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“It is. I work twenty-four hours on Tuesday, so you’re welcome to come then if you’d like. Wednesday, I recover. Thursday I try to run errands and see friends, and Friday I’m back at work.”
“What do you do on the weekends?” she asked, watching him as they sauntered along.
“I recover on Saturday, see my family on Sunday, and on Monday it starts all over again.”
“What about fun?”
“Oh, I fit it in where I can. Riding today, this is unexpected. I worked yesterday, but we were quiet last night, so I slept.”
“I’m ready to ride whenever you are,” she said. “I love it. My mother said I was almost born on horseback. She went into labor at the gourd farm up the road and had to race back here to get to the hospital in time.”
“Oh, that’s funny,” he said, laughing. “Your poor mother!”
They comfortably chatted as they rode. Before they reached Dr. Faith’s house, she took a right and they made a detour, riding along the edge of the canyon, the mountains blocking the sun, so it was almost cold. They went through a small ghost town, and Karin told him her childhood version of its history that included a real ghost.
Reaching a ruin, a partially standing wall made of the local granite, she got down off the horse and tied him to a tree.
“This is where the natives here sacrificed a virgin to the gods,” Karin whispered, her eyes big and serious. “She was made to strip off her clothing and lie on this rock.”
Taking off her hat, Karin hopped up on the remnant of wall and slowly lay back with her eyes closed. “The myth started with Ceresthe Romangoddessofthe seasons, among other things.” With hands folded across her chest, she started to hum a song.
Fighting to keep a straight face, Paul looked west to see the sun was starting to set behind the mountain.
“Ceres’s daughter Proserpina disappeared with the god Pluto. Then because she ate pomegranate seeds, Proserpina reappeared six months later in the spring to spend time with her mother, Ceres.” Karin sat up, seemingly out of her trance. “It’s how we get our seasons here in Southern California. About six months of iffy weather and six of beautiful weather.”
“Where does the virgin sacrifice come in?” Paul asked.
“Oh, I just made that up,” Karin said, laughing. She untied the horse and lithely climbed back in the saddle. “However there is a tale about the young daughter of a farmer here who was murdered. They found her body right where I was lying, with her hands folded across her chest. Look it up the next time you’re in town.”
In the research, he’d discover that an olive grove that was part of Red Mountain Ranch had occupied the area, and the ghost town was where the olive press and oil-bottling operation had been located. At one time, up to fifty people lived there. Remnants of old cabins dotted the land.
The only thing left of the press was a huge perfectly round granite stone, with a hole in the center for an axle. A team of mules walked around, turning the stone. The pressed oil would have run off into a trough and been funneled to the bottling plant.
“Alfred is an offspring of the mules that turned the press,” Karin said. “There were wild donkeys around here for a long time. Locals, including Barney and Ruth, rescued them when they wandered out onto the new highway.”
“How many are left?”
“I’m not sure, but my dad said the mules were becoming a nuisance, so they separated the male donkeys from the female horses, and then Dr. Faith’s father, who is also a veterinarian, began castrating the male donkeys to help keep the population down. The mules are sterile because of some weirdness with their number of chromosomes.”
“Yeah, you lost me back at castration,” Paul said, laughing.
“I’m no expert,” she replied, giggling.
They kept riding until they reached her father’s place, but she wasn’t eager to go through the gate.
“We’d better go back. I’m lost in the dark.”
The return trip to the cabin at Firehouse Ranch seemed shorter because there was less chitchat now that Karin was eager to get back. When they arrived at the gate, the sun was just going behind the mountains there.
“It’s taking me a while to get used to the microclimates here. It’s steaming hot in the sun, and there’s frost closer to the mountain.”
“You’ll get used to it,” she said, climbing down from Cleveland. “In the summer when even air-conditioning doesn’t do much good, we all go to the side of the mountain that never gets the sun. The community set up picnic tables there. You’ll see. It’s a great place to hang out when you need some relief.”
They led the horses over to the trough for water and watched them drink. She was having a difficult time getting a read on Paul Saint, and she usually didn’t have that trouble. This guy was as cool as could be, with none of the snobbery that so often went along with the kind of cocky self-confidence he seemed to have. She was as wrong as she could be about Paul.
The time had come and gone for him to invite her to come in, so she climbed up into the saddle again.
“That was fun,” she said, pumping him to no avail. “I’ll be by Monday morning to garden. If you want to ride tomorrow, I’m just down the road.”
