CHAPTER 36
The day had turned into a picture perfect Alberta day in the Canadian foothills with layers of puffy clouds drifting across a brilliant blue sky enhancing the picturesque journey to the southern end of Heartland Ranch. The leisurely ride was a sure fire way to push back against the pressures of life and revive the soul. Amy was thankful for the break as she sat quietly upon a fallen tree enjoying the soothing current of the Sheep River as it laced its way through the valley past the gravel bar. She had always used this place as a retreat from the world when things got a little too busy or frustrating to deal with.
Worn out from a busier than usual morning, the trail boss relished having a few minutes to recuperate. This was the first time she had been on horseback for any length of time since she left for Europe and the ride had left her to realize she had overestimated her physical condition following her recovery from the surgery. She was also glad for the fact that Charlie had handled most of the herding of the two young riders on the trail. They had been very well behaved and not much trouble to watch after all. The world traveler had almost forgotten how peaceful it is in the backwoods of home. It seemed like a different lifetime ago that she had taken in the gentle breezes whispering through the thick canopy of leaves shrouding the natural amphitheater of the river bend. Multitudes of birds singing their carefree tunes and an occasional visit from local wildlife to take a sip from the mountain fresh watering hole kept the picnickers entertained and filled in some nice footage for the video Charlie was committed to recording for her daughter.
Amy remembered, when she was about the age of the younger riders, her mother once told her this is the place she used to visit when she needed to feel better about things. Now the daughter of the well known horsewoman and single mother was better able to appreciate the reasons why. Splashing and squealing from the water pleasantly disturbed the delicate balance of nature with the two little cowgirls in training momentarily preferring to be fish instead, plodding through the gentle current concentrating less about doing grown-up things and more about being their own age. Their laughter and cheerful banter echoed through the rock faces of the deep gorge and brought smiles to the faces of the trail boss and her riding partner who watched nearby capturing it all for the video she was so excited about making for Sammy to keep as a reminder of the good days they shared.
Amy tended the fire they would use to roast a few hotdogs and marshmallows for the picnic lunch they had been looking forward to all morning and Charlie pulled in the refreshing inspiration of it all, "Does it get any better than this?" panning the camera toward her new friend.
"No, I don't think it does. This is my special place," Amy confided. "I always used to come here when I needed to get away from everybody and work things out."
"I can certainly see why you would come here for that," Charlie mused, "This place has a way of pushing all the bad things away and bringing all the good things back," slowly panning back to the frolicking in the river and letting her imagination take her back to being six years old again, many years before all the mistakes, heartbreak, and pain had jaded a child's innocent view of the world. "So, Amy, what were you thinking about when you were six years old? Do you even remember?" circling the video back to the camera shy ranch native.
"Sure do!" the grown up cowgirl dialed through her rolodex of memories. "There was this one day when I was in first grade that I came home in tears. When I got to the house and walked in the kitchen Mom was already there waiting to see what was the matter because she could apparently tell from the way I was walking down the road from the bus that something was wrong."
"Oh, no! What happened?" Charlie asked, the camera still recording.
"There was this girl who had just gotten a new pony and was telling all our friends about it. Everyone thought it was the coolest thing, me included, and all of a sudden, she singled me out and said, right there in front of our whole class, "If Amy had a dad, maybe he would have gotten her a horse too, but I guess since he ran away they are too poor to get her one."
"Oh-my-God! She didn't…?"
"Oh, yeah, she did. You see, a couple of weeks before that, my mom had invited the entire first grade to come out to Heartland. She had borrowed some smaller ponies from a friend of hers so she could do a sort of youth clinic and show all the kids how to handle them and stir up some interest in the ones who had never spent any time around horses. After she was finished everybody thought it was sooo cool, and then after a big cookout under a tent they all got to ride those cute little ponies around the arena until it was time to leave, which nobody wanted to do. Of course, I was a hero and the envy of the first grade, for two weeks, with everybody except for Ashley Stanton. She was so jealous of me that she took the opportunity when she had it to put me in my place, in her way of thinking," hanging her head all these years later recalling how much the girl's words had hurt.
"If I'd have been your mother I'd a beat her little a…,"
"Woah! Woah! Remember, you have your camera on!" Amy reminded her quick tempered friend, amused by her passion in the light of her current condition.
