Guardian Angel
13 Dude
I WENT TO STARBRIDGE Dude Ranch for my birthday. It was kind of a relief. I left Friday afternoon and came home Sunday afternoon. It’s not that I wanted to get away from Hannah, exactly. I really liked her a lot and we always had fun together. But she’d been my girlfriend for a month and I’d seen her every single day. Ironically, she volunteered to deliver my papers on Saturday so I could go. After we all talked about it together, her mom and dad and my mom and dad agreed that it would be all right, but Mom would do the Saturday collections. Dad would bring the papers over to Hannah’s house on Saturday morning and he’d deliver the long lonely stretch down Woodrow Way.
I got to the bunk house and discovered that it was empty. It looked like I was the only one at the ranch for the weekend. I’d get to ride all day! I headed for the chow hall and found out that was not exactly the case. A dozen Girl Scouts were occupying the other bunkhouse. Oh, wow.
I could tell they were Girl Scouts because they all wore their sashes over their western shirts. Apparently, they were here to earn a horsemanship badge or something. Instead of putting them all at one table and putting me by myself, the crew set one table of eight and one of seven. I just hung back and watched until there was only one seat left between two girls who looked about my age. Of course, I didn’t look my age. I was wearing jeans and my riding boots—we did have horses, after all, and all my family had riding clothes—and a plaid shirt with my hat. I looked like a little boy playing cowboy. We stood behind our chairs until the girls had sung some kind of grace and then we all sat down. The girl on my left nudged me.
“Do you always wear your hat to the table?” she asked. She was not asking for information. I took my hat off and hung it on the high back of my chair. I looked around and all the girls kept their hats on. Apparently, there’s some kind of law that says girls can and boys can’t. I was finding a bunch of laws like that. While I was putting my hat on the chair, the girl on my left passed the mashed potatoes to the girl on my right and they just kept going. They tried to do the same with the green beans, but I stopped it and helped myself.
“Don’t you know you’re supposed to let girls be served before boys?” the same girl asked. All right. I get it. Girls can be bullies, too. I scooted my chair back a couple inches and folded my arms to wait until the food went around.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Courtney!” a girl across from me said. “Trade places with me.”
“Guh-ladly,” the bitch said. She stood up with her plate and walked around the table. The redhead who had made the demand brought her plate and sat down next to me. She reached over like she was my mother and scooted my chair forward.
“Sorry, kid. I’m Debbie. The boy-hater who just moved away is Courtney. The stuck-up one on the other side of you is Jennifer. That’s Allie, Lily, and Amy. They don’t hate boys, they just don’t know what to do with them. Here, have some chicken. Pass the potatoes back over here, please.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m kind of used to it. I have an older sister and she’s a be-atch, too.” Debbie laughed. As soon as she did Allie, Lily, and Amy laughed. Even Jennifer beside me sort of snorted. Courtney folded her arms low across her chest and the act served to push her boobs out.
“He’s staring at my boobs,” Courtney snarled.
“Well, you stuck them out at him,” Debbie said. “Why don’t you take your shirt off and accuse him of peeping.” I scratched the back of my neck.
“Um… please, Debbie. I might not be able to eat if she did that.”
“Hey! There is nothing wrong with my boobs that would make you lose your appetite, little man.”
“I didn’t say there was but I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on my food. I’d just, like, want to drink my milk.”
This time, Jennifer, on my right actually did snort and milk came out her nose. Debbie and the others were laughing so hard their leaders glanced over at our table. Finally, Courtney started laughing, too, though she was beet red.
“I give up. Why are you stuck here on a Girl Scout weekend?” Courtney finally asked.
“A Girl Scout weekend? I didn’t know that. I won a trip to the dude ranch and thought you all were part of the prize,” I said innocently.
“Like you’d know what to do with twelve girls,” Jennifer snorted again. I guess it was just the way she laughed. Too bad because otherwise she was really cute.
“I know what to do with one. You just multiply, don’t you?”
“What are you, ten?” Oh crap. I bet I was as old or older than most of the girls at the table.
“I’ll tell you how old I am if each of you say your age first,” I said. I turned to Jennifer.
“Fine. I turned fourteen in August.”
