Chapter Twenty

"Don't get off your horses until I can help," Scott said as he swung his body down from his mount. "Watching you city-slickers walk funny after that ride is my entertainment."

"How long have you been riding?" Ken asked as Scott brought the step stool back over to his horse.

"Since I was old enough to walk." Scott held Ken's horse steady as Ken carefully dismounted. "How about you?"

"Same." Ken looked proud. It was a look I hadn't seen on him. He ran his hand along the side of his horse and then began to undo the saddle, using the animal's strong body to help hold him up as he worked the leather through the buckles.

Scott moved on to help the others dismount. Damien followed up Ken's question with one of his own. "Do you come from a family of farmers or something?"

"Ranchers. My ancestors bought and raised steer when they first came to America. I don't do much ranching anymore, but I have lots of my grandfather's stories." Scott smiled as he helped Damien off his horse and then he chuckled as Damien limped, his groin sore and his legs tight from clamping them around his horse's belly.

"Are there more groups coming today?" Shima asked. Scott helped steady her as she slipped from the saddle.

"One more. A small group of seniors." He smiled and looked over to the stable and I imagined he was already thinking about which horses he would assign to each member. I felt a pang of disappointment that our time there was done.

"Don't you get tired of being on a horse for so long?" Shima used a hair band from her pocket to tie her hair off her face.

"That wasn't long," he said with a soft laugh. "I actually do competitive riding."

"What's that?" she asked.

"There are races that challenge your endurance on horseback. Sometimes I'm on a horse for up to fifteen hours a day." He moved on to Aideen and carefully helped her from her saddle.

"Don't the horses get tired?" Shima ran her palm along the dark brown hide of the horse in front of her.

"Sure. You have to let them rest and make sure they're taken care of. Back when my great-great-grandfather was riding, he rode his horse across the country in just a few weeks." Scott stood next to Marco's horse, but didn't make a move to help him down. With a nod, Marco slid from the saddle and straightened up when his feet hit the packed dirt.

"What?" Marco asked as if he hadn't heard him correctly. "How did he ride a horse across the country? Weren't there roads and places horses weren't allowed?"

"Sure," Scott said with a nod. "He had to take a few detours, but back then the roads and cities weren't anything like the ones you live in now. There were farms and small towns, wide open spaces and kinder communities." He stepped aside and let Marco's horse past so he could get to the water. "He would work for a few hours at the farms he ran into to earn a little money or maybe to board for the night, then on nights when it was cool enough and he wasn't too tired, he'd ride in the evening. It would give his horse all day to rest."

"I can't even imagine that," Ken said as he lowered himself back into the wheelchair. "I bet your great-great-grandfather's body was tired and sore. I don't know how he had the strength to get back on that horse day after day."

"He was young," Scott answered. "Maybe only a year or two older than you. He wanted out of his small town and more opportunities than he could find there. Sometimes you outgrow the place you were born. It doesn't mean you don't respect it, or stop loving where you came from, it just means your dreams are bigger than the city limits. He had to leave so he could make his own way. Had he stayed there, he would never have known if he was unhappy because the town wanted a future for him that he didn't want for himself, or if it was really something inside his mind that didn't allow for any joy to come through."

Ken winced as he adjusted in the chair. The air around us was thick with heat now and the flies were back, buzzing ferociously around our heads. Maybe we smelled like our horses. Ken waved his hand to shoo them away. "Did he ever figure it out?" he asked.

Scott nodded, his hands resting on his hips as he watched the horses jostle for a position at the water trough. "He did. Turns out the Colorado sun and a large plot of land put him the exact distance away from his hometown that he needed in order to avoid hearing the negative voices on a daily basis, but still make it home for the holidays." He smiled. "I guess it didn't hurt that his new neighbor had a pretty daughter, either. And my great-great-grandma didn't have a need to run like he did."

"Colorado is a long way away from that house built into the mountain," Ken stated, looking back in the direction of Scott's home. "Did their story not have a happy ending? How come you're not raising horses somewhere in Colorado?"

If Scott thought the question was rude or too personal, he didn't show any sign of it. He followed Ken's gaze out to where his beautiful home was as he answered, "We have a running gene that we can't seem to squash. His oldest son left home when he was just sixteen, and my father ran at twenty-two." He looked back at Ken with a knowing grin. "I left at fifteen. I ran so far and so fast I almost ran my soul right out of my body. I didn't die, but it wasn't for lack of trying." The six of us stood almost frozen in place as he spoke honestly to Ken.

