1
Maren
Summer – Age Thirteen
“I mean it Maren. If this horse of yours pulls another shoe, she’s gonna be forced to go barefoot.”
The late summer sun streaked down in hot, unrelenting waves. Maren could feel the sweat trickle along her backbone in a slithering trail, leaving her lower back damp and sticky. She pulled the nearby hose to her mouth to guzzle down the cold water that promised relief, and after dragging her hand across her lips, she dropped the hose back into the trough.
“It’s not her fault, Daddy. Grady and I switched horses and he rode her down Dead Man’s Gulch. Got her shoe caught in the rocks. Popped it right off. I warned him not to go that way, like I always do, but that boy never listens.”
Walt Friar’s spine straightened like a wire. He lowered Star’s hind hoof to the ground. “That so? This is Grady Cutter’s doing?”
Maren nodded, not wanting to get her friend in trouble, but hopeful to avoid punishment all the same.
Walt stroked his sharp jaw. His fingers were like sandpaper, chapped and split with roughened cracks where dirt collected permanently at the knuckles. Maren noticed how her mama never seemed to care, though. His hands always looked so gentle when they were touching Mama’s cheek.
“Round up Remy and ride on over to Cutter’s place. Tell him he has some work that needs tending to here.”
It wasn’t often that Maren got to ride her daddy’s prized sorrel gelding, so she jumped at the chance, even if she was riding his horse only because hers was currently missing a full set of shoes. Remy was the kind of horse that every cowboy wanted—dependable, sure-footed, and sound in body and mind. Maren loved that horse almost as much as she adored her sassy palomino beauty.
“Should I saddle him?”
“Don’t have time to tack him up,” her daddy muttered under a frustrated breath. He took a closer look at Star’s chipped hoof and the twisted shoe she’d sprung loose. “Just get over there quick so you can hurry on back. Dinner’s already on.”
Maren rode hard and fast to the Cutter ranch. Though it was technically next door, fifty acres was a sizable distance of ground to cover on horseback. Remy’s hooves pummeled the dirt below as Maren’s legs squeezed his sides to spur him into a gallop. Long, auburn strands of hair twisted out behind her like fluttering tails on a kite, the wind tugging at her tresses and stinging her cheeks. Eyes watering and squinted into slits, Maren caught sight of Grady at the edge of the fence, hunched over the barbed wire with leather gloves on his hands and faded, worn blue jeans on his hips. Pulling up on Remy’s reins, she slowed to a trot and sidled up to the property line.
“Hey!” she shouted, side-stepping over to the fence as she fought to catch her breath. Remy snorted hot and loud through flared nostrils. “You gotta come over and fix Star’s shoe. Daddy’s really not happy with you.”
Still looking down at the hole in the fence and avoiding Maren’s eyes, Grady tossed his head. “Not happy with me?” He swiped his hands back and forth on the dirty thighs of his pants. Though only thirteen, Grady was bigger than any of the other boys their age. He had wide, sturdy shoulders and a height that most grown men never achieved. He was a boy in mind, but a man in body, which sometimes made Maren uncomfortable. It probably made Grady uncomfortable, too.
He dragged his gloved fingers through his shaggy, wheat blond hair and shaded his brow with a hand, lifting his face to peer up at Maren. Sun highlighted his features. She’d never noticed before the way his mouth had changed, how his jaw had widened, looking almost chiseled from stone. She’d seen him a million times, yet lately Grady looked different each and every day, this startling evolution from boy to man a fast and furious shift.
This look he wore now, though? This particular look was his annoyed expression. This look she’d grown quite accustomed to.
“Did you tell him just how your mare pulled a shoe this time?” Grady asked.
“Some version of it.”
“I see.” Biting the frayed edges with his teeth, Grady tugged his gloves from his fingers and slapped the leather onto a splintered wooden fencepost. It seemed like an angry gesture, but Grady never got angry with Maren. Never truly, at least. His shoulders lifted with a huff of exasperation which was noticeably half laugh, half displeasure. “Your lies are gonna get me in real big trouble one of these days, Maren Friar. You know that?”
“At least today they’re only getting you in a little bit of trouble.”
Relenting with a sigh, Grady hoisted himself up and over the wired fence line, using the broken section to his advantage. “Scoot forward,” he instructed.
Maren’s mouth went dry.
“Come on.” He nudged her with a nod. “Scoot on up, Mare. Make room for me.”
Nope. They were not going to ride double. Maren wasn’t about to do that.
“Go get Levi.” She tipped her chin toward the Cutter’s big red barn which was still a great distance away, but where she figured his gelding was likely stalled. “I’ll meet you back at my place.”
“No way!” Grady wasn’t the sort to shout, his tone always consistent in volume and delivery, but the slight lift in his voice bore his frustration. “That horse sorted cattle all morning at the Toomey’s ranch and then went on a trail ride with you this afternoon. Levi’s done for the day—not a chance I’m gonna make him ride over to your place just so I can fix your mess.”
“It’s not entirely my mess,” she tried to protest, but it wasn’t worth it. They both knew it was a lie.
“Listen. I’m not about to get bucked off your daddy’s horse and that will happen unless you make room. Move up or get off and walk and I’ll ride him back to get things taken care of.”
Maren mulled over the available options until Grady decided for her and maneuvered closer to the horse. Reluctantly, she slid forward near Remy’s wither, shimmying up the horse’s spine as she pulled herself forward with fingers threaded through the thick mane. Grady used the craggy boulder near the gelding’s feet to boost himself up and over and Maren felt Remy reposition his stance underneath them to accommodate the additional weight.
“Gimme the reins.”
Grady’s body was flush against Maren’s back. Her heart leapt into her throat like a slingshot.
“Absolutely not.”
“Mare.” His voice—newly deep—gritted out her name. “Gimme the reins.”
“Listen, I will let you ride double but I will not—”
Before she could continue in protest, Grady commandeered the leather ropes from her hands and dug his heels firmly into Remy’s flanks. They began loping over the dry landscape, rutted out with tractor divots that left parallel grooves in the ground. The horse rocked steadily beneath them as sweat gathered in Maren’s palms and beaded on the ridge of her upper lip. She was grateful that the clomping of hooves was loud enough to drown out her shallow breathing. Never before had she sat so close to a boy. She felt Grady’s chest pressed to her back and felt his hot breath pant in her ear in time with Remy’s feet hitting the soil, the rhythmic gusts forced from his lungs. It made her legs numb, tingly, and weightless. She was fluttery and it was weird and exciting and awful all jumbled together.