“I’m thirteen,” Debbie said, “fourteen in two months, but I’ve got three little brothers that I take care of.”
And so on around the table. Courtney was fourteen. A very mature fourteen. All the girls were thirteen or fourteen. It finally got around to me.
“Well, I’d like to thank you all for coming to my birthday party,” I said. “I’ll be fourteen tomorrow.”
“No way! You can’t be as old as me,” Courtney whined.
“I just haven’t grown as much,” I said. There went Jennifer again. I figured it out. She wasn’t really stuck up. She just kept trying to ignore everything so she wouldn’t snort. If she just let go with a good laugh she probably wouldn’t snort.
“Okay, so is there going to be a cake and candles tomorrow?” Debbie asked. I panicked. There couldn’t be, could there? No, of course not.
“I don’t think the staff here knows it’s my birthday. I told the truth. I won the trip delivering newspapers. I wanted to come for my birthday. I don’t think the staff knows.” I saw Debbie try to look over my head at Jennifer and raise her eyebrows. The rest of the meal was actually pretty tolerable. I think they were doubtful until I told them what classes I was taking in eighth grade and what school I went to. They were from Kokomo. The rest of the meal was enjoyable and I was included in some of the conversation, though I had no idea who they were talking about most of the time. It was like that with Brenda and crew sometimes.
After we cleaned the tables, we sat by the fireplace and made s’mores and the girls sang camp songs. There were the cookies! I’d never had s’mores made with Thin Mints before. Yum! One of their leaders played the guitar. They sounded nice. I wasn’t singing anything because I could never depend on what my voice would sound like. I knew guys’ voices changed and I’d heard Carl’s and Doug’s voices drop. Lionel’s went way down. At the rate I was going though, I was going to be the only boy in my class that went from a tenor to a soprano. I just never knew where it was going to be.
At eight-thirty, my usual bedtime, I said goodnight to everyone and headed to my bunk. I’d been up since four-thirty and was really tired. At least Saturday I didn’t have to get up so early.
I woke up at four-thirty according to the glow-in-the-dark dial on my watch. Of course. The bunkhouse was cold as the dickens and I curled up deeper in my sleeping bag. I kinda had to pee, but I didn’t want to get out of bed.
Papers? I thought about Hannah getting ready to go do my route and smiled. “Good luck and be careful out there, girlfriend,” I whispered. “And thank you.” I blew a kiss in the general direction that I thought of as home and figured that she’d get it. Not that she’d notice. She wasn’t really interested in that kind of stuff. It was strange that I didn’t care. I had so much fun with her that not holding hands or kissing wasn’t a big deal. Hell, I was only thirt… Crap! I was fourteen today! The realization hit me with about the same intensity as my full bladder and I crawled out of the warm sleeping bag to stand naked in the middle of the bunkhouse. I scrabbled around in my bag to find a pair of underwear and socks and hopped to the bathroom. At least I didn’t have to go outside to get to a bathroom.
I debated just getting back into bed, but finally decided I was up so I might as well get dressed and go help feed the horses. I’d done that when I was here last summer. I knew the guys out in the stable.
“Hey, Brian,” one of the guys called when I walked into the barn. “Good to see you again. Want to help with the horses? We need a lot of them ready today.”
“Sure. What do you want me to do?”
“Grab a curry comb and brush and start in the first stall. They’ve got food, so they should be calm while you brush them down. Grab a stool so you can reach their backs. We need a dozen nice calm, clean horses for all the little girls that are here today.” I laughed. Some of those girls weren’t that little, but I suppose to Hal, the weathered wrangler, we were all little kids. “Oh, be careful of Jingo in stall four. He’s feeling his oats today. We might have to leave him in the barn if he doesn’t settle down.”
I spent an hour and a half rubbing, combing, and brushing horses and met Hal in the middle. We couldn’t waste time on horses with so many to get ready, but he still brushed about twice as many as I did. I guess one of the things about having our two Arabians around to take care of and ride was that I was pretty comfortable with the horses—even lifting their feet to check their shoes. Jingo managed to knock my hat off with his tail, but he’s really a big baby and loves being brushed.
“Let’s get some breakfast and something hot to drink,” Hal said.
