Rider’s Block

14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter fourteen

"High Horse," Kacey Musgrave

I run to the front seat of the truck as Eric puts it in drive and the truck screams out toward the barn. His face is stoic, almost unreadable, but you can see the worry in his eyes.

One side of the horse barn is completely ripped off. A few of the horses are running around the area bleating in panic, and the debris is strung around in a hundred-yard circumference. We’re less than a two-minute drive away, but those two minutes feel like an hour.

By the time we pull up I’ve counted six horses running around, and I wish I’d paid better attention to know whether that’s everyone or not. But I know at least one is missing—I can’t see Roper. I know Eric notes the same thing because the worry that was only showing in his eyes is now in his brow as well.

I keep silent. I don’t know anything about this to add any helpful commentary. I can only be a ready and willing set of hands to help however I’m instructed.

Eric puts the car in park and is out and running toward the barn before I can even get my seatbelt off. The pen to the left of the barn used to have a fence, but that’s been obliterated as well. Looks like the whole place took a direct hit.

Looking at the horses themselves is a risk I don’t know if I want to take. I don’t want to see any of them hurt, but I need to know so I can help. Running after Eric, I glance around and send up an endless stream of thankful prayers that none of the horses around me seem hurt, but I still haven’t seen Roper. Eric is about ten steps ahead of me as he gets to the barn itself, but before going in he looks back to me.

“Stay right there. I don’t think it’s structurally sound at this point, but I need to make sure no one got stuck.”

I nod and look around to see if there’s anything else I can do to help, but knowing Eric is about to head into a building that could collapse on itself I decide to stay right where I am and keep an eye on him. My gut turns over as he runs through the gaping hole on the side, but he’s out in less than two minutes with a handful of harnesses, and I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

He still looks tense, but there’s a small look of relief on his face. “He’s not in there, thank God.”

“Roper?”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Me either, anyone else missing?”

“We have ten horses in all, let’s see if we can find them. Get in the truck. I’ll drive at first then I’ll need you to drive so I can harness the horses. They’re spooked right now but I need to get them in a safe spot.”

We make quick work of rounding up the first four horses, but the next two are so spooked it takes Eric a while to get them to accept the harness. My adrenaline starts to wear out by the time we get the eighth horse to their safe pasture, but we still haven’t seen Roper so I can’t quite settle down. I know my worry pales in comparison to Eric’s, but truthfully, it’s in part because my worry is for Eric.

We’ve got all but one horse in the pasture when he jumps in the passenger side of the truck again, and the weight of the situation is heavy on his shoulders.

“We’ll find him, let’s keep driving,” I try to encourage.

“Can I take over the wheel? There are a couple of places he likes that I need to check out.”

“Of course.”

As we cross paths switching sides, he grabs me in for a bear hug. “Thank you for helping, I mean it.” The hug itself is unexpected, but the longer he holds on to me the more I know this is eating at him.

“I wouldn’t leave you to this alone.”

“I know, but still. I don’t think this was on your summer itinerary.”

“It was a very loose itinerary.”

He leans back to give me a tight stare before moving to the driver’s seat. The man has hugged me more in the past few hours than he’s spoken to me all summer, and if the situation alone didn’t spook me, that little fact would. He’s struggling, it’s obvious, and it’s also obvious that he doesn’t entirely know how to process it. And I would be lying if I didn’t say I quite like those hugs. But I can worry about that later. Right now I need to find this cowboy’s favorite horse.

We drive around for a half hour with no sight of Roper, and the surface-level worry has now rooted itself into a panic for Eric. Tension radiates off him in waves as we check place after place where he thinks he could be hiding.

“One more place,” he mumbles under his breath as we drive our way down a familiar dirt road toward our tiny neighbor cabins. We’re within a mile when I hear, barely above a whisper. “That son-of-a-bitch.”

I snap my eyes up and sure enough, next to Eric’s cabin, my newly-appointed-but-always-there favorite horse on the planet is standing by his front door.

Parking the car and sprinting out, Eric runs up as Roper finally notices him and bellies out the sweetest sound of relief as cowboy and horse are reunited.

Roper came to find Eric.

When the storm hit, Roper came to make sure his cowboy was safe. Is there a tear in my eye? Absolutely. Eric immediately hugs Roper around the neck, and the horse, for all intents and purposes, hugs Eric back. It’s the sweetest reunion I’ve ever seen, and I’ll never be able to wipe this moment from my memory.

“You scared the shit out of me, big guy,” Eric says between strokes to his neck. “You just had to be the hero here, couldn’t just stay with all of your friends by the barn, had to shave eight years off of my life fleeing the scene. I should cut your oats for that.”

Roper seems to disagree with a rather vehement huff and snort combination that makes Eric let out a relieved laugh. “You’re right, extra oats for surviving, just what I had in mind.”

I don’t realize I’m now fully crying until Eric looks at me and laughs again. “I should have known you’d be a softy, Red.”

“Can you blame me? I was worried.”

“I know. But look, all is well. The bastard just had a mind of his own.”

“I think you’re his favorite too, Eric.”

“Oh, I know I am, I just didn’t think he’d be an idiot about it,” he says affectionately with another stroke down the horse’s nose.

Before I can get a coherent reply out beyond my tears, we all hear a set of tires coming up the road. Dean’s truck comes into view with a screeching halt as he leaps out of the driver’s side.

“What the hell! Are you guys okay? I saw the barn! I’m trying not to freak the fuck out but if ONE of you could answer your phone that’d really relieve the heart attack I feel coming.”

I grab my phone from my pocket and see that it’s dead, so I hold it up to prove my innocence to Dean, who nods and then looks at Eric. “What’s your excuse, asshole?”

“Roper was missing.”

Dean’s demeanor levels out at once. “Fine. But don’t do that again.”

“Is everyone else home?” Eric asks.

“Mom and Dad are almost back, Trevor and Christine are taking in the damage at the barn, and the rest of the guys are on their way. Were you guys in the basement?”

“Yes, no thanks to this one.” Eric points at me. “I had to chase her down. She was running .” There’s so much judgment in that last statement that I have no choice but to defend myself.

“Hey hey, I didn’t know there would be a storm and when I started my jog there was no hint that the weather would turn so sour. I’m not used to this kind of weather, okay?”

“California,” Dean and Eric say in unison, throwing me off and sending me into a laughing fit of my own. Which then makes Dean laugh. I can tell Eric is feeling lighthearted as well when a subtle laugh escapes his lips. There’s something about a wave of relief that can leave you delirious, and I’m dangerously teetering on that level.

“Alright, cut it out, we have a lot of work to do. You two drive back, I’ll get Roper to the pasture and meet you at the barn.”

Eric grabs a harness out of the bed of the truck and gets Roper ready to go before mounting him bareback. The way Eric can swing himself onto a horse is perhaps one of the most attractive things I’ve seen a man do … that is, until he rides away toward the barn. The bond those two have? Hell yeah I’m writing that into my book.