Big Day

Heather, Allie and I have always been friends, and have always done everything together. Since we live in such a small town, we are pretty much the only girls our age that enjoy the outdoors and where we live. The three of us like anything outside in any weather during any season, but our favorite thing to do together is ride our horses in our area. We have all been riding since before we could walk and we all have tons of animals at our families’ farms. Heather has more cows and chickens; Allie has sheep, goats and pigs. My family breeds horses, and we have an indoor arena that our three families share so we can be ready for the rodeo every year. All of our parents are good friends, and we all share what we have, so you can see if something happened, everything would get messed up.

Every spring, after all the many feet of snow have melted, Heather, Allie and I all go for our annual “Thank God It’s Spring” trail ride. It normally takes place in early May since we get so much snow. This is always fun because the animals are coming out of hibernation and all the trees are beginning to gain some green, the grass isn’t brown anymore and the dandelions are starting to grow, so it’s the most beautiful time to ride and it isn’t too hot yet, or too cold.

This year was my year to host the ride so a few days before we had planned the ride, I went to check the fields, trails and make sure everything was safe so no one got hurt. I took my horse, Lily, out and we rode where I thought we would be going. We went into the fields between the trees that made up our “woods” and around the big pond. Out here, if you didn’t know, there aren’t many woods so our little bit of trees that my great grandfather had planted made up the “woods”. I was about an acre or two of trees close enough for the branches to touch each other and provide some shade for the horses on the hot summer days that topped over 100 degrees. Recently, the pond was made for the horses to swim in because apparently they like swimming, but I haven’t ever seen a horse down at the pond besides to get a drink, and they usually didn’t even go there since the water in the creek is cooler. Anyway, we saw some signs of the wild life emerging. Lily almost stepped on a ground hog, but we didn’t find its hole, so hopefully we won’t have any broken horse legs at the end of the trip. The trails looked pretty safe for our ride so we should have a good time.

Heather has been getting weird. Well, maybe that’s not the right word. She’s changed. Allie and I know she’s been smoking and it’s making her different. It’s like she’s leaving our small group of friends. For some reason, she’s been hanging out with some strange guys from in town that don’t seem like a good crowd for her to be around. I think they got her smoking, but I can’t be sure. I’ve gently told her several times what she’s doing isn’t good for her health and she needs to stop. Recently, she said something that angered me and I think it was because she had been smoking, so I yelled at her for being dumb and not taking my advice to quit smoking. Also, I told her that she wasn’t allowed to smoke at all during our ride. I felt kind of bad after so I planned on apologizing when I saw her the day of the spring ride, but I refuse to leave her alone about smoking. It’s gross and Heather is going to be unattractive and very unhealthy when she gets older if she doesn’t stop now, at least that’s what I’ve heard.

She’s the girl that would be expected to be homecoming queen and the most popular girl around. Since we’re all home schooled, we don’t really get a chance like that. Heather is beautiful; long brown hair, blue eyes, an average height and cute clothes are one way you could describe her. You could always look at her personality, too. She is soft-hearted, respectful, forgiving, responsible and even my sister looks up to her. I guess she’s the role model every little girl would look up to. Allie has a lot of those qualities, too. Allie is humble, forgiving, honest, responsible, and almost always happy. She has black hair, green eyes and is a little bit short. They are both beautiful and if we went to a school, they’d be the most popular ones there.

It came to the day when we were going to go on the trail ride. When Heather and Allie showed up, I told Heather I was sorry for yelling at her a few days before. We were brushing our horses and just small talking, it was weird.

“The forecast looks nice for the day,” Allie lightly commented.

“Yeah, it’s not muddy out there, I already checked everything over so it I know the trails are safe,” I replied.

Things were getting more awkward by the minute. Heather looked pale. I decided it would only be polite to ask her what was wrong, hopefully killing any of the tension in the air.

“Hey Heather, do you feel ok?” I asked as we were getting on our horses.

“I feel a little sick. I’ve had a head ache since I woke up but took some medicine that should clear it up soon.”

“Did you eat any breakfast this morning?”

“Yeah, some eggs and toast,” she didn’t look like she had eaten anything in a few days.

“Alright, just making sure.”

“Uh, thanks…?”

We began heading out toward the greenest fields in Kadoka, South Dakota. All the mushy brown and white snow was gone, leaving nothing but short green grass, and occasionally, some little white wild flowers.

“Hey guys, look over there!” Allie said. Way out in the distance, there was a little herd of furry, brown buffalo roaming through the hills. I decided that they might come our way, so I turned us in the direction of the pond and woods. A few days ago, I found a deer trail that I wanted to take when we rode out here today. It went from the lake, through the woods, to the top of a hill that I never noticed before. It seemed like a mirage. This hill looked like plains stretching out before you, but really, it was a slight incline to the top. I don’t know how far it was to the top but it seemed like a journey that would be exciting. That was our next destination.

“Where are we going?” asked Heather.

“Somewhere with a beautiful view,” I tried sounding as convincing as possible, since I wasn’t sure. I never actually went to the top of the hill, I just knew it had to stop after a while and have some view.