"I thought I needed to make everyone happy, but it was only making me miserable. At fifteen I thought there was only one way out of the small town I was slowly drowning in. I bought myself two bottles of cheap whiskey and climbed up to the top of the highest building with the plan to drink my weight in alcohol and then run just like the men before me. Only my run would be quick and short, one foot over the ledge and a mad race to the pavement below."

"What happened?" Ken asked.

"I didn't account for how quickly I'd get wasted and how far I'd sat away from the ledge. I made it close enough to pass out with my cheek on the spot I'd planned to stand. In the morning I woke up with a killer hangover, but from the top of that tall building and with the light of the morning sunrise, I counted seven roads out of town that stretched farther than I could trace with my eyes. That day I stopped running from myself and started running to a place where I could be whoever I wanted to be."

Ken nodded. "So you chose to be a cowboy?" He chuckled softly as if it was an interesting choice.

"Not right away, but eventually."

"For some reason I thought you would have been more solid with that answer. Like maybe you figured it all out that day and your life only got better." Ken's smile fell from his face as he finished his thought.

"I was fifteen. How old are you?" he asked.

"Seventeen."

"You're going to figure out who you are at least ten times before you get to my age. And I'm looking forward to figuring out who I am a few more times before I'm done. You can't learn and stay the same. You can't live and be the same person. Everyone you talk to, every place you see, it all changes you somehow. Tomorrow when I wake up, I will be a slightly different man than I am today."

"Why?" Ken asked. "How much can taking two groups out on the trail really change you?"

Scott shook his head as if he couldn't believe Ken didn't understand what was so easy for him to see. "Today I saw a seventeen-year-old boy with a broken leg climb onto the back of a horse. I watched him slip into that saddle as if he was born to do it, and then ride that horse better than I've seen any guest do it in years. Today I saw trust and perseverance. I watched the physical manifestation of determination as you did it completely by yourself.

"There will be a day when I'm not feeling well and I won't want to get on my horse, and I'll think of you. Or maybe one day my son will tell me he can't do something and I'll share with him the story of a boy who came to the ranch with a broken leg and climbed onto a horse anyway. Those experiences change people. You change people." Scott patted Ken's shoulder in the way men do and turned back to the rest of us. "Let's wash up so we can get you guys on the road to your campsite."

Gravel crunched beneath shoes as people began heading up to the house to wash their hands before climbing back into the motor home. Shima and I stayed behind and waited for Ken. He hadn't made a move to turn around and we didn't want to leave him there with the flies and the horses. I pulled the step stool up beside his chair and sat quietly. Shima found an old blanket thrown across some hay and sat down, too.

I didn't pay any attention to the tear that had slipped down his cheek or the way he sniffled to keep his emotions under control. I wouldn't ask him to talk to me or to tell me how he was feeling, I just wanted to share the space with him for a while. Shima was quiet as she stared out at the green grass beyond the stable. I envied the way she was able to seem at peace in the silence. When I was hurting, the worst part was the loneliness I felt. No one seemed to understand what depression was like, how you could be in a sea of people and still feel like you were so alone the pain was crippling. I wouldn't make Ken sit alone.

"There's a small part of me that wants to find out who I am." Ken spoke softly, not looking at us. "But there's a much bigger part that can't be bothered to care." His words were choked and his hand gripped the armrest as his eyes pinched shut. So much pain seemed to seep from him I couldn't help but feel it myself.

I couldn't find the words to comfort him and who was I, anyway, to give advice? Instead I just set my hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. It was the closest thing to a hug I could offer. His other hand moved up to his eyes and he pressed his fingertips into them as a few more tears fell. Finally I found the strength to speak, even though I wasn't sure my words would be of any help.

"If this is who you are," I said softly, my foot brushing the dirt around the bottom of the step stool, "I don't think it's all that urgent for you to rush out and make big changes."

"I agree," Shima added as Ken moved his fingers from his eyes and watched the movement of my foot drawing circles in the dirt. "Whatever you decide—big adventures of discovery, subdued acceptance of the here and now, or none of the above, I'm glad I met you."

Ken's lips tipped up for the briefest of seconds as he nodded, and my heart stung at the thought that maybe the broken boy beside me might decide to try to take his life again someday. As he swiped away the last tear from his cheek, I found myself hoping Dr. Crimm's treatment would ease some of the ache inside of him.