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  Finally, she asked, "What's bothering you, Zach?"

  "I don't want to mess up our day by talking about it," he said. His face was as shadowed as the mountains under clouds.

  "It's no good," she said. "You have to tell me what's been eating you. I've watched you being miserable for more than a week now."

  "You could tell, huh?"

  "Yeah." She nodded.

  He hunkered down on his heels and stared out into the canyon. "I'll say one thing, Leeann," he said huskily. "You're the only good thing happening to me. And this place..." He looked around the cave. "Well, I guess it's just a curiosity to you, but it's sort of sacred to me, and being here with you means a lot to me. I mean, I'm going to remember it my whole life."

  His solemn tone touched her. She sat down on the ground beside him.

  "But I shouldn't have come," he continued.

  "Why not?"

  "My mother couldn't talk this morning. I mean, she couldn't say anything. Her voicebox just ... I really shouldn't have left her." He shook his head as if in disgust at himself. "But I came anyway."

  "I'm sorry, Zach."

  "Yeah, I'm a rotten egg."

  "No, you're not," Leeann said. "I bet she wanted you to come. I bet she did, didn't she?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe."

  Down in the canyon below them, Sassy was teasing Zach's bay, ducking his head and pretending to nip at the bay's leg. The bay fended him off with a backward flip of her head, baring her teeth at Sassy's neck. Sassy moved around and tried for the bay's back leg. The bay kicked up her heels at Sassy, but gently as if she understood it was all in play.

  "It must be horrible," Leeann said, "I mean, to see your mother that way."

  "Yeah, I love her a lot," Zach said. "She's always treated me like I was a prize. She can make me feel good just by the way she looks at me." He sighed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. Now I've ruined the day for you."

  "No, you haven't. Not yet anyway. And if you'll just hold still a minute more, my day will be perfect," she said.

  He frowned in puzzlement at her. But she took his long face in her two hands and kissed him briefly on the lips. "I like you a lot, Zach," she said. "And I don't think you should feel guilty about your mother. Everybody needs time off, and you certainly deserve it."

  Without waiting for him to react, she started down the slide of rocks toward the canyon floor and Sassy. Zach followed. She wouldn't tell him she was leaving, she decided. Not today. Not when he was dealing with so much misery already.

  They led the horses through the narrow keyhole out of the canyon, mounted them, and started back. Zach's horse allowed Sassy to lead the way, and Sassy kept breaking into a trot whenever Leeann gave him half an excuse. Every time he did it on his own, he'd tip his ears back as if to hear if Leeann was going to scold him. Once he ducked his head and lightly grabbed Leeann's toe boot in his big teeth.

  "Stop that." Leeann swatted Sassy away from her foot. It seemed that Sassy was the one most fully enjoying the ride. Not having much sense of the future had its advantages, Leeann thought.

  "See you in school Monday," Zach said after he'd switched from the bay to Paul and was ready to set off for home. "Thanks, Leeann. Thanks for ... you know." He blushed.

  Yes, it was good she hadn't told him. At least she'd left him happy about something, even if it was only a kiss from a girl who wasn't going to be around to comfort him for long.

  "And you, Sassy, will you miss me, too?" Leeann asked the horse as she wiped him down and began to brush his dusty coat. Not as much as she'd miss him, Leeann thought. Sassy might not be hers, but he was as close as she was ever likely to get to having a horse of her own.

  CHAPTER 17

  It had become a ritual with Leeann to walk out to the corral with a treat for Sassy after she finished her homework at night. Now that it was March, the night air had become silky cool instead of cold. The sky made a spangled canopy over the horses, who shifted about and sighed as they dozed. Sometimes she'd hear the coyotes' eerie howling. Sometimes dark wings sailed past her head. But Sassy always came to the fence and nuzzled Leeann affectionately as he took his treat, and this was always a blissful moment.

  Then came the night Rose stopped her as she was about to leave the cabin for the corral. "Leeann, hold up a while. We've got to talk." Rose tossed her magazine onto the floor and uncurled her legs.

  "Not now, Rose."

  "Now," Rose said. "That horse of yours can wait."

