1 Just Kidding

KYLE AND I couldn’t wait to get on our horses after school let out for the summer. We started out easy, but horses like to kick it a little going uphill. Before long, we were whooping and hollering and cantering up the trail to Centennial Ridge. I was thirteen-and-a-half and my best friend—my brother—had just turned thirteen. Seventh grade was behind us. YeeHah!

Kyle’s my half-brother really, but who cares? Mom Mar had me in November and Mom Ash had him in May. We do everything together—riding, roping, hunting, fishing. Even fighting with the brats. Everything. Kyle’s got my back and I got his.

By the time we’d made it up to the ridge, though, I was feeling a little punky.

“Kyle, I gotta pee.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a lotta help. I need to head for the bushes.”

“Ah, just do it here. I gotta go, too. I’ll point this way and you point that way.”

Well, I usually find a bush to pee behind, but we hadn’t made it to the woods yet and the nearest human being to us had to be close to a mile away. So we just jumped off the horses and I faced uphill a few feet from where he faced downhill. An old raven was sitting on a rock about twenty feet away just watching me.

“Shoo, bird. I gotta piss. Don’t need an audience.” He didn’t go anyplace, but something caught his interest behind him and he turned that direction. I pulled my pants down and squatted.

I got hit with such a bad cramp I almost fell over.

“Ow! Ow, ow! Oh, shit!”

“You okay, Ramie? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t look!”

“I ain’t lookin’. What’s wrong?”

“Just stay put.” I stuffed some toilet paper in my drawers and pulled them up. My first time and I’m up at the top of a freakin’ ridge with my brother. “Kyle, get my light poncho out of my pack and toss it over my saddle, would ya?”

“What’s wrong, Ramie? What do you want to sit on your poncho for?”

“‘Cause I don’t want to get my saddle bloody,” I said in a huff. Damn it! My gut hurts.

“You’re bleeding? Ramie, what do we need to do? I gotta get you down to a doctor. We need to tie off the flow. I got a bungee cord in my saddle bag. We can use that for a tourniquet,” my idiot brother said. He was panicking. Why do I have to explain this to him?

“You can’t tie it off with a tourniquet. I ain’t gonna die. Just ... I got cramps. Help me up on Pooky. I want to go home.” All right, I was getting whiny. I’ve got to hand it to Kyle, though. He didn’t hesitate to do what I told him to. I could depend on him.

It was a long trip back down to the ranch. It was never as fast going downhill as going uphill. We rode along quiet-like and I tried not to be bitchy. Mom Ash warned me that when it hit, the hardest thing was not to make enemies of everyone around me. It wasn’t their fault. There was a howl off someplace south of us.

“You think that’s them damn wild dogs?” Kyle asked.

“I don’t know. Sure didn’t sound like a coyote.”

“We should take a summer hunting trip and just go shoot ‘em. They’re scaring all the game away.” Well, we agreed about that, but Pa was firm that we didn’t shoot animals for sport. Oh, we hunt and fish, but animals are food. If you ain’t gonna eat it, you don’t shoot it.

“Did you peek, Kyle?”

“No!” That was a little too fast.

“Ya did, too.”

“How can you say a thing like that?”

“I know you peeked.”

“How would you know that?”

“I peeked.”

“Ramie! You...” he looked over at me. I held his eye as he tried to get his upset on. Then we both started laughing. Oh, god! That just started the cramps up again and I doubled up over my saddle horn. I felt Kyle’s hand on my shoulder.

“Is there anything I can do, Ramie?” he asked. I knew I could ask him anything.

“You got my back?”

“You know I do.” I looked up and smiled at him. It was a little weak, I suppose, but at least it didn’t come off like a grimace.

“Would you rub down Pooky so I can go on in? I’ll make it up next time. Promise.”

