Long Way Home. Gena Dalton

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СКАЧАТЬ jerked his mind away from that. Not yet. Not yet. He’d be horribly sore tomorrow if he slept out on the damp ground. If only he could avoid seeing anyone tonight.

      Dexter never had been much of a talker. He’d been a neighbor to the Rocking M since before Monte was born, but he’d not be likely to call Bobbie Ann or Clint tonight to tell them about Monte being home.

      Of course, sometime tomorrow they’d hear by the grapevine that he was back in the Hill Country. By then, he might be able to handle it, but not now.

      Tonight all he wanted was to get into a bed of some kind, unheard and unseen.

      A prodigal son needed to face one thing at a time when he returned, and for today this prodigal had already dealt with old friends and neighbors at the Bandera Cutting Horse Sale, the surprising sight of Jo Lena’s old mare, Quick Way Annie, on the auction block, and the shock of the feelings roused in him by being even this close to home.

      Tears stung his eyes. The arched sign with the Rocking M brand in the middle had torn at him, but this familiar long, curving road with the pecan grove on his left and the bluffs rising to the right ripped away all his defenses. He was home.

      For the first time in six years, with dusk falling around him, he was home.

      Here he was, the great Monte McMahan, four-time champion of the Professional Bull Riding circuit, sneaking into his lair to recuperate from these injuries that had taken his life away.

      Unsure of his welcome from his brothers, loaded with guilt at the sorrow he’d caused his mother and sisters, he was home.

      Well, if he had to, he could camp out by the river and eat fish. Anything. Anything but more motels and more greasy spoon diners. Those he could not face anymore.

      At the last curve before he could see the main house, he reined the mare off the road. They cut across behind the indoor arena and Manuel’s house, headed for the river. Everything was quiet. Evening feeding was done, everybody had gone to supper.

      The thought of food repelled Monte’s stomach, which was sick from the pain. The mare didn’t need to be fed, either, since she was used to being on pasture, the seller had said. He would put her in that five-acre lot behind the old bunkhouse and put himself inside it, assuming there were no hired hands staying there.

      A door slammed somewhere and the faint sound of voices floated from the direction of the main barn on the still evening air, but no one saw him and he and Annie plodded on through the shadows of the trees to the river. Its murmuring soothed him a little as they moved upstream, passed behind the guest house and then saw that the old bunkhouse stood dark. At its back door, he dropped the bag to the ground, eased one leg over and carefully dismounted, his teeth clenched against the pain of the landing.

      When Annie was safe in the fenced lot with grass and water, he walked stiffly to the bunkhouse, opened the back door and dragged his gear bag inside. He flipped a switch on the wall of the old, added-on bathroom and used the light to find a bunk. The place was bare. All the mattresses were rolled and tied.

      He went to the closest one, took out his pocketknife, cut the twine and waited for the mattress to unwind and fall flat on the wooden bed frame. That was the last of his strength.

      Miraculously, he managed not to fall. He sat down on the side of the bunk, eased himself back until he lay full length and fell asleep with his boots on.

      Bobbie Ann finally gave up her fight for sleep and got out of bed at five the next morning. Something was happening or going to happen with Monte—she’d known that since early yesterday.

      True, he’d been on her mind constantly since he got hurt again and every sportscaster on every PBR telecast had to speculate about whether or not he’d ever be able to ride again, but this was different. This was even different from that wild, clawing need that had tormented her—the need to go to Houston, to find his hospital room, to take him in her arms and beg him to come home and let his mother take care of him.

      She hadn’t done that because it would make Monte do just the opposite. If pushed, Monte would go to Brazil before he came home. So she had only called him and had kept her voice under control. Prayer and only prayer had given her the strength to do that.

      Only prayer had sustained her since yesterday when the hospital operator had told her he was no longer there.

      The phone rang as she was padding barefoot to the closet. She knew as she ran to get it that it was about Monte.

      And it was. It was Jo Lena, the girl who used to love him, speaking in her husky voice, made even more husky by sleep. Jo Lena, the girl who could’ve made his life so different if he had let her love him.

      “Bobbie Ann? Have you seen Monte yet?”

      The phone froze to her ear.

      “What are you talking about?”

      “That’s what I thought. He’s on the ranch somewhere. When he didn’t let Dexter drive him to the house, I figured he wanted to lay low for a while.”

      Quickly, Jo Lena told her what she’d seen and what she’d found out from a friend who’d seen Monte make the high bid for Annie at the Bandera sale. To which he had apparently hitchhiked from Houston.

      “I would’ve told you last night, Bobbie Ann, but I was so…shook up, myself. And I knew he was too tired to face anybody.”

      Bobbie Ann brushed her hair back from her face with a hand that trembled.

      “I did try to call him yesterday and the hospital people said he was gone.”

      Her voice was trembling, too, and she couldn’t seem to stop it.

      “Is it all right if I come over there this morning?” Jo Lena said.

      “Of course! Anytime!”

      “Please don’t misunderstand,” Jo Lena said. “It’s the horse I’m interested in. I want her back. I wouldn’t trust Monte as far as I could throw him.”

      The quick, sharp hope died, the hope Bobbie Ann hadn’t even realized had been born until then.

      “Sweetie, I understand,” she said. “You have every right to feel that way.”

      They hung up, with no need to say any more.

      Immediately, Bobbie Ann went through the house, the apartment in the barn and the guest house, seeing with the quickest glances that everything was undisturbed. She didn’t see an extra horse anywhere. Only when she was headed back to the house, ready to call Manuel and tell him to go look for a campsite, did she think of the old bunkhouse.

      She ran across the dew-laden grass, knowing in her heart what she would find. So, when she got there, she opened the door as quietly as the pink sun was rising on the new day.

      Monte lay sprawled on his back on the bare, striped-ticking mattress, one arm outflung above his head, the way he’d always slept as a child. His face was empty in sleep but the sunlight showed lines in his forehead, crow’s feet beside his eyes and creases at his mouth. In fact, he was frowning a little bit—probably from a dream.

      His open pocketknife lay where it had fallen from his dangling fingers to the floor.

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