“Yeah. I’m starving now. Oh. Jingo will be all right. I’ll ride him today if you want.”
“You know that you have to have a wrangler on the trail with you, right? And Tim and I will be wrangling those Girl Scouts. If you don’t want to ride with them, you can ride in the ring until we get back from the morning ride and I’ll take you on the long trail out by the lake for lunch if you’d like.”
Hmm. Go out on a trail ride with a dozen stuck-up girls who had never been on a horse before or wait and go on a real ride with Hal where we’d get to canter a little. That lake trail was great. No brainer.
“That would be great, Hal. Maybe this afternoon I can help with their ring work when we get back.”
“Yeah. At least then you’ll be warm while you watch their butts bouncing in their saddles,” he chuckled. Now that was an image I was going to think about all morning.
“Eww! You smell like a… barn!” Courtney complained when I sat down with my eggs. “Where did you sleep and can’t you take a shower before breakfast?”
“Uh… to be specific, Courtney, I smell like a horse, not a barn. You should take a deep breath because as soon as you finish your ride and brushing down your horse, it’s exactly what you’ll smell like.”
“I’m at least taking a shower afterward.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you. You see, you’ll end up smelling exactly the same after the afternoon ride and training and then you’ll really want a shower and you’ll have a wet towel,” I said. “Shower before dinner and then we’ll all be fresh for the evening.”
“Guys,” Debbie said urgently. “We need to go back to the cabin and hang our towels out so they’ll be dry by this afternoon. I don’t want to use a wet towel.” As soon as they’d gobbled down their breakfast, they ran to their bunkhouse to hang out their laundry to dry. I really, really didn’t want to think about twelve cute girls in the shower. I stayed at the table until everyone else had left and then helped clear up the dishes to give my erection time to go down.
I headed out to the corral where Hal and Tim had all the horses lined up and were pairing up fourteen horses and riders. These girls must have thought it was a horse show because the seams on their jeans were screaming for mercy. Wow! Even their two leaders wore tight jeans. Hal motioned me over and asked me to help with the mount up and stirrup adjustments. I went to one of the leaders standing by her horse.
“Don’t anyone attempt to mount until Tim or Brian or me can be beside you, even if you’ve ridden before. It’s just a safety thing. We’ll adjust your stirrups and make sure you’re ready.” I held the stirrup for the lady so she could get her foot in it. She almost couldn’t raise her leg because her pants were so tight. She had one hand on the saddle and one on my shoulder and kind of leaned back in order to get her foot up. She finally managed to get her nice tight butt in the saddle. This was going to be harder than I thought. So to speak. Her stirrups were the right length and I figured Hal and Tim had already shortened them all. I turned to go to the next horse.
“Hey, uh… Brian. Aren’t I supposed to have something to steer with?” I just smiled.
“We’ll hand you the reins once everyone is mounted. For now, just sit in the saddle and relax. Penny isn’t going anyplace until they are all ready.” I helped Debbie up on the next horse with less problem. She’d obviously ridden before, or someone told her what to do. She bent her left knee and waited for me to cup my hands. She put her knee in my hands and I gave her a boost up onto Timber. I actually had to lengthen her stirrups a notch to get a good fit and she said thank you.
Jennifer was my next rider and Jubal side-stepped a little just as she was putting her foot up to the stirrup. She fell forward onto me.
“Trying to cop a feel?” she asked. There was something about her tone of voice that said she wasn’t really that mad if I was.
“Maybe it would be easier if we use Debbie’s method and I can just toss you over to the other side,” I said.
“You just want your hands on my leg.” Still, she bent her knee and placed it willingly in my hands. I lifted her pretty easily into the saddle and adjusted the stirrups. She kicked me lightly in the shoulder when she took her foot out of the right stirrup so I could move it up a notch.
“Jennifer, be nice,” Debbie said. Jennifer didn’t respond verbally, but I had a feeling something was going on.
I got Amy mounted next to Jennifer and by that time Tim and Hal had the other girls in the saddle. Hal mounted and Tim and I went down the row of horses and untied them and handed their riders the reins.
“Hey, aren’t you coming?” Debbie asked.