"Sorry, but, boy, what a little…,"
"It's OK. We actually became pretty good friends later, after we grew up. She was married to Ty's best friend for a while."
"Caleb? No way!"
"Yeah, that's a whole 'nuther story! Anyway, Mom turned around without saying a word and went to Lou's room and asked her to finish getting dinner ready for her and Grandpa, and oh yeah, I almost forgot, Scott, Ty's partner at the clinic, he was still living at the ranch at the time. Don't tell her I told you this, but Scott was Lou's boy in the loft. I could tell you some stories about that someday," she chuckled.
"You'd better!"
"So Mom fixed us a couple of sandwiches and took me out to her office in the barn and asked me what was wrong. After I told her what had happened at school, and again never saying a word, she got up out of her chair and went straight to the tack room, picked up her saddle bag and stuffed the sandwiches, chips, and Cokes in it. Next, she handed me a blanket to put on a horse that I didn't have, until then." Amy hadn't thought about that day for many years, having to stop and wipe away a stray tear as the memory slipped into place. "She led a horse out of a stall and handed me the rope. 'I think you have been calling him Buddy? See if you can figure out how to tack him up!' He was my favorite one of the horses she had borrowed for the clinic. I had been spending all my spare time with him and apparently she had heard me call him by the name I had given to him and said, "He is going to need a new home, Amy. What do you think about adopting him?"
"Oh, Amy!" Charlie was wiping her own tears right along with her friend. "Your mom loved you so much!"
"Yeah, she did! But that's not the end of it! We went on our first long trail ride that evening. She was going to wait until the weekend but she knew we had a few more hours of daylight, so after we got the horses ready, plus one more to carry a tent and camping supplies, Mom went in the house and told Grandpa to call my school the next day, I remember it was a Thursday, and tell them that she was borrowing her daughter and I would not be in class until next week."
"Wow! What a cool surprise!"
"I know! But the coolest part is that she brought me on my first longer trail ride right here to this gravel bar. We ate our dinner later that evening around a campfire, just like this one, and talked about school and horses mostly, that was my life back then," she chuckled, "until I passed out from being so tired and she put me in the tent we had set up right over there, in the grass. It was one of the best days of my life, and even though I was only six, Sammy's age, I remember it like it was yesterday." Amy smiled at the warmth she felt, almost as if her mother were there to comfort her one more time and couldn't hold back the tears any longer. "Sammy will remember this, I promise."
Out of nowhere a very personal connection was made. Amy's misty vision of a mother having the forethought to help her daughter preserve what would certainly be one of her best days wiping her own tears while trying to steady the camera and record the moment had put the two women on a common ground that did not involve exes or who won or lost, just a genuine story about a mother's love and how much it means to a little girl all through her life, even if their loved one's time had passed.
Charlie had been filming the entire morning, but she turned the camera off and left the next few minutes only to memory when she sat it down beside her and got up to sit on the log next to her reminiscing friend. She embraced Amy in a shared need to cry out the memories, as well as to ache for the coming stages of her own life and having to leave behind the daughter she loved more than life itself.
Several minutes passed as the women sat together, each lost to their own thoughts watching the fire grow closer to doing its part for the picnic. "I'll find us some sticks to sharpen for the hotdogs and marshmallows," Amy said as she stood and dusted off her backside. It won't be long before we are ready to eat. I'm starving!"
Charlie nodded, "Me too! I should get those two out of the water, if I can. They are having so much fun!"
"Yeah, it's cool to watch them play like that. Kinda makes you wish that you could go back, doesn't it, to being six years old again?"
"Funny you should mention that, because that is exactly where I have been since those two reminded me what it was like," Charlie alluded to the spiritual journey back to days gone by she had been experiencing since arriving at Heartland.
A cheerful family style conversation circled the campfire, the younger ones dominating their time at lunch with abundant energy still percolating from the adventure none of them would ever forget. No sooner had the last of the puffy white marshmallows been squeezed between the layers of Hershey milk chocolate and graham crackers, Sammy and Katie left their elders in a whirl of crunching gravel and headed back toward the river for a continuation of their version of water sports.
"Did you ever bring anybody out here," Charlie asked out of the blue, "as if it wouldn't be obvious that you would? I can see this as quite the romantic get away from the ol' ranch," wiggling the place where her Wet'n'Wild eyebrows were drawn in, obviously fishing for a story.
