Cole Ryder's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

The letter came at the end of the week. Cole read it in the barn by lamplight. His sister's hand, careful and slow. The roof leaked. The little ones needed shoes. When was the money coming? He folded the paper and pressed it into his shirt. A month of rest for the stallion meant a month of no sale. He had spent his last wages on the horse's feed and the trip to town. Now his family waited on dollars he did not have. He went to the horse's stall. The black stallion turned its head to him. The wrapped leg held clean. In a month it would heal. But a month was too long. He needed money now, and he had nothing left to sell but the one thing he could not sell yet. Dawn found Lilly at the barn doors. She wore her fringed jacket, her long blonde hair loose over her shoulders. She had come to help him work the horse in the corral, slow steps, no rope. She saw his face and stopped smiling. "Bad news," she said. Not a question. Cole showed her the letter. He was past pride now. "They're counting on me. I can't wait a month. I don't know what to do." Lilly read it twice. Then she looked at the stallion a long while. When she spoke her voice was steady, sure the way it always was around the horse. "I want to buy him," she said. Cole thought he'd heard wrong. "He's lame. He can't be ridden." "He'll heal. You know he will." She stepped to the stall and laid her palm on the black neck. The horse leaned into her hand. "I've got fifteen thousand saved. City money, from before I came here. I'll pay it. All of it." The number knocked the wind out of him. Fifteen thousand. His family's roof, the shoes, and more. Far more than he'd hoped to get for a green stallion at auction. "That's too much," he said. "It's what I want to pay." She turned to face him. "But I want two things. You keep training him with me until he heals. He trusts your hand now. I won't undo that." She paused. "And you teach me to ride. Properly. I can gentle him, but I can't sit a horse to save my life." Cole looked at the stallion. He had chased this horse for weeks. He had wanted to own it, break it, cash it out. Now a schoolteacher was handing him everything he'd needed, and asking him to stay close to the animal instead of losing it. "His name's Spirit," Lilly said. "That's what I'll call him." Cole put out his hand. She shook it. The deal was done. His family would eat. But now he'd tied his days to Lilly and a horse that was no longer his to sell.