“Darla,” she offered.
“Well, Darla, I’m actually seeing someone so I’ll have to politely decline your offer.”
“Oh, is it one of your doctor friends in Los Angeles?”
“Actually . . .” For a moment I thought I would use Ava as my excuse, but I quickly realized how fast word travels in a place like this. She seemed to know a lot about me already. “I mean yes, someone from L.A.”
“Oh. For a minute I thought you were gonna say you were dating that freak, Ava.”
“What? Why in the world would you say that about her?”
Realizing I was affronted, she quickly changed her tune. “I mean, I don’t know Ava that well, but everyone around here calls her a freak.”
“Why do you think that is, Darla?” I drew out the last syllable of her name in an unnatural way as I struggled to keep my tone neutral.
She shrugged.
“I have no idea who you’re referring to when you say ‘everyone here,’ but I do know one thing. Ava isn’t a freak at all. She’s smart, beautiful, and talented. A lesser woman might find that intimidating. It was nice to meet you, Darla.”
Still speechless, she managed to squeak out a “bye” as I walked past her.
I was feeling more and more defensive of Ava as I saw how others treated her. There was little compassion for her, it seemed. It was like the hard-knock cowboy life had made everyone a bit callous when it came to death, even one like Jake’s. They didn’t seem to appreciate the impact of a tragedy like that on a man’s widow.
My father’s intention was exactly as I suspected. He sent me out to the ranch so I could see this hardened way of life and learn that some people aren’t given a magical antidote for every problem. These were matters of the heart in many ways but not in the way that I knew the heart. It was strange how being faced with death on a regular basis in the hospital and knowing that I could save a life with my own hands had given me a false sense of what it means to be alive. I was learning that being alive means knowing the threat of dying is there but facing your mortality and moving through it anyway.
I kept quiet while my father whistled a nameless tune. My uncle pulled down a small dirt road to the bank of a stream. We got out and walked down to the tree line so we could see if it was a good fishing spot. It was the widest and most still part of the river, probably five feet deep in the middle at least. Uncle Dale knew exactly where he was going and it looked like my father was familiar as well.
They gathered their gear from the back. My dad pulled on a pair of wader overalls and my uncle handed me a pole. We got to the stream and I watched my dad, completely oblivious to everyone else, walk out into the middle of the water and begin casting his fly rod. “He needs this,” my uncle said to me. “Probably more than he’d like to admit it.”
“I know. He’s under a lot of pressure at the hospital.”
“I hear you’re in a bit of a mess yourself?”
My uncle began casting, using one hand to pull the slack as the other whipped the fly line off the top of the water, letting the fly lure flick against the surface over and over.
“I think it’ll all be okay. We would have heard something by now.”
“All I’m trying to say, Nate, is that you may need a little more of this in your life, too.”
“I know. I’ve been looking at other hospitals. I’m thinking about getting out of L.A.” I wasn’t ready to tell my father but I knew Dale would understand.
“It’s why I’m here, kid. There are horses everywhere and I lived in the city long enough before. It doesn’t make you any smarter living in the city. If anything, you start to lose sight of the important things when the big buildings are always crowding your view. Trisha and I decided a long time ago that we wanted to live in a place where we could see the sky stretch from one horizon to the other. It’s important to know how small you are.”
“I can’t say I don’t agree with you, but why is Ava still on the ranch? It doesn’t seem like the right place for a young, single girl.”
“She works there. That’s her job, plus she has room and board. And she’s not a single girl, she’s a widow.” There was a rough edge to his voice.
“Maybe she feels like she has nowhere else to go.”
“She had options. Her brother’s some high-powered attorney in New York City. He came out after Jake . . . you know . . .”
“Killed himself.”
“Yeah. Her brother came out to take her back to New York with him and she fought to stay. She didn’t want to leave. Redman said he’d pay for her to go to Spain to see her mom and she refused. She loves the horses, and that’s pretty much all she’s got, besides us.”
“That girl back at the other ranch called Ava a freak. Why?”
He let out a big breath. “Well, Ava keeps to herself and mostly talks to the horses. Not too friendly with people.”
“You all talk to the horses.”
“True.” He laughed and stopped quickly. “She was in Bozeman one night for the rodeo and got drunk at the bar and made a bit of a scene.”
I squinted, shaking my head. “What? No. What do you mean?” That didn’t sound like Ava.
“There was an incident with a guy, you know, a roper who had come into town. There’s a festival and rodeo down in Bozeman every year, and she had met him there and then got a little fixated on him. He looked just like Jake and rode his horse the same way, with a bit of arrogance and showmanship.”