Another Chance (5 page)

Lambert held
her back and looked at her.  He was seeing her physically for the first
time.  Over the years they had written back and forth, he had refused to
allow her to come visit him at the prison.  He had instructed her to send
her letters from different towns, and after a while, she arranged for a friend
in Atlanta to receive her letters intended for Lambert and re-mail them so the
prison officials would not know the letters came from her.  She had made
arrangements for that same friend to receive letters from Lambert at an Atlanta
post office box and to then forward them on to her.  The friend had been
well paid for the favors over the years.  They didn’t want the prison to
be able to link him to her in any way.  He even made a point of burning
the letters he received from her so there would be nothing left behind to
associate him with her.  She was so thankful that he was taking such great
measures to make sure she was kept safe.  She would never realize that he
was completely self-serving.

“Did you have
any trouble?”  He asked.

She shook her
head negatively.  “None.  But I’ve been scared to death the whole
time.  I’m so glad you made it.”

“Did you bring
the clothes?”

Again she
nodded.  “Of course.  They’re lying on the back seat.”

He kissed her
again quickly then pressed her back away from him and walked to the car. 
In record time, he had shed his prison garb and looked around for someplace to
hide them.  He was now wearing a pair of black jeans, loafers and a sports
jacket.  He located a big rock, pushed his prison jumper under a bushy
shrub and pushed the rock up against it to hold it there.  It wouldn’t be
easily seen.

He walked to
the passenger door of the car and slipped into the seat.

“Let’s
move!  They know I’m gone and I don’t know where they’ll start a road
block.”  He spoke softly when he actually wanted to speed off without
her.  “Were you able to get the driver’s license made?”

She jumped
behind the wheel and started the engine.  “Yes, but that man was so
nasty.  I ended up paying twice what you said it would cost.”

“But I’m free
now.”  To Lambert, that was all that mattered.

She drove
without lights and as they approached the highway, he cautioned her to stop and
wait until they had an empty road before pulling out of the woods.

“Lordy
Frank, I’ll be glad when we get back to my place.  All this dangerous
stuff is making me a nervous wreck.”  She whined.

He resisted
the urge to slap her out of the car.  He needed her right now.  He
needed money and a place to hide for a while.  He’d just have to keep her
happy for a little longer.  He’d keep reminding himself that the time he
invested in her brought him that much closer to Jordan.

“It’ll be over
soon enough, Ruby.  We’re going to be just fine.”  He assured her
softly.

Now the
traffic was clear and still without lights she pulled out onto the
highway.  Once they were rounding a long curve so no one could see them
she flipped on the headlights and breathed a deep breath of relief.  In
only a few hours they would be at her small house in a different state.

Jordan held
the lead rope attached to the old horse while the farrier carefully trimmed the
excessive growth off the bottom of the hoof.  They used the halter and
lead rope, both knowing that Tempest would have stood quietly without any
restraints of any kind.  That was just the kind of horse he was.

“You know,
Jordan,” the farrier stated.  “You really need a new show horse. 
Tempest is getting pretty old.”

She nodded,
her long blond braids bobbing up and down across her chest as she turned and
rubbed the blazed face of the animal she had owned for so many years. 
“You’re absolutely right, Mac.  He’s twenty now.  I have been looking
at a few, but just haven’t found anything that I really like.”

She had
changed since she had moved back home.  She had lost some weight from the
amount of physical work it took to run the stable and where she had been
blessed with soft curves before, what there was of her now, was lean solid
curves, defined by hard, strong muscles.  Five years hadn’t only changed
her physically.   Now, instead of the outgoing, friendly girl she had
always been, she was quieter and much more solitary.  She didn’t often
socialize with the young people she had grown up with.  Most of them were
married and she just couldn’t seem to face their togetherness.  She hoped that
maybe one day she could, but that day hadn’t happened yet.  She also
sensed that they weren’t quite comfortable around her.  The double tragedy
of surviving the loss of both parents and then her husband within such a short
time seemed to make them unsure of how to talk with her.

