For
Brenda, the feeing of suddenly being "alone", out in the wilderness, as
she thought of it, also brought a mixture of other feelings. Bob
was there, of course, but he was riding ahead of her, and not
talking. He'd said they had to cover ten miles before
they'd reach a suitable camping spot, and at this pace, that would take
hours and hours. She was impatient to see something ... get
somewhere ... BE a camper. At the same time, the gentle
swaying of the horse was comforting, and the absence of all sound, save
the clopping of eight hooves, made her feel like she was already a
thousand miles from civilization. At least Buttercup didn't seem
to be interested in stopping all the time. She walked more
quickly than the horse in the picture back home, too.
Suddenly,
Bob was right beside her. She hadn't seen him do anything ...
hadn't heard him give any command to his horse, but he was suddenly
there, close enough to reach out and touch. His horse, and
hers, nodded at each other and rubbed noses as they walked.
"Running
a horse is very different than walking," said Bob. "Your legs
have to get involved, flexing at the knees, so you can moderate the
weight of your butt on the saddle. Otherwise it will beat
you to death. Have you ever cantered or galloped before?"
Brenda
looked at him with wide eyes. "I guess not," she said. "I
just thought you sat there while the horse did whatever he does."
"Hold
on to the saddle horn with both hands," said Bob. He made a
clucking sound, and his horse jumped forward, moving into a trot.
Buttercup followed instantly.
Without
warning, Brenda was suddenly bouncing around like she was in an
earthquake. She had automatically reached for the horn, at his
comment, and gripped it frantically as she felt like she was being
tossed three feet into the air. One foot came out of the stirrup,
and she wailed, knowing she was going to fall.
"Whoa," said Bob, and both horses slowed to a walk again. They had only gone thirty feet.
He looked at her, without smiling.
"See what I mean?"
"Ow," she said, leaning to rub at her bottom.
He
explained what she had to do with her knees and thighs, and they tried
it again. She thought she would be beaten to death, at
first, but seeing him watching her made her ... a little angry, maybe
... and she concentrated on her legs. It took another
thirty seconds or so before she found the rhythm, and her violent
jounces settled into rapid bumps. She was still hitting the
saddle hard, and her butt hurt. She realized in an instant that,
if they kept this up, she wouldn't be able to ride more than a mile or
two before it would hurt too much to sit.
He slowed them to a walk again.
"Now,
a gallop is completely different," he said conversationally.
"You'll learn to use your abdominal muscles then. It's a
different rhythm. Even though the horse is going faster, you're
body's reaction to the movement will be slower. We'll only go a
short way, and this time, I want you to NOT hold on to the horn.
You'll find your arms help with balance. Don't pull at the
reins, though. Buttercup stops on a dime, and if you aren't
ready, you'll fly right over her head. When you're ready to stop,
just lean back and tug them enough to let her feel it. DON'T jerk
them!"
This
time he asked her if she was ready and, when she nodded nervously, he
gave a "Heayah" kind of sound. Buttercup launched ahead
like a rocket, and by the time Brenda had let out the breath she had
been unconsciously holding, and took another, she felt like she was
flying.
This
rhythm she caught onto instantly, leaning forward a bit, and flexing
her knees. The horse's back seemed to rise and fall almost
gently, and she had no trouble keeping her butt on the saddle.
She felt her gut tighten and loosen, as her upper body seemed to stay
at the same place, relative to the ground, while the horse, and her
lower body, dropped and rose in a measured beat.
This ... was glorious.
She
heard a high pitched scream, and realized it was her own voice that had
made it ... a scream of delight as the ground flashed by beneath
her. She looked ahead, and then to her left, where Bob was flying
beside her on his big, black horse. He was grinning, and she
realized her lips were stretched wide in the same way.
It seemed to go on forever ... and yet all too soon he yelled at her to lean back. "GENTLY!" he called.
Feeling
like she was glued to the horse, she leaned back and tugged gently on
the reins. Buttercup dropped into a canter immediately, and
suddenly she was bouncing all over the place again.
"WHOA!" she called, and tugged harder.
