Heartland

Heartland

Special Edition

A Year of Filling Dreams

Chapter One

In the crisp morning at Virginia Tech you could see the Aspen trees starting to change color. Green with a hint of yellow, the first leaf fell into the stable. Amy closed her eyes for a moment and wanted to breath the air in all at once. A slight breeze came through the stable. She remembered mornings like this at Heartland. But that was all in the past.

"Amy!" A voice shouted from behind her. Spinning around, Amy saw Katie leading Jupiter from her left hand and the dappled gray quarter horse, Ashia, in english tack. "I tacked up Ashia for you. It's such a great morning."

"Yeah, I guess a ride will do me some good." Out on the ride Amy and Katie continuned their talk about summer vacation. Amy cantered Ashia along the trail and Katie quickly joined in. Until Katie said, "Amy watch out."

Amy quickly looked ahead. There was a three foot tree trunk in her path. Instead of halting as quickly as possiblle, she tapped on Ashia's sides. Counting each stride of the quarter horse Amy put all her concentration on that log ahead. Ashia had both ears fixed on the log and kept her head completely still, She wants to jump it.

Ashia had picked up her legs and tucked them under her chest as the horse's body flew over the log. Amy leant forward naturally and balanced her hands on the horse's neck.

As Ashia's feet landed on the ground, Amy leant back in the seat to slow her down. Ashia transitioned into a walk and Amy smiled. She halted Ashia and heard an applause from behind her.

Amy smiled at her classmate. "I didn't know you could jump!" She walked Jupiter until the horses were next to each other.

"Yeah, I used to compete on this horse named Summer Storm," Amy explained. It pained her a bit flashing back to the thought of Storm, how hard it had been to give him up.

Ashia and Jupiter walked on as the girls talked. "So what happened?" Katie asked.

"I had decide which was more important: Heartland or jumping. I chose Heartland because my work mattered a lot there. So when Storm started to lose his contentment, I had decided it was time for me to sell him."

"Who did you sell him to?"

Amy went on about her jumping and she reflected it all to how it was right after her mom had died. When she rescued Spartan. Giving up Spartan and Storm had been a hard course.

Jack had rummaged through the pile of things in the basement, while Ty had been looking around for him. When Ty saw him, holding a dark velvet box, Jack glanced back. "I'm just going through some things of Marion's."

"Oh, anything interesting found?" Ty asked.

Jack handed Ty the velvet box to him. Ty opened it. A diamond ring appeared in well-kept form. It was one centimeter wide at least.

"Tim gave that to her after they had Lou, and she always admired it, even when they did divorce," Jack explained.

"It's beautiful."

"I was going to give it to Scott to give to Lou," Jack said. "But he already go a ring for her." He sighed as Ty handed it back to him. "Why don't you keep it?"

Ty raised his eyebrows. "But-"

"For whatever lucky girl who gets to marry you," Jack put it in his hand. He went up the stairs leaving Ty behind. What lucky girl?

Down in the yard Ty was mucking out a stall that a horse was occupied but had went home today. The horses were outside enjoying the last of the warmth. Suddenly Lou was rushing into the stable shouting Ty's name.

"What is it, Lou?" Ty asked eagerly seeing the sweat on her forehead.

"We have a horse coming in," she said pausing to catch her breathe between each word.

"Nothing out of the ordinary."

"It is-it's... it's-"

"It's what?" Ty demanded.

"It's... Spartan..."