Page 113 of We Drank the Dawn

Me

Do you need the boys? They are ready and waiting for you.

Jackie

Ben and Jerry?

Yes, yes. I ALWAYS need the boys.

Me

They’ll never break up with you.

Jackie

Ever faithful. Ever true.

Me

Seriously. Come over. We’ll watch a movie and eat and sob.

Jackie

I’m coming, but if you start sobbing, I’m leaving.

Me

Fine. No sobbing.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Peter

Imoved the curry brush in a circular pattern across Tillie’s sweaty coat. Every day last week, I groomed horses all afternoon during training hours and after guest trail rides. At breakfast on Monday, Tag assigned me the task again which pleased me because I genuinely enjoyed it. The tactile job gave my hands something to do without overwhelming my mind, and it gave me a chance to get to know the horses. Now that it was Thursday, I’d officially met every horse on the ranch and had groomed most of them twice.

Some had really sweet dispositions—Lady May, Windy Foot, and Tillie, for example. And I learned the ones I had to be more careful around—specifically the red mares, American Pie and Breakneck. The only horse I hadn’t met yet was Scallywag. Jesse and Tag were the only ones who could handle him. Apparently, they’d bought him at an auction with the hope of getting a flank strap on him, but so far, no such luck. Jesse thought he was a liability and wanted to sell, but Tag had a lot of patience for difficult horses. He was convinced Scallywag would come around.

Overall, I was stunned by how calm, friendly, and fun pro-level bucking horses could be. Jesse had told me that wasn’t the case with all rodeo horses, but Tag’s were special in that way.

Tillie might have been my favorite. According to Tag, she was going on twenty-five years old. Her vision was fading, and her teeth were wearing down. When we did the morning feed rounds, we soaked her pellets and she didn’t get long hay like the rest of them because of the choking risk. We had to chop anything that went into her stall. Exercise time for Tillie was a saddled-up trot around the arena or an easy walk through the pastures. By the time she came back for grooming today, she was tired. Her exhales were slower, longer and she leaned against me when I brushed her—eager for her pampering.

Bea told me Tillie was Tag’s first horse, and he loved her like a family member.

The first time I groomed Tillie after her work-out, Tag brought out a bucket with a little bit of applesauce at the bottom. She slurped it up while Tag braided her mane. And I got the feeling that he just missed his horse and needed to come spend time with her. When I finished picking her hooves, Tag took her back to her stall and stayed in there for a while.

But today the barn was quiet. It was just Tillie and I in the grooming wing, and soft voices filtered from the arena out back, where Tag and Jesse were working with the broncs and Harlan and Cooper were taking care of the riding schedule.

I ran my hands down the side of Tillie’s hind leg. Knowing the drill, she popped her hoof up and I swept my fingers around the inside of it, gently removing a little piece of gravel that had impacted there.

Able to groom on autopilot, my thoughts wandered to Sarah. I had called her every night for eleven days straight. And every time the phone rang exactly once then routed to her voice mail. I wasn’t sure why I bothered, since she wouldn’t get them, but I felt desperate to talk things out with her.

I figured I could’ve sent her an email but that wouldn’t be easy without my tech. And I’d never used social media all that much. I had an old Facebook account I could try to log into in order to send her a message, but I didn’t have Instagram which was Sarah’s app of choice. I could ask Bea to send her a message for me, but for some reason, none of those ideas sat right with me.

Sarah blocked my phone calls. She didn’t want to talk. Trying to find ways to wiggle into her world before she was ready felt…disrespectful, maybe? And roping in a sibling to help me would just put pressure on her. That wouldn’t be fair.

So I just kept calling. For myself, mostly.

Over the last week, the list notifications had tapered off. The last thing she did was get a lomi lomi massage. The picture she linked in the proof column My Sight app described as a woman standing in front of a mirror with a black bra and a white turban. I figured that probably meant Sarah had her hair in a towel on her head. Maybe she showered at the spa and snapped a picture of herself in the mirror afterward. The way I obsessed over that description and tried to piece together in my head what Sarah probably looked like was something akin to torture.