Riding Lessons

Calden White

"I don't have any ponies or paddocks," Calden admits, "so maybe he'll just have to wait for when he's older. Or maybe later I can see if one of my Great Pyrenees will let him take a ride on its back."

He sets the platter of steak on the deck table; covers it with a lid to let it rest.

"As for you," he says with a smile, "I'm sure we can find you toothless old mare who won't throw you even if you have no idea what you're doing." Nodding at the door, "Go ahead and call the rest of your crew. I'm going to scrape the grill off while it's still hot, and then I'll go grab a bag of salad out of the fridge."

Éva Illésházy

"Andris does not need to be taught that canines of any sort are to be ridden about like a pony. He might learn it anyway but if so he will learn it on his own. Let's leave your Great Pyrenees in peace, shall we?"

He draws another low note of laughter when he offers her the toothless old mare. There's no immediate response though. He has the grill to clean. She has three children to wrangle, one of them an especially wriggly and inquisitive toddler, one of them a girl who has finished setting the table and now does not want to stop walking back and forth on the deck because she loves to hear the retort of her bootheels on the decking and will ask Calden, later, whether he doesn't really think she ought to have spurs of her own, too, and one of whom believes that every toy his little brother picks up should actually belong to him right now.

Eva sets her bottle of beer on the deck table, and is headed back to call the rest of her crew, but as she goes, she glances back over her shoulder.

"Oh, and I think I'd rather be thrown, Calden," the Shadow Lord tosses back, "than be relegated to a toothless old mare. Surely you have something more challenging."

The disappears inside to chase down the boys.

Calden White

"Spoken like a true Shadow Lord," Calden calls after her, laughing.

And so goes lunch: the boys chased down, the mother-in-law fetched; the father -- Calden's, that is -- roused grumbling from whatever old-man-cave he retreats to when his son is entertaining. Or just all the damn time. Rory White manages to put on a semi-charming facade for Eva's mother, but nonetheless spends most of lunch grumbling about the weather, or the damn Democrats, or maybe the damn Republicans, or that the beef is overdone (it's not) and the salad is wilted (it is, a little) and the red wine -- there is red wine, not from the cellar but from the clever little wine fridge under the kitchen counter -- isn't full-bodied enough for this beef.

Still, despite the bad cheer emanating from the elder White, they manage to have a passably pleasant lunch. It's a hot day, but the umbrella provides some measure of shade. The beef is fresh as can be, and tender and juicy besides. The salad, though slightly wilted from the refrigerator, is just light and tart enough to offset the heaviness of red meat, red wine. And the wine: the adults easily split the bottle between them, though -- if Eva approves -- Ellie gets a tiny shotglassful to sample.

Lunch ends. Just about everyone pitches into the cleanup, and then Eva's mother-in-law takes her two younger children inside for naptime or playtime or whatever it is young children do when out of sight of their parents. As for Eva, Ellie and Calden: the latter leads them down from the deck, taking not the broad interior stairs but the wooden ones that ramp straight down. The house, the garage, a chicken run, a small patch of garden, and a barn make up the bulk of the developments on this land. On their way to the barn, where the horses are stabled, Calden explains that his ranchhands have their own cabin out closer to the center of his land, whereas the house itself sits on the south end.

"Easier for them to get around," he says. "Longest they'll have to move in any given direction is two miles, two and a half or so."

At the barn door, Calden pulls up the heavy bolt that secures it to the ground. Opens it up into a cool, shadowed interior, sunlight shafting through cracks in the roof and the walls in brilliant beams; casting through the opened shutters in blinding squares. More than just horses occupy the barn. There's heavy equipment in there too, stowed out of the elements. The summer's litter of puppies yip and roll in the hay. Even in puppyhood, the larger Pyrenee guard-dogs are easily distinguished from the smaller border collie herd-dogs by their white coats and their size. Toward the back, two dairy cows keep each other company across from a row of a half-dozen or so horse-stalls. Two of them are empty. A mean-looking tomcat perches atop the divider of one, slit-eyed, watching them as they approach the four remaining horses.

"So I heard you've been taking riding lessons, Ellie," Calden says as he picks out one of the quarter-horses stabled in the barn. "What sort of riding do you like best?"

Éva Illésházy

"I was," Ellie replies to Calden, with a sulky little glance at her mother, who follows behind her and has pushed her sunglasses up over the crown of her head when entering the darkness of the barn. Éva lifts her elegant brows and responds to the sulkiness of that glance - which expresses itself more in the curve of Ellie's cheeks, in the set of her mouth, than it does in her eyes, which are rich and dark and already rather opaque, except for their side. " - but now I can only go when my mom can come and she's always working. It's not fair."

