrassed, or both. At that moment all Lisa wanted was for the ground to open beneath her feet and swallow her up.

“Uh, Mom,” squeaked Lisa, “could you take this stack of clean plates?”

Mrs. Atwood picked up a load of clean dishes. So did Lisa and John. As they headed back to the campsite,
Mrs. Atwood turned to John and said, “What’s your name again?”

Lisa stumbled over a root and fell down headfirst, scattering the tin plates everywhere.

Her mother helped her to her feet. “Let me just take these dishes back to the campsite, and I’ll come back and help you with the others.”

Lisa watched her go, then bent down to pick up the plates. As John leaned over to help her, they both started giggling. Pretty soon, Lisa and John were doubled over in giggles, and having trouble holding on to the plates they were picking up. Luckily, Mrs. Atwood didn’t come back to help out.

When they finally returned to the campsite, story time was just breaking up.

“Any dishes left for me to do?” asked Mrs. Atwood.

“No,” said Lisa, avoiding her mother’s eyes. “But there’ll be other chances tomorrow.”

She headed for her bedroll. John gave her a silent wave. And from under his shock of black bangs she thought she saw him flash a quick wink.

She laid out her bedroll between the sleeping bags of her two best friends. She opened it up and took out her toothbrush.

“Coming with me to the washhouse under the stars?” Stevie asked.

“Sure am,” said Lisa. They walked back to the creek to brush their teeth.

“You’ll never guess what happened,” said Lisa to Stevie under her breath.

“Does it have anything to do with your mom’s showing up at the creek?” Stevie asked.

Lisa nodded. “John was about to kiss me, when my mom walked up.”

Stevie gasped. “You must’ve been soooo embarrassed!” she said. “I remember once, when Phil had walked me home and was kissing me good-bye, Chad opened up the front door! I wanted to absolutely disappear right then and there!”

“Yup,” Lisa agreed. “I wanted the exact same thing. But instead, I scattered clean dishes all over the ground!”

“How dramatic!” Stevie said, and they both burst out laughing.

After they’d gone to check the horses one last time, The Saddle Club members headed back to their section of the campsite. They all used their old technique of putting tomorrow’s clean socks and underwear in the
bottom of their sleeping bags. That way, when morning came, they could change into their already warm clean clothes right inside their sleeping bags.

Stevie kissed her parents good night. “Do me a favor, Dad,” she said.

“What’s that, honey?”

“Please! No singing before breakfast!” Stevie gave him and her mother a hug and scooted back to The Saddle Club’s row of bedrolls.

Carole went over to say good night to her father. He was straightening out his bedroll, his ten-gallon hat still on his head.

“Are you going to sleep with that hat on?” Carole asked him.

“Not sure, not sure,” was his answer. “See you in the morning, hon.”

“Good night, Dad.”

“Night, Mom. Night, Dad,” said Lisa softly as she gave each of her parents a kiss.

Kate was already tucked in her bedroll when the other three girls came back.

“I thought we were going to have a quick meeting of The Saddle Club,” said Stevie, “to sort of wrap up the day.”

“Jaddadh wheep …,” Kate attempted to say.

Lisa grinned. “I think that translates into ‘Gotta sleep.’ And I for one second the motion.”

“Okay, okay,” Stevie agreed, and the four girls snuggled deep down in their bedrolls.

Lisa couldn’t believe how far they were from Willow Creek. She’d been on overnight trail rides back east, but they never felt like these cattle drives did. She looked up and started counting stars.

One, two, three … She listened to the cattle lowing in the near distance. She felt surrounded by huge, expansive warmth. The earth beneath her, the stars like a big high blanket, the hum of the hundreds of cattle in her ears. Nine, ten, eleven … By the time she’d counted the nineteenth star, she was fast asleep.

Carole drifted off too, leaving Stevie the only Saddle Clubber awake. Stevie leaned up on her elbow and watched the grown-ups get settled on the other side of the dimming campfire. She smiled and shook her head. It had been up and down, she thought, but her parents were starting to get the hang of things. Tomorrow was the drive—that might be a different story.

