Prolog 2
When Jamie was seven, and Lee was nine, their Dad gave into his brothers incessant nagging about wanting a horse of his own so he and Grampa took them to the horse auction in Bozeman. Lee was a big boy so it was fair he needed a horse of his own, but what was really surprising, was that Daddy had said that Jamie could have one too. Jamie had run up and hugged him around the waist, thanking him as Lee had run around hooting and hollering. His Daddy had smiled and run his hand through his hair and told him he had earned it. He wasn't sure what he had done to earn it and was too afraid to ask. The moment didn't last long, as Beth started wailing that it wasn't fair she wasn't getting a horse too. John had turned his attention to her but Jamie still felt proud that he had done something so big as to earn a horse like Lee.
So on Saturday, they had driven through the slushy roads to Auction and wandered around the pens. Jamie stayed close, but Lee was darting all over the place, making their Dad angry because he wasn't listening. It was crowded and loud, neither of which were things Jamie liked but he didn't complain. He just made sure to memorize which hats and jackets his Daddy and Grandpa were wearing so he didn't lose them and tried to make himself small so no one bothered him. He had been practicing that a lot lately, making himself small and invisible.
When the school year had started and he was only a week into first grade, he got called down to the principal's office and he hadn't known why. He had looked at the chart and he had gold stars in all four categories, keeping his space clean, being polite, not talking in class, and turning in his homework. He couldn't think of anything he had done wrong. When he had gotten there, both his parents were sitting there and he was sure he was going to get his hide tanned. He felt tears prick his eyes in fear and confusion but then his mom had smiled at him and let him come lean against her. He couldn't sit in her lap because she was having a baby and didn't have much of a lap left.
It turned out he hadn't been in trouble but after they had talked about the West being won with guns but protected by words and talk of a special school in Bozeman and boardrooms and courtrooms being where shootouts would be, they had picked up Lee and gone home. On the way, Daddy said that on Monday, he would be going to second grade instead of first and it was a big responsibility. He didn't know how to react so he had just said OK. Turned out second grade wasn't really any fun. The kids were bigger, meaner, and liked to bother him at recess and during lunch. So he started trying to be small, like the baby elks and cows that curled up and hid in the grass so nothing could find them.
But sometimes he thought maybe he had made himself too small and now no one could see him other than Lee. Sometimes his parents would go days and not talk to him, even if he tried to talk to them. Mommy was always tired or doing something with Beth and Daddy was always busy and when he wasn't he wanted to spend time with Lee, not Jamie. Yeah, sometimes he thought maybe he had become so small no one would ever see him again.
He watched Lee and his Daddy and Grampa look at the three year olds in the pen, and talk about which one he wanted. Jamie tried to remember everything Lloyd had told him about what made a good ranch horse so he would know what to say when they asked which one he wanted but more than the words, he still remembered the beautiful grey horse. There was a grey one, but it didn't look anything like the proud, slim animal he had fallen in love with.
He looked away and noticed that Tommy, the head trainer and groom at the ranch was standing at another pen, watching them trot around. Maybe Tommy could help him decide which horse to pick. He tried to tug on his Daddy's coat to get his attention but he was told, "not now," so he kept them in sight and went to talk to Tommy.
"Hi," he said, tugging on the man's coat.
He looked down and smiled, crinkling up his eyes in the way he did when he was happy. "Hello, Jamie, what are you doing here and where is your family?"
"Over there, looking for horses for Lee and me," he answered, pointing to where the three still stood laughing and pointing into the pen. Something about seeing it made Jamie's stomach feel funny, not sick exactly but not good. They never laughed like that when it was just him, maybe he wasn't funny but Grampa never wanted to be around him unless he was with Lee. If Lee was there Grampa would tell them stories or take them riding but if it was just Jamie, he told him to go away. He looked back at Tommy then into the pen in front of them.
"Why aren't you helping them?" he asked, running his hands through Jamie's hair. It was dark and always flopped into his face, and he hated it. Beth said it was ugly and made him look like someone had shit on his head. Everybody else had light hair, except him.
