The Challenge(5)
* * *
—
All three boys, Matt, Tim, and Noel, were heading toward the Pollock ranch the day after Peter’s birthday. They were going to swim in the shallow stream on their property, not far from the house, go riding into the hills if it wasn’t too hot, and Peter’s mother had promised to pay for dinner at the diner in town. As a special treat, the boys could dine there alone. They usually went with their parents for the variety of good homestyle food. Anne had told Peter that morning that she thought they were old enough at fourteen to go there on their own, eat dinner like adults, and behave themselves. She or Pitt would drop them off and pick them up, probably she would, since Pitt often finished at the ranch office late, after answering a last slew of emails from all over the country. Then he would come home for dinner with her and Peter.
She thought it would be a nice treat for Peter to go out with his friends. He grinned when she suggested it at breakfast. It was a first sign of what he could expect as he entered high school in another month, and it made him feel very grown up.
He was thinking about it as Matt arrived and dropped his bike on the ground outside the barn and went inside to find Peter. He was just putting away the heavy shovel he had used to clear away some hay, and Matt helped him spread out a fresh bale. Peter said he was finished with his chores, and then told Matt about dinner at the diner. Matt looked worried for a minute.
“I didn’t bring any money.” He never did. None of them ever had more than a few dollars on them. They didn’t need it. There was nothing they needed to buy and nothing to pay for.
“My parents are treating,” Peter reassured him, and Matt looked relieved. He spent the allowance he got on video games and candy every week. He tried to buy a girlie magazine once, with naked women in it, but the man who sold books and magazines in town knew him and wouldn’t sell it to him, even though Matt had just turned fourteen, which seemed to him old enough to look at naked women. He would have shared it with Peter. He bought a video game instead.
“I hate living in a town where everyone knows my parents,” Peter said when Matt had complained, but he was looking forward to dinner at the diner, just the four boys. They could talk about whatever they wanted, which was usually horses, or movies they wanted to see, or the next camping trip they were going on with their parents. Matt had had a brief flirtation with a girl in eighth grade that spring but it had evaporated quickly. Peter hadn’t had any forays into romance yet, although he was always aware that his parents had fallen in love when they were his age, and been together ever since. He didn’t want anything like that, but going to the movies with a girl, or watching a movie with one at home in their playroom sounded appealing. He just hadn’t met the right girl yet. He’d rather hang out with his pals for the moment. He wasn’t desperate for female company yet. Horses and video games still seemed like more fun and less mysterious.
Tim and Noel arrived a short time later, and they helped themselves to the sandwiches Peter’s mother had left for them in the fridge, before heading to the stream in their bathing suits. They biked down a narrow dirt road to get there, left their bikes under a tree, and jumped into the stream, splashed each other, laughed as they teased each other for an hour in the water, and then lay on the grass to dry off. It was a perfect day, hot but not unbearably so. They rode back to the house around four o’clock, and agreed to go riding the next day. When they got back to the house, they headed downstairs to the spacious playroom Pitt had had built for them. He liked having Peter’s friends around. He and Anne both did.
At six o’clock, Anne reminded the boys to put their jeans on and said she’d drive them to dinner at the Silver Spur Diner, as she put the money in Peter’s pocket. It was going to be their first dinner out alone as independent young men, and a landmark moment for all four of them.
When she dropped them off, she watched them walk inside, sauntering like grown men, laughing and shoving each other. She drove away with a smile. Her baby was growing up. It was hard to believe he’d be starting high school in a month. It all went so fast. It seemed like only a few years ago that he’d been a baby. And now they were going out to dinner on their own.
Chapter 2
Juliet Marshall had been visiting her father, Tom, for nearly two weeks, and had another four weeks left in her six-week visit with him from mid-July until the end of August. Her parents had agreed to it, when her father moved from New York to Fishtail in January. Tom had discovered Fishtail when he came to the area on a fishing trip with a group of men from his office. He had fallen in love on the spot with the town and the Beartooth Mountains, and even the hundred-year-old historic General Store. The town had haunted him when he went back to New York. He had been longing for a change, and realized that Fishtail was it. He was tired of the rat race, the constant stress of his job, and living in New York. His marriage had been showing signs of stress for the last few years. They’d been fighting more than they ever had before.
He tried telling his wife, Beth, about Fishtail and the beauty of Montana when he got back. She looked at him like he was nuts. They were inveterate New Yorkers who had grown up there and lived there all their lives. She didn’t want to live anywhere else. She was a freelance writer for magazines and highly respected in her field. She loved New York, and she had thought Tom’s complaints about New York were just growing pains, and temporary, and had paid no attention to them.