Trying to minimize stammering out of awkwardness to the insinuation, Amy blurted, "I'm sure you don't want to hear about me coming here for…, uhh, my romantic life," and waived it off with a dismissive flip of her wrist.
Not letting up, "Oooh, I can see why you would have," the first time visitor prodded. "Getting back to nature with someone special takes on a whole new meaning out here, eh? Talkin' 'bout the birds and the bees, and such?" offering a 'dare ya' kind of devilish grin.
"You aren't going to stop, are you?"
"Don't plan on it!"
"What could I possibly tell you about…, being out here with somebody special that you don't already know for yourself?" tensing at knowing Ty's girlfriend had probably had her own back to nature experiences with her ex-fiancé by now.
"Was it your first time, out here at the river? This would be the perfect place to…,"
Discomfort and dread quickly approached a place Amy had difficulty accepting or thinking about alone, much less face to face with the woman who was beneficiary to the biggest mistake she had ever made, "Look, Charlie, maybe we would be better off talking about something else, anything else, OK. I am not discussing my relationship with Ty with you or anybody else, if that's where this is headed."
"I have got to know, Amy, what made you think you should leave a guy like Ty behind and go away like you did? Was it that bad, having a guy like him think you were the center of his universe?"
"I don't think it was quite like that, Charlie. We were just a couple of kids trying to figure things out as we went and…," stumbling at a tangible explanation was difficult, "I guess we just lost each other, somehow, that's all."
Charlie pushed farther, "Is that the way you see it, that you lost each other?" detecting a crack in the shell Amy had tried to hide in.
"I—I guess so. I mean, I thought we were all set. I thought all the rough patches, you know, getting to know each other hard part anyways, was over. But one thing led to another and, without even knowing exactly when it happened, we started to drift farther and farther apart. We didn't notice it at first, but the arguments started up again, like when we were younger, and things started to come between us. Some things happened, really bad things that were out of our control, and it was just too much for us to fix."
"Ah, the prince!" Charlie continued to test her luck at pushing the former fiancée of the man she loved like nobody else before.
"OK, that is quite enough, Charlie. I don't want to think about him, ever again! That sonofabitch ruined my life and cost me the most important things I had…, and would have either killed me or sent me away to be a slave…, so, no, if I ever hear his name again…,"
"Hold on, Amy! I know it hurts to think about that asshole now," she turned to directly face the woman curling up within herself at the horrible sporadic memories, "but until you face your fears and confront them head on, they will chase you forever. Ask me how I know!"
Amy had trouble recalling the traumatic experience with accurate details, some places left to the unknown because of voids in her recollection about her time in Europe, but from the account her friend, Gabby San Nicolas, had given of her brief stay in Barcelona, it had ended with barely escaping a much more horrific outcome.
Seeing that Amy was at the verge of bailing out on any connection they had made so far, Charlie attempted to justify her prying, "It's not my intention to make you feel uncomfortable, Amy, but you and Ty were more than any casual fling. I can see that whatever happened between the two of you has affected each of you very deeply, and you shouldn't let it keep you from finding a way of moving forward with the rest of your life. Trust me when I say that I get how important it is to let the people you care about know what you are thinking, before it's too late."
"It's already too late, Charlie! What is so hard to understand about that?" Amy bristled at the least likely inquisition bringing up the failure that had effectively ended all of her plans and handed her the future she had not dreamed of. "Is that why you wanted to come here, to rub my nose in it? Me being such an idiot and letting him go?"
"Amy, no, I'm so sorry, no, that is not the reason, not at all!" Charlie was determined to get past the barriers of intimidation and doubt, for better or worse, "Listen to me, I am not going to sit here and tell you that Ty Borden didn't change my life, because he did. Before I met him I had lost faith that there was a guy out there that had the strength, heart, and soul to be the kind of person I would want to spend the rest of my life with, but he showed me that I had given up too quickly. I don't know how you feel about him after everything that has happened, but to me, he has been such an inspiration when I really needed somebody to prove that not everyone is here for taking care of themselves and no one else. I admit that it has been very difficult to get him to let go and trust me, or even more than that, to trust life again, because even though he would never admit it, he was, he is still hung up over the relationship he had with you, and now, just when it looked like I was getting so close to having something special, the kind of relationship I always wanted but gave up on as being unrealistic a long time ago, now I am going to have to leave him to get over another life changing disappointment. The poor guy can't catch a break, and the last thing I want is to leave him alone and heartbroken all over again."