  "Sassy's not my horse."

  "Around here they talk as if he is. Hanna says you've got him so tamed he doesn't run away anymore. Apparently even Amos is impressed."

  "Sassy's one reason why I don't want to talk about leaving," Leeann said soberly.

  "It's not like you to hide your head in the sand."

  Leeann perched on the edge of the couch thumbing the carrot, staring at its knobby length instead of at her mother's face. "Hiding's all I can do, because you're the one directing our lives. I just have to go along."

  "Leeann, don't make me out to be a tyrant. I know you like it here. And you know if I had any alternative to accepting Lydia's offer, we'd stay."

  Leeann drew a deep breath and spaced the words out carefully as she said, "I really don't want to go back to Charlotte, Rose."

  "But honey, Lydia's offer is the best I'm likely to get. And it isn't as if Charlotte was such a bad place for you, was it?"

  "But I'm happier here." Leeann was thinking of Kristen and Zach. "I mean, it's not just Sassy. People need me here."

  "Well, what do you want me to do? Take any kind of work so we can stay? There's a job as a gas station attendant I could try for, but I'm pretty old to be pumping gas. Besides, we couldn't live on what it would pay."

  "Mr. Holden couldn't keep two cooks?"

  "You know he can't. And Hanna's already lifting heavy pots when she thinks I don't see her ... I'm thinking we should leave the end of this month."

  Leeann caught her breath. Having a set time for their departure was what she had been avoiding.

  "The longer you stay, the harder it will be to go," Rose said.

  Leeann shook her head. She couldn't imagine loving Sassy more or being any more deeply involved with the Therapeutic Riding Program and her friends than she already was.

  "I don't know what to say, love," Rose said. "You know I'd do a lot to make you happy. "

  "I know," Leeann said.

  When Big John had left them, Rose had refused to sit around feeling sorry for herself. She'd straightened her back and said, "My daddy always told me a disappointment is just a challenge in disguise." Then she had set about rebuilding their lives. Leeann had admired her mother for that. Now it was her turn to refuse to feel sorry for herself.

  "Well, I guess I'll go tell Sassy the bad news," she said. And because her mother's amber eyes were so sad, she added, "It's okay, Mama. I'll get over it."

  "There's my girl," Rose said with obvious relief.

  Leeann left the cabin wishing she didn't understand, wishing she could rage and scream and demand Rose stay here. That would have been a lot easier than trying to be sensible.

  Her boots crunched on the dried mud near the corral. Tonight Sassy was waiting for her at the fence without needing to be called. He took his carrot and she threaded her fingers through the long coarse hairs of his mane, smoothing it to one side. "I'm going to miss you," she said.

  Sassy munched companionably, then pushed his moleskin-soft muzzle at her hand. "That's it," Leeann said. "I don't have any more." But Sassy kept nudging. "You're just being affectionate, aren't you? You're such a love, Sassy." She leaned her cheek against the horse's neck and breathed deep of the comfortable smell of dew and warm animal. "I wish I'd been born out here. I wish I could stay on this ranch with you forever."

  At lunch the next day Leeann told her group that she was leaving and when. Zach looked as if she'd hit him.

  Joy said, "Oh, no, Leeann. That's awful!"

  And Kristen
chimed in with, "But what about the Therapeutic Riding Program?"

  "You'll have to get someone else to help out with it," Leeann said.

  "It's not fair. You can't go," Kristen said.

  Alan wanted to know where she was going and when she told him, he said, "Charlotte, North Carolina? You won't even be able to afford a plane ticket to come back if you're going that far away."

  "Maybe I can do some babysitting and save up and visit you guys next summer." Leeann looked at Zach. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

  Joy said, "You could come for the whole summer and stay with me. I've got twin beds in my bedroom and my own bathroom. My folks like you a lot, Leeann. Besides, Joey would be thrilled if you stayed with us."

  "You think your mother would let you do that, Leeann?" Kristen asked.

  "She might," Leeann said hopefully.

  "I could hold a bake sale to make money toward your plane ticket," Kristen said.