“What are you talking about?! We’re riding on flat ground!” she sounded annoyed now.

“I promise you, that even if the journey takes until the afternoon, you will be happy that you were willing to come along.” I was trying to sound happy but I wasn’t sure it was working.

“You’ll see,” I said loud enough for her to hear.

“Okay…”

“The place I am taking you is one of the most beautiful places in the world” I mumbled..

We looked to be about halfway up when Allie had enough. She obviously couldn’t stand this lame charade.

“So I went out to Rapid City about a week ago…” she began to say.

“That’s cool. What were you doing there?” I hadn’t heard about this yet.

“Well, my mom set me up with this guy…”

“From Rapid City!? Geeze, she must have thought he was something special.”

“If you’d stop interrupting I would tell you the whole story,” she began laughing, so I giggled along with her and then let her continue. “I guess my mom has an old friend who has a brother with a son our age living on the outskirts of Rapid City. His dad has a bunch of land and they’re farmers, too. Mom said she met up with her friend about a month ago and they got talking. They talked about everything that has happened since they last saw each other. Her friend mentioned her nephew and how he had been helping around their place and stuff and that’s when my mom said that he and I should get together.”

“Maybe we should stop for the horses,” I snuck in, since we had been riding for quite a while now. We agreed, dismounted, and began letting the horses relax for a few minutes. When we got back on, she continued her story about the guy in Rapid City.

“His name is Adam, he’s seventeen and oh my gosh he is amazing; blue eyes, blonde hair and an amazing body. I guess you could say he’s a dream-boy. We have a lot in common. We both like a lot of the same foods and the same genres of movies and books and it’s like we were meant to be,” she smiled.

“So is he willing to drive out here?”

“Yes! And he said he really liked me! So we’re going to go out to the movies next week. He’s been texting me, too, like every other day and we just tell each other random little bits of information so I know more about him every time he texts me.” I could tell Allie was really into this guy. It seemed like they would be a good couple if they became boyfriend and girlfriend. I glanced at her to let her know that Heather was being left out and needed included. We were about three fourths of the way to the top, I think at that point. Since Allie wasn’t going to be the brave one to speak up, I had to.

“So Heather, have you met any nice guys lately?” I sounded bored.

“Well, there’s a guy in town that I kinda have a crush on,” she said.

“Oh, what’s his name? Have we met him before?” Allie asked. Things felt like they were getting better.

“You’ve probably seen him around, but I doubt you’ve met him. His name is John.”

“Oh, what’s he look like?” I asked.

“He’s got short brown hair and green eyes. Um, he’s tall and skinny with pale skin…”

Sometimes it’s hard to know people when your small town is so spread out. I thought I recognized who she was talking about, but I wanted to meet him.

“Can Sammy and I meet him sometime?” Allie asked. Apparently we were on the same thought train.

“Yeah, only if Sammy and I can meet Adam.” She laughed, we were back together.

We were approaching the top of the hill, now and we were able to see most of the view. A minute or two later, we arrived. The view was awesome. You could see horizon to the not so far off mountains. I looked around at Heather and Allie, they were clearly amazed by the view.

“Allie,” I said “close your mouth before you swallow gnats, ha-ha.”

I prepared had prepared everyone’s favorite sandwiches for lunch. I also brought some extra halters and lead lines, so we sat down and ate lunch. It was peaceful and quiet until Heather started coughing. I shouldn’t have made her a peanut butter sandwich, but oh well, I gave her a drink of my water and she stopped gagging on the peanut butter sandwich. After lunch I cleaned up our little mess and we got back to the horses. Heather began coughing again, her horse, Thunder could tell she wasn’t feeling good. This time I knew it wasn’t peanut butter, so again, I gave her a drink. We began back down the hill toward home.

“Heather, I think it would be better for you if you stopped smoking”

“Sam, please, not right now.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t want you to die from cancer because you smoke, that’s all,”

“ No, I know that’s not all, you always have to say more, and I think it’s annoying that you won’t leave me alone about it!”

“Okay, but please just think about stopping,” I said, “and I’m sorry”

“I-uh… forgive you but seriously, knock it off.”

It was pretty quiet after that, except the occasional little bit of conversation between Allie and I. We arrived down at the bottom of hill at bout two o’clock, so it had been a pretty long day. As we got near the pond; I let Lily get a drink. The others followed behind me. When I got back in the saddle, I could tell there was something wrong and Lily knew too. Something had changed since the morning. I brushed it off, relaxed my horse and we moved on. I thought I would take my friends through the woods since we hadn’t come that way earlier. The woods seemed calm and quiet as we rode through; the trees were budding and the sun shone through the trees like a light from heaven. Lily and I were about ten or fifteen yards from the group because she was impatient and just wanted to go home. Heather and Allie’s horses were tired and falling behind Allie’s horse was a way back. Almost a minute from the time I turned around, Thunder had spooked.

As soon as I’d heard a whinny, I had Lily turned around, Heather was on the ground and her horse was running towards me. She looked like she got thrown off pretty bad. I yelled at Allie to help Heather while I got her horse. I kicked Lily’s sides until we were galloping through the woods after Thunder. He was pretty fast even though he was starting to get old. As we got closer, I had my lasso in hand and I was ready to catch him. I could see the field as we approached the end of the woods, so I waited until I wouldn’t get hooked on a tree.

