Free The Age of Water Lilies by Theresa Kishkan Page B

only Agate! Hello, Agate. Gus, you must have left the gate open. Would you like a little piece of my biscuit, Agate? Anyway, I don’t know if I’d have believed you. I wish we didn’t ever have to leave.”
    Gus leapt up to lead Agate back to the corral and then returned to trace the shape of Flora’s face with one finger. “And if you’d been told that you’d be sharing a bed of fir boughs with a man, what would you have said then?”
    She turned to him and kissed his ear. “I’d have dropped the blanket, just like this . . .”
    She stood up naked in the moonlight.
    â€œ. . . and I’d have led him back into the cabin.”

SEVEN
    May 1914
    Many of the Walhachin men were taking part in training exercises as part of their involvement in C Squadron of the 31st British Columbia Horse. George would saddle his gelding, Titan, and Gus took Flight, his lovely chestnut mare, though Agate would be a more reliable mount, Flora thought. Both men sat tall and steady among the others in the village square, ready to head out in formation to one of the fallow fields where they would wheel and turn in the dust. A platoon of small boys, armed with lengths of stick held like bayonets, followed them on foot. Some of the men had been training for several years now, going to Vernon or Kamloops to join the other squadrons, coming home with stories of mud, bivouacs, and saddle sores. And dust! In Kamloops the training camp was located near the racecourse, rumoured to be the dustiest place in the entire Dry Belt. Hay rakes had to be employed to comb articles out of the deep drifts at the conclusion of the camp. A few men had been members of hrh Duke of Connaught’s cavalry escort when he’d come to Vancouver in September 1912, and the Governor General had sent an official document professing his great satisfaction with their performance. Rumours of war were circulating throughout the Empire; C Squadron was determined to be ready.
    An invitation came for Flora to spend a few days on the McIntyre Ranch in the Upper Hat Creek Valley. She’d met Jane McIntyre at a social in Ashcroft, and the two had become friends, sending letters and little mementos through the mail. Like Flora, Jane loved needlework and often described a new project, many of them inspired by the wildflowers of the valley where she lived. She was clearly enamoured of her home there; when the invitation arrived, Flora was excited at the prospect of a few days away. A vehicle from the ranch would be coming to Ashcroft for supplies, and if Flora could arrange to be there on the Wednesday, then she could travel up the Oregon Jack Creek Road with the ranch foreman. She took the train to Ashcroft and found a laconic Pete Richardson waiting for her in front of the harness-maker’s shop, where various items were being left for mending. Pete hoisted Flora’s valise into the back of the truck, along with a saddle, two sacks of flour, a small chest of tea, and various other parcels and boxes.
    â€œI’d like to get us going, Miss,” Pete said in his quiet voice. “It’s a long piece of road and I want to drive it in the daylight. I always allow time for a flat tire or breakdown—that road, she’s a rough one. Mrs. McIntyre asked me to make sure you used the pillows she sent.”
    He indicated a little stack of cushions on the seat where Flora would ride. She climbed into the truck and arranged the pillows at her back and bottom. She tied her straw hat firmly under her chin, and they were off.
    Flora was surprised at how the climate changed as they proceeded up the long road that rose dusty from the sagebrush flats and feedlots by the Wagon Road near the Ashcroft Manor, up into forest, then above the valley formed by Oregon Jack Creek, cliffs on one side of the road and the green meadows below. Aspen shaded the road and the wildflowers were all later than down below, sticky