"They don't need my help and I wouldn't know how to help anyway. I figure I'll just get whichever one Lee doesn't want," he explained, watching the 2 year olds shove and nip at each other.
"Aren't there any that you like?" Tommy asked him, taking his hand.
He shrugged, "picking out a horse is a big responsibility and I would probably just mess it up," he explained. He messed up a lot stuff, maybe that was why people didn't want to be around him.
Tommy crouched down to his level and caught his eye. The man's eyes were so dark, like looking at the night sky almost, or a horse's eyes. "That is where you are wrong, you don't pick out a horse, you ask the horses which one picks you." Jamie cocked his head to the side not quite understanding.
"How do you do that?"
"You just ask," he smiled at him again. It sounded too simple, like when he asked Daddy how to make friends in second grade and he told him to just walk up and ask. But no one wanted to be friends with a baby and what if no horses wanted to be his?
"Does anybody want to be my horse?" he asked in a soft voice and nothing happened. He looked down, and tried not to cry, it was just like second grade.
"You need to ask louder than that," Tommy stood and tousled his hair again, giving him a little shove closer to pen fence. "They couldn't hear you."
"Does anybody want to be my horse?" he asked a little louder and still they continued to mill, ignoring him. Maybe he had made himself so small horses couldn't see him either.
"One more time, with heart," Tommy suggested.
"Does anybody want to be my horse?" he said as forcefully as he could muster without yelling because he didn't like when people yelled and their parents were always telling Lee and Beth not to yell inside and there was a cover over them so it was inside even if the sides were open, right?
This time there was movement in the middle of the herd, and a dark horse with white spot on it's nose came over and stared at him. He looked back at it, noticing how white around his eyes were and how he was black but looked dark brown because he was covered in arena dirt. The horse stuck his nose through the fence, lipping at Jamie jacket. He moved his hand slowly, running his fingers along the felty nose and up the side of his face. The animal let him pet it, even though he couldn't pet very high.
"I think you have your answer," Tommy reached through the bars to push the horse so he could see the lot number. It was 1226, Jamie's birthday. He also noticed that his rump was white with black spots. They looked like water drops on a spider's web.
Lee came over, shoving his hand through the pen, startling the horse away, but only to the center of the pen. "Jamie, Dad and Grampa picked out a horse for me and one for you," he said excitedly. " I get the palomino because I'm older," he gloated. But Jamie just watched the 2 year old as it looked at him than walked back over to stand in front of him.
Before he even had time to figure out the right way to ask, he blurted out, "can have this one, Daddy?"
"That's a two year old, son, we were looking for a 3-4 year olds," his father explained and he felt like he wanted to cry at the idea of leaving this horse behind.
"OK," he said, looking down so no one saw his tears.
He heard his dad sigh and put his finger under his chin, lifting his face till he couldn't hide anymore. "Is this really the one you want?" he nodded, not trusting his voice. "Is he a good pick, Tommy?"
"He is, sir, I was planning on bidding on him for my nephew but if he and Jamie seem to like each other."
Daddy looked back down at him and he tried to hide how hopeful he was. "You do realize it will be a whole year longer before you can ride him and you'll have to do more work than Lee will?" He nodded again and looked back to make sure that the horse was still there. It was, moving his big eyes to watch the conversation as if he understood.
"Don't worry, sir, I'll help the boy, both of them," he smiled at Lee too.
"You'll spoil him, son, letting him have whatever he wants. You came to get him a 3 year old, so that is what you should get him." His Grampa scolded and he wondered if he was being spoiled. His Daddy had said he had earned it and Lee got to pick out his horse, why couldn't he pick out the one he liked or that liked him? Why did that make him spoiled? Was the horse he wanted more expensive, was that why?
"Daddy, if he costs too much," he started, making sure not to look back at the soulful, brown eyes watching him.
"Ok then, that's the one we'll bid on for you," he smiled and Jamie smiled back at him. "So what are you going to name him?" He asked, taking both Jamie and Lee's hands to walk towards the sales table to just pay reserve for the two horses.
"I'm going to name mine Pistol," Lee bounced and pulled out of his father's grasp. Jamie kept his hand in his father's enjoying it for once.