Only
the fact that she wrapped her arms around Buttercup's neck, and the
saddle horn, digging painfully into her gut, stopped her from flying
forward as Buttercup skidded to a halt. The horse tossed her
head, and looked backwards, as if to say "What?"
Bob had gone on ahead, and turned his horse to come back.
"You OK?" he asked.
She sat up, panting. "This is a lot harder than I thought it would be."
"Takes years to get really good at it," said Bob.
"I
don't have years. I'm going to have to learn a lot faster than
that," she said grimly. Then she smiled. "I like
galloping."
He
smiled. "Everybody likes galloping. It's hard on the horse
if you do it too long, though. They can keep a canter going
all day long."
"Of course they can," sighed Brenda. "The one thing I can't do, a horse can do forever."
"You'll
get the hang of it," said Bob. That's how to cover a lot of
ground." He looked at her. "That IS what you want to do ...
right?"
He
was giving her a chance to back out of this, and she knew it. She
was stubborn, though. "I'll get the hang of it," she said firmly.
He
kept them at a canter. It took another half hour, and her butt
was so sore that she wasn't at all sure she'd be able to do this, when,
suddenly, the bouncing just stopped. She looked around in
confusion, but the horse was still moving along at a trot. Her
head was still moving up and down, but it wasn't the jarring bump that
it had been for what seemed like hours. To her chagrin, as soon
as she recognized that, the bumping started again. It took her
another ten minutes to get the rhythm back in a way that she could
recognize how to do it consistently.
"You
need to stop?" called Bob. He'd been riding ahead of her, picking
the path, while Buttercup just followed the stallion.
"Yes," she called out, "but not yet. I just figured out how to do this without killing myself."
She
watched as the big man turned in his saddle, his rhythm unbroken, and
watched her for half a minute while his horse went on ahead without any
direction that she could see. She watched in amazement as Ranger
dodged to one side to avoid a boulder, and Bob's body compensated for
the movement he couldn't possibly have seen coming. When
Buttercup did the same thing, she was just as amazed to feel her own
body sway in the saddle, leaning automatically so she kept her place.
"You're a quick learner!" he called back, grinning.
"My butt's killing me!" she yelled back.
"We could stop for a snack," he yelled.
"Just a little farther," she shouted, leaning forward just a tad and feeling how that took the strain off her legs.
He
led them on for ten more minutes, and pulled up beside a copse of
trees. He dismounted with a fluid grace she tried to emulate, but
failed miserably at. Her legs felt like they were made of rubber,
and her butt cheeks felt like they were on fire. Even the insides
of her thighs felt raw. She hobbled, walking bowlegged, to lead
Buttercup next to Ranger.
"I
have something for the pain," said Bob, dropping Ranger's reins to the
ground. "Let her reins hang loose like that," he instructed the
girl.
He got into his saddle bags and pulled out a mason jar that had a thick, pasty brown substance in it.
"Bob's patented saddle-sore solver," he said, holding it up to her.
"What do I do with it?" she asked, skeptically. "It looks like it would taste nasty."
"It
WOULD taste nasty, if you were foolish enough to eat it." He
grinned. "Smear it on your butt and inner thighs. Rub it in
pretty well. In about sixty seconds you won't be able to feel a
thing."
She stared at him. "I don't suppose I put it on the outside of my clothes ..."
He
grinned again. "Of course not. Rub it into the skin.
It's an old Indian remedy that deadens the nerves. One of my hands
makes it up for me. When it wears off you'll think you're going
to die, but I have enough to last two or three days, and by then you
should be toned up enough that the pain won't be there any more."
"And where, exactly, am I supposed to do this?" she asked archly.
He pointed to the copse of trees. "Go in there. I won't watch."
She looked at the paste, in the jar, in her hand.
"How much longer before we get to our first camping spot?" she asked.
He
looked at the sun. "Well, it's about ten now, and I figure we'll
be there around two this afternoon. That will give us plenty of
time to set up camp and do any exploring you want to do before
supper. Once supper is fixed and eaten, I imagine you'll be
wanting to sleep."
Brenda looked at her watch. It was eleven minutes after ten. She looked at his wrist, and saw it was bare.
"Four more hours?" she asked, pain in her voice.