Stevie lay back down and snuggled into her sleeping bag. Just as she drifted off, she thought she heard a call
of some sort in the distance. Was it a coyote? Or just the wind? She couldn’t keep herself awake long enough to wait for it to come again. She didn’t hear the high, mournful sound when it pierced the silence again a moment later, nor did she hear the screeching answer of an eagle in the black distance.

L
ISA OPENED ONE
eye. The sky was a dark, rich blue, like cobalt-colored glass. An owl hooted softly in the distance. She closed her eyes, then opened them again. Now she remembered she was sleeping outside, in the middle of Colorado, under a big sky. The cattle drive was today.

She sat up and looked around. She could see Walter and a few of the parents already getting up and out of their sleeping bags and heading down to the creek. She quickly changed clothes in the warmth of her sleeping bag and got up. “Wake up, you cowgirls!” she said, nudging
her sleeping friends before heading down to the creek to wash up.

By the time the sun edged its way up from behind the acres of cows, the whole group was up.

Mr. Atwood eyed his breakfast—beef jerky—skeptically. Finally, he bit off a hunk and chewed. After he swallowed it, he cleared his throat and said to his wife, “Mmm. Honey, you should serve this stuff at home!”

Mrs. Atwood worked quietly on her own portion. “Kind of spicy,” she said between chews.

Mr. Lake laughed. “I thought you ate this junk only if you didn’t have a fire nearby. Sort of like K rations.”

Walter looked up from the coffee he was pouring out. “No point in bacon and eggs today—too much to do before the drive. Takes too big a fire.”

“Bigger than what you need for coffee?” Mr. Atwood said.

“Oh, come on, Richard,” said his wife. “You won’t starve.”

“Well, this is supposed to hold us—”

“Sure is tasty,” Colonel Hanson said. “First you eat ’em, then you drive a herd of ’em. Mmm.”

When Carole heard that, she practically choked on
hers. “I’ll never look at a cow the same way again,” she said to Kate.

“Well, wranglers,” said Walter, “it’s an authentic wrangler’s breakfast.”

“I’ll take a little more coffee to wash down all that local flavor,” said Mr. Lake, holding his mug out to Walter.

Lisa glanced away from the grown-ups. Their teasing was getting more than a little annoying. She heard Carole talking to her father about the topic on the way over to wash out coffee mugs, and she was glad Carole had picked up on their snooty tone too.

“What’s the deal, Dad?” said Carole. “Does it have to be bacon and eggs for you too, every morning?”

“No, honey. But don’t you think beef jerky is too authentic?”

Carole squinted at her father. “What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you think they’re humoring us dudes a little bit?”

“Well, beef jerky is quick, light to carry along, and convenient. And besides, what’s wrong with authenticity anyway? I mean, Dad, we couldn’t very well bring a cappuccino machine and muffin tins.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Just think of the pots and pans you’d have to wash,” Carole added.

“I love washing pots and pans!” said her father.

“Dad. The whole point is to ride well, pack light, make it easy on the horses—”

“Ah, yes, the horses,” he said.

“Stop teasing, it’s true.”

“Okay. But for a short cattle drive like this, does it really make a difference how
easy
we go on the horses?”

“Sure it does,” said Carole. “After all, you never know how hard they’re going to have to work once the drive gets under way. Or how hard
you’re
going to have to work, for that matter.”

“But, Carole, honey, come on. Don’t you think Walter and John could do this drive by themselves? Easily? To me it feels a little staged, that’s all.”

“I know, we felt that way on our first drive before it began. But we didn’t feel that way for long. After all, it’s real cattle we’re moving, over real range. And most important, it’s on—”

“I know,” her father said, and they both said “real horses” at the same time.

