When I went to shut the window, I discovered one of the fluffy white chickens was sitting on the windowsill and staring at me. “I don’t know your name,” I said. “Kelly Cluckson? Stevie Chicks? Cluck Norris? I’m out of celebrity chicken puns, but whatever your name is, you have to stay outside.” I took a step toward the chicken, intending to shoo her out. In return, she shocked the hell out of me by what she did next.
Why had I always assumed chickens couldn’t fly?
I was totally unprepared when the chunky, white fowl suddenly became airborne and launched herself at my face. I shrieked for the second time that morning and duck-and-covered, and the bird flapped right over me. When I straightened up again, I found her sitting on the arm of the couch.
“No, no, no. You’re not supposed to be in here,” I told her, as I scrambled to my feet. “If you poop on the sofa, it’s going to be my fault.” There may or may not have been a hint of amusement in her stare.
Since she obviously wasn’t going to leave on her own, the only way to get her out of here was to pick her up and carry her. I circled around to get behind the chicken, because I wanted no part of that beak and those scary dinosaur feet.
While I was doing that, I noticed some kind of movement in my peripheral vision. I glanced at the open window and discovered the other fluffy white hen was sitting on the windowsill and craning her neck to look inside. I exclaimed, “Oh, come on!”
I had to act fast, before all the chickens decided they preferred the great indoors. After taking a deep breath and gathering my nerve, I grasped the chicken around the waist with both hands—not that chickens had waists, but if they did, this was about where they’d be.
It turned out about ninety percent of the chicken was pure fluff. The bird felt puny in my grasp. It also turned out that she had absolutely no interest in being grabbed and hoisted off the couch.
The moment my hands closed around her, she began to squawk, fight, and flap her wings. This totally freaked me out, so I started to shriek as I held her up and at arms’ length—as far away from my face as I could get her without letting go.
My half-baked plan had been to run to the window with her, but just then Ryder and Cujo burst through the door. Both of them froze about three feet into the living room and took in the scene in front of them with startled expressions.
Because the door was closer than the window, I made a beeline for it. The hen squawked and flapped, I shrieked, and both Ryder and the chihuahua dove out of the way as I barreled past them.
When I reached the porch, I released the bird, and she flew over the stairs and landed on the ground. Then she fluffedherself with a couple of extra flaps and strolled off as if nothing had happened.
I went back inside, closing the door to make sure the rest of the barnyard didn’t follow me, and turned to Ryder. He was sitting on the floor, staring at me with wide eyes.
In the next instant, he began to howl with laughter. His reaction and the absurdity of it all struck me as so funny that I started laughing, too. Ryder grabbed me and pulled me down with him, and both of us completely lost it. I doubled over with tears running down my face, gasping for breath.
It took a while to get ourselves under control. When he could speak again, he hugged me and said, “This is all my fault.”
“How do you figure?”
“I shouldn’t have left you alone this morning.” He brushed my hair from my face, and I rested my head on his bicep as he continued, “This place must seem like an alien planet to you, with strange life forms and unknown dangers. So, from now on, we’re going to stick together. You go where I go, and vice versa.”
“I don’t want to be a burden. You already have so much on your plate.”
“You could never be a burden, Hal.”
“I’ll probably be okay after today.” He got to his feet and offered me his hand, which I grasped as I got up, too. “I just need a little time to adjust, and to learn how things work around here. For one thing, I need to learn how to get through the front door without a donkey, a bunch of chickens, and some goats busting in here.”
While he went and closed the window, I took the hand sanitizer from my pocket, squirted some onto my palm, and rubbed my hands together. When he turned back to me and saw what I was doing, I explained, “I got chicken on them.”
“Come on, let’s go get you some coffee and something to eat. You can take it with you while I finish up with Barbie and do the last of my chores.”
I followed him to the kitchen, where he washed up a bit before dumping out the old coffee and making a fresh pot. While it was brewing, he packed two blueberry muffins and some fruit into a wicker basket lined with a gingham cloth. When he handed it to me, I said, “I feel like Little Red Riding Hood. All that’s missing is the cape.”
He filled two travel mugs with coffee and grabbed a bag of apples off the counter, and we went back outside. On the way to the pasture, he scooped up a folding lawn chair and brought it with us. Then he set it up in the shade for me, kissed my forehead, and told me, “This might take a while because Barbie’s still learning to trust me, so get comfortable and try a muffin. I baked them yesterday, with berries I froze from last year’s harvest.”
I planned to only have a bite or two of the huge muffin for the sake of my diet, but it was so delicious that I ended up eating all of it. While I did that, I watched Ryder work his magic. He began by rubbing down the horse with some sort of cloth. The animal got agitated when he brought out a brush, but Ryder took his time, speaking to Barbie in a low, soothing voice and showing him the brush while he ran his hand down the horse’s neck. Eventually, he moved the brush to the hand that was petting the horse, and began running it down his neck instead.
He ended up brushing out the entire horse, a little bit at a time, all while carrying on a quiet, one-sided conversation. Whenever Barbie started to become agitated, he returned to the horse’s head to pat his neck, talk to him, and assure him he was okay. It ended up taking a long time, but he was in no hurry. And to think—this was just one of the many animals in his care.
I’d already known Ryder was sweet and patient, but watching him now made me realize how absolutely extraordinary he was. This ranch and all the animals in his care were a living testament to his compassion, his kindness, and his need to help and nurture and make things better. There was so much beauty in his actions, and this place, and in the way he lived his life.
When he finally finished brushing the horse, he jogged over to me and picked up the bag of apples. “I’m going to give Barbie a treat and take him to his corral,” he said. “Then we can go visit my senior horses. If you want to, I’ll show you how to feed them. They’re very sweet and docile.”
My first impulse was to tell him no thank you, and to admit that I thought horses were scary. But this was a huge part of his life, and I wanted to experience it, instead of standing on the outside looking in.
After he finished with Barbie and turned him loose by himself in one of the fenced enclosures, I asked, “Doesn’t he like the other horses?”