"With several breaks," he said easily. "Go put that stuff on. You'll feel much better. I promise."
Brenda
stood in the middle of the trees. There was thick brush all
around her, and she couldn't see anything, but she still felt nervous
about dropping her pants. Her inner thighs were still burning
fiercely, though, and that drove her to unbuckle her belt, unzip her
jeans, and push them down. She realized she'd have to push her
panties down too, to get to her buttocks, and looked around nervously
again. She opened the jar and sniffed, jerking her head back
instantly. The stuff smelled awful! She could just
barely get her fingers far enough into the neck of the jar to scoop out
some paste.
She
tried it on ibe inner thigh first. It felt cool, and before she'd
even gotten to her other leg she could feel the soothing relief, as the
pain just vanished. When she finished with her other thigh, it
felt so much better that she ignored her nervousness and pushed her
panties down quickly. She felt stupid rubbing her own bottom, but
as the ache disappeared she got over that too. She pulled
her clothing back up and took a few steps, bending this way and that,
astonished that she could feel nothing but the coolness, penetrating to
her sore muscles. She decided it felt a little like what the
dentist did. Reaching back she ran her fingers over her butt
lightly, and couldn't feel them at all. It was just numb.
When she pushed back out of the brush, to see Bob sitting on his horse, she grinned.
"That stuff is amazing!" she said.
"I know," he said smiling. "You ready to try it again?"
As
she had dismounted her horse, the only thing she could think about was
how hard it was going to be to get back up in the saddle. Now,
though, with the pain gone, Buttercup didn't look quite so tall as she
had before. Lifting a foot to the stirrup, Brenda sighed at the
fact that it didn't hurt at all, and pulled herself up into the
saddle. It didn't feel as foreign to her as it had before, and
she smiled brightly.
"Yes!" she said happily.
For
the first twenty yards, she bounced, and then got back into the rhythm
of the canter. For the first time she was able to look around, at
the country they were riding through.
They
stopped three more times, to let her get down and stretch her
legs. She had to apply the salve again, the second time they
stopped. This time he walked around a big boulder while she slid
her jeans and panties down. She looked, to make sure he wasn't
watching her, but didn't feel the nervousness she had before.
When she called out that she was decent again, and he sauntered around
the boulder with a weed sticking out of his mouth, she looked at him
closely, for the first time.
That
he was tall, she remembered. She hadn't realized how brown his
skin was, and that his face was covered with tiny lines that made him
look older than his body suggested. She saw sliver tips at the
ends of the hair in front of his ears, and realized that, if he got a
haircut, those ends would not show. The rest of his hair was a
uniform dark brown. He had the kind of crinkles around his mouth
that suggested he smiled a lot. Of all the adult males she knew,
and who were about his age, he was the thinnest. He looked
muscular, somehow, but was thin. She decided that it was the way
he moved that made him look muscular. He walked like he was
weightless, and could jump six feet straight up in the air if he wanted
to. She guessed he was in his late thirties.
Brenda
cocked her head as he sent her an inquiring look. She knew
instinctively that he wanted to know if the salve was still working.
"Good stuff," she said.
"That's good," he answered. "You hungry?"
They
ate sandwiches from his saddle bags. They were mashed flat, but
she didn't care. This ham and cheese was the best she'd ever
tasted, as far as she was concerned.
At
the third stop he had her climb a tall rock spire with him. It
used different muscles, and she felt weak as she struggled to follow
his effortless climbing. He showed her where to put her hands and
feet when it got steep, and moved beside her.
"Aren't we supposed to use ropes and stuff?" she asked nervously at one spot where it was ten feet straight up.
"This
is pretty easy," he assured her. "There are lots of niches to put
your fingers and toes. Besides, we're almost there."
She
crawled along a sloping ledge that went around a bulge, and saw that it
opened up to a flat area that was ten or fifteen feet
across. When she stood up, she had to take a step to
counter the force of the wind that whipped her hair and shirt,
plastering it against her body.
She
felt like she could see for a thousand miles. The country they
were riding through was littered with large boulders, many bigger than
the horses themselves. For the last few miles she had been unable
to see more than a hundred yards in any direction before her vision was
blocked by what she had thought were hills. Now, from up
here, she could clearly see that the wind had blown slops of soil up
against huge chunks of rock, over the years, and plants had taken hold
in that soil.