She had been a
challenge when she came home to all those who truly cared about her. 
There were days she didn’t want to get out of bed and there were days when she
didn’t want to live.  Life seemed to stretch out before her like a dark
tunnel that she dreaded facing when she woke each morning.  Mac and his
wife Mary, Sheriff John Davis and Bro. Tommy, the preacher at the church she
had always gone to, had all pestered and harassed her when she wanted to just
give up.  They helped where they could and refused to allow her to give
up, and finally, a day at a time; she decided she would learn how to live
again.

It was Mac who
appeared at her door one day and presented her with a small, wriggling ball of
sleek reddish brown energy with a cowlick of hair that grew backward, up the
middle of its back toward its head.  He handed her the pup and refused to
listen to her protests.

“You need
something to make you get up in the mornings.  Something besides yourself
and that horse out in the pasture that doesn’t need much looking after.” 
He referred to Tempest who had become a pasture ornament.  Mac knew she
had always wanted a dog.  Even when she was growing up, the farm had one
dog that helped her father work cows, but was not a pet.  Next to her own
horse she had wanted a dog.  The horse had happened, the dog hadn’t.

The man set
the geldings hoof down on the ground and stood up, rubbing his back as he
turned to look at the young woman.  He’d known her all her life and had
been one of the people who had encouraged her to start her own training stable
when she decided she would go on with her life four years ago.

“I know a man
out in Idaho that raises some pretty good horses,” he offered.

“Idaho!” she
exclaimed.  “I can’t just take off and go to Idaho and look for a horse.”

He swept one
hand up and removed his cap, running the other hand through his thinning,
graying hair.  A grin split his thin lips.

“Don’t you
have a computer?” he asked.

She
nodded.  “Yeah, but I can’t imagine buying a horse off the internet. 
I’d probably end up with something that couldn’t walk.”

“I said I
know
a guy up in Idaho.  Clay Roberts is as good a horseman as there is. 
He takes pride in his stock and is a man of his word.  If he told me a
mule would grow to fit its ears, I’d swear by it.”  Mac replaced his cap
and patted the sorrel gelding he’d just finished.  “As a matter of fact, I
talked to him last night.  He has a grullo filly that you need to check
out.  She’s bred right to show or to use as a cow horse, reining, or
anything you’d want to do and Clay ain’t never had a foal drop at his place
that wasn’t put together right.”

Jordan
shrugged.  “He probably wants a fortune for her and I don’t know how I’d
get a horse from Idaho to Florida.”

Mac took a
slip of paper out of his pocket and offered it to her.  “Here’s his email
address.  Just tell him you’re a friend of mine and want to see pictures
of the filly.  It don’t cost a cent to look.”

Hesitantly she
took the piece of paper and pushed it in her pocket.  “She must be pretty
special for you to have gone to all this trouble.”

He
nodded.  “If I wasn’t trying to talk a kid into going back to college, I’d
be tempted to buy her myself.”

Jordan turned
and led Tempest to the small field that was his own private playground and
slipped the halter off his head.  He lowered his head and began cropping
the grass at his feet while she pulled the gate shut and fastened it.

“There aren’t
many grullo horses on the show circuit.  I bet she’d catch a judge’s
eye.”  She said as she walked back to where Mac stood.  “I don’t
guess it’ll hurt to look.  How old is she?”

“She’s a two
year old.  They have a girl staying with them that’s been playing with
her, but they haven’t had a rider on her yet.  She’d be a clean slate for
you, a testament for your training.”  He watched as she walked back into
the barn and returned with another horse for him to trim.

As the horse
approached, his knowing eyes watched the placement of each hoof so he would
know just what, if any, problems the animal might have.

When he bent
over and lifted the first hoof, he smiled silently.  When he’d seen the
pictures of the filly that Clay had sent him, the first thing he’d thought
about was Jordan.  With a horse like that, she could really make an
impression in the world of horse training.  She made any horse look good,
but with that filly under her, the judges would really take notice.

