“Best saddle I ever sat,” he was saying. “Clint built it. I didn’t know he had it in him. Got it off the store website last spring. Thirty-eight hundred and worth every dime.”
I knew the number. The only store saddle that sold last spring to a buyer that close to town was 207.
I had built 207 in March with snow on the shop roof. Oak leaves with a little acorn on the right rear jockey, because I was in a mood.
I did not call Wade. I did not want him doing anything because I asked him to.
A thing like this only means something if a man sees it with his own eyes.
Get a new story in your inbox every morning.
Facebook doesn’t show you every story we post. Our free newsletter does. Join 2,500+ readers.
The third Saturday in September came up bright and clear.
The ranch rodeo was at the arena east of town, the same arena where I had watched my dad doctor calves when I was Hailey’s age and smaller.
A ranch rodeo is not like a pro rodeo. There are no buckles worth a house and no rodeo clowns.
It is ranch teams, four or five cowboys from a working outfit, doing the jobs they do every day, against the clock: sorting, branding, milking a range cow, bronc riding, doctoring steers.
Families come out with coolers and folding chairs and grandkids. The bleachers fill with ranch people who know a good rope from a lucky one.
The horse trailers park in a long line along the back of the arena, and the Sandhills grass rolls away behind them as far as you can see.
Hailey rode in the grand entry that morning on her sorrel gelding, carrying the flag for a family friend’s team.
I watched her come around the arena at a lope with the flag snapping, and I did not look at her saddle, because I knew what saddle it was, and I was saving that.
The store had a tent set up by the concession stand.
Brandi was there in a white blouse with a stack of flyers and a sign that said store-made saddles, built right here at home.
Clint was standing behind the tent table talking cattle with a man from Merriman.
I bought a lemonade and walked down to the arena fence. I leaned on the pipe rail in my straw hat and my denim shirt and watched the dirt.
I did not go near the tent. I did not have to.
The sorting went first. Wade’s team drew second. His bay gelding is a good one, quick and quiet, and I watched him work a cow off the back of the herd with a turn so tight the saddle never shifted, and I thought, well, at least it fits him right.
After his run, while they were reset for the next team, Wade rode his bay along the fence on the inside of the arena, cooling him out.
He saw me and lifted two fingers off his reins.
He stepped off right in front of me, the way a cowboy will to let his horse blow, and stood beside the bay with one hand on the horn.
He had on his black hat and his chinks, the leather still dark from the sorting pen.
“Tess,” he said. “You see that turn?”
“I saw it. He’s a good horse.”
“He’s a good horse,” Wade said. “And this is a good saddle. Clint sure can build a saddle. I never knew.”
I took a sip of my lemonade. I could feel people in the front row of the bleachers, three feet behind me, turning a little to listen. Out here everybody listens. Nobody pretends otherwise.