Straining to find solid emotional footing, Amy was at a crossroads with many difficult choices to make. The temptation to be angry at the course their conversation had taken was torn into a conglomeration of feeling humiliated over her failures, regret for the decisions she had made, and true compassion for the heartbreak she could see in the other woman's eyes. The perceptive horse whisperer sensed that Charlie was asking these awkward questions without contempt or seeking opportunity to gloat, and it was her own fault that the door had been left open for the single mother and her daughter to find a relationship with her ex. Quick to know a good thing when she saw it, Charlie simply took advantage of a chance meeting and made the most of it, believing without hesitation in the true value of Ty's heart and trusting a mother's intuition to follow through and see what he was made of.
"I know how much Ty loved you," Charlie picked up on Amy's indecision and wanted to keep the conversation moving forward, "and I can honestly say that I think, deep down, he still does," her voice strained to let out the trapped emotions needing to be set free.
Just when the bewildered cowgirl thought she had been challenged to full capacity in her struggle for stability, the emotional props had been kicked out from under her again. "How can you say that, Charlie? You weren't there when he said those awful things to me, when I went begging for him to forgive me! I know how he really feels now. There was nothing left of us after that night. Ty made sure I understood that before he rode off on his Norton and left me for the last time."
"Amy, he has told me his side of the story, the reason he changed his mind about forgiving you and getting back together. Did you know he was ready to do just that? If not for that package the 'mystery man' brought to him just before he came to see you, things would have been completely different now. I know very well how upset he was that night, and we all know that Ahmed had to be the one who sent it, so the question is, how did he come to have something like that to use and send to Ty in the first place?"
Embarrassed and resentful of the outcome, Amy spent the next quarter hour explaining her side of the tension between her and the prince and the conflict it set off inside her head as well as her heart. Counsellors had explained that some of her indecision and change of personality was likely caused by the damage resulting from the trauma to her brain, known to cause varying changes in personality and behavior. She also confided in the absorbedly interested woman about the unnerving feeling of a loosening anchor to everything she had known and the constant pressure from Ahmed to navigate into a new beginning. As trainer to the royal jumping team, Amy relayed the satisfaction of seeing her name in newspapers and magazines heralding the simple horse whisperer from Canada becoming the new sensation of the equestrian world, fielding all the attention from international success in competing against the best the world had to offer. Everything she could have ever dreamed of was suddenly within her grasp and the feeling of pride was easy to feed upon, making it more difficult to resist Ahmed's relentless efforts at pushing her away from a simpler past with all the possibilities of the world at her feet, always making sure to be the champion of her cause by reassuring that nothing would ever stand in her way due to his undying support.
Amy's gut told her this conversation was unconventional at best and left her fully exposed to a heavy dose of payback in Ty's behalf if the inquirer chose to do so, but the look on the listener's face was not one of hostility or pity. It was more of an understanding and willingness to give someone so defeated the chance to release some of the guilt she had been carrying for all these months with no way to escape it.
Reaching out to clasp her hands around those of the humbled horse whisperer, Charlie give a gentle, reassuring squeeze and nodded in understanding the tactics powerful people used to manipulate the ones they claimed to care about, "I know the type. I have had my own run-ins with creeps like that. They can get into your head and screw with you until you don't know which end is up, especially if they get you in a position of having to depend on them for help."
Again they both sat for a time to let the fast moving private conversation sink in. Ever one for swinging the mood upward, Charlie stood and picked up the camera. "Will you get one of me with the girls?" and handed it to Amy. Knowing the kids had not slowed in the least and showed no sign of wanting to leave anytime soon, she opened up another Coke and asked, "Ya wanna split one? They are bound to run out of energy sooner or later, but I think we have time to have one more of these before we go."
Her throat dry and voice cracking, Amy knew her confidant sensed she could use something to wash down the hurt from her throat and a few minutes to regroup, so she nodded and took the red cup with her half of the bubbling beverage from Charlie's hand before the watchful mother walked closer to the water and yelled, "Hey, you two! Thirty minutes and that's it! We are going to have to get you little fish dried off and ready to ride back if you aren't too shriveled up to fit in the saddles anymore!"
"I'm not ready to leave!" they said together.