Ellie ranges out ahead of Éva, still enjoying the stompiness of her boots and all the new sights and sounds, stopping now and then in the barn to pivot on her heels and take in all the sights. The girl is mostly following Calden like a small dark shadow but then she sees -

puppies

- yipping and rolling in the hay and she stops midmotion and squees over them, in a rather un-Shadow-Lord-like but very nine-year-old manner. Unlike many children, Ellie does not throw herself at the puppies. First she watches them, from the edges of the strawpile, her dark eyes darting from puppy to puppy, then she edges closer, methodic about this, then finally crouches down carefully and holds out her hand to the closest and most placid of the litter. And stays like that, still and pleased when the puppy wanders up to her and presses his cold wet nose against her hand.

"Oh, I like Western riding best. But that's all I've done so maybe I'd like English riding too. But I'm not up to jumping or anything yet."

Calden White

"Well," Calden says, leading out a rather spirited-looking colt, "your mom has what's best for you at heart. You can count on that, just like you can count on what's best for you not always being what's most fun.

"How about this, though. We'll teach your mom to ride today, you and me. Maybe she'll make more time to go riding with you if she can enjoy it too, right?" He winks at the girl over his shoulder, and then reaches up to fetch one of the saddles hanging on hooks on the wall. "I'm going to saddle Trumpet up for you. He's pretty big, but he's goodnatured and he liked my brother's kids when they visited.

"And Miss Illeshazy," he adds -- the first time he's attempted her last name, and predictably butchered it, "Looks like one of my cousins took the toothless mare out today, so I'm going to give you Cadillac." He nods down at a pretty little mare -- a pinto. Oh, the wit. "She's smaller than your daughter's horse even, and she's got a real smooth gait." His grin looks decidedly smirkish. "Think you can handle that?"

Éva Illésházy

Ellie will allow herself to be dragged away from admiring the puppies only because there was larger and more majestic animals to admire. She is not precisely horse-crazy as some girls tend to be, but there's something remarkable about the size and the power and the soft dark eyes that defeats even the wild, rumbling charm of the Pyrenees pups.

Calden assures her that she can count on her mother having her best interests at heart and Ellie gives him a quiet and quite direct Look, far older than her years. There is skepticism embedded in the look, though the skepticism is not directed at the sentiment that her mother has her best interests at heart, but at something.

"I know," she responds at last, straightening and leaving behind the pups and walking back through the barn to watch as Calden saddles the animals for their afternoon outing. Solemn, "I know things aren't fair, either. I just wish they were."

By then Eva has followed her daughter, has come up behind her and slid a hand over her left shoulder, pulling her slightly back, into a sort of quiet, possessive physical contact.

And she's watching Calden work with a hand now on her daughter's sleek dark head, rubbing her thumb quietly over the crown with a wry twist to her mouth that sharpens when he butchers her last name.

"Your Hungarian is terrible, Mr. White. If formality is called for, perhaps you should stick to Counselor, mm?" The wry look settles into something more immediate and more bemused even as his own starts to look smirkish.

"Cadillac, you say?" turning to follow his nod down through the barn, glancing back at him as he informs her that the pretty little mare is smaller than Trumpet. "If I'm not up to the challenge, I'll let entertain all the questions you have about your great-aunt's will. Or something else equally dull and as far from my area of expertise as you can manage. Cadillac it is."

Calden White

There was -- something there, in the girl, in the mother, between the girl and her mother. Calden is curious, but Calden is also too polite to pry. At the moment, anyway. Perhaps later he'll ask Eva. Wouldn't normally, but then: having faced almost-certain death with this woman, and having made a verbal pact of mutual annihilation with her, he feels a little more inclined to questions.

"I'm starting to get the feeling," Calden says, strapping the saddle snugly to Trumpet, "that you get a kick out of winning. Is that why you went into law?"

Éva Illésházy

"Not precisely," Éva returns, releasing Ellie to trail after Calden and act as a slightly superfluous secondary stableboy. Ellie trails him happily and and helps him check the straps and is careful about Trumpet's back legs and wonders if Calden has any carrots that she can feed him and asks any questions she asks in and around the conversation the adults are sharing.

"My father was an FBI agent. When I was ten he was arrested for treason. Convicted when I was eleven. Sealed records and unidentified witnesses who testified by sworn affidavits that did not identify their names. I went into criminal defense law in a rather naive bout of idealism.

"Or maybe I just thought that I could go back someday, clear his name." Her own attention is steady, but sometimes slips to the girl and back again. Otherwise, Eva herself is rather still, her voice quiet, her eyes opaque. The narrowest shrug punctuates the story. "Things change. What about you? This is family land, isn't it? Did you just end up here, because it's where you were already? Or did you made a choice?"

Calden White

So they work, Calden and his small assistant: buckling buckles, tightening straps, saddling and bridling the three horses they're taking out for their afternoon ride. For himself, Calden leads out the big chestnut gelding he typically rides, the one with the sturdy frame and dark mane and gentle, steady eyes.