  "Oh, Kristen, you're too much." Leeann hugged her. Then she said, "But let's not talk about this anymore, okay?" She was afraid she'd start crying if they did.

  Zach was chewing on his lip and glowering at the toe end of his boot as if he'd had all he could take of the subject as well. It was a relief when the conversation turned to more immediate worries, like the social studies test that afternoon. The end of lunch came and they set off for class together, but Zach still hadn't said a word.

  The therapeutic riding session hit a few bumps that Thursday. First of all, Barbara didn't show. Then Kristen's favorite child, the autistic boy Brent, leaned so far over to hug his horse's short, stout neck that his slight body slid around under it. The horse stopped in its tracks while Brent clung to its neck screeching until Kristen was able to release his grasp on it. Next he transferred his stranglehold to her. "You're choking me, Brent," she gasped.

  Leeann left Joey on the mounting block and rushed over to unclench Brent from Kristen.

  While Leeann's back was turned, Joey mounted Sassy from the block by himself—backwards. He insisted on sitting the horse backward once around the ring while he beamed proudly.

  Zach was out of school the next Monday, and no one answered the phone at his house when Leeann called to find out how he was. Tuesday he returned to school, and when they happened to meet at their lockers, Zach told Leeann that his mother had been hospitalized. She'd had a cold that wouldn't go away. It had started the day he and Leeann had gone to see the petroglyphs. "I shouldn't have left her that day," he said. "I knew she was sick but I went anyway. I wish I hadn't left her."

  "How's she doing now?" Leeann asked.

  He shrugged. "She's having trouble breathing."

  "But she's not going to die, Zach. Is she?"

  "I don't know. Last summer she promised me she wouldn't until I'm out of high school. But no one can promise something like that. I don't know what Pop'd do if we lost her." Zach looked at Leeann with so much anguish, she could only squeeze his hand and then hug him hard.

  "If you lose your mother," she advised him finally, "your father'll feel terrible. And then he'll recover. My mother did. People just do, even if it seems they can't."

  Zach sighed deeply. "Could be he'll sell everything and go to Alaska or something like that. He talks about living on a river someday, where it's still wild country, and his kind of skills would make him a living. If he did that and he wanted me to go with him, I'd go maybe for a while. But I don't want to live where there's no people. I want to get trained for a job, like with computers or something, that would keep me in some half-civilized place." He smiled. "Like here."

  "You're smart enough to go to college, Zach."

  "No chance of that. Pop's got no money and I'm not likely to win any athletic scholarships. Maybe I'll join the service and get Uncle Sam to train me for something."

  "You sure think far ahead."

  He nodded and said gruffly. "The other thing I'm afraid he might do is off himself after my mother's gone."

  "Kill himself)"

  "Yeah."

  "He wouldn't do that to you."

  "Yeah, he might. He keeps telling me how tough I am, how I can do everything for myself. I think he's getting ready to leave me one way or the other."

  "Zach, she's still alive, and she may be for years and years. And if she dies, you don't know what he'll do."

  He smiled at her. "You know," he said, "I'd be pretty depressed if I didn't have you to talk to."

  And she was leaving. They both knew she was leaving in less than two weeks, and they had both chosen to pretend it wasn't so.

  CHAPTER 18

  The rodeo for the special-needs kids was to take place on the last Thursday of the month, just before Leeann had to leave for Charlotte. Her friends were so involved in planning for the rodeo that it was all they talked about when they were together, as if her leaving weren't going to happen, or as if it didn't matter.

  Zach was in charge of events. Kristen was doing signs and publicity. Joy was seeing to refreshments. Leeann had the responsibility for the horses and equipment, and she was the liaison with the people at the ranch. That meant she had to speak to Amos, which turned out to be easy. Now that she was leaving, Amos seemed to have accepted her. He even promised to have the three horses she needed back early so that she'd have time to groom them. And he agreed that it was all right if her friends helped her with the grooming, since there'd be less than an hour to get the horses read}'.

  "I'll be around if you need me during the rodeo," he offered.