"What about you, Jamie?"
Without thinking he answered, "Spider, I'll call him Spider," he was probably imagining it but he thought the horse brought his ears forward as if he knew his name.
No one was more surprised when the principal of the Paradise Valley Elementary School called them in for a meeting about Jamie than John was. Lee and Beth were the problem children. Beth liked to scream and hit when she didn't get her own way and Lee, well Lee found it hard to sit still for more than about 3 minutes at a time. But then again, he was a normal boy and John didn't give one flaming rat's ass what the school said he wasn't giving his kid drugs just because he liked to active better than sitting in math class. But Jamie, Jamie was the star pupil, he never got in trouble, was always teacher's pet, and read could at 7, already read better than his older brother. John still couldn't believe that he had taught himself by following along with his mom as she read to them.
So yeah, he was really surprised when he and Evie got to the school and the principal said it was about Jamie. Turned out it wasn't because he was in trouble but the opposite, they wanted to bump him up a grade or transfer him to some snooty school in Bozeman for "gifted" students, like kids like Lee didn't have their own gifts. Well John shut that down real quick. No way in hell he was driving Jamie to Bozeman every day so he could get a swelled head thinking of himself as "gifted." But moving him up a grade might be reasonable. Evie didn't like the idea, she was worried he wouldn't make friends because he wasn't very talkative or that he wouldn't do well and it would kill what little confidence the timid little mouse had.
John really didn't care one way or another to be honest, first grade, second grade what did it matter. As soon as the kid was 18, he was on his own. At least that was what he told himself until he looked at the little boy standing in the doorway looking like he was about to start crying at the idea of being in trouble and hearing the principal make the very true and annoying point, that the battles to keep the West alive were going to be fought in courtrooms, not with guns and fists and right there, staring at him with impossibly blue eyes might very well be someone that could help with that fight. John gave his permission.
Jamie had managed to keep his grades up, almost perfect 100s on everything except one spelling test where he spelled "arithmetic" "arithmatic" and you would have thought the fucking world was ending. The kid had handed him the test with a 95% on it and ran and hid in his closet the rest of day. Evie had eventually got him to admit he was afraid they wouldn't love him anymore because he hadn't gotten a perfect score. His wife had then proceeded to scream at him with all of her pregnancy hormone glory about it. Not that she had needed to, you would basically have to be heartless to not feel a little bad that your son thought your love was solely contingent on his scholastic perfection. His other kids never felt that way, never questioned that they were loved. Jamie was just too damn anxious, lacked confidence, was weak.
Yeah he was keeping up with his studies because he was a very clever boy, sometimes too clever, "keep that one on a short leash" his father had told him and didn't like the way it always seemed to ring in his head. But socially, he wasn't doing well at all. According to the teacher, he didn't have any friends and the other children sometimes picked on him. John was annoyed to hear that and in a way, more annoyed that Jamie didn't fight back. A Dutton should demand respect, a Dutton should fight back, damnit.
He and Evie had been discussing what to do about it, around taking care of Kaycee and settled on the idea of getting him and Lee some horses to work with. Lee could focus on that and it would give him something physical to burn off some energy. For Jamie, it would get him out of his own head and make him concentrate on something other than getting perfect marks. John had rolled his eyes at that, the fact that he had a kid that he had to tell to stop worrying about doing well at school. He was pretty sure that was something that no Dutton parent had ever had to deal with before.
Lee had been over the moon at hearing they were getting their own horses. He had danced around shouting and talking about how much money he would win in roping shows. Jamie was smiling at him, clearly happy for his brother and finally taking his nose out of the book he was reading. It was "Where the Red Fern Grows," which frankly should have been beyond his ability to read and was a book that had pretty much scarred John and his entire generation for life so he didn't expect it to end well.
"You get one too, Jamie," he said, looking at the dark head. Garrett had hair like that, thick and dark. He had wondered if there was native in there to make it that dark.
The boy looked up at him with those huge blue eyes. When he looked at those eyes he figured there couldn't be any native because how could he have eyes that blue. All the Dutton's except for Beth had about the same light blue eyes. Beth had her grandmother's green but still pale. Jamie's eyes were such a stunning shade of dark blue that they were hard to look away from. "Do you really mean it?" the little boy asked, biting his lip as if he was worrying it was a trick someone was playing on him.
