“Don’t get me wrong?” Martha went on. “He’d always worked hard when he’d come home—definitely did his share and then some. But, his heart just wasn’t in this ranch, like ours is. We ruined it for him.”
Jenny pulled the quad into the pole barn. She had thoroughly enjoyed the ride, and the tour, and talking to Martha.
“Where do you suppose Hugh is right now?” Jenny wondered out loud as they walked back toward the house.
“Well, honey, I’m betting that if you had a real strong pair of binoculars, and pointed them up there on the ridgeline that’s about two miles in that direction, you’d be able to spot him looking down on us right now.”
“Huh?” Jenny said.
“Sweetie, you must be the most naive girl who has ever lived if you don’t realize that Hugh is deeply in love with you. That man is not going to let you get very far out of his sight.”
Jenny lost control of her legs, and felt light-headed. She suddenly felt the need to sit down, so Martha guided her to a nearby garden bench.
Chapter Twenty
Hugh
Hugh lowered the high-powered Marine Corps reconnaissance binoculars from in front of his face. It had looked to him like Jenny had fallen.
He had been following the progress of the bright pink Rhino from this ridgeline about two miles away as Jenny and his mom had taken their tour of the ranch. It would be hard to miss that ghastly paint job, and he shared his dad’s penchant for liking to tease his mom about her garish toy.
Hugh raised his binoculars again, and satisfied himself that Jenny was OK.
“Come on, boy,” Hugh said to Buck as he mounted up. Hugh nudged Buck off of the ridgeline, and deeper into the forest. He thought for the umpteenth time today how good it felt to be on horseback, in the forest, with no plan to return any time soon.
Unlike other times, however, Hugh did not intend to withdraw completely away from the home place. His other rideouts had taken him farther up northern Idaho almost to Canada. There were a few spots on this narrow panhandle that he loved to revisit—the ones where he could sit high up on a ridge and look out over Montana on one side, and into Washington State on the other side.
This time, he wished to keep Jenny more or less in sight, so he would be traveling in a wide circle around the ranch, keeping to the ridges, and remaining hidden in the forest.
“Sorry, Buck. We’ve got to keep fairly close to home this time,” Hugh said, knowing how much Buck liked to ride out.
Hugh felt no shame at all in talking to animals. He believed that God created horses and dogs for the express purpose of them being companions for humans. As such, he believed, God gave dogs and horses an innate sense for understanding human emotions. They were very much in tune to tone of voice, inflection and mood—even body language.
Buck was a special horse to Hugh, one that he favored over all the others in the family’s stable. He was a buttermilk buckskin gelding—the color of very light café mocha, but with a beautiful, black mane and tail.
Buck had been Hugh’s horse ever since he had first seen him as a colt on one of his infrequent home-time visits at the ranch. He’d had a hand in gentling him to the saddle, and had spent a lot of time with him every time he’d come home.
One attribute of Buck’s that Hugh particularly liked was that he was a very well-comported horse, sturdy, and large for a quarter horse—standing a little over sixteen hands.
The two rode as one, and Hugh would never consider riding out with any other.
Hugh rode a couple more hours, always keeping to the military crest of the ridge so as not to be sky-lined, and be seen by anybody watching from below. He wanted peace and quiet and, especially, solitude on this trip.
“Whoa, Buck,” he said quietly, reining the horse to a slow stop. He brought his rifle to his shoulder, and snapped off a shot at a rabbit he had spotted just ahead on the trail.
“Well, I just got us dinner,” he said, as he dismounted to pick up his reward for being an expert shot.
He regretted that the rifle he had used was overkill for this size of target. He would have preferred using a .22 for game like this rabbit, but he could only carry one rifle, and he knew he could come upon some fairly formidable predators in these woods at any time—grizzly bears and mountain lions being the most likely.
So, what he usually carried with him on these outings was his trusty Ruger Mini-30, a semi-auto carbine in the very popular, cheap, and highly-available 7.62x39 caliber.
His Mini-30 was a sweet little carbine, and he liked it a lot. But, even it was barely adequate for what he might encounter in the forest here. It was a decent compromise, however, between what was good for hunting meat, and what was adequate for self-protection.
A little while later, he stopped at a strategic spot for taking advantage of the lowering afternoon sun to give himself another look at the ranch. He pulled out his binoculars and trained them on the home place. What he saw were three figures, all blondes, on the pool deck. The distance was too great to determine who was whom. But, Hugh assumed, rightly, that Jenny was among them.
“Well, Buck, at least she’s enjoying herself,” he told the buckskin.
He rode on a little farther, then pulled in when he spotted a good camping spot for the night. This particular
