Years later, he’d look back and realize his life had turned that summer, and would never be the same again. But all Coop knew at the age of eleven was he was happy.

His grandfather taught him to carve and whittle, and to Coop’s utter joy, presented him with a pocketknife-to keep. His grandmother showed him how to groom a horse, top to bottom, how to check for injury or illness.

But his grandfather taught him how to talk to them.

“It’s in the eyes,” Sam told him. “In the body, the ears, the tail, but first it’s in the eyes. What he sees in yours, what you see in his.” He held a lead line on a fractious yearling colt who reared and pawed the air. “Doesn’t matter what you say so much, because they’ll see what you’re thinking in your eyes. This one wants to show he’s tough, but what he is is a little spooked. What do we want from him, what’re we going to do? Is he going to like it? Will it hurt?”

Even as he spoke to Coop, Sam looked into the colt’s eyes, kept his voice soft and soothing. “What we’re going to do is shorten up on the line here. A firm hand doesn’t have to be a hard one.”

Sam eased in, got that firm hand on the bridle. The colt quivered and danced. “Needs a name.” Sam stroked a hand over the colt’s neck. “Give him one.”

Coop took his eyes off the yearling to gawk at Sam. “Me?”

“What kind of a name’s Me for a horse?”

“I meant… Um. Jones? Can it be Jones, like Indiana Jones?”

“Ask him.”

“I think you’re Jones. Jones is smart and brave.” With a little help from Sam’s hand on the bridle, the colt gave a decisive nod. “He said yes! Did you see that?”

“Yeah, you betcha. Hold his head now, firm, not hard. I’m going to get the saddle blanket on him. He’s used to that. Remind him.”

“I… It’s just the blanket. You don’t mind the blanket, Jones. It doesn’t hurt. We’re not going to hurt you. You’ve had the blanket before. Grandpa says we’re just going to get you used to the saddle today. It doesn’t hurt either.”

Jones stared into Coop’s eyes, ears forward, and barely acknowledged the saddle pad.

“Maybe I can ride you some, after you’re used to the saddle. Because I don’t weigh enough to hurt you. Right, Grandpa?”

“We’ll see. Hold firm now, Cooper.”

Sam hefted the training saddle, eased it onto the horse. Jones jerked his head, gave a quick buck.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” He wasn’t mad, wasn’t mean, Coop thought. He was a little scared. He could feel it, he could see it in Jones’s eyes. “It’s just a saddle. I guess it feels funny at first.” Under the afternoon sun, with sweat he barely noticed dampening his T-shirt, Coop talked and talked while his grandfather cinched the saddle.

“Take him out on the lounge, like I showed you. Just like you did with him before the saddle. He’ll buck some.”

Sam stepped back to let the boy and the colt learn. He leaned on the fence, ready to intervene if need be. From behind him, Lucy laid a hand on his shoulder.

“That’s a sight, isn’t it?”

“He’s got the touch,” Sam acknowledged. “Got the heart and the head, too. The boy’s a natural with horses.”

“I don’t want to let him go. I know,” she said before Sam could respond. “Not ours to keep. But it’s going to break my heart a little. I know a true thing, and that’s they don’t love him like we do. So it breaks my heart knowing we have to send him back.”

“Might be next summer he’ll want to come.”

“Might be. But oh, it’s going to be quiet between times.” She heaved a sigh, then turned at the sound of a truck. “Farrier’s coming. I’ll go get a pitcher of lemonade.”

IT WAS the farrier’s son, a gangly towheaded boy of fourteen called Gull who, in the late-afternoon shadows of the barn, gave Coop his first-and last-chaw of tobacco.

Even after he’d finished puking up his breakfast, his lunch, and everything else still in his system, Coop remained what Gull assessed as green as a grasshopper. Alerted by the sounds of retching, Lucy left her work on her kitchen garden to hustle to the back of the barn. There Coop, on his hands and knees, continued to heave while Gull stood, scratching his head under his hat.

“Jesus, Coop, ain’t you done as yet?”

“What happened?” Lucy demanded. “What did you do?”

“He just wanted to try a chaw. I didn’t see the harm, Miss Lucy, ma’am.”

“Oh, for-Don’t you know better than to give a boy his age tobacco?”

“Sure can puke.”

Since he seemed to be done, Lucy reached down. “Come on, boy, let’s get you inside and cleaned up.”

Brisk and pragmatic, Lucy hauled him inside. Too weak to protest, Coop only groaned as she stripped him down to his jockeys. She bathed his face, gave him cool water to drink. After she’d lowered the shades against the sun, she sat on the side of the bed to lay a hand on his brow. He opened bleary eyes.

“It was awful.”

“There’s a lesson learned.” She bent over, brushed her lips on his forehead. “You’ll be all right. You’ll get through.” Not just today, she thought. And sat with him a little, while he slept off the lesson learned.

***

ON THE BIG flat rock by the stream, Coop stretched out with Lil.

“She didn’t yell or anything.”

“What did it taste like? Does it taste like it smells, because that’s gross. It looks gross, too.”

“It tastes… like shit,” he decided.

She snickered. “Did you ever taste shit?”

“I’ve smelled it enough this summer. Horse shit, pig shit, cow shit, chicken shit.”

She howled with laughter. “New York has shit, too.”

“Mostly from people. I don’t have to shovel it up.”

She rolled to her side, pillowing her head on her hands, and studied him with her big, brown eyes. “I wish you didn’t have to go back. This is the best summer of my whole life.”

“Me too.” He felt weird saying it, knowing it was true. Knowing the best friend of the best summer of his life was a girl.