“Let’s just tie ‘em at the post while I get you inside to Mom Mar. I’ll come out and take care of him when I get Dado. Come on. You can lean on me when you get down.” I slid off my horse and was thankful Kyle was waiting for me. He supported me on the way in and when Mom Mar saw me come into the kitchen she knew immediately what was going on.

“Kyle, I’ll take care of Ramie. You take care of the horses. Your Pa will be out to talk to you in a few minutes and explain everything. Get going.” Kyle left me with Mom Mar and headed back for the horses. It embarrassed me to think that Pa was going to go explain to him what a period was and that I’d just started mine. I was pretty sure he’d figured it out by now anyway. He wasn’t stupid—just clueless.

We had to work on the ranch that summer, but we got plenty of time to just ride. I love horses. A lot better than cows. Someday I’ll have a horse ranch.

Only thing was, we got new orders from Pa that no one could go off alone out of sight of the house. One of the hired hands radioed down that he was sure he saw a pack moving down in the valley southeast of where the herd was grazing. He wasn’t sure if it was wild dogs, coyotes, or wolves. Either way, Pa didn’t want the young ones riding out even together unless Kyle and I were with them. With our rifles.

So we mostly spent the summer wrangling Caitlin and Phile. Why Moms ever decided to add them to the litter is beyond me. They had two perfectly good kids already. I swear those two were raised by wild animals. We managed to have a pretty good time of it anyway. When the cattle came down from the upper range at the end of August, I was pretty sad that summer was almost over. School would start Tuesday after Labor Day.

“We gotta talk to them,” Mom Ash said. It was still hot and all the doors and windows were open for air. The brats were sent to bed. Kyle and I were watching TV but we could both hear our parents in the kitchen. “We can’t know for sure and they need to be prepared.”

“But she’s still my baby,” Mom Mar said.

“Honey, she’s still my baby, too,” Mom Ash said. “Both of them are. You know it’s for the best. When they get back to school anything could happen.”

“Kyle. Ramie,” Pa called from the kitchen. “Come to the office, would you please?” Pa always asked stuff like that so nicely. You didn’t make the mistake of thinking it wasn’t an order, though. When Pa asked you to do something, you did it. He never hit me. I know he laced Kyle’s hind end with his belt the day my brother almost burned the barn down, though. The brats, now, that was something else. If they weren’t getting a spanking, it was just because somebody gave up.

“What is it, Pa?” I asked. I was going to go hug him but he pulled up his chair behind his desk and motioned us to the couch where Moms were sitting. Moms were together in the middle of the couch so Kyle and I had to sit on opposite ends. This can’t be good.

“First of all, we’ve done our best to talk to you about the facts of life and you’ve lived on the ranch all your lives, so you’ve seen cattle and horses breeding. But people are more complicated than cattle. You’ve got emotions and a brain that will let you control your behavior. School’s coming up and it will be different with kids’ hormones kicking in. We just want you both to know that if you have any questions, we’re always available to talk with you. You can come to any one of us, or all of us. We’ll answer you truthfully and fully if we are able to. And if anyone approaches you sexually, just say no,” Pa said.

Mom Mar groaned. Kyle and I nodded. Say no? Some dude makes a pass at me and he’ll go home in a sack. If they find the pieces.

“Get on with it, Cole,” Mom Ash said. Apparently that wasn’t the conversation she was waiting for.

“All right, Ashley,” Pa said. He sighed. “Now that you are both more grown up, we have to tell you some things that might be hard to believe at first. Kids, you might be time travelers.”

I leaned forward and looked at Kyle. He leaned forward at the same time and Moms leaned back with a shake of their heads. Kyle and I started laughing. We were waiting for Pa to say “Just kidding.”

“We thought we’d done something wrong or something,” I laughed.

“For Pete’s sake, Cole,” Mom Mar said, still shaking her head. “You say it like that and I don’t even believe it anymore. Kyle. Ramie. Stop laughing. Your father is serious and I want you to pay attention. It might sound crazy, but it’s real—and embarrassing, too.”

Chapter 2 »