Headlights(73)

“Hi,” he says. “C’n I help you?”

The horse huffs, and its eye catches Hannah’s. The man turns his attention to her.

“Is Ryder Smith around?” I ask.

The man blinks. “Yeah, maybe.” He pauses. “Who’s askin’?”

I look him up and down. He has the haunted look of a person who’s lived a hard life. Prison will do that, expedite the whole process.

I tap that reservoir again, test my luck a bit. Honesty is what he’s gonna respect, that feeling tells me. That other-place that isn’t real. I open up my jacket and show him my badge, not long enough for him to see the name on it, just to get a glimpse. “Just have a couple questions,” I say.

The horse lifts a hoof, sets it down, swishes its tail. The man pats the horse, whispers, Shh, easy.

“Am I in trouble?” he asks.

“We’re hoping you can help us with something.”

“Is one of my students in trouble?”

“No. Not as far as I know.”

He deliberates a long time, looks us both over. Then eventually sighs, hangs his head a little, and takes a step toward me, reaching out his hand. “Sorry,” he says. “Old habits. Yeah, this is my place.”

“It’s beautiful,” Hannah says.

Ryder smiles, a little, at that. He keeps his hand on the horse. “I’m proud of it. Been a long time since I’ve seen one of you,” he says to me. “I’m past my probation period.”

I glance at Hannah, and I wonder if we take the honesty all the way. I don’t know if I’m crazy, but I see her head nod just slightly, as if she knows what I’m thinking.

“Look, Ryder,” I say. “We need your help.”

“With what?”

“By your students, you mean the people who come here to ride?”

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “We work with rehab facilities, kids with disabilities, kids who’ve gone down a rough path but want to turn their lives around, all kinds. Anyone who needs a safe judgment-free space to get their lives going in a good direction. We partner with a wolf sanctuary that does the same thing, people who used to own this place. All seems to really help them.”

“That’s really admirable. Especially doing it all at your age. Impressive.”

“Yeah, well … I know what it’s like. I mean, you know that.”

I nod.

“Look, I…” He trails off, looks up to the sky. “I can’t undo what I did. I was young, and I was angry and lonely, and I was a fuckin’ idiot. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I’d never…” His head drops again. He looks up with such anguish on his face.

“I wanted to scare them,” he says. “I learned a long time later that maybe I just wanted to be noticed. It’s just … there’s no excuse. There will never be. But I’m not that guy, not anymore and not for a really long time. And now, here, every day, I am dedicated to trying to give people the second chance they deserve.”

“The horses help with that?”

Even as I ask, I see the horse leaning in now to Ryder, Ryder just slightly leaning back. His eyes are glassy, and he takes a deep breath and lets it go. “Man, it never gets easier, thinkin’ about it. We all strive toward peace, but … yeah. The horses help. They’re…” He looks at the creature beside him, standing tall, giving him support.

“They’re magic.” The words don’t come from Ryder. Hannah said them. I turn to her, and she lowers her gaze, doesn’t like his attention on her. Maybe doesn’t like mine either. She gives a small smile, then steps away from us, slowly walks toward one of the paddocks.

Ryder watches her, taking careful steps through the dirt. She stops beside a paint horse in its own enclosure. The horse steps over to her, and we watch as Hannah reaches up and runs her hand over the horse’s muzzle. The horse leans forward into her touch, and after a moment, Hannah drops her forehead to his.

Ryder snorts a laugh. I turn to him, still watching. “That horse,” he says to me. “We call her Freebird. She doesn’t let anyone touch her. Besides me. And only then maybe half the time.”

Freebird swishes her tail, Hannah’s hands running up and down either side of her face. Both of them exhaling visible breath into the cold light of day. Ryder snorts again. “Well, I’ll be damned. She an agent too?”

“She’s … No.” I don’t know why I say it. I’m not really thinking as I watch this woman with the sun in her hair seek such solace in another creature, give it. Every time I look at her, really allow myself to look, I think there’s something I’m not quite getting. She’s … That thing she said, feeling like she knew me when she first saw me. Was she just saying that she really does know me? Is orchestrating all of this? But … if I’m being honest …

I feel the same, like I know her too.

And yet I think nothing could be further from the truth.

I have to look away. My traitorous body’s reaction to her. Just a pretty woman. Beautiful woman. Who is wild and independent and seems to really know herself. Who smiled at me running, and—

And the memory in the park. All of it, I can’t quite—

“Horses don’t like pressure,” Ryder says, eyes on Hannah.