And he listens to Eva -- answering Ellie in between sentences with thoughtless familiarity as she asks about which way the stirrups go on, and why the bridles have no bits, and whether or not he has carrots or apples or other munchies for the horses -- listens as Eva tells him a little piece of her history; a casual mention, almost, of a past that would have scarred anyone. Calden doesn't say that, though. He doesn't point it out, and between the two of them, it's doubtful he'd have to.

He doesn't ask if the charges were true, either. If her father really was a traitor. Somehow, that doesn't seem like it would matter.

"I'm sorry you went through that," he says quietly. "I know it can't possibly be the same, but I hope time and the defense of others have healed that wound a little."

Éva Illésházy

"I don't think of it as a wound," she returns, quietly and thoughtfully while Calden provides his young assistant with instruction and advice and history. Éva offers no assistance, herself, but she watches and reminds Ellie just once to say thank you, if Calden has indeed supplied her with a sweet treat to slip to Trumpet or Cadillac or his own big chestnut gelding and Ellie has forgotten her manners in her excitement over the delicious tickle of the horse's soft lips over her little fingers.

"Not anymore. We all make sacrifices. My father made his. I make mine. You make yours.

"They make theirs. Which seem harder to me than almost anything we have to bear." A deep, quiet breath. "And I'm afraid my work is infinitely more practical and much less altruistic these days. But thank you.

"Now it's your turn," the expectancy is wry but present.

Calden White

"Good," Calden replies, gently jesting now. "Because we Fianna have cornered the market on idealism. If you'd kept it up I'd have to charge royalties."

His turn, then. The turn of his mouth is equally wry as he finishes saddling the horses and, yes, produces a treat for Ellie to feed the horses. The girl is reminded to thank him. Calden welcomes her, almost-gravely, taking her quite seriously indeed.

"I was born here," he answers, "and so was all the rest of my family going back five generations. These days most of us leave home. I did too. I went to college at the state school, and then I traveled. Saw the world, like a young man ought to.

"And then I decided to come back. It was a choice, and the right one." He smiles: "This is where I want to be. I miss it when I'm away and I'm always glad to be back."

Éva Illésházy

"Had I persisted perhaps your people would have adopted me into the tribe," this with a laugh, which is open mouthed but quiet. " - though I'm afraid I lack most of the rest of your traits, am not especially musical, and have always despised bagpipes."

His turn then, and Éva listens quietly, her dark eyes steady on him until he comes to the conclusion of that brief biography. Then she glances over her shoulder at the narrow portion of his land framed by the open doors to the big barn. Takes in the light streaming through the rafters, the pieces of hay drifting through the air, the afternoon sunlight slanting over the land beyond the barn.

"That is a long time for land to stay in the family. And you look like you belong here. I'm glad you had the chance to see the world, and glad you remembered to find your way back.

"If you don't mind my asking a question you thought you finished answering when you were twenty-two, what did you major in?"

Calden White

"Well, I'm afraid we can't accept anyone who can't play an instrument," the cattleman says, smirking, "let alone someone who despises that great and noble instrument, the bagpipe. -- Hey, Ellie?"

-- and when the girl looks at him, he nods her at Trumpet. "Can you take his bridle and lead him out? I'm gonna get Cadillac and Hickory here."

As they're leading the animals out into the sun, Calden turns to Eva again. "Animal husbandry and agricultural science," he answers, his smile a touch sheepish. "I'll admit not coming back wasn't really ever part of my plan. I was open to letting my mind change, but -- I never really expected it to.

"How about you? Denver born and bred?"

Éva Illésházy

Ellie is delighted to be given the task of leading Trumpet out into the bright afternoon sunlight. She does this, as she does most things, with a quiet care, though she does tuck down her head to watch the toes of her cowboy boots as she scuffs her feet through the hay.

Éva hangs back, falls into step beside Calden as they emerge from the barn. "Oh, no," she's telling him then, shaking her dark head. "I came to Denver, I suppose about the time they bought 1999 Broadway. Moved around regularly as a child with my father's assignments.

"His family came for me after. His mother's mate, actually. I think my youngest uncle was a few years older than me, no more than that. That was upstate New York. Then Philadelphia. New Haven.

"New Jersey, Chicago. Denver was something of an accident, but I intend to stay. Now I want to hear about the world tour. The one place - other than your home - you'd go back to again, if you could - "

They'll go riding, then. Éva was not engaging in any false modesty when she said she could not ride a horse. She does not know how to sit, or how to place her feet. Must spend her daughter's riding lessons, when she can attend them, responding to e-mails on a tablet or reviewing pleadings or - something. Still, she has a certain fearlessness that serves her well, and a hard-worn, well-cultivated athleticism that allows her to sit easily in the seat, comfortable in her physicality.

Ellie looks like she has been riding for much longer than a single summer, but look at how steady the little girl is, how intent. It is hard to imagine her any other way.