Chapter 19
Bliss didn’t ride to Almighty the next morning. Instead, she rode in the opposite direction toward her next favorite spot in the world. It was quite a ways from the ranch, but it was a great place to get away when she needed to.
Things were somewhat strained between her and Clint, even after her apology. Something that hung in the air when they were around each other made her uncomfortable, which wasn’t pleasant seeing as to how they were forced to spend most of the day together every day.
Clint still didn’t ride up with her, but still hung around a few feet back. He understood that she wanted as much freedom as possible, and she appreciated that.
After a time, they reached their destination.
What seemed like a garden of Saguaro cacti stretched out in front of her. Some were at least fifteen feet tall; some were more around eight to ten feet. They stood tall and proud, stretching up to raise their arms to the mid morning sun. Bliss smiled and looked back at Clint just as he pulled his horse to a stop beside her.
“Me and Momma used to come here when I was little. She would try to teach me how to lasso on a cactus every once in a while. I remember being amazed at her skill with a rope,” Bliss smiled.
Clint nodded, not saying a word.
Bliss wondered if he had parents. Were they still living? Did he ever contact them? What if this whole gunman job was just a way to provide for his ailing parents? What if his mother or father needed a life-saving surgery and this was the fastest way to raise the funds needed?
Bliss jerked herself out of the flow of imaginative circumstances and focused back on the present. She dismounted her horse and tied it to a nearby cactus. Clint did the same.
She walked among the cacti, examining them, looking up at the tall plants stood silhouetted by the sun. The orange dirt and green shrubbery around them made for a beautiful scene with a tall butte in the background. She sighed contentedly and looked over at Clint, who appeared lost in his own world, taking in the scene. Bliss took the opportunity to study his appearance. He wore a deep red shirt, a black leather vest with four brass buttons down the front, and faded Levis that contrasted with his black gun belt slung low on his hip which held a shiny bullet in each little slot all the way around his hip until they met with the holster, which contained his trusty six-shooter. Moving her gaze back up to his face, she noted the hard planes of his jaw and cheekbones, much like the drawing on the cover of the dime novel. His shaggy dark brown hair nearly touched his eyebrows in the front and fell over his collar in the back. She couldn’t make out his eyes very well, but she saw his thick black lashes and the way they perfectly curled upward ever so slightly. He had a straight, not too broad nose that was nearly too big for his face, but not quite, and hard set lips that were almost always pressed into a thin line. He was clean-shaven this morning, and that made his face more desirable.
It hit her hard, like a kick in the shin or a punch in the gut, that Clint Slade was indeed a handsome man. She hadn’t paid that much attention before, but now that she took time to study him, she really noticed that it wasn’t a chore to study that handsome face and well-toned body. His head turned to look at her, and she quickly looked away. Chances are that he had seen her studying him the whole time out of the corner of his eye. Not much got past Clint Slade.
She pretended to study the cactus she stood beside intently, watching a bug of some sort crawl up its length.
She felt his eyes bore into her, but she pretended not to notice as she began walking in between the other cacti.
After a few more moments wandering through the patch of cacti, Bliss found herself wanting to ride some more.
“I think I’ll stop by and visit Momma for a few minutes. I don’t have anything to do today, so I might as well ride some more,” she stated.
Clint nodded and started walking back to his horse. Bliss followed. After they were both mounted and ready to ride, they steered their horses in the direction of Almighty, a five-mile ride from their current position.
Bliss slowed her horse so that she and Clint were side by side.
“Given any thought to how we can get to the tope of that mesa yet?” she asked.
“Some,” Clint said. “I don’t have many ideas. It’s so steep. That other side is a little more slanted, but it would still be a chore to get up there, then we would have to walk a ways once we got up there to get to the spot we wanted to look at.”
Bliss nodded. “I wish there was a way that we could have a rope ladder or something.”
“To climb up one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet up? There ain’t a rope in the world I trust enough for that,” Clint said, shaking his head.
He had a point.
Bliss let out a breath. Surely there was a way. Some sort of system they could rig to get up there.
*****
Grace hummed as she took out a load of wet laundry to hang on the clothesline. It was a beautiful day to do the wash, so she decided to do it a day early. The cowboys were around doing the work around the ranch, today being a slow day with the cattle. Only half of the cowboys were out with the herd today.
She placed the basket on the ground and took out her bag of pins. Pulling a shirt from the basket, she held it up to the line and pinned it in place. She repeated the task for the next item of clothing and the one after that. She was well into the chore when she heard a footstep beside her. She turned her head to see Colt standing there.
She smiled.
