Crimson Highway by David Wickenhauser (i can read with my eyes shut txt) 📕

this afternoon, and we can take a dip to cool off,” Martha offered.

She then had Jenny make their way over to the stable area, which comprised the stables themselves, a tack room, a separate hay barn, and a hitching rail saddling area. Beside this building complex were a hot walker, a round corral and, finally, a large arena that contained jumps and other props for working out horses.

“Wow!” Jenny exclaimed. “The place where I took lessons wasn’t anywhere near this nice.”

“Wait until you see the rest,” Martha said.

“There’s more?”

“Yep. Follow that trail to the other side of the arena,” Martha directed her.

Once they arrived there, Jenny saw another large horse barn. This time, Martha gestured for Jenny to stop and exit the Rhino. She led her into the barn and toward some large stalls that lined both sides of the barn.

“Oh, my gosh!” Jenny said when she saw what Martha had brought her here to see. “They’re huge!”

Inside each stall was a giant horse, the kind that Jenny vaguely knew of as draft horses. At the sound of their voices, the horses came to the front of their stalls and poked their massive heads up over their stall gates.

“They’re Percherons,” Martha explained, as she unlatched the gate of the nearest stall, and invited Jenny inside with her. “Don’t worry, they are very gentle, and they love attention.”

Jenny felt positively dwarfed by this giant horse. But, Martha was right about them being friendly. The horse gently nuzzled Jenny’s pocket with its huge muzzle.

“Here,” Martha said, handing Jenny a chunk of carrot. “This is what he is looking for.”

Jenny offered the carrot to the horse in her open palm. He “slupped, slupped” with his giant lips, and gently took the carrot from her.

“Amazing,” Jenny exclaimed. “Do you ride them?”

“No, they’re not for riding. We use them to pull wagons when we give tours to folks from the community. And we actually do use them to help out with heavy hauling chores around the ranch.”

 They climbed back into the quad, and Martha had Jenny make a wide swing around the buildings, and then onto a dirt road heading out. As they traveled along, she pointed out the extent of their land. It had a variety of features, including meadows, pastures, forest, and even a five-acre bass pond.

“Hugh loves to fish that pond,” his mom told Jenny. “He’s almost obsessed with catching ‘Old Lunker.’ That’s a ten-pounder that he’s had on a couple of times, but it’s always gotten off,” she said, adding, “But we are quite pleased when he brings back the usual three to five-pounder for us to enjoy the occasional fish dinner.”

Jenny was beginning to think that a lot of what she thought she knew about Hugh was either wrong or misunderstood. This has been very interesting and enlightening.

They gained a little elevation as they followed the dirt road up to the foothills of one of the ridges that almost completely encircled the ranch. Jenny saw that they were approaching two men working on some fence, and realized that it was Hugh’s dad and brother.

As she pulled up, Hugh’s dad made an exaggerated play as if searching for something in his pockets. “Wait a minute,” he exclaimed. “Let me find my sunglasses before I go blind.”

“He always does that,” Martha told Jenny, laughing, explaining that they loved to tease her about her pink Rhino.

For his part, Roly acted like someone who was about to get run over in traffic. He nudged his dad, and exclaimed, “Watch out, Pa! Look who’s driving!” Then they both broke out laughing.

Martha handed them a jug of lemonade, and fresh-baked cookies that she had placed in the back compartment of the Rhino. “Yay! The rescuing angels bring manna from Heaven,” Hugh Sr. exclaimed.

They chatted for a bit more, then Martha had Jenny turn around and head back to the ranch house.

As they rode along the dirt road, Jenny’s thoughts turned to all she had seen here. Is this place for real? Are there really people like this?

She turned to Martha. “Can I ask you a question? If it’s too personal, then please don’t answer, and forgive me for asking.”

“Go ahead,” Martha said agreeably. “We have nothing to hide.”

“I don’t understand something,” Jenny said.

Martha nodded for her to go on.

“Everything here is just wonderful. Perfect. You people are wonderful. What on earth made Hugh want to leave here and join the Marines, then stay away driving his truck?”

“Whoo, boy. Those are some serious question,” Martha remarked. “Give me a minute to work up the answer.”

They drove on a bit, then topped a little rise that offered a stunning view of the postcard-perfect home place. “Stop here,” Martha told Jenny. Then she asked her, “What do you see?”

Jenny looked where Martha had gestured. “I see an absolutely beautiful, picture-perfect ranch home.”

“Yes. Thank you. That’s right. So do I,” Martha agreed. “But, what you don’t see is what this place looked like twenty, twenty-five years ago. Much of what you see now wasn’t here then, or was just getting started. All we had was Hugh to help us build it. Those were very, very hard times. We didn’t have the money to hire much help, so we worked like slaves.”

Jenny nodded, thinking that she knew where Martha was going with this.

“Quite frankly, and we admit it now, we almost worked poor Hughey to death. He was always big for his age, and strong, so we used him. He had no life beyond work, work, work. He put a lot of his own blood, sweat and tears into helping us start this place.”

“Yeah, he said something about that as we were coming in through that huge gate.”

“The only way out that he could see was to join the Marines right out of high