Carole knew she was taking things a bit too seriously,
but she was glad she’d said something to her father. The parents’ making fun of the food and drive had hurt her feelings a bit. And she was worried they’d hurt Walter and John too. Maybe once the cattle drive started, the Saddlebags would start taking things more seriously.

“W
HAT
’
S WRONG, MOM
?” Lisa asked. Her mother frowned as she drank her morning coffee.

“Oh, nothing, really.”

Lisa wasn’t convinced. “You haven’t smiled once since you got up.”

“Well, I didn’t sleep very well at all,” Mrs. Atwood admitted. “Must’ve been the hard ground.”

Lisa wasn’t so sure about her mother’s excuse. She thought the scowl might have more to do with Lisa’s friendship with John Brightstar than the hard ground. Then again, she thought, her mother was not the outdoorsy type. Maybe she was telling the truth.

John came walking up. “Morning, Lisa. Morning, Mrs. Atwood. How’d everyone sleep last night?”

“Not so well, thanks,” said Lisa’s mother. “I don’t feel rested at all. And this coffee hasn’t helped a bit.”

She took one more sip, then handed her empty coffee cup to John.

Lisa blinked. It was as if her mother thought he was a servant.

But John seemed to take it in stride. He took the cup and dumped it into the bucket of dirty dishes.

After finishing with her bedroll, Lisa gathered up the bucket of dirty dishes and headed down to the stream.

Her mother went with her. “I thought this was John’s job, honey.”

“We all pitch in,” she stated, struggling to hide her annoyance. “And since John’s with the horses right now, it’s our job.” She handed her mother a towel.

Her mother didn’t say another word.

Later, when they were all waiting to mount up, Lisa’s mother took her bedroll over to Spot.

“Lisa, dear,” she called. “Don’t you think John should’ve saddled our horses first, before getting his own horse ready?”

John had saddled Tex and tied his lead to a tree, then gone on to saddle up the other horses. Walter and Carole were helping, and it wasn’t taking too long.

“Oh, Mom, can’t you be a little more patient?” Lisa grumbled.

“It’s just that this bedroll is getting heavy,” said Mrs. Atwood.

“Well, put it on the ground, then!” This time Lisa didn’t even try to control her temper.

F
INALLY THEY BROKE
camp, put out the fire, and secured all bedrolls and equipment behind the saddles.

“May I have everyone’s attention for a minute?” Walter asked.

Everyone gathered around, like teammates listening to their coach before a game.

“Now, you must remember that every cattle drive
can
be challenging. You just never know. Don’t get lazy, or stop being alert, because that’s always the time things tend to go wrong.”

Colonel Hanson and Mr. Lake nodded politely.

“The less experienced riders,” Walter went on, “should make sure you stick with riders who’ve spent more time on horseback. Okay, everybody, let’s mount up.”

“I don’t see what could possibly go wrong,” Mr. Lake mumbled as he climbed aboard his horse.

Colonel Hanson shrugged. “Strategic maneuvers,” he said. “After you’ve herded humans all over the world, cows should be a piece of cake.”

Mr. Lake and the colonel started heading their horses
over to the herd. Walter trotted past them to take the lead, and the others followed behind.

They were off.

As the group approached, the herd started slowly walking away from the horses. Walter picked up the pace a bit, and the cattle followed suit, breaking into a loud chorus of moos as they walked faster and trotted along. Then Walter rode to the front of the herd, leaving the others to watch for strays along the sides.

Lisa and John rode together along one side of the lowing herd, and they both spotted a tiny baby calf that had stopped to sniff a bush. When the dogie looked up, his mother was long gone. He raised his little head and started bleating anxiously.

“Time to rescue this little fella,” said John as Tex broke into a lope. He rode up behind the calf to urge it along, and Lisa rode up alongside it to keep it from moving away from the herd. Together, with words of encouragement, they steered the dogie back to the herd, where his mother was now looking around anxiously for him. The cow and calf stopped so baby could nurse briefly. Lisa and John stayed close to them in case they got separated again.