"This is your room. You can just, set your bags wherever." Mark says, moving aside so that I could survey my room. It's not as big as my old room, but it's a fair size. It's got one full sized bed with flannel comforter, a night stand, closet, and a dresser. On the far side of the room there's a window with a view of the property. Looking out, it seems like you can see the whole seven hundred acres.
"It's nice." I reply, setting my bags down my the bed. I plop down on the mattress and hear the springs creak underneath me. "Comfy." I add.
"Glad you like it." He laughs. "C'mon, let me give you the grand tour of the rest of the place." He invites, waving his hand to motion me over. I get up from the bed and follow him. We go through the kitchen, laundry room, guest rooms, living room, and the storage room. All of which, are cluttered with piles of junk up the my waste. How does he ever find anything in here?
After looking over the house, we walk across the front lawn to the barn; a large, faded red, structure that looks bigger than my whole apartment building.
"These are the horse stalls." He states, motioning to the stalls as if I wouldn't be able to figure out what they were without his guidance. I nod my head in response as he starts introducing me to the horses.
He names each one and I try to remember them all, because seeing as this is evidently a horse ranch, the horses might be kind of important. There's Shiloh, Minny, Zeus, Ann, Chip, Pheonix, Queenie, Bud, Blondie, and Scout. Six geldings, four mares.
There's one more at the very end that he hadn't mentioned, or even looked at yet.
"Who's this one?" I ask, approaching the Dapple Grey chomping on hay in it's stall.
"Oh um, that's Cheveyo. We call him Chev for short." He begins, walking over to the stall next to me. I can automatically feel the mood shift, I can see his face tensing up. "He was your mom's project, right before...right before she left." He finishes, keeping his gaze on the horse. So clearly she had been here for a while.
"What do you mean 'project'?" I ask him, still looking at the Chev.
"Well Cheveyo is a Native American name that means spirit warrior. I suppose the reason he's named that is because he's so free spirited; and that's usually good in a horse. But this one is so wild and crazy you'd think think he'd been plucked right out of the mountains from a herd. So we tried taking him to the best of our ability, but what do you know?! He's still the wildest horse I ever met!" He laughs, turning to look at me. "The only reason we still keep him is because of Bailey."
"Who's Bailey?" I question, lifting my gaze from the "wild" horse. He seems pretty calm to me.
"Bailey is our ranch hand." He informs me. "She's been coming here to help out since she was nine years old. She's family here. And she loves this horse, believes she can tame him. I keep telling her she's crazy, but I have to admit; I've never seen this horse act like that with anyone else."
Instead of asking how he behaves with her, or anything about Bailey or Chev at all, I ask about Mom.
"What did my mom do here?" I ask, looking at his dark brown eyes.
He sighs and looks away from me, leaning on the stall door. "I know you have a lot of questions about your mother Gunner. And trust me, I will answer all of them. But right now I'm still getting used to everything, and so are you. I just thing it's best if we answer your questions later on." I nod politely, but how long is later on? Later today? Later this week?
"So who else is here?" I ask. There's got to be other people on this ranch to manage this place.
"Well, there's Bailey of course. There's Carol, who handles the finances. Austin is our other ranch hand. Then there's Bailey's brother Lucas, who invites himself over too often than he should without working." He says with a laugh. "They work six days a week, with one day off. But Bailey usually comes anyways to ride Chev." He adds.
"Cool." I reply. "Anything else around here you want to show me?"
"Yeah, follow me." He instructs as he starts walking away, motioning me to join him.
•••
Pretty soon I've seen every building, room, closet, corner, everything except for the land; which Mark tells me, I'll be able to see tomorrow.
Before dinner time, I go too my room to unpack my things. I had packed literally anything that I could fit in a duffle bag and brought it with me. The apartment had been put on the market since I'm not old enough to live there in my own.
I put all of my clothes away and sit on my new bed. I carefully pull out a framed picture of me and Mom, that had been taken weeks before she died. In the picture, we are both smiling at a Fourth of July celebration on the rooftop of the apartment building. I remember it well. I remember the red white and blue fireworks, how they lit up the starless sky. And how happy Mom was, she had been waiting all year for that. She always loved fireworks.
Looking at the picture and remembering her made me feel nauseous, so I set it face down and got up to go eat dinner that Mark had been preparing.
I walk into the dining room to find a girl that seems to be about my age with long, curly blonde hair sitting at the table, drinking a glass of water. As I take my seat at the table, she looks up at me with her sea green eyes.
"Hey there, I'm Bailey."
YOU ARE READING
Finding Home
Teen Fiction"When life tries to take things from you, dig your heels in the ground and hold on as hard as hell." Gunner Lynston is a perfectly happy teenager. He lives in Chicago with his loving mother, his life is in the city. He's at the best school he can be...
