Black Hills

skin us.”
    “She’ll have to catch us first. A walk, Grandpa. Not even a trot. Deal?”
    “Yeah.” Sam’s voice quavered before he strengthened it. “Yeah, that suits me.”
    Coop saddled two of the oldest and quietest mounts. He’d thought he’d known, thought he’d understood how hard this enforced convalescence was on his grandfather. The look on Sam’s face when he’d said they’d ride told him he hadn’t. Not nearly.
    If he was making a mistake, he was making it for the right reasons. It wouldn’t be the first time.
    He helped Sam mount, and knew the motion and effort caused some pain. But what he saw in his grandfather’s eyes was pleasure, and relief.
    He swung into the saddle himself.
    A plod, Coop supposed. A couple of old horses wading through snow, and going nowhere in particular. But by God, Sam Wilks looked right on horseback. Years fell away—he could watch them slide off his grandfather’s face. In the saddle his movements were smooth and easy. Economic, Coop thought again.
    In the saddle, Sam was home.
    White stretched out and gleamed under the sun. It trimmed the forests that climbed the hills, tucked outcroppings of rocks under its icy blanket.
    But for the whisper of wind, the jingle of bridle, the world was as still as a painting in a frame.
    “Pretty land we got here, Cooper.”
    “Yes, sir, it is.”
    “I’ve lived in this valley my whole life, working the land, working with horses. It’s all I ever wanted in this world except for your grandma. It’s what I know. I feel I’ve done something, knowing I can pass it to you.”
    They rode nearly an hour, going nowhere in particular, and mostly in silence. Under the strong blue sky, the hills, the plains, the valley were white and cold. The melt would come, Coop knew, and the mud. The spring rains and the hail. But the green would come with it, and the young foals would dance in the pastures.
    And that, Coop thought, was what he wanted now. To see the green come again, and watch the dance of horses. To live his life.
    As they approached the house, Sam whistled under his breath.
    “There’s your grandma, standing on the back porch, hands on her hips. We’re in for it now.”
    Coop sent Sam a mild glance. “We, hell. You’re on your own.”
    Deliberately, Sam led his horse into the yard.
    “Well, don’t the pair of you look smug and stupid, riding around on horseback in the cold like a couple of idiots. I reckon now you want coffee and pie, like a reward.”
    “I could do with pie. Nobody bakes a pie like my Lucille.”
    She huffed, sniffed, then turned her back. “He breaks his leg getting off that horse, you’ll be tending to him, Cooper Sullivan.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Coop waited until she stalked into the kitchen, then dismounted to help Sam down. “I’ll deal with the horses. You deal with her. You’ve got the dirty end of the stick on this one.”
    He helped Sam to the door, then deserted the field.
    He tended to the horses and the tack. Because there was no real need for him to go back to town, he dealt with a few minor repairs that had piled up. He wasn’t as good with his hands as his grandfather, but he was competent enough. At least he rarely smashed his thumb with a hammer.
    When he finished, he walked over to take a look at the bunkhouse. It was no more than a long, low—and rough—cabin, in sight of the farmhouse and the paddocks.
    But with enough distance, Cooper judged, for everyone to have their privacy. And he could admit, he missed his privacy.
    Its use was primarily storage now, though it got put to use seasonally, or when there was a need, or enough money, to warrant a hand or two living on the premises.
    The way he saw it there was more money now—his—and more need—his grandparents’. After he fixed up the bunkhouse, it might be time to consider refiguring the tack room in the barn and making it into quarters for a permanent farmhand.
    He’d have to take that kind of change slowly, Coop knew. One step at a time.
    He went inside the old bunkhouse. Nearly as cold in as out, he thought, and wondered when the potbellied stove had last been fired up. There were a couple of bunks, an old table, a few chairs. The kitchen would serve for frying up a meal and little else.
    The floors were scarred, the walls rough. There was a lingering scent of grease and possibly sweat in the air.
    A far cry from his apartment in New York, he thought. But then, he was done with that. He’d have to see