It was after
dark before Jordan sat down at her computer and logged on to the
internet.  She entered her email and typed in a quick introduction to Clay
Roberts and told him that Mac had been talking about the filly and when he had
time, would he please send her a couple of pictures of the animal.  She
ended by inquiring how they could manage to ship a horse so far, should she
decide to buy her.

Bhrandii
reminded her that he needed to go out and pulled her away from the computer for
a few minutes and when she returned, she found a reply to her email. 
Opening it with skepticism, she was pleasantly surprised to find several
pictures, one from each side and one each of front and back.  Then there
were some close up shots of her legs, of her face and of her hooves. 
Jordan loved what she saw.  The email stated that she stood almost fifteen
hands and weighed a fraction under a thousand pounds.

When Jordan
read the price of the animal, she swallowed hard.  It was a lot of money
for an untrained horse, but when she read the filly’s pedigree, she understood
the price.  If the American Quarter Horse Association had any royal
bloodlines, they ran through this filly’s veins.

She didn’t
watch any television, but spent the evening pouring over her banking records to
see if she could find the extra money, just in case she decided to take the
gamble.  She knew she could take the money from her investments, but
preferred to leave that untouched.

The next
morning she called Mac and talked to him again.  He assured her that Clay
Roberts was a man she could trust.  “Honey, if that horse ain’t what he
says she is, I’ll help you haul her back to Idaho and we’ll both beat the
stuffing out of him.”

She sighed
deeply.  “Well, I sure do like her, so now, I guess I’ve got to figure out
how to get her here.”

Jordan began
to make arrangements to purchase the horse.  She knew that Mac wouldn’t
lead her wrong and if he trusted Clay Roberts then she could trust him too, but
she was still nervous about buying a horse that she’d never seen.

“I’ll just
have to trust God to help me find a way to get her here.”  She told Bhrandii. 
He wagged his long whip-like tail in complete agreement.

Leaving the
hospital was hard.  He was leaving his entire past behind.  He would
never again ride off into the silence of the mountains where he had grown
up.  His grandfather’s small ranch now belonged to someone else and he
would never stand at the door of the cabin again, while looking out at the
mountains cloaked in the morning mist.  He wouldn’t hear the distant
bugling of elk as one of the herds migrated up to the high meadows for summer
grazing.  His memories were all he would have of the quiet trails that led
to the secret places his grandfather had shared with him and Feather.  He
would never again camp in the hidden valley deep in those mountains where he’d
taken his grandfather’s body for the traditional funeral the old man had
requested, or hear the haunting song of the wolf echo through the night as the
pack assembled for the hunt.  A great sadness filled his heart.  His
life as Hank Silver Wolf was over and before him, he saw only emptiness.

He lay
perfectly still under the sheet as an orderly pushed the gurney out of the room
and into the hallway.  The halls were not nearly as bright as they were
during the day, but he worried that the orderly might notice the slight rise
and fall of the sheet draped over his entire body even though he breathed as
shallowly as he could.  This near perfect stillness was a gift from his
grandfather.  The old man had spent many hours, with the boy, showing and
teaching the advantages of blending in with the wilderness.  All wildlife
learned to watch, listen and sniff.  When the wind was still or from the
wrong direction, they trusted their eyes and their ears.  Wild animals
never leave the shelter and safety of trees or shadows without a long careful
search for movement of anything suspicious.  Wolf had become a master at
blending into the scenery.  He had become so good at it elk, deer, birds
and even a bear had walked within a few feet of him and had never known he was
there.  He had loved the years spent learning the old ways and his
grandfather had loved sharing it all with him and his sister.

The gurney was
rolled to the back of a hearse and loaded into the vehicle none too
gently.  Underneath the sheet the still man was becoming alive with
excitement.  Soon he would be with Feather!  He had missed his baby
sister.  They had developed a special bond over the years.  Each was
all the family the other had after Grandfather died, except for their mother
and her family who had all just dropped out of their lives.  When their
father died in a car accident he was eight and Feather was only five and they
lived for a short time in foster care.  They didn’t understand why their
mother had deserted them and they were lonely and afraid.