Colt was a fine young man. Some days he came and helped her with the laundry, ignoring the teasing from the other cowboys. The small act of kindness warmed her heart clear to her soul. While all the men teased him, Grace knew that there wasn’t a soul on this ranch who didn’t think the world of the young foreman.
Colt had done well for himself, always having an interest in cattle from a very young age and now being a foreman and the age of twenty-one. He had a good head on his shoulders but today it seemed that he was a bit troubled.
“Something on your mind, Colt?” Grace asked, her smile fading.
Colt took the bag of pins and held it open while she pinned up more laundry so she could have easy access to the pins with both hands free.
“Yeah, a little bit,” he muttered.
“Need to talk something out?” she pressed.
Colt took a deep breath. “Miz Grace, I’ve been meaning to try to talk to Bliss about God for months now, but I keep gettin’ all tongue-tied and nervous when the time comes. I keep thinking that she’ll laugh at me or turn all hateful toward God and tell me not to talk about Him to her anymore. Is it wrong of me to be afraid?” he asked.
Grace looked at him and smiled. “We’re all afraid, Colt. I don’t think there is a Christian yet that hasn’t been nervous or afraid at first.”
“I keep thinking she’ll reject what I want to tell her - what I want her to believe - and I won’t have any more chances,” Colt explained.
“Either way, all you can do is try. You can’t shove the Lord at people and expect them to accept Him with everything they have. It’d be nice, but that’s not the way things work,” Grace pinned a dishtowel onto the line.
“I guess you’re right,” Colt mumbled.
“It’s not really a bad thing, though. When someone truly finds God, it’s the most pure and lasting thing there is,” Grace added.
Colt nodded. “I’m gonna do that. As soon as I get the chance.”
*****
Clint dismounted his horse and looked over at Miss Cooper, who had already walked to her mother’s grave. He stayed standing by his horse to give her some space and watched her as she lovingly traced her mother’s etched name with her fingertips.
She heaved a sigh and a look of complete sorrow settled into her eyes.
For a moment, Clint ached for her.
Everybody has to go through this at least once in their life. Most just suck it up after this many years though.
He told the words to himself to try to get rid of the dull throb in his chest as he watched Miss Cooper, but it didn’t work until after the look had left her eyes.
Miss Cooper stood and looked over at the tall, steep wall of the mesa in front of her. Thrusting her hands into hips, she walked toward the wall with determination.
She continued walking around the bottom of Almighty, studying the side of it intently. He thought she would stop… but she didn’t.
“Um… what are you doing?” he called out.
She didn’t answer him, but kept walking.
He jogged to catch up with her and landed beside her.
“I usually ride around this thing on my horse, but I’m going to walk around it until I find something, anything,” She explained.
“You’re going to come up with the same thing you did every other time you did this,” Clint told her.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Clint groaned. “Accept the fact that we’re gonna have to have a really big stroke of genius or an act of God to get up there.”
Miss Cooper looked at him. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’m nott about to bother God with my problems, either.”
Clint didn’t blame her one bit.
“It’s gonna take us a couple hours to walk around this thing. It’s gotta be at least two miles around,” he stated.
“Three.”
“Even worse.”
“I’m not giving up, Mr. Slade.”
Yes, he was quite sure of that.
Keeping his thoughts to himself, he walked alongside her for at least half a mile without a word. Her jaw was set determinedly, and Clint knew that there was no way of deterring her from her mission until she failed.
She studied the wall of the mesa for any way possible to get up to it’s top, but found no way. Once the mesa grew into more of a slope, he found himself studying it, too.
If a man were real careful, he could climb up that slope while hanging on to the rocks that jutted out here and there.
No, don’t volunteer for this.
The longer he stared at the sloping mesa, the more he convinced himself of it’s easiness to climb.
Once he got to the top, he could throw a rope down and pull Miss Cooper up…
No, Slade. No, no, and no.
He found himself battling within himself. He wanted to get this job done, and what if they did find something at the top of that mesa that answered some questions? Yet he didn’t want to be doing Miss Cooper any favors, either.
He decided that it was time to pick his poison.
“Miss Cooper, I bet you I could climb that slope.”
I feel like this was very short, but I've had a time with it. One of my ideas that had used of 5 pages (which would be 5-6 pages on WP) turned sour, so I had to start over at that area. I'm not sure what I think of this chapter, but that could be because I'm reading a REALLY good book by my favorite author right now, and she always makes me think my writing needs a lot of improvement because she is so awesome! Anyways, as I read a few weeks ago, "Becoming a writer comes with the ever-present chance of making a complete fool out of yourself".
Now that Youtube is down... something about dispatching a group of highly trained monkeys to fix the problem (?)... I guess I'll go write. Sounds a bit questionable to me.
Lemme know what you think!