"Wow," she gasped, staring out at where they had just ridden.
"That's our back trail," he said, standing beside her and pointing. "You can see the path through the rocks from here."
She
could, too. It was an obvious line that meandered between
boulders. Down there she had just thought he was going around
them, always heading up, more or less, but from here she could see that
he had taken the only real route to get where they were. Any
other path would have taken them to a dead end, and they'd have had to
turn around and retrace their steps.
"The
ranch is over there," he said, pointing. He stood behind her and
laid his triceps on her shoulder so she could see right down his arm to
his pointing finger.
There
was a haze in the air, but she stared, finally seeing a dark smudge
that looked like the roofs of several buildings. Looking further
she could see a line that looked wrong, somehow, and realized it was
the highway that went by the ranch. As she watched, there
was a glint of bright light on that line as the sun glanced off the
windshield of a car she couldn't even see.
"It's so beautiful," she sighed.
"View's like this are what keep me here," he said, almost in her ear.
She
shivered, and realized it was his breath in her ear that had caused
it. She was suddenly intensely aware that there was very light
contact between his front and her back. He felt very close to her
in that second. Instead of stepping away, though, she
almost stepped back into him. She felt very alone way up here,
where no one could see them. Her parents were at that dark smudge
he was pointing at, but even if they were outside waving like maniacs,
she wouldn't be able to see them. Having him so close to her made
her feel better, somehow.
His
arm was withdrawn, and returned. There was a pair of binoculars
in his hand. She took them and held them up to her eyes, trying
to find the ranch. He wasn't touching her, but she could still
feel his closeness, behind her. She finally found the dark smudge
she'd been looking at, as it sprang into view. It was still so
far away that she coldn't make out any people, but the buildings were
those she was familiar with.
She
turned, handing him the binoculars, and looked behind them.
The mountain looked like she could jump from where she was to its
slope, it was so close. It kept going up and she saw where
the trees stopped suddenly, and gray rock reigned supreme. There
was white at the tips of the rocks above that.
"Where
are we going?" she asked, reaching her hand to keep in contact with
him. She felt dizzy, but it wasn't the tumor kind of dizzy.
It was the dizziness of being so small in such a huge
place. "We're not going clear up there, are we?"
"No,"
he said. "We'll stay in the tree line. We're going to start
north, along the mountainside, over there." He pointed to their
right. "There's a spring about a mile over that way. It
comes out of the rocks, but is fed from up above. There's a good
place to camp there." His arm kept moving to the
right. "Then, the next day, we'll work the side of the
slope, going on over to Bear Rock. We'll keep going in a big
circle, coming back down to where the grass is. I run some cattle
over there, where there's good grass and water. Eventually it
will bring us back to the ranch."
"It looks different over there," said Brenda.
"Geologically
it's completely different than where we are now," he agreed. The
vegetation will depend on the altitude we're at, but we'll see a lot of
the same stuff.
"This is so cool!" she said earnestly.
Brenda
shivered again, this time from the cold. The wind never let
up. He saw it and took her back the way they'd come.
Going
down was much more difficult than climbing up had been. He
was below her, this time, and sometimes he placed her feet so that she
was in the right places to come down easily. Twice he grasped her
around the waist and lifted her down. She felt like she weighed
only ten pounds in his hands.
She felt a moment of terror when they got back to where they'd left the horses, and they were gone.
Bob whistled, and both animals trotted around a boulder and came up to nuzzle at their riders.
"I was afraid they'd run away," she gasped, having to take a step to compensate for the strength of Buttercup's nose-nudge.
"They
won't run away," he said. "They're greedy. They know I have
apples in the saddle bags. They don't want to wait until we
camp. They're reminding us that they came, when called, and would
like to be treated because of it." He addressed the big
stallion. "But you're not going to get an apple right now, are
you sweetie?" he said, as if he was talking to a little child.
The horse tossed his head and whickered.
