Part V-B
After the service, Lucinda joined them in the churchyard where Mack and Buster waited for them. Lucinda went over to the dog that stood quietly as John introduced her. The dog looked her in the eye and wagged his tail. Lucinda reached down and rubbed between the dog’s ears. Buster closed his eyes in obvious pleasure.
“What a beautiful dog. I’d love to see him run.”
“Buster’s just a derby. But he’s showing great promise. John’s his handler.” Bobby said with the comfort that he always had when talking about dogs. It was everything else that was outside his comfort zone.
Lucinda looked at John and the old man smiled at her, “Buster’d be proud to show you what he’s made of. You got your riding clothes with you?”
She turned and looked at a white Mercedes SUV and nodded towards the vehicle, “They’re in the car. I’ll follow you out and Bobby can ride with me to keep me company.”
Bobby blushed again. He wasn’t used to having an assertive woman around. He’d had many girlfriends over the years and had even been married once for a few years but he couldn’t settle down, nor did he want to. Lucinda hit the button on her keys and the Mercedes chirped, “I feel a little silly locking my car here, but it’s a necessary habit in Bismarck
She headed for the car and Bobby followed like a dog in heel. He got in the passenger side and Mack, John, and Buster hopped into the truck and led the way out of the parking lot. Dr. Lucinda Ford made small talk as they drove along, telling Bobby whose ranches they were passing, where her school friends had lived, anecdotes of growing up in the country. Bobby just nodded and added a few uh-uhs. Lucinda was an attractive woman but looked rather imposing to a country boy like Bobby. There was not a hair out of place, her make-up was subtle and understated, the dress she wore to church simple, but obviously well tailored to her trim body.
At camp Lucinda
“I’ve replaced the stove and the refrigerator over the years, but other than that it’s the same as the first time I came north with Mr. John.”
Bobby pointed to the bathroom, “I’ll go out and help with the horses.”
Mack and John were already saddling up two horses. Mack turned to Bobby as he finished with his horse, “Which horse you want for the doctor lady?”
Bobby paused, “We’ll let her ride Charley.”
Mack didn’t say a word but turned to John and raised an eyebrow. Charley was the newest horse on their string. Trey Sutton had bought him for Bobby after the first championship Rebel Yell had won with Trey as his owner. Charley quickly became Bobby’s favorite horse. He was smooth as silk in all his gaits and one of those unique horses that understands its job around dogs. He was also a great horse to scout from. Charley always knew where the dog was, and if you didn’t, you could just give him his head and he’d take you to the dog. If that wasn’t enough of a tell, Bobby went in to the shed where the saddles were stored and brought out a saddle that he’d won a couple of years ago but had only used once. The seat was a little small for him and it just didn’t feel right, and put it on Charley. His regular saddle had been rebuilt and repaired so many times over the years that there was hardly anything left from the saddle John had given him on his first trip to the prairies. It was his lucky saddle and he expected to be riding it through the gates of Hell or wherever he went in the next life.
As Bobby tightened the cinch on Charley, he looked up and was smitten. There stood the woman of his dreams — wearing worn snug jeans with the pointed toes of down in the heels cowboy boots sticking out below the frayed pant hems, with a big silver belt buckle that looked to have a girl rounding a barrel on a horse on it, and a t-shirt that proclaimed the wearer to be “Country Bred and Proud of It!” This was topped by a battered straw cowboy hat that could only get that way from years of wear. A blonde ponytail bounced below the hat brim as Lucinda walked across the dooryard to the three men and the horses.
John smiled at her, “Doctor, if you’d been dressed like this last night I would have recognized you immediately.”
Lucinda smiled and laughed, and the world was a brighter place for it. “I don’t get many days off, and the next one of you who reminds me of work by calling me doctor is going to be in trouble. Most of my friends call me Luce or Lucy. I’d like it if you three would as well.”
Bobby handed the reins of Charley to Mack, “Help Doctor . . . er . . . Lucy, adjust the stirrups.”
“That’s better.” She stepped close to Charley and rubbed his head. The horse seemed to be just one more male who had fallen under Lucy’s power. She stepped up into the saddle with the ease of someone who had spent a lifetime riding.
Mack and John went and got Rebel Yell (Jack), the best dog on Bobby’s string, and Buster from the kennel, put them in harnesses, and then got another pair of dogs for a first brace. Bobby and Mack handled the dogs in the first brace while John roaded Jack and Buster and talked with Lucy. As the two horses ate up the ground in their running walk Lucy told John how she used to get frustrated jogging along on her quarter horse when she had ridden with them all those summers ago. She had barrel raced through her teens and still had a barrel racing horse, but she had bought a walking horse after she got out of medical school that she rode whenever she could get out of the office. They talked about the dogs and the birds they pointed. She asked about field trials and how the whole thing worked. John explained the arrangement of owners and professional trainers to her and she became quiet and thoughtful.