"I said it, didn't I? And besides you've earned it," he explained just as the kid crashed into him, wrapping his reedy arms around him and burying his face against John's stomach. John wrapped his arms around him on instinct, forgetting for a moment who it was. For that instant Jamie wasn't any different than Lee.
"Thank you, Daddy," he said from where he had his face pressed and John carded his fingers through the little boy's hair. He watched Lee heft a huge book about horses off the bookshelf and call to Jamie that they had to look through it to pick out what they wanted. Probably the only time Lee wanted to look at a book and Jamie didn't beat it to him in the history of their lives.
"Go on, go with your brother," he said as Beth started to cry that she wanted a horse too.
The next Saturday, John hitched up the trailer and loaded the two boys and his father into the truck to drive to the monthly horse auction. He had originally thought about just giving them each a retired ranch horse but his dad talked him out of it and explained that a young horse that they had to train would teach them more and that was how it was always done so John did it that way, even if his heart did skip a beat at the idea of letting Lee try and break a horse on his own.
As usual, the place was crowded with people from all over Montana and Wyoming looking for horses. There were everything from $100k horses down to $100 horses, the trick was telling which was which. John had never really had the gift of picking out a good horse but his father did so he let him take the lead, not that he had had much of a choice. The man seemed to forget that he had retired and that Lee was his grandson, not his son. Just thinking about the way his dad tended to disrespect how he wanted to raise his family put him in almost as foul of a mood as the noise, the smell and crowd. Didn't help that Lee was flittering around like a humming bird and not listening to a word he said. More than a few times the kid had pulled away from him to dart from one place to another and it was making his palm itch to swat him. Truth be told, he actually completely forgot about Jamie till they were already at the pens.
There were plenty to choose from with lots of different builds, sizes, and colors. Lee was adamant he wanted a black horse and though there was one, it was clearly timid and not a good choice. Most of the time was spent trying to convince his stubborn son that other horse colors could be cool too. They finally settled on a palomino and a sorrel for the boys when he finally notices that Jamie wasn't actually there with them. HIs head was about to explode at the thought of tracking the kid down, when he realized that he was only about 20 feet away petting a colt and talking to Tommy.
John wasn't surprised Tommy was there, horses were the guys entire life. He trained them, showed them, taught classes, and used to run relay races when he was younger. The guy knew horses like his father knew cattle. He dragged Lee over to collect his brother and noticed that the horse Jamie was petting was actually a very nicely marked appaloosa that seemed to completely ignore the sound and hubbub around him unlike many of the other youngsters, even if Lee did startle it away. It came right back though, content to have Jamie stroke his nose.
As they walked up, Lee bragging that he would get the prettier horse, Jamie asked if he could have the appaloosa. John wasn't really surprised, the horse was striking and clearly schmoozing with Jamie, probably because he was so pretty he had probably been doted on and was more people friendly. John pondered on if it was a good idea to buy a 7 year old a 2 year old and if it was even a good horse beyond having pretty markings. Tommy assured him it was and Jamie seemed to understand he would have to wait even longer to ride him when his father piped in that he was spoiling the boy by not making him take the horse he had picked. Jamie seemed to wilt at that and said they could leave the one he liked if he was too expensive. The kid clearly didn't understand how horses were priced because he would be a fraction of the cost of the one he had picked because there was more of risk of him not turning out.
He looked from Jamie's sad eyes to the horse that seemed to be watching with an attentive sort of intelligence tempered with steadiness that seemed good for a child's first horse back to his father's pursed lips and told Jamie he could have the horse. Fuck his dad, he could spoil his kids if he wanted to goddamnit. God knew he was pretty strict with them and that they only got gifts on Christmas and their birthdays, and Jamie only on Christmas because his birthday was the day after and it didn't make sense to have two groups of gifts.
As they walked to just pay rather than bid, he asks his sons what they were going to name their new horses. Lee piped up over his brother giving his horse a manly name and Jamie picked Spider.