For
the next twenty minutes they climbed steeply, having to go in single
file. Neither horse seemed to labor, but they stayed at a
walk. Then the trail turned and became a three foot wide flat
area, with steepness above them, and sharp drops below them. Had
Brenda seen this part first, might have decided not to go on.
Now, though, she felt completely safe, perched on her strong, and
sure-footed mare's back. She could see better, because when
she looked down-slope, she was looking at the tops of trees. When
the trail went back down she felt a pang of loss as they descended into
the trees, and she couldn't see very far any more.
They
hit a down slope that had the horses moving at a trot when, almost
without warning they rode into an open area that was thick with
grass. She saw a circle of rocks, with the obvious remnants of a
campfire in it, and was looking at that when Bob's horse went to the
left and stopped. Buttercup was still trotting, and, without
thinking, Brenda yanked on the reins and yelled "Whoa!"
An
instant later she saw Buttercup's head ... upside down ... as she flew
forward in an imperfect somersault. The world whirled crazily as
the reins were torn from her grip. She felt her toes touch the
ground and twisted, instinctively to keep from landing flat on her face
as her body continued its forward momentum. She felt her hip hit
the ground hard and a cry burst from her lips as her arm hit the ground
and skidded in the tall grass. The breath in her lungs exploded
through her mouth as her side hit the ground and she flopped onto her
back. She rolled one more time before coming to rest on her back,
still unable to draw a breath into paralyzed lungs.
She
saw thick, white, puffy clouds as she tried to assess if, and how badly
she was hurt. Bob's face appeared, hovering over hers, as she
fought to make her diaphragm take in air. She tried to sit up,
and Bob's hands came to her shoulders.
"Don't move," he said calmly. His eyes didn't look as calm as his voice sounded, she observed.
Something
in her chest released, and she took in a deep, rasping breath.
Air had never felt as good in her whole life as it did right then.
"I'm going to check for broken bones," said Bob, again calmly. "Tell me if anything hurts."
His
fingers went to her left arm, lifting it gently and moving along it to
her shoulder. Then he did her right arm. She lay there
gasping for breath as she felt his fingers run over her ribs. She
felt his fingers brush the outer parts of her breasts in the process
and she lifted her head to look at his hands. She was watching
them slide down to her legs, to examine them, when she realized
something didn't feel right.
Her scalp was cold.
He
had left her hands free, and she lifted them to feel her bald
pate. Her wig had come loose during the fall, and was gone.
"My wig!" she gasped, trying to crane her neck to see if she could see it anywhere.
"Lie still!" he ordered. "I told you not to move!"
"My wig!" she said again.
"It's over there," Bob tossed his head. "Now lie still. Don't move your head any more!"
When
he'd finished going over her legs, he started having her move things,
just a little, at first. She had no trouble with her arms and
legs. He had her turn her head, gently, from side to side.
"Any pain in your neck?" he asked. "Anything at all?"
"No," she moaned. She felt like she'd ... fallen off a horse.
"I think you're a very lucky girl," he sighed, finally. "Let's try sitting you up."
He
let her pull with her arms, telling her that if she felt any pain
anywhere to lie back down. She felt pain everywhere, but it
wasn't the kind of pain he was talking about, and she sat, to lean back
on her hands. His fingers went to her bald head, flowing
over it gently, and she winced.
"I don't feel any soft spots," he said.
"You weren't supposed to see me without my hair," she said, realizing he though he'd hurt her.
"You think you're the first bald-headed woman I've ever seen?" he asked.
She felt a tiny thrill at being characterized as a "woman", but ignored it in her shame.
"How many bald women have you seen?" she asked.
"OK, so you're the first," he admitted. "It's not so bad."
"It's horrible," she moaned.
"Look at me," he said.
She lifted her face and realized there were tears in her eyes when he looked all wavery.
"I think it's kind of sexy," he said softly.
"Liar,"
she snapped. She didn't like pity. She got way more pity
than anything else. It had been that way for over a year.
"I'm
not lying," he said firmly. "It's a different look, I'll admit,
but it makes your facial features stand out. You have really
beautiful eyes. I never noticed that before," he lied. The
first thing he had noticed were those big, blue eyes.
She
blinked and looked into his eyes. She didn't see pity there ...
not like the others, when they saw her like this. He seemed
sincere.
"Really?" she whined.
"Feels
pretty good too," he said, continuing to run his fingers over her
scalp. "I don't think I've ever felt anything that smooth."
"Really?" she repeated.
"Really," he said. "You sure nothing hurts? That was quite a tumble you took."
"I think I yanked the reins," she said, feeling foolish.
"Yup," he said. He could have said "I told you so," but he didn't.
"You want to try standing up?"
"OK."
He
pulled her up and she felt a little dizzy. She leaned against
him, her arms going around him for support. She had a fleeting
feeling of warmth as his hands slid across her back to hold her.
She could feel his warm breath on her scalp too. Nobody had ever
breathed on her bald head before, and if felt strange, but nice,
somehow.
"I'm
OK," she said, stepping away from him. She looked around for the
wig, and saw it a few feet away. It looked foreign, lying there
on the lush green grass ... something dead and synthetic, surrounded by
life.
She
went to it and bent to retrieve it, feeling things stretch and complain
in her ribs. It was just sore, though, and not a sharp, dangerous
pain, so she ignored it. She held the wig in her hands, trying to
figure out what to do now. She wanted to put it back on, but that
felt stupid somehow. She thought about going without it, but
couldn't stand the thought of that either. Finally she pulled it
back onto her scalp. Her head was warmer immediately.
Bob
didn't say anything as she got herself back in order. She looked
like she was moving all right, and he didn't think anything was
seriously hurt. He'd keep an eye on her for a while, but things
looked a lot better than they had a few minutes ago. If she'd
have been hurt badly, he'd have had to get the chopper in here to take
her out, and that would have been difficult. There was no place
within half a mile for the chopper to land.
"Thank you," said Brenda, suddenly.
"All I did was check you over," he said.
"I mean for what you said about my hair."
"Oh."
He grinned. "No problem. I probably shouldn't have
said it looked sexy, huh? You're almost young enough to be my
daughter."
"Nobody ever told me I looked sexy before," she said. "Not even when I still had my real hair."
"Boys
your age have no brain," said Bob, easily. "And men wouldn't say
that to you because they'd be afraid of being arrested for molesting
you."
"You did," she said, wondering again if he'd been telling the truth, or just trying to make her feel better.
"Nobody
around here to arrest me." He grinned again. "And you DO look
sexy. All I did was tell the truth." He sobered. "I'd
appreciate it, though, if you didn't tell your Pappa I said that.
He might not see the humor in it."
"He won't even look at me when I'm not wearing my wig," she said. "My parents feel sorry for me."
"That's not so strange," he said.
"I
know," she agreed. "I know everybody means well, but they get so
morose and sad. It's just something that happened. There's
nothing anybody can do about it. It's not anybody's fault.
It's just there. I wish they'd just ignore it and get on with
things."
"Your parents love you," said Bob. "They're sad because they know that some day you won't be here any more."
"I
know that too," said Brenda. "But I'm not dead yet, and everybody
treats me like I am. I've got several months left to live, and I
want to LIVE those months, not worry about what will happen
later. It's hard to feel alive when everybody treats you like
you're dead ... or almost dead."
"Well, since you're not dead, you can fix supper," announced Bob. "How's that?"
"I'm a terrible cook," she said.
"You have no idea what a terrible cook is like," said Bob. "You'll find out ... the first time I cook for us."
They
set about unpacking the camping gear, and taking care of the
horses. As soon as the saddle bags were on the ground, both
horses were nosing at them, looking for the apples they knew were in
there. Bob took two out, cut them up, and showed her how to
safely feed the chunks to Buttercup. The horse seemed very
appreciative, whickering and nosing her. She slid her hands down
the long nose, to the soft skin at the end.
"There's something that feels as smooth as my head," she commented.
Bob
looked over at her. "Naw, it's completely different. Yours
is smooth and hard. Hers is smooth and mushy. It's not the
same."
Brenda
hid a smile of satisfaction as she realized he was just talking ...
saying what he actually thought, and not what he figured he was
SUPPOSED to say to a girl ... in her condition.
He was the first adult she could remember who just treated her like another human being.