“Naw. Hal and I are going out after you guys get back.”
“Private ride? No fair. I want to go.”
“We’ll see if you aren’t too sore when you get back.”
I watched as the trail horses all turned to follow Hal. They rode around the corral a few times so Hal could tell them how to rein their horses. Then they followed him out of the paddock with Tim behind them. I knew this routine. There was a three-mile trail that was well-groomed and wide. Hal would stop several times and give them instructions on how to control their horses and might even let them trot a little. A mile out, the trail branched into a loop. Tim would go one direction with seven riders and Hal would take the other seven the other way. They’d pass each other about half way and then meet up at the fork again to come back. It was a pleasant ride but was really an instructional course and they’d be back in about an hour or so.
I had to use the step-stool to saddle Jingo. He’s a big boy but at least I could saddle my own horse now. I led him to the indoor arena. We could have brought all the girls and horses in here where there was a mounting box to get them in the saddle, but what fun would that be? I stepped up onto the box and then onto Jingo. We rode a few times peacefully around the ring, switched directions, trotted, and cantered once around the ring—a nice controlled, smooth canter. I’d always liked this horse. He was as big as I was small, but he responded to the gentlest touch once he got settled down.
The barrels were set up in the middle of the arena. I’d raced barrels with Silk at the last two county fairs, including in August and did pretty well. In 4-H I focused on horsemanship and racing, not showing. We were kids and we liked to race. I did not participate in the roping and bulldogging competitions, but did pole-bending, barrels, and rescue. I’d seen Jingo glance at the barrels every time we passed the start line and I figured what the heck. We rode to that end of the arena and I faced him toward the edge. When I was sure he was listening to me, I turned him and gave him a nudge.
Crap! He’s a powerful horse. He knew where we were headed better than I did and we were around the right barrel and headed across to the left before I’d taken my second breath. I cued his lead change and we cut that barrel so tightly it was still wobbling when we rounded the end barrel and Jingo was streaking for the finish. We pulled up short of the wall. Jingo blew and I whooped.
What a blast!
“Theresa said she saw you ride barrels this morning,” Hal said as we stopped on the far side of the lake and dismounted for lunch. Crap. I didn’t know anyone was watching. “You know you’re not supposed to race in the ring unless you’ve got a spotter.”
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t intend to, but this old boy just wanted to go and I let him. I think we were around the first barrel before I knew we were turning them.”
“He knows more about that race than most riders. But don’t do it again, okay? I’d hate to ban you from using the arena without a chaperone.”
“Thanks, Hal. I won’t do it again. How was the ride with the girls this morning?” He handed me a roast beef sandwich and a bag of carrots for lunch. I gave a carrot to Jingo who snuffled it out of my hand and crunched it.
“Oh, about what you’d expect riding with greenhorns. Here’s something funny, though. Just don’t go repeating it at dinner.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t get everyone’s name so I can’t tell you exactly who it was, anyway. But one of the scout leaders is Becc. She was riding next to last on Penny after we made the split. The girl riding behind her started falling behind on that little mare Queenie. Well, you know how Queenie is trained for voice commands. We use her a lot for working with the handicapped. Well, this girl wants to let us know that she’s not keeping up, so she starts calling for the troop leader. Pretty soon I hear a commotion and this girl’s yelling ‘Becc! Becc! Becc!’ I turned around and there was little Queenie going backwards down the trail as fast as she could back.” He was laughing and I about choked on my sandwich. I could just see the little dun mare with a clueless rider backing up down the trail.
“What did you do?” I asked. Tears were running out of my eyes, I was laughing so hard.
“Oh, I whistled and yelled, ‘Queenie!’ The horse came to a stop and her ears pricked forward. I gave another little whistle and she came trotting up to take her place in line again. I had her move up a position so she’d keep up. You know, Penny would just bite her in the butt if she went too slowly.”
After lunch it took us another hour to get back to the barn and cool our horses. Hal asked me to help in the arena at two-thirty when he’d be giving the girls their skills test and last riding instructions for their badges. “And saddle Jingo when you come,” he said.
I spent the intervening time tossing horseshoes and really didn’t see the girls anyplace. But the ranch is a big place. They could be anywhere.
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