I caught Thunder when we were close enough. I attached a spare lead line from Lily to Thunder’s saddle so he couldn’t escape and went back to where Heather had been thrown off. I saw Allie’s horse, Peanuts, tied to a tree and Allie with Heather on the ground. This wasn’t good. I got to where my friends were on the ground, tied the horses and ran over as fast as I could. Heather looked broken, her arm for sure, maybe a rib or two and possibly her ankle. She needed to go to a hospital, and I didn’t get cell phone reception in the woods though. I ripped off a rag I carry in my saddle bag and gave it to Allie to hold Heather’s arm while I rode out seeking cell phone reception and some hope. When I got into the field, I called 911 and told them what happened and all the information they wanted to know. I was scared and didn’t know what to expect when I went back.

Allie was trying to get Heather to her feet and help her back onto Thunder, but I knew she shouldn’t do it alone, I hated looking at the way her arm was bent, it was gross and not the way it should’ve been. There was an eerie twist in it that showed her arm was badly broken. We somehow managed to get her back on Thunder and back to the house where the ambulance showed up a few seconds later. I told Allie that she should un-tack the horses since she had helped Heather more than I had so far and meet up with us at the hospital. She agreed to do that and I told her she could put Thunder and Peanuts in some of the open stalls.

The ambulance was strange; it had a funny smell, and was perfectly clean. I thought it was weird, but I guess that’s how things were. Heather passed out when they put her on a stretcher, so the EMT’s began looking for all of her possibly broken or fractured bones, they said it was easier to do it while she was out.

We arrived at the hospital, went through the doors of the emergency room and Heather woke up. I told her where we were and what was happening. She told the man pushing her not to let me leave her side, which made me feel good. She either cares that I’m here or she just needs me. Either way, she still needed me there so it didn’t matter. She was put in a room for X-rays and they found that many of her bones were broken, which I already could’ve told them and then they took her to a room where she could lie in a hospital bed and wait around. In this room they found she had a concussion. After the doctors left, I called our families to tell them what happened and where we were. We were the only two in that room even though there was room for another guest. The walls only had off-white paint and some ugly wallpaper thing on the very bottom of a wall. Plus, it smelled, very strongly of clean, but it was really Clorox. If I was in the hospital, I’d want a happier setting to make me feel better. I called Allie and told her what room and floor we were on, and to bring us some food. After calling Allie, I repeated the same information to Heather’s mom, who was grocery shopping, but as soon as she got home and put things away, she would be over.

A doctor came in and asked us both some questions, told us how long it would take her to heal, that she was going to need therapy and some other things that I didn’t really listen to. One question the doctor asked was if she smoked and she said yes, she did and then he told her that if she wanted to heal properly, then she would have to stop, or else she may never be able to ride horses again and would suffer a great deal when she got older. He mumbled some other things about many people who smoke die earlier of cancer and other things about Heather that I couldn’t hear as he walked out. That was when Allie walked in, smiled at the doctor who was leaving and came to check on her friend. I filled her in on all the important details. I was starting to think I was being a bit too hard on Heather by yelling at her to stop smoking all the time since the doctor did it in a nice way.

Heather had fallen asleep and while she was sleeping, I decided that when she woke up I would seriously apologize from the bottom of my heart. Yeah, I apologized earlier, but I didn’t really mean it and I had been feeling really guilty about the situation and knew if I didn’t fix this our friendship might be ruined.

Heather awoke about two hours later and her mom arrived about an hour before that, but before I said anything to her, she slowly awoke and half groaned “Sammy, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you” I wondered if she was really awake yet. Allie was sleeping.

“ I’m sorry for being so hard on you all this time, I should have approached this in a nicer way, like that doctor that was in here before you fell asleep. He simply laid everything out on the table and let you decide, unlike me. I force-fed you like a baby and should’ve let you do what you want.” I said

“I should have listened to you when I started, it was a bad choice and I want to stop so I can recover,” wow, she was really awake “and no, it will not be just temporary. I will quit for good. Smoking, I realize is really gross. While I was sleeping, I saw myself in a dream but my skin wasn’t tan anymore, it was gray. My teeth were yellow, the kids in my dream didn’t want to be around me because I had the breath of a monster and always smelled gross. My hair had lost its color, and when I went to dye it, it frizzed so bad I looked like the bride of Frankenstein”

“I’m proud of you, babes. I think that is a very wise decision and I am thankful that you have a goal set for yourself, to give up smoking for good. I am so excited to finally get my best friend back.” I sat down beside her bed and held her hand as she started crying, she had moved he broken leg that still hadn’t been taken care of “Doctor! I need a doctor in here now!!” I screamed, “Please get in here! NOW!” she didn’t need to deal with this anymore, she should have been covered in casts by now. Allie nearly jumped and fell from her chair into reality and ran off to find some help. Within a minute there was a doctor by our sides deciding what supplies he was going to need.