After about 45 minutes, they stopped and switched dogs. Mack took over the roading duty and John handled Buster while Bobby turned Jack loose. Although still a derby, Buster was fast becoming the second best dog in camp and Bobby felt that with a few breaks he would become Jack’s equal or more. He was glad that John had been able to find the dog within Buster, because he and Buster just could not get on the same wavelength. It was something that happened, and he was excited that John had come north with him and again found the joy of working great dogs. He in no way felt that his debt was paid in full, but at least he’d finally made a few payments.
Buster and Jack filled up the prairie as they made a swing through some of their best bird cover. The two handlers lived in the moment, focused on their respective dogs, oblivious to Mack and Lucy riding behind them. In the first half hour each dog had two finds with the other dog called in to back. As they made the swing back towards the camp, Buster went wide to the left and stacked up by a small bluff that often held a brood of sharptails. John squeezed his legs and his horse stepped up into an easy lope. Mack and Lucy followed as Bobby tried to bring Jack around for another back. Jack was soon on point in the opposite direction and Mack peeled off to help Bobby.
Just as John stepped down from his horse, Buster dove into the bluff with a low growl. Birds blew out the other side, and Buster yelped in obvious pain. John soon saw the problem as Buster jumped back with a face full of quills. John had the collar of the dog and looked down at him, “For a smart dog, you sure do some dumb things. I hope you learn your lesson from this.”
People say dogs go one of two ways with porcupines; they either learn their lesson after one encounter or spend the rest of their lives trying to get even. Some become such dedicated porkie hunters that they become useless as bird dogs. John hoped Buster wouldn’t be one of the latter.
Lucy was down off her horse, “What do we do?”
John looked at her and smiled, “We pull them out. Didn’t you learn that in medical school?”
“No. We had a dog when I was a kid that had so many quills in him that we had to take him to the vet.”
John put a harness on Buster and tied him to the horse, then rummaged around in his saddlebags for a pair of needle nose pliers. When he found them, he handed them to Lucy, “I’ll hold him, you pull.”
“Just pull? Isn’t that going to hurt?”
“They got to come out.”
Lucy kneeled down next to the dog and went to work. Buster stood stoically as Lucy worked with quick precision. Soon Mack and Bobby were there and Bobby joined Lucy on the other side of Buster. Even with two of them pulling quills it still took the better part of an hour to get them all. Buster never flinched even when they pulled the ones inside his mouth. Bobby finally stood up and then got a .22 pistol from his saddlebag that was there just for occasions like this, “That pig still in the bluff?”
“I didn’t see him leave.” John replied and then started to say something to Lucy.
“You don’t have to say anything to me. Remember I’m an only child and didn’t have any brothers to shoot the pests around the ranch. Daddy taught me to shoot when I was little and then put me in charge of protecting the chickens. Skunks, raccoons, weasels, fox, if they went after my chickens, I hunted them down and took care of them. Do what you need to do and don’t worry about me being squeamish. I cut people open for a living.”
Bobby walked over to the bluff and shot the porcupine. It probably put the total porcupines killed during the summer into double digits. They were lucky that all the older dogs would point a porkie and not grab it. This was only the third time this season that they had pulled quills from a dog.
“I’m sorry we had to interrupt your ride . . .”
Lucy cut him off, “Don’t be silly, I haven’t thought about work since we left the church this morning. I feel bad for Buster, but this has all been fun for me. What do we do now?”
Bobby didn’t know what to say, he just stared at this remarkable woman until John jolted him back to reality, “We turn Buster loose and run him back to camp. And then I’d like some lunch. Breakfast was a long time ago.”
He took the harness off Buster and Mack held him while John got back in the saddle. “I think I’ll keep Jack in the harness.” He stepped up as did Lucy. John blew his whistle and Buster tore off across the prairie as if he had just been turned loose from the kennel. John sang to him as Buster worked his way from bluff to bluff. John could hear Lucy talking behind him and every once in a while Bobby would get a few words of his own into the conversation. Buster had two more finds before they got back to camp. The four dogs were put in their kennels and John and Mack began the noisy task of feeding all the dogs.
Lucy and Bobby went into the house to make some lunch. After a little while, Bobby came out and asked them to leave Charley and the horse he had been riding saddled as Lucy wanted to show him part of her family’s ranch that abutted their lease. They soon came out with sandwiches and bottled water in a bag that Bobby hung from his saddle and rode out of the yard.
The two older men watched them go. Mack turned to John and said, “We’re supposed to be heading down the road in a couple of weeks. Do you think this is going to change his plans?”
John thought about it before he answered, “Someday maybe, but going down the road is a big part of the life he’s chosen. You can’t just leave it.”
“You did.”
“Yeah, and look at me: a 75 year old widower who’s just thinking about Buster’s next trial. The road goes on and we can’t help but follow it.”
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