"You two are twins and we just didn't know it," Charlie snickered. "If I didn't know your mamma so well Sam, I'd have to say Katie is definitely your sister," causing the swimmers to giggle at the idea.
The adoring mother moved a few steps closer to the playing pair so she could to enjoy the fun they were having for a minute longer, and then she surprised all of the others by removing her shirt, bandana, boots, and jeans and dove head long into the deepest part of the swimming hole, staying under long enough to make Amy get up and start running toward the water thinking she might have to go in after her.
In a burst of splashing, hysterical laughter, Charlie came up between the dazzled youngsters and took a great deal of pleasure in knowing if they needed to pee before she dove in, they didn't now."
"Charlie!" Amy yelled, "You scared the crap out of me!"
"Did ya get all of that? Because if you didn't, I'm going to have to do it again!"
It took a couple of seconds for her heart rate to come down far enough to see the humor in what had just happened, but then erupted in a relieved laughing fit at the mischievous grin coming from the thirty year old, minus about twenty four. "Don't worry, I got most of it, I think. So now I've got what, three little kids to herd back to the ranch all by myself?"
Charlie squinted through the water in her eyes and dared her, "Not if you jump in and join us. Then we would all be six again!"
Amy thought about it for a few seconds, almost deciding getting wet was more trouble than it was worth, until Charlie played the chicken card, "Bwak, bwak, bwak, buckawk," causing the girls to cackle at their bewildered trail boss and repeat the noise.
That did it. Amy fixed the camera on a rock and watched to see that it captured the trio of swimmers, and off came the hat, bandana, shirt, boots, and jeans. She listened to the building anticipation from the other three and set her jaw before taking a leap, cannonballing a splash sure to drench all of them on the way in. When she came up they were still squealing and laughing hysterically at the surprise visit to the swimming hole from the last one standing. "How do you like me now, huh girls?"
Thirty more minutes of swimming, splashing, and games flew past, the afternoon shadows growing longer while they played. "OK girls, everybody out!" Charlie hollered. "We will be the rest of the day getting dried out and back in the saddle, so, let's get a move on!"
After packing up the equipment was finished and the horses gathered together, Amy sent the youngsters on one last trip around the gravel bar to make sure they had left nothing behind. "Everybody ready?" she asked.
"I wanna come back someday, Mommy, can we?" Sammy asked innocently, still under the spell of sharing the great outdoors with her newest friends.
"Maybe someday, Sam!" Charlie audibly struggling in her answer, the first sign Amy had seen of a fracture in the determined mother's solid ploy to make a memorable outing for Sammy knowing there most likely would not be another day like this one.
"Head 'em up!" the trail boss commanded, "Move 'em out!" and led the still soggy team back up the trail toward the ranch.
"Hey you two," Charlie called out about fifteen minutes into the ride, "what are you doing lollygagging around back there in the dust? Get out front where we can see you!" and reached up to the camera clipped to the brim of her hat to turn it on again.
The younger riders took the cue, their giggling superseded by concentrating on the task at hand as they passed by because the adventure of the day was quickly catching up to them.
Heeling Harley's side to make him catch up, Charlie pulled him up take a stride beside Spartan and his rider as they followed the pair of youngsters up ahead of them, "They will be so tired tonight they will never make it to bed on their own. We will probably just have to leave them where they drop and walk around them until morning!" laughing as she swung the camera back toward her less evasive trail partner.
"What do you say to letting Sammy stay with Katie tonight? You could stay too, if you like. That would save Ty the trip to come after you tonight and having to drag Sammy around in her sleep. They are getting a little big for that now," she smiled.
"You would be OK with that?"
"Yes, after today and getting to know you better, I would be happy to have you two stay."
"Ah, I have bars! Let me make a quick call to let him know what's up."
She could not believe she had just done that, asking the woman who was in a serious, yet complicated relationship with her ex to spend the night at Heartland. But Amy had developed a different kind of respect and admiration for Charlie's true heart, courage, and determination to do something like she had done today for the sake of her daughter and to preserve a part of their lives for a time in the future, a keepsake for Sammy to remember slices of a happier childhood knowing there would be rough times ahead.
Charlie McCrary was obviously worthy of the care Ty showed for her, and Amy felt a strange relief in that, if it had to be someone else who held his heart in her hands, she was glad for it to be someone like her.
To be continued