Chapter 62 Back in the Saddle
He lifted himself enough to sit on the tailgate, put his crutches in the bed of the pickup, and used Cherry to help lift himself to his right foot. Once he was standing, he slipped his left leg over the saddle and slipped his feet in the stirrups. He leaned forward and collected his reins and turned to look at Casey, who had the sudden realization that Evan was ready to go, and he swung into his saddle. Cherry started out at a trot. Evan pulled on the reins to slow him. He could feel Cherry’s confusion and looked over at Casey. “I'd better get used to balancing first. You do what you gotta do. If I can’t hack it, I’ll head back to the house.”
Casey realized that Evan wasn’t being foolish. He understood his limitations, but he was willing to push them right up to the very edge. He was a little bit worried about having to tend to him, and his expression must have displayed his discomfort.
“Don’t pay any attention to me,” Evan said. “You can’t wet nurse me and work too. I’ll be fine. I probably won’t ride past Brush Creek, but at least I’ll be out of the damned house for a while.”
“I don’t have that much to do,” Casey said. “We pretty well took care of everything last week.”
Evan was surprised at how far he was actually able to go. In the first hour or so, he had figured out how to balance himself on his right foot. He was sitting in the saddle a little more than he liked to, but he was sticking to the trail and letting Casey ride up on the slopes. He rode on over the pass into Elk Creek and rode the trail along the bottom while Casey did his work. Casey reported what things were like each time he returned to Evan in the bottom. He was experienced enough to know what to do and how to do it, and Evan had little reason to doubt that things were well in Casey’s hands.
Being in the fresh air, warm sun, and on the back of a horse had already begun to help Evan clear his mind. Each day, his balance got better, and he was able to help Casey a little bit more. When they needed to doctor an animal, he let Casey rope the animal, then they did a rather neat trick of passing the rope over to Evan, who dallied with his left hand and dropped the roping rein around Cherry’s neck. Cherry was experienced enough at this job that he didn’t need Evan’s guidance, and he worked the rope with ease while Casey doctored the animal and then attached the short rope to pull the loop free.
The time spent together was a great gift for Casey. They spent long hours together over the remainder of the summer and into the fall. Evan began to pass on his education and wisdom from other experiences, and Casey began to grow in other areas of his life. His near worship of Evan had increased as he realized that the understanding of things other than cowboying enriched life and made it that much sweeter. He had become quite fond of Evan’s lectures on Greek literature and his recitations from the works of the Greek poets. He also discovered that Evan’s “stories” always had a point, just like the ones that he wrote about Sam and Lucy. The subtle, playful scenes that were played out by the two border collies in their adventures always had some deeper life lessons, and Casey’s growth grew exponentially as he listened to those and read the manuscripts that Evan let him review. He even tossed in a couple of interesting twists to Evan’s stories and was proud to see them appear in the next rough draft of Evan’s manuscript.
Through his new challenge, Evan began to let his spirit run free. He no longer worried over Grace, Alexandra, or his failures. He still thought of Alexandra at times, even had deep, painful premonitions of how she was doing and how she felt, but he had resigned himself to the realization that he would likely never see her again and it was best to just enjoy the pleasant memory of her smile and the way that her eyes lit up when she was on the back of a horse.
When the work of the fall roundup was complete, Evan moved his horses back to the little place near town that he had bought from Ryan and settled in to finish his books for the winter. He had branched off into other ventures besides his highly successful Sam and Lucy series, and he began to consider turning more of the riding over to Casey. He’d earned his spurs, literally, and Evan knew that it was time to start letting him take over. He wasn’t sure what he would do with himself, but he was at the point where he didn’t have to have the job anymore, and he could just do it for enjoyment. With the decision already made in his mind, he started to explore the possibilities of doing more seminars with his horse training methods. He could test the waters a little bit over the next summer and see how it worked out.
Through all of the changes that had taken place and through all of those that were coming, two things remained constant: his comfortable memory of Alexandra and the pure loyalty of Sam and Lucy forever at his side. Until the night that Grace called.
“Hello, Evan,” Grace greeted him when he answered the call. Her voice was soft, almost seductive. And it sent his head spinning immediately. Her beauty, the sweetness of her touch, and all of the pleasant moments that they had spent together all came rushing back in an attempt to crowd the pleasant dream that he had created for himself out of his mind.
“Oh, hello, Grace,” he replied. He tried to make his voice sound casual, though inside he was pure chaos.
“I heard that you had an accident,” she said.
“That was months ago,” he replied. “I’ve pretty much healed up now.”
“It takes time for news to travel,” she said.
“And they say bad news travels fast,” he replied. “My getting injured must have been good news.” He twisted the phrase a little and smiled as he enjoyed his own subtle joke.
“Well, I just happened to bump into a mutual friend who had bumped into a mutual friend. You know how it goes,” she plunged ahead, ignoring his joke. “So, how are you doing?”
“I’m doing good,” he answered honestly. He had gotten control of the chaos in his mind and was now trying to figure out Grace’s motivation for calling him. Things had been over between them for several years, and they hadn’t spoken much since the divorce papers had been signed. They had never really fought their way out of the marriage like some couples do. Neither was interested in getting even or causing any pain in the life of the other; they simply went their separate ways with the understanding that they simply came from different pasts and were destined to follow different paths. The phone call was extremely rare; in fact, it was on the verge of impossible.