  Leeann thanked him. And when she noticed that he was moving stiffly, as if his arthritis had its claws in him, she made herself useful by taking the tack from the horses he was unsaddling and hanging it back up in the barn for him.

  Mr. Holden had agreed to preside as ringmaster for the rodeo, so long as he could invite his guests to come down to the corral and watch if they wanted to. When Mrs. Childs and the other parents got involved, the adults uncovered a dozen new details that needed pinning down. The logistics became so complex that Leeann was glad nobody had realized beforehand what was necessary. They might never have undertaken the project.

  In the excitement of rodeo day, even Leeann stopped thinking about having to leave that weekend. Attracted by the colorful signs and strings of balloons and streamers, guests from the ranch lined the ring. A stiff breeze made the sun's heat pleasurable.

  Several families Leeann didn't know arrived with their special-needs children. From the quick course of training Mrs. Childs had given the volunteers, Leeann could identify two wheelchair-bound girls as having cerebral palsy. Mrs. Childs had said the next step in the program was to include wheelchair-bound kids. Leeann was sorry she wouldn't be around to see how that would go.

  The three rodeo contestants arrived in costume. Joey was dressed as a jockey in red and green riding silks. Little Brent was Superman, with a red cape, blue tights and shirt, and a red S on his narrow chest. Barbara was a princess, a pretty one, if a little awkward in her movements. Ail three children wore their regulation hard-topped riding hats.

  Alan and Zach had on cowboy hats and boots and wore the red bandannas Mrs. Childs had purchased to identify the volunteers. Leeann was wearing a straw hat since she didn't own a cowboy hat. Joy looked like a Barbie doll in her white stetson and a white western shirt. But Kristen had a red and white bicycle helmet to go with her red bandanna.

  "I wanted the kids to see me wearing safe headgear for riding even if it looks weird," Kristen said.

  "You don't look weird and you're right," Leeann told her. "I'll go borrow Hanna's motorcycle helmet."

  "No, don't leave now." Kristen grabbed her arm. "It looks like Mr. Holden's starting us off on time. I hope nothing goes wrong. I hope our kids don't fall off or cry. I didn't sleep last night thinking about all the things that could go wrong."

  Leeann laughed. "It's going to be great," she said.

  At that moment Zach appeared beside her. Something sad about his eyes made Leeann ask, "How's your mother doing now that sh
e's out of the hospital?"

  "Not too bad. She smiled at me this morning."

  "Good," Leeann said. She hoped his mother had lots of smiles left in her for Zach.

  Mr. Holden had climbed on top of a picnic table in the center of the ring. He spoke through a bullhorn as he explained what a therapeutic riding program was. He said he was proud that Lost River Ranch was involved in this very special rodeo, first of its kind in the area, maybe the first of its kind anywhere for all they knew. He asked the audience to begin by giving the contestants—none of whom had been on a horse until a couple of months ago—a big hand. The audience clapped and whistled enthusiastically.

  "All rodeo riders are required to walk their mounts around the ring and return to starting position," Mr. Holden said, and then sounding like a real ringmaster, he announced, "And here comes our first rider, happy cowboy Joey Childs, riding Sassy."

  Joey, as the most experienced rider among the special-needs kids, rode in on Sassy without a leader. Joy and Leeann were his sidewalkers. He waved grandly at the audience with one hand and held onto his saddle horn with the other. "Hi, hi, hi!" he yelled happily.

  "Hi," the audience chorused back, as ebullient as the balloons and flags tossing in the breeze over their heads.

  Into the ring following Joey came Brent, who had flopped backward in the saddle so he was lying along the horse's back. Kristen was talking at him determinedly as she walked alongside him. His mother was on the other side of him, and Hanna was leading the horse.

  "Sit up, Brent. Can't you sit up? You're on parade," Kristen begged in dismay. But the audience, thinking Brent was doing some kind of trick, cheered and clapped for him warmly.

  Barbara came next. She sat beautifully straight-backed, gripping the saddle horn and smiling proudly with Zach and Alan on either side of her like courtiers, and her mother leading the horse.

  "Nice job, princess," someone in the audience yelled and someone else